The American Legation in Beijing was an island of Western architecture in a sea of Eastern tradition, a fortress of diplomatic immunity. In a discreet safe house two streets over, a place that officially did not exist, Special Agent Donovan stared at the decoded telegraph message with a grim sense of purpose. His report on the failure to recruit Dr. Chen had been brutally blunt. The reply from Washington was even more so.
DONOVAN, it read. YOUR ASSESSMENT OF THE TARGET IS NOTED. YOUR EXCUSES ARE NOT. FAILURE IS UNACCEPTABLE. PIVOT IS AUTHORIZED. DO NOT FAIL. ROOSEVELT.
The final word was an order, a threat, and a summation of his entire mission. Donovan folded the paper and burned it in a heavy glass ashtray. Plan A, the elegant recruitment of a willing genius, had failed spectacularly. It was time for Plan B, a far uglier and more dangerous proposition.
He was meeting with a man named Jennings, a junior liaison from the British SIS. Jennings was young, eager, and one of the few survivors of Abernathy's original network, a fact that had instilled in him a healthy dose of paranoia. The British, despite their recent setbacks, still possessed an unparalleled on-the-ground intelligence network in Beijing, a web of local informants and watchers built over decades. Donovan needed their eyes.
"Plan A was to recruit the genius," Donovan said, pacing the small, sparsely furnished room. "She proved to be too smart for her own good. Or ours. Plan B is to control her environment without her knowledge. We can't put a physical listening device in her office; Qing counter-intelligence is fanatical, and she herself would likely spot it. We need to turn someone who already has access. Someone trusted. Someone who is utterly invisible."
He gestured to the table, where Jennings had laid out a series of grainy surveillance photographs. They showed Dr. Chen at the university: walking across the campus, entering the physics building, standing at her lectern. In the background of many of the photos, a stooped, elderly man could be seen, a ghost in the frame, sometimes carrying a stack of her books, sometimes cleaning equipment in her laboratory.
"Who is he?" Donovan asked, his finger tapping the old man's image.
Jennings consulted a thin file. "Name is Wu. No first name of record. He's a lab steward. Been at the university for over forty years. A piece of the furniture. His file is thin. Widower. Lives in a small hutong near the West Gate. One daughter, married, living in Tianjin. She has a son, his grandson, who suffers from a severe respiratory illness. Consumption, most likely. The medical treatments are frequent and very expensive."
Donovan stopped pacing. A slow, predatory gleam entered his eyes. He looked at Jennings. "The grandson," he said softly. "That's our way in. That's the leverage."
A few nights later, the hutong where Mr. Wu lived was a labyrinth of dark, narrow alleys, the air thick with the smell of coal smoke and cooking oil. The old lab steward walked with the slow, shuffling gait of a man burdened by more than just his age. He was thinking of the letter he had received from his daughter that morning. His grandson, little Wei, was getting worse. The foreign doctors at the Tianjin mission hospital had a new medicine, an expensive one, that might help. But it was a sum so vast it might as well have been the Emperor's entire treasury.
As he turned a corner into the final alley before his home, two shadows detached themselves from a darkened doorway. One was Donovan, his Western features stark in the dim moonlight. The other was a large, powerfully built associate whose presence radiated quiet menace. They cornered the terrified old man against a brick wall.
Mr. Wu shrank back, expecting a robbery, or worse.
But Donovan's voice, when he spoke, was not threatening. He spoke a perfect, gentle, scholarly Mandarin that was deeply disarming. "Mr. Wu. Please, do not be alarmed. We mean you no harm. We are… friends of your daughter in Tianjin. We have heard the sad news about your grandson's illness. A terrible tragedy for one so young."
The old man stared, his mind reeling with confusion and fear. How could this foreigner know about little Wei?
Donovan produced a thick, heavy envelope from his coat pocket. "This is for his treatment," he said, pressing it into Mr. Wu's trembling hand. "From a charitable foundation that wishes to remain anonymous. We believe in supporting the families of dedicated scholars and their staff."
The weight of the envelope was shocking. It was filled with banknotes, more money than the old man had seen in his entire life. It was hope. It was a miracle. It was his grandson's life. Tears welled in his eyes. "I… I don't know what to say… Thank you… thank you…"
"You are most welcome," Donovan said smoothly. "All we ask in return is a very small, very simple favor. A matter of no real consequence."
He produced a second object from his pocket. It was a small, black, rectangular stone, smooth and cool to the touch. It looked exactly like a scholar's inkstone, the kind used for grinding ink for calligraphy. But it was not stone. It was a dense, heavy composite, and Mr. Wu could see a faint, almost invisible seam along its edge.
"Dr. Chen is a person of great importance to the future of China," Donovan continued, his voice a soothing whisper. "Her work is vital. Her health is therefore a matter of national security. This," he said, tapping the inkstone, "is a new type of… health monitor. It measures the vibrations in the air, ensuring the room is stable and calm, conducive to her important work. We need you to place this in her office. Perhaps on a high shelf, among the old books, where it will not be disturbed. It is a simple precaution to ensure she is not overworking herself."
The old man's blood ran cold. The miracle suddenly felt like a curse. He understood instantly. This was not charity. This was a transaction. They wanted him to be a spy. He, a humble servant who had swept the floors of the university for forty years, was being asked to betray the brilliant, intimidating Dr. Chen, one of the few people who ever treated him with a modicum of respect.
"I… I cannot," he stammered, trying to push the money and the inkstone back at Donovan. "She trusts me. It would be a great dishonor."
Donovan's gentle expression vanished. His eyes grew hard and cold. His voice lost its soothing edge, replaced by a quiet, deadly seriousness. "Of course you can, Mr. Wu. You are a practical man. And a loving grandfather."
He leaned in closer. "Perhaps the 'charitable foundation' will be forced to withdraw its donation. And perhaps, in their disappointment, they might feel obligated to share some other financial information they have come across. For example, the information that your son-in-law, the foreman at the Tianjin textile factory, has been skimming a small percentage from the payrolls for the past two years to pay for his gambling debts."
Mr. Wu felt as if the ground had fallen away beneath him.
"A minor offense, in the grand scheme of things," Donovan said conversationally. "But we are living in a new era. And in Minister Yuan Shikai's ruthlessly efficient administration… I believe the punishment for theft from a state-owned enterprise is quite severe. The choice, I am afraid, is yours, Mr. Wu. Your grandson's health, or your son-in-law's."
It was not a choice. It was a trap with iron jaws. Mr. Wu stood there, trembling, the heavy weight of the money in one hand, the cold weight of the disguised listening device in the other. He looked at Donovan's unforgiving face and saw no mercy. He thought of his grandson's labored breathing, and he thought of his daughter's inevitable ruin. There was no honorable way out.
With a soul-deep shudder of despair, his fingers closed around the inkstone.
Donovan nodded once, his mission accomplished. He and his associate melted back into the shadows of the hutong, leaving the old man alone with his newfound wealth and his profound dishonor.
They had failed to recruit their ideal Nightingale, a brilliant eagle willing to soar for their cause. So they had resorted to blackmail and coercion to trap a sparrow, a terrified, unwilling old man. The seed of their intelligence operation had been planted, not with a willing patriot, but with a broken heart.