Jesus, this was unlike anything he had ever experienced. This city was a fairy-tale stage on the hazy Pearl River delta, a city of layers, pious colonial ghosts mixed with centuries of persevering Cantonese, both now in the long shadow of the politburo in Beijing, that collection of stone-faced men in identical baggy suits that claim the city as their chattel, but do not really own it.
AGNES’S
Pat salmon dry. Season with salt and pepper. Place fillet, skin side down, on aluminum foil. Separately mix butter, dill, garlic, lemon juice, and white wine. Spread compound butter over the top of the salmon fillet, and crimp the foil into a loose tented packet. Bake in a medium-high oven until fillet is cooked through. Serve with
25
Bunny Boiler
Nate and Bunty Boothby had agreed to meet that evening at The Bar in the Peninsula Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui for a get-acquainted drink, after which Bunty’s girlfriend, Marigold Dougherty, would join them for dinner at Felix, the ultrahip restaurant on the hotel’s twenty-eighth floor. Marigold was a reports officer in the ASIS station, had lived in Hong Kong for five years, and knew the city exceedingly well. Nate needed to turbocharge his area knowledge, and hoped both Australians would help him learn the city quickly.
Nate had warmed instantly to Boothby during their initial meeting in the Australian Consulate. Bunty was short and blocky, with a broad face and gray eyes. He had the wide shoulders of a swimmer and the sun-bleached, perpetually unruly blond hair of the inveterate surfer. He had been drafted into ASIS immediately after graduating from the University of Melbourne and, thanks to his passion for riding monster waves, operated for his first three years with the quite remarkable cover of “surfie,” a globe-trotting beach boy looking for the perfect point break. He was one of the first foreigners to surf the infamous Silver Dragon, the thundering eight-meter tall, full-moon-triggered tidal bore on the Qiantang River near Shanghai, for a record fifty-two minutes, sluicing and cutting across the chocolate-brown wave on his Twin Fin short board for seventeen kilometers. The next day, the inconspicuous, twenty-three-year-old surfer dude in board shorts and flip-flops reestablished contact with a clandestine ASIS reporting source—a colonel in the 61398
Bunty was laconic, irreverent, and ingenuous, every bit the informal, loose-limbed Aussie, a wry observer of the “tossers, wankers, and ratbags” who roamed the Earth and, occasionally, sullied his beloved service. But Nate quickly saw that Bunty’s playing the huffy rustic was camouflage for an operations officer with a shrewd eye and a killer instinct for recruiting human intelligence sources. Now a ten-year veteran, Bunty had traded his puka-shell necklace for a necktie and two-button suit, but he was still a larrikin, a wild child.
The bar at the Peninsula Hotel was all dark wood, polished brass, and sparkling glassware. They sat in two deep leather chesterfield armchairs in the corner of the bar, and on Bunty’s recommendation ordered two signature Rolls-Royce cocktails. Nate leaned back in his chair.
“Two days ago, I walked for six hours,” said Nate. “At the end of the day, I couldn’t tell you whether I had surveillance or not.” Bunty sipped his drink, looking at him over the rim of his glass.
“Welcome to Honkers,” said Bunty, his voice low. “Your Moscow rules are about as useful in this city as an ashtray on a motorcycle. Too many locals, too much movement. We don’t think the MSS surveil us with any regularity. They have cameras everywhere, and static watchers, and co-opted informers, but they’re patient bastards who’re willing to wait. If they think something serious is going on, they can deploy a big team to bail a target up.” Nate held up his hand.
“What do you mean ‘bail a target’?” said Nate.
Bunty took another sip of his drink. “Sorry,” he said. “Australian slang; it’s an affliction—use it without thinking, so stop me when I say something unintelligible.”
“And bail somebody up?”
“Wrap them up, control movement, physically impede,” said Bunty.
“Thank you. So how are we getting to Macao without the MSS bailing us up?” said Nate.
Bunty smiled. “We’ll keep our eyes open, of course, but the hydrofoil and both sea terminals are covered, so we start cleaning ourselves when we step foot on land in Macao.”
“And then what?”
