Dominika sat in the armchair, legs crossed, squeezing her thighs together, sweating. She had forced herself to sit still as she watched the monitor and imagined the feel of Nate’s body pressed against Grace in Yab Yum, and her lips tingled imagining those kisses. Thank God she didn’t have to hide an orgasm, sitting a meter from the appalling Rainy Chonghuan, who was watching the screen with his mouth open. She had panicked when Grace had dabbed Nate’s neck with fragrant oil, but she realized this was not the assassination night.
That last kiss. She was astounded by Grace’s apparent skill in dragging Nate into a meditative state, something she knew she could never do. Strangely she was not mad at him—seeing him after all these months on a high-resolution screen was a shock, and she felt a million kilometers away. She knew he had not planned for this to happen, that he was working on the Chinese woman, and it was she who had initiated the contact. To be sure, Dominika would break a vase over his head when (if) she saw him next, but she realized she still loved him; he had said he loved a “woman far away,” which she knew meant her. She was the first person he thought about from his Yab Yum–addled subconscious. Oh, how this espionage got in the way of their lives.
But right now jealousy, pique, longing, and horniness were superfluous. Dominika didn’t know if Nate could resist the mind-warping blandishments of this gorgeous Chinese girl, but she knew that whether or not the MSS pried the name of Nate’s agent out of him, they would very soon reach the point where they would give Zhen the order to eliminate him. He was a beetle in a matchbox and they were going to step on him.
Rainy Chonghuan watched the screen as Grace said good night to Nate at the front door to the apartment. He ordered the technicians to shut down the surveillance monitors and microphones, and turned to Colonel Egorova.
“You can see Zhènniǎo is extensively trained and meticulously prepared,” he said. “She uses the mystical aspects of this yoga to manipulate her targets, to employ tao qu de zuo fa, elicitation methods. If she succeeds, it will happen next time. If at the conclusion of the next contact the American does not reveal the name of the mole, the order to eliminate him will be given.”
“You know your operation best,” said Dominika, casually, wondering if there was a wet spot on the back of her skirt. “But eliminating the American now seems premature. Your girl is making good progress. You could potentially learn additional secrets from this officer about CIA operations in China.”
Rainy shrugged. “Beijing insists,” he said. “She will invite him for another dinner in two days, and we shall see what happens. Zhènniǎo will stay in this apartment from tonight, in case the American becomes lonely and amorous, and decides to visit unannounced.”
“And how will you eliminate the target?” said Dominika.
Rainy Chonghuan showed a muddy riverbank smile. “Zhènniǎo is an expert with firearms, edged weapons, the rope, and a variety of classical weapons. She is also expert in hand-to-hand combat. Her knowledge of poisons and toxins is encyclopedic,” said Rainy. “The requirement, as in most cases such as this, is to mask the hand of the Service. She will choose the appropriate method.”
“It doesn’t sound like she will have any trouble,” answered Dominika, suddenly overwhelmed. The lingering terror waiting for her back in Moscow if she were exposed by the mole in Washington came back to her suddenly. Both she and Nate were teetering on the knife-edge of ruin.
KYI SAW’S BURMESE TOMATO SALAD
Slice medium tomatoes into crescents, cut cherry tomatoes in half, and slice sweet onion into crescents and place in a bowl; add toasted sesame seeds, crushed peanuts, dried shrimp powder, diced chilies, and chopped coriander. Deep-fry garlic and additional onions until crispy and add to bowl. Whisk lemongrass vinegar (or substitute rice wine vinegar), canola oil, fish sauce, lime juice and palm sugar, and pour over salad. Mix gently with hands and garnish with reserved fried garlic and onions and a chiffonade of cilantro. Goes well with a rare steak.
30
Emptiness
Zhen disliked staying in the honey-trap apartment. Her personal flat was in a smaller building in Mid-Levels, where she was surrounded by her books, yoga materials, and comfortable furniture. Staying in this nearly empty apartment was an inconvenience. It, moreover, meant the assassination phase was near, and although she had no compunction about eliminating a target, she was always depressed at the conclusion of an operation. She enjoyed the hunt: engineering first contact, coyly developing the relationship, the heady thrill of seduction, and the dizzying anticipation of the final act, up to the moment she eased a steel needle between the cervical vertebrae of the neck, or looped a silk rope around a throat, or watched a victim’s eyes grow in alarm as the chest-constricting effects of a poison were first felt. But afterward there was an emptiness, a depression, a melancholy. An emptiness that yoga helped relieve.
Zhen always told herself that she worked as a poison-feather bird to feed her stomach, but she practiced yoga to feed her soul. Practice gave perspective, energy, and the strength to accept what she could not change. But there were some things she could indeed change. Her unhappy childhood and subsequent exploitation as a teenaged concubine, and the humiliating scurvy years in Nightingale School and at the Institute in Beijing learning to kill increased her resolve never to let anyone mistreat her again. The first time had been in London, at university, where she had been singled out as a shy exotic by a group of male students, the majority of whom were simply bullies, but one of them had wanted more. Zhen did not bring any of the usual weapons from the institute with her to the United Kingdom, except for two gongfu shàn, pleated kung-fu fighting fans, one black, one red, wide and delicate with expanding wings of edged metal affixed to the fan folds. These were medieval martial-arts weapons and Zhen could make them flutter like birds wings, snapping them open and closed with a report like a gunshot.
There was a complicated social protocol as well in the use of fans, ancient Chinese conventions essentially lost on most Britons, but Zhen had studied them because they would be most relevant when she returned to the Orient as a seductress. Drawing a closed fan along the cheek meant “I want you.” Touching the edge of the extended fan lightly with the fingers meant “I want to talk to you.” To tap the lips with a closed fan meant “kiss me.” None of these applied to the rangy British Romeo named Rowdy White who pushed his way into Zhen’s dormitory room one night, and stood amused as she held two puny folded fans in front of her, ready to defend herself. Rowdy’s cumulative experience with fans was limited to the big ostrich-feather variants used by the dancers in the strip clubs off High Street. When Rowdy reached to grab Zhen by the arm the black fan opened with a pop, deflecting his hand. Chuckling to himself, Rowdy again reached for her and the red fan snapped open, blocked his other arm, then folded in the blink of an eye, and snapped down across his wrist. That hurt. He snarled, stepped forward, arms extended, and both fans snapped open with a clatter like pigeons taking flight in a park, and the leading edge of one fan was raked across his face an inch above his eyebrows, slicing his forehead and blinding him as blood streamed into his eyes and down his cheeks. It was Zhènniǎo’s first blood, and she was mildly surprised how easy it had been.
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