“You also require,” he said, “a man desperate enough to accept an assignment that has only a slight chance of success, and almost no chance of escape even if he succeeds in the mission. Isn’t that true?”
“Only partially,” Haverford answered. “We’ll have an extraction team standing by to get you out. But the odds are, yes, slim enough to require a man who otherwise has little to lose.”
Well, Nicholai thought, that would be me.
Or “Michel Guibert.”
The identity solved the problem of inserting Nicholai into Beijing. There was no “cover” available as a Russian, because he would instantly be spotted as an imposter. Obviously, he couldn’t be Chinese. An American or British identity was likewise impossible.
But the Guiberts had been particular darlings of the international left since the days of bomb-throwing anarchists with mustaches, and Papa Guibert had paid particular attention to the French Communists in Vichy during the war. So the Guiberts were exactly the type of capitalists that the Communists would tolerate.
And now the Chinese, Haverford explained, had a particular use for the son.
“It’s about Vietnam,” he said.
“More precisely?”
Both China and Russia supported Ho Chi Minh and his insurgency against the French colonial regime in Vietnam. Ho’s Viet Minh troops needed weapons – preferably American as the United States supplied the French and the Viet Minh could rearm themselves with captured ammunition. China possessed a large cache of American arms through weapons captured in Korea, and because the Americans had also armed the Kuomintang, from whom the Communist victors had seized mountains of American weaponry.
“Why can’t the Chinese simply send the guns to the Viet Minh?” Nicholai asked.
China shared a border with Vietnam and the Viet Minh controlled the mountainous area on the frontier. It should have been a simple matter to bring the armaments through the remote terrain to the Viet Minh strongholds.
“They can and do,” Haverford answered. “But it all comes down to money.”
Of course, Nicholai thought.
“The Chinese are cash poor,” Haverford explained. “They’d like to make some dough – especially in foreign currency – from the deal. At the same time, they don’t want to be seen making a profit off the backs of their revolutionary Asian comrades. So you provide a convenient excuse. ‘Gee, we’d love to give you the weaponry, but those slimy Guiberts got to them first. But we can make them sell the guns to you at a price.’ ”
So that was the plan. Nicholai, under the cover of “Michel Guibert,” would be inserted into Beijing to conclude an arms deal with the Chinese, under the pretext of then turning around and selling the guns to the Viet Minh.
“That gets me into Beijing,” Nicholai said, “but how does it get me into, shall we say, ‘operational proximity’ to Voroshenin?”
Haverford shrugged. “You’re the Go master.”
13
JOHN SINGLETON RECEIVED word of the failed attempt on the asset Nicholai Hel with little surprise and measured satisfaction.
After all, if Hel could be killed so easily he was not the man for the job after all – Yuri Voroshenin would be no easy prey. The fact that Hel had dispatched his would-be killers with apparent ease boded well for the mission.
But Diamond, Singleton thought as he moved a white stone into its new position, is so predictable, and disappointingly so. That, combined with his seeming lack of creativity, created some concern about his suitability for the Indochinese posting.
However, the old Go maxim, “Defeat a straight line with a circle, a circle with a straight line,” held a great deal of truth. Diamond, for all his many shortcomings, was certainly a straightforward type, who at least would not trip himself up by overthinking a situation.
Then there was the “circle,” Haverford, nuanced to a flaw. Singleton was reminded of the old saying that “a liberal is a man who will not take his own side in an argument,” and that certainly described Ellis Haverford. But would he have the courage to choose a course of action and take it?
We shall see, Singleton thought as he turned the go-kang around.
That is the wonderful thing about playing both sides of the board.
You never lose.
14
DIAMOND SMASHED the wall with his fist.
It hurt.
Examining his scraped knuckles, he cursed again. Two on one, a surprise attack, and the goddamn Chinese screw it up. At least they had the decency to get themselves killed in the process.
A jolt of fear sickened his stomach.
Hel is the real deal. You’ll have to find a better way to get to him.
15
SOLANGE CAME through the door.
Nicholai got up and helped her put the groceries away.
Haverford noticed the little domestic tableau and it worried him. Due to the previous night’s attempted assassination, they had accelerated the schedule for Hel’s departure. He’d mastered the French dialect, absorbed everything they’d given him in an amazingly short time, and recovered his fitness. It was time to move, and he didn’t want his agent balking now because he’d found love. Although, he admitted, what man wouldn’t fall in love with Solange?
“Did I interrupt something?” she asked.
“No,” Nicholai answered quickly. “Haverford is just dropping off a file for me to read.”
He stressed the “read” to let the American know that he didn’t want to be “briefed” anymore and was capable of digesting the file himself.
Haverford smiled. There was always a power struggle between an operative and his handler; it was to be expected and even encouraged. He was glad to see Hel’s emerging assertiveness – confidence was a good thing in an operative. To a point. But the wise handler knew when to negotiate, when to insist, and when to yield.
“I was just leaving,” Haverford said, getting up from the table. “The croissants were, as always, très délicieux.”
“Merci.”
After Haverford left, Solange turned to Nicholai and asked, “Does it bother you?”
“What?”
“That I was a prostitute.”
The question surprised him. “It is an honorable profession in Japan.”
“It isn’t in France.”
“I’m not French,” Nicholai said. “There’s nothing about you that I find to be anything but a delight, a joy, and an honor.”
Solange came into his arms, kissed him lightly on the neck, and said softly, “I think I’m falling in love with you.”
“And I with you.” His words surprised him as much as the actual emotion, something he had not felt for years, something he had taught himself never to feel again. It had been his experience that anyone he loved went away, usually through the portal of death.
“Je t’aime; je t’aime; je t’aime.”
“Je t’aime aussi,” Nicholai said, delighted to hear the “tu.” “But what are we going to do about it?”
“Nothing.” She sighed, her breath warm and moist on his skin. “There is nothing to do about it except to love each other while we have each other.”
They went into the bedroom to do just that.
Nicholai got up while she was still sleeping, went into the kitchen, and found a can of green tea hidden in the back of a cupboard. There is no reason, he thought as the water heated, that Michel Guibert could not have developed a taste for excellent green tea during his years in Hong Kong.
When the water boiled he poured it into the pot, waited a minute, then stepped outside and poured it onto the ground. He repeated the process, then poured the water in for the third time and let it sit, recalling the old and wise Chinese adage regarding the steeping of tea: The first time, it’s water; the second time, it’s garbage; the third time, it’s tea.