Shreed, who has shown signs of instability and whose wife recently died, had a mental seizure and set out to destroy his Chinese control.”
He took out a wrinkled package of Pear Blossoms and tapped one out. “Or: we have no idea.” He flicked the lighter, a cheap plastic one in bright peacock blue and lit the cigarette. He stared at Lao. “If the Americans have Chen, we will have been badly hurt. That is not your problem. If the Americans do not have Chen, then your problem is to find him and to bring him back. To fail to bring him back will be to fail the nation and its leaders. Unh?” He smoked, staring at Lao. “All right, ask your questions.”
“Can I investigate this village in Pakistan?”
“Yes. I warn you, it is still a hot zone; Pakistan and India are shooting over Kashmir. We will give you everything we found in the village.”
“Forensics?”
“Get it done. Our country team didn’t have the time or the skill for forensics.”
“What about the American, Shreed?”
The man took another turn to the window and stood there with his back to Lao. The General, still smiling, sat looking at Lao. Finally the civilian turned and said, “Shreed is a brilliant man. He has been a productive agent for twelve years. Still, like any agent, he could be a double. Scenario: the shooting in the village was a cover; Shreed and Chen were pulled out, and now both are in America.”
“Do you know that?”
“I don’t know anything!” A hank of the man’s coarse hair fell over his face, and he pushed it back with his free hand, hitting himself in the forehead as he did so as if punishing himself. “The Americans are saying that Shreed is dead. They are having a funeral, trumpeting the death rites. Is that natural?”
“Do you think Shreed is dead?”
“Don’t ask me! What do you think we want you for?”
Lao could see that the General was leaning his elbows on a file. The characters on the outside of the file were from an old code word. American Go. Lao had heard the name whispered before. High-level material from Washington, sometimes political, sometimes espionagerelated. So American Go was George Shreed. Lao wanted to laugh aloud. Chen had been running a penetration of the Operational Directorate in the CIA. No wonder he won every fight in Beijing.
The Westerner and the General talked about details for some minutes—Shreed, Chen, the reason why Chen himself had gone to Pakistan to meet with Shreed. Neither the General nor the civilian was being quite forthright, Lao thought. He wondered if he was simply being set up so that they would have a scapegoat. They talked almost as if he wasn’t there. He wanted to smoke, felt too junior to light up, although both older men were smoking hard.
“If Chen isn’t in America but is dead or wounded—” He pushed himself in like a timid housewife at a fish stall.
“Yes, yes—?”
“I would like to be ready to make a forensic examination, if I have to. If I find him. Fingerprints, DNA—”
The civilian waved his cigarette and growled, “Yes, of course,” and muttered something about the files. The General nodded and separated the top three from the stack. Lao could see that he was reluctant, even now, to hand them over. “If you accept, then I suggest you take these with you—you will have an aircraft to fly you back to Dar es Salaam, plenty of time to read in an absolutely secure atmosphere.”
“I won’t go direct to Dar, General. I’ll start in Pakistan.”
“Good. Time is short.” He hesitated. “These are the communications files that Chen used with Shreed.” He put one file down on the desk. “Pass-throughs, cutouts, dead drops.” He put down the second file. “Electronic communications, mostly the Internet—Shreed was a master of the computer.” He put down the third file. “Communications plans for face-to-face meetings. Three places—Nairobi, Jakarta, and the village in Pakistan where the shootout took place. We consider that the Pakistan site is no longer usable; therefore, Nairobi or Jakarta.” He gave Lao a look.
“These are the original files from American Go? Or substitutes?” Lao was suddenly sharp. He winced at his own tone, imagined that he could be marched from here to a basement and shot, but he knew he was being used and he might as well be used efficiently.
The two exchanged a look. The Westerner wrapped a length of hair around his fist and twisted, gave an odd sort of grunt. “Substitutes,” he conceded.
“I want the originals. I want the entire case, not three files.” Lao threw caution to the winds. “If you want me to find Chen, I think I need to have everything Chen was working on.”
The General smiled, the last gesture Lao expected. “I told you he was sharp,” he said, talking to the Westerner as if Lao was not in the room. The General lit himself a Pear Blossom, lit one for the Westerner. Then he reached behind his desk and started to sort folders, old ones with red spines. Lao imagined hundreds of folders in the vast space he couldn’t see behind the General’s desk, all the secrets of the universe. He shook his head to clear it.
Then they went over some of it again, and the General handed several files to Lao and told him that the entire case would be sent to him in the diplomatic bag at Dar es Salaam. Lao said that he would rather work out of Beijing, and the General’s eyes almost disappeared in a smile and he said that, of course, who wouldn’t rather be in Beijing, but they wanted him to stay where he was. “For cover.” They didn’t know if Chen had associates who might smell a rat if Lao worked from the capital. And there were other elements in the People’s Army and the Party who might try to interfere, for their own purposes—times were difficult—Lao’s mind had caught on the expression “for cover;” you didn’t need cover within your own service unless you were doing something fatally risky, he was thinking.
“So,” the General said finally, “you will accept this responsibility?” He said it smiling, as if Lao had a choice.
“Of course,” Lao said firmly, although he, too, knew they had passed the point of choice when he demanded the folders.
“The people will be grateful.”
The third man made another of his chopping gestures. “The people will never know! We will be grateful, which is what matters.” He began to cough.
“There is another matter, Colonel Lao.” The General’s aged geniality had vanished. “It actually falls under your responsibilities at Dar es Salaam—a Middle Eastern matter. I speak of the loss of face we suffered when the Americans shot down two of our aircraft and got their agents and Shreed out of Pakistan. We were made to look like children in this matter. We were humiliated in front of the Pakistanis. We will pay for this failure for years. Admittedly, we may have been too ‘forward leaning.’ That is not for me to say. But we have been tasked to register our anger with the power that interfered with us.”
Lao had an armful of critically secret folders and was burning to begin his investigation. The idea that there was further business irritated him. “Yes, sir?”
“We are going to target a strike on one of their carriers. The one that was used in Pakistan.”
The General opened yet another file and tossed it on the desk.
Lao had to change his grip on his stack
