The Chinese Assassin Page 5

  buttons deftly across the table with a short curved stick, forming two crescent moons. Working with a swift and practised dexterity he slid the buttons rapidly back into the sunken saucepan in groups of four until only two solitary buttons were left on the brown limo. A squat Chinese youth standing at his side quickly paid off those men who had backed Number Two on the chalked squares, then slipped smoothly into the driving seat and scooped up a new handful of buttons as the hollow-chested croupier rose and moved without hurrying towards the door behind which the telephone was still ringing.

  The door opened onto an even dingier room that was both a kitchen and a makeshift office. The croupier pushed the door open far enough to pass through, but not wide enough for those around the gambling tables to catch a glimpse of the tall, slender Chinese woman sitting impassively beside the empty table on which the telephone was ringing. He walked across and picked up the receiver without looking at her.

  ‘He’s just left Scholefield’s flat and been collected by one of the unmarked Soviet trade mission cars from Highgate,’ said the voice of the Chinese cameraman in a thick Cantonese accents

  The croupier glanced back at the door as if to make sure he had closed it. ‘Good. Dismantle your equipment. And get the film back here quick!’

  He replaced the telephone but kept his hand on it and looked enquiringly at the impassive face of the seated woman. A tap with a faulty washer dripped loudly into a cracked, stained sink in one corner and the rattle of the buttons on the table top came faintly through the dosed door as he waited.

  ‘Tell the embassy.’ She spoke authoritatively without looking up at him.

  He picked up the telephone again and dialled the number of the Chinese embassy in Portland Place. When a voice answered he said quietly: ‘ft is confirmed. We have film.’

  There was a pause at the other end of the line. Then: ‘Very well. Continue to gather photographic evidence.’

  When he’d hung up he turned to find the squat youth who’d taken over the fan tan table looking at him anxiously from the open doorway. The gambling room behind him was empty, the makeshift table suddenly deserted under the naked light bulbs.

  ‘The American was at the top of the steps,’ he said in a sibilant whisper.

  The eyes of the silent woman seated at the table blazed suddenly. She gestured furiously through the doorway. ‘Get those frightened rabbits back and restart the fan tan. He’s not police, tell them.’

  The youth turned and shouted at the old man with the broom and pointed angrily towards the steps leading up to street level. Then he went out and closed the door behind him.

  The croupier sat down opposite the woman. ‘What does Peking want us to do now?’ He looked respectfully into her broad Han face. Her features were strong and regular and she wore her hair piled elaborately on top of her bead, held in place with tortoiseshell combs. She was wearing an expensive leather trouser suit tailored in Hong Kong and a lot of thin gold bracelets and rings decorated her hands.

  ‘Follow the contingency plan! They want the “impostor” returned to Peking alive.’ She belaboured the word ‘impostor’ with heavy sarcasm, then paused. ‘And of course they want Scholefield too.’

  The croupier grinned a sudden gleeful grin and rose and walked slowly over/to the draining board. He picked up a half empty bottle of mahogany-coloured Chinese brandy. He rinsed a dirty glass and poured a measure. ‘The Russians could have invented him. But couldn’t they just as well have been keeping quiet about a survivor for the last five years waiting for the right moment to produce him—’ He tossed back the contents of the glass in one gulp and smacked his lips. ‘—like a rabbit out of a hat?’

  The woman watched him with only faintly concealed distaste. ‘The Party leadership says there were no survivors.’ The hollow tone of her voice was both contemptuous and disbelieving. ‘We shall see tomorrow.’

  The croupier began grinning inanely again, but the expression dissolved abruptly at the sound of a tap on the door. A moment later the old floor-sweeper poked his grizzled head into the room. He held the door wide to show the same crowd of faces now gathered around the table again. They had taken up precisely the same places as before, like a tableau reformed behind a theatre curtain. All were staring obediently towards the squat youth, trying hard to ignore the crisp, incongruous sound of leather- soled shoes descending the stone basement steps. The buttons had been spread again on the table top but nobody had placed any bets. The gamblers kept their eyes dutifully averted but were obviously following the slow, deliberate footsteps with all their other senses as they came nearer along the bare concrete floor of the corridor outside.

  The next moment a tall Caucasian man wearing a pale suit, a straw fedora and dark glasses appeared in the doorway. His lips parted in a broad confident grin as he raised his right hand and mimed a silent knock on the open door. The eyes of all the illegal gamblers swivelled as one man to see if approval was to be given to the stranger.

  The woman stared at the tall man for a moment then motioned the hollow-chested croupier quickly from the room. As he hurried out a babble of solid sound rose from the men round the table again as they began placing bets once more.

  When she had closed the door behind him, the newcomer offered his hand formally and greeted her in fluent Mandarin that bore only the faintest trace of his native American accent. ‘Very glad to see you again, Tan Sui-ling. It’s been too long.’

  ‘You are very welcome, Mr. Ketterman.’ She spoke formally, moving another rickety chair up to the table that was covered with a frayed and faded oil cloth. She set out the brandy bottle and two clean glasses, and Ketterman removed his hat as they sat down opposite each other.

  ‘Your information was correct, Mr. Ketterman. Scholefield was contacted an hour ago.’

  He raised his shoulders and both hands in a silent ‘What else did you expect?’ gesture. He removed his sun glasses and gave her another crinkle-eyed smile. His steel grey hair was clipped short and his lean alert face and spare frame hinted at hours spent on summer tennis courts and winter ski slopes far from the unhealthy Soho gambling cellar. ‘We don’t make a habit of passing you “bum” information, Sui-ling, you should know that. Remember Seventy-one.’ He smiled broadly again as he injected the crude Americanism deliberately into his easy flow of Chinese, and picked up the bottle. He filled the glass nearest her, but left the other empty and replaced the bottle gently on the table top as if afraid it might explode. ‘I told you, about Marshall Lin in this very room, right? And this little dilly came from those same Israelis in Moscow too.’

  She nodded her head gravely in formal thanks for his courtesy in fling her glass, but left it untouched. Before sitting down she had removed her jacket and her long, slender arms were bare to the shoulders. Although her breasts appeared boyishly fiat beneath the sleeveless white blouse, he spent several seconds openly searching the weave of the thin cotton for signs of a brassiere underneath. He grinned broadly again when she folded her arms deliberately in front of her. But the level gaze she turned on him was unusually self-possessed for a Chinese woman, betraying no hint of embarrassment.

  ‘And do they really think anyone in the world will believe that this so-called “survivor” is genuine?’ Although her tone was contemptuous he noticed that she was watching his face closely.

  He grinned again. ‘Let’s just say we’re keeping an open mind.’

  ‘There can be no survivor. The Party leadership made a thorough and conclusive investigation!’

  Ketterman raised his hands before his face mockingly as though at gun point. ‘Maybe your betters in Peking have never told all, even to people like you.’ He dropped his bands suddenly on the table, palms downward, making a loud slapping sound. ‘What is the reaction of your comrades in Peking to our information?’

  Her dark eyes glittered. ‘Those the Soviet revisionists wish to incriminate want this lying imposter brought to Peking to be exposed.’

  Ketterman pursed his lips and whi
stled in wonderment: ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Yes! And the degree of your assistance in this will be a test of your sincerity.’

  He tipped his chair onto its back legs and grinned at her through half-closed eyes. ‘Hey, this is England, remember. They have some old-fashioned notions here about individual freedom backed up with real live written, laws. The “survivor”, whoever he is, might want to stay.’

  ‘Your agency has resources and manpower wherever it has the will to use them!’

  ‘We also have allies closer to our way of thinking, who we love just a shade more than we love Chairman Mao.’ Ketterman pulled out a packet of cigarettes and lit one. He threw back his head and tipped his chair again, staring reflectively into the spiralling smoke. Suddenly he let the chair crash down onto its front legs and clapped his hands together in front of him, staring at her ‘Who runs the Triad protection teams around here, Sui-ling?’

  She cocked her head curiously on one side. ‘A man named Johnny Fei. Why?’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Outside playing fan tan.’

  ‘Johnny the Fat-boy eh?’ said Ketterman softly to himself; translating the name into English. ‘Can you get him in?’

  She went to the door and a moment later came back followed slowly by a slender, expensively dressed Chinese man in his middle thirties. Without waiting for an introduction Ketterman stood up. ‘My face is pale, but my heart is red, Johnny.’ He spoke slowly in Mandarin and advanced towards Fei grinning broadly and holding up his right hand with the middle finger extended.

  Fei’s thick dark hair was slicked smoothly back with oil in the fashion of a Thirties film star. His narrow body had obviously won him his nickname, but his loose relaxed stance as he watched Ketterman approach, betrayed a high degree of physical self confidence. His features were sharp and regular but his heavily lidded eyes gave his hooded face a waxy, watchful expression. A pale calf 1km jacket was thrown loosely round his elegant shoulders over a floral silk shirt, and crisply tailored check sports trousers. On his feet he wore crocodile skin shoes.

  Ketterman stopped in front of him and he eyed the American suspiciously for a long moment without speaking.

  ‘The red rice of our army contains sand and stones. Can you eat stones?’ Ketterman’s grin broadened and he held his right hand higher in front of the Chinese man’s face. ‘Can you, Johnny? Huh?’

  ‘If our brothers can eat them, so can we!’

  ‘Attaboy, Johnny.’ Ketterman slapped him on the shoulder with his left hand. ‘Come on, ask me now where I was born and I’ll say “under the peach tree” and where I live and I’ll give you that stuff about the “topmost summit of Five Finger Mountain”.’ He laughed uproariously and waved his extended finger in the air again. ‘In that house that is third from the right—and third from the left’.’ He shook his head. ‘I like that.’

  The Chinese watched him silently without smiling. Ketterman suddenly stopped laughing and put his hands back in his pockets.

  ‘You know Triad ritual well, Mr. Ketterman.’

  ‘I know a Red Stick when I see one, Johnny,’ said Ketterman quietly, his face suddenly serious. ‘And fools don’t reach that rank in the Triads. You could be just the man to help me. I might need one of your chop-chop teams to help me on a little job.’

  The Chinese rocked back on the balls of his fret and nodded. ‘They’re very expensive to outsiders.’

  ‘Sui-ling will stand character reference for me, Johnny. I don’t know what or where the job will be exactly yet.’ He took out his wallet and peeled off five hundred dollar bills and put them on the table beside Fei’s right hand. ‘But I’m prepared to put down this non-returnable deposit just for you to keep your top team of; say, half a dozen guys standing by ready at five minutes’ notice over the next couple of days.’

  Fei picked up the notes quickly and folded them away inside the breast pocket of his shirt. He glanced once more at Ketterman then sauntered casually back to the door. ‘If Sui-ling says it’s okay—it’s okay.’ He shrugged his elegant shoulders once and swaggered out through the door to join the scrofulous crowd at the fan tan table again.

  Ketterman picked up the brandy bottle and slowly filled his own glass. He lifted it towards Tan Sui-ling and winked. ‘Sino-American co-operation—lips and teeth!’ He bared his gums in an exaggerated grimace and tapped his teeth then his top lip with his forefinger to emphasise their close proximity. Then he drank the brandy straight down and, still grinning broadly walked out of the door.

  Folio number four

  Mongolia in its eastern half is mainly plain, circled about with mountains. But its western half is mainly mountains interspersed only intermittently with flatlands. By November, we had left the eastern plains and entered this western mountainous region. By then my fractured legs had mended sufficiently for me to sit painfully astride a walking horse, and we had begun travelling by day and resting by night. Soon we reached the foothills of the mighty Altai range that provide, in the north-west corner of the country, both a natural barrier and the official border with the Soviet Union. In this region the shallow bowls of the mountain- ringed flatlands are much smaller and the rims of the intervening heights twist and interlock like irregular honeycombs. Here, while the herds grazed on the plains, we found shelter from the winds in narrow dales where patches of green, pleasant woodland stretch clown out of the dense mountain forests above. We rested in this region for the winter and gradually I recovered and grew strong again. It was there that I learned to live the simple life of old Tsereng and his family, and began helping with the daily domestic tasks.

  It was there too that I began later to take my turn with the herds, holding a long rifle astride a horse through the night, guarding the livestock against the marauding bands of wolves that came down swiftly and silently out of the dark mountain forests. I felt at peace in that remote land. It was not very long before I decided that I wanted no more in life than to repay through such service the debt of gratitude to old Tsereng for delivering me from the holocaust of the Trident. After the constant turmoil an4 suspicion in China, the harsh, simple life was paradise.

  Tsereng’s wife and daughter spoke no Chinese and I needed only a very few words to assist them in the simple tasks of sustaining our lives through the bitter winter. But nevertheless, a warm unspoken sympathy grew up among us. His daughter, plump, heavy-hipped and approaching middle-age, had once lived in the capital, Ulan Bator. But she had lost her husband and children in a terrible fire that gutted the worker’s apartment block where they lived, so she had returned sadly to her family on the grasslands. A silent, inward-looking woman, she carried the tragedy with her always in her eyes. Sometimes at night I caught her unawares, staring at mc over the flickering flames of the hearth, and slowly I came to realise, without her saying, that we shared an instinctive fellowship—because I too had escaped death by fire.

  Nevertheless I was still astonished when, on the coldest night of the winter, with Tsereng and his wife and the animals grunting and snorting in their sleep, she crawled naked to me across the yurt and slipped silently beneath my sheepskin. Without words and with tears on her cheeks she offered me the comfort of her body. On many nights after that as the screaming wind whipped the bare trees outside, and the wolves bowled higher up the forested slopes of the Altai, she came secretly to join me in a mute physical communion that eased her unbearable anguish and brought warmth and refreshment to both our injured souls.

  I believed then I would stay with old Tsereng forever. The snows came and went, spring blossomed early and we moved eastward once more. When summer arrived we shifted down into the river valleys and in May and June I assisted in the sheep-shearing and the calving of the cows. At the end of June I joined in the almost celebratory ritual of rounding up and tethering the foals in lines alongside their mothers so that the milking of the mares could begin—and with it of course the ‘vital preparation of the new supply of kumiss.

  It was only when the seco
nd sheep shearing began at the beginning of September that I realised suddenly a whole year had passed since the crash. About the same time I began to fancy that old Tsereng’s daughter, whose name was Kiki, was growing even plumper than before. It was with sudden surge of pleasure that I began to suspect she might be pregnant with my child.

  But it was just then that it all ended, without warning, on a night of torrential rain.

  The day had been filled with bright autumn sunshine under a sky of piercing blue, such as I have only ever seen in Mongolia. As we were gathering for the evening meal before the yurt, however, clouds raced up over the horizon, darkening the sky like a hastily drawn curtain. We moved inside to eat and soon a monsoon downpour was hammering loudly on the felt roof. Darkness fell immediately and a dung fire was lit in the open hearth to keep out the damp chill which had descended. Inside, crouched around the fire, we felt secure and warm, and we ate in silence, listening to the fierce beat of the rain. I remember smiling happily at Kiki, and she did a rare thing—she smiled back. I had never seen her smile before. I looked down directly at her thickening girth but she looked away quickly into the fire. I felt sure, with a surge of pride, that she was pregnant.

  One of Tsereng’s sons had been helping us with the milking and was eating with us. When the force of the downpour and a sudden wind began to shake the yurt, he got up with a laugh and went out to tighten the rope bands bound around it to prevent it falling in on us. It was his dying scream from outside that gave us our first warning.

  The next moment there was a great rending sound and the felt wall beside me was slashed open from top to bottom. I stared in horror at the figure of a man standing outside in the storm. Even though he was drenched with rain and disguised in the clothes of a nomadic herdsman I recognised Chiao Feng, one of Wang Tung-hsing’s chief lieutenants from Peking. He held a long curved knife in one hand and a pistol in the other. His lips were drawn back from his teeth in a snarl of triumph—and his eyes held unwavering on mine.