The Kremlin's Candidate: A Novel by Jason Matthews (25)

Feel Mint for You

Nate’s flight to Hong Kong required an overnight stay in Los Angeles. Since the advent of commercial air, all US government employees assigned overseas were required by regulation to “fly American” to better support domestic airline companies, unfortunately at the cost of US taxpayers. This invariably resulted in not only more expensive tickets, but also inconvenient schedules, routes, and connections. But the rule was ironclad. Nate’s morning flight from Washington, DC, would arrive in Los Angeles before noon, and he would have the entire day rattling around the city. Then he thought of Agnes Krawcyk, and the white streak in her hair.

Since the mission to Sevastopol, they had stayed in touch via email and two or three uncomfortable phone calls. Agnes had wanted to visit Nate in Washington, but ops meetings with Dominika were imminent, so Nate put her off. They had spoken more frequently recently, and they’d made vague plans to see each other. Then the Hong Kong clambake came up.

Agnes had settled in coastal Palos Verdes south of Los Angeles, a semirural suburb of undulating hills and craggy oceanside bluffs covered with eucalyptus, cinnamon, and pepper trees, and populated by artists, aging flower children from the sixties, and one thousand feral India Blue peacocks. She lived in a comfortable two-bedroom Craftsman-style house, with fieldstone columns supporting a front porch and flowerpots in the windows. With art-restoration experience from her native Poland, Agnes had been hired by the Getty Museum in Brentwood as a conservator—her specialty was sixteenth-century Italian altar panels.

When Nate called Agnes to tell her he’d be in Los Angeles for the day, and to invite her to lunch, she told him to stop talking nonsense. She would pick him up at the airport, she would give him lunch at her house, where he would stay the night, and she would bring him back to the airport the next morning in time for his onward flight. That was the plan, no arguments. Ever the pro, she didn’t ask where he was going or why.

Nate struggled with competing emotions. He knew the career reprieve bestowed by Benford was dependent on his continued good behavior, and on the successful recruitment of the profligate General Tan Furen in Macao. Stopping in Los Angeles and seeing Agnes did not seem to Nate to constitute unacceptable behavior, but he was unsure if Benford would view it as recidivism. He likewise struggled with the situation with Dominika: With Benford breathing fire, and Dominika’s refusal to contemplate retirement before the unspeakable happened and she was caught, were they finished? Would they ever even see each other again, much less be together? Nate knew he loved her, that had not changed, but he faced the possibility that she might truly be out of his life as permanently as if she had been caught putting down a drop in Moscow, tried, and executed in the basement of Butyrka Prison. Mortification over his recent professional missteps had morphed into loneliness and a desire to be able to talk to a friend. Gable was gone; Benford was unapproachable; and Forsyth had his own problems as a division chief.

Seeing Agnes perhaps would be a salve to his screwed-up emotions. She was smart, brave, earthy, and, even pushing fifty, impossibly sexy. She knew the work, she knew the life, she understood. And judging by the response to his call, she still liked him. He looked forward to being with her, as a friend.

Agnes was in the brightly colored Mazatlán Mayan woven hammock hung from the overhanging eaves of her little house in her small moonlit backyard. Bamboo tiki torches, guttering and stinking of kerosene, cast jumpy shadows on the flagstone patio, and on the ferns, cacti, and flowering bushes that filled the garden. It would have been a more bucolic scene had Agnes not been lying naked across the width of the hammock with her toes hooked onto the ropes, her legs extended out in a vee, swinging the thing back and forth, each upswing bringing her mons into contact with an equally naked Nate, standing a foot away on the flagstones, braced for each collision while desperately calculating trajectory and windage for the next kinetic docking. Agnes’s head hung over the other side of the hammock as she moaned mocniej, which Nate only later found out meant “harder” in Polish, which was just as well because any harder would have knocked him backward into the ornamental fish pond.

Later, in a short belted kimono, Agnes showed Nate a wooden panel, part of a 1534 altar from a chapel in Florence that may or may not have been painted by a student of Michelangelo. She had a deadline and had been given permission to bring it home to work on it. “I’m keeping you from your work,” said Nate. Agnes smiled, shook her hair, and put her hands on his shoulders.

“Michelangelo I can see every day,” she said. “You’re here now with me, in my little house, and that’s all I need. Do you remember what I told you in Romania? Czuje miete dla ciebie, I feel mint for you, I have feelings for you.” She brushed a strand of hair off her forehead, and leaned to kiss him, slowly at first, then more urgently. She suddenly stopped and looked him in the eyes. “Is that other woman still in your life?” Agnes asked. “I can still feel you carry her inside.” Nate had forgotten how perceptive Agnes was. She didn’t have a witch’s white forelock for nothing.

“It’s still very difficult,” said Nate. “It involves work, and it didn’t go well. I may have put her in danger, and that’s inexcusable.”

“I hope she is safe,” Agnes said softly. “I miss the work, the excitement; I miss the old colleagues, and I miss Poland.” She was silent for a moment. “I won’t ask you anymore about her. I am glad you came. Are you hungry? Come and watch me.”

They went into the kitchen, where Agnes quickly prepared foil-baked salmon and a Polish cucumber salad called mizeria, misery, because it was a staple of peasants. They sat outside in the dark eating by torchlight, Agnes watching Nate’s face as he ate. Beyond the garden fence a peacock shrilled its creepy mating call that sounds like a soprano trilling “help me, help me.”

“The last time I heard a peacock howl like that I was in the woods in northern Greece, meeting someone special,” said Nate. “Scared me to death at the time.” Agnes leaned forward, her chin in her hands, smiling at him.

“I do not think you are scared very easily,” said Agnes.

“I don’t know, feels like I’m scared more now than when I was younger,” said Nate. “That’s what experience does to you I guess.”

“Do I scare you?” Agnes asked.

“No, Agnes, I think you’re wonderful,” said Nate. Her eyes were shiny with emotion, and Nate felt a wave of tenderness welling up inside him.

“When you return it would be nice to have you visit longer, take a vacation,” she said. “I could sneak you into the museum workshop and show you the Medici panels; they are special.” She searched his eyes for a reaction.

“I’d love that,” said Nate. “But no more of that hammock. I think I have a hip pointer.”

“What is a hip pointer?” Agnes said.

Nate got up and put her hand on his bruised hip bone. “See? Hammocks are out, please.”

“I have hurt you? Jeny kochane, oh dear, what can I do to relieve your pain?” she said, mock concerned. Nate kissed her, and she pressed against him, nuzzling his neck and softly biting his lower lip. He held her by the hand and led her to her bedroom, where Agnes flopped onto the bed on her back. Nate stood over her, slowly undoing his belt buckle. From outside, the peacock called “help me, help me.”

“I know how that bird feels,” said Agnes, untying the belt of her kimono.

Nate took the Airport Express from Chek Lap Kok Airport, looking out the window as the train rocked past emerald-blue lagoons and the dark-green peaks of the islands scattered in the South China Sea. The gleaming downtown rail terminal in Central Hong Kong was a beehive of orderly activity. The rank of cherry-red taxis waited for passengers, and the rear doors of the vehicles swung open automatically at the push of a button, striking Nate as quintessentially Chinese, welcoming foreigners to the Orient with a bow. The taxi raced through the teaming downtown business district, sidewalks jammed with pedestrians, and deliverymen pushing carts stacked with boxes. The cab rocketed up steeply curving Garden Road and came to a squealing stop in front of the US Consulate, a four-story concrete box with square tinted windows, the American flag hanging limply in the humid air.

Nate slid his passport under the receptionist’s glass—she was a Foreign Service National, a local Hong Konger—and was buzzed through to the Marine Security Guard Post One where Nate’s passport again was examined by a young steely marine in Blue Dress “C” uniform, a crisp khaki shirt and necktie, and a holstered sidearm at his hip. A young woman came to the lobby to collect him, leading him through the hard-line door, and up an elevator to the fourth floor. Appraising the newcomer with a sidelong glance, she introduced herself as the Chief’s secretary, and punched a red button to open a thick vault door that swung outward with an electric whine. They stepped up into a huge furnished container with blue-gray carpet on the floor and up the walls, an acoustic-shielded enclosure impervious to outside electronic eavesdropping. Inside it was chilly and dry, people at a dozen desks in the container wore light sweaters.

Chief of Hong Kong Station Barnabas Burns sat in the largest of a row of enclosed cubicles with sliding pocket doors, as cramped as a ship’s cabin, nothing like the grand offices of Station Chiefs in stately European embassies, an uncomfortable necessity in a CIA Station operating in Chinese-controlled territory. Burns was fifty years old, gray haired and square jawed, whipsaw tough with ropey forearms sticking out of his rolled-up shirtsleeves. He came around his desk to greet Nate with a nutcracker handshake, and nodded at a small couch against the wall of the cubicle for Nate to sit on. Burns lobbed Nate a plastic bottle of water taken from a small refrigerator in the corner, and sat on the couch beside him, stretching out his legs. Half Marlboro Man, half James Bond, thought Nate, taking a sip of water.

“Should have been a beer,” said Burns, “but it’s not five o’clock yet. Your flight okay? Not too beat?” Nate shook his head.

“We got you in a nice temporary apartment, just up Old Peak Road, on the other side of the botanical gardens. It’s a brief walk downhill in the morning, through the zoo—they even got a leopard—but your shirt will be soaked walking uphill at night. You’ll get used to that in Hong Kong, sweating.”

“It’s my first time here,” said Nate. “From the little I saw, it’s going to be tough spotting surveillance on the street.” Burns laughed.

“You got that right. Elwood Holder in China Ops told me you made your bones in Moscow, but this place is unique, a stacked urban environment with people everywhere and a camera on every corner. Walk around and get a feel for the place.”

“Will do,” said Nate. “What’s the sked on the general? How much time do I have before we stuff him in the bottle?”

“Could be tomorrow, could be in a month,” said Burns. “He’s been coming to Macao to gamble pretty often; he’s got it bad, and when he shows, we’ll take a pop at him. The Aussies have trip wires out, so we’ll know when he’s back at the tables. Tomorrow I’ll take you to meet the ASIS Chief, and the case officer you’ll be working with. These Australians are serious and talented—and dependable. They’re not like the Brits where you have to count the silverware after a liaison dinner.” Nate laughed.

“Listen, Chief, I’m going to be here waiting for the flare to go up, so let me know what else I can do for you,” said Nate. “I don’t want to get in the way of Station ops, but I’m willing to help any way I can. Casing sites, running SDRs, talking to junior officers.”

“I appreciate that,” said Burns. “I’d welcome your Moscow experience, especially your assessment of how the MSS could cover us in town. We’ve done a lot of work on the street, but your KGB perspective could be useful. Hong Kong is in the Guangzhou MSS district, and they’re a bunch of cowboys. They ignore their headquarters directives, to the extent that they even run ops in the United States if they can without telling the ministry in Beijing. Makes them unpredictable nuggets.”

“Holder said they’re also all on the make, skimming off the casinos in Macao, and taking bribes.”

“It’s called zhēng xiān kǒng hòu, struggling to get ahead—in their overheated economy everyone’s afraid of being left behind,” said Burns. “Unthinkable ten years ago, our gambling general is an extreme example.”

“Chief, I’ll want to read the file on the general before I try a false-flag approach,” said Nate. “He’s lived in Moscow and knows Russians. I’ve got to be pitch-perfect.”

“The Aussie case officer—name’s George Boothby, but everyone calls him ‘Bunty’—handles the access agent in Macao who’s close to General Tan.”

“Bunty Boothby?” said Nate.

“Good guy. He’s a star in his service, a real stud, with a bunch of scalps on his belt already. You’re about the same age. Bunty’s been debriefing the access agent since the general came on their scope. He’ll give you a full readout.”

“Do you think he resents CIA pitching his target? I know I’d be a little chaffed,” said Nate. “I don’t want him to feel like I’m snaking his recruitment.”

“I don’t think they’re worried about that, they came to us for the big bucks,” said Burns. “If we get General Tan Furen in harness, Bunty will get the credit. Bagging a PLA general is just as big in ASIS as it would be for us, and we’ll share the handling and the take.”

“When we get the general alone, will there be countersurveillance? I know the access agent will bring him to us, but do we have to worry about MSS ticks in Macao?”

Burns shrugged. “Depends. Too many Westerners moving around might spook the general. You can discuss the mechanics with Bunty,” said Burns. “One thing’s for sure: The general’s dead if there’s a flap. They’ll put him on his knees in a bean field, shoot him in the back of the head, and bill his family for the cost of the bullet.”

As Nate left the consulate with the Station admin officer, the Chinese receptionist noted the pair—the admin guy was generally known to “work upstairs,” which meant the handsome young visitor likely was also CIA—and memorized Nate’s name for the weekly list of US Consulate visitors that she passed each Friday to the Hong Kong office of the MSS, located in the Amethyst Block of the Central Barracks of the People’s Liberation Army; that complex was, until 1997, the British Royal Navy shore station in Hong Kong.

The two officers went by car to the TDY guest quarters halfway up Old Peak Road. The eighth-floor apartment had two bedrooms, basic furniture, wood parquet floors, and a little flat-screen TV in a bookshelf. A small covered balcony with a deck chair had a magnificent view. To the right, the soft-green rain forest rose straight up to the fog-shrouded peak. To the left, the impossible, serried, bristling downtown of high-rise apartments, banks, and hotels thundered in the subtropical heat. Through the thicket of skyscrapers, Nate could make out the green double-decker, double-ended Star Ferries plowing in both directions across a harbor alive with Chinese junks with rust-red sails, kai-to ferries serving the outlying islands, and cargo lighters squatting low in the water being towed by resolute tugboats. On the Kowloon side of the harbor, a more modest urban sprawl was dominated by the soaring blue-gray ICC, the 118-floor International Commerce Centre, scraping the roof of the sky.

Nate thanked the admin officer, quickly unpacked, and walked down the hill into Central. He traversed Statue Square past the Cenotaph and the low, colonnaded Legislative Council Building, both now awkwardly quaint vestiges of British colonial rule amid the Mandarins’ towers of glass and steel. As he walked, Nate flipped the internal switch to street mode, and started paying attention. As a new arrival at the US Consulate, would he draw coverage? He slogged down sidewalks jammed with slack-faced city workers, counting faces, past high-end shops with the names of Gucci, Rolex, and Bally in the windows.

Checking a folded-up map in his pocket, he turned west on Lockhart Road, and pushed into Wan-Chai district, noisier, more Canton than Manhattan now, past countless identical restaurants all redolent with the sweet bloom of five-spice powder, dozens of roasted ducks the color of caramel hanging in the windows. Between the duck displays were white-tiled walk-in massage emporiums; old women in sandals waved for Nate to come in for a rub. He was in sensory overload and tried to find thinner zones. He weaved down quieter streets, through sour alleyways and along elevated walkways over thunderous Connaught Road jammed with taxis and swaying trucks spewing blue exhaust. Nate concentrated on clothing and shoes, looked for surveillance demeanor and signs of leapfrog coverage, but didn’t see a thing. If I had to make an agent meeting in two hours, he thought, no way I could be sure I was black.

He stopped for a bowl of noodles and spicy pork, then ducked into Delaney’s, an English pub, with checked-tile floor, on the corner of Jaffe and Luard, and sat in the corner nursing a beer, watching the windows. Five overhead televisions blared a rugby match, and two British tourists were chatting up a pair of giggling Chinese girls in hot pants. No one came in to see where he was, or if he was meeting someone. No movement, no discernible trailing pressure, no tickles. How am I going to get to Macao without dragging half of Guangzhou with me? They should have used a Russian-speaking NOC, he thought. I hope Bunty Boothby, the ops stud, knows his business.

Nate quickly flagged a taxi and dashed west crosstown into Sheung Wan and threaded back on foot to Mid-Levels, along Queen’s Road, Elgin Street, and Upper Albert Road—quieter streets recalling past doyens of the Crown Colony—that curved, and snaked, and doubled back on themselves, past the squat old Foreign Correspondents’ Club, with its alternating red and white striped façade. He hopped onto the Mid-Levels open-air escalator that ascended eight hundred meters to Robinson Road. He didn’t detect any parallel coverage on the wings of the escalator line. He waited in a doorway, listening for the sound of running feet, got nothing, then angled back to the zoological and botanical garden. Nate lost count of the number of CCTV cameras along his route. He hadn’t come close to identifying anything remotely suggestive of active surveillance, but had no confidence in his status. His shirt was stuck to his back and his legs ached from the uphill walking.

Jesus, this was unlike anything he had ever experienced. This city was a fairy-tale stage on the hazy Pearl River delta, a city of layers, pious colonial ghosts mixed with centuries of persevering Cantonese, both now in the long shadow of the politburo in Beijing, that collection of stone-faced men in identical baggy suits that claim the city as their chattel, but do not really own it.