The Kremlin's Candidate: A Novel by Jason Matthews (29)

The Tibetan Gong

“It’s not bad,” said COS Burns, putting his feet up on his desk. “You think you have enough time to do a proper developmental?”

“I don’t know,” said Nate. “Grace Gao all of a sudden got friendly, invited me to a guided tour of the hotel. Could be she’s lonely, could be she’s horny, though that doesn’t seem right, and could be that undefinable something: life weariness, she’s tired of the heavy hand of Beijing and the greasy breath of all the Asian millionaires looking for a pretty little concubine. Maybe she just wants to play on the American team, establish a little life insurance.”

“You have to be discreet,” said Burns. “We’re on their home turf; there are a lot of eyes out there. You determine what’s best, but I’d say move the contact out of the hotel as soon as is natural, go to restaurants, go on a picnic, take the ferry to Lantau Island and go kiss the big Buddha on the hill. Maybe she’ll start talking about her faith.”

“Bunty Boothby says she’s a level-three yogini. It’s the only other thing in her life besides the hotel.”

Burns scratched his head. “What the hell’s a level-three yogini?”

“I guess it’s like a black belt in yoga. She’s apparently very good, been studying it for years, with a body to show for it. If it’s important to her, I can get her to share her yoga life with me; it’ll be a strong assessment tool.”

Burns looked sideways at him. “Yeah, you just be careful with that assessment tool of yours. We’re looking for a solid recruitment that’ll last. I don’t want you turning over a lovesick agent pining for Captain Picard when you leave Hong Kong.”

Nate blinked twice. “Who’s Captain Picard?” said Nate.

“The bald guy on Star Trek, with a head like a dick,” said Burns.

“You watch Star Trek?” said Nate.

Burns shook his head. “My kids. Twenty hours a day. Drives me nuts, but the guy’s head does look like the tip of a—”

“Bunty calls it a ‘bell-end.’ ”

“Exactly,” said Burns.

“Okay, Chief,” said Nate. “I’ll go in slow and careful. Besides, the Aussies think Grace may be a little out there, emotionally. I’m strictly playing it as a big brother, trying to identify what she needs out of life.”

“Well, play it smart,” said Burns. “Keep your eyes out for any swerves and watch your ass. If this clicks, she could be useful. My very first chief liked to say that every Station needs three kinds of support assets: someone who works in the best hotel in town who can sneak you room keys for agent meetings, and tell you when big shots are in town; a telephone lineman who can shinny up a pole and put a tap on a phone line; and a reliable recruited cabbie who can drive you around, do surveillance, deliver a package.”

“Chief, do they still have telephone linemen? I heard it was all digital these days,” said Nate, deadpan. He saw that Burns was suppressing a smile.

“I’ve got enough comedy talking to Headquarters,” he said. “Bring me the master key to the Peninsula Hotel.”

Nate was content to stay on in Hong Kong for a while to work the developmental of Grace Gao, especially if it meant avoiding the enveloping tar pit of Langley. He frequently wondered how Benford’s mole hunt in Washington was progressing, especially since DIVA’s life hung in the balance, and part of him wanted to return to Langley to help in that effort. He would know soon enough if Grace was recruitable; he would see the signs of that metaphysical harmony between two people who think alike, have the same needs, and trust each other. The classic recruitment is when the case officer knows ahead of time that the agent’s answer will be “What took you so long?” when the officer delivers the pitch. The case officer looks for the sweet spot when two people are in sync, when a look between them is all that’s required to communicate volumes.

Grace was a stunning woman, but Nate knew he had to focus on her mind and her needs, to become a friend and confidant, and to explore her eventual willingness to talk to American intelligence in a clandestine relationship about her hotel and its VIP guests. In an accelerated developmental he had to press without pressuring—Gable once explained it as “taking your time, in a hurry.” Benford had agreed to this extension of his TDY assignment, but it wouldn’t last forever, and the recall order would come the instant forward progress on the case stalled.

Grace met him at the front door of the hotel under the steel porte cochere emblazoned with THE PENINSULA in gold letters. A nervous knot of stewards in white coats and doormen in green livery stood at a respectful distance, wondering what the boss lady was doing outside standing beside one of two snarling stone imperial guardian lions on either side of the front doors. The juxtaposition of Ms. Gao and the mythic statues was upsetting to the staff. Nate’s taxi pulled up the circular drive lined with half a dozen forest-green Rolls-Royce Phantom limousines of the hotel’s luxury car fleet. Grace stepped forward to shake Nate’s hand, and he almost tripped over the curbstone looking at her, a vision out of Shanghai in 1920. She was dressed in a fitted black qípáo cheongsam that came to just above the knee, with a mandarin collar, capped sleeves, and scarlet Chinese knot buttons up the front. Only the traditional side slit was missing. Nate decided the dress had been sprayed on that morning because there was no way anyone could actually physically wriggle into it. She wore black pumps over sheer black nylons.

“Welcome back to the Peninsula, Nathaniel,” said Grace. Nathaniel? The thought flitted through his mind that she somehow had researched his name. He’d told her his name was Nate. The assistant general manager of a five-star hotel had to be resourceful. She followed his gaze as he looked at the line of gleaming motorcars.

“We’re very proud of our fleet of Rolls,” she said. “We have fourteen of them. Come over here, I want to show you something.” She walked to the first limousine in line, triggering a rush by no fewer than three doormen to pull open the rear door of the limousine for her. Grace bent down and pushed a button recessed in the end of the door above the locking mechanism, and the handle of a silk umbrella popped out. She pulled it all the way out and flourished it. “I’d open it to show you the Peninsula name, but that would be bad luck.” She replaced the umbrella in the limousine door.

“Don’t tell me you’re superstitious,” said Nate. Grace just smiled, turned, and walked into the entrance lobby patting one of the guardian lion statues on the head as she passed, looking over her shoulder at him. Maybe superstitious, but certainly playful. Nate followed the dress and the sheer stockings into the hotel lobby.

For the next hour Grace led Nate on a fascinating tour of the venerable hotel, from the gleaming stainless-steel kitchens and rooftop heliport, to the infinity pool on the eighth floor. In the hushed wood-paneled VIP lounge on the top floor, Grace opened a photographic book documenting the Peninsula’s history. They stood shoulder to shoulder as Grace flipped the pages, pointing out interesting facts. Nate stole quick glances at her, watching as her eyes flitted across the photos, her eyelashes fluttering, and her mouth pursed in concentration. She was wearing a hint of something lilac or lavender, and he could feel the heat from her arm through his jacket sleeve. She wore her hair in a bun with two black lacquered chopsticks stuck through it. She stopped turning pages and caught him looking at her hair. Nate smiled at her.

“Your hair is very pretty that way,” he said. “Not many American women wear it like that.” A compliment. Mention the United States. Here’s a man who’s observant. She fingered the chopsticks self-consciously.

“I don’t know why I wear it like this, they keep falling out,” she said. Neither of them said anything, and Nate kept quiet. How do you handle silence, what do you say?

“Would you like to see the health club and spa?” said Grace. “It’s on the seventh floor.” Smooth recovery. Isn’t easily flustered, under control.

The health club had the usual array of expensive machines arranged along floor-to-ceiling windows with a soaring view of the harbor. The spa, sauna, and massage rooms were all magnificently appointed. As they walked around, Nate ruefully complained that it never seemed that he had enough time to exercise. Time to raise yoga.

“What do you do to stay fit?” he asked.

“I practice yoga,” said Grace.

“Been doing it long?” Guiless question, on purpose, talk to me.

“Since I was a little girl,” she said, vaguely. Reluctance? She’s not convinced I’m interested, so sell it.

Nate had been reading up on yoga styles the night before. “I had a friend who did what I think she called Ashtanga yoga, is that right? And what’s that hot yoga called? Where they heat the room?” Grace looked at him through her lashes, assessing his sincerity. Ask for information, educate me.

“Yes, Ashtanga, Vinyasa, Bikram; these are modern styles, and very popular,” said Grace.

“What style do you practice?” asked Nate.

“An older style, something based on an ancient book,” she said, looking at the floor. A sticking point. Gently now.

“What’s it called?” said Nate. Grace’s eyes searched his, her China-doll face hesitant for a moment, then clearing with the decision to share.

“A book of Hindu verses called the Rigveda was written in 1500 BC. My yoga is based on that book. It is called Kundalini yoga. It is now a popular style.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” said Nate. “What does it look like, do you stand on your head?” Come on, set me straight.

“It is a very strong style,” she said, smiling thinly. “I do not want to bore you.”

Nate shook his head. “I’m not bored,” he said. “Tell me.”

“It’s the use of poses, chanting, and special breathing, all three to release the energy in our bodies,” Grace said. “When our energy is blocked, we cannot grow. When we release it through the discipline of yoga, there is health, and stability, and peace. I know this sounds very mystical and silly, but it has helped me.” Nate nodded to a wood-floored exercise area surrounded by full-length mirrors.

“Show me something I could learn without tearing my shoulder out of its socket,” said Nate. Grace looked at him skeptically. Nate slipped out of his shoes, and held out his arms, the earnest foreigner who wanted to learn about her world.

“All right. This is Adhu Mukha Svanasana, it’s relatively easy. I’ll show you, then you try it.” She shucked off her heels, walked onto the wood, planted her feet, then bent forward and put her hands on the floor, walking them ahead of her until she was in a pike position, her hips in the air, her head lowered between her shoulders. Nate saw her triceps flexing, her stomach contracted into a wasp waist and her thigh muscles rippled. A soft hissing note came from her mouth as she exhaled for what seemed like ten seconds. Her fitted dress inched up her thighs, revealing the lacy tops of her stockings and, in the mirror behind her, a glimpse of the black lace vee of her panties. Whoa. Interesting. Is she oblivious, or is she flirting? No way she’s promiscuous.

Grace straightened up, and motioned for Nate to try it. He put his hands on the floor and copied the pose as she had done it. Grace noted with satisfaction that Nate’s form was very good, and that he was strong. She was pleased that he had done it well.

This first contact had gone well. Grace was friendly and modest, and she’d responded to Nate playing the informal, friendly American. She wasn’t so tight-assed shy that she didn’t demonstrate a yoga pose in a short skirt. Now comes the second meeting, thought Nate, a critical contact in any developmental, when the target decides whether the relationship continues. Embroidered stocking tops and pink-grapefruit lips aside, Nate hoped it would.

Three days later Nate invited Grace to dinner. She knew Hong Kong and suggested they go to the China Club, a chic restaurant done in colonial Shanghai style with red walls and Chinese screens, an ornate carpeted staircase to the dining room, and funky framed daguerreotypes of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao on the walls, a tongue-in-cheek retro pantheon of the crew who plunged the world into flames. The club was on the top three floors of the old Bank of China Building—the first postwar skyscraper in then-British Hong Kong with a 1950s vintage lobby of polished marble columns and terrazzo floors—on Des Voeux Road in Central. Grace suggested Nate try the Ma Po eggplant in garlic sauce, a specialty. Fragrant, spicy, glistening; it was delicious, Nate told her.

Grace had two glasses of wine at dinner, and coyly told him her Chinese name was Zhen, which means precious and rare. She wore a simple black dress, a double strand of pearls, and tiny pearl earrings. Her perfume was exotic and smoky; Nate had never smelled anything like it, and it lingered in his nose and mouth. She giggled when Nate threw her a bone, joking about growing up in a family of rapacious Southern lawyers, priming the pump to get her to start talking about herself. Her history came out haltingly. She was an orphan whose liberal-minded parents—one a professor, the other an artist—were imprisoned during the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign in 1983, the year she was born. She was remanded to a reluctant government-assigned foster family who received a stipend for taking the baby girl. She never saw her real parents again. She endured an unhappy adolescence, spent a lonely four years in a British university, and returned to a cynical, smog-choked China of new millionaires and a censored Internet—an emergent superpower paradoxically caught in its imperial past. With an uncertain future, Grace went to hotel school, then moved to Hong Kong and prospered, eventually becoming assistant general manager at the Peninsula.

“How is it you went to university in Britain?” asked Nate. Grace lowered her eyes and sipped her wine.

“I received a scholarship,” she said, vaguely. Huh. Not usual, Nate thought, unless you have a patron who pays. Or unless the State pays for you. There’s a slightly false note here. Circle around and ask her later.

“And the yoga?” asked Nate. Grace leaned forward, no longer defensive.

Searching for comfort and company in a rootless childhood, twelve-year-old Zhen spent hours in the back room of the neighborhood Zhōngyī shop that sold traditional Chinese medicines. The nut-brown old woman who swept the floor was a Bengali Indian, improbably stranded in China after a shipwreck, who whispered to the young girl, became her Jiàomǔ, her godmother, and sang the ancient Sanskrit Vedic mantra, the Gayrati, to her. The old crone was a yogini, a guru of the ancient practice, and began teaching Grace poses on the rough coir mats in the fragrant back room lined with amber jars of preserved coiled snakes, yellow flasks of bear bile, and gray dried lingzhī mushrooms, stacked on shelves like cordwood. Besides its physical benefits, Grace, in time, discovered the abiding spirituality of yoga. It gave her serenity and made her melancholy adolescence bearable. She never stopped studying yoga, not even when she moved to Hong Kong.

“So here I am,” she said, tipping back her wine, accepting a third glass. She brushed a strand of hair off her face, softly bit her lower lip, and blinked at Nate. “No family, fourteen-hour days, nothing but my yoga to keep me whole.” She took another sip of wine. “I don’t know what the future holds.”

Holy crap, thought Nate, this is a psychological smorgasbord. He processed her story in parts: lingering resentment of the system; absence of communist ideology; strong work ethic and meticulous attention to detail; feeling isolated and disenfranchised and contemplating an uncertain future; and committed to and dependent on the spiritual aspects of yoga. This was an astounding collection of exploitable motivations right out of the textbook—almost too good to be true. A few more contacts, a sympathetic ear and a friendly smile, and he could subtly determine Grace’s willingness to help him, her need to belong to a cause, her desire to give meaning to her life, to work toward a more liberal China. The case officer in him noted that she did not ask questions of him, which was a little strange.

They walked after dinner in Central, on empty sidewalks past buildings too tall to see the tops shrouded in fog. Grace linked her arm in Nate’s—that mystery perfume washed over him—and he steadied her a little. They flagged a taxi, which careered up Garden Road onto Magazine Gap Road to the front door of Grenville House, fifteen stories of luxury apartments perched on the side of the jungly hill looking over the tops of the high-rises on the next level below, slices of the harbor visible between the forest of buildings. Grace said the Peninsula Hotel paid her astronomical rent; otherwise, she would be living in a moldy flat in Kowloon. Propriety in mind, Nate chastely bussed her good night on the cheek and was going to leave, but she spilled her purse on the lobby floor digging for her keys, and giggled that she shouldn’t have had that third glass of wine. Nate chivalrously rode up in the elevator with her, and got her key in the door. She tilted her head, and said he should come in to see how she lived, because, after all, he seemed interested in her. “You are interested in me, aren’t you, Nathaniel?” she drawled. Okay, take this slow, he thought.

Grace kicked off her shoes and led him into a large living room with picture windows and a herringbone parquet floor, without a stick of furniture or anything on the white walls—Nate cracked wise that he loved what she did with the room. The air was redolent with that same fragrance. Three large wicker baskets were lined up against the wall. At the end of the room an immense gong (from Tibet, Grace said solemnly) hung from a varnished standing frame, with a large white pillow on the floor in front of the dimpled seven-foot bronze disk. On either side of the gong were black lacquer console tables with matching Chinese cloisonné candlesticks, a deep copper bowl, and a squat black-granite carving that Grace called a shivalinga, an idol to the Hindu deity Shiva, the patron god of yoga. This is nothing less than an altar in a yoga church, thought Nate.

Nate picked up the gong hammer, but Grace said, “No, not that way, I’ll show you,” and lightly ran the felt head of the hammer around the edge of the dimpled disk that started a low moan as the palpable vibrations started, then were overlaid with a higher whine as the harmonics mingled. She dropped the hammer, and shook herself, and Nate figured the wine had caught up to her, but she straightened and walked close to him, and he braced for either a kiss or projectile puking, but in a small voice she asked whether he wanted to see Kundalini energy, her style of yoga, the coiled snake at the base of the spine. It was a little creepy. Nate remembered Bunty thinking maybe she was a bunny boiler, but she was tipsily offering to show him the wellspring of her soul after two dates, and he said yes, of course; the snake at the base of the spine, sure. Then things got weird.

Grace took two steps back, unzipped her cocktail dress, and stepped out of it, the straps of the straining black-lace balconette bra loose on her shoulders, and her boy shorts smooth between her legs. She sat on the cushion in front of the gong, folded her legs in the classic yoga Padmasana, and placed her hands on her knees. “First comes Kapal Bhati, skull shining breath,” she whispered. She began slow, controlled breathing, with deep inhalations and explosive exhalations. After a dozen breaths, she nodded to Nate, okay, make the gong sing like she showed him, and the low Tibetan rumble started, and Nate could feel the buzz in his own spine, but he had to concentrate on a smooth circular motion with the hammer as the second sympathetic higher note started, and he looked at Grace who was sitting rocking her torso in a circular movement, chin up and eyes closed, gaining speed, and she began an indecipherable chant at the same musical note as the gong. Four minutes, five, six, shoulders in a circle forward and back, hands braced and eyes closed, and the sweat started pouring off her face and ran in rivulets between her glistening breasts, and down her stomach to soak the waistband of her panties. Nate’s arm was getting tired, but he was afraid that if he stopped with the gong she would breathe fire at him, and levitate off the balcony into the night sky. At about the ten-minute mark of unabated violent torso swinging, Grace leaned back, arched her spine off the wood, the back of her skull planted on the floor. Her sweat-transparent bra strained high, and she clasped her hands together in a Ksepana Mudra above her heart. She bent back even farther, her rib cage expanding like a bellows, her prayerful hands pressed between her breasts, and she started trembling, tsunami spasms rolling up her heaving belly, the long muscles of her legs pulsing, her feet twitching, and her quivering chin pointing at the ceiling. She suddenly tensed, her eyes rolled white, and her mouth opened as she expelled a huge breath and lay still, hands now slack on her chest.

Nate figured the telephone he’d use to call the ambulance was probably in the kitchen, but first he leaned over Grace who was now lying flat on the floor, eyes closed, legs unfolded and outstretched. Her rib cage was still expanding with her breathing. “Are you okay?” he asked, putting his hand on her shoulder. Her eyes slowly opened and focused on him. She smiled, put a hand behind his neck, and pulled his mouth down onto hers for a hint of a kiss, a single caress of her lips. Her sweet fragrance enveloped him, and his head swam. “What is that perfume?” he said. She pulled his mouth down on hers again.

“Ylang-ylang,” she whispered in his ear, pronouncing it ee-lang, ee-lang. “It is very old.”

“Are you all right?” said Nate. “What happened to you?” Grace rolled to her feet, unhurriedly unclasped her sopping bra without covering herself, and walked to one of the wicker baskets, pulled out a linen kimono, and slipped it on.

“What was that?” said Nate. Grace ran her fingers through her hair, then knotted the belt of the kimono, looking him in the eye without blinking, not at all embarrassed.

“Awakening Kundalini,” she said. “It’s when I lose myself.”

“Awakening what?” said Nate.

“Have you heard of the seven chakras in the body? Life-force centers? No? I will explain it another time. It is too late tonight.”

Another whisper of a kiss at the door, and Nate walked home along Bowen Road, mentally drafting tomorrow’s cable for COS Burns’s release on what appeared to be a notable start in the developmental to recruit Grace Gao, aka Zhen Gao. Nate’s case-officer antennas were vibrating a little, assessing factors: This was going faster than normal, maybe artificially faster? This Kundalini energy thing was unexpected; could it be exploited? She had sobered up fast enough. She was an enigma, but irresistible: erotic without being salacious; alluring without being wanton; at once sophisticated and naive. If he could swing it, he had a feeling this could be an exceptional recruitment. The foreign scholarship in the United Kingdom was still an unexplained anomaly, as was her apparent uninterest in his personal history. These were false notes, but he’d resolve them.

The MSS counterintelligence team in the apartment next door listened to the audiotape of the dinner at the China Club, and reviewed the video of Zhènniǎo, the poison-feather bird’s performance in the honey-trap apartment on the other side of the bare wall—with the choreography of the gong and Matsyasana, the provocative bowstring fish pose, and the chaste kiss—and were satisfied with the evening and with future prospects for entrapping the American CIA officer and eliciting the name of his agent. His assassination was a foregone conclusion. The team leader politely congratulated their esteemed guest from Moscow, the beautiful blue-eyed Russian SVR officer who sat in an armchair in front of the monitors, bouncing her foot. Her guidance on how best to concoct Grace Gao’s fictitious personal legend to inveigle the American was sibylline—almost as if she knew how he thought.