The Chinese Assassin (39 page)

‘What threats
exactly, Mr. Ketterman?’
The President’s voice
was coldly
hostile now.

‘The Soviet
ramrod handling
this is a g
u
y named
Razduhev,
KGB head of station in London. He’s very
senior
and
he
says the Politburo is going to put pressure on all round if we don’t
hand
Yang back. They’re ready to
push the
Cuban
troops
now in
Angola into
Rhodesia, they’re making dark hints about stepping up
their activity in the
Horn of
Africa
to turn Ethiopia
and
Somalia to
the hammer and
sickle. They might refuse to co-operate over
any
force
reductions
at all in Eastern Europe, work to
rule
on the SALT agreements. He implied there’s
hardly a damned thing
they won’t do if we hang on to Yang.’

‘If we grant Yang
asylum
we
offend
not
only
the Russians, we offend the
Chinese too.’
The
Secretary
of State
directed his
words idly towards the
ceiling as if musing aloud ‘They’ll
claim he
should
be returned to them to be dealt with in their
own
way.’

‘If we return him to the
Russians the
Chinese will
take
considerable umbrage, you ca
n
be sure of that, Mr. President,’
said
the NSC man
earnestly.
‘We’re suppressing the Folios to save Peking
the
international
humiliation
of
being
made to look
like liars
over the
original Li
n
Piao
affair.
Shouldn’t we be
consistent and
follow through in Peking’s favour?’

‘At my level, Mr. President, a
certain amount
of
even-handedness
is
essential,’ Ketterman insisted.
‘The Soviets
saw us lean
very
definitely
towards Peking in seventy-one when we
tipped Mao
off about the
Lin
Piao plot that we heard of out of Moscow, If we appear to be
throwing
our lot too far in with the Chinese again over
intelligence and security
the Russians could
begin
to feel dangerously isolated.’

There was silence in the room for a moment.

‘I’m
meeting
Razduhev at the Lincoln Memorial at midnight,’ continued
Ketterman, lifting his wristwatch into
view from beneath the table. ‘He’s expecting to
hear
what arrangement
will
be made to return Yang to them.’

The President jerked forward in his seat suddenly
and leaned
his forearms on the table, looking directly across at Ketterman.

A pugnacious
glint
came into his eyes. ‘The information we gave Peking
in
1971, Mr.
K
etterman, was
to say the least
unsubstantiated
by
any incontrovertible
evidence. If we
tip
the
Chinese
about
another
death plot against Mao, we could make fools of
ourselves again—and
give them a
basis on which
to build more
lying
propaganda. We can kill
two birds
‘with one stone here. We don’t really know beyond
any
shadow of doubt
the truth behind
it all, despite what you’ve told us,
and
we don’t want to grant Yang
asylum.’
He paused
and
glowered
round
the table. ‘So let them
make
up
their
minds for themselves about
history
.’

The President stood up suddenly
and
looked round in turn
once
again at the NSC
man,
the
Secretary
of
State and
the
Director
of the CIA. Each returned his
gaze
without sign of dissent
and
he ignored Ketter
m
an. ‘Okay,’
said
the
President turning
rapidly on his heel
and heading
for
the
door. ‘Ship Yang back to Peking—but
quick.’

20

The hand-written poster nailed to the trunk of a tree
at
the corner
of
Ashmede and 20th Street
on
the edge
of
Washington’s
diplomatic quarter
was headed
‘Dog Lost’.
Its
message scrawled
in orange and
blue crayon said:
‘Small, black, shaggy
poodle
(female) wearing pink and
red coat and bright orange collar lost around
10
p.m.
on
25th July, 1976. Finder please call urgently.
She
i
s
under medication. Thank you.’

Harvey Ketterman
read it a second time, dosed his eyes
briefly to test
his memory of the telephone
number
added at
the
bottom,
then returned
to his car. He drove slowly back to Connecticut Avenue, glancing
s
he passed at the windows of the former 300-bedroom
Windsor
Park hotel
which Peking
had bought
in its
entirety in 1972 after
the
diplomatic
thaw
brought on by Richard Nixon’s
visit.
It
had been
converted now into an
urban
fortress named ‘The Liaison, Office of The
Chinese
People’s Republic.’ The ground floor windows
had been reinforced with heavy
concrete
frames and thick
black-painted st
e
el
bars
protected the glass. Above the double doors of the old hotel a light illuminated the
circular red and
gold symbol of
Communist
China—five
stars
floating above the Gate of
Heavenly
Peace.
Only
a few slivers of light showed
dimly through
closed
curtains
on the upper
floors
of
the
squat eight-storey
building that served as
home, office,
and recreation area
to
its Chinese diplomats.
The floodlights however
had been left
lit on the empty
basketball and
badminton courts enclosed
behind
stout black iron railings at the rear.

Ketterman stopped his car at a telephone
booth
higher up the Avenue
and
got out
and
dialled the number on the
porter.
The voice that answered spoke
English with
a
heavy Chinese
accent. ‘I think
I’v
e found your
missing pet,’ said Ketterman
slowly. ‘It
answers
to the name of
“Yang” and is still under medication.
How would you
like
me to return it?’

There
was
a long
silence
on the
other
end of the
line.
In the office of the
Central External Liaison
Department’s head of Washington station on the fifth floor of
the
old Windsor Park Hotel a
Chinese in a high
buttoned cadre’s
uniform
put his hand over
the
mouthpiece of the telephone
and
turned to shoot a
stream excited Mandarin
at
Tan Sui.-ling,
who
was sitting
quietly
reading
a copy of
Time
magazine
on a sofa on the other side of
the
room. She got up
quickly and
took the receiver from the
man. ‘What is your
name please?’
she
asked in English.

‘I answer to “Ketterman”.’

She sucked in a
quick
breath.
‘Are
you sure
that
what you have found complies exactly
with
the
description
of what we are
seeking?’

‘Positive!’ said Ketter
m
an.
‘And I can have it
back
to you within the
hour.
No
rewards sought’

Tan Sui-ling
covered
the
phone
and consulted
the man at her
side
in rapid
Chinese.
Then
she uncupped
her
hand
from the
mouthpiece once
more. ‘We shall open the
gates
onto the
basketball court in
forty-five
minutes time.’
Sh
e
spoke the
words crisply and
hung up without
waiting
for a reply.

Kette
rm
an walked
slowly back to his car
and
lowered himself
wearily
into the
driving
seat. When he’d turned its nose
south
again he leaned over the dashboard
and
picked up the
hand
microphone for
the
two-way radio.
‘Our friend, is expected in forty-five minutes
from this time.’ His voice
was
tired. ‘Deploy
three
ambulances
with
one patient in each.
Maximum security precautions
are to prevail at points of
departure and arrival. Contact
me at
Katrina’s
to confirm.’

‘Your
message
read
and understood,’ said the
voice of the
young fair-haired
man from the
Georgian
‘villa on P
Street.

Ketterman replaced the hand microphone in its cradle and had
to swerve
wildly
to avoid an oncoming
car because
he’d
drifted
into
the
centre of the road while
sending
his message. The Governor Shepherd restaurant was in
darkness
when he reached
it
and he left
his car
at the kerbside next to a ‘No parking’ sign
and
opened the street door to
the
adjoining apartment block
with
his
own key.
He took the lift up to the eighth
floor and used
a latch key to open the door of the
apartment. In
the sitting room he found Richard Scholefield sprawled in an
easy chair
with
his
jacket
off, balancing a cup
of coffee in one hand. Katrina was sitting by his feet on a
white goatskin
rug, her arm
resting casually
on his thigh. She
was naked and
her flimsy
black
brassiere
lay
crumpled on the
rug
beside her. She looked round
and
smiled sweetly up at
Ketterman but didn’t
move.
-

He stood in the doorway looking
expressionlessly
from her face to Scholefiel
d
’s
and
back again. She
made
a little shrugging movement
with
her shoulders and
nuzzled
the swell of her breasts
closer
against Scholefield’s
knee.
‘You look tired
and
old
and
grey-faced, Harvey you bastard,’ she
said, still
smiling sweetly, ‘where the fuck have you been?’

‘Working my ass
off
to save the
goddamned western
world, as usual—for no thanks.’ Ketterman turned
and
closed the door
and
shrugged out of his jacket.

Scholefield
didn’t
get up. He sat watching the American carefully,
still
holding
the
coffee cup in his
right hand.

Ketterman draped his jacket over
the
back of an easy
chair
and lowered
himself
into it
with a weary
groan. ‘Nice to
see
you, Dick.
Even if
it is a helluva surprise.’

‘I
wish
I could
say
the same, Harvey.’

Ketterman
appeared to study the long dark curve of
Katrina’s
naked back for a long moment.
Then his gaze
strayed to
the flimsy
undergarment on the rug before returning to Scholefield’s face. ‘What brings England’s most celebrated sinologist to Washington, may
I
ask?’

‘You.’ Scholefield’s voice
had
a hard edge to it.

Ketterman
leaned over suddenly and rubbed his
hand
quickly over Katrina’s tightly
fizzed hair. ‘A Jack Daniels and
ice, Kat, please.’

Katrina smiled dazzlingly into his-face. ‘Get it
yourself
Harvey.’

Ketter
m
an
stood up
slowly, looking first
at Katrina then at
Scholefield
. Then suddenly he grinned. ‘Hey, what the hell goes on here? The hunter’s home from the hill and all he gets in his
tepee is unmitigated
hostility.’

‘His squaw’s tepee,’
corrected Katrina, turning
to smile brightly at him once again. ‘On a
nine
thousand year mortgage
maybe,
but
technically
his squaw’s, not
H
a
rvey
’
s.’
She
sipped
her
drink,
still
looking
into his eyes
and still resting
her elbow on Scholefield’s thigh. ‘Maybe it’s got
something
to do with what the hunter
was
doing on the
goddamned
hill. If there was a
popularity
contest in the
wigwam
right now he’d get no votes out of two.’

Ketterman
rubbed his eyes with
both
fists and went over to
the
tray of drinks on a side
table.
He dropped some ice into a glass
and
poured himself a large bourbon,
While
his back was turned Katr
in
a stood up. She plucked her bra from
the rug
and stood
dangling
it from one
hand, resting
the other on a jutting hip. ‘I guess I’ll go
and
slip into something
less
comfortable now you’re here, Harvey.’
Whe
n
she
knew he was watching her,
she turned and
minced out on her toes, waggling her hips
exag
geratedly and
swinging
the brassiere around her finger. She looked
both vulnerable
and desirable in
the
same mome
n
t.