MONDAY, April 9, 2007

7:52 p.m.

The PSB investigator searches her database for Gregory Nell’s cell phone number. She’s received a report that Nell is with the American journalist, Jake Bradley, who is having a drink at the bar in Aria. Part of the sprawling China World complex, the bar and restaurant is popular with expats. Various national security bureaus station operatives at Aria to gather intelligence on foreign companies, on which banks are negotiating debt deals or structured loans with which manufacturers, on which UN officers are meeting with which NGO’s and which diplomats are chummy with each other.

A mobile technician notified the PSB investigator that the American journalist’s microphone isn’t accessible. He’s probably taken the battery out, though he’s not likely to suspect that the PSB knows who he’s with or that they can tap Greg Nell’s phone.

Happy hour at Aria has been a habit for Jake since the place opened, a refuge of candlelight and jazz, like what he imagines night spots are like on New York’s Upper West Side. Jake usually looks for many of the same associations that the intelligence officers are there to note, at least until his third glass of wine, at which point he no longer cares.

Contemporary, earth-toned velvet chairs are arranged in random clusters around coffee tables with inlaid geometric designs. Some of the larger clusters have love seats that well-dressed patrons recline into as they sip red wine and frothy beer. In front of the windows looking onto an east Third Ring flyover jammed with traffic, a woman with bleached blonde hair sings “Stormy Weather” in a deep, tobacco-leavened voice. Wearing a deep purple, baby doll dress under a black leather petticoat, she’s backed by her pianist, a black man wearing a fedora and a crisp, white shirt.

Jake sees Greg come out of the dining room, dressed in a grey suit and carrying his weathered leather briefcase. One curl of his wavy hair hangs down over his forehead interrupting the square-jawed symmetry of his face, like Superman. Jake wonders if he checks periodically throughout the day to make sure it’s hanging correctly. How often does Greg re-shape it? What time is it anyway? Jake’s been nursing his third or fourth glass of merlot since last call for happy hour. Maybe the fifth?

“What client were you dining with and what news can you divulge?” Jake asks as Greg sits next to him.

“Such a warm salutation. It’s good to see you too, Jake. Sometimes I wonder why I keep pushing you to go into PR.”

“Fuck you.”

“Ah, the charm never stops.”

“Oh Greg, you put up with me because I turn more of your PR pitches into real stories than anyone else in this city. Do you know how many fights I’ve been in with editors over stories you’ve pitched.”

“Indeed.” Greg summons the bartender. “I’ll have the Bunnahabhain Islay twelve year and, please, give this gentleman another of whatever he’s having.”

Greg reaches for the finger bowl of bar mix from which Jake has picked out all of the pretzels and almonds, leaving only barbecue-flavored corn chips which Jake believes intensifies dehydration. “Ok Mr. Bradley, since you’re so keen to cut to the chase, two things. First. Are you interested in joining us? There’s a position opening in Hong Kong that pays probably double what you’re making now.”

Double? Close to a quarter million a year? The number clears Jake’s mind of all other thoughts like a gunshot in the woods silences birds. With this money, Jake could become, several years from now, a real New Yorker and not someone who simply imagines what life is like in New York. Magnet Hill, Kentucky would no longer be a place he is from. Kentucky would become nothing more that a place where he was merely born. It would become a place where all the taunts and indignities he suffered could be placed, like cheap objects, in an imaginary box that he can toss into some dark corner of his mind.

“Double? Really?”

“Well, almost,” Greg says as the bartender sets down their drinks.

Jake now has nearly an entire bottle of wine in him, on a stomach that’s empty save for a few salty snacks. This makes it difficult to pair the random thoughts racing through his head with any values. He sees images of modern, open-concept Manhattan apartments with blonde wood flooring and stainless steel kitchens, spaces as pristine as those in Architectural Digest. These images compete with the dark of the room that Qiang might be occupying. Or the cell. Or the grave. Perhaps there’s nothing he can do and he’ll need the uncomplicated luxury of a pristine condo to finally give him the gratification that’s always seemed so elusive.

“You know, you could make an argument for double,” Greg says. “The company is desperate for Mandarin-speakers with strong ties to the financial press.”

“Um, it’s not so much about the money.”

Greg looks perplexed.

“I mean, the timing is kind of bad,” Jake says.

“Mate, the timing couldn’t be better.”

“Except that…” Jake sorts through the set of possible answers, everything from ‘I’ll send you my CV tomorrow’ to ‘I’d make a terrible PR manager and you know it.’ All of them right and all of them wrong, depending on what lens he uses. All of them vulnerable to defeat.

Greg leans in towards Jake with a curious expression.

“I’m trying to help a friend who’s been detained.”

“Oh yes, that,” Greg says as he takes a sip of his scotch.

“That? You know about that?”

“There’s some talk going around about that. Your friend the documentary filmmaker, right?”

Jake looks at Greg, trying to process the way he has reduced Qiang and the horror he’s living through to one syllable – “that” – thrown into the conversation like he’s clearing his throat.

“How do you know about that?”

“Mate, please. You know it’s my job to know all of the reporters here. It’s a group that’s quite aware of what’s happening in this town, especially if it involves one of their own.”

“Right,” Jake says before taking a big sip of wine. There’s obviously more to PR than just spewing spin. The information-gathering part of the work might be just as rigorous as it is for journalists. And then there’s corporate filter, the fractious and conflicting interplay of legal, marketing and finance. What is factual isn’t necessarily in the interest of the paymaster. What isn’t factual might become so with the right qualifiers. Something to keep in mind.

“So, what are you doing about this? How does your job help you resolve this problem?”

“Let’s just say I’m working to create some leverage that might make it more difficult for the authorities to hold him. It will be easier to do this in my current job.”

“How so?”

Jake shakes his head. “I don’t want to jinx things.”

The PSB investigator searches “jinks…jincks…jinx.” She then begins writing a report for the file around Qiang’s case.

The American journalist, Jacob Bradley, [passport #655293884, work permit: VR-345-7554] is preparing activities that will put pressure on authorities within the PRC government to release Sun Qiang. No details about these activities were divulged in the conversation.

Surveillance facilitated via China Mobile directive issued by PSB, Beijing, Chaoyang district, RWS-5766-32445-dd

A detailed transcript of the conversation he had [09-04-2007; 19:52 – 20:03] with Gregory Nell [UK passport #QR-6884-931] at Aria, a restaurant at the China World Hotel, follows: