“Keep trying on Papa Bear.”
“Yes, sir.”
Assume the worst-case scenario, Haverford told himself.
Assume that Voroshenin has Guibert and is sweating him.
Assume that Guibert has given it up.
Given that scenario, Voroshenin knows that Guibert is a cover, but Guibert couldn’t have given him Hel’s real identity. All Voroshenin knows is that “Michel Guibert” is a cover under British control, which is what Guibert believes. Voroshenin will take the next logical mental step, though – he’ll believe that the British were subbing in for us. He’ll know it’s an American operation.
So what does he do?
He gives it to the Chinese, to his buddy Kang.
What does Kang do?
Either he lets Hel stay operational to see where it leads him, or he picks Hel up and tortures the truth out of him. Everything they knew about Kang indicated the latter course of action.
“You confirmed that Go Player is in place?” Haverford asked.
“He signaled.”
Their watchers outside the hotel had seen Hel go in but not come out, and they observed the correct arrangement of the window curtains. Only ten minutes ago, Hel had called room service to request a fresh thermos of water for his tea, so there was every reason to believe that he was safely in his room and not in Kang’s hands.
But for how long? Haverford wondered.
Abort, he told himself.
Get a signal to the Monk, hit the kill switch now.
58
NICHOLAI STEPPED OUT on the little balcony.
Across the boulevard, lit by the amber streetlamp, the monk still stood under the tree, facing south.
The mission was a “go.”
Nicholai started to pull a cigarette out to light it and acknowledge.
Then the monk moved.
59
“WE HAVE Papa Bear.”
“Kill the abort signal,” Haverford said. “Where the hell was he?”
It turns out that Papa Guibert found himself a new honey and took her to her place. He was surprised and a little indignant to find out that handlers were looking for him.
“So I wanted a little variety,” he told the Brit who was under Haverford’s employ. “So what, I am French.” He didn’t really expect a Brit to comprehend a man’s sexual needs. The British were about as sensual as their food.
“Keep him on ice,” Haverford ordered. “Did you signal the Monk back?”
“Confirmed.”
Haverford sat down and looked at the illuminated wall clock.
Twelve minutes out.
60
VOROSHENIN WAS on the phone.
The old man had broken – no Frenchman of his generation would let a beautiful woman have her brains spattered all over the walls – and confirmed that his son had died in the car crash, and “Michel Guibert” was the cover of an agent working for the British.
The British my liver, Voroshenin thought. The British are assclenching happy just to hold on to Hong Kong, they’re not going to wake the dragon by messing about in China. Besides, it wasn’t London that had control of Nicholai Hel, it was Washington.
Kang finally came on the line.
“Wei,” he asked blandly, as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on.
“The father confirmed my hypothesis,” Voroshenin said.
There was a long pause, then Kang said, “Enjoy the opera.”
I will, actually, Voroshenin thought.
61
NICHOLAI SAW THE MONK start to turn to the north, then change his mind and face south again.
The mission had been aborted, then just as quickly revived. That didn’t trouble Nicholai – the go-kang was a kinetic field that required fluid thought and action.
But then the monk did something unexpected. He turned to face the hotel and looked directly up at Nicholai. Even from that distance – five floors down and across the street – Nicholai could feel the monk’s eyes, almost as he had once sensed the intensity of Kishikawa-sama and Otake-san.
Nicholai nodded.
Cupping one hand around his cigarette, he lit it – the signal that he was ready to proceed. He took a long drag, then stepped back into the room and shut the doors behind him.
Then he left the room and went downstairs.
62
“GO PLAYER acknowledged.”
“Roger that.”
Now all Haverford could do was sit and wait.
Worst part of the job.
63
DIAMOND MADE A POINT not to be in, or even near, the office. But he left word where he could be reached and an order that he be immediately briefed on any developments coming out of Beijing.
Waiting around is the shits, he thought.
64
THE NORTH WIND had picked up again and Nicholai wrapped his scarf around his neck as he stepped out into the cold night air and waited for Chen and the car. Where were they? Chen was usually pathologically prompt.
Across the boulevard the monk walked away, toward the south.
The last check, Nicholai thought with a twinge of sorrow. The last chance to stop this thing literally just walked away.
The car came up the street, its red flags snapping in the stiff breeze. It pulled up in front of the hotel, the back door opened, and Chen got out.
“Sorry to be late,” he said. “Traffic.”
He looked afraid.
Chen ushered Nicholai into the backseat and got in beside him.
Nicholai started to greet Liang, but saw that it was a different driver.
“Where is Liang?” Nicholai asked.
“Sick,” Chen said. The smell of fear came off him. A sheen of greasy sweat shone on his cheeks.
Nicholai took two cigarettes from his pack and offered one to Chen. The escort took it, but his hands shook as Nicholai held the lighter up to the cigarette. He steadied Chen’s wrist and said, “Perhaps it was catching.”
“Maybe.”
“You should go home and take care of yourself.” Nicholai looked into his eyes. “It’s all right.”
“I’m so sorry,” Chen answered, “that I was… late.”
“Truly, it doesn’t matter.” He let go of Chen’s wrist. Nicholai sat back in his seat, smoked, looked out the window, and pretended not to notice when the car turned not for Xuanwu, but toward the Bell and Drum Towers.
65
KANG READIED THE STAGE.
He wanted it perfect, a flawless setting for the drama that he was about to enact, the play that he had already written.
This Nicholai Hel person would speak his intended lines. Maybe not at first, when his masculine pride would force him to resist; but eventually he would give in and pronounce the words. He would come in as a man but leave as a eunuch, enter the stage as a sheng but exit as a dan, shamed and pleading to die.
But the dignity of a private death was not on the page for this Hel. Kang would save what was left of him for another performance, his humiliation played before an audience of thousands at the Bridge of Heaven. Hel would have a placard on his back instead of an embroidered robe, he would be bound with heavy ropes, and he would take a final bow to the bark of rifles and the roar of the crowd.
Kang fingered the exquisitely thin, stiff wire – sharpened at one end, looped at the other – with which he intended to skewer Hel’s masculinity.
“Drawing the Jinghu Bow Across the Strings” is what Kang had titled this new technique, and he could already imagine the notes that Hel would achieve as the wire was pushed and pulled back and forth through his testicles.
Kang had dressed for the occasion – a black jacket with black brocade over black silk pajamas and black slippers. He had slicked his hair back carefully, trimmed his eyebrows, and applied the most subtle, indistinguishable layer of rouge on his cheeks.
He looked forward to matching the rhythms of the mental torture along with the physical – show Hel the agony that was inevitable, then offer to rescind the sentence, and then apply it anyway. Draw the strings back and forth between despair and hope, terror and relief, anguish and cessation, building to a climax in which there was only pain.
As in any worthy opera, the music would be punctuated by passages of speech, as Hel recited his monologues. Yes, he was an American agent, yes he had been sent to pull the strings of the puppet, the traitor Liu, yes they conspired to deliver guns to antirevolutionary elements in Yunnan, yes, they hoped to murder Chairman Mao.
He heard car doors close, and then footsteps on the pebbled walkway.
The opera was about to begin.