An American Spy by Olen Steinhauer Read Free Book Online

from the bottle, emptied it, then set the bottle down. He said, “You’ve already lost this argument, Xin Zhu. Twelve years ago Jia Chunwang gave you a public throttling because you were trying to stop him from recalling our undercover agents in the West. You barely survived that. This year, you alienated the entire Ministry of Public Security with your unfounded mole theory. Now you’re ignoring anyone who might oppose you. You’re pretending they don’t even exist. But they do exist, Xin Zhu. And they’ll eat you alive.”
    Zhu sighed, reaching for his own bottle. “Did you know that, ever since he took the job, the director of the CIA itself had been lobbying to get rid of the Department of Tourism? They have as many backroom battles as we do. Quentin Ascot may be embarrassed by what I’ve done, but in the end he won’t fight back because I’ve done what he’s been unable to do.”
    “I doubt he wanted to actually kill the whole department.”
    “I saved him a lot of retirement packages.”
    “And now there’s a Tourist poking around Beijing. Think that maybe your calculations were off?”
    “How about these calculations, Zhang Guo? Imagine that I’m right about the mole in the Ministry of Public Security, and he reports to the CIA on Monday that Xin Zhu has been sacked. They learn that the only person willing to make them pay for what they did to us in Sudan was fired. Are you with me? Now run the math. How long before they try something like that again?”
    Zhang Guo took out a cigarette. “Maybe, knowing you’re not around to shoot them in the face, they’ll try to make friends.”
    Zhu considered this, staring down at the remains of his fried eel. It didn’t look like Wu Liang at all. “If someone is looking at me, it’s not Quentin Ascot. I’m convinced of that.”
    “Then who is it?”
    Zhu rubbed his face and reached for a fresh beer.

3
    The only similarity between the fried eel and Wu Liang was the indigestion that struck him on the long train ride from Jinan down to Shanghai, making it hard to doze even in the deluxe soft sleeper cabin, with its private toilet and a view of the countryside blackness between stations. Nanjing was lit up like a landing field, even though the sun had risen by then, and it was afternoon by the time he reached Shanghai. Wobbly with fatigue, he stored his bag in a station locker, then took buses over to Fucheng Road and searched until he’d found, among the looming modern towers, a public phone booth. He called the Shangri-La and, putting on a slightly comical Hokkien accent, asked to speak to Mr. Xin Zhu. Two rings, then he hung up and called again, telling the clerk that he’d been disconnected. This time, it only rang once before a man said in a tired voice not unlike Xin Zhu’s, “Wèi?”
    “Mr. Xin Zhu,” Zhu said, keeping up the accent, “you called us regarding a date for this evening. We’re sorry that your usual friend is not available, but perhaps we can send someone else.”
    “That may be acceptable,” said the hotel guest, who was in fact He Qiang, a field agent he had twice before used to impersonate himself. It was a rare man who had the build to impersonate Xin Zhu, though He Qiang still required ample padding.
    Zhu stifled a yawn. “She will need to know your room number, of course.”
    “Of course, it’s 1298. But maybe, to start, she and I could have a drink in the hotel bar.”
    “An excellent idea,” said Zhu. “Might I suggest an eight o’clock rendezvous in the Jade on 36?”
    Zhu gave it another half hour, strolling down to the dock and finding, to his delight, a Häagen-Dazs shop, where he bought a scoop of Chocolate Chocolate Chip that he ate while sitting on a bench and gazing at the Huangpu River. He watched faces again, but these were a more developed version of the New Chinese he had seen on the train to Qingdao. The high-rises of Qingdao had their share of business elite, but Shanghai was their breeding ground.