The Enemy Inside

THIRTY-FIVE

This morning Cheng was not in uniform. Instead he wore a stylish dark blue sharkskin suit, starched white dress shirt, gold cuff links, and a striped silk tie.

Two security men followed behind him in a separate car, also dressed in civilian clothes.

None of the local authorities in Hong Kong had been alerted to Cheng’s presence. He would slip in and out of the city unnoticed. To anyone looking at him, Cheng could easily pass for an affluent Chinese businessman. His face was not known to the public. In fact, most officers in the Second Bureau made a point of staying out of the media. If you took their picture there was a good chance you would have your camera smashed.

He walked into the lobby of the Intercontinental. Under his arm he carried a small leather folio.

One of the security men stepped out of the car and followed behind at a discreet distance.

The Intercontinental was one of the more expensive hotels in town. The Presidential Suite would run you almost fourteen thousand dollars a night. Ying, the man he was coming to meet, liked to live well. Cheng knew he was also careful. He wasn’t staying in the hotel. He was merely taking a room as cover for the meeting. He did this each time they met in Hong Kong.

Ying owned a luxury condominium high up on the island on the other side of the harbor. It was a very expensive address. Ying thought he had covered this well, but Cheng knew about it. Title to the estate was held in the name of a corporation registered in Andorra, a tiny principality and banking haven tucked in the Pyrenees Mountains between Spain and France. Hong Kong might be a Special Administrative Region, but it was not exempt from Chinese Intelligence.

Ying had a lot of houses. He could afford them. When you did business with other people in Cheng’s line of work you always wanted to know what they did with their money, how they spent it, what they bought, and if they made investments, how they hedged their funds. It told you a lot about their goals and ambitions, their tolerance for risk, character, and sometimes their weaknesses.

He checked his watch, ten thirty-five. He was five minutes late. Cheng went to the house phone, picked up the receiver, and when the operator answered, he gave the name Joseph Ying and asked her to ring his room. Cheng knew this was not the man’s real name. He used a number of aliases. Given his government connections he possessed bona fide passports in all of them. Ying was the name he used when doing business in Asia.

Three minutes later Cheng walked into the blue-tinted lounge with its angled walls of floor-to-ceiling glass looking out over the harbor. He walked over to one of the low cocktail tables, laid the leather folio down, and waited. A few seconds later one of his security men walked in and took a seat at the bar. The place was nearly empty. By noon it would be getting busy. Cheng hoped to be out of there by then.

He sat down at the table. Ying kept him waiting. Five minutes, then ten. Cheng looked at his watch. He wondered if Ying was sending him a message. Perhaps he had appeared too anxious. Finally, after fifteen minutes the American sporting a Chinese name came through the door. Cheng stood up, reached down, and furtively wiped the perspiration from his right palm onto the back of his slacks so that by the time Ying reached him he was ready to shake hands.

“Sorry I’m late. Right after we hung up I got an urgent call. I had to take it. I couldn’t get them off the phone.”

“Of course. No problem,” said Cheng. “I was just sitting here enjoying the view.”

Ying turned and looked out through the wall of glass at the sparkling waters of the harbor. “It is gorgeous, isn’t it? Every time I come I am amazed. It becomes more beautiful with each passing year.”

“Unlike us,” said Cheng. They both laughed.

Ying was taller, older that Cheng, and he wasn’t Asian. Round-eyed, gray hair, he was always well dressed, three-piece pinstriped power suit set off by a conservative club tie. He would have fit in well at the British colonial clubs of an earlier era.

“How was your flight?” asked Cheng.

“Fine.”

“Did you come in this morning?” Cheng tested him.

“Ah, no. I got in last night, about eleven,” Ying lied.

He had been in Hong Kong for three days, closed-door meetings at his house on the island. Cheng’s men had him under surveillance. They were also monitoring his calls. They were unable to get content because Ying’s cell phone used high-end encryption and the man was careful to keep conversations brief. But they could track the location of incoming calls.

“Perhaps we should get down to business,” said Cheng.

“Let’s do it.”

They sat and ordered drinks, Scotch and soda for Ying, a Virgin Mary for the general.

“One might think you were Catholic,” said Ying.

“Not unless the pope is Communist,” said Cheng. They laughed. Drinking on company time, especially when the business being transacted was critical, was not conducive to advancement in Chinese leadership circles.

“Saw your man at the bar.” Ying glanced at the security man sitting there by himself drinking a club soda. “I suppose you don’t go anywhere without them.”

“No,” said Cheng. Even if he wanted to. It was unwise for government officials to meet with Westerners unless they had at least one credible witness present. Cheng’s masters in Beijing, while increasingly modern, could still be gripped by pangs of paranoia. The security man might not be able to hear their conversation, but he could at least attest to the fact that the meeting took place in open view, plain sight, and was businesslike in its conduct.

“I have a number of questions,” said Cheng. “I trust we can have a frank discussion.”

“Of course.”

“I am interested in information as to your firm’s Western political assets?”

“By Western you mean. .”

“The United States,” said Cheng.

“What do you mean by assets? Do you mean consultation on political matters?”

“I thought we agreed to be frank?” said Cheng. “What I mean is, how many of these people do you actually possess? And at what level?”

The older man looked at him from across the table. “May I ask where you get your information?”

“You can ask,” said Cheng.

“If by ‘possess’ you mean own in a way that I can order their actions,” said Ying, “none. It doesn’t work that way.”

“Of course not.” Cheng smiled. “I understand it is much more complicated and subtle. I didn’t mean to imply anything improper.”

Saving face was just as important in America as it was in China.

“I can reason with a significant number of them,” said Ying. “Some of them in key positions. Others may follow their lead. Depending on the level of controversy. On a good day I can persuade a dozen, perhaps more, as to the wisdom of my suggestions on any given issue.”

Cheng looked at him and read the gleam in his eye for what it was, Irish bullshit. “Your calendar must be filled with good days. I say this because your persuasiveness is legendary. Surpassed perhaps only by your modesty?”

“What can I say?”

“Let me put it another way,” said Cheng. “Have you ever been refused?”

Ying smiled. “The secret, General, is never to allow yourself to be put in that situation.”

“I see. Your logic is too compelling, is that it?”

“What is it exactly that you have in mind?”

At one time Ying was reputed to have worked for US intelligence, though information was sketchy as to which agency. Nor was it clear whether he was directly employed or hired under contract. Either way, his work was not as a field agent. It was technical.

According to his Chinese dossier, Ying’s holdings were extensive. His businesses, and there were several of them, specialized in resource consultation, commercial intelligence, and international security. Over the years he had branched into other sidelines, some of which were obviously unmentionable. Ying appeared to have no loyalties except to his own pocketbook. He played both sides of the street, and every corner at the intersections. Along the way he sold intelligence services to clients and often used the information to buy up valuable resources, oil contracts as well as other commodities. Oil was his specialty. In the process he had acquired immense wealth, though no available published source seemed to know exactly how much. He was sufficiently shrewd to stay in the shadows, well below the political and media radar.

His companies could go where the US military and the CIA could not due to the hypersensitivity of the political disease the Americans now referred to as “boots on the ground.” For this reason, Ying was privy to information his own government could not get. Cheng wondered how long it might be before Ying ended up the wealthiest man in the world. If and when it happened, and it may already have, Cheng knew that Ying’s name would never appear in Forbes.

By profession he was not a soldier, but a geological engineer trained in locating oil domes and substrata petroleum resources. It was this fact that made Cheng particularly nervous when, during their last meeting, Ying’s conversation drifted into the subject of the Spratly Islands. For Cheng this was like an iron ship striking a magnetic mine.

The Spratlys were a chain of largely uninhabited atolls in the South China Sea. They were known to be rich in oil, natural gas, and valuable fishing rights. Half the nations of Asia were now claiming them. But China, being the biggest bully on the block, was at the head of the line. Beijing was busy drumming up international support for the geologic fable of an ancient subsea land bridge connecting the islands with the Chinese mainland a thousand miles away.

This was the diplomatic Chinese fan spread open to cover the cudgel in its other hand, the largest standing army in the world and a growing navy. Beijing wanted the islands. Nothing was going to stand in their way. Cheng’s job was to do everything in his power to get them. Failure was not an option.

“The matter we talked about the last time we met,” said Cheng. “Do you remember?”

“You mean the question of territorial rights?”

Cheng nodded.

Ying’s eyes gleamed. Plant the seed, tend it, and it sprouts, he thought. “I remember.” China was desperate for allies, anyone who might bless their claim that the South China Sea was a Beijing swimming pool. What Ying wanted were oil and gas concessions, investments in exploration rights. He didn’t care who got the islands, as long as his company was hip-deep in concessions when the fight was over.

“Then you know what I’m talking about,” said Cheng. “Are you familiar with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea?”

“I think I’ve heard of it,” said Ying.

“There is a vote being scheduled on a resolution in the Security Council.”

“Yes, as I recall, it’s about four weeks out. Doesn’t give you much time. I take it you want to influence the outcome?”

“Of course. China would like to convince the US administration not to exercise its veto. If certain domestic political pressure could be brought to bear on the president. What we would like. . what Beijing wants. .”

“You want the United States to disengage on the question of the islands. To put a leash on its navy in the South China Sea so that China might be the only big player,” said Ying.

“I could not have said it better myself,” said Cheng. “It is, after all, a matter outside their sphere. It does not concern them. What we seek is simple and fair.”

“You don’t have to convince me,” said Ying. “There may be a few US admirals and a general or two.”

“All we want are quiet bilateral negotiations with our Asian neighbors. We want to avoid a multilateral circus in the UN with bright lights and Western news agencies hanging from the chandeliers.”

“I understand. You want to go one-on-one. Get your neighbors behind closed doors where you can cow them into a corner and fence off the Spratlys behind a Chinese wall. You don’t have to dress it up for me.”

“No, that’s not. .”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Ying. “Imperialism pays. It’s a proven fact. Whether the boot doing the kicking is on a British, American, or Chinese foot, it makes no difference to me.”

Cheng started to get up. To an avowed Communist schooled in the system, these were fighting words.

As the general rose to the bait, eyes blazing from across the table, Ying smiled at him and winked. “I’m sorry. It was a bad joke. In extremely poor taste,” he said. “I apologize. I hope you will forgive me. My sense of humor sometimes gets the better of me. ”

Cheng caught himself. He smiled nervously as he glanced over at his security man, who had come off the stool and was moving toward them. Cheng raised his hand and motioned the man away. He was still angry, uncertain as to whether the American wasn’t still playing with his head. He settled slowly back down into his seat. “Are you willing to help us or not?”

“That would depend on how much you are willing to pay, and in what form?”

Their drinks arrived just in time to chill Cheng’s anger. Ying hung his silver-handled walking stick, the sharp metal beak of the bird’s head catching on the wood at the edge of the table. The imagery was not lost on Cheng: the fact that the alias Ying in Mandarin, translated into English, matched the code name often used to identify the American by Western intelligence agencies-the code name “Eagle.”