Free Wall of Night by Grant Blackwood

filing cabinets, and handed Latham a file. “Not much there. Two visitors—the same since he got here.”
    Latham scanned the log. “Stephen Yates?”
    â€œHis lawyer. Comes about once every six months.”
    â€œWhat about this one: Mary Tsang.”
    â€œCho’s pen pal. Sort of a nutcase if you ask me—a soul saver. She started writing him as soon as he got here, said she’d read about his trial, and didn’t think he could have done what they accused him of—you know the rest.”
    Latham did. Ted Bundy got more marriage proposals than hate mail. There was always someone—usually a well-meaning but slightly off-kilter woman—who thought love could soften the hardest of hearts.
    Randal asked, “What’s their mail like?”
    â€œRoutine stuff.”
    â€œAnd the visits?”
    â€œThe same. You can tell he enjoys her visits, though. He even cracks a smile once in a while.”
    Latham said, “Could we get the particulars on her and the lawyer?”
    â€œSure.”
    Walking out the main gates, Latham read the information on Mary Tsang. “Hmmph.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œShe lives in Washington. That’s a long trip to make once a month.”
    â€œUnless she flies—which is speedy—it’s a twelve-hour trip each way. Boy, that’s love.”
    â€œMaybe. I think we should find out a little more about the dedicated Ms. Tsang.”

6
    Rappahannock River, Virginia
    Thirteen months after the Tiananmen Square Massacre in Beijing, General Han Soong, chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army, slipped his fateful note to a U.S. defense attaché. The general’s defection request sent shock waves through the CIA.
    Already sickened by his government’s ever-worsening treatment of its citizens, Tiananmen Square had pushed Soong over the edge. He had only one condition: His handler must be a military man; with a CIA case officer, he explained, he had no bond. A military man was a comrade in arms. Regardless of flag or anthem, a soldier could be trusted.
    Realizing the golden opportunity they’d been handed, the CIA didn’t argue and began looking for a controller. They found their man in the then-newly formed Intelligence Support Activity Group.
    Tanner, a twenty-eight-year-old navy lieutenant commander not only had the skills and experience, but also the temperament to handle the environment. Tanner accepted the job and the preparations began. The operation was code-named Ledger, Soong was Treble.
    Two months later he was in China. Two months after that, on the day Tanner was to evacuate them, Soong and his family were arrested. Just minutes ahead of PSB and Guoanbu pursuers, Tanner went to ground. Eighteen days later he appeared in Taipei and was evacuated.
    Later, Harve Brandt, one of the old-timers in ISAG and a former CIA handler, tried to give Tanner a short course on why the incident had so shaken him. “You liked the guy; you liked his family. That’s natural, but it’s a mistake. Better to see ’em for what they are: Product. Sometimes you deliver the product, sometimes you don’t.”
    Tanner told Harve to stick his product up his ass.
    So soon after China, it was still heavy in Tanner’s heart: He’d screwed up. He didn’t know how or where, but there was no other explanation. Eventually he managed to trade that conviction for the realization that no matter the cause—whether it was his fault or nobody’s fault—Soong, his wife, and his daughter were either dead or rotting inside a laogi.
    Lion Soong … She’d been twenty then, which made her thirty-two now—if she was even still alive, that is. Laogis were especially hard on women, it was said. Maybe it would be better if she were—
    No no no …
    God, how he’d loved her. During the early days of the affair, that rational voice in the back of Tanner’s mind had tried