He never gave much thought to how the CIA might exfiltrate him from his homeland. It was an event that he’d never expected would happen, and the reality had proven frightening at the time and mundane in retrospect. The escape from his apartment had been sudden and terrifying. Until he walked off the gangway in Seoul, it had driven every thought from his mind except what he needed to survive at the moment. He’d been in the air a half hour after the interview in the private plane, and the release of tension that came with the realization of his safety had left him worn, more so than he could ever remember. He had slept for long hours and finally awakened over California. It was a blessing that saved him from the claustrophobia that could have set in on the cramped little jet that had stopped only for fuel during the flight to… here. An hour’s drive in a car with blackened windows finished the trip to his new home, which was a small colonial-style house in a wooded area near the river.
They wouldn’t tell him where “here” was. After all he had given them, the CIA still did not trust him enough to tell him where he would live out his first year in the United States. He imagined they had a logical reason for it, learned through harsh experience. He certainly was not the first defector they had brought to some rural piece of ground by a river like this one. Just as certainly, some of those other defectors had been double agents who found a way back home. So the CIA would not want Pioneer to know enough to compromise a location where they might bring other defectors from China someday.
The house was small, and temporary to be sure, but palatial by his standards. His Beijing apartment had been small by design and grubby by his habits. This home had two levels, bathrooms on each, and was furnished, with shelves full of books in English that he couldn’t read, and decorated with paintings of cowboys that fascinated him. Pioneer wondered whether there were real cowboys, or were they another creation of movies like the ones that so exaggerated the excitement of life as a spy? He hoped for the former.
Pioneer wondered if the MSS had emptied his Beijing apartment of his possessions yet. He hadn’t owned much, but what he had owned was precious to him. He had brought only his photographs of his mother and father. He wouldn’t have to forget their faces. Had they been alive, he wondered if they would be proud or ashamed of what he had done. His father had never cared for the party and had even spoken hard words about Mao and Deng at times when such sentiments could bring down equally harsh reprisals on those who were too public with their thoughts. It was his mother who had taught him that every choice he made earned a consequence that he couldn’t choose. Pioneer was standing on the bank of a foreign river now because of a single choice he had made more than two decades ago. He wondered whether he would have made the same choice if he could have seen the end from the beginning.
Daily he received visitors in his living room whom he was not free to turn away. He was no longer an active asset, but his mind still held many useful bits of information about the PLA, the Politburo, Tian Kai, MSS programs, and covert human assets, some of which were here in the United States. Picking his brain clean like a vulture over a rotted carcass doubtless would take years. After that, he didn’t know what they would do with him. A man on the plane had promised him, in flawless Mandarin, that he would be given a home, a job, a stipend, and a new name. He didn’t know whether they would let him decide where his new home would be. There were Chinatowns in most US cities of any size, though he didn’t think it would be wise to live in such a neighborhood. Wouldn’t the MSS expect him to hide among his own people? Would it make him easier for them to find? Would they even look for him? If they found him, what would they do? There were no reports from the MSS archives of kidnappings on US soil. Would he be the first?
Barron had promised him US citizenship if he wanted it. His lack of excitement for the offer surprised his old case officer. Pioneer had not committed treason for the United States. The CIA simply had been the conduit through which he could best hope to damage the party. He might have chosen the British or even the Russians had they been in a better position to realize his goals. He wondered if he could have built a new life for himself in Moscow.
Could he do it here? That was the true question. He closed his eyes and listened for God or the river to tell him.
There was no answer.
Barron and several others stood on the short hill behind him, waiting in the cold, including the woman who had pulled him out of his home. They had been there for more than an hour. They had said nothing that he could hear.
He turned his back on the water, sat down on the hard shore, and closed his eyes.
Kyra savored the smell of the Jack Daniels Old No. 7 whiskey and felt her throat aching for a taste but shook her head when Cooke offered her the glass. She wasn’t sure that she wasn’t an alcoholic, and three days dry aboard the Lincoln had taught her that the draw was a little too strong for her comfort. She had restrained herself on the flight home, but she doubted she would have the strength to go dry again if she indulged now.
Cooke shrugged and offered the tumbler to Jonathan. “You realize,” he said, “that whiskey is an industrial-grade solvent flavored with charred creosote leached from oak barrels?”
“Absolutely,” Barron said. He held up his glass. “And mellowed by letting it drip through ten feet of sugar maple charcoal. The end product of a chemical process so improbable it could only have been divinely inspired.”
“I can’t begin to guess how many brain cells that will kill,” Jonathan said.
“Given the occasion, I consider it a worthy trade,” Barron said.
“Amen,” Cooke agreed. “And you should make an exception for once,” she advised Jonathan. “You almost got yourself killed.” There was plenty more she wanted to say about it to him, but not in present company.
“Far be it from me to question management,” Jonathan said, amused. “But a ginger ale will do nicely.”
“Aren’t you just lucky?” Cooke told him. She reached into her shoulder satchel, pulled out a soda can, and handed it to him. “It’s even cold.” Jonathan cracked it open.
“How are the Zhous?” Kyra asked.
“Roland and Rebecca?” Barron replied. “They led the MSS on a merry chase for two hours before getting picked up. They spent an uncomfortable night under some bright lights, but the Ministry finally had to let them go. Their cover held up, and wearing a red backpack isn’t strong evidence to build an espionage case, even in China.” He drained his glass, then continued. “We’ll leave them in place for another few months just for appearances and then bring them home. They’ll get their pick of assignments after that.”
“And what about Pioneer?” Kyra stared down at the Chinese agent sitting on the cold ground before the river.
“Well enough, I think,” Barron told her. “We have him under a discreet suicide watch. The transition period is always rough. It’s the oddest thing. A person can live under so much stress for so long, but it’s after they come out from it that they break emotionally. Threat of death doesn’t stop them, but take away their homeland forever and they consider killing themselves. Pioneer doesn’t seem like the type, but he could use a friendly face if you’d like to help with the debrief.”