Storm Front

“Well, I was curious from the start,” Storm said. “I’ve been around a lot of media events, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a press secretary as gorgeous as you.”

She looked down, blushing.

“But what really did it was when I asked you whether you preferred Roma’s or Geno’s.”

“The pizza places. You made them both up,” she said. “I should have known. They threw this backstory at me last-minute, and I just didn’t have time to research it like I usually would. I don’t usually do a lot of undercover work. I’m mostly an analyst. They only put me in the field this time because one of my areas of expertise is finance.”

“So all that poor-little-Ling-from-Qinghai stuff, that was all made up, right?”

“Every word of it,” she said.

“You sold it well. I was ready to believe that part.”

“Thanks.”

“So where did you get your English from? You must have spent some time in America. You have too many American idioms not to have.”

“My parents sent me to a boarding school in Virginia,” she said. “Not in the D.C. area where you grew up. Way down south, in the tidewater part of the state. Most of what I learned about espionage started with sneaking off after lights out and meeting up with boys behind the field house. That and hiding cigarettes.”

“Boarding school, huh? Your parents must have been well off.”

She nodded. “My grandfather, my mother’s father, was high up in the party,” she said. “He used his influence to arrange my mother’s marriage to a wealthy businessman from Shanghai. That’s where I really grew up. The part about Peking University is true, though. I really did graduate in the top of my class. My father wanted me to go into his business. But I knew that was really code for: Go into my business for a few years until I marry you off to whichever vice president I want to take over the company when I retire. I didn’t want any part of that.”

“So how did you end up with the Ministry of State Security?”

“Who says I’m with the Ministry of State Security?” she said, letting only the slightest smile slip.

Storm affected a German accent: “Ve haff vays of making you talk, Agent Xi Bang.”

“My grandfather still had party connections,” she continued. “He got me an internship in the Ministry of State Security. That seemed a lot more interesting a path than becoming someone’s wife.”

“Do you ever think about marriage?” he asked.

“Why, Agent Storm, are you proposing?”

“I thought I already did. We’re going to dance to ‘The Vienna Waltz’ at our wedding, remember?”

Fresh beers arrived on the table. A Widmer Brothers Drifter Pale Ale for her. An Arrogant Bastard Ale for him.

“Okay, so what about you?” he said. “When were you on to me?”

“Cheers again,” she said, touching her glass to his.

“Cheers again,” Storm said.

“And stop stalling. I showed you mine. You show me yours: When did you figure me out?”

“I was suspicious the moment I laid eyes on you,” Xi Bang said. “The way the other correspondents looked at you, I could tell you weren’t part of the usual herd. Plus, that jacket? Atrocious. The media actually dresses a lot nicer than that these days.”

“Well, the correspondents from Soy Trader Weekly are noted for their down-to-earth apparel,” Storm said.

“Ah, yes, Soy Trader Weekly. Nice website, by the way. But that’s how we actually made you.”

“How? That website was perfect.”

“Yeah, too perfect,” Xi Bang said. “When our techs tried to hack it, they couldn’t. It had CIA encryption on it. You want to tell me Soy Trader Weekly has access to that?”

“Amateur mistake,” Storm said, making a mental note to tell Jedediah Jones about that flaw.

They dove back into the pile of wings, doing an efficient, if messy, job of shrinking it. Storm, as usual, ate like he had an empty leg. But Xi Bang held her own. And when the waitress came and asked if they wanted seconds, they shared a half second of silent communication before deciding, yeah, that would be fine.

“So you know your reputation precedes you in the Chinese intelligence community,” Xi Bang said as they waited for the next round of wings to arrive. “From the stories that circulate, I figured ‘Derrick Storm’ was actually an amalgam of several different American operatives.”

“Nope. Just me. What made you think that?”

“I don’t know. I just assumed that all of what I heard couldn’t be true. Or that if it was true, it had to be multiple agents’ legends rolled into one.”

“I guess it depends on what you heard.”

“Were you in Morocco a few years ago?” she asked.

Storm just shrugged.

“What about ‘The Fear?’ Did you really take him out?”

He said nothing. But Xi Bang caught his tell: The corner of his mouth pulled up a fraction of an inch.

“There’s also a rumor you once killed an enemy agent with a melon baller.”

“People exaggerate,” Storm said at last, shaking his head. “It was an ice cream scoop.”