land on us. You’re not old enough to remember those early years of the Chairman, but I do. Back then, simple fear could kill you. People were shockingly fragile, and you didn’t ask why someone stepped off a building. They simply stepped off buildings, and you made sure you didn’t get in their way.”
Zhu chewed the inside of his mouth to avoid replying, for if he began he feared the conversation would never end. He bowed his head to her and slowly rose, wanting to leave without another word, but a few slipped out. “Thank you, Hua Yuan, and I am nearly old enough to remember. However, times have changed, and sometimes asking questions leads, if not to answers, then to better questions.”
“Or to a grave,” Hua Yuan said, then offered her hand, limp, like a Frenchwoman awaiting a kiss on the knuckles. He shook it briefly, then let it go. At the door, she pointed out across the field. “We’re in a city of more than fifteen million people. You see how empty it all is?”
“Yes.”
“Our people have always known the value of a good wall.”
He stopped by the office to find that things were running smoothly, then drove home through the swirling sand of the descending dust storm and parked outside their tower. Most residents used the underground lot, but for the last week, since Monday, he had avoided it, full of the irrational fear of his car getting trapped under all those stories. He turned off the engine, and, instead of getting out, used his encrypted phone to dial a long number. The dust storm was thick now, and he could see very little—which meant that anyone outside the car would see very little of him.
It was just before seven, and, conveniently, Beijing was twelve hours ahead of Washington, D.C., which meant that his man in the embassy would be getting ready for the office. After three rings, he heard a man’s lilting “Wèi.”
“It’s been a while, Comrade Sam Kuo,” he said.
Silence. “Yes, comrade . . .” Sam Kuo faded, perhaps in the company of his wife. “Good to hear from you.”
“I trust you and the family are in good health.”
“Yes, I am, and they are, too. And you—you as well, comrade.”
“Sam Kuo,” Zhu said, “I’m in need of a little help. Do you think you could assist me?”
Later, when Sung Hui was telling him about a cousin on her mother’s side who was pregnant, he got up from the sofa and, taken by a feeling that was all too rare for a man of only fifty-eight years, kissed her neck, and then her lips. She gave him a soft smile and led him to the bedroom. As she crouched on top of him, nails digging into his soft, expansive chest, he wondered if Hua Yuan’s peculiar sadness had provoked this sudden desire, or maybe it had been that last minute of silence for the deaths in Sichuan.
No—it wasn’t either of those things, he realized as his wife’s long hair tickled his face. It was that he was fighting for his life again, sending out agents, plotting moves on the other side of the planet. He was engaged in the one thing he had ever had a talent for, and it filled him with anxiety, anger, sadness, and love—the entirety of human experience.
6
In the morning, he sent word to He Qiang that Liu Xiuxiu should visit a photo booth, then had Shen An-ling personally buy tickets on two separate flights to Washington, D.C., under names connected to passports they kept in their floor safes. For the rest of the morning, they discussed the little that Zhu had learned from Hua Yuan and the information Shen An-ling had collected on Leticia Jones. The story of Jones meeting Abdul Khalik could not be verified by any of their sources, but Wu Liang had helpfully sent the details of their meeting in a barren workers’ bar, originating from a low-level ministry informer: A black woman talking foreign-accented Mandarin to a long-haired man clutching tea, a man the source later ID’d from ministry mugshots.
Although Leticia Jones had evaded surveillance after the meeting
Zhu chewed the inside of his mouth to avoid replying, for if he began he feared the conversation would never end. He bowed his head to her and slowly rose, wanting to leave without another word, but a few slipped out. “Thank you, Hua Yuan, and I am nearly old enough to remember. However, times have changed, and sometimes asking questions leads, if not to answers, then to better questions.”
“Or to a grave,” Hua Yuan said, then offered her hand, limp, like a Frenchwoman awaiting a kiss on the knuckles. He shook it briefly, then let it go. At the door, she pointed out across the field. “We’re in a city of more than fifteen million people. You see how empty it all is?”
“Yes.”
“Our people have always known the value of a good wall.”
He stopped by the office to find that things were running smoothly, then drove home through the swirling sand of the descending dust storm and parked outside their tower. Most residents used the underground lot, but for the last week, since Monday, he had avoided it, full of the irrational fear of his car getting trapped under all those stories. He turned off the engine, and, instead of getting out, used his encrypted phone to dial a long number. The dust storm was thick now, and he could see very little—which meant that anyone outside the car would see very little of him.
It was just before seven, and, conveniently, Beijing was twelve hours ahead of Washington, D.C., which meant that his man in the embassy would be getting ready for the office. After three rings, he heard a man’s lilting “Wèi.”
“It’s been a while, Comrade Sam Kuo,” he said.
Silence. “Yes, comrade . . .” Sam Kuo faded, perhaps in the company of his wife. “Good to hear from you.”
“I trust you and the family are in good health.”
“Yes, I am, and they are, too. And you—you as well, comrade.”
“Sam Kuo,” Zhu said, “I’m in need of a little help. Do you think you could assist me?”
Later, when Sung Hui was telling him about a cousin on her mother’s side who was pregnant, he got up from the sofa and, taken by a feeling that was all too rare for a man of only fifty-eight years, kissed her neck, and then her lips. She gave him a soft smile and led him to the bedroom. As she crouched on top of him, nails digging into his soft, expansive chest, he wondered if Hua Yuan’s peculiar sadness had provoked this sudden desire, or maybe it had been that last minute of silence for the deaths in Sichuan.
No—it wasn’t either of those things, he realized as his wife’s long hair tickled his face. It was that he was fighting for his life again, sending out agents, plotting moves on the other side of the planet. He was engaged in the one thing he had ever had a talent for, and it filled him with anxiety, anger, sadness, and love—the entirety of human experience.
6
In the morning, he sent word to He Qiang that Liu Xiuxiu should visit a photo booth, then had Shen An-ling personally buy tickets on two separate flights to Washington, D.C., under names connected to passports they kept in their floor safes. For the rest of the morning, they discussed the little that Zhu had learned from Hua Yuan and the information Shen An-ling had collected on Leticia Jones. The story of Jones meeting Abdul Khalik could not be verified by any of their sources, but Wu Liang had helpfully sent the details of their meeting in a barren workers’ bar, originating from a low-level ministry informer: A black woman talking foreign-accented Mandarin to a long-haired man clutching tea, a man the source later ID’d from ministry mugshots.
Although Leticia Jones had evaded surveillance after the meeting
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