“Nash, but please call me Nate. The hotel is magnificent,” he said. “You do a great job running it.”
Grace smiled. “We’re very proud of the ‘Pen,’ ” she said. “Are you aware of its history? Perhaps I can give you a tour someday.”
“I’d like that,” said Nate.
“Call my assistant anytime,” said Grace. She smiled at the table, turned, and walked out of the bar. Utter silence. Marigold and Bunty were staring at Nate, trying not to laugh.
“What?” said Nate.
“Quite a change of behavior,” said Marigold. “She suddenly likes you.”
Nate spread his arms. “Not hard to believe. She finally came to her senses, that’s all.”
“That’d be a cheeky root, mate,” said Bunty.
“Which means . . .”
“Having sex when it’s a really bad idea,” said Marigold.
“I’m thinking about recruiting her, not seducing her,” said Nate, all lofty and righteous.
“I thought it was the same thing,” said Marigold.
“Look, Nate,” said Bunty. “I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something shonky about young Grace; she could be a bunny boiler, like in that crazy girlfriend movie, what was it, Something Attraction? Why risk it? You’re leaving Honkers soon; let me introduce you to Rhonda from our office. Registry clerk. Red hair. Lots of fun. Bangs like a dunny door in a gale.”
Marigold groaned, shook her head, and held out her hand, wiggling her ring finger. “Men are pigs. Take your ring back.”
Bunty ignored her.
“Just have a care,” said Bunty. “That’s all I’m saying.”
“I’m just thinking about work,” said Nate.
“Again with the American slang,” said Marigold.
AYAM MASAK MADU—SPICY RED HONEY CHICKEN
Dust chicken drumsticks and thighs with turmeric and salt and pepper; place on baking sheet; and bake until done. In a wok, fry chili paste, tomato paste, chopped garlic, chopped ginger, curry powder, star anise, cinnamon, cloves, honey, salt, and water until fragrant. Add scallions and onions sliced into rings, and toss to coat. Add chicken and simmer until sauce is thick and onions are soft. Serve with rice.
27
Doomsday Option
The recruitment of PLARF source SONGBIRD and the subsequent intelligence stream of secret information on Chinese war-fighting capabilities triggered the usual feeding frenzy as Washington careerists and the tall poppies in Canberra sought to extract maximum political advantage from the windfall recruitment. This they did primarily by discussing the case—about which they knew nothing—around town as if they themselves had conceived, planned, and green-lighted the operation, and personally swam ashore on Hac Sa Beach at midnight with commando knives between their teeth.
CIA’s China Ops Division sought to protect SONGBIRD’s identity by compiling a BIGOT list documenting the limited number of officers, analysts, and managers who were read in to the true-name operational file. A separate reporting compartment encrypted HYACINTH was established with general intelligence on the Chinese military from a variety of sources, designed to obfuscate SONGBIRD’s specific position and access.
In Canberra, an Australian undersecretary for Domestic Security had vaguely heard about “recent exceptional information” involving Chinese submarines, and had repeated the comment at a National Day reception at the Indonesian Embassy within earshot of the New China News Agency correspondent who was trying to get through jostling diplomats mobbing the buffet table. The NCNA rep reported this to the military attaché at the Chinese Embassy the next day.
In Washington, a swarthy, puffed-up deputy national security adviser in the White House, known for his five o’clock shadow and imperious self-confidence, told his Taiwanese mistress—she was a lobbyist on the Hill for the Hyundai Motor Group—that his erectile dysfunction earlier that evening almost certainly was caused by worry over Chinese military buildup in the South China Sea. “That’s old news,” she said as she put Mr. Softy into her mouth, with no effect other than eliciting a petulant “No, it’s brand-new info, and you’d be distracted too if you read what I read.” His mistress reported his comment the next morning to her real employer, Zhōnghuá Minguó Guójiā Ānquánjú, the National Security Agency of the Republic of China (Taiwan), an intel service so utterly penetrated by the MSS that the information was in Beijing the next morning.
About the same time in Macao, police arrested a local ring of young men who were caught smuggling MDMA—Ecstasy—from Guangzhou to sell to party-going patrons in the casinos. Desperate to ingratiate himself with interrogators, one of the men—a waiter at Fernando’s Restaurant on Hac Sa Beach—said he suspected Russian organized-crime gangs were already operating in Macao, and described a dinner meeting he had observed between a Chinese official with a military-style haircut, and a young Russian. Given the Russian connection, the police forwarded the transcript of the interrogation to the Guangzhou MSS office, from where it eventually made its way to headquarters.
In Beijing, Bao mi dan Wei, the Security Protection Bureau of the MSS, assembled the tidbits and concluded that there was a mole within the People’s Liberation Army, a mole possibly just recruited, and possibly by the Americans or the Australians. They wondered about the single sighting of a Russian, prompting the more cynical officers in the unit to posit that the SVR was now working with CIA against China. This theory was generally dismissed, but the MSS Chief in Moscow General Sun Jianguo nevertheless was directed to approach his SVR contact and to determine outright whether the Russians had any involvement.
As they sifted the few leads, the Security Bureau checked all recent foreign travel by PLA general officers. Though Macao was technically Chinese sovereign territory, an investigator from the Guangzhou MSS office was directed to determine how many generals and admirals had traveled to Macao in the past six months. The list of hair-raisingly prominent names of PLA officers was so long that the independent-minded Guangzhou office decided not to report anything. SONGBIRD’s name, accordingly, never came up.
Dominika sat in the tastefully appointed meeting lounge in the separate liaison reception center at SVR headquarters in Yasenevo, reminding herself not to bounce her foot in front of General Sun. A tray of salaka, smoked fish on buttered bread topped with melted cheese, was on the table between the armchairs, along with a sweating pitcher of kompot, a cold fruit beverage that was a staple in the liaison lounge, vodka being reserved for more ceremonious occasions.
Following the president’s order that Colonel Egorova establish a relationship with the MSS, she had seen the unctuous general three times, including once for lunch, but the conversation never extended beyond liaison niceties and nonsubstantive subjects. She needed to engage this doddering Chinese grandfather more closely, but had made no progress. Dominika had assessed the general each time to identify his motivations, discover his vulnerabilities, sniff for weaknesses—women, whiskey, money—but there was nothing. Further attempts to elicit who his Moscow contacts were, and whether he was engaged in classical recruitment operations, likewise came up empty. His yellow aura did not change appreciatively with his moods.