WHEN GARY WENT TO HONG KONG by way of Taipei in late September 1963, Bingwen told him that the famine was over — things had turned around and China was on the right track again. The national leaders had rectified their mistakes and introduced new policies, so people continued devoting themselves to building the new society. As for Gary’s family in the countryside, everybody was well. He should set his mind at ease and just focus on his mission overseas. The intelligence he had provided this time was invaluable, especially the international perspectives on China’s domestic troubles and the CIA’s operation in Indochina. After depositing five hundred dollars into Gary’s account in Hang Seng Bank, Bingwen told him, “We know this small amount is far from enough to compensate you, but we did our best. In the future, when our country’s rich and strong, we’ll give you more.”
“It’s an honor to serve our motherland. Please don’t mention compensation,” Gary said with feeling, his eyes hot and moist.
Bingwen gave him the contact information for Father Kevin Murray, a priest at a Catholic church in downtown Baltimore. From now on Gary could go to that man for help in case of emergency. “Rest assured,” his handler said, “Murray grew up in the Philippines, but his mother is Fujianese. His father is an Englishman. If you want to send us something urgent, he can handle that too.”
After lunch at a restaurant called Old Shanghai, the two got on a cruise boat heading out to the ocean. Gary was refreshed, as if the land and the water around him were more invigorating than those in Virginia. Indeed he hadn’t felt so alive for years, and there was a stir of joy in his heart that for the moment soothed the pang of homesickness. He gazed at the distant shoreline and the wooded hills, on which a few villas were shaded by shifting foliage and beyond which spread the land he had so often returned to in his dreams. A flock of seabirds were wheeling above the flickering waves, letting out cries like children in a game. Far away in the northeast a sampan with bronze sails jumped a little on the horizon.
To help Gary relax, during the following three days Bingwen took him to a waterfront club, two performances of traditional operas, a floating restaurant that served fresh-caught seafood, and arrays of stores in Sham Shui Po and Western Market, where Gary bought presents for Nellie and Lilian. He had a lot of fun on this trip and came back loaded with stuff that amazed his wife and daughter.
Among the things he’d brought home for Nellie were a necklace of pearls and a bamboo-handled back scratcher with a tiny ivory hand at its end. There were also two packs of smoked sausages, fiery red like shriveled hot dogs, which neither Nellie nor Lilian would touch. His wife and daughter were afraid of the fat visible in every slice like specks of cheese, but he ate the meat with relish. Several nights in a row he’d have a glass of whiskey while savoring the sausage on a butter plate alone.
TWO WEEKS LATER, Gary attended a small meeting at which eight of his CIA colleagues, all East Asia hands, deliberated on the military situation in Vietnam. Thomas took an internal report out of his chestnut portfolio and began to read some information on China’s involvement in the region. China had secretly sent thousands of engineering troops and several antiaircraft artillery regiments to help the Vietcong. Some Chinese infantry units, disguised in the North Vietnamese army’s uniforms, participated in battles against the Americans. There was also a supply line, maintained by Chinese personnel, winding from Yunnan province through the mountains and across the rivers all the way to Hanoi. Moreover, some Chinese army hospitals south of Kunming City had been treating wounded Vietcong soldiers. It looked like China was becoming the rear base of North Vietnam. If the Chinese continued backing up the Vietcong on such a scale, there’d be no way the Americans could win the war.
“We must figure out how to stop Red China,” Thomas said to the analysts around the oblong table. “The Pentagon wants us to give them some suggestions so they can make action plans to deter the Chinese.”
While the others were expressing their opinions, Gary’s mind wandered. He was thinking about how to get hold of that internal report, which obviously contained vital intelligence that showed how the United States considered China’s role in Vietnam and what measures it might take against China. Apparently the Americans regarded his country as a major opponent in that region; they might launch attacks on the Chinese troops there, and might even bomb some cities beyond the Sino-Vietnamese border. At any cost Gary wanted to make a copy of the report. He had planned to meet with Father Murray soon and ought to pass some valuable intelligence to the man as his first delivery.
One of his colleagues seated next to Thomas picked up the report and began leafing through it. He kept tapping his forehead with his fingertips while he read. As he was coming to the last page, Gary said, “Can I have a look?”
The man handed it to him. Gary started skimming it while listening to the others. Then he placed the report next to his manila folder as if it were something he’d taken out of his own file. He joined the discussion and threw in his suggestions now and then. He said that the Chinese were expert in night fighting, so the American barracks in Vietnam should be equipped with searchlights and flares; that our troops should stay out of the firing range of Chinese artillery, which was quite accurate, agile, and powerful; that we should consider a naval blockade since a large quantity of weapons were shipped from the Soviet Union to North Vietnam by sea.
Then a bespectacled man seated across from Gary asked, “Can you pass that to me?” He was referring to the report, and Gary had no choice but to hand it over.
For the rest of the meeting he tried to think how to get it back, but to no avail. Eventually it returned to the head of the table. When the meeting was over, Thomas gathered his documents, including the report, and put them back in his portfolio. He left the conference room with it under his arm. Watching his boss pad down the hallway with his stiff legs, Gary knew he’d have to pilfer it.
The next day, carrying his manila folder, Gary went to Thomas’s office on the pretext that he needed his authorization for some travel expenses for which the treasurer’s office wouldn’t reimburse him. Recently he’d gone to San Francisco to interview potential recruits, and while he was there he’d rented a car for two days. It was this item that the accountant refused to accept. Gary told Thomas the truth, that he’d driven to Berkeley to use its Asian library and also to meet with Professor Swanson, a noted translator of ancient Chinese poetry, whose work both Thomas and he admired. “Sometimes Sharon can be a tightwad,” his boss said about the chief accountant. “But we need someone who can keep our budget under control.” Without further ado, he uncapped his fountain pen and began to look through the sheet of paper with Gary’s receipts attached.
At this point the phone rang and Thomas picked up. The call was from his wife, Alicia. “Excuse me for a moment,” he said to Gary and went into the inner room, where he could speak privately. Seizing the opportunity, Gary opened his boss’s chestnut portfolio, which was lying on the sofa, found the report, and slipped it into his own folder. He had planned to create a small mishap, upsetting an ashtray or coffee cup, so that Thomas might go to the bathroom for a paper towel and give him a moment alone in the office. If that didn’t work out, he would come again with a pair of birdlike tropical fish, since Thomas and his wife kept an aquarium at home. Now Alicia’s phone call had come at an opportune time. Somehow Gary had always had luck with Thomas — never had he failed to lift a document from him.