“I am from the Guojia Anquan Bu,” the small Chinese woman said, her voice sharp.
Ted didn’t bother to hide his fat knife, still warm from Leticia’s cheek. “And?” he asked, unafraid. “What the hell are you doing here?”
What Leticia found shocking about this exchange was that the American acted as if he were the put-upon one, when he was on Chinese territory, faced with the authority of Xin Zhu’s Ministry of State Security. He was either a fool or backed up by some powerful people. The woman said, “She has information we need.”
That took some of the air out of the American, and he shook his head. “I’ll need her back afterward.”
“Of course,” she said. “But first I take her.”
He looked like he was going to fight this, but the woman’s hard stare convinced him to step back and raise his hands, the knife still in one, as if he had nothing to do with Leticia. She approached and looked Leticia over once, seemingly disgusted, then nodded at her two men, who used their own knives to cut her free.
It was only in the elevator, when the woman made a call, that she began to understand. Leticia made out fragments—
… can’t be allowed to do this …
… I don’t care if Wu is allied with—
Of course not. The plane will leave soon.
Then they were exiting to the parking garage, hustling Leticia into the backseat of an old Mercedes, the woman joining her. When they drove out to the bright street, in what looked like the Pinghu neighborhood, the woman hung up and looked at Leticia. “You are stupid, you know?”
“Am I?”
“But lucky. Tell Milo Weaver this is what generosity looks like.”
“You work for Xin Zhu.”
“I work for China.”
Leticia looked out the window. “What kind of information do you need from me?”
“From you?” She barked a short laugh. “You have nothing for us. Milo Weaver already gave it to us.”
Now she understood—Milo had traded to get her out of China. She couldn’t help but appreciate that. “Why are you letting Northwell walk all over you?”
The woman crossed her hands over her knee, considering her answer. “Northwell has friends in the Foreign Bureau.”
Of the many Chinese bureaus, the Second Bureau, aka the Foreign Bureau, was a good place to invest in friends. “Come on,” Leticia said. “You’re the Sixth Bureau. Nobody fucks with you.”
A faint smile passed across the woman’s face, then disappeared. “These days the Central Committee is more enamored with the Second.”
Realpolitik, Leticia thought, and in real time. “Can you tell me anything about Tóuzī? What they’re doing on Sakhalin Island? Why they’re messing with Nigeria?”
The woman tilted her head curiously, then: “On Sakhalin, they are building a new school for Northwell. Those boys who took you are from the local Beijing school. International Defense Institute.”
“They study hard,” Leticia said. “So arrest them.”
The woman shook her head but didn’t elaborate. Anthony Halliwell’s Second Bureau friends were really making things hard for the Ministry of State Security. It was difficult to imagine how a Western company in China could be considered more important than the MSS. How much money had to exchange hands for that to happen?
“You mentioned Nigeria,” the woman said.
“They’re funding Boko Haram.”
The woman blinked rapidly, as if the gears in her head had suddenly started moving at light speed. “Where?”
“Borno district.”
The woman spat a violent Chinese curse, then, in English: “The pipeline.”
“What?”
“CNPC—China National Petroleum Corporation. We are preparing to build a pipeline from Niger to Chad.”
“And?” Leticia asked, not getting it.
“Look at a map,” the woman said, her face very serious.
Leticia sighed, trying to see the map of Nigeria in her head, but they were approaching the airport, and she didn’t know how much time she had left. She said, “MirGaz bought twenty-two acres on the Gulf of Guinea, but not for drilling.”
The woman waved a hand. “It is the same as on Sakhalin. Training camps. More soldiers.”
“They’re expanding.”
“Everywhere,” the woman said as the car approached the terminal. “I believe your friend has your ticket. They are holding the plane for you.”
“Friend?”
She rocked her head but only said, “Do you need anything else, Ms. Jones?”
Leticia grinned. “How about one of those plastic guns?”
The woman did not find her amusing at all. “Just leave, okay?”
They let her out at the curb and drove off, but Leticia didn’t fool herself into thinking she’d been left alone. In addition to the cameras, the Guoanbu certainly kept a few full-timers at Pudong International. The Second Bureau, of course, had its own people, too, and all of them, no doubt, watched her search the big hall until she spotted Poitevin leaning against a café counter, lighting up when he saw her. And they certainly took a photo or two as she sidled up beside him and said, “Why the hell are you still here?”
“I wasn’t going to leave you behind.”
“I would have.”
“You’ve been working alone for a long time, haven’t you?”
“What does that mean?”
He shook his head. “Come on.”
They were waved through security, and as they hustled through the terminal Poitevin told her that after calling Milan he’d made it back to the hotel just in time for Xin Zhu’s men to pick him up. Like her he’d been packed into a van, but unlike her he hadn’t been asked anything. Just held on ice for a long time as they drove slowly through town until, finally, his captors received a phone call and brought him to the airport with instructions on which flight to take—Swissair direct to Zürich.
Once they were seated in economy, Leticia called Zürich and appreciated the relief she heard in Noah’s voice. Milo wasn’t in the office, but he would get word to him. “He’ll be here when you get back,” Noah said. “Stay safe.”
As they reversed out of the gate, she looked out the window and remembered what Xin Zhu’s agent had said. She pulled up a map on her phone. She found Nigeria and looked around it, to the east, where Niger and Chad lay. She shook her head. Why hadn’t she seen it before? The CNPC’s oil pipeline running from Niger to Chad went right by the Nigerian border—right by Borno State.
“Disruption,” she said aloud.
“What?” asked Poitevin.
She yawned into the back of her hand. Outside, the earth was starting to move. All those girls, their fates sealed by people willing to ravage them in the hopes of disrupting someone else’s oil business. She shook her head. “I thought I was cold. Jesus.”