Spy Games (27 page)

Outside Oxford

The place was only thirty or so minutes north of the city. Nicole turned off the main road, and a mile later she could just make out stands of beech trees and a body of water in the darkness. The road was potholed, barbed wire to either side, and led into woodland.

She pulled in before a silent bungalow in the trees, its pale paintwork streaked with mold, drifts of leaves against its walls. A sign: Holiday Lets. Fishing, Swimming. The minivan was already there. She got out, stood listening. Just wind hissing in the trees. She went to the door, tapped.

Madeline Chen was slumped on a foul, mildewed sofa, her eyes open. The only light was from a table lamp, the curtains drawn. Two of the men were with her. The third, they said, was outside, circling the property. She heard the crackle of a walkie-talkie.

They waited. Two hours, three. The girl began to move, stirring on the sofa, looking at them, her mouth working.

The two men began to undress her, her limbs still limp, unresisting. They left her underwear on, picked her up and sat her on a
kitchen chair, taped her hands behind, her ankles to the chair legs. Her look was coming back to life, her eyes drenched in fear now.

Nicole dragged a chair over and sat in front of her.

“Madeline, can you hear me, sweetheart?”

The girl’s eyes focused on her.

“Can you speak? Or just nod if you’re understanding me.”

The girl nodded.

“You’ll be back to normal very soon. I promise.” She raised her eyebrows, gave the girl a questioning look. The girl nodded again.

“I’m going to ask you some questions and it’s very, very important that you answer them, okay? It’s very important, Madeline. And then when you’ve answered them, we can all get out of here and get back to normal, and no one will know any of this happened.”

The girl’s eyes roamed around the room.

“It’s important for you and for your family. Some people are making some stupid mistakes, Madeline, and it’s important that you should not be one of them. So you can carry on with your life and we can be friends.”

The girl blinked, her face pallid, a sheen on her forehead.

“I think your father, or someone in your family has told you something about a plan. A plan to attack the Fan family. To ruin them. You’ve heard about this, haven’t you?”

The girl made a barely discernible shake of her head.

Nicole looked down, put her hand to her mouth.
Let’s try this again.

“You need to let us know what this is about, sweetheart. Really, you do. Let’s think back.”

She raised her hand and put it to the girl’s cheek.

“You father has spoken about this, hasn’t he? You’ve heard him speak about it, haven’t you?”

The girl seemed to be making a monumental effort, leaning back in her chair. She jerked forward and spat at Nicole. One of the men handed Nicole a tissue and she wiped her face, waited a beat, smiled.

“I don’t doubt your bravery, Madeline. I don’t doubt your loyalty to your family. Those are good things. But some mistakes have been made, sweetheart, and we just need to make a readjustment or two.”

Nicole looked meaningfully at the two men in the room.

“And we don’t have very long. It’s much better you talk to me than to them.”

Madeline was starting to speak, the words coming out half-formed, as if her lips were numb or cold.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“But you do,” said Nicole.

“Not… anything.”

“But you told the Fan boy, didn’t you, that something was going to happen.”

“Don’t know what will happen.”

“Well, Madeline, we have to know what you
do
know, sweetheart.”

The girl sat back, shivered.

Nicole sighed, rubbed her eyes.

“Where is your father now?”

The girl shrugged, her eyes down.

“When did you last talk to him?”

Madeline thought.

“Last week.”

“And what did you talk about?”

Another shrug.

“When did he last talk to you about the Fan family?”

She shook her head.

“When you said ‘something is coming’ to Fan Kaikai, what did you mean?”

“Nothing. I just meant… that things are changing. China is changing. That’s all.”

“I think you meant something a bit more specific than that.”

She shook her head.

“You have to do better than this, Madeline.”

She shook her head again. Nicole leaned in to her.

“You
have
to do better. These men… they’re waiting. Soon they’ll want to take over.”

The girl blinked, fear staining her eyes.

“Why? Who are they?”

“They are from Beijing, sweetheart. They’re very, very serious. This whole thing is very serious. You must start talking to us, properly now.”

The girl was shifting, squirming, looking at the men. A tear rolled down her cheek.

“I know,” said Nicole. “So talk to me. What did your father say about the Fans? About a plan.”

The girl looked away, crying now.

“Nothing. Just… just he wanted to get rid of them.”

“Okay, that’s good. That’s very good. Well done. Now when was this?”

“Spring. March, maybe.”

“Good. And what exactly did he say?”

“Just like what I told you. They had to go. Things would change.”

Nicole was nodding, smiling.

“Good, good. Now what did he say about when, and how?”

The girl looked at her, shook her head, closed her eyes and the tears spilled out.

One of the men spoke.

“All right. Time now.”

Nicole ignored him.

“Come on, Madeline. Quickly now. Tell me. Just tell me anything he said.”

The man walked across the room, gestured at her with his chin. Nicole sighed. The girl was shaking.

The man was holding a plastic bag, a length of elastic. He spoke again.

“We need to move this along.”

Nicole looked up at him. He gestured again with his chin. She looked at Madeline, then got up and walked away. The girl began making a mewling sound, straining against the tape.

Chiang Mai

Mangan found he was all but past caring. Exhausted, dehydrated, sweat and fear in his pores, the pain in his side flaring with each step.

And at exactly that point, Philip, when you are exhausted and lonely and afraid, and you get sloppy, is when they find you.

He remembered Patterson talking, at one of their sessions at the Paddington house.

So when you find yourself there, go to ground, if you can. Lock the door, close the curtains. Do nothing. Sleep. Eat. Wait for daylight. Then make a plan.

He took a taxi, then another, then walked for a while. It was midnight and the streets were quietening. He went into a late night supermarket, wandered up and down the aisles. Up and down. Nobody wandered with him.

He bought a bottle of vodka, antiseptic cream, bandages, sticking plaster, plastic bags. The man behind the counter looked at him, saw the dried blood on his shirt and whatever had happened to his chin and frowned.

He paid, took the carrier bag, walked to the back of the store, slipped through a plastic curtain into a storage area. A woman in a surgical mask and rubber gloves was sweeping the floor. She gestured at him, urging him back the way he had come. Mangan said something, pointed to his watch and smiled, kept walking. A steel door led out to an alleyway, the reek of piss. He didn’t know where he was. He kept walking, then took a taxi he found crawling slowly along the street.

Back at the Banyan, he stood in the bathroom, picking pieces of grit from the gash on his chin. His shin was scraped raw and badly bruised. He taped his ribs, poured an inch of vodka, lit a cigarette and sat on the bed.

He unwrapped the pistol. It was a Chinese thing, metallic and heavy, the butt emblazoned with a star, a weird retro look to it, bringing to mind People’s Liberation Army propaganda posters, rosy-cheeked soldiers, the glow of a Maoist dawn behind them, brandishing just such
a weapon. Two full clips. He unloaded it, worked the slide, found the safety catch.

One of the two passports, the weapon, the two clips and some of the money went in plastic bags and into the cistern in the bathroom.

He logged on to the darknet site.

He turned off the light and stood at the window for a while. He watched the insects drifting through the light from street lamps, a dog, watchful, pacing.

No response.

He lowered himself gingerly onto the bed, tried to sleep.

Outside Oxford

Nicole left the room, walked down a darkened hallway to a grimy kitchen, battered Formica cabinets, a stove, vinyl floor tiles. The place smelled of damp. She sat at the table. A pack of cigarettes lay there, a lighter. One of the men’s, obviously, Zhongshan brand.

Poor tradecraft, she thought. They’ll find the butts.

She took one, lit it, exhaled, closed her eyes, ran a hand through her hair, listened. She was part of it, now. The realization was thick, heavy, tinged with loathing. This filthy place. She had thought of herself as something other than this. To Gristle, she was just… whatever he needed her to be. She felt a flicker of anger. His protection be damned.

A thump from the front room, muffled voices.

She sat, smoked, waited.

The man came into the kitchen after seven or eight minutes. It doesn’t take long, she thought. She stood up and went back to the front room.

The chair had fallen over and Madeline, still taped to it by the hands and ankles, lay on her side. She shook violently, her face white,
hair plastered to her forehead, jaw trembling. Her chest was heaving, as if she’d run a long way. The man lifted her and set the chair on its feet. Nicole leaned over her.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

The girl’s look was stunned, disbelieving.

“Now you must tell us what your father said, Madeline, or I’m afraid it will happen again.”

She was moaning, shaking her head, her mouth distending, turning down at the corners.

“Tell me, Madeline.”

The man walked back across the room, opening up the plastic bag, and Nicole heard a muffled scream as she left the room.

It took four applications of the bag—whether from the girl’s innate toughness or her panic and confusion, it was hard to tell. Nicole looked at her watch. It was nearly four in the morning. She wanted to be gone by daylight.

“Madeline.”

The girl was slumped in the chair, tendrils of snot and saliva dangling from her. She seemed very small and weak.

“Madeline.”

The head moved upward fractionally.

Nicole leaned over, put her hand under the girl’s chin and pushed the head up.

“Did your father talk to you?”

A nod.

“When is he going to move?”

“Soon. This month.”

“Why now?”

“Before Beidaihe.” Beidaihe, the annual retreat of the Communist Party elite to a scruffy beach resort. The place where strategies were planned, deals were done.

“What did he tell you is to happen?”

“Arrests.”

“Who?”

“Fans.”

“All of them?”

A nod.

“Names, Madeline. Who else is involved?”

“The staff.”

“Your father’s?”

A nod.

“Who else?”

“There’s a colonel. 2PLA. He’s in the south. Kunming. Friends down there.”

“His name, Madeline?”

“Don’t know.”

“Really?”

A nod, the tears coming again.

“In Kunming? Is that where the friends are?”

“There’s a place, somewhere they control. It’s… on the border. There.”

The man was stepping forward with the bag. But Nicole gestured no. There wasn’t much more.

What there was, was another hypodermic. And a medevac jet waiting at Kidlington airport twelve miles away. The real interrogation was still to come, somewhere out of the country, somewhere secure. And Nicole pushed the thought to the fringes of her mind, picked up her things, left without a word, gunning the Mini down the track.

Gristle was waiting. He’d come in on a diplomatic passport and was sitting, crumpled, diminished, on the edge of the bed in the Hounslow safe house. The traffic roared past outside, trucks rattling the windows. She leaned against the mantelpiece, exhausted.

He just said, “And?”

She walked across the room and handed a memory stick to him.

“The recording’s on there,” she said.

“Tell me,” he said.

“There wasn’t much, but enough, maybe.”

“
Tell me.
”

“It sounds like some kind of factional thing. General Chen wants to take down the Fan family, all their people, networks. He’ll use 2PLA to do it. They have some sort of support structure in Kunming, the southwest.”

“When?”

“This month.”

“She said that?”

“Before the Beidaihe meeting.”

Her mouth was like sandpaper. She felt clammy, her clothes clinging to her. She was frightened, she realized, and exhausted. Gristle looked appalled.

“What happens now?” she said.

“Now?” he repeated. “Now, you go back to Oxford and get ready.”

“Ready? For what?”

“Fan Kaikai’s an easy target. He talks too much. He doesn’t know how much he knows.”

He looked at her.

“They may come for him,” he said.

She nodded. He was looking past her, into some private nightmare. “The fucking soldiers, you know. Self-righteous bastards. Always muttering about how special they are. How they’re better than the people they serve.” He was holding a cigarette between his second and third fingers, shaking a lighter.

“What happens?” she said.

The
snick
of the lighter.

“What happens? Well, after what we’ve done to his daughter, General Chen goes berserk, I imagine.”

It was getting light. Nicole went downstairs, found a couch, slept.

For a spy, Patterson reflected, there truly are no coincidences.

She had been putting her jacket on, clearing her desk of every last scrap of paper, logging off for the day, when the ping from the Police National Computer ticked up on her screen.

Another one?

She sat down.

A Thames Valley Police report.

M
ADELINE CHEN, PRC NATIONAL, STUDENT, CURRENTLY RESIDING OXFORD, REPORTED MISSING
.

Today’s date.

R
EPORT FILED BY FAN KAIKAI, PRC NATIONAL, STUDENT, CURRENTLY RESIDING OXFORD
.

She called the detective, a DC Busby, on his mobile phone. Hubbub in the background.

“Give me a minute,” he said. The hubbub receded.

“Very distraught, he was,” said Busby. “Said he’d been around to her house, no answer, didn’t answer her phone. Didn’t reply to messages he left in her pigeonhole, whatever that means.”

“How long?” she asked.

“Well, that’s just it. Twenty-four hours, less. I told him, not much we can do. She’s an adult. Give it some time, she’ll turn up. But he was screeching down the phone. ‘No, no, you don’t understand, something’s happened, she’s been taken away by…’ well, I couldn’t understand much to be honest. He was becoming rather emotional.”

“I need to talk to him.”

“Talk to Five. Get a warrant.”

“I’ve got one.”

“Really?”

“No.”

There was a pause.

“That’s a problem.”

“No, it’s not.”

Another, longer pause.

“Well, I might be going to check up on young Mr. Fan in about two hours’ time.”

“I’ll be there.”

“No, you won’t be. And if you were, you wouldn’t say anything.”

“Not a thing.”

She wouldn’t—couldn’t—take a Service car. Instead, she booked one online, jogged to Horseferry Road to pick it up. She pulled out into the traffic, pushed and nosed her way across the West End. The way out of town was slow but it cleared on the M40 and she drove into blinding evening sunlight, into a green-gold middle England.

As she drove, she tried to lay the pieces out, place them in order.

A new source brings gifts, but we do not know from where, or why.

Someone is probing. There is a plan.

Among the gifts, weapons to hurt the Fans, their corporation. Weapons to pierce the political-corporate heart of power in China.

We have found a place where two plates meet.

The Fan boy’s laptop is stolen.

The Chen girl disappears.

There are no coincidences.

By eight she was parking in St Giles. Detective Constable Busby was leaning against his car. He looked pointedly at his watch.

“What did he say to you, on the phone? Exactly, what did he say?”

“Good evening to you, too. Can I see some ID?”

She pulled her badge from her pocket and he fingered it, intrigued.

“Please,” she said. “This could be very, very important.”

He gave her a lingering look, then folded his arms, speaking in a way meant to signify disbelief.

“He said there was some sort of plot. In China. That this missing girl, Madeline Chen, had said, no, hinted, to him that there was a plot in China, and ‘people’ were coming to take him. Fan Kaikai. Here, in Oxford. But then she’s the one who disappears. Can you imagine? Not often we get global intrigue here. Not often I get to talk to people like you.”

“Who was coming to take him?”

“Just these ‘people.’ They’re already here, apparently, wandering our sylvan streets. None of it made any sense. To me at least. Maybe it does to you.” He looked down at her badge again, then handed it back to her.

“I need to ask him—”

“You don’t ask him anything. You have no jurisdiction, you have no warrant. You lot may not operate on UK soil without authorization.
I
will ask him.”

She held her hands up.

“Ask him, please, for whatever he can tell us about these ‘people.’ Who they are, who they represent. Why they are doing what they are doing.”

“What
are
they doing?” said Busby.

“I don’t know, and even if I did, I couldn’t tell you.”

He grimaced.

“You can assure me that this is… important, can you?”

She just nodded. He looked her up and down, then pushed himself off the car and started along the street.

Kai answered their knock, wide-eyed in a T-shirt, shorts, flip-flops. They went into his rooms. Patterson noted the bare walls, the lack of possessions, clothing strewn on the floor, the smell of bedding, sleep. The room of a child, she thought.

They sat. DC Busby cleared his throat.

“Mr. Fan, these people you referred to. The ones who are coming for you, who are they, please?”

“They are, maybe, from the Chen family.”

The detective frowned.

“They are family members?”

“No, no. They are like bodyguards, or security. Probably they are military.”

“Military? Well, now. You are suggesting we have Chinese soldiers on the streets of Oxford.”

“The Chens, they are military. They have many supporters.”

“And why would they want to harm you?”

“They… they hate my family, yes. But there is more, I think.”

“What more?” said Patterson. The detective turned and glared at her. “Is there something happening in China? Is someone attacking your family, your father, your uncle, maybe?”

The boy looked alarmed.

“I… I don’t know…”

“What my colleague means,” Busby began, “is—”

The door flew open. Kai jumped almost out of his chair. A woman strode in, dropped a bag on the floor. She stopped and looked at them: first the detective, then at Patterson. Very calm, very controlled. Of East Asian appearance, slender, striking, even in jeans and fleece and no makeup, and her hair up in a casual knot. Holds herself well, athletic, fit. Without saying a word the woman turned and regarded Kai, and Patterson saw the cold fury in her. The boy shrank. He’s terrified, she thought. The woman’s eyes flickered past the boy,
to the other room, then to the detective, his shoulders, torso, then to Patterson, running over her waist.

She’s looking for weapons.

Busby spoke, held out his business card.

“We were just having a short conversation with Mr. Fan here. We’ll be done soon.”

The woman looked at his card.

“Well, I think Mr. Fan has probably answered enough questions for now,” she said.

American accent, intonation, layered over the clip of south China. Taiwan, maybe?
Who the hell is she?

Patterson spoke.

“We were asking Mr. Fan about the disappearance of a… a fellow student of his, Madeline Chen. Were you aware of—”

DC Busby was speaking over her.

“Yes, might we ask if you are aware of Miss Chen’s whereabouts?”

The woman was staring at Patterson.
She’s wondering why I don’t get to ask the questions. Why I don’t give her a business card.

The woman had turned to the detective.

“I am not aware of Madeline Chen, or of her disappearance. Mr. Fan has no information either.” She turned to the boy. “Do you?” He said nothing, looked down, his fingers clenched tight in his lap.

She’s cool as a bloody cucumber, thought Patterson. Busby could see it too.

“Might I ask your name and the nature of your relationship with Mr. Fan?”

“You may not ask my name and I am a family friend. That is all. And I think it is time for you to leave. Mr. Fan has nothing else to say.”

Patterson stood.

“I’m not sure we are ready to leave quite yet,” she said with a smile.

The woman held out her hand.

“Identification,” she snapped.

“That won’t be necessary,” said the detective.

“Why won’t she show me identification? Who is she?” said the
woman, her voice rising. She bent down suddenly, reaching for her bag on the floor. She pulled a phone from it, pointed it directly at Patterson and snapped three pictures, the
snick
sound of the simulated shutter.

I have just been made, thought Patterson.

This woman is a professional
.

DC Busby had his hands out in a calming gesture and was burbling about how sorry he was, and how we’d be going now. But Patterson raised an index finger, pointed at the woman and spoke in Mandarin. “I think you and I can help each other,” she said.

The woman cocked her head to one side. She had beautiful, hard eyes, eyes that a certain kind of man would submit to.

“
Zhen de ma?
” Really? she said.

Busby was hopping from one foot to another with anxiety.

I will just hazard this one, thought Patterson.

“We need to know what the Chens are doing. Here, and in China,” she said.

The woman considered, measuring her response.

She knows.

“Whatever they thought they were doing,” the woman said, “it is no longer relevant.”

Patterson opened her mouth to speak again, but she felt the detective’s hand on her arm.

“That’s
enough
,” he hissed.

“You should listen to him,” said the woman, with a dismissive flick of her wrist.

Patterson felt a surge of anger, the urge to act: to take the step forward, put heel to knee, knuckle to throat. The woman sensed it and moved a step away from her, her eyes dropping to Patterson’s hands.

“We are leaving.
Now
,” said the detective.

Patterson looked at the woman as Busby tugged at her sleeve. She spoke in Mandarin again.

“I will be seeing you again. Soon.”

The woman actually smiled.

“Don’t wish for things you can’t have,” she said.

As he closed the door behind them, Patterson, furious, lingered on the staircase and listened, and heard from inside the room the beginning of her tirade against the boy, delivered in controlled, rapid Taiwan
-
inflected Mandarin:
just what in the name of god were you doing talking to the police, you fucking imbecile.
But DC Busby was pulling her away down the creaking staircase.

Patterson pulled onto the motorway in twilight, Busby’s raging admonishments to silence ringing in her ears. She pushed him out of her mind, tried to let the thoughts come by themselves, to let the pieces float and move and cohere.

Over here, the establishment: Chinese royalty, cloaked in wealth, dripping with corporate and Party power.

And over there, an insurgency.

They are circling each other, sniffing the air, readying for the fight.

And where will Mangan be when it all starts? she wondered.

Where is my agent?