Battlefield 4: Countdown to War Page 16

  They raced through a checkpoint without even slowing down. The guards dealing with a long string of vehicles just looked up and saluted. They were on their way.

  32

  MSS HQ, Shanghai

  Hannah sat at the briefing table in precisely the way she had been trained: hands on the surface, not flat – that was too emphatic – not fists – too aggressive – but somewhere in between, as if holding imaginary tennis balls. Shoulders back as if standing to attention, even when sitting, to show respect. Make no eye contact with the Director even when speaking, yet look focused, concentrating on a space between one and two metres ahead. Feet flat on the floor, legs not crossed – to avoid any body language which could be construed as suggestive.

  Fuck this. Fuck this right up the ass. Fuck the boss’s mother and his sister and his philandering bitch wife, came a voice from somewhere deep in her head. What am I doing here?

  ‘Huang Shuyi, I trust that you are thinking constructive thoughts.’

  Director Guo Hua-fe paused in his monologue about the current situation and let his cold gaze drift towards Hannah. He wanted her. He should be able to have her. He was her superior after all. Other women on his staff were his for the taking, but they were all lowly clerks. This one was diff erent: an enticing challenge with her American education and confident, individualistic Western ways. All independent thought in women was disturbing; in one with Western influences it could be positively dangerous. Another reason she needed to be tamed.

  She snapped to attention.

  ‘Most assuredly, Director. May I share one with you?’

  He waved a hand, which indicated he didn’t much care either way.

  ‘My proposal, sir, is that the while the police are dealing with the protesters we should be investigating those forces fomenting the current unrest.’

  Guo cocked his head on one side.

  ‘An interesting suggestion, Agent Huang. What makes you think such “forces”, as you put it, exist?’

  He implied by his tone that her suspicion was faintly ridiculous, but he let his eyes linger on her. Hannah felt a cold shudder run through her. He was not an ugly man, but he exuded the institutionalised lack of empathy of one who had seen and done things in the name of his country that had eaten into his humanity; someone who would never feel for anyone but himself. The three agents sitting opposite shared a smile under their bowed heads. She knew they deeply resented her presence, the way she drew attention to herself and poisoned the previously convivial, smug relationship they had enjoyed with their boss, whom they worshipped.

  The Director kept his eyes on her as he awaited her reply. Her appointment by all appearances had been his. However, her father’s standing as one of that diminishing number of untainted heroes of the Mao era meant that there was useful political capital to be gained by giving her a role. Not to have hired her would in all probability have resulted in some disfavour. But he wanted her to see it as his gift, not her father’s, and therefore something she owed him for. So far she had shown little sign of gratitude. If anything, she seemed bent on causing him problems. She would have to learn her place.

  She met his gaze.

  ‘To quote an old English axiom, Director, there is no smoke without fire.’

  She watched for a reaction. Did he even know about the fire at Kovic’s apartment? Did he know what an axiom was? He had passed on the directive to deport him as if it was a shopping list, a trivial task of no significance. Strange, then, that he hadn’t asked her if she had carried it out.

  ‘Agent Huang, you have spent considerable time outside the country, under the influence of alien value systems.’ He never missed an opportunity to remind her of her time abroad, as if it were some kind of truancy. ‘You must beware of becoming detached from day to day realities. Do not underestimate the patriotism of the Chinese people.’

  ‘All I would suggest, sir, is the possibility that reactionary elements may be capitalising on the events on the North Korean border to further undermine Sino–US relations.’

  She chose her words carefully, using the same soulless ministry-speak that she had become horribly familiar with. The other agents, seated at the table in identical poses, kept their eyes firmly fixed on their hands. Questioning the Director’s procedure or even his interpretation of events could put you on the fast track to oblivion. But then she was a woman; she didn’t have that much to lose.

  The Director looked at her with a disquieting mixture of lust and contempt.

  ‘And what evidence do you have for these “reactionary elements”, as you describe them?’

  The other agents all nodded gravely: how fortunate they were to have such a wise Director.

  ‘None, sir, which is why I am proposing that we establish if there are any.’

  She could feel herself sliding irrevocably back into a void of incoherence, like a car on an icy road with the wrong tyres. At Harvard she had wowed her tutors with her steely insights, and they had hung on her every word as she dismantled the intricate moving parts of China’s governing politburo and laid them out like the pieces of a clock for them to examine.

  I have made a terrible mistake, she thought. I am being anaesthetised by this job. They don’t want my insights or my suggestions. They just want a woman they can humiliate. And I am powerless to change this. I am trapped.

  She blushed at her own frustration. How long could she keep her true feelings to herself? The mistake had been in joining up at all, in letting herself be persuaded by her father. But to have denied him this would have been a rejection of all he stood for, and a personal humiliation tantamount to proof of the deepest ingratitude. If they were an American family . . . but they were not, so why waste mental energy on futile speculation? Then he had been diagnosed with cancer and given four months to live, so she had abandoned her studies and come home.

  ‘Harvard was your wish, now it’s my turn to fulfil a wish,’ he had said, and – seeing the longing in his eyes, how could she have refused?

  The Director was in full flow again, expounding on the natural tendencies of the simple yet admirably patriotic populace. She knew from experience that these monologues could go on for as long as an hour, as he went on, enraptured by the sound of his own voice – while her life ticked away.

  Her father’s intentions had been entirely good, which made it all the more impossible for her to deny him his wish. ‘The MSS needs new blood, people who have been out in the world. You must enlist,’ he had told her. In fact he had done the enlisting before she had even come home. One call to an old comrade and she was on the fast track programme for cadets of exceptional ability – but all of them the off spring of Party high-ups.

  And then there was his illness. ‘He’s slipping away,’ her mother had warned. ‘He needs you at his side – he needs you to fulfil your destiny while he can live to see it.’

  But that had been two years ago and the General had shown no signs of deterioration. He still walked three miles a day, spent at least one morning a week at the firing range and did the super fiendish Sudoku in eight minutes flat.

  ‘Your return has lifted him into remission,’ said her mother, and Hannah discovered the unexpected benefit of making her other parent happy as well. When she caught up with her Harvard friends on Facebook – their travels, their engagements, careers starting in Wall Street, London, Hollywood – she replied politely, unable even to admit what she was doing. She knew what they would be thinking, that she’d given in to tradition and gone home to be married off .

  Some of the MSS she had enjoyed: weapons training, in which she excelled; the gruelling water and climbing challenges at which she came top in her year, and, of course, languages, at which she was truly gifted. But the job itself had been stultifyingly boring as all the more demanding assignments were handed out to her male colleagues, with the sons of the most influential cadres getting the plum jobs. She soon realised that a mediocre man had twenty times more chance of getting a promotion – or even just esca
ping the office – than even the most brilliant woman. This had sharpened her determination to rise up the ranks and prove the system wrong, to get out in the field and grab some of the action – somehow, no matter what it took.

  From early childhood, her father had been her mentor, challenging her to stretch herself, not settle for just good enough. Now, whenever she was at home he asked her to read to him – Winston Churchill’s History of the English Speaking Peoples. Even being allowed to read such a book would not so long ago have been unimaginable, he reminded her. He understood English well enough but had trouble reading it now his eyes were failing.

  ‘To fight imperialism you must understand the mind of the imperialist,’ he had told her with a twinkle in his eye, as if to say, well, that’s my excuse. He had lived for the Revolution. What was happening today troubled him, but not as much as what he had discovered in his later years about his erstwhile hero, the Great Helmsman. Even when exiled and put to work in a paper mill, inhaling the poisonous wood pulp purifier that would destroy his lungs, he still exalted Mao Zedong as the great leader who had brought the country into the modern age, and rationalised his own period of internal exile as a necessary sacrifice for the cause of progress. When he had been brought out of the cold by Premier Deng and given new duties, he showed no disillusionment with the system that had starved over sixty-five million people, punishing him and millions of others just for having ‘incorrect thoughts’. He simply took up the reins again and rejoined the next stage of the Long March. Hannah admired his stoicism and his resolve, but try as she did to model herself on him, she knew it wasn’t working.

  The Director was still talking, enumerating the threats to China in a speech that they all knew off by heart. She looked round the table at the others, their heads bowed in reverence. Did they all believe this crap? Her father had wanted her to experience the world, to know and understand things that had been way beyond his reach in his own youth. But the price of that knowledge was the realisation of how far China had to go if it was to root out the backwardness and corruption that was holding it back. These stupid drones with their BlackBerries and iPhones, thinking they were just like Americans; it wasn’t the machines that mattered, but what you did with them.

  Her thoughts turned to Kovic. At first he had infuriated her. Superficially he was just the sort of American she despised: cocky, arrogant, a smart alec know-it-all, showing off his admittedly excellent Mandarin which was, she conceded, almost as good as her English. Worse, he had seen right through her, realised that she knew nothing about the border incident and ridiculed her for not interrogating him about it. The humiliation! She had also been forced to realise how wrong she had got him, how literally she had taken his MSS file that masked what an impressive job he had done of building up a cover as a so-so spook with nothing in his track record to suggest exceptional initiative or draw attention to his ability. What had also surprised her was his reaction to the prospect of deportation, when most Americans she knew always longed to go home. Then his bravery at the fire came as a complete surprise. Rescuing those two women showed a surprising concern for the welfare of others when there was nothing to gain for him personally, not an attitude she had usually associated with either his nationality or his profession. Finally, there was the terrible discovery in his own property of the remains of his girlfriend. His barely concealed grief and his passion for revenge had been completely unexpected – almost as unexpected as her own response to his plea to stay. Dare she examine her motives for that? This was treachery on her part to help an agent of a power seen increasingly as hostile . . . She blushed again at the shock of what she had done.

  But as quickly as this thought came, another overtook it. Had she been tricked? After all, his own people had registered no objection to his deportation. Was he just a rogue element, a menace to both countries who had pulled the wool over her eyes?

  She came back to consciousness. The agent sitting opposite was complimenting the Director on his speech.

  ‘What very perceptive insights you have given us into the situation, sir.’

  Kiss-ass. She glanced at the Director who was basking in the praise like some moronic pet who would no doubt beg at the feet of his own bosses for a morsel of approval. The others round the table began to clap. She had no choice but to join in.

  Kiss-ass was emboldened by this. ‘Perhaps, sir,’ he ventured, ‘the appearance of Jin Jié on TV tonight will provide some balance to our appraisal of the situation.’

  Immediately the Director frowned. The agent went bright red, aghast that he might have displeased his superior. Hannah smiled to herself. At least she wasn’t the only one in the room to feel ostracised. But the feeling was short-lived.

  He turned to her.

  ‘Agent Huang, since you are so interested in investigating the “forces behind”, perhaps you could give us an insight into who is “behind” this individual?’

  That she knew Jin Jié was no secret. They had met at Harvard and a Chinese gossip magazine had recently unearthed a photo of them together at a fraternity ball: ‘General’s daughter dates golden boy’ was the headline. In Europe or America that would have been seen as a normal acquaintance; in China it was suspect, and for the woman – always for the woman – an excuse to denigrate her.

  The Director started to laugh, and right on cue so did the other men in the room. She looked from one to the other and then finally at him. She would find a way to shut them up.

  33

  Huangpu District, Shanghai

  All day she had felt it – something oppressive in the city: not just the smog, or the sticky heat that dusk had done nothing to dissipate. It was not just the increased police presence, but a change of tone, as if people were choosing sides. If she was going to under -stand it she had to experience it for herself. The occupation of People’s Square had been bulldozed by the police but instead of squashing the protest, their action seemed to have spread it around the city, like spores. On street corners there were huddles of people with banners: Death to America . . . Americans Go Home – not just on hand-painted banners but professionally printed T-shirts, which was new. She stopped a youth walking past, grabbed him by the sleeve.

  ‘You believe in this?’ she said, gesturing at his T-shirt.

  He shrugged.

  ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘Some guy gave it to me.’

  ‘So you just wear it? Take it off . It’s not appropriate.’

  ‘Get lost. He paid me to wear it.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I dunno. Ask them.’

  He pointed at a group of student age youths with similar shirts on.

  Hannah approached two girls with a banner and asked the same questions.

  ‘Someone has to pay for this crime,’ said one.

  ‘The Americans think they can just go into places and shoot people,’ said the other. ‘China should stay away from America. It’s a bad influence.’

  Hannah looked at their clothes and shoes: Nike, Converse, Hollister, Gap . . .

  ‘Yeah, they’re taking us over. We must resist.’ The girl’s iPhone buzzed and she looked at the screen. ‘Gotta go. Bye.’

  The girls moved off and were enveloped by the crowd, which had begun to surge forward. Hannah felt compelled to follow. There were hundreds of them, all headed back to People’s Square: mainly students, but also young salary workers. Some instinct told her to hang back. Another told her to get right in there to talk to more of them, to see if she could discover how they were being organised. They must have all received a second message because they all speeded up, as if there was an urgent reason to get to the square. Three hurrying girls crashed into her and apologised.

  ‘Hey, how do you know?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘Where to go, what it’s for?’

  One of them waved her Galaxy in the air. Hannah had made a grab for her hand so she could read the message when a streak of white light flashed skywards between the buildings
. Even though the sound was muffled by the wall of people, the rush of air knocked her to the ground along with everyone around her – an invisible tsunami breaking over them, lifting them en masse and propelling them half a block from where they had been standing.

  When Hannah came to she was in a shop window, face down and covered in shards of glass. A cacophony of a hundred burglar and car alarms rang and hooted, and behind them came the screams and moans of the injured and dying.

  She got to her feet and gently brushed her eyes. She had been lucky, shielded from the full force of the blast by the sea of people in front. She stepped out of the trashed shop front, like a mannequin coming to life. A young man was lying a few feet away. He raised a faltering hand. There was a blade shaped splinter of glass several inches long protruding from his chest. She bent down to help him. His eyes pleaded with her. He grabbed her hand, gripped it hard and then let go, his gaze losing its focus as the life drained out of him. From his other hand slipped his phone. Hannah’s was gone, separated from her by the blast. She scrolled through his last few messages: Mum, don’t wait up, and the seemingly innocuous, See you all in the Square. She tucked the phone into a pocket and turned to see where she could help.