The holding cell was a featureless cube of damp stone and despair, hidden in the labyrinthine bowels of the Ministry of State Security's Tianjin headquarters. There were no windows, and the only light came from a single, bare bulb that hummed incessantly, a constant, nerve-shredding companion to the silence. In this cube sat the fixer, Wu. Or what was left of him.
He was no longer the confident, swaggering creature of the Shanghai underworld. He was a broken man. His face was a pallid mask of exhaustion, his eyes wide and unfocused, staring at a spot on the wall that wasn't there. He had not been beaten or tortured in the traditional sense. Shen Ke's methods were far more insidious. For three days, Wu had been subjected to a relentless, systematic dismantling of his psyche. He had been deprived of sleep, the constant hum of the light and the drip of water just outside his cell making rest impossible. He had been subjected to endless, circular questioning by a rotating team of interrogators, their voices calm and patient as they asked him the same questions over and over, hours apart, noting every minute contradiction. His world had been reduced to this gray box, to the hum of the light, and to the patient, unending questions.
Now, the final act was about to begin. The door opened and Section Chief Ling entered. He looked as crisp and as neat as he had the day of Wu's capture. He placed a small stool opposite the prisoner and sat down, a thin file in his hands.
"Good morning, Wu," Ling said, his voice soft and polite. "I trust you have had time to reflect."
Wu just stared, his mind a fog of fatigue. Ling did not ask him about the American agent. He did not need to. He began to build his cage, bar by inescapable bar. He opened the file and laid a document on the small table between them. It was a ledger page from the new Imperial Bank.
"This is the account for the New Century Trading Company," Ling stated calmly. "Here are the records of your last three deposits. Substantial sums. All in cash. All immediately preceding large payments for a laboratory in the industrial district."
He laid down another paper. It was a signed confession from the man who owned the teahouse where Wu had met Donovan. The teahouse owner admitted to facilitating meetings for Wu with a "secretive foreigner" in exchange for a small fee.
Another paper. A statement from one of Wu's own low-level street runners, who confessed to observing Wu receiving a heavy bag from a foreigner matching Donovan's description just before the attempted bank deposit.
Ling continued this way for an hour, laying out a meticulous, irrefutable web of evidence. He presented rental agreements, witness statements, financial records. He never raised his voice. He never accused. He simply presented the facts, each one another stone in the wall that was being built around Wu, sealing him in.
Finally, Wu broke. A long, shuddering sob escaped his lips. The carefully constructed persona of the tough street criminal dissolved, revealing the terrified man beneath.
"I'll tell you," he whispered, his voice a hoarse croak. "I'll tell you everything."
And he did. He poured out every detail he knew about the American agent he knew only as "Donovan." He described his appearance, his nervous habits, their dead-drop locations, the man's increasing desperation. He gave Ling a complete operational picture of the American's now-shattered local network.
Ling listened patiently, nodding, letting the man empty himself of his secrets. When Wu was finished, exhausted and weeping, Ling feigned a moment of confusion. He produced a piece of paper from his file. It was a charcoal sketch, a remarkably accurate likeness of a man's face, drawn by a police artist.
"Is this the man?" Ling asked. "Is this Donovan?"
Wu squinted at the drawing. It was the face from the police report, the face of the man who had caused the commotion in the Tianjin market. Corporal Riley.
Wu shook his head, a spark of genuine confusion in his eyes. "No," he said. "No, that is not Donovan. That is the other one. The soldier."
Ling kept his face a perfect mask of calm curiosity, but inside, his heart began to pound with the thrill of the hunt. This was it. "Other one?" he asked softly, prompting him. "Tell me about the soldier."
Wu, desperate now to offer anything of value, anything that might spare him a swift execution, eagerly began to talk about his other employer. He told Ling about the quiet, intense American with the military bearing who had hired him months ago for a "demolition job." He described Corporal Riley in minute detail—his flawless, unaccented Mandarin, his cold professionalism, his deep knowledge of explosives.
"And who did this soldier work for?" Ling asked, his voice still quiet, betraying none of the immense importance of the question.
"I don't know his name," Wu sobbed. "But he was a powerful man. High up. He worked for the Minister of Industry. He was one of Minister Yuan Shikai's personal aides. The soldier answered directly to him."
The final link was forged.
The scene shifts to Shen Ke's office in Beijing. The Spymaster stands before his large wall map of China, a map now covered in a complex web of colored threads connecting names, locations, and financial accounts. Section Chief Ling stands before him, presenting his final report.
"We have it all, Spymaster," Ling said, his voice crisp with triumph. "The fixer's confession corroborates everything. The primary American spy ring, headed by the agent known as Donovan, was a C.I.A. operation responsible for funding the physicist, Dr. Chen, and her weapon."
He pointed to a cluster of blue threads on the map, all converging on Shanghai.
"But more importantly," he continued, his finger tracing a new, red thread that led from a terror attack in America to the heart of the Ministry of Industry, "we now have irrefutable proof of a second, parallel operation. The American demolition expert, Corporal Riley, is unequivocally an asset of Minister Yuan Shikai. He is the architect of the Appalachian Fire. There is no doubt."
Shen Ke looked at his map. He looked at the two distinct, colored webs of treason. One, an act of foreign espionage. The other, an act of profound internal betrayal. And now, he held the single, undeniable thread that connected them. Yuan Shikai, the Emperor's new Supreme Overseer, was not just corrupt. He was not just a traitor. He was running his own private war against the United States, using an American asset, while simultaneously being spied upon by a different branch of the very same enemy.
The sheer, staggering complexity and audacity of the treason was breathtaking.
The only question left for Shen Ke was the most dangerous one of all. When, and how, would he present this explosive, consolidated truth to the Emperor? How do you tell a god that the man he just promoted to run his entire war effort is a traitor twice over, a man playing a deadly game with enemies and allies alike, a game whose rules only he seems to understand? The Spymaster knew that the next report he filed would either save the Empire or get him killed.