For three days, Mr. Wu lived in a state of suspended terror. The disguised inkstone sat on the high shelf in Dr. Chen's office, a silent, malevolent presence that seemed to radiate a cold aura of guilt only he could feel. He went about his duties in a fog of anxiety. He was jumpy, his hands trembling so badly that the simple act of wiping a beaker became a perilous challenge. He dropped a stack of academic papers, their pages scattering across the floor like frightened birds. He constantly, furtively glanced up at the high, dusty shelf, as if expecting the inkstone to cry out and announce his treason.
His guilt was a palpable aura, a scent of fear that clung to him like cheap incense. And Dr. Chen, a woman whose mind was a precision instrument for detecting anomalies, noticed. She was deeply engrossed in her own research, a complex new line of inquiry into the strange, probabilistic world of quantum mechanics, but even she could not ignore the profound change in her old, reliable lab steward.
She found him one afternoon, standing motionless in the center of the lab, staring at a spot on the wall, a cleaning rag hanging limply from his hand.
"Mr. Wu," she said, her voice softer than usual. "You have been unwell for days. You look as though you have not slept. I insist you go home and rest." She stepped closer, a flicker of genuine concern in her sharp, analytical eyes. "Your health is more important than these dusty shelves. Go. Take tomorrow off as well. Do not return until you are feeling yourself again."
The unexpected kindness was a blow more stunning than any accusation could have been. It shattered what little composure he had left. He bowed deeply, stammering his thanks, his eyes filling with tears of shame. He practically fled the laboratory, unable to bear another moment in the presence of the woman he was betraying.
Miles away, in the American safe house, Agent Donovan watched the receiver. For three days, the needle on the delicate gauge had provided a weak but steady signal, a thin, oscillating line that was his only connection to his fragile operation. He had been using it to build a baseline, a map of the ambient electromagnetic noise in the university district. It was painstaking, tedious work.
Suddenly, without any warning, the needle shuddered and dropped to zero. The gentle hum from the receiver died. The line went flat.
"What happened?" his associate, a burly ex-Marine named Harker, asked from across the room. "Did they find it? Are the Qing onto us?"
Donovan stared at the dead gauge, his jaw tight with frustration. He analyzed the situation with the cold, rapid logic of a field agent. "No," he said, shaking his head. "If the Qing counter-intelligence team found it, their own surveillance chatter would have spiked. We would have seen a flurry of energy signals as they alerted their superiors. The device hasn't been discovered." He slammed a fist lightly on the table. "It's been moved. The old man took it. He panicked and ran."
His assessment was precisely correct. Back in his small, dark room in the hutong, Mr. Wu cradled the inkstone in his trembling hands as if it were a venomous creature. He couldn't bear the guilt. He couldn't live with the constant, gnawing fear of discovery. He had to get rid of it. His first instinct was to go to the canal and throw the cursed object into the murky water, to let it sink into the mud and be forgotten forever.
But then he thought of the American's other threat. The threat against his daughter's husband in Tianjin. He thought of his grandson, of the life-saving medicine the envelope of money would buy. The Americans had him in a trap with two sets of jaws. He was damned if he spied, and his family was damned if he didn't.
In a fit of desperate, tragically flawed logic, a compromise formed in his terrified mind. He could keep the money—he had to, for little Wei—but he could stop the spying. He could remove the source of his immediate guilt. If the device was not in the office, he was not actively betraying the Doctor. It was a child's reasoning, but he clung to it as a drowning man clings to a splinter of wood.
He pried up a loose floorboard beneath his bed, a space where he kept his few meager savings. He wrapped the inkstone in an old, oil-stained cloth, placed it in the dark space, and replaced the board. He had hidden the evidence of his crime. He could breathe again, just barely.
Donovan knew his entire operation was on the verge of collapsing into utter failure. He had an unwilling, unstable asset who had gone dark. He couldn't re-establish contact through simple threats; the old man was already saturated with fear and would likely just curl up into a ball of catatonic terror. He had to reassert control directly. He had to take a massive, reckless, personal risk.
He went to his kit and began to prepare a new disguise. He would not be the German businessman or the American tourist. He would become a ghost. He used putty to alter the line of his jaw, spirit gum and crepe hair to add a wispy, scraggly beard. He used theatrical makeup to give his skin the sallow, weathered look of a local. He donned the simple blue tunic and loose-fitting trousers of a common laborer and affected a slight stoop in his posture. When he was done, the sharp-eyed American agent was gone, replaced by an anonymous, forgettable Chinese man, just another face in the endless river of humanity that flowed through Beijing's streets.
He knew Mr. Wu's route home from the university. He chose his ground carefully: the busiest section of the marketplace, a place teeming with shoppers, street vendors, Qing patrols, and, he knew, Shen Ke's hidden agents. It was the most dangerous place to make contact, but also the most anonymous. A forest was the best place to hide a single tree.
He saw the old man shuffling through the crowd, his head down, his face a mask of misery. Donovan, moving with the fluid grace of a predator, navigated the throng and "accidentally" bumped into him, hard enough to make the old man stumble.
"Apologies, old uncle!" Donovan exclaimed, his Mandarin flawless, his accent that of a man from a neighboring province. He grabbed Mr. Wu's arm to steady him, his grip firm and unyielding.
Mr. Wu looked up, his eyes widening in recognition and pure terror.
As he held the old man upright, Donovan leaned in close, his mouth near Mr. Wu's ear, his voice a barely audible whisper beneath the market's din. "The charitable foundation is most concerned, Mr. Wu. The health monitor has ceased its function. They fear for the good Doctor's safety. And, of course, they are deeply concerned for the continued health of your grandson."
Donovan's grip on the old man's arm tightened almost imperceptibly. "The device must be returned to its proper place. By morning. Do not make us… withdraw our charity. It would be such a shame for little Wei."
He released his grip, gave the old man a polite, apologetic bow, and then melted back into the crowd, disappearing as quickly as he had appeared.
He left Mr. Wu frozen in the middle of the bustling market, a statue of pure, unadulterated terror. He had just been reminded that there was no escape. The hook was in too deep. Donovan had exposed himself on hostile ground to salvage his mission. He had reasserted control over his asset, but the encounter had laid bare the terrifying truth of his situation. His entire, high-stakes operation, the lynchpin of America's secret war against a god, now hinged entirely on the trembling, unreliable hand of a terrified old man who could break completely at any moment.