Tired down to his atoms, Tinseng wondered if life had been easier back in the age of Mencius or some other ancient time. If the moral battles had been simpler, if conclusions on right and wrong had felt easier to reach. The times they lived in now felt too complex. Anything he thought to say to Jinzhao felt insultingly insufficient.
He looked through the doorway to where Jinzhao had retreated into the kitchen. He stood over the stove, head down, shoulders slumped.
What could he say that Jinzhao would believe? Nothing, he thought. But he could do other things. He could find who leaked the secrets and track down whether they had taken any papers with the poem “Snow” on them. He could untangle this mess and make sure no one thought Mei Jinzhao capable of betrayal. He could punish anyone who threatened Jinzhao’s happiness.
While Jinzhao floated around the flat like a ghost, Tinseng would track down whatever he could about this source. That was the goal he gripped between his teeth, and he wouldn’t let go for anything.
Eight Months Ago. October 1962.Geneva, Switzerland.
The paper that had confirmed the story and branded it the “Mei Affair” was a reputable pillar of Swiss journalism. But the paper that first broke the story, Die Morgenzeitung, was little more than a gossip rag—its owner the type to sell his mother for a scoop, its editor a vindictive cretin, and its writers willing to fill gaps in their stories with lies. Die Morgenzeitung was the kind of paper that felt no integrity, only the motivation to sell more papers, and had held on to their advantage over their competitors as long as they could. Now that every paper reported on the Meis with breathless coverage, Die Morgenzeitung’s staff were bitter about sharing the limelight.
Tinseng used this against them. First he’d cleared the job so he could travel for more than a weekend at a time, and surprisingly, his boss had liked the idea. They’d even helped smooth the way for him with the other British agents working in Geneva. Then, over the course of multiple weeks, he’d hung around the bars near the Die Morgenzeitung offices, introduced himself as a translator to the beat writers, dropped hints he’d do anything for a check, did a few odd jobs for the paper and brought them one major story, then suggested he might be able to get more out of their primary documents. Maybe they were sitting on another scoop, but it was hidden in the Mandarin. If they let him have a look . . .
The desperate and greedy are always easiest to trick, Tinseng thought triumphantly a month later as he stood in the Die Morgenzeitung office ready to look at their other caches of Li Xifeng’s papers. The editor hadn’t wanted any documents to leave the office, and Tinseng acted disappointed he couldn’t take the work home. He proceeded to work four eighteen-hour days in a row. He worked late hours, presumably to show his dedication, and each night a bored junior reporter had to monitor him. After the first week, he was able to give them far more accurate translations than they’d had before. With his sincerity and usefulness proven, they began to trust him. The next Thursday, when he announced another long night, the young man assigned to watch him had groaned: He had finally scored a date with the blonde down in accounting. (That too had been Tinseng’s doing.) Casually, Tinseng mentioned that if the young man wanted to slip out to meet his date, Tinseng would cover for him as long as he was back by one or two to lock up. And so, wishing the young man luck on his date, Tinseng was left alone on the floor. 笑裏藏刀.4
He made copies of all the papers first to take back to Paris Station. There, in the back of one of the files, was a page with the poem “Snow.” And—yes. There was the little imperfection that implied Jinzhao’s name. Fuck. Well, at least they hadn’t printed it yet. Tinseng took the page, folded it, and put it in his pocket. The filing system at Die Morgenzeitung was haphazard; they only kept one copy of primary documents. Even if someone realized this page was missing later, they’d have no way to prove it.
After tucking all the copies in his bag, Tinseng picked the lock on the squat two-drawer file cabinet of the reporter who first broke the story. What he needed was the name of the source. Who had the originals? Tinseng had to know, so that he could track them down and burn every last copy of this page from the face of the earth.
He didn’t find anything else useful in the reporter’s desk—reporters didn’t write down their sources for this very reason, and he had to admit he was a little relieved for the reporter’s other sources—so he moved on to a department he knew would have useful information: accounting. In this new age, when wars were fought with secrets, financial records were a reliable goldmine, and they didn’t let Tinseng down now: He found a bank account number. That was plenty. He wrote down the number and slid it into his pocket next to the poem.
To keep up the pretense, he sat back at his loaned desk and continued to work on translating. His babysitter came back at 1:30 a.m., flushed and grateful. Tinseng would translate for the next week or two so he didn’t arouse suspicion, then make a fuss about not being paid enough and get himself fired. More than reasonable for what he was walking away with.
As he walked back to his hostel, dark satisfaction curled like shadows around him. He kept touching his pocket, hardly willing to believe his luck and eager to wield his new lead to cut through to the truth.
Three Months Ago. March 1963.Paris, France.
Paper was the currency of the Cold War. A napkin with a scribbled chemical equation could mean a tectonic shift in world politics. A photograph of two men in a café could mean a bullet in the head. The only problem was the quantity of the stuff: that napkin might be buried under hundreds of pages of trash, and one photo could easily be lost. No one had the time or resources to sort through it all.
Lucas Grodescu had made it his business to provide that service. Files on Grodescu listed him as a blackmailer, thief, and information source; Grodescu called himself a courier. He was never the one who discovered the secrets. He was the middleman the secrets passed through, the one who got secrets where they needed to go.
Any two-bit thief could bring Lucas Grodescu information and expect a predictable payday based on quantity; later, they might get a second payout based on quality. It made Grodescu one of the most popular middlemen to work with, and that, in turn, protected Grodescu: He made very few enemies and always had some helpful tidbit to toss any authority coming after him. Every government had used him, in fact; his access was unprecedented, his results undeniable—a fat spider in the middle of an intercontinental web.
The bank account number Tinseng had found led him on a merry chase through multiple countries, banks, shell businesses, and more paperwork than Tinseng could stand, but finally it had given him Lucas Grodescu’s name. That in itself was a bad omen: Grodescu worked from France, and Tinseng had heard of him before. He wasn’t a man to do anyone favors, and MI6 would never be interested in buying these secrets at the price Grodescu was likely asking. It was a game between the CCP and USSR, and possibly the Americans who were rich and impulsive enough to be tempted by any bidding war. Tinseng had no hope of getting near it.
While Tinseng considered what to do about Lucas Grodescu, he’d been working the problem from the other side. He’d finally been able to convince Jinzhao to make a deal with the British. He would talk and let them ask their questions in exchange for a new life in Hong Kong. The deal let Tinseng go too; he’d become more trouble than he was worth to them, a liability and a nuisance, and he offered them an easy out: get him a job at the new university being established in Hong Kong and he’d recruit for the Circus. They agreed with insulting alacrity.
Tinseng didn’t mention that if, at any time, Jinzhao felt it was safe to return to Beijing, Tinseng would help him get back and damn the consequences. He didn’t mention that achieving this goal would be far easier in Hong Kong than in France. And he especially didn’t mention that he had absolutely no intention of holding up his side of the bargain. He would never recruit a single soul to be fed to this grinder. He would rather them put a bullet in his head than trick any student as he’d been tricked.
That had been settled two weeks ago. When he’d written Yukying the day after, he’d started and scrapped four different letters. His handwriting looked worse than ever.
He was terrified of returning to Hong Kong.
Once, Cai Hesen had written to his friend Mao Zedong that he had traveled to Europe to “understand the ultimate goals of human beings, to break apart the numerous constraints of the world, and to realize the nature, status, and responsibilities of freedom.” Tinseng hadn’t been that ambitious. He’d left, rather than traveled to. Fled, coward that he was. He thought he’d have more time and that somehow time would make him braver. It hadn’t.
“What did your sister write?” Jinzhao asked two weeks later. He sat on the bed, book in hand, legs extended out in front of him, pillow stuffed against the small of his back. It was so domestic Tinseng wanted to cry, or take a picture, or throw something heavy out the window. His record player, maybe.
Instead of any of those things, he joined Jinzhao on the bed.
“She wrote about my brother,” he said.
“What about your brother?”
Tinseng ignored the question, bunching his own pillow underneath his neck to stare up at Jinzhao. “Have I ever told you you’re beautiful?”
“Yes.” Jinzhao’s countenance didn’t flicker. “Your brother?”
“Significantly less beautiful. What about brilliant? Have I used brilliant?”
“Many times.” A beat. “Maybe you’re running out of words.”
“Me? Never! Effusive. Exemplary. Cataclysmic.” Nothing. He framed Jinzhao’s face with both hands and smiled up at him with all the tenderness he had. “Crackerjack.”
That got a flicker. Tinseng counted it as a win, but just when he thought he was in the clear:
“What did your sister write?”
You really couldn’t distract Mei Jinzhao for long. He sighed.
“She said my brother is happy I’m coming home.”
“And that’s . . . bad?”
“It means he never forgave me for leaving in the first place. And he offered for me to stay with him.”
