The Chinese Assassin (49 page)

‘So all the
folios
you
wrote
were complete lies? The new “plot” to kill
Chairman
Mao
was
a fiction?’

He nodded, keeping his eyes averted. ‘They were the sole work of the
Russians. They threatened
me
with
death if 1 did
not act out my role. I am ashamed now to
admit that
I
agreed
to do this in the hope of saving my
own worthless
life.’ His head dropped onto his chest
and
his voice became
muffled.
‘I wish now too late that I had
chosen death instead
of treachery.’

In the silence, the
sound
of several
pairs
of
slippered
feet
pattering
quickly down the narrow steps reached
them
from above. A moment later
Tan
Su
i
-ling and the three guards
appeared in the
narrow
opening
into the torture
chamber.
She
stood
looking down,
moving
the
bamboo
fan slowly back
and
forth in front of
her face.
‘Within the hour,’ she
announced in a
ringing voice, ‘you will have the
opportunity to ask Chairman Mao
personally
to
grant you a speedy death to atone for your
treachery.’

Yang
stared
blankly up
at
her. She returned
his
gaze with a sneer of contempt
twisting
her
face,
then paced slowly down the remaining steps. ‘Has he given a sufficient explanation to the English
m
an?’ She
addressed
her question
to
the Public
Security captain,
in a peremptory voice
making
her superior rank
plain.

He nodded quickly. ‘He has
repeated
his confession in flail,
Comrade
Tan.’

She
turned to
Scholefield smiling faintly. ‘You now have, I hope, a
fuller understanding
of the Kremlin’s vicious nature.’

Scholefield
smiled a sudden grim smile. ‘I have
learned,
I think, above all
else, that
nothing
in China is
what it seems
to
be at
first
sight.’

She looked at him
with
a
startled
expression for an instant. Then
she
turned back to the
cap
tai
n and
motioned
towards
Yang. ‘Handcuff him again
immediately and
take the
Englishman
up to the car! I
wish
to be left alone
with
Yang for a moment to
instruct him
on how he should conduct
himself in the presence
of
Chairman
Mao.’

The captain nodded obediently and
motioned for Scholefield
and the
others to leave. He fastened the cuffs on Yang’s wrists
and locked them, then turned and
followed the
others
up the
steps. Only
when the noise of the iron-clad door sla
mm
ing shut
echoed
back down
the
narrow passageway
did
she turn to face
Yang
again.

They stood
looking
at each other for a moment in silence. Then without taking her eyes from his face
Tan Sui-ling withdrew the
long
stiletto slowly from the stein
of
the bamboo leaf fan.
Its
polished blade shimmered red suddenly in
the dying glow
of the coal furnace as she pushed it towards him.

They both stared at the knife their faces clenched in awe, as if
i
t
were a symbol of
deep mystical significance. She laid the fan aside
and
with her free hand began to unfasten the buttons of her tunic.
Wh
en the jacket hung open to the waist she jerked the
knife
towards him breaking the spell that had gripped them both.
She
reversed
the blade
and he raised his manacled hands
awkwardly in front of his chest to receive it,
handle
first.

The silence in the cellar was broken by coals
shifting in
the furnace and a
flurry
of sparks
spluttered
up
towards
the low roof as
she shrugged out
of
the
jacket
and stood facing him, naked to the hips. He
watched the
firelight casting its dappled patterns across
the
smooth bareness
of her small breasts for a moment,
then turned his eyes away. She said nothing, waiting quietly until he raised his head. When
he
did she reached out and covered his chained hands gently with her own and they clasped their hands tight together for a long
time
as though
in
mute supplication. With
an
effort she
gathered
herself
at
last and swung abruptly
on
her
heel

Fumbling in
her
pocket she
took out
the flesh-coloured
roll of adhesive tape. With the nail scissors
she quickly
cut off five strips of equal
length and attached
them to the edge of the
torture bench.
Then she turned to
take
the
knife
from him
and passed
back the first strip
with
her other hand.
Turning
away
she twisted
her right arm
behind
her back holding the
stiletto
by it
s
point, so
that
the
handle rested
against her
spine between her shoulder blades.
Moving his cuffed hands with difficulty, he fastened
the
first piece of tape horizontally
across
the
blade just
below
the hilt and pressed
it against
her skin
on either side.

She handed
him the four
remaining
pieces
of
tape in
turn and
h
e pressed them carefully into place, one
below
the other, until a
secure scabbard
for the knife
had
been formed which left the
handle standing
free of the tape in
the
small of her back.

When he
bad finished, she
picked up her jacket
and slipped
it on. She buttoned it up and turned her back to him so that he could
survey
the
results.
The
knife had been taped
so dose to her skin that no
hint
of its shape disturbed the
line
of
the loose
cotton jacket
between the sharp jut of her shoulder blades.
The
chains
linking
his ankles clanked as he moved
round in
front of
her and nodded.
She picked up
the remainder
of
the reel
of
adhesive tape and dropped
it
into the fire along with the pair
of
scissors,, then she peeled
away
the
joints that had held
the
knife in
the
bamboo fan and dropped
them into the
fire too. Flapping the innocent leaf in
front of
her face, she walked
to the far side of the
cellar and turned and
stood looking at him.
After a
moment
she began walking
slowly
in his direction,
f
a
nning
herself as she
came.

She
stopped three
feet away and spun
around, dropping
the
fan as
she
did
so. She unfastened her jacket,
shrugged
out of
it, and
took
two paces towards
the bench, all
in the same
movement.
Yang rushed
forward
simultaneously raising his manacled hands to
pluck the
knife
from
its sheath between her
shoulder
blades.
A
s she felt him grab
the
knife, she stepped smoothly
to one side
and with aloud
cl
ank
of
his ankle chains, Yang
moved past
her
in
a fast shuffle, the knife held high above his head. With
one
great
lunge, be brought it down two-handed
with all his strength and buried the blade
deep
in the wood
of
the torture
bench.

He crouched over
the
low
table
for a moment, breathing noisily. Then slowly he
s
t
raightened
up,
and together
they stood gazing at the
still
quivering knife. Then
she looked
at him and nodded. After a moment he
nodded
his head slowly
too.

He
remained
standing, breathing deeply
through
his
nose
to
regain
his composure while she tugged
the knife free.
She handed it to him
and
he
returned
it
carefully
to
its sheath
between her
shoulder
blades. She made him check
its position
once more before replacing
her
jacket.
Then
when she had buttoned it up,
the led him, manacled hand
and
foot,
up the
steps and
out of the
cellar
.

26

Although
midnight
had
long passed, the clammy
breathless beat of the
streets
had
not
abated.
To
Scholefield
, as he sat
in
the
back
of the moving Warszawa staring out of
the open window
at
the
low-roofed
houses,
the heat if
anything seemed
to have intensified. The houses bad obviously become intolerable ovens in the darkness
and everywhere
their
occupants
were sprawled outside
the
doors on
stools and chairs,
or on
the ground itself; stripped down to their underclothing.
A slow-moving night soil
collection
cart
edged
down the street in
the
opposite
direction leaving a rank, ammoniac stench hanging heavily
on the
air in
it
s
wake.

In the
shadowy entrances
to
several hutungs,
Scholefield
caught a glimpse of
determined-looking
groups of men and women who had obviously set
themselves
apart. Their
demeanour was
more
alert and
the long wooden truncheons they carried marked them out as members of the People’s Militia, the
paramilitary
force built up by the
radical wing
of the leadership. Thunder grumbled in the far
distance
once more as the
car swung
south onto Wang Pu Ching,
Peking’s main
shopping street. It was almost
deserted
because of the
hour and
Scholefield
immediately
recognised
the entrance to
the
East Wind
Bazaar,
the covered market of six
hundred stalls
where he had often
hunted
for jade
and lacquerware bargains
during his student days.
The
mandarin
figure
on his desk in London
that
Yang
had admired) he remembered suddenly, had come
from the market. A giant coloured portrait of Mao, flanked by
two
of his quotations in gold
lettering
on red boards, decorated
the
entrance now. The street
itself
he
saw
from a signpost,
had been
re—named Street of the People as a result of the
Cultural
Revolution. The car slowed as it passed the Peking Department Store and the New
China
Bookshop’s main depot
and
turned into the mouth of a
narrow
hutung at the
end
of which stood a
tiny, old-fashioned shop
now
labelled
‘The
Peking
No.3 Watchmaker’s’.

A light went on
behind its
grimy
windows
the
moment
Tan Sui-ling
rapped on
the
door. It
was
opened by a bent, ‘wizened
Chinese
who
didn’t
look at them but kept his eyes
averted,
staring deliberately towards the floor. In
the
dim light from a single
bulb
above
a
cl
uttered workbench, all that
Scholefield
saw of him
was
the
top
of a
hairless
head, wrinkled
and furrowed like
the shell of a
walnut.
He wore a leather apron over a
black tunic and
trousers
and
he
handed Tan
Sui-ling a torch
after
dosing the door behind them. Once they were
inside, lie turned and
pretended to busy himself with a
wristwatch
on the bench,
peering
closely at
its
workings
through
the jeweller’s glass screwed
into
his
eye.

Tan Sui-ling
led the
way quickly
to the rear of
the
shop without
addressing the watchmaker and pulled
a lever
outwards
from
the wall.
A
section
of the
fl
oor
slid silently o
p
en
and
she stepped down
immediately
onto a
flight
of
steps that was
revealed.
The hollow-cheated cadre had stayed in the car
outside
and
Scholefield heard it move
off
as he followed her down through the trapdoor into an unlit tunnel below. The light in the
shop
above them was immediately
extinguished.

She
switched
on the torch
and
led the way into the darkness.
The
tunnel
was
about eight
feet
high
and
five
feet wide
and the roof was
coated with
thick
white plaster
which
deadened the sound
of
their
footsteps.
Air-scrubbing ducts snaked along
the
roof and
telephone
points had
been
fitted
at regular
intervals.
He followed her
and
they walked for five minutes in silence before
coming
to another door. ‘This door is air-tight
and
blast-proof,’
she said
over her shoulder as she fitted
the
key in
the
lock. ‘We
are entering
now the labyrinth of
tunnels that lead us under the
Chung
Nan Ha
i
. If any
of
Wang Tu
n
g
-
hsing’s guards should challenge
the
validity
of the
pass
I have given you, produce your letter. You
understand?’
He nodded and she
opened
the door
and motioned him through.

The passageway on the other side of the door
was wide enough
for them to
walk
side by side. She left the
torch in a niche beside
the door and soon they began
passing labelled side-
tunnels
leading
off’ at intervals to storerooms and
generating plants.
Scholefield
began to
recognise street name plates
on the
tunnels corresponding to streets
above
ground
level. At major
junctions in
the tunnels, clusters of signs pointed the way to
hospitals and canteens, assembly rooms, ammunition dumps, armouries and grain stores. Machine gun
emplace
me
nts had been
built at all
strategic points with firing
slits covering all approaches.

‘A whole alternative city underground,
no less,’
said Scholef
i
eld quietly, looking around in wonderment

She nodded.
‘You
are fifty
feet
underground
here. These tunnel networks have taken us eight
years to build.
But now
f
o
ur million
people, the
population
of
the entire city, can
go
underground in six minutes. An underground
road
system which
we are now completing ensures
that
they can
be
evacuated to the western hills ten miles outside
Peking
without coming to the surf
a
ce.’

Scholefield
shook
his
head as
he stared round at the
brick walls and
concrete
floors
of
the
tunnels
as
though he
still didn’t believe
the evidence of his eyes. ‘They’re an impressive
manifestation
of
Chairman
Mao’s
paranoia, if nothing
else,’ he
said
quietly. ‘He’s
certainly communicated his fear
of war with the Soviet Union
to
his people.’

‘War is only inevitable while no
effort is
made to ward it off.’ The
sudden vehemence
of
her
reply took him by
surprise.
‘Somebody must
act
to prevent
these tunnels being used
for
their terrible purpose.
He turned
sharply
to look at her but found her staring expressionlessly ahead. They
had
reached
the
bottom of a long, sloping
ramp and
at
that
moment
they came
in sight of
the
first guard post.

Scholefield
’s
pass
provoked no
q
uestions,
but the fresh-faced
peasant
soldiers
stared hard
at his
Caucasian features under the
Public Security
Bureau cap
before waving them through. As
they
walked on, Scholefield heard them whispering animate
d
ly
to each other. Then a telephone receiver was lifted.
When they
had passed out
of
earshot
round a
bend
in the now steeply sloping tunnel she shot
him
a warning
glance.
‘You will need to show
the
letter too at the
next checkpoint.
We are descending into
the maximum
security area a
hundred feet beneath
Ch
un
g Nanhai.’

At
the
next guard post
Scholefield
produced his pass and
the letter. The
guards
read
and
re-read
them several times,
but
finally
waved him through without comment. They
passed
a third checkpoint without
incident and
no
body search was demanded until
they reached the four guards
standing
by
the
archway where
she
had been checked
through earlier with Wang Tung-hsing.
The same
guards
were on duty
and
they searched only
Scholefield
. His letter of
safe
conduct produced a
marked lessening
of
hostility and
when the
search
was over they directed him politely into the
carpeted antechamber
beyond the archway.