ZHOU XING HAD THE FACE OF A PEASANT. HIS EYES were set close together, his chin was almost nonexistent, and his nose listed to starboard from a long-ago fracture. A pair of jug ears and a pauper’s haircut completed the rural simpleton appearance. It was a countenance perfectly suited to the undercover intelligence agent. Aside from allowing Zhou to fit into almost any field situation, it habitually caused his superiors in the Chinese Ministry of State Security to underestimate his guile and ability.

At the moment he was counting on the same effect for a less sophisticated crowd. Wearing the worn and dusty clothes of an unskilled laborer, he looked like most of the inhabitants of Bayan Obo, a company town in Inner Mongolia that was itself worn and dusty. Zhou crossed a paved street bustling with trucks and buses and made his way to a small drinking establishment. Even from the street he could hear the voices inside. He took a deep breath, then pulled open a wooden door emblazoned with a faded red boar.

The scent of cheap tobacco and stale beer filled Zhou’s nostrils as he stepped through the door and scanned the confines with a practiced eye. A dozen tables filled the narrow room, occupied by a coarse and rugged assortment of miners off duty from the town’s open-pit mine. A fat, one-eyed barkeep poured shots behind an elevated platform lined with hard-drinking locals. The bar’s only decoration was its namesake, a stuffed and mounted boar’s head that was missing several tufts of fur.

Zhou ordered a baijiu, a grain alcohol that was the locals’ favorite, and slid onto a corner chair to study the clientele. Cloistered in groups of two or three, most were well on their way to numbing themselves from the day’s labor. He scanned from face to hardened face, searching for a suitable target. He found one a few tables away, a brash, loudmouthed young man, talking the ears off his silent, towering partner.

Zhou waited until the talker had nearly drained his shot glass before approaching the table. Pretending to stagger, he flung an elbow against the talker’s glass, sending it flying.

“Hey! My drink.”

“A thousand pardons, my friend,” Zhou said, slurring his words. “Please, come to the bar with me and I shall purchase you another.”

The young miner, realizing he had just scored a free round, rose quickly, if unsteadily, to his feet. “Yes, another drink.”

With a full ceramic bottle of baijiu in hand, Zhou was welcomed back to the table.

“I am Wen,” the man said, “and my quiet friend here is Yao.”

“I am Tsen,” Zhou replied. “You both work at the mine?”

“Of course.” Wen flexed his biceps. “We didn’t build this strength by plucking chickens.”

“What is your job at the mine?”