Free Spy Games by Adam Brookes Page B

a time to meet at his favorite pastry shop. A vague query from the paper regarding Mangan’s progress on the Ogaden story, which he deleted.
    Then, something else.
    An address he didn’t recognize, with attached files, photographs. He almost deleted it, but the subject line caught his eye. It said simply: “Mangan.”
    He opened the message. No text, just four photographs. The first was of Mangan at the jazz bar, taken from a distance, but recognizably him, Hallelujah at his side, back to the lens. The second was closer and pictured him in conversation with Maja. The third showed him leaving the bar, emerging onto the street, blurry, no flash, but there he was, all six feet of him, his face a bit hollow, his red hair ascrape of color in the night. The last photograph was of Mangan in Dire Dawa, in the hotel restaurant, the Americans behind him, engrossed in his book. That was it.
    He met Abraha at Enrico Pastry, an Addis favorite for its faded Italian grandeur and its cakes, which could be procured only through an impenetrable system of queuing and tokens. Abraha had secured a scarred table, and a plate of millefoglie and cream puffs, no small success this late in the day. They ordered macchiato and Mangan watched the milk swirl like smoke in its black depths.
    “We hated the Italians,” said Abraha. “My grandfather was an
arebegna
, a resister, shot at Italians all the way along the Djibouti railway. He was in an Italian prison in, what, thirty-eight. They beat him on the soles of his feet. And look at us. Today, we remain captive to their pastries.” He licked cream from a thumb.
    Mangan waited, sipping his coffee. Abraha was complex and deft. His work—in agricultural policy, of all things—forced him into vicious, rocky terrain: land rights, the grabbing of huge fertile tracts by international investors, corrupt officialdom, abrupt and brutal resettlements, ethnicity, food security, poverty, water. A minefield, all of it.
    “So, Philip. I know your vague interests have extended to the China story. So, what about this? And don’t you dare quote me, yes?”
    “Of course,” said Mangan.
    “At the institute, we are installing new computers, all Chinese, of course. A technician comes to set up the routers or something, a Chinese guy. He works for this huge corporation, China National Century, you know them?”
    “CNaC. Yes, I know them,” said Mangan, quietly.
    “Well, this technician gets a little talkative. And he tells us, very grandly, that he’s been doing
security
work here in Addis. We probe and he tells us that he’s been doing work at INSA.” The Information Network Security Agency, Ethiopia’s own signals intelligence and cyber surveillance outfit. “And he starts smirking and dropping allthese hints. ‘Ah, yes, social media sites, you want to be careful of those from now on. Oh, your handheld? Well, you might want to leave that at home.’ And so on.”
    Abraha’s eyes were wide, the alarm on his face real.
    “They’ve got Chinese engineers in there, and they are building a real surveillance agency, Philip, all hooked into the phone and computer network. All the internet and mobile traffic. All the metadata. Our very own little Ethiopian NSA, courtesy of the Chinese.”
    “He said this?”
    “Well, no. But that’s what he meant.”
    “Seriously? What for?”
    “Oh, come on, Philip. This is Addis Ababa. We are the political capital of East Africa, maybe of all Africa. Every African country has an embassy here. The African Union is here.”
    In a huge, glistening headquarters—newly built by China, Mangan thought.
    “Everything flows through Addis. Power, diplomacy, ideas, influence. The African renaissance
does
start here, underwritten by China. They are building, Philip. Not just roads and railways, but the real thing. The future infrastructure. Networks. The arteries of power in the twenty-first century. They flow to and from China, my friend. And Ethiopia is plugging in. That is