Chapter 5
A hush fell as the tiny Asian woman “of a certain age” stood up.
“Please bring up the photograph again,” she said, making her way to the front of the room.
The screen changed back to the image of Liam on the boat.
“You see the men with him?”
Alice hadn’t paid any attention to the others in the group.
If she’d thought of them at all, she’d just assumed they were fruit and vegetable merchants Liam had befriended for his story.
One even had a sack of durian. That fruit that smelled like sewage.
Airlines even refused to carry it on board, so great was the stench.
And yet the flesh was so sweet.
How often that was true, she thought, looking around the room. Though in this case, she was worried it was the pleasant exterior and the stinking core.
“Two of the four men”—Vivien tapped their faces, including the durian man—“are agents of MSS. The Ministry of State Security.”
“The Chinese secret police,” said McAllister, while the President’s face hardened even further.
“Palmer is with them,” said Vivien.
“Fuck,” someone whispered.
“Not necessarily,” said Alice. “They’re on the same boat, that’s all.”
Vivien turned to her but said nothing. Behind her mother, on the screen, Liam was smiling. Relaxed. And Alice had to admit there was a familiarity, an intimacy, among the men in the picture. They knew each other, were comfortable with each other.
Were indeed together.
The suggestion that Liam might have been working for the CIA was shocking enough for Alice. Now the possibility that he was, in reality, working for the MSS, was staring them all in the face. The agency that spied on, entrapped, arrested, beat, and disappeared dissidents.
Was that possible? Her sweet Liam?
And now another thought occurred to Alice. The men in this room, most presumably with US Intelligence, did not seem to have known that Liam was in Hong Kong. Otherwise, why question her? Why ask her why he was there?
If he was on assignment for them, wouldn’t they know? And now this photograph of him with known Chinese agents.
Her mother’s voice broke through her shock.
Vivien was outlining what she knew about the current state of the Chinese leadership. The Politburo. And, much more importantly, the powerful Standing Committee of seven members who really ran the country.
Alice listened as her mother named them all. Knew them all.
“As we know, President Chen has been in office for nearly two decades,” Vivien continued. “And although his hold on power remains absolute, his methods of suppression and repression are becoming increasingly ruthless. Verging, it appears, on desperate. And that points to one possibility—”
“That he’s losing his grip,” said McAllister, leaning forward.
Vivien nodded. “The recently passed National Security Law is one indication. It’s a truncheon.
Being used more frequently by the Ministry of State Security.
Any hint of protest is smothered, and the protesters disappeared.
Untold thousands are in prisons in secret locations for unknown and unproven crimes against the state. ”
“At least,” the SecState muttered, “we hope they’re in prison.”
“And not the alternative,” said the Secretary of Defense.
Liam, the alternative, smiled out at them.
“What’s most worrisome for the West, and especially the US,” Vivien continued, completely ignoring Zhou, who was squirming in his seat, desperate to say something, “is that China’s hacking arm, Double Dragon, is becoming more and more active. My informants tell me—”
“Double Dragon’s a myth,” Zhou finally erupted, interrupted. “A false front, a straw man meant to distract.”
Vivien completely ignored him. “Remember the Salt Typhoon attack last year?” she said. “They breached our strongest firewalls and hacked your accounts, Mr. President.”
“Not just mine,” said Pardington, “but highly placed members of each party. And again, while not expressly taking credit, China didn’t try to hide its involvement.”
“Chen wanted us to know,” said McAllister.
“Salt Typhoon was working on orders from Double Dragon,” said Vivien. “My people have confirmed that.”
Salt Typhoon? Double Dragon? thought Alice. Why is this sounding more and more like What’s Up, Tiger Lily?, that spoof of Chinese B-movies?
But beyond what sounded frankly laughable, her mother had said “my people,” “my informants.”
Vivien’s people knew the members of the Standing Committee personally? Knew about Double Dragon?
Alice’s people in China ran fish ball stalls and noodle shops.
Vivien’s people ran the country.
“What else are they telling you, Madame Li?” asked President Pardington. “Anything about what happened today? About what’s going to happen next?”
Because that was what mattered. Next …
Vivien shook her head and sat back down. “If I’d heard anything, I’d have told you.”
Pardington turned to his Director of National Intelligence. “You said this was a warning. But why warn us? Why not just do it?”
“Whatever ‘it’ is,” said the Secretary of Defense.
“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know.”
“Vivien?”
“It’s possible that nothing is coming next.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s possible whoever’s behind this is counting on the West, on the population, to do its work for it.”
“What do you mean?” the President repeated.
“Have you ever watched a Hitchcock film, Mr. President?”
“Of course.” His patience was coming to an end, and his anger was appearing. He managed to contain it. Just.
“The genius of Hitchcock was knowing that the closed door is far more terrifying than the open door. China knows that too. It knows that the imagination can do far more damage than reality. All it needs to do now is … nothing.”
Everyone in the room, including the President, including Alice, was imagining a closed door at the far end of a gloomy corridor. They slowly approached it. Closer, closer. Reaching out. Hand on the doorknob …
“Christ,” said Joanne Clavelle, and more than a few of them almost jumped out of their skins. “China can count on social media to pour oil on the flames.”
“It won’t count on it,” said McAllister. “It’ll create it. That’s what your Double Dragon does, isn’t it?”
Once again, Zhou shifted but managed to stay quiet.
Vivien smiled. “Not my Double Dragon, but yes. Its main job is cyberattacks, and those include planting false information, AI-doctored videos, and feeding and promoting conspiracy theories.”
“It’ll whip the population into a panic,” said Kathleen Wells. “Waiting for something else to happen. We’ll scare ourselves to death.”
The President’s Chief of Staff was tugging on both ends of a quite beautiful scarf, in a nervous habit. Sliding it along her neck, back and forth.
That must burn, thought Alice, who was sitting next to her. She wanted to reach out and stop Ms. Wells. But, like with the father in the elevator, Alice chose to do nothing. Refocusing instead on her mother. The counterirritant.
“Exactly,” agreed Vivien. “After all, what is terror? Not the act, but the anticipation of it. Imagining the worst. Despite your reassurances, Mr. President, you know that millions are even now thinking, ‘What’s next?’”
“It’s what we’re thinking,” said McAllister.
“Does that mean there’s nothing planned?” asked Pardington. “No actual attack?”
The door will stay closed?
“I don’t know,” admitted Vivien. “That’s one theory.
But I’m afraid there’s a lot more going on than we know.
A huge investment of time, effort, and money went into what happened today.
It must have been years in the planning.
And they managed to hide it. No one does that, then stops.
The next attack might not happen tomorrow, or next week, or next month.
They’ll want to mess with our minds. Stretch out the uncertainty, the agony. And then…”
They saw the crack, heard the creak, as that door crept open.
“Oh God,” someone whispered. Alice suspected it was the President, whose shoulders had sagged further.
The Chinese had gotten into his head.
“How did we miss this, McAllister? How could something this comprehensive, this complex, have been planned and no one knew?”
Grant McAllister shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m meeting with the Five Eyes and other allies in the international intelligence community as soon as we finish here. But now’s not the time to turn on each other. Plenty of time later for the postmortems—”
As soon as he said it, he realized it was an unfortunate turn of phrase.
“For now, we need to get a handle on who did this, and why.”
“And how,” said Zhou, who was beginning to suspect that when there was a postmortem, blame would land on his carcass.
Already there was a slight shift in the room as they all began to assume the “cover your ass” position.
“I think I know why your counterpart in China hasn’t returned your messages, Mr. McAllister,” said Vivien. “It’s the head of the MSS you’re trying to reach?”
“Yes.” He leaned forward, his thoughtful eyes on her. “Wang Lai. What do you know?”
She took out her phone, scrolled through it, then handed it to the President.
“What am I looking at?”
“The next head of China’s Ministry of State Security.”
“Next?” Grant McAllister stepped behind the President. “What are you talking about?”
His brows came together as he looked at the picture on Vivien’s phone.
Everyone in the room hurried over, including Alice.
On her mother’s phone, she saw the photograph of a woman in late middle age, kneeling in a garden. She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat and was holding secateurs, apparently in the process of trimming a tiny penjing tree, the predecessor of the Japanese bonsai.
She was smiling at the camera and looked slightly familiar.
This woman looked a little bit like the black-and-white photograph Alice had seen only once, when, as a child, she’d snuck into Vivien’s study. A place she’d been forbidden to enter.