1

Duck in Beijing was a lot like pizza in New York. Voice an opinion on who made the best and you were guaranteed an argument, if not a brawl.

Peter Avakian had never been to Liqun Roast Duck Restaurant because he’d heard wildly varying opinions on it. Either the best in town, or at least the top five, or an unsanitary dump that served a greasy duck. But tonight wasn’t his choice. He was having dinner with the Chinese police. Or, more precisely, the Ministry of Public Security.

He wasn’t surprised by the invitation. After two months of negotiating with various Chinese agencies over security arrangements for the 2010 Association of Asian Nations Ministerial Meeting, it was past time they took a run at him.

The restaurant was located in the south central part of Beijing. A very old part of the city, one of the hutong neighborhoods that were rapidly becoming endangered species as they fell to the wrecking ball of runaway real estate development.

The taxi let him off at a zhaimen, or residential gate. More like a triumphal arch than the entrance to a gated community—a massive brick structure about twenty feet high. Once these gates had led into a series of walled quadrangle courtyards that belonged to very large, very rich households. But the Manchus were gone, and Communism meant that those princes’ places had been subdivided into housing for the masses. Sometimes even the courtyards were filled in to provide more shelter. They were all linked together by the hutong alleyways.

Avakian could see through the gate that the hutong lane was too narrow for a car. And because of this, as soon as he paid off the cab he was mobbed by a crowd of very aggressive “tour guides” and rickshaw drivers.

“Liqun Roast Duck?”

“I take you there!”

“You never find!”

“You get lost!”

One of the disadvantages of not being tall was that people felt less restraint about putting their hands on you. And Avakian barely reached five foot seven on days when his spine wasn’t compressed by a lot of heavy clothing. Normal human instinct was to shove back. But in his travels around the world he’d witnessed enough confrontations where the belligerent natives both outnumbered the foreigner and spoke the same language as the authorities. He just shook his head, no.

Some frustrated entrepreneur shouted, “Da Bizi!”

Big nose. A traditional Chinese insult for Caucasians. Which brought a faint smile to Avakian’s face. That just happened to be the first thing everyone noticed about him. The powerful, curving scimitar he’d inherited from his ancestors in Armenia’s Vardenis mountains appeared to take up most of his face. It was brought into even sharper relief by the deep middle age lines that ran from the sides of each nostril down to the corners of his mouth, two crevasses that seemed to have been cut by its great weight.

But he acted as if he couldn’t hear. He made no eye contact and walked through them, nudging out his own path, his hands covering his wallet and passport, letting his momentum pull him free from all the fingers tugging at his sleeves.

The evening temperature had barely dropped below ninety degrees, and it was correspondingly humid. The air was full of the Gobi Desert dust the prevailing winds carried into Beijing in the summer. Not to mention plain brown smog. Smog as bad as the Los Angeles basin in the days before catalytic converters. Avakian was wearing one of the dark, conservative, yet extremely lightweight suits he’d had the foresight to have cut for himself in Hong Kong, with a white shirt and equally conservative tie. He also had on a straw dress hat that matched his suit. He shaved his head, and a bald head was not something to be casually exposed to the Beijing summer sun.

The hutong alleys were warrens of twists and turns, the doorways in the crumbling brick walls offering little glimpses into other lives. Avakian greeted everyone he saw in Chinese bad enough to make a few of them titter. A mother trying to hurry a stubborn little boy along pointed at him, and he knew she was telling the kid to mind or she’d let the foreign devil get him. A few rickshaws pedaled by, the drivers glancing over at him smugly.

Every so often there were restaurant signs in English on the walls and hanging from the lampposts, so even if he didn’t get to Liqun Roast Duck he felt he could find his way out. Otherwise he might be wandering around those concrete alleys until dawn.

He glanced at his watch. He was supposed to be there at 8:00 p.m., and the Chinese considered lack of punctuality disrespectful. He was still okay. But something else bothered him. All the local pedestrians had vanished.

Anywhere else in the world that might not be too worrying. But in China there was never no one around. Twenty years ago his first team sergeant, a philosopher-poet masquerading as a tobacco-spitting Tejano master sergeant, used to say that millions of years of humans narrowly escaping being eaten by wild animals had given us that almost extrasensory warning of impending danger, which you ought to ignore only if you didn’t mind being one of the runners-up in the natural selection sweepstakes.

He stopped and listened. Nothing. Telling himself he was being at least halfway stupid, Avakian turned the corner and continued down the deserted alley. He walked quietly, still feeling uneasy.

But after only a few steps he was halted again by a woman’s cry, a sharp one of surprise and panic, from around the next turn. Avakian thought it over for a moment, then moved forward lightly on the balls of his feet. He got in close to the wall and listened, but other than the fact that there were at least two men, and one woman in distress, the voices told him nothing.

He crept to the corner and dropped down low, his head nearly touching the ground. People watching corners always expected heads to appear at head level, so no one ever looked near the ground. He exposed one eyeball, just for an instant.

A well-dressed couple that looked Japanese was being held at knifepoint by three Chinese men.

Oh, great. Avakian sprang to his feet and quietly retreated back to the last turn, pulling out his cell phone and dialing the number of his dinner host, Commissioner Zhou Deming of the Ministry of Public Security. A much better idea than calling the 110 police emergency number with his limited command of Mandarin.

The connection clicked. “Colonel Avakian, are you having trouble finding the restaurant?”

“Commissioner, I’m in the hutong lane and there’s a mugging in progress. Three Chinese men robbing a couple at knifepoint.”

A short pause while the commissioner digested that unexpected bit of news. “I will have officers there as soon as possible, Colonel. Do not attempt to become involved.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Avakian replied. Before he could pass a description of the three Commissioner Zhou broke the connection. No doubt to call the cavalry. Avakian made sure he switched off the ring tone on his phone. He’d stay there to point the cops in the right direction and make sure no one else stumbled onto the scene.

It was a fine plan, and it only took a few seconds for it to fall completely apart. Suddenly the woman screamed much louder, a scream of pain that was abruptly silenced before its natural conclusion.

Ah, shit. Avakian ducked into the nearest courtyard entrance and looked around for something useful. He grabbed a rake propped up against the wall and snapped off the handle.

As he ran toward the corner he fished the key ring from his pocket and threw it over the wall so it would land farther down the lane.

When the keys clattered on the paving stones Avakian sprinted around the corner. The three Chinese were all looking the other way down the lane, where the keys had landed.

The nearest man turned sharply at the sound of Avakian’s footsteps, but not fast enough. Avakian swung the rake handle in a two-handed stroke over his shoulder. He was aiming for the line of the eyes but the stick caught the Chinese across the nose. The rake handle broke and the Chinese let out a hard grunt. Avakian followed that up with a bloodcurdling yell, which combined with the surprise and shock to send the other two thieves into flight.

But one man wasn’t quick enough. Avakian still had a couple of feet of wood in his hand, and as the Chinese turned to bolt Avakian caught him on the back of the head. The Chinese went down, and the rest of the rake handle cracked in half.

The third thief was long gone, so Avakian whirled around to see what the first was up to. He was halfway up off the ground, with blood on his face, and probably some in his eyes because he was feeling around for his knife—it was hard to hurt someone when the adrenaline was pumping.

Avakian grabbed him by the hair and yanked the head right onto his knee. Once, twice. Avakian kept putting the boot in. There was a loud crack that had to be bone. It wasn’t Avakian’s knee, so it had to be either skull or neck. The thief went limp, and Avakian let go of his hair.

That was it. The street fighter’s rule: you didn’t put them down, step back, and see what they wanted to do next. You put them down so they didn’t get back up.

The Japanese woman was on her knees sobbing away; the man was trying to comfort her.

Footsteps from the other side. Avakian swung around, and there was Commissioner Zhou with his pistol in his hand.

“These two?” Commissioner Zhou said in his excellent English, checking the first one who was splayed across the pavement and moaning softly.

“One got away,” said Avakian, breathing hard from his exertions. As soon as it came out he felt embarrassed by his I’m-cool-and-you’re-not pose.

The commissioner was now spitting Mandarin into his cell phone. You wouldn’t want to be those two muggers, Avakian thought. Big loss of face tonight for the Public Security Ministry, and they were definitely going to pay for it. If they were lucky they’d only get the standard Chinese criminal penalty of one shot from an SKS rifle in the back of the head and their organs sold off to wealthy foreign transplant patients.

It actually hadn’t been such a bad scheme. Pick off the rich tourist diners on their way to or from the restaurant. Say the victims somehow managed to surmount the language barrier and call the cops. Well, with a lookout and local knowledge of all the alleyways an easy getaway wouldn’t be any problem at all.

Even with a commissioner summoning them, it still took the police a while to make their way down the lanes. Unlike a Western investigation, which would have kept them there answering questions all night long, Commissioner Zhou translated Avakian’s statement into the notebook of the first sergeant to appear on the scene and then turned everything over to him. Bad face for commissioners to deal with something so mundane.

Then he turned back to Avakian. “Are you injured?”

“No, Commissioner. I’m fine.”

“Then perhaps you misunderstood my request not to become involved.”

Avakian wasn’t really in the mood for an ass-chewing. He knew how reckless he’d been. “No, I didn’t. But the woman started screaming like they were hurting her, and I didn’t feel as if I had a choice.”

The commissioner stared at him sharply, then seemed to accept it. “You were courageous but foolhardy. And now you must accept my apologies. What happened was unfortunate and inexcusable.”

Avakian knew that Chinese apologies were exquisitely judged things. “Every nation has street crime, Commissioner. No apologies necessary.”

“I would imagine you have lost your appetite.”

“No, not at all,” Avakian said, peeling off his suit jacket because he’d sweated through his shirt.

The commissioner was staring again, as if trying to get a handle on him. Avakian couldn’t really blame him. “Then let us proceed to the restaurant.”

“I’ll be with you in a moment.” Avakian walked back and left some money under the tines of the broken rake. The loss of any possession wasn’t a small thing if you were poor.

The next courtyard was only a short way down the lane. This one had a particularly ramshackle building added to it. Seemingly room by room whenever the owners could afford it, based on the wide range of construction materials and dimensions. There were a couple of parked rickshaws and an enormous pile of split firewood stacked against a brick wall. Two red lanterns hanging over a doorway. And, on the rough projecting concrete block wall of an addition that looked like a large outhouse, a six-foot-high sign of red letters on white. On top, in English, LIQUN ROAST DUCK RESTAURANT. Then three lines of Chinese characters. And again in English, WELCOME OVERSEAS GUESTS ENJOYING TRADITIONAL CUISINE IN OLD CHINESE COURTYARD.

Avakian’s first impression: he could see where some might call it a dump.

Passing through the narrow entrance they stepped into a blast of wood smoke and roasting meat. It smelled good. And it sounded like a New York restaurant with a raucous din of diners’ voices, cooks yelling and woks clanging. The place was packed, and the décor looked like it hadn’t changed in twenty years. He liked it.

The hostess recognized the commissioner, and after a brief exchange of Mandarin led them inside. They had to pass through the kitchen to get into the restaurant. The ducks were hanging up inside a wood-burning brick oven, roasting away nicely. A chef was blowing one up as if giving it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, a traditional technique to separate the skin from the fat. Avakian grinned. There was your bad restaurant review right there.

They were ushered into a private dining room. Wood paneling halfway up the wall, and framed Chinese prints on the white plaster above it.

The commissioner gestured toward a seat. “If you please, Colonel.”

It always amused Avakian when Commissioner Zhou insisted on using his former military rank. But the Chinese were all about face, and face was all about relative social status, and this put them on somewhat of an equal footing. Though no Chinese would ever accept a non-Chinese as his exact equal. This was confirmed when the commissioner took the traditional chair facing the door. By doing so he designated himself the highest status person at the table.

Commissioner Zhou was a thin, angular man, with an equally angular face—all brow and cheekbones. He’d had extensive dental work somewhere along the line. Not good dental work, but extensive.

The waiter brought tea. Just what Avakian didn’t want after his little workout.

But the commissioner took care of that. “I prefer to drink beer with duck,” he said. “The red wine, I regret, is not good. But they also have Beiju. What would you prefer?”

Beiju was a traditional rice wine, over fifty percent alcohol. No way, Avakian thought. Not the way the Chinese toasted. “I’ll join you in a beer, thank you.”

“Menu?”

“I’ll have what you’re having, Commissioner. Please order for me.”

Commissioner Zhou snapped out a string of orders to the waiter who returned a few minutes later with two huge .75 liter bottles of cold Yanjing beer.

After the pouring, Commissioner Zhou raised his glass and smiled. “Despite all the difficulties, thank you for joining me tonight. To friendship.”

That was a good one. Avakian thought that the Chinese, contrary to their reputation, were the least inscrutable people he had ever met. All you really had to do was recognize how they were trying to play you and you’d see what they were after. “Oh, of course. Absolutely.”

Most Chinese weren’t receptive to irony, but Commissioner Zhou gave him a sardonic smile and a, “Kan Pei.” Bottoms up.

“Peng Pei,” Avakian replied emphatically. Cheers. Which meant only a sip or two. It was breaking protocol—he ought to have followed Zhou’s toast. But he wasn’t about to slam beers all night long. Especially since with the Chinese you didn’t just sip your drink whenever you wanted. Every time you picked up your glass you had to make a toast, and everyone was expected to drink with you.

Commissioner Zhou acceded to that with, “Peng Pei,” and that same sardonic smile. “Colonel Avakian, we Chinese usually prefer not to discuss serious subjects over dinner. I hope you will excuse me if I violate this custom.”

Avakian was wiping his hands with the hot towels the waiter had brought for that purpose. “As you know, Commissioner, we Americans definitely don’t follow that.” He liked that Zhou didn’t feel the need to display the stone-face stoicism that most Chinese officials seemed to spend their day rehearsing. It was a Chinese thing to regard those who smiled gratuitously as either silly or devious. Maybe the commissioner didn’t mind being thought of as devious.

“Then I will begin with a compliment. I have learned a great deal from you this past month. You have a most excellent technique of negotiating by making us extremely uncomfortable. And, since you leave it unclear whether that is your intention, you do so without being insulting.”

As the Chinese became more powerful and assertive they’d become correspondingly harder to deal with. Avakian had been hired to negotiate the security arrangements for the upcoming Foreign Ministers’ conference because it was the trend in U.S. government circles to hire private contractors to do what government employees had always done. Not because it was more efficient or less expensive, but for two reasons. It was a nifty way of funneling public money to political contributors, and if anything went wrong the government employee could now blame the contractor. “There must be some cultural misunderstanding then, Commissioner, because I would never want anyone to feel uncomfortable. Peng Pei.”

“Peng Pei.” Commissioner Zhou sat his glass down. “Thank you for making my point.”

Avakian only smiled.

The waiter laid down some plates of appetizers. The Chinese enjoyed all parts of the duck. All parts.

“Please,” said Commissioner Zhou, following custom by taking charge of the plate and offering the best to his guest. “Try the liver.”

“Thank you,” said Avakian, reaching for a piece with his chopsticks. He’d ignored the knife and fork set at the table only for him. “Excellent.” The liver was fried, and it really was excellent.

“These ducks are force-fed, the same as those raised for fois gras.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“We are not all provincial.”

The Chinese combined an overwhelming sense of racial superiority with a centuries-old inferiority complex that came from being stepped on by the big powers. Something that economic success and becoming a world power themselves hadn’t quite cured. “I can’t recall ever using the word provincial, Commissioner, or even implying that anyone was provincial.”

“Of course you didn’t, Colonel Avakian. My apologies.”

“In any case,” said Avakian, “if anyone’s a provincial here, it’s me.”

“How is this?”

“Because I come from the provinces.”

“But you are a graduate of the United States Military Academy. Forgive me, but I will not pretend that I am ignorant of your biography.”

“That’s a relief,” said Avakian. “Yes, I went to West Point. But I grew up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and I couldn’t afford to go to college otherwise.”

“And this Bethlehem…?”

“Not like the one in Palestine. A mostly working-class steel town. And when I was a teenager, steel was dying. Other countries were making it cheaper. One day you’ll have to worry about that. So it was West Point for me.”

“Your father was a steelworker?”

“Until he got laid off.”

Commissioner Zhou was quiet for a moment, then he pointed to one of the plates. “Now that I have started you on something familiar, I must ask if you have ever eaten boiled duck tongue?”

“Not to my immediate recollection.” Avakian popped one into his mouth. Kind of rubbery. “Obviously, this duck never said a unkind word to anyone.”

“Very good. When you make another toast to clean your mouth, I will know you did not like something.” And then, “My father was an engineer, here in Beijing. He was always pleased that we shared the surname of Premier Zhou Enlai. He said that Mao was a tiger who would frighten our enemies but also devour China whenever he became hungry. But Zhou was always for the people. When Mao began the Cultural Revolution the Red Guards threw my father from the roof of his factory.”

“You were sent to the countryside,” Avakian said. It wasn’t really a question.

“Shanxi. I became a student in shoveling all types of animal dung. Mostly pig. My older brother cut his arm and died of blood poisoning because the village barefoot doctor was afraid to treat a class enemy. My mother killed herself. I was not permitted to go to school, but the teacher left the door open at night and I would go in and read all the textbooks and do the problems on the blackboard. Over and over.”

Avakian wondered how many people had made it thanks to a heroic teacher. He raised his glass. “To survival. Kan Pei.”

“Kan Pei. How do you do that, drink the glass down without moving your throat?”

“Just a little trick.” Somehow it didn’t seem right to tell Commissioner Zhou that while he’d been shoveling pig shit, the teenage Avakian had been mastering the art of chugging beer. “How did you get out of Shanxi?”

“After Mao died and the Gang of Four were overthrown, my sister and I were rehabilitated. She is a doctor now.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Avakian.

“How ironic that the American is from the rural proletariat, while the Chinese is from the urban intelligentsia.”

“It is, isn’t it? Did you attend the Police University?”

“No, I passed the examinations for the Beijing University of Science and Technology. What were you doing in 1989?”

Avakian had to think for a moment. “I was a captain with the 7th Special Forces Group. In…South America.”

“Ah, yes. Panama. I did not recall. And you fought in the invasion of that country in December of that year.”

Avakian was hardly surprised that Chinese dossiers were much more comprehensive than American. “It’s not much of an invasion if you were already in the country, Commissioner.”

“Your modesty does you credit. In 1989 I was in Tiananmen Square. Protesting.”

Avakian never expected to run into a police commissioner with that kind of history. But the world was a funny old place. “You don’t say?”

“Yes. We were young and naïve. We wanted democracy, and an end to corruption, but we did not want to overthrow the government. Others did, however, and eventually I grew sick of it and went home. On my way I watched a battle on the streets between soldiers and a mob, and I knew China could not withstand any more turmoil. I joined the police.”

It was a good story. And since it seemed tailor-made to gain an American’s sympathies Avakian couldn’t help but wonder how much of it, if any, was true. But just then their duck arrived on a metal tray, burnished brown, almost maroon, with the glossy lacquer of the molasses rub. Head still attached, of course. It was sliced up before them and the meat arrayed on a platter for serving. At other places Avakian had seen the skin removed and presented separately, but Liqun chopped the meat and the skin together.

More plates were set down. Small, thin flour pancakes that weren’t quite as dense as tortillas. Chinese broccoli. Bamboo shoots. Cucumber spears. Slivered scallions. A brown sauce.

The deal, as Commissioner Zhou demonstrated, was to place your choice of duck meat and crispy skin in the pancake, add whatever extras suited your fancy, roll it up, and dip it into the sauce. The broccoli and shoots were the side dishes.

But before he tried rolling his own Avakian plucked a chunk of duck meat with his chopsticks and tasted it. Juicy, tender, and great flavor. Not at all greasy. “This is excellent.”

“I am very happy you enjoy it.”

They both ate with silent dedication. Always a sign of those who’d known what it was like to not just miss a meal but be truly hungry, and learned the hard way that the next meal was a promise not always kept.

Then, after the pancakes had been replenished once, and the pile of duck whittled down to the point where it would have been impolite to snatch any of the few remaining pieces, Commissioner Zhou wiped his mouth and said, “What are your plans after the conference is concluded?”

“I usually take some time off after a contract. Then I get bored and start looking for another job.”

“Perhaps you would be interested in consulting with us?”

Avakian considered stringing that along to see what they had in mind. Then just as quickly dismissed the idea. Either the word would get around that he’d been interested, or the CIA would try to run him as an agent—and those idiots would put you up a tree and then saw the branch off behind you. “I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding between us, Commissioner.”

“Then if I do not understand, I will ask you to explain.”

“That won’t be necessary. I intend to speak frankly.”

“And after you have spent these past months being as subtle as a Chinese? Then I will prepare myself for you to speak as an American.”

“As you please. I don’t work for any country, or any company, that’s a potential adversary of the United States.” Though there were more than a few in the security trade who only cared about the size of the quote.

“Since you have paid me the compliment of such honesty, I will not insult you by mentioning the value of the consulting offer.”

“I appreciate that. It wouldn’t change my mind, but it would almost certainly depress me.”

Commissioner Zhou was giving him that look again. And then said softly, “I would have expected nothing else.” As he was about to go on the waiter arrived with two bowls of duck soup. As the final disposition of the duck’s remains, it signaled the meal’s impending conclusion.

Avakian sipped his soup. “You were going to say something, Commissioner?”

“Only that I appreciated your answer. And I received it as a compliment. Rather than put on a false face and pretend to be the friends we are not, we can be what we are: adversaries, but with a common goal at the present, who can respect each other and enjoy a meal together.”

Avakian raised his glass. “That sounded like a toast to me, Commissioner.”

They both drained their beers, and Commissioner Zhou refilled the glasses. “Tell me, why did you attack those thieves?”

Avakian knew what was behind the question. For a Chinese, the idea of sticking your neck out if it wasn’t a matter of personal or family advantage, or the requirement of your job, was totally inexplicable. “The only reason in the world, Commissioner. It was easier to do it than live with myself if I’d stepped aside and someone had gotten hurt.”

Commissioner Zhou was clearly baffled by that. But he let the issue drop, bringing his soup bowl up to his lips and slurping away.

They finished that course in silence, and when the soup bowls were empty the waiter brought a plate of plums and sliced apples.

“This has been a most memorable meal, Commissioner. I can’t thank you enough for your hospitality.” Avakian raided the last of his beer. “Kan Pei.”

“Kan Pei. It has been most pleasurable. But there is something else.”

There always was, at the end. That’s why you didn’t spend the evening slamming drinks. “I’m all ears, Commissioner.”

Unaccountably, Commissioner Zhou giggled. “I have always enjoyed that expression. Such things make learning a language so challenging. I am directed to share certain information with you. It was thought best that it be passed along in a more…informal setting.”

Avakian just sat back and devoured another plum. He had a feeling this was going to be good.

“It concerns the island to the south,” said Commissioner Zhou.

The Chinese even got jumpy when it came time to say Taiwan. No subject was more radioactive among Chinese officialdom.

“Oh?” was all Avakian said.

“There will be a visit,” said Commissioner Zhou. “While the Foreign Ministers’ meeting is in progress. From that island.”

This was very big. So big that it made it hard to maintain the required pose of detachment, though Avakian still managed it. “On what level will this visit take place?”

Commissioner Zhou did everything but melodramatically swivel his head from side to side to check who might be listening. “The highest.”

In 1949, after being beaten in the civil war with Mao and the Communists, Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuomintang, or Nationalist, party fled the mainland for Taiwan.

The Communist People’s Republic of China regarded Taiwan as a renegade breakaway province that had to be restored. And they would have tried, but the U.S. Navy kept them from coming across the Taiwan Straits.

For their part, the Republic of China on Taiwan always felt that one day they would be going back across the Straits to take back all of China.

So with both sides considering themselves to be the true representatives of the Chinese people, there was never any question of Taiwan declaring itself an independent nation. Which worked out fine for everyone. Until the opposition Democratic Progressive Party took power in Taiwan in 2000 and promptly threatened to declare independence. China threatened to invade if that ever happened, backing it up by test-firing ballistic missiles across the Straits whenever they felt they needed to make the point.

The U.S. government was equally displeased by the prospect of the country they’d pledged to defend from attack dragging them into a shooting war with China.

So this visit was huge. Nothing like it had happened in over sixty years. Chiang and Mao had met briefly in 1945, smiling through their teeth as they toasted the defeat of the Japanese, while simultaneously plotting to kill each other.

Now that the Nationalists were back in power Taiwan must have decided that extending the olive branch was their best policy. The mainland was apparently ready to accept it, at least for now. And why not, with a roaring economy, the military balance completely in their favor, and time on their side?

“An official visit, on the presidential level?” said Avakian, not quite believing it.

“Not official,” Commissioner Zhou said firmly. “But a visit.”

Ah, Chinese subtlety at work again. “But presidential.”

“Yes. A visit to Beijing.”

That just happened to be at the same time as the conference. Okay. It was to give everyone political cover, and save everyone’s face. And while all the Asian foreign ministers, including the U.S. Secretary of State, were together in one place. Maybe to put the stamp on a China-Taiwan détente. This was huge. Like Sadat going to Jerusalem. Secret negotiations must have been going on for a long, long time. “Just a visit. By the president of Taiwan.”

“Exactly,” said Commissioner Zhou, either missing or ignoring the irony. “And, as the United States security representative, it is necessary to inform you that the visitor will also be attending the women’s gymnastic competition all the foreign ministers have been invited to. At that time the United States competitors will also be greeted and congratulated. So I have been directed to inform you.”

If, as Avakian suspected, both the embassy here and the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto embassy there, were in the dark about this little visit, Washington was going to go ballistic. But why the hell were they telling him?

Commissioner Zhou was now munching on an apple slice.

“Anything else?” Avakian asked.

“Not at this time.”

Okay, so it was a trial balloon. If the U.S. was somehow opposed to the visit, both sides wanted to know before any official announcement, so no one lost face. That’s why Taiwan was letting China take the lead on it, and that’s why the Chinese were laying it on their security liaison unofficially over a duck dinner. “I assume more details will be forthcoming.”

“I am told this will be so.” Commissioner Zhou stood up. “Please excuse me for a moment.”

Avakian guessed that he was going to have a chat with the proprietor, assuring him of continued police protection in exchange for the free meal. Hopefully it would be cooler outside. The kitchen was breaking down for the night. He thanked them on his way through, and they bowed him out.

The Beijing night was still hot, with only a faint smell of duck and wood smoke in the air. Along with cabbage that the light breeze had carried in from somewhere else in the neighborhood. Just a faint buzzing of insects, and the skittering sound of rats hunting in the darkness.

The lanterns over the door were out, but so were the stars. There was just the faintest halo of light from the nearby windows, and he paused to allow his eyes to adjust to the darkness. A clicking of feet on the pavement signaled the commissioner’s return. “It is a pleasant evening, is it not?”

“It is,” said Avakian.

They walked back down the hutong, which was repopulated with locals now that the stick-up artists were gone. The neighborhood always knew what was going on, Avakian thought.

The commissioner’s car was waiting on the street at the zhaimen gate. “May I drop you at your hotel?”

“No thank you, Commissioner. I’m going to walk for a while.”

“Yes, you are well known for this.”

First he and Commissioner Zhou weren’t friends, and now the concession that he was actually being followed around. Who knew what other illusions of international relations were going to be shattered next. “Good night, Commissioner. You’ll probably be getting some feedback on our discussion very soon.”

“I anticipate so. Good night to you, Colonel.”

Zhou got into his car and drove off. Avakian took out his phone and called his boss Russell Marquand, the State Department Diplomatic Security Service Regional Security Officer at the embassy.

Before he could say a word, Marquand said, “What now?”

“Meet me in your office,” said Avakian.

“When?”

“Right now.”

“Oh, shit,” Marquand moaned. “You can’t tell me over the phone?”

“No.” Not that the Chinese didn’t have the embassy bugged, but a cell call was a gift to everyone.

“Oh, shit.”

“Don’t worry,” said Avakian. “It’s nothing you’re going to take a hit on. But you do need to get to the office ASAP.”

He stuck the phone back on his belt. The Taiwan news couldn’t keep until morning. Not with a twelve-hour time difference between Beijing and Washington. Waiting until morning would push the information back twenty-four working hours. Too long. Marquand was going to have to talk to the ambassador tonight.

He passed a construction site where, even at that hour, they were demolishing an old building under portable floodlights with nothing but wheelbarrows and crowbars. A couple of teenagers were sorting out the recyclables near the street, and that gave Avakian an idea. That rake handle had been a lot better than trading punches. Some hand gestures and 10 yuan persuaded the workers to cut him an eight-inch-long piece of quarter-inch diameter steel reinforcing rod. A bike shop on the way sold him a roll of leather handlebar tape that, later that night, in his swanky room at the St. Regis Hotel, he wrapped the pipe in. Just a little something to stick in his waistband when out on the town. Just in case.