Tian offered the pleasantries befitting a head of state addressing his country, speaking with a practiced manner, calm, not so different from the official manner he had used with Dunne in the office at Zhongnanhai. Most men would have been nervous speaking even to just the few thousand in the Great Hall, and Tian knew the real audience was far larger… though he was, in truth, talking to an audience of one. There were televisions in the White House.
Tian finally broached the true subject with a grave look. “It is with the greatest sorrow and reluctance that I have convened this special session of the National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Four days ago, the government of Taiwan arrested eight citizens of the People’s Republic of China on charges of espionage. I have been assured that these arrests were carried out with the full knowledge and approval of President Liang himself. We have requested assurances of the health and safety of those arrested, but we have been refused even that courtesy.”
“This is not how I wanted to start my morning,” Cooke said. “It would be nice if the president could convince Liang to declare the whole lot of them persona non grata and send them all back to Beijing.”
“Not likely,” Jonathan said. “The ‘One China’ policy keeps us from saying that Tian’s boys were even trespassing, much less committing espionage.”
“Keeps us on a short leash,” Kyra observed. “I bet Tian likes it that way.”
“That’s what happens when you base your foreign policy on a lie,” Jonathan said. “And the longer we stick to it, the more painful it’s going to be when we finally have to back out.”
“It’s better to keep the peace so China and Taiwan can work it out through diplomacy,” Cooke said.
“You’re assuming that they can work it out through diplomacy,” Jonathan told her.
Mitchell took a deep breath and regretted it. The Beijing smog was worse than the floating filth in his native Los Angeles air, and that was an impressive feat. The dusky sky of his first night in Beijing three years ago had appeared threatening until one of the embassy officers told him that the dark clouds on the horizon had nothing to do with rain.
Mitchell cleared his mind and cursed his lack of mental discipline. Detecting surveillance while in a car required total focus, though tonight he needed less than usual. He’d chosen to make his run during Tian’s speech officially because he hoped at least some of the MSS would be watching it instead of working the street. Unofficially he just couldn’t stand to listen to the Chinese head of state. But the surveillance team two cars back had done everything but tap his bumper, relieving him of the need to think too hard about where any unwanted guests might be. But it was night and they had to stay close or lose Mitchell to the tide of traffic. Vehicular surveillance in a crowded city — and few had as many residents as Beijing — was the most difficult kind to perform. Traffic patterns were uncontrollable. Keeping a single car close to the target without being seen was no small task, and moving other cars along parallel side streets was more complicated still.
“Almost there,” the driver, another case officer, said.
“Take the corner,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell’s driver pulled the car into the far right lane. He turned the corner and stopped short, forcing the cars behind to brake hard. Mitchell opened his door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, then turned and said something meaningless to his driver, as though to thank him for the ride. The driver nodded, then pulled out into traffic — he would just drive home — and the chief of station walked in the opposite direction.
Vehicular surveillance was hard enough, but making the sudden shift from vehicle to foot pursuit was agony. The MSS officers could stay on the car, but there was no way the Chinese could have had prepositioned anyone to cover Mitchell’s dismount. The only men who could follow him would have to come from the cars, so their numbers would be limited. Mitchell had identified only two cars, the first of which ignored the light, turned the corner at the first available moment, and accelerated as much as traffic would allow.
That left the second. If there were other cars on the side streets, they could add to the count — maybe even providing enough manpower to establish a small surveillance bubble around him, given a minute or two. He refused to give it to them. The ground was going to open up and swallow Carl Mitchell whole before they would get the chance.
“Our requests for the prisoners’ release have gone unanswered. Taiwan’s government has refused even to allow our representatives to visit and assess whether our accused citizens are being well treated and have adequate legal representation. The charges are without merit, the arrests were without cause, the citizens detained are without guilt. Liang must personally account for the well-being and safe return of every one of our citizens.” Tian had been talking for two minutes and no one had made a sound. He wasn’t looking at the teleprompter or the papers on the podium. The president of the People’s Republic of China was orating from memory now.
“The members of the Politburo Standing Committee have discussed these recent events at length. Their resolution in the face of unwarranted and illegal political persecution of our citizens is unanimous and firm. There is no division of opinion among us or among the citizens of this great nation on this matter. It is a dangerous step that undermines cross-Strait relations for Liang to refuse us access to our people.”
Tian struck the podium with his open palm. “The arrest of innocent citizens of our nation was a fraud, a first step toward separation, a first step toward secession, a first step toward independence!”
“He just went off script,” Cooke said.
“Yes, he did,” Jonathan agreed. He scrubbed through the text Dunne had provided and finally tossed the transcript back onto the desk. “It’s not in the speech. He’s making this up.”
“Or Tian left it out of our copy on purpose,” Kyra said.
Cooke let out a racial slur that would have cost her a Senate confirmation.
Catch me if you can. Mitchell stood at the corner and looked up the street at the oncoming traffic. He had a free excuse to watch the second car that he’d culled from the river of automobiles and he used it. Two men crawled out as quickly as they could and started toward him. They were more than half a block away.
Only two. I can deal with two. Especially at night. The night changed everything. The playing field was now skewed in Mitchell’s favor. The street was a riptide of bodies pushing against the two men — Beijing’s twelve million citizens working against their own government for a few minutes. It would buy Mitchell time, at least a bare few seconds at the right moment when the Chinese security services would have no eyes on him. That would be enough, but if the subways were on schedule tonight, he would earn far more time than that.
The light changed and Mitchell merged with the mob of citizens who began to march across the broad Jiaodaokou Dongdajie avenue. He walked no faster than the crowd. The two MSS officers didn’t reach the corner before the light changed again and Mitchell was on the other side of the street with a wall of moving cars between. The two men tried to step into the street, but a near miss with a car that didn’t bother to slow down changed their minds.
Shaking surveillance was not difficult but rarely done, because it would infuriate the watchers and earn retribution later. The skillful part was to make the watchers think that either bad luck or their own incompetence was to blame. The two men on the other side of the street couldn’t prove that Mitchell even knew they were there. All the chief of station had done was get out of a car and cross the street. Like a master musician, it was all in the timing.