French intelligence would welcome her back with open arms.
She wasn’t going to breathe a word of this to Riley, of course. Instead, she would mention her going-away party to Ryan the next day when he came to her department, and she would spend the evening ignoring Baggett and cultivating Ryan as an asset.
She smiled to herself, satisfied to be finishing one job and overlapping into a job that had the potential to reap incredible rewards.
44
Adam flew from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, and from there to Shanghai on an Airbus A330 flown by China Eastern. He sat in the back of coach and spent his time listening to Korean-language audio files on his mobile phone.
He erased the files two hours before touchdown in China so there would be no record of his study of the language anywhere on his person.
Shortly after landing, Adam entered the immigrations area of Shanghai Pudong International Airport, waited his turn, and then stepped up to the immigration control officer sitting behind a desk. The man took Adam’s U.S. passport — it claimed his name was Shan Xin — and then looked through it. He stopped on the Chinese visa, affixed to one of the pages.
In Mandarin he asked, “You are Chinese?”
“Yes. I left China eighteen years ago to go to school in U.S.”
“You haven’t been back here?”
“No, sir.”
“Married an American?” The immigration officer didn’t know this, but he assumed as much.
“That is correct. I am home to visit family.”
“Where is your Chinese passport?”
“I lost it long ago. The embassy said I could travel on my U.S. passport and obtain a new Chinese passport while I am here if I provide my birth records. All that information is here with my mother.”
The officer eyed Yao carefully, then began thumbing through his passport slowly. He checked the few stamps that were there, and then he put the passport under a tabletop magnifier and examined the binding.
If Adam hadn’t known what was going on he would have been nervous, but he was aware they always did this at Chinese immigration control. The man was looking for evidence a page or pages had been removed with a razor in an attempt to get rid of entrance stamps. Foreigners traveling to China are not admitted if they have any Nepal entrance stamps.
The control officer found nothing amiss, and four minutes after stepping up to the desk, Adam Yao took his passport back, hefted his luggage off the floor, and began walking toward the arrivals area of the airport. He was now, according to his legend, Shan Xin, a Chinese national.
Three hours after arriving in Shanghai, Adam Yao entered a plain building in Shanghai’s Kunshan suburb. Inside he took an elevator to the second floor and then knocked on an unmarked metal door. He saw the peephole darken for a moment, and then an intercom next to the door crackled.
In Mandarin, he heard: “Name?”
“Shan Xin. I have an appointment with Mr. Hu.”
The door clicked open. Two men looked at his passport and then they frisked him carefully, removing his wallet, his mobile phone, and even a watch. One of them said, “Listening devices. Everyone must be searched.”
Adam had brought nothing incriminating into China, so he remained relaxed, and soon they led him into an office where a dour-looking older man sat behind a desk. This was Hu; Adam knew because he had videoconferenced with the man from Virginia via Skype in order to get the job. At the time, Hu had explained the job would be at one of the gangster miner operations in Mongolia, and he’d stressed that he needed Adam — or Shan Xin, as he knew him — to come to Shanghai as soon as possible for further vetting and processing.
As in the Skype teleconference, in person Hu was all business. He questioned Adam on his background, and on his knowledge of the computer system used to operate the hydraulic cone crushers. Adam could tell from the outset this wasn’t some sort of security check to confirm Yao’s identity. Instead, Hu was just making sure that Shan Xin possessed the qualifications for the job. Adam had passed all this in their Skype interview two weeks earlier, but it was clear to Yao that Hu was a careful man.
Perhaps not careful enough to recognize a CIA plant, but more than careful enough not to hire an unqualified employee.
Finally the older Chinese man was satisfied, and he pulled out some paperwork. “As we are not state-owned, we have a more informal approach.”
Adam thought Hu’s understatement was funny. Not only was the company not state-owned, it was wholly illegal. He kept his face blank.
“You will work on an eight-week contract, and you can be let go at any time.”
“Yes.”
“After eight weeks you can get one week off, or you can keep working if you want.”
Adam wanted to look eager. “I came here to work. Not for vacation.”
Hu looked him over and then nodded. He said, “You will tell no one that you have been in America. Ever. Certainly you will keep quiet that you have an American passport. I will keep it here. It is procedure.”
Yao knew why, but he pretended like he didn’t. “The people at the mine don’t like Americans?”
Hu lit a cigarette and leaned back. He spoke matter-of-factly. “This processing plant you are going to is not in Mongolia like we said. I wasn’t allowed to mention it before you came here, and when I tell you where you will be working you will understand why.”
Yao was a good actor, and reveled in the portrayal of a man genuinely confused. “I don’t understand. Where will I be working?”
“Later today you and forty-three other men and women will travel in a bus to the airport and you will board a plane to Pyongyang. The mine is in the north of the DPRK, not very far from the border with China.”
Yao’s eyes went wide. Before he spoke, Hu said, “It is all arranged at the highest levels of their state-owned mining corporation. Once you are in the air to Pyongyang, a North Korean government official will give you the documentation you need to get into the country.”
“What about the Chinese government?”
“To the government here, you never left China.”
Adam raised no complaints, and he signed all the papers using the name Shan Xin.
Hu finished the meeting with a warning. “We already have sent over one hundred fifty workers to the mining operation in North Korea. They are paid well, so they do not complain, but they report difficult conditions.”
“I understand.”
“Remember, you will be working in a facility under guard at all times. Don’t do anything to raise any suspicion with the authorities in North Korea. Do your work. Don’t ask questions, don’t look around, don’t complain, and don’t give them any reason to mistrust you. You do this and you will make a lot of money. If you don’t do this… there is nothing anyone here can do for you.”
Adam nodded calmly, as if blowing off the warning. But the truth was different. He felt an unmistakable feeling of dread about where he was going.
The flight from Shanghai to Pyongyang was in an Airbus A319 flown by Deer Jet, a Chinese charter company based in Beijing. On board the aircraft Adam met a few of the others heading to Chongju. Most if not all seemed bewildered by the fact they were heading into North Korea.
It was clear all these men and women were educated professionals. They didn’t look like miners any more than Adam did. He knew that in order to staff the processing facility Hu and his gangster mining company needed to recruit qualified systems engineers, computer technicians, and other high-tech industry professionals, and few if any of these people would have experience with the criminal underworld. Adam hoped to use this to his advantage. He’d fit in better where he was going if he behaved just like the rest of them. A little wide-eyed about the whole thing, but dedicated to his one specific role.