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He takes it in hand, starts munching on it, and, approaching a municipal wastebasket, suddenly stops and spits out whatever spicy piece of meat was in his mouth, doing his best to upchuck what was left in his stomach from breakfast, and in doing so, sweeps the area around him with his sunglasses-hidden eyes.
There. Young Chinese man suddenly stopping while crossing the street.
There. Young Chinese woman, smartly dressed, carrying a briefcase and talking on her phone, taking just a few seconds to turn her head away from the phone to look at him.
Benjamin has been made.
He’s being surveilled by Chinese intelligence.
Depending on what orders his Ministry of State Security counterparts have received from Beijing, he might not be alive by the time noon arrives.
CHAPTER 3
BENJAMIN DROPS THE skewer into the trash and resumes his walk, wiping at his face with a paper napkin that he drops onto the street.
There’s a brief temptation to cancel this highly dangerous op, but he won’t do that because of all that is at stake for Langley.
More than a decade ago, in a horrific series of still highly classified events, nearly every CIA agent and asset in China was identified, rolled up, and disappeared, most likely executed with a bullet to the back of the head. To Langley, it was like being comfortable at home, with a worldwide internet connection, and having it suddenly go dark, with calls to customer service going unanswered, the constant unplugging and plugging of the modem leading to a black screen.
No news, no knowledge, nothing.
Which is a dangerous way of living in today’s world, no hint of what your leading global rival is thinking, planning, and preparing to do.
Then there’s something else about this mission, something deeply personal hidden away for years, but that has surprised him by coming back so raw and open.
A cherished memory of a beautiful woman sitting next to him in a college class, a decade ago, and—
All right,he thinks.Put that away. He’s sure he’s been made but there’s always a chance that those two Chinese pedestrians are truly innocent, just reacting in shock at seeing a tourist vomit in the street.
Is he overreacting?
Time for evasion, Benjamin thinks, as he again resists the urge to check his watch.
Benjamin comes to a busy street, and then slips through a narrow space left by two dull-green taxicabs that have abruptly stopped. Here the crowds are just a bit more thick, and he increases his pace and ducks into the lobby of the Fong De restaurant, whose layout he memorized a month ago.
Just moving, seconds in play, he goes into the men’s room, luckily finding an empty stall.
Move, move, move.
The bright-yellow baseball cap is gone, and he takes a small squeeze tube and sprays the edges of his dark-brown hair, making it instantly gray. A floppy tan rain hat goes on his head. The white plastic earbuds are tossed. The tan jacket, turned inside out, is now blue. A wet wad of toilet paper is swept across his white sneakers, turning them black. The sunglasses join the baseball cap into an overflowing trash bin and are replaced by clear reading glasses. From his travel bag he takes out a black flashlight and after some pulling and twisting, it becomes a black cane.
After some folding and zippering, his shoulder bag is now a fanny pack, fastened around his waist. He flushes the toilet and starts limping out of the bathroom, through the crowded lobby, and now outside.
Time elapsed, about sixty seconds.
CHAPTER 4
HARD TO EXPLAIN again, but Benjamin knows that his change-up back there has thrown off his surveillance, as he takes his time, limping along, the map of this part of Chinatown still vivid in his mind, and now he’s close.
Down a narrow alley, overflowing trash bins on both sides. A dog barking somewhere, a car with a bad muffler rattling nearby.
The alley comes out to a narrow road lined with low-slung brick and stone shops and apartment buildings, lengths of clothesline hung with clothes drying in the breeze.
At the corner he comes to a front door bracketed by a pair of fat, smiling tiger sculptures, their stone faces chipped, the bright paint nearly faded away. Breathing hard, Benjamin leans his cane against the doorway, bends down to tie his right shoe, his fingers slipping for a moment to the rear of the two-foot-tall tiger, pulling away a key fastened by a drop of putty.
Key concealed in his hand, he retrieves the cane and enters the ill-lit apartment building.
He trots up the three flights of stairs to the top floor. The place smells of old diapers and cooking oil. There are two doors at the top landing, 3-A and 3-B.