“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.