Shan gestured to Cao. “Think about him. If they didn’t kill him outright, they would ruin his life if he were caught aiding a foreigner in some illegal activity. Assuming false credentials sounds like espionage. Beijing is ravenous for American spies.”

“Actually, today was mostly Cao’s idea. I was just the decoy, although I did want to see the place and meet the men responsible for it. I made an interesting discovery. Director Ren is a figurehead. It is Jiao who runs this place.”

“Very astute. Took me two visits to figure that out,” Shan said, then gestured to a flat boulder where they could sit and told the American what he had learned.

“Need a ride?” Pike asked when he had finished.

Shan gestured up the darkening slope. “My truck is up in the mountains,” he said with a sinking feeling, knowing he would never find it in the night. As Pike opened the door to climb inside, he realized the American had not reciprocated. “You said you were a decoy. To distract them from what?”

Pike grinned. “You have your ways and I have mine. China breeds the best talent in the world for surveillance of electronic communication. I used to pay a lot of Uncle Sam’s money to buy black-market surveillance software in Beijing. I kept my own copies, but Cao had even better ones. Kind of a hobby of his it turns out.”

Shan remembered seeing Cao dash from the administration building. He hadn’t been sleeping, he had been waiting for someone to come out the side door, for a chance to sneak inside while the senior managers were distracted with Pike.

Cao returned Shan’s inquiring gaze. “You’re just an archaeology student,” Shan said.

“I’m just an archaeology student,” Cao repeated. A student, Shan reminded himself, who helped his professor keep records of work that would have been banned by the government if it had known.

Pike held up a memory stick. “And now because of him we have a copy of all the office emails for the past six months.” He pulled his door shut and rolled down the window. “Oh, and right about now their communication link with Beijing is crashing. Probably take a day or two to recover.”