Pioneer waited twenty minutes before standing to leave. He had given the MSS nothing to see. He was a humble government servant who had bought dinner and eaten it in a park where he could enjoy the rare warm sunset in winter. Still, he would run another surveillance detection route on his walk home as he always did. No matter how good the planning and careful the execution, any operation run long enough would suffer mistakes owed to chance. Pioneer had been an asset long enough for bad luck to finally get its turn to play in the game.
Mitchell was partial to the classier British term “dead letter box,” but dead drops were his preferred operation. Trying to intercept one was a counterintelligence nightmare and Pioneer had a talent for choosing good sites that gave his case officers the short time needed to retrieve a package even under surveillance. Beijing’s alleys were an embarrassment of riches that gave him time to spare to do his work, especially at night. Figuring out from a distance what a man is doing with his hands at a given moment was almost impossible without the sun’s help.
Mitchell gave himself better-than-even odds that someone was behind him tonight. The MSS hadn’t played rough this time, but one man had shown himself in two places far enough apart to reduce the chance that it was mere coincidence. Mitchell was tall enough that the crowds didn’t give him enough help, so he played with his adversaries, donning a hat, doffing his coat, changing his gross profile from time to time. His overcoat was black, his slacks charcoal gray, and there was no moon, so the shadows cast by buildings and parked cars swallowed him and spit him out every few seconds. Every so often he wandered directly under a streetlight to destroy whatever night vision a surveillance team had managed to preserve.
The little market was not so different from dozens of the stores where he had shopped at home in New York City. Fresh foods sat out on open stands, boxed foods on shelves, cooked meals behind long serving counters. Mitchell made his way through the aisle toward the back. Several men in rumpled clothing sat on bar stools before the counter or a few round tables, eating hot food and reading newspapers. Mitchell couldn’t read the Chinese script handwritten on an old chalkboard pinned to a ceiling rafter that published the menu, but he’d been here enough to know the fare and prices.
The cook was an elderly man named Zhang Rusi. The American had gone out of his way to make friends with Rusi, and not for operational reasons. The old man’s culinary talents were more worthy of the Fangshan than this ramshackle eatery. Rusi had formal training but had abandoned that career to run the market that his family had owned for three generations. The other men sitting around the counter were childhood friends poor enough that they couldn’t afford better than the free food he shared with them. He cared nothing for politics and loved Americans. He had taught Mitchell the game of mahjong, the tuition for which was English lessons, and their matches were still one-sided. Rusi was clever and refused to play below his skill, but the cook appreciated the humility the younger man demonstrated in defeat. Mitchell was improving quickly, and Rusi would be proud when he finally lost a match to the American someday.
“Carl, good evening. How are you?” His accent was harsh but Mitchell had nothing but respect for a man in his seventies who was willing to tackle English as a second language.
Mitchell replied in Mandarin. “Hai hao. Ni ne?” I’m well. And you?
“Hai hao. Will you have dinner with us tonight?”
“I regret that I cannot,” Mitchell replied, keeping his language simple, slow, and formal. Rusi’s comprehension was still lacking. “I would like a bowl of your mapodofu to go, please.”
Rusi nodded his head. He held up a handful of fingers. “Five minutes. And you come tomorrow and play or it will be ten minutes.”
Mitchell smiled and nodded. “I will.” Rusi nodded back, his head dipping low, and threw black bean paste and chopped scallions into his wok.
Mitchell walked past the mahjong tables to the tiny restroom hidden behind a high row of stocked shelving. It was a dirty closet that barely offered a tall man room to squat over the toilet without bumping his knees against the wall. The dark space was lit by a dim bulb, for which Mitchell was grateful. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to see the room under full light lest he lose his appetite. It was hardly Rusi’s fault. The room was as old as the rest of the building, grubby to the point that no amount of scrubbing would ever make the worn concrete and tile floor look clean again.
Mitchell closed the door and reached behind the heater. He felt nothing, suppressed a curse, reached into his coat, pulled out a tiny Maglite and turned the head until it lit. The flashlight had a red lens that dimmed the bulb, though he doubted that anyone outside would have seen any light leaking out from the door. He pointed the Maglite down behind the grating.
Mitchell froze. He swept the beam through the space again and confirmed that he hadn’t just missed the expected package in the low light. The space was empty. He killed the Maglite and sat in the near dark to think.
Pioneer had given the signal that he had loaded this dead drop. The chalk mark on the alley wall had been clear and Pioneer wouldn’t have drawn it before completing his half of the operation. There had been no miscommunication about which site he’d used, but there was nothing here.
The possible explanations were limited. The first was that someone had removed the package. Either that person worked for Chinese security or they did not. If they did, the MSS could be waiting outside the bathroom to grab Pioneer’s handler. If that person did not work for the government, there was an excellent chance they wouldn’t know what they had removed, the package wouldn’t make its way into government hands, and Mitchell would get to walk out of the market with his dinner in hand. In either case, this site was compromised and Mitchell would never play mahjong with Rusi again, or even see him.
The second possibility, that Pioneer was working for the MSS, was worth a moment of panic. The arrest of a station chief would be embarrassing and end Mitchell’s career, but the finest Chinese asset in the Agency’s history turning out to be a double agent would be disastrous on a scale that he wasn’t paid enough to even consider.
The tiny bathroom suddenly felt smaller and he didn’t want to open the door, as though the flimsy wood could protect him from anyone standing outside. He stopped his breathing to listen and did not hear voices of any kind, but that did nothing to reassure him. Had the men playing games outside simply stopped talking, lost in thought over some brilliant lie of the tiles? Could he have heard them anyway? He’d been stupid for not paying attention to that detail the other nights he had come here. Or had Rusi’s friends been hushed by the sight of armed soldiers moving into their private little game parlor? Mitchell could not see the shadows of feet through the small crack at the bottom of the door.
He cleared his mind and forced himself to think about nothing. Lord, help me to accept the things I cannot change, he thought. Mitchell stood, flushed the unused toilet, and washed his hands anyway. He faced the door and turned the knob. The light flooded in.
There were no soldiers, no plainclothes MSS officers. The old men playing mahjong didn’t even look up from their tiles as the bathroom door creaked on its ungreased hinges.
Rusi waved Mitchell over. The mapodofu was ready, boxed to go, and the elderly cook held the brown paper bag out to the man.
“Thank you, Rusi.” For everything. I’m sorry, my friend.
“It is my pleasure, Carl. I look forward to our game tomorrow.”