Cameron, Marc - Tom Clancy's Shadow of the Dragon

She glanced through the window at the approaching men.

They barged in without knocking, as she knew they would. The bald one was older, somehow missing even his eyebrows, and smelled faintly of old socks. The younger wore his smug frown like an accessory, the way some men wore an expensive watch. Both were dressed in khaki slacks and striped, three-button polo shirts of slightly different patterns, though the younger one’s clothes were newer and better tended. He was single, Pei thought, and still cared what girls might think of him. The stinky, browless one was comfortably married and beyond such trivialities as grooming and hygiene.

Mr. Frown did the talking.

“Professor Liu,” he snapped, hooking a thumb over his shoulder toward the house across the alley from her office. The sneer perked into the slightest of smiles when Auntie Pei blanched at the sight of the black pistol as his shirttail rode up.

She put a hand on her desk to steady herself. “What?”

“Professor Liu Wangshu!” the man barked, louder this time. “When did you see him last?”

“Ah, ah.” Pei clucked, struggling to control her breathing. They were not here for her after all, but for Liu, the university professor who lived in one of the villas across the alley. These were not the first men who had come to talk to him. Instead of waning, her sense of dread grew deeper, pressing at her chest, making it difficult to speak.

She swallowed, lifting the teacup in a remarkably steady hand. “It has been at least two weeks. Maybe three. I assumed he was away on a business trip. He travels someti—”

“We are quite aware of how often he travels,” Mr. Frown said. The MSS man gestured over his shoulder again, this time for the benefit of his balding partner. “She is useless.”

Both men wheeled and strode out the door without another word.

Auntie Pei gasped, awash with relief.

When it came to members of the Ministry of State Security, useless was a very good thing to be. Perhaps she would be able to keep herself from becoming embroiled in whatever this was. She opened the lap drawer of her desk and took out a slip of paper, reading the number out loud to steady herself as she entered it into her phone. The tall man who had left her the paper was from the government. He’d worn a hat, pulled low over his eyes, but had taken it off when he spoke to her, respectful, not like the bad-egg MSS officers. He’d understood Auntie Pei’s standing in the community. Still, there had been danger to him. Not aimed at her, but to whomever he happened to be hunting. His instructions had been clear—couched as a polite request.

Should anyone come looking for Professor Liu, she was to call him immediately, day or night.

It was a simple favor, he’d said. Auntie Pei knew better.

Chau Feng hammered on the professor’s door with the meat of his fist. He looked up at the camera mounted above the frame where the front wall met the eaves of the house. An empty paper wasps’ nest hung in the corner, less than a foot from the plastic box.

Chau’s bald partner stood behind him, like always, probably thinking about brewing his homemade beer instead of how much trouble they would be in if they could not locate Liu Wangshu.

The professor’s bank account had not been accessed for almost a month. A preliminary glance into his activity online revealed he had not sent or received a single e-mail in fifteen days.

“I’m allergic to wasps,” Lung said, apparently just noticing the empty nest.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Chau said. Pity that it was too cold for wasps …

Chau shook his head. He had more important matters to think about than his partner being stung to death.

Professor Liu had effectively disappeared from the face of the earth. His secretary at Bohai Shipbuilding Vocational College had just had a baby, but as far as she knew, he’d not been at work for several weeks. He was her boss, so she’d not questioned him.

Chau Feng heard another nail being pounded into his coffin at every new piece of news. It would have been different if the men they babysat were spies—or at least scientists who made bioweapons, or nuclear bombs, or missile guidance systems.

Professor Liu Wangshu designed boats, nothing dangerous or even remotely exciting. Beijing was interested in him for some reason, though, and if they were interested in him, then Chau Feng was supposed to be interested in him as well.

Along with their other assignments, Chau and his partner were to check in with Professor Liu at least once a month, ascertain if anyone else had been chatting him up, document any lifestyle changes, report on his mood.

Chau was twenty-eight and should have been promoted at least one step by now. Jobs like this were more suited to men like Lung, who yammered on about the beer festival in Qingdao and didn’t have the figs for the tough stuff.

At least three of Chau’s cohort from the University of International Relations, the Ministry of State Security training facility in Haidian, were already assigned as intelligence liaisons to charm offensive groups, handing out money like candy for infrastructure programs in Africa and the South Pacific. Chau’s former roommate now spent his days hosting cocktail parties in Canada, offering special consulting fees to engineers from around the world if they could just see their way to helping China with a few problems. At least one of his former classmates had been fortunate enough to bloody his hands capturing Uyghur separatists.

Chau knew that bungling this simple job meant he’d likely be the first one from his class booted from the Service—or worse.

He pounded on the door again, bowing it against the hinges.

Lung worked his way between some evergreen shrubs and the house, cupping his hand between the glass and the spot where his eyebrows should have been to peer through the window.

“I don’t think he’s home.”

Chau shot him a sideways look but said nothing. The door was locked so he put a boot to it, making easy entry. He didn’t care if the neighbors saw them breaking in. They knew better than to say anything. Two well-dressed men would be official, not common criminals. Local police would smell MSS and stay well clear unless they were called.

Lung gave a somber shrug as soon as they were inside.

“Like I said, not home.”

Chau strode through the main room quickly, eyeing the empty kitchen as he went past, thinking he should probably draw his pistol as he neared the bedroom. He would have had he been alone, but Lung would probably think it a weakness and crow about it to others.

Perhaps they would find Liu dead in the bedroom. That would make things so much simpler. They would be blamed, of course, but probably not punished.

No such luck. The low bed was made. Brightly sequined slippers sat alongside on the Persian rug, ready for the professor’s feet when he got up in the morning. A purple silk robe hung on the back of the door. They’d looked in on the professor enough over the past few months to know how he dressed, so none of the flashy jackets or brightly colored shirts in the closet surprised them.

Nothing appeared to be disturbed.

Chau knelt to look under the bed and found nothing but a vacant square in the dust where Liu had presumably kept some kind of box or case. He stood to find Lung rummaging through the dresser drawers.

“What do you hope to find among his underclothes?”

“I will not know until I find it,” Lung said, his voice matter-of-fact. “There is no blood, no sign of struggle. Perhaps he had something to hide that made him susceptible to blackmail or coercion.”

“Perhaps,” Chau said.

“Perhaps he defected.”

Chau blanched at the thought. “Do not say that.”