It was two years after the Olympics, and compared to the rest of the crowded city Beijing’s Olympic Green might as well have been a ghost town. There were some people enjoying lunch on the grassy expanses, a few more using the grounds as a shortcut to get somewhere else in northeast Beijing, and Pete Avakian.
He walked past the National Outdoor Stadium the Chinese called the birdcage for its open top and the outer frame that consisted of a crazy-quilt lattice of steel girders like interwoven twigs. Continuing north along the avenue-sized pedestrian walkway there was the Aquatic Center on his left, then the Indoor Stadium just beyond. That was what he wanted to take a look at.
The Association of Asian Nations was brand new. The Chinese had formed it in the hope of both assembling a regional power bloc, with themselves leading of course, and splitting the other Pacific countries away from the U.S. and Japan. They modeled it after ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and had very little trouble attracting members. The smaller countries rushed to join in anticipation of more Chinese foreign aid and trade deals. The bigger powers like Japan, South Korea and Australia took seats at the table as a way to keep an eye on the Chinese and if possible put the brakes on their influence. All of which the Chinese had counted on. And, just like ASEAN, the Foreign Ministers’ meeting being held now was the preparation for a presidential-level summit later in the year.
The Chinese had a lot of face tied up in everything going well, and were taking their security arrangements as seriously as they had the Olympics. But Commissioner Zhou’s mention of a gymnastics competition had piqued Avakian’s interest. It was the kind of extracurricular event they always laid out for the delegates at these conferences, along with the opera.
When doing a security survey he always liked to begin with how he would attack the target himself. He’d be leery of the well-guarded downtown hotels and conference locations. But he might be tempted to take a run at some peripheral site like the gymnastics venue.
The National Indoor Stadium was all polished steel and glass that looked deceptively see-through from a distance. The roof undulated like a wave from one side to the other. At the turn toward the building the walkway widened into the size of a double avenue, big enough to handle a capacity crowd leaving all at once.
Avakian took out his little four-inch-long pair of Zeiss pocket binoculars. Perfect for watching sporting events. And other things.
No Chinese plainclothesmen around. The haircuts and clothes always made them easy to spot. Two uniforms were gossiping near the south corner of the building. Most of the video cameras were concealed—the architect had screamed long and loud about them ruining the lines of his masterpiece. But there were a couple of visible ones, mainly for deterrence, tucked away in the corners. They weren’t panning. Avakian really wanted to see how long he could stand out there in plain sight, looking through his binos, before he was challenged. No risk involved. When it happened he’d just flash his credentials.
But it didn’t seem like it was going to be happening anytime soon. The dirty little Chinese secret was that their number one security priority wasn’t terrorism but embarrassing political demonstrations. Human rights groups in general, but particularly the banned Falun Gong religious movement. Avakian knew that all he’d have to do was unfurl a banner and they’d be dropping onto him from the skies.
He glanced at his watch to keep track of the response time, then went back to the binoculars. The stadium was getting boring, so he glassed around the area. No good-looking women in the general vicinity.
He twisted at the hips to sweep through the green belt of grass and trees surrounding the stadium.
And he would have missed it but for a little flash of sunlight on either glass or metal. Avakian halted his sweep and went back. A man sitting under a tree with a camera up to his face. A single lens reflex with a big telephoto lens attached.
Interested now, Avakian kept watching him. And the guy kept working that camera, snapping photo after photo. It didn’t take long for Avakian to start feeling that drumbeat thump of adrenaline. A tourist would have taken a couple of snaps and moved on. Even someone doing an architectural study wouldn’t have taken that many. Or at least would have changed lenses or moved to another vantage point. But this guy stayed there and doggedly kept at it.
You couldn’t do an attack without a reconnaissance of the target. So any good security officer wondering whether an attack was being planned always kept an eye out for the reconnaissance.
Avakian took out his cell phone and flipped it open. He held the phone right up to his face so the camera lens was positioned directly over his right eye. Then he brought up the binoculars again so the left eyepiece was over his left eye, and the right was over the camera lens.
Focusing the binoculars on the photographer, Avakian snapped a picture and immediately checked the screen. It worked. The binoculars acted just like a telephoto lens. But the guy’s camera was blocking his face.
Now Avakian stopped and thought through his moves, because he might not get a second chance. It was worth a try. And if he flushed the quarry that might not necessarily be a bad thing. He set his cell phone camera to video, and began walking parallel to the shutterbug.
He thought he’d be noticed, but the photographer was engrossed in his work. When he was almost directly opposite, he got the cell phone and binoculars ready. No, still snapping away. Avakian took a step. Nothing. He took another. He had to be in the line of sight. One more step. Then a little start from the photographer, and the telephoto swept up toward Avakian’s face. Avakian focused in and tripped the shutter.
At the count of two the camera came down, revealing a startled Oriental face. Probably Chinese, but that wasn’t definite. Avakian kept shooting.
Then the camera came back up again, and Avakian was looking down the barrel of the telephoto. But his own face was still obscured by the binoculars and cell phone. He offered the other party a big toothy grin. Just to see what that would do.
The photographer sprang to his feet and headed in the opposite direction. Fast. Someone had a guilty conscience.
Avakian followed. Trying to attract the attention of the Chinese police wouldn’t be any use, not with his language skills. And the pair who usually followed him around weren’t likely to come running over if he waved for them. He decided to trail the photographer from about thirty yards away, outside effective pistol range, and see what happened.
But he did get on the phone to Commissioner Zhou, imagining how his second call of this kind would go over.
“Colonel Avakian, how are you this morning?”
“Commissioner, I’m at the Olympic Green. And I’m following someone who was scouting the Indoor Stadium.”
Another pause at the other end of the phone. “Are you certain of this?”
“He took so many photos of the building that if he wasn’t doing reconnaissance he’s planning on building a replica in his backyard. And now he’s fleeing the scene just like he stole something.”
Another pause to digest that, then Commissioner Zhou was back to business. “Where are you?”
“Heading south past the eastern side of the Aquatic Center. I’m following a male, Asian, midtwenties, about—” Avakian strained to do the math “—175 centimeters tall, about 63 kilograms. Brown hair. Red short-sleeve shirt, blue jeans, running shoes.” Then he thought better of it. “You might want to give your people my description, I’m a little more distinctive.”
“Wait, please.”
Avakian could hear him issuing orders into another phone. He did some calculations. A call to a radio dispatcher. Ordering some cops to the right place. The cops getting to the right place. It would take time.
Commissioner Zhou came back on the phone. “I have people on the way to you. Where are you now?”
“Just took the turn heading west along the southern side of the Aquatic Center. I think he’s heading for the Beisihuan Zhonglu ring road.” Then something else occurred to him. “If anything should happen, Commissioner, I’ve got his photo on my cell phone.”
“Assistance is on the way to you, Colonel.”
Avakian was looking through his binoculars again. The photographer was on his own cell phone. Maybe summoning his own help. A fine reminder to not get fixated on the target and keep an eye out for an ambush.
A siren started wailing in the distance, then another. Wonderful, Avakian thought. They just had to announce their arrival. That was the trouble with police states—they never had to walk softly.
The sirens goaded the photographer into a flat-out run. Which confirmed to Avakian that he was definitely following the right guy. He jammed the binoculars into his jacket pocket and matched the stride. “We’re running now,” he informed Commissioner Zhou. “Heading west, almost past the Aquatic Center.” And almost at the edge of the Olympic Green. Running in dress shoes wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. The situation was going to become problematic once they got out into Beijing traffic.
In the distance Avakian could see a group of about six Chinese on the walkway. The photographer ran right through them. As he did they blocked him from sight, and Avakian kept leaping up as he ran to try and see over them.
But the Chinese were spread across the walkway, and Avakian couldn’t see a damn thing.
As he ran up on them they all had their hands outstretched. Two women and four men all carrying their lunch bags. He thought they were trying to warn him about something, so he slowed down. But one look at their faces as they closed in around him told him just how wrong he’d been.
One of the women started yelling at him. That kicked things off and the rest joined in. This wasn’t good. Avakian glanced around them, but the photographer had disappeared from sight. As his own anger flared up, he almost automatically took the kind of action he would have in Latin America. But in China, and with his quarry gone, it wouldn’t be worth all the trouble it would cause. Though the sight of those snarling faces had him clenching his fist. Trying to talk to them or showing any subservient posture at all would only encourage them. Instead he spoke quickly into his cell phone. “Commissioner, right now I find myself surrounded by a group of your countrymen. They seem very upset with me, and I’m going to put you on speaker.”
Avakian hit the button, set the volume all the way up, and held the phone out in front of him. An action that by its very strangeness took some of the edge off the rapidly developing hysteria. A couple of them were still shouting, but the rest had paused to see what was going to happen next. And as the intensity of their yelling died down it became easier for everyone to hear Commissioner Zhou yelling through the phone.
Which now made them all shut up and edge nearer to listen to what the voice was saying. A couple actually bent over and presented one ear so they could hear better. Avakian really had to restrain himself from kicking the nearest one in the head.
But Commissioner Zhou kept yelling, and the mood definitely changed. Everyone started looking uneasy, as if they might be the ones in trouble now.
The sirens were louder, and then a couple of cops came running across the grass from the Aquatic Center. Blue uniforms, ties blowing back over their shoulders, walkie-talkies to their ears. They rushed up on the little gathering, eyes wide, buzzing on the same adrenaline everyone else was.
The difficulty with the angry citizenry now solved, Avakian’s new problem was to calm the police and cut them off from that particular source of information before it led to any snap judgments everyone would regret later. So he calmly handed his phone to the nearest cop, who was nearly as unhinged by that move as everyone else had just been. Automatically he put it up to his ear and barked out a question. Then he was just listening, and Avakian and everyone else could see the steady change in his posture. He didn’t quite come to attention and click his heels, but he definitely straightened up.
Now all the Chinese were looking both sheepish and worried. One of them at the outer edge of the circle started backing away, as if to slip off while everyone was otherwise occupied. But the other cop ran around the circle and pushed him back into the group.
The first cop handed Avakian back his phone with a little bow. Then he abruptly shifted gears and exploded all over the crowd, shouting and slapping everyone within reach. His partner took the cue and joined in.
The Chinese now reminded Avakian of nothing more than a bunch of poodles who’d yapped, snapped and lunged trying to establish dominance. And when that had only gotten them a crack across the muzzle they were all whining and submissive. After all, he thought, we weren’t that far away from the pack ourselves.
He got back on the phone. “Here I am, Commissioner. I’m afraid the man I was following got away.”
“I surmised this. Regrettably, we have lost him also. We had been following you both on closed circuit camera, but he scaled a fence to leave the Olympic complex and entered a dead spot in the surveillance zone.”
“There is one thing,” said Avakian. “He left his camera bag outside the Indoor Stadium.”
That brought some excitement back into Commissioner Zhou’s voice. “Then please once again give your phone to the officer. I will have a car bring you to the stadium, and I will meet you there.”
“Hold on,” Avakian said. The two cops now had the group all sitting down on the pavement. The bulk of the slapping around was done, but the haranguing was still going on. Though they were still dealing out a few shots every now and then for good measure. He had to give a little whistle between his teeth to get their attention. They turned around quickly, and he handed the phone to the one who’d had it before.
The squad car took a little longer. The cops kept the group sitting there, probably waiting to be dragged off for questioning and some more slapping. They were now all regarding Avakian with considerable bitterness, as the source of their misfortune.
Avakian was picked up by a white Volkswagen Santana sedan with black POLICE lettering in both Chinese characters and English script along each side, and an American-style red and blue flashing lightbar across the roof. Just like every other police car he’d ever been in, the back seat smelled vaguely of vomit.
They let him out in the plaza in front of the Indoor Stadium. A few minutes later another squad car dropped off Commissioner Zhou.
“Are you all right, Colonel?” Zhou asked him.
“Oh, I’m fine,” said Avakian.
“I am relieved to hear this. Were you able to determine this person’s nationality?”
Avakian knew the Chinese would love it if the guy turned out to be Japanese or Korean. He flipped open his phone and brought the picture up on the screen.
Commissioner Zhou examined it closely. “It seems this person is Chinese.” Then he looked from the phone up at Avakian. “You were rash to approach him so closely.”
Avakian took out the binoculars and showed him how he’d used them with the phone. And immediately regretted it once he saw the expression on Commissioner Zhou’s face. Now the spy issue was going to be on everyone’s mind.
“An interesting technique,” Commissioner Zhou said. “I must remember this.”
The cops had obviously found the camera bag, because there was a little knot of them standing around on the grass right where Avakian had last seen it. “I think the camera bag is over there,” he said, pointing.
As they both walked up the ring of police parted, revealing the bag. The contents had all been removed and laid neatly out on the grass.
The cops were smiling proudly. Avakian fought to stifle his own grin. Commissioner Zhou finished acknowledging his patrolmen’s salutes, looked down at the bag, blinked in disbelief, and then exploded himself.
So much for fingerprints or DNA, Avakian thought. No doubt everyone had pitched in to make the display look nice for the brass. And it really did. It reminded him of inspection day at Fort Benning, everything all perfectly covered and aligned.
It took Commissioner Zhou a while to wind up his tantrum. Whether it was for mishandling evidence, or making him lose face before the foreign devil, or both, Avakian was pretty sure he’d never know.
In the interim he bent down to take a closer look at the gear. Professional quality Nikon digital setup. Couple of extra lenses, couple of extra memory cards, lens cleaning gear. And a notebook. That he had no intention of touching. But there might just be something there.