Red Cell (33 page)

He’s never made a call in Beijing,
Kyra realized.
The MSS won’t have
his voiceprint.
They would almost certainly have one of Mitchell, and having her talk to Jonathan would fit their cover story better if the cell phone was intercepted. They had come through customs together, so surveillance video and voiceprint matches would come together to support the cover story that they were traveling companions.

“Sorry, I was talking to some friends,” she replied. “I hope the food didn’t cost too much,” Kyra said.
Pioneer is with me. Where are you?

“Not too bad. Given the exchange rate, ten dollars and twenty-two cents, not counting the service fee.”
Room 1022.
The Third Department could figure out eventually what Jonathan had really said. First, they would need to separate the conversation from every other call made in Beijing by a Westerner at the same moment, triangulate Kyra’s position, and translate the conversation into Chinese. They would have to be bright enough to look up the Marriott’s price for frittate and realize that Jonathan was quite mistaken about it, given the day’s yuan-to-US dollar exchange rate. Kyra had worked in bureaucracies long enough to know that they wouldn’t manage the feat and get an armed team to room 1022 in the next hour.

“Warm it up for me.”
Coming up.
She turned off the phone and led Pioneer to the elevator.

Jonathan closed the phone and returned it to Mitchell. “Thanks,” Mitchell said. “I don’t know if the Chinese have a voiceprint of me they can match up, but no sense taking the chance. Don’t want them tracing my voice to find us.” He didn’t know how many they’d been able to collect of him over the years. None would be preferable, and anything higher than zero was bad news as far as the chief of station was concerned. Mitchell checked the clock. “We’re doing okay. Might be able to make up a little time on the road to the airport if traffic isn’t bad. We don’t want to be sitting around at the airport for a long stretch anyway.”

“You’re coming too?” Jonathan asked.

Mitchell glared at the analyst for a moment, then suppressed his frustration. “I tried to retrieve a dead drop before we figured out that Pioneer was burned. The MSS was probably watching the drop site, so I’m burned too. Hard to be a chief of station when the enemy knows what you do for a living. I’m Pioneer’s escort back to the States and I’m not coming back. My wife’s packing up the house right now and she’s flying home tomorrow. Anna’s going to give me a makeover after she finishes up with Pioneer and Stryker.”

“Hard way to end a tour,” Jonathan said. It was as close to showing compassion as he could come with a stranger.

“I was almost done here anyway. Would’ve been home by Independence Day,” Mitchell said. He smiled. “Next time I’m back at Langley, you’re going to have to explain to me how you talked Cooke into approving a debrief with Pioneer.”

“A shame they don’t have a bar at headquarters. I don’t drink, but I’d buy you a beer for not throwing us out of your office when we showed up and told you what we wanted.”

Mitchell chuckled. “To be honest, I was more surprised than angry, at first anyway.” He checked the clock again, walked to the door, and pulled it open. He’d timed his own ascent from the lobby to the room to get a ballpark estimate of the travel time. Kyra and Pioneer were approaching the room. Mitchell closed the door behind them and led them out of the front room. “Any problems?” he asked.

“We confirmed surveillance at his apartment,” Kyra replied. “No one followed us after we left the building. I think our friends were able to draw everyone away. Good people. I hope they don’t get picked up.”

“They might,” Mitchell conceded. “But Becca’s been toting that red backpack for years. If the MSS has been watching the building for any time at all, they’ll have seen her wearing it. They might figure out what happened after a while, but they’ll never be able to prove it.”

Mitchell turned to Pioneer and spoke, this time in accented Mandarin. “
Long Jian-Min, it is my honor to meet you in person. I regret that I cannot give you my name. Perhaps in the United States I will be able to do so. In a few minutes, we will dress you and take you to the airport. This gentleman needs to ask you some questions after we have delivered you safely out of the country, if that would be acceptable?
” Mitchell was intentionally vague with the details, more out of habit than any particular concern that they had missed some listening device. Pioneer nodded politely.

Jonathan moved close to Kyra. “Good to see you without a pair of handcuffs.”

“You softie.”

“Hardly. The Chinese built a big airport,” Jonathan explained. “I need somebody to watch my carry-on while I’m buying dinner in the airport terminal.”

“So it’s still all about you?” Kyra asked.

“Of course,” he said.

“Ah.”

“All right, people,” Mitchell said. “Enough with the touchy-feely. We’re on the road in forty-five.” He pointed toward the back room. “Get our man back there. The clock’s ticking.”

Monaghan’s tools of the trade were on display. The Directorate of Science and Technology officer had left a lucrative future as a makeup artist at Fox Studios in Los Angeles to work for the Agency, and Kyra had no doubt that the woman had been very good at her job. The portable electronics she was carrying were fascinating. During the Cold War, producing fake travel documents required a skilled forger with a steady hand who could copy signatures and poor-quality typesetting, but it wasn’t done by hand anymore.

“You’re going out through the airport?” Monaghan asked.

“Not much choice,” Kyra said.

“Then I’ll have to set you up with something better than a gross profile change. If they’re looking for him”—Monaghan nodded toward Pioneer, who was sitting in the corner—“you can expect close inspection, maybe less than two feet.”

“How are you getting out?” Kyra asked.

“Oh, honey,” Monaghan said. “I’ve got my ways. Besides, I’ll be fine having a long cup of coffee with some handsome MSS officer if they really want me to stay. They won’t have anything on me. I’m leaving the gear with our people here.” She picked up a Ziploc bag full of bottles. “You go on into the bathroom and use this. You’ll make a real pretty brunette. And I hope you like short hair. Do you wear color contacts?”

“No,” Kyra said.

“You do now. A shame to cover up those pretty green eyes, but there’s no help for it. I’d bet that the MSS doesn’t know your eye color, but I’m not going to take the chance. Those boys have cameras everywhere. And you’re going to wear glasses too.” Monaghan picked up another Ziploc and pulled it open. “I’ll get started on our friend here. I’ll finish you up when I’m done with him.” Monaghan took Pioneer gently by the arm, led him to a chair, and picked up a bottle of spirit gum. Kyra squeezed his arm, then left him and stepped into the bathroom.

They took separate cars. The airport traffic was light, which Kyra might have considered a sign of divine intervention had she been a religious woman. The open road meant no delays en route to the airport and
offered the added benefit of keeping the enemy from hiding in traffic. Identifying hostile surveillance on foot was relatively easy compared to performing vehicular detection on any freeway during peak hours, and Kyra was sure that Beijing’s freeways were worse than most. At the moment, she wanted every advantage she could claim.

Jonathan watched Kyra’s eyes look to the rearview mirror every few seconds. Courtesy of Monaghan, the woman was, by all appearances, a middle-aged brunette, short hair, glasses, wearing casual clothing and a bit overweight. Her height was unchanged and Monaghan hadn’t toyed with her build, though she was slightly broader across the shoulders and larger in the chest. Except for the added weight, it wasn’t a bad look for her, and he idly wondered how much of it she might choose to keep once they returned to the States.
If we get that far,
he thought.

Out of the corner of her eye, Kyra caught him studying her. “Sorry you didn’t get a makeover?” she asked. Jonathan hadn’t performed an operational act since their arrival, so there had been no reason to change his appearance. The MSS had no reason to suspect him of anything.

“Hardly,” Jonathan said. “Anyone on us?”

“Don’t think so,” Kyra said. “A couple of possibles, but they’re giving us plenty of space.” She had watched the same Hafei Motor sedans hold their distance behind the minivan for more than ten miles. The black cars were trading positions every few miles, but they weren’t driving aggressively. They were almost lazy and let any number of cars get between them and the embassy SUV. “No sirens. Always a good sign.” She was only half joking.

“You won’t be able to come back here,” Jonathan said. “You know that.”

“I know.” Kyra regretted not seeing more of the city, or the countryside for that matter—the Great Wall at least. There was so much history, and it would all be denied her now.
Ironic,
she thought. It made her feel like her rebellious walk on the streets had been justified. She hadn’t joined up to play tourist. She had always wanted to prowl the side streets and see the underbellies and dirty corners of the cities where the Agency would send her. She’d had to fight the MSS for it, but for one night, she had gotten a true taste of the real Beijing. She wanted more, always would, but what she’d seen felt good and that was something she hadn’t felt for a while. “I’ll survive.”

“Good for you,” he said. Kyra turned to look at him, but Jonathan was staring out the car window at the skyline and she couldn’t see his face.

Time to get serious,
she thought. “When you get to the waiting area, don’t talk to Mitchell or Pioneer,” she advised. “They should be sitting apart. Try to keep some distance from both of them. If you have to sit near one of them, sit near Mitchell. Otherwise, let him find you when you deplane in Seoul.”

“No problem.” Jonathan knew the practice perfectly well but nodded assent.

“Monaghan is good,” Kyra said. “She does solid work. But if the MSS does pick either of them up, you just get on the plane, then call the embassy when you land.” The telephone number was scribbled on a blank index card in his wallet.

“If that happens, Pioneer is dead,” Jonathan said. “And Mitchell goes to prison.”

Kyra said nothing for a moment. He was right. If Pioneer was detained, there would be no saving him from a sure bullet to the head after a trial that would be finished in a few weeks at most. “No. But somebody will have to tell the director ASAP.”

“Agreed.” They lapsed into silence. The GPS unit mounted on the dash guided them into the airport and Kyra pulled the car into a covered garage. Someone from the embassy would come out to retrieve it later.

Kyra killed the engine. “I’ll go in first. Follow me in five minutes.”

“See you in Seoul.”

Kyra moved through boarding security without drawing attention, retrieved her carry-on, and worked through the masses toward her assigned gate. The airport crowd was thin, but the number of uniformed guards moving through the terminal was far higher than the night she and Jonathan had entered the country. Soldiers were standing by the doors leading to the boarding ramps. To her eye, there was no sense of urgency on their part. They stood to the sides, close enough to the boarding lines that some of the Western passengers seemed uncomfortable with the attention. The Asian passengers seemed unmoved by the scrutiny. The sense of calm was a good sign. A blatant show of hostile sorting through departing passengers would be the surest sign that the MSS had figured out something was up. Kyra had managed
her magic trick almost two hours ago. Mitchell’s liberal estimates gave them at least another hour before the MSS would figure out that Pioneer had disappeared. Jonathan was not so optimistic, but even if his calculation proved better than Mitchell’s, the MSS would still be losing the game. There were so many ways to leave Beijing, the MSS couldn’t cover them all. Even with the help of the PLA and the other security services, they would have to spread themselves thin in a panicked effort to canvass the major travel hubs. Even then, they would have no assurance that CIA hadn’t simply driven him out in a car. The options were legion, China was a very large country, and the security resources were not unlimited. Time and geography were finally working against the MSS.

Kyra found her gate and scanned the waiting group. Mitchell had advised that flights to Seoul at this hour were usually full, and the numbers seemed to confirm that guess. There were few open seats. She did not have her pick, and that alone gave her plausible deniability that she knew any of her covert traveling companions. No security officer could reasonably use the seating arrangements here to infer personal connections. She chose one of the few open seats, settled herself, and stared out the bay windows to the dark tarmac.

Two guards stood by the boarding door, watching the seated passengers. Kyra saw them study her for a moment, but neither made a move in her direction. Her watch, an atomic piece accurate to within hundredths of a second, showed eight minutes to the posted boarding time. Mitchell had tried to time their arrival at the airport to get the group to the gate with little time to spare and therefore to be observed and identified by any officials. It was strange how time could be both an ally and an enemy. Jonathan was five minutes behind her. Mitchell and Pioneer should have been there already, but she couldn’t pick them out in the crowd and didn’t look around for them. Still, the crowd was calm moving through the terminal. Likely they would have been excited had the soldiers been dragging men away anywhere nearby. Mitchell and Pioneer were still loose, if they were here.

If the airline delayed boarding, it would be the first sign that something was going very wrong.

The boarding was announced in Chinese, English, and another language she did not recognize but assumed was Korean. The crowd
stirred and Kyra released the breath she hadn’t realized that she’d been holding.

It was a mistake. She heard the shouting before she saw the running guards following two civilian men in suits. The waiting passengers turned en masse as four PLA soldiers in fatigues with weapons drawn slowed to a fast walk, led by the civilians holding portable radios. Other mixed groups of suits and fatigues ran past, moving out to cover the other boarding areas.