Red Cell

CHAPTER 5

Ambassador Aidan Dunne sat with his legs crossed, wishing, as he had daily for three years, that he could read the organized scrawl of a Chinese newspaper. It was absurd, he thought, that a Harvard PhD should feel illiterate. He’d spent exorbitant amounts of time and money on his education, and it galled him that he couldn’t read a local tabloid. As a boy, one of the sisters teaching at the Maryland Catholic school decided that he had “the gift of tongues” and had promised it wouldn’t go well for him on Judgment Day if he couldn’t answer the Judge’s final questions in at least three languages, including Latin. The nun had been right about his gift for languages, but the ones he’d studied used Roman and Cyrillic alphabets. Chinese pictographs were incomprehensible, and the humiliation had finally driven Dunne to admit that, at age sixty-five, his mind wasn’t up to that particular task. He dropped the People’s Daily on the hand-carved cherrywood end table and held his poker face. His hosts knew he couldn’t read their language, but they didn’t need to know that it bothered him.

Dunne was a career diplomat, having spent the better part of thirty years living outside the United States and more than a few in some of the most underdeveloped, if not godforsaken, countries on the planet. His reward for it had been the deputy ambassador post in Beijing, after which tour he’d expected to retire. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the People’s Republic of China was a prized post in the State Department usually given to some favored donor to the sitting president’s political party, so Dunne’s nomination for the ambassadorship had come as a shock to everyone. But President Harrison “Harry” Stuart was in his second term and wouldn’t be trolling for campaign contributions again, which afforded him the luxury of picking people for their skills and experience instead of their largesse. The Washington Post and New York Times editorial pages had praised the pick as a tribute to the way the process should work, which had sucked what little wind there was out of the opposition. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee failed to dredge up any defensible reason to kill his nomination, and few senators were ready to vote against a man who was so obviously qualified and deserving. It was too good a chance to earn some political capital of their own, so they praised him on C-SPAN and confirmed him. The only senator who hadn’t voted for him had been out of town when the vote was taken. The only critics had been those offended that they didn’t get the job, and none were willing to say so in public. The job afforded Dunne and his wife a comfortable last assignment in a modern city and would guarantee a nice stream of moderate speaking fees during his retirement.

Dealing with the Chinese wasn’t always pleasant, but he couldn’t complain with their preferred venue. West of the Forbidden City, Zhongnanhai was a brilliant estate of lakes, gardens, villas, and office buildings that housed the highest levels of the Chinese government. Their version of the White House… or the Kremlin, Kathryn Cooke had once told him during his intelligence briefing before assuming the post. Mao had built up the place after the Revolution in ’49. It was a massive complex and, in true government fashion, was off-limits to the average citizen. More than a few of the commoners who were “called to Zhongnanhai” during Mao’s reign never walked out again. Dunne had no doubts that the security services watched him when he came inside, which was fine. He was not an intelligence officer, and whoever was watching for him to plant a microphone was wasting their time. He’d never been declared persona non grata before and he wasn’t going to end his career that way now.

Dunne heard footsteps, the sound of hard-sole shoes beating on the stone tiles in the hallway. He waited for several seconds before turning his head, giving no impression of anxiousness. It would have been undiplomatic to say, and so Dunne would never say it, but the aide looked in no way remarkable. The man’s attire was straight from the universal bureaucrat dress code. The clothes belied the man. Zeng Qinglin was mishu to President Tian Kai, the personal aide to the chief of state of the People’s Republic of China, a civilization a few thousand years older than the United States. His position gave him powerful guanxi, the network of personal connections to other leaders in the party who would one day ensure his own rise in the ranks, possibly even to full member status in the Central Committee if he didn’t fall out of favor with the wrong people. The great truth of bureaucracy, Dunne thought. The gatekeeper is almost as powerful as the person behind the gate. More, in some ways.

“Ambassador Dunne, the president will see you now.” Zeng’s English was grammatically correct and spoken with a hint of an English accent. Oxford. Dunne had read the CIA’s file on the man before meeting him for the first time. The Communist Party wouldn’t send its most promising sons and daughters abroad and risk their defection for the sake of a third-rate education.

“Thank you,” Dunne replied.

Dunne stood and rested his weight on his cane, less an affectation and more a needed crutch every year. But the walk was a short one before Zeng stopped and opened one of a pair of dark hardwood doors. He stood aside like a proper doorman, and Dunne walked into the office of President Tian Kai.

Tian — Chinese surnames precede first names — stood beside his desk, an ornate piece of furniture that reminded Dunne of the Resolute desk in the Oval Office. The rest of Tian’s office was comfortable, though not to excess, and some of the furniture looked like it was drawn from the Victorian era.

The other men in the room were an impressive group in their own right.

Dunne’s memory for Chinese characters was weak but his memory for faces was excellent. He had spent time studying the leadership biographies provided by both CIA and State Department. He’d never seen so many members of the Politburo Central Committee and Central Military Committee in one place outside the Great Hall of the People.

They’re not here for tea, Dunne told himself. And they wanted me to see them. You could have cleared the room before letting me in, he thought. Such things didn’t happen at this level by chance. So many men of this stature wouldn’t convene at Zhongnanhai for social reasons, and protocol would have dictated that he not be admitted until they had left. Racking his memory, he couldn’t remember even seeing these men together at a state dinner, much less for business. If Dunne were suddenly dismissed from the office, what he’d already seen would be worth a cable to Washington.

“Mr. Ambassador, thank you for coming.” President Tian’s English was excellent, which always frustrated Dunne. It gave the Chinese head of state a significant advantage. Tian stepped forward and offered his hand with a kind smile.

“Mr. President, it is my honor to come,” Dunne said, accepting the handshake.

Tian turned to the other men and spoke to them in Mandarin. Dunne interpreted it as a polite request for privacy—or “message sent”?—and the group filed out of the room, Zeng leaving last and closing the door behind.

Tian slowly lowered himself into his chair behind the desk. “These are dangerous times,” he said without preamble. He was younger than Dunne by less than a decade, shorter by a head, and had a deeper voice than most Chinese men the ambassador talked to. Like Zeng’s, his accent was an odd combination of Oxford English mixed with Mandarin tones. “You are, of course, aware of the recent speech made by President Liang, accusing us of espionage in Taiwan.”

“I am, sir.”

“I will not insult your intelligence by denying that our arrested citizens were officers of our Ministry of State Security. We both understand the necessity of intelligence operations.” Tian paused, sipped his tea, and then resumed. “But the facts must be clear now. The Taiwanese citizens were not working for us. Perhaps they were political enemies of President Liang and he seized the opportunity to remove them from his path. Such an act would hardly be beneath him.”

Dunne straightened his back in surprise without thinking. You outed MSS officers. Why? As one part of his brain worked that puzzle, the part handling the diplomacy arranged his response. “One was an American citizen,” Dunne corrected him to buy time.

“Yes, but I honestly do not know why he was in the room with our officers,” Tian conceded. Dunne studied his face carefully. If the Chinese president was lying, he was covering it with great skill. “And given his unfortunate death, we will not know until Liang returns our officers to Beijing. Another reason that perhaps your country might persuade Taiwan to cooperate with us in this matter.”

Dunne stifled his first response and managed to just raise an eyebrow instead. The intel that Mitchell had reviewed with him that morning told a different story. Dunne hadn’t expected the gospel truth out of Tian, but this account was a different lie than the one he had been expecting. “So you don’t deny that the Ministry of State Security was conducting espionage against Taiwan?”

“No. Of course, we will publicly deny it.”

“Of course.”

Tian went on after imbibing more tea. “I tell you this because the presence of our officers in Taipei was legal, and to illustrate the lengths to which President Liang will go to preserve his position. He often seeks to arouse public sentiment favoring independence. My concern is that those efforts could encourage our own native dissident elements. Surely you can see that such political unrest would not be in the interest of either of our countries.”

“The United States has always advocated a peaceful resolution of the reunification issue. My country does not support a unilateral move by either side to alter the status quo.”

“I regret that Liang may not allow us to resolve our differences in a more civilized way.” Dunne noted that Tian hadn’t bothered to refer to Liang by the formal title of President. Tian set the teacup on the desk, his hand steady as the porcelain landed on the saucer without a sound. “A careful review of his recent speech suggests that Liang might be preparing to declare Taiwan’s independence.”

The Chinese president locked eyes with the US ambassador and the two men stared at each other for several seconds. Dunne’s mind raced back over the sentence, hoping that he had heard it wrong, but there was no ambiguity in the phrasing. Tian certainly had chosen the wording before summoning Dunne to Zhongnanhai.

Dunne picked his own words cautiously. “The United States does not share that conclusion, Mr. President. We hope that your government will allow President Liang the opportunity to clarify his words, lest there be a misunderstanding.”

“If Liang were to offer a public apology, we would listen. However, we think it unlikely that he will do so.” Dunne stared at Tian, looking for any crack in the performance. He found none. “He is in danger of losing reelection,” Tian explained. “History teaches that desperate men often deflect scrutiny from their own deficiencies by turning the public attention to an external threat. And Liang likely believes that the United States will intervene on Taiwan’s behalf should we respond with more than words. I hope that your country’s past encouragement of Taiwan’s rebellious attitudes does not now drag us all into an unpleasant confrontation.”

“We have not encouraged independence,” Dunne said. “Our position has been to have both sides treat each other with respect.”

“And yet you have sold them weapons,” Tian countered.

“For self-defense only,” Dunne said. It was a weak protest, he thought. A gun was a gun. Two years to retirement and I get to head off a war. He knew his next suggestion would be futile. “We would hope that you would refer the matter to the UN Security Council for deliberations.”

Tian shook his head. “The Security Council has no place in resolving internal disputes.”

Tian’s meaning was quite clear. China has a permanent seat on the Council and a veto. You know a Security Council resolution won’t pass. Why waste time playing that game?

Dunne suppressed an inappropriate smile. He’d been speaking the subtle language of diplomats for decades and he was good at it. Better than good, in fact. It made him feel young to engage in the back-and-forth of subtle meanings hidden in delicate phrases. It was why he stayed on the job at an age when almost all his peers were retired. “Some would dispute that this is an internal affair, despite Taiwan’s size and proximity to your coast,” he said. To buy time. You don’t want a shooting war with Taiwan to get dragged out. Big country, small island — no one likes a bully.

“I hope that your nation would not be one of those. We have the right to maintain order within our borders.” Is the United States prepared to recognize a declaration of independence by Taiwan? Don’t intervene.

“Maintaining order can be a delicate task, as you know, where a soft hand is often required.” Let’s not see another Tiananmen Square, or worse.

“Indeed. Both determination and a firm hand are often needed to manage such events.” We’ll do it.

“Force is not the only tool that can secure peace. We would hope that an offer to mediate would be accepted by both sides.” Taiwan will accept our help, especially if it’s backed up by the US Navy.

“Your offer is appreciated, but the United States could best help us keep the peace by abstaining.” Tian took his time before speaking again. “Ambassador Dunne, if I may be blunt…?”

Dunne nodded. Straightforward talk was a diplomat’s knife — useful but dangerous if misused. Still, there was no polite way to reject it. “Of course.”

“In 1995, there was an unpleasant confrontation with the province. Your President Clinton sent an aircraft carrier into the Strait — the Nimitz, I believe. General Xiong Guangkai answered by saying that ‘you care more about Los Angeles than you do about Taipei.’”

What? Dunne lost his composure for a moment. He would have realized that it was the first time in his recent memory, had he been thinking about it. Instead his thoughts turned to fighting his urge to come out of his chair. “Are you—”

Tian held up his hand and Dunne stopped midquestion. “I enjoy the history of your country very much,” Tian said. “I have enjoyed studying the confrontation over Cuba with the Soviet Union in 1962. President Kennedy was quite masterful, I think. Still, the opportunity for miscommunication was so great. The world has never been so close to nuclear war.”

“It was Kennedy’s finest hour,” Dunne agreed. Tian had twisted the conversation and the American had lost his sense of direction. He suddenly felt like he was blind.

“Yes. His death was a great loss. He might have gone on to do great things.” Tian’s admiration for America’s youngest president seemed genuine. The Chinese president paused, whether to gather his thoughts or for dramatic emphasis Dunne couldn’t tell. “My own generals can be bellicose when their passions are aroused, and Taiwan is a passionate issue for us. Should your president choose to send your navy into our Strait, I want no miscommunication. We are reasonable men, unlike the stupid, selfish man in Taipei who is causing us both so much trouble.”

“I appreciate your candor,” Dunne said.

“If there is to be a confrontation, a good leader must consider the peace that is to come after the war, something I’m afraid your country has often failed to do. But if we do find ourselves at odds, your president certainly must care more for your navy than for Taipei.”

Dunne sat silent long enough for the silence to feel uncomfortable. He felt off-balance, inadequate, like his old skills in assembling diplomatic answers had abandoned him. He turned Tian’s last words around in his head over and over. “That would not be my decision to make,” he said finally. “I’m sure that President Stuart would be willing to discuss the matter.” It was the best answer he could find, but it was still weak.

“Of course.” Tian placed both hands on the table. “I wish to share with you a copy of the speech that I will give in response to President Liang’s remarks,” he said, taking the conversation down another path again. Tian took a leather portfolio from the small table sitting between their chairs and handed it to Dunne. “I will reaffirm our commitment to reunification and propose the immediate commencement of talks with Taiwan to that end. Please deliver this to President Stuart and extend my compliments.”

I didn’t hear the word peaceful anywhere in there. “I will, sir. And on behalf of the United States, I thank you for the advance copy of your pending remarks,” Dunne said. He looked down at the speech in his hands. So much for diplomacy, he thought.

The hard sound of the truck’s plow grinding on asphalt woke Kyra a good hour before the alarm had the chance. For a few happy moments she couldn’t remember where she was, and then the ache in her arm reminded her. Last night’s dinner tasted foul in her mouth. Beer at night didn’t agree with her, gumbo even less. She’d known that, had finished both anyway, and she prayed that she had some mouthwash somewhere in the bathroom cabinet. She honestly couldn’t remember.

Kyra opened her eyes and realized she couldn’t see straight yet either. She pushed herself up with the wrong arm and the pain sharpened enough to wake her up. She kneaded the muscle for a minute, more in fascination over the scarred depression running in a horizontal line over her triceps than over the relief the movement didn’t really offer. Well, there was something for that. She still had plenty of Vicodin, even though she was taking more than the dosage on the bottle allowed.

Kyra rolled over, put her feet on the floor, and pulled the curtains apart. It was still snowing. She forced her eyes to focus and turned on the small television on her dresser.

The Office of Personnel Management had again not closed the government, instead offering liberal leave to those with enough leave hours stored up to take it. Kyra couldn’t muster the strength to curse the OPM director. She promised herself she would get around to it after the shower.

The phone on her nightstand rang. Kyra let it sound off three times to help wake herself up before she answered the call. “Hello?”

“You might want to come in sooner rather than later,” Jonathan said. “Somebody took out a power station in Taiwan. Cooke wants us in her office.”

In twenty minutes, Kyra was in her truck, driving east far too fast to be safe.

“We’re still not sure how the Chinese did it,” Cooke said without preamble. As a general rule, she didn’t call analysts to her office like this, but yesterday’s conversation with Jonathan had left her wanting to see him again even if she couldn’t talk about what was really on her mind. It was a selfish impulse, unprofessional, but she’d caved anyway.

Cooke laid the satellite imagery on the table and Kyra picked up one of the photographs. The picture, high-resolution infrared, showed a large crater in fine detail with fires still burning around the perimeter. Severed electrical lines arced on the ground.

“You’re assuming it was the PLA,” Jonathan said.

“Is there any chance it was an industrial accident?” Kyra asked.

“I wish,” Cooke said. “We’ve got some SCADA experts coming in, but I’m pretty sure there’s nothing in a power plant that would produce a blast pattern like that. And it would be one amazing coincidence, given the timing.”

“It’s just the one location?” Jonathan asked.

“NSA hasn’t reported any other attacks on the electrical grid,” Cooke confirmed. “And one was enough. I’m told that the Tashan Power Plant was the big one. When Taipower brought that one online, they shut down smaller plants at Tai-Wu, Luguang, and Chuangjiang to cut costs. I bet they’re regretting that now.”

“No doubt,” Jonathan observed.

“That’s a big hole,” Kyra said. “Airstrike?”

“The Office of Naval Intelligence says the radar track for Chinese military aircraft and ballistic missiles was negative,” Cooke said. “The only aircraft in the area were Taiwanese commercial and Air Force. All of the PLA MIGs were way outside the missile envelope.”

“It could have been the work of a sapper team,” Jonathan suggested. “Only God and Tian know how many infiltrators the Chinese have in Taipei. Semtex or C-four maybe, but they’d need plenty of it to make a hole that size. That crater must be ten feet deep. Too much material to carry in by hand.”

“Car bomb?” Cooke asked.

Jonathan shrugged. “Doesn’t seem like something a SpecOps team would do, does it? Maybe if it was fifth columnists. Amateurs tend to overestimate explosive yields. The question is whether the PLA would trust this kind of job to fifth columnists alone.” His expression suggested he didn’t believe that particular option. “Anything else?”

“Cable from State Department,” Cooke said. The CIA director extracted a report from a manila folder. “The ambassador met with the Chinese president.”

The list of names went on for a half page. “The guy’s got a good memory,” Kyra said.

“Who’d’ve thought diplomats could be so observant?” Cooke said. “I guess it helps with the job. Check out the last few paragraphs. Good stuff in there.”

Kyra turned the page.

Kyra handed the stapled sheets to Jonathan. “Only a diplomat can make a threat sound like he’s actually worried for the enemy.”

“Heads of state don’t make jokes about sinking another country’s ships,” Jonathan said. He stared at the sheet for a moment, then dropped it and moved to Cooke’s classified computer and began typing.

“It could be a psychological game,” Kyra observed. She rubbed her forehead. The Vicodin had done its job with admirable efficiency. “Would the president refuse to send in a carrier battle group if he thought the PLA could sink it?”

Cooke considered the question for a few moments, tapping her finger on the table. “I played in a war game at the Naval War College a few years ago, when I was still in the service,” she finally said. “The red team’s first move was to launch every cruise missile they had at the Navy blue team’s carrier. The computer judged that they sank the ship. Control stopped the game, restarted the match, resurrected the carrier, and refused to give the red team their missiles back. They said the game wasn’t worth playing if the carrier wasn’t present. Draw your own conclusions.”

“Were you trying to embarrass the game masters?” Kyra asked.

“Ask him,” Cooke said, nodding her head at Burke.

“I might have suggested that tactic,” Jonathan said. “Hoping that we never lose a carrier is poor strategy.”

“Wait,” Kyra said. “The two of you—”

“First time we met,” Cooke confirmed. “Jon here was an observer, sitting in with the red team. At least he was supposed to just be observing.”

“Observing is boring,” Jonathan said. “I don’t handle boredom well.”

“I can believe that,” Kyra said. “What would it take to replace a lost carrier?”

“Five years and thirteen billion dollars, minimum,” Jonathan told her. “And a dead president liked by the Navy to name it after.”

“Cute,” Kyra replied. “So how are the Chinese going to kill a carrier?”

“Shashoujian,” Jonathan said, pronouncing each syllable slowly.

“What?” Both women asked the question at the same time.

“Shashoujian,” he said again. “The closest English translation is ‘assassin’s mace.’ In Chinese lore, it’s a small weapon that a soldier in ancient times could hide in his robes to mortally strike an enemy to end a fight before it started. It’s also an umbrella label for a series of PLA weapons projects, most of which haven’t produced anything. The technologies have been pretty exotic — laser guns, high-power microwaves, real Star Wars — type stuff. Some of it sounds more like propaganda than serious weapons research.”

Kyra studied Jonathan’s face. “You already have a link,” she realized.

Jonathan held out the State cable. “The people listed as being in Tian’s office are all members of the Nine Nine Eight State Security Project Leading Group, which is one of the groups overseeing Assassin’s Mace research. And there’s no record of any other committee with the same membership.”

“You memorize the membership rolls of foreign committees?” Cooke asked, slightly stunned.

“Would it impress you if I said yes?” he asked.

“Frighten more than impress,” the CIA director told him.

Kyra stared at him until a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth gave away the game. “You ran a search on their names as a group,” she said, accusing.

Jonathan looked sideways at the young woman. “You have no sense of humor whatsoever.”

Gotcha. “When did the Chinese start the program?” she asked.

“Nineteen ninety-five. Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui took some not-so-subtle shots in public at the Chinese government during a visit to the US that the Chinese opposed. Jiang Zemin took it badly and the PLA made some threatening moves,” Jonathan said. “Bill Clinton sent the Nimitz into the Taiwan Strait to calm everyone down. Jiang asked his military advisors what they could do about it and the short answer they gave him was ‘nothing.’ Jiang pounded the table and ordered the PLA to develop ‘an assassin’s mace to use against the Americans.’”

“Nice bit of history, but that doesn’t help me,” Cooke said.

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “I just gave you a logically defensible bit of strategic warning that the Chinese might have a carrier killer.”

“Strategic warning gets me into the Oval Office,” Cooke said. “Tactical warning keeps me from getting thrown out. Telling the president that the Chinese have a black program targeting our carriers isn’t exactly going to rock his world. But telling him exactly what it is will get his attention.”

“The curse of genius is that people begin to expect it on demand,” Jonathan deadpanned. “I can tell you what it’s not. There are five major classes of strategic weapons that can hit a carrier at sea. Submarines, ships, missiles, aircraft, and weapons of mass destruction. It won’t be a submarine or a ship because the PLA Navy is still buying last-generation Kilos and Sovremennys from the Russians. The Russians built the one carrier they do have, and the PLA Navy is still trying to figure out how to use the thing. It won’t be a weapon of mass destruction because the Chinese aren’t stupid enough to set off a nuke that close to their own coastline, and carriers are hardened against biological and chemical weapons. That leaves missiles and aircraft.”

“Missiles worked for you in that war game,” Kyra noted.

“They did,” Jonathan agreed. “The Dongfeng missile can hit a carrier from nine hundred miles away in theory, but the tracking systems are iffy. The Chinese bought Shkvals from the Russians a few years back. It’s a rocket-propelled torpedo that creates a layer of air bubbles from the nose and skin to eliminate drag and friction in the water. Top speed is around two hundred knots but the warhead is small to keep the speed up, maybe too small to do serious damage to a carrier. And the PLA would still also have to get close enough to use it. The maximum range is about maybe seven miles.”

“One of their subs snuck up on the Kitty Hawk about ten years ago,” Kyra observed.

“True. You know recent military history. Your usefulness just went up,” Jonathan said. Cooke raised an eyebrow. The Red Cell analyst had just offered one of his higher compliments.

“What about planes?” Cooke asked.

Jonathan stood and moved to the National Geographic map of the Chinese coast he had pinned to the wall. “The PLA has two air bases directly across the Strait and nine more in range. That’s a few hundred planes, but they’ve only got maybe a hundred fifty modern types, Su-27s and -30s.”

“I’d bet money the PLA wouldn’t mind sacrificing a few hundred old planes if it meant winning the Battle of the Taiwan Strait,” Kyra observed.

“Given the money that the PLA has spent on exotic technologies, I would hope that the Assassin’s Mace is something more interesting than just sending out cheap cannon fodder. But we can’t disprove anything yet,” Jonathan replied. He turned to Cooke. “If you want something more defensible than my impeccable logic, we’ll need to do some actual research.”

“Take your time,” Cooke said.

“Meaning?” Jonathan asked.

“Meaning you get twenty-four hours,” Cooke said. “Less if the Taiwanese refuse to give up Tian’s men and the PLA gets rowdy again.”

“Any word on how that Taiwanese SWAT team is doing?” Kyra asked.

“Two dead,” Cooke said. “They assumed room temperature this morning. The third officer is still listed as critical.” Another page came out of the manila folder, this one from the Office of Medical Services. “Whatever was in that canister torched his lungs. He’s suffering from”—she had to read the language directly from the page—“‘severe inhalation injury with persistent postburn refractory hypoxemia.’ That means he’s got second- and third-degree chemical burns of the trachea and lungs. Oxygen can’t diffuse across the lung membranes into his bloodstream. The ‘refractory’ part means nothing that they’re trying is helping him. He’ll be intubated and paralyzed with drugs to keep him from fighting the doctors, but it’s just a question of when he’s going to die, not if.”

“What about that dead American?” Kyra asked.

“FBI is still trying to run down which Lockheed division he worked for. The company isn’t moving very fast. They’re not excited about the idea that one of their employees was committing espionage.” She checked her watch. “Tian’s going to give his speech in an hour. Start pulling your research together and then come back and join me.”

Cooke’s television couldn’t do justice to the Great Hall of the People. The camera, owned and operated by China Central Television, pulled back to a wide-angle shot and panned left to right, showing the breadth of the massive room that held thousands of seats. The People’s National Congress had three thousand delegates, and the Great Hall held them all with room to spare. The cavernous amphitheater was an engineering feat. It had been constructed in a mere ten months all by “volunteers,” though Cooke wondered whether the Chinese hadn’t played fast and loose with that term. Either way, Cooke had no doubt that the construction workers had not been paid, but their work was exquisite. The massive chamber was arranged like an orchestra hall, with two elevated semicircular tiers stretching the hall’s full width for seating above the ground levels. There were no support columns under either balcony to block the view of the vast stage. An expansive red banner framed the Politburo and other senior party members seated on the wide dais, with ten towering Chinese flags lining the wall behind them. It was an image meant to convey the full grandeur of the state and it managed to do that quite well, even for those like Cooke who knew enough about the state to keep their awe in check.

The acoustics of the hall were remarkable given its size, but the room was quiet. Cooke watched as Tian stood from his seat and approached the podium in front. He looked the room over, his face fixed in a look of tranquility.

“It makes the Senate Chamber on Capitol Hill look like a high school auditorium. It’s like having a stadium devoted to politics,” Kyra said.

“Whoever invented the saying that politics is a blood sport was Chinese,” Cooke replied.

The president of the People’s Republic of China looked down at his text and began to speak in measured tones. Elsewhere in the hall, translators wearing headphones and sitting in closed booths looked down at their own portfolios and began to translate in sync with Tian as his Mandarin cadence came through their headphones. Central China Television had dedicated its CCTV 4 English-only international channel to the speech nominally for the benefit of Westerners living in the country.

Tian offered the pleasantries befitting a head of state addressing his country, speaking with a practiced manner, calm, not so different from the official manner he had used with Dunne in the office at Zhongnanhai. Most men would have been nervous speaking even to just the few thousand in the Great Hall, and Tian knew the real audience was far larger… though he was, in truth, talking to an audience of one. There were televisions in the White House.

Tian finally broached the true subject with a grave look. “It is with the greatest sorrow and reluctance that I have convened this special session of the National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Four days ago, the government of Taiwan arrested eight citizens of the People’s Republic of China on charges of espionage. I have been assured that these arrests were carried out with the full knowledge and approval of President Liang himself. We have requested assurances of the health and safety of those arrested, but we have been refused even that courtesy.”

“This is not how I wanted to start my morning,” Cooke said. “It would be nice if the president could convince Liang to declare the whole lot of them persona non grata and send them all back to Beijing.”

“Not likely,” Jonathan said. “The ‘One China’ policy keeps us from saying that Tian’s boys were even trespassing, much less committing espionage.”

“Keeps us on a short leash,” Kyra observed. “I bet Tian likes it that way.”

“That’s what happens when you base your foreign policy on a lie,” Jonathan said. “And the longer we stick to it, the more painful it’s going to be when we finally have to back out.”

“It’s better to keep the peace so China and Taiwan can work it out through diplomacy,” Cooke said.

“You’re assuming that they can work it out through diplomacy,” Jonathan told her.

Mitchell took a deep breath and regretted it. The Beijing smog was worse than the floating filth in his native Los Angeles air, and that was an impressive feat. The dusky sky of his first night in Beijing three years ago had appeared threatening until one of the embassy officers told him that the dark clouds on the horizon had nothing to do with rain.

Mitchell cleared his mind and cursed his lack of mental discipline. Detecting surveillance while in a car required total focus, though tonight he needed less than usual. He’d chosen to make his run during Tian’s speech officially because he hoped at least some of the MSS would be watching it instead of working the street. Unofficially he just couldn’t stand to listen to the Chinese head of state. But the surveillance team two cars back had done everything but tap his bumper, relieving him of the need to think too hard about where any unwanted guests might be. But it was night and they had to stay close or lose Mitchell to the tide of traffic. Vehicular surveillance in a crowded city — and few had as many residents as Beijing — was the most difficult kind to perform. Traffic patterns were uncontrollable. Keeping a single car close to the target without being seen was no small task, and moving other cars along parallel side streets was more complicated still.

“Almost there,” the driver, another case officer, said.

“Take the corner,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell’s driver pulled the car into the far right lane. He turned the corner and stopped short, forcing the cars behind to brake hard. Mitchell opened his door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, then turned and said something meaningless to his driver, as though to thank him for the ride. The driver nodded, then pulled out into traffic — he would just drive home — and the chief of station walked in the opposite direction.

Vehicular surveillance was hard enough, but making the sudden shift from vehicle to foot pursuit was agony. The MSS officers could stay on the car, but there was no way the Chinese could have had prepositioned anyone to cover Mitchell’s dismount. The only men who could follow him would have to come from the cars, so their numbers would be limited. Mitchell had identified only two cars, the first of which ignored the light, turned the corner at the first available moment, and accelerated as much as traffic would allow.

That left the second. If there were other cars on the side streets, they could add to the count — maybe even providing enough manpower to establish a small surveillance bubble around him, given a minute or two. He refused to give it to them. The ground was going to open up and swallow Carl Mitchell whole before they would get the chance.

“Our requests for the prisoners’ release have gone unanswered. Taiwan’s government has refused even to allow our representatives to visit and assess whether our accused citizens are being well treated and have adequate legal representation. The charges are without merit, the arrests were without cause, the citizens detained are without guilt. Liang must personally account for the well-being and safe return of every one of our citizens.” Tian had been talking for two minutes and no one had made a sound. He wasn’t looking at the teleprompter or the papers on the podium. The president of the People’s Republic of China was orating from memory now.

“The members of the Politburo Standing Committee have discussed these recent events at length. Their resolution in the face of unwarranted and illegal political persecution of our citizens is unanimous and firm. There is no division of opinion among us or among the citizens of this great nation on this matter. It is a dangerous step that undermines cross-Strait relations for Liang to refuse us access to our people.”

Tian struck the podium with his open palm. “The arrest of innocent citizens of our nation was a fraud, a first step toward separation, a first step toward secession, a first step toward independence!”

“He just went off script,” Cooke said.

“Yes, he did,” Jonathan agreed. He scrubbed through the text Dunne had provided and finally tossed the transcript back onto the desk. “It’s not in the speech. He’s making this up.”

“Or Tian left it out of our copy on purpose,” Kyra said.

Cooke let out a racial slur that would have cost her a Senate confirmation.

Catch me if you can. Mitchell stood at the corner and looked up the street at the oncoming traffic. He had a free excuse to watch the second car that he’d culled from the river of automobiles and he used it. Two men crawled out as quickly as they could and started toward him. They were more than half a block away.

Only two. I can deal with two. Especially at night. The night changed everything. The playing field was now skewed in Mitchell’s favor. The street was a riptide of bodies pushing against the two men — Beijing’s twelve million citizens working against their own government for a few minutes. It would buy Mitchell time, at least a bare few seconds at the right moment when the Chinese security services would have no eyes on him. That would be enough, but if the subways were on schedule tonight, he would earn far more time than that.

The light changed and Mitchell merged with the mob of citizens who began to march across the broad Jiaodaokou Dongdajie avenue. He walked no faster than the crowd. The two MSS officers didn’t reach the corner before the light changed again and Mitchell was on the other side of the street with a wall of moving cars between. The two men tried to step into the street, but a near miss with a car that didn’t bother to slow down changed their minds.

Shaking surveillance was not difficult but rarely done, because it would infuriate the watchers and earn retribution later. The skillful part was to make the watchers think that either bad luck or their own incompetence was to blame. The two men on the other side of the street couldn’t prove that Mitchell even knew they were there. All the chief of station had done was get out of a car and cross the street. Like a master musician, it was all in the timing.

The Beixinqiao subway station entrance was behind him. Mitchell didn’t stop to pay the fare. His ticket was in his pocket, courtesy of another of his officers who had “decided” to take a midday walk around the city. The two MSS officers wouldn’t bother with tickets, but Mitchell’s prepaid voucher kept the race on even terms. He was down the stairs and approaching the platform when the two finally crossed the street at a dead run. The trains were on time — something in which Communist governments always took pride — and Mitchell was aboard by the time his pursuers reached the top of the stairwell. They pushed their way down the stairs, knocking aside any number of commuters in their rush, and they arrived at the platform just in time to watch the train pull away. They would likely call their superiors to request coverage of all the stations down the line where Mitchell might exit, but the possible number of stops was large, and getting men into position at the closer ones before the train hit them in sequence would be impossible.

In any city of twelve million residents with traffic to match, the subway was always the fastest way to move away from any given point. Mitchell’s immediate need was simply to put distance between himself and the Beixinqiao station and a subway train moved faster than any car could follow or any officer on foot could run.

The crowd roared for the first time. Tian turned his head slowly, taking in the wave from one side of the room to the other. It was a subtle thing, but Cooke saw it from seven thousand miles away. Tian was feeding off the energy of the crowd. The president of the People’s Republic of China exuded the air of a god on earth soaking in the adoration of worshipers. To the foreign observers in the room, it made twisted sense. Communist doctrine made atheism the official religion, replacing the worship of a supreme being with complete obedience to the state. The state was God and Tian Kai was the state.

Tian held up his hand and the crowd fell silent. “Our position on the issue of reunification has never wavered. We have made our policy clear through our words, through our laws, and through our actions. Any moves toward secession threatens China’s state sovereignty and territorial integrity. We have offered the leadership of Taiwan countless opportunities to negotiate the peaceful way forward. We have offered the open hand of forgiveness and fellowship. We have shown the fist of our determination only when no other choices were left. And now the nationalist leader of Taiwan has made his intentions clear. We will make ours equally clear. We will not allow the misguided and selfish politicians of this province to separate from the mainland, or to separate its people from their destiny as citizens of the People’s Republic of China!”

The volume control on the television kept the audience’s eruption to a tolerable level. Inside the Great Hall it must have been deafening. The camera cut to the crowd, which, to a man, surged to its feet.

“It’s like Hitler at Nuremberg,” Cooke said. She hadn’t been born when the Führer had given that speech, but she was a History Channel addict. They’ll turn this into a documentary in a few years, she thought. Sometimes it was hard to recognize when history was being made. Other times it was as plain as a slow-motion trainwreck, and just as easy to stop.

Mitchell detrained at the Dongsi station two stops later and kept his head down. In thirty seconds he was aboveground again. He walked east. The Capital Theater was only a short distance in that direction and a bit south on the Wangfujing road. The Beijing People’s Art Theater Company routinely played to a full house, offering a balance between foreign works and Chinese dramas, and they drew a large number of foreign patrons on any given night, which offered Mitchell a sizable non-Asian element in which to merge.

He already had his ticket for that evening’s performance, a well-reviewed adaptation of The Monkey King. He entered the theater, early as planned, and walked to the men’s restroom on the main floor. The smell was appalling by Western standards. The Chinese tossed their used paper into a special bin instead of flushing it into a sewer system that was not always robust enough to handle large loads. Mitchell breathed through his mouth while washing his hands four times until the French patron occupying the second stall from the end finished his business and left as quickly as dignity would allow. Public restrooms in most any country were not a place to linger, which made them a boon to espionage. The stall door closed and locked, Mitchell pulled out a centimeter-square piece of white duct tape from his pocket. It was innocuous, a piece of pocket litter easily discarded or explained away. He affixed it to the rear base of the toilet, which was more of a trough with a hood at one end over which the individual squatted. The tape matched the porcelain color. It would be almost impossible for any patron to see even if looking down for it. The tiny patch would be more easily found by touch than by sight, and there was only one patron who would be feeling around behind the stall anytime soon, given the communal restroom’s odor.

All that trouble just to set up a signal for Pioneer to perform a sign of life.

Mitchell vacated the stall, washed his hands again for real, and left the room. He was a patron of the arts for the rest of the night. Three years in Beijing and he’d never seen The Monkey King. Theater hadn’t been an interest of his before his current tour, but he’d learned to appreciate it at the urging of his wife. She was waiting for him in the twelfth row and would be keeping a better poker face than he had ever mastered. Laura Mitchell had been a drama major in college and was hoping her husband’s final tour would be in London as a liaison so she could spend time in the West End near Leicester Square attending experimental productions.

She deserves it, Mitchell thought. Laura had been a faithful soldier for the last twenty years, helping her husband build his cover in third-world rat holes, and praying quietly during the nights when he came home late. She had never trained at the Farm or performed an operational act, but Laura had spent her life in the clandestine service every bit as much as he had. He owed that woman, the Agency owed her more, and he intended to spend every day of retirement finding ways to overpay on the debt.

Tian let the cries go on for more than two minutes before raising his hand. “There is one China! China’s sovereignty belongs to the entire Chinese people! Retreat from this act of rebellion. Come together with us to unite all descendants of the Chinese nation who love the motherland!” The Chinese leader was holding nothing back now. “We insist on reunification by peaceful means, but do not challenge our will to block all ‘Taiwan independence’ movements. Our determination to preserve our country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is absolute! Taiwan’s future rejoined with the mainland as one China must not be delayed. I say to President Liang, accept the commencement of final negotiations to reunify our nation!”

Cooke ran her hands through her hair. “He used the word ‘rebellion.’”

“And ‘secession’ and ‘independence,’” Jonathan said.

“I guess a bad translation is too much to hope for,” Kyra offered.

“No, they got it right,” Cooke said.

“How do you know?” Kyra asked. She had watched the CIA director during the speech and was sure that the older woman didn’t speak Mandarin.

“Because that crowd reacted like Romans watching a lion eat Christians.” Cooke fell back in her chair, suddenly tired. “One aircraft carrier might not be enough.”

By her count, Laura Mitchell had been waiting for her husband for fifteen minutes when the chief of station finally settled into his seat. Her husband looked over and took a moment to appreciate his wife before he reached for her hand. Laura wasn’t a model but she was still very pretty, a fact that was lost on their Chinese hosts.

He didn’t get to see her dressed up like this nearly enough. She was a teaching specialist for autistic children at the English-speaking school near the embassy where so many diplomats’ children went, including their own son. It was a job that didn’t lend itself to dresses and heels, though she looked good to him in the polo shirts and khaki pants she usually wore. When she did wear her finest, there was no other woman as far as he was concerned, but it also left him full of regret that he’d dragged her away from the States for so many years. He didn’t deserve her patience.

“Done for the night?” she asked quietly. The nearest person was three seats away and there was a low buzz of conversation throughout the theater that would have made eavesdropping difficult, but she still knew to be careful with her words.

“I think so.”

“Any of your friends try to come?”

“A few,” Mitchell told her. “I had to disappoint them.”

“They’ll get over it,” Laura assured him. More than once, she’d come to their Moscow home and found that the Russians’ security services had vandalized it as payback for some humiliation her husband had inflicted on them. The Chinese seemed more civilized, for which she was grateful. It saved on the cleaning bills.

“I hope so,” Mitchell replied. “Given how they’ve been treating me the last few days, I’d hate to see how they behave when they’ve got their dander up.”

“Maybe they’d go easy on you if you were walking around with one of those pretty girls in your office,” Laura said. He couldn’t quite tell if she was making a joke.

“You know I don’t like to do that. Better to avoid temptation,” he said, serious. Case officers who spent their careers overseas had an appalling divorce rate. Mitchell was determined not to push the percentage up.

“You’ve got the perfect job for someone who wants to have an affair. Late nights. Long hours,” she observed. “Uncleared spouse not allowed to ask what you’ve been doing.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” Mitchell declared. He squeezed her hand again. “You know that, right?”

“I’m still here,” she answered.

“Sometimes I wonder why,” he said. He thought Laura didn’t sound quite convinced.

“Pure compassion,” Laura said. “No other woman could live with you.”

“I appreciate the pity you take on me.”

“It’s not for you. It’s for the rest of my gender,” she told her husband. “I didn’t say some other woman wouldn’t give you a go. I’m saving her from you.”

Mitchell laughed, let go of his wife’s hand, and put his arm around her. “You should work for us.”

“I already do, love,” Laura said. She kissed him on the cheek. “They just don’t give me a paycheck.”