The Chinese Assassin Read online

  The girl sighed and shook her head. ‘Read on, look: “Copied from Mongolia, one inch to a hundred thousand, Japanese General Staff 193 7—40, Japanese Kwantung Army HQ”. It’s no more modern than the other one. The third one is—’ She picked it up. “—Japanese General Staff 1941.”

  Scholefield scratched his head. “The funny thing is that the same places on these charts seem to be in different places on the Russian and Japanese versions.’

  ‘Of course they do. Mongolia’s notorious for that. The position of features, even up to the size of small towns, varies enormously. The co-ordinates for the same place can be quite different, depending on the source you use.’

  Scholefield drew a long breath of exasperation and tipped his chair onto its back legs.

  ‘Wait a minute. What a fool!’ Her voice rose with excitement. ‘These are all AMS World Ones, aren’t they?’

  ‘What’s an AMS World One?’

  ‘Sixteen miles to the inch. I’ll go and get the AMS Twos.’

  “What are they?’

  ‘Different series. Four miles to the inch.’ She ran out of the room, her platform-soled clogs echoing loudly across the polished wood floor.

  She was back a minute later. Scholefield looked up at her expectantly but she was empty-handed.

  ‘There aren’t any.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There just aren’t any AMS World Twos for the eastern half of Mongolia.’

  ‘You mean not here?’

  ‘No, not anywhere, they don’t exist. You’ve picked a really obscure area for that airfield of yours. You really couldn’t have chosen anywhere more remote if you’d tried.’

  Scholefield stood up. ‘Thank you very much. You’ve been extremely helpful.’

  She stared at him incredulously. ‘But I haven’t done anything. I haven’t found anything at all for you.’

  ‘You’ve been more helpful than you know.’

  She smiled at him, mystified, and folded her bare arms across the dramatic swell of her T-shirt. ‘Don’t try to fly into that airfield of yours at night anyway, will you? I’d really feel personally responsible.’

  She smiled again and stood watching him all the way to the door. She returned to the map archive only after he’d handed his visitor’s slip back to the porter and stepped out into the heat again

  The Chinese sitting in the shade of a tree a hundred yards inside Kensington Gardens on the opposite side of the road stood up suddenly as the walkie-talkie set concealed in his jacket pocket crackled and spoke Scholefield’s name. Half a minute later he got into the same mini-cab that had passed the Geographical Institute earlier and headed back eastwards towards Soho behind Scholefield’s taxi. Like the rest of the traffic stream the two cab drivers proceeded cautiously, the tyres of their vehicles splashing through the sizzling tar that was just beginning to melt again on roads surfaces all over London.

  Folio Number six

  We left the hall with as much dignity as we could muster and walked out into the cool mountain air of Lushan, the jeers ringing in our ears. The delights of that high resort, made famous by Chinese poets of the Middle Ages, its shady paths, the rapid streams among groves of cedar and bamboo, the magnificent vista of the Yangtze flowing into Poyang Lake far beneath, all suddenly seemed sour in our sight. We could not speak among ourselves but hurried away immediately to our separate villas. In a mood close to despair I paced up and down my room reading and re-reading my notes of what the Chairman had said at the Plenum.

  Could it really have happened at last? Marshall Lin in one of his blackest moods of depression had once long ago confided to me his fear that the full fury of the Chairman’s psychotic paranoia— diagnosed in 1960 by a doctor who disappeared without trace the very next day—might one day be turned against us too.

  But even during the five years of the Cultural Revolution, as the sick brain of our once great leader spread turmoil across the land exhausting the minds and bodies of the people, Marshall Lin had on more than one occasion been at pains to console me—and perhaps himself too. ‘Unless he descends into the depths of a raving madness,’ be had said, ‘he will not forget the bedrock of his philosophy—that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. While there’s reason left in him he will never dare to destroy those of his comrades who command the loyalties of the great armies which brought us to power.’

  We had watched him smash the whole party to eradicate men like Liu Shao-chi, of whom he had an utterly irrational fear as a successor. And only when the Red Guard youth and workers armed with stolen weapons were fighting pitched battles in every province of the country and the death toll was rising alarmingly did his insatiable appetite for rebellion at last become blunted. Then and only then was the army ordered to exercise the full weight of its power and restore peace.

  But now, after only a year or so of calm, had he finally descended into the depths of madness? Why else should he attack the man he himself had nominated as his successor, one of the greatest generals in China’s history, who could tear the heart from the country if he chose to deploy forces loyal to him in the struggle for survival?

  Either it was madness—or the coterie of evil courtiers who supervised his every move behind an impenetrable screen of guards within the walls of the Forbidden City had succeeded in poisoning his fevered mind against us, succeeded in manipulating his nightmare fears of betrayal in order to remove the last obstacles from their own path to ultimate power after his death!

  The Central Committee had dearly been bewildered by his tirade. But that was not important. The power-hungry group of extremists behind it knew that soon more voices would be raised in a growing chorus against us—when it appeared for the many to be the only safe road to personal survival. As I paced back and forth in that Lushan room my mind was engulfed with a great sadness. How little China had changed! A great revolution had swept the land, a great new leader had emerged embracing a world-shaking modem creed—but its tenets were still being misused as scurrilously as the classical sophistries of the feudal past. The modem scientific truths of Marxism had become the same empty symbol to be hoisted aloft in the same vicious and unprincipled personal intrigues that bad racked the imperial courts. Groups of jealous antagonists still grappled blindly for supreme power because they detested or loved the slant of another’s eyes! Much had changed for the better in the lives of the ordinary people. But it was a precarious change. The great unknowing masses were still helpless prey to the caprices of the secret court of the modem Son of Heaven, Mao Tse-tung.

  These desolate thoughts whirled in my head like a thousand blind bats, driving me towards a black brink of hopelessness. But the realisation that perhaps Marshall Lin might be suffering a worse brainstorm of despair sent me dashing suddenly from my room to the house where he was quartered.

  Yeh Chun attempted to prevent me entering. She said he had retired to a darkened room in seclusion and had given strict instructions to allow entry to no one. In my panic I forced my way roughly past her and broke down the door of his retreat.

  The curtains bad been drawn across the windows and the room was in darkness. In the gloom I saw Marshall Lin slumped over his desk with metal spikes jutting from his head. I ran forward with a cry. He had already taken his life with the aid of some terrible crown of torture1 I was convinced. But as I approached he raised his head slowly and stared at me.

  He had tied a cloth band tightly round his forehead from which several thin spikes of wood and metal protruded. With a flood of relief I recognised the ancient brain-strengthening device of old China which I had seen him use only once before at a period of great stress during the Korean War. In his despair he had fallen back on his traditional belief that wood, metal and cloth, applied to the head under pressure, can have a curative effect. I reached out and gripped his thin shoulder in a gesture of encouragement. But he didn’t move or respond. Then I saw the revolver lying on the desk beside him—that same silver gun given to him by Stalin. He conti
nued to stare blankly in front of him and I picked up the weapon quickly and locked it away in. a drawer. I closed the door, then returned to sit down by the desk in the semi-darkness. For a long time we sat together in silence.

  When finally he spoke, his voice was hollow and lifeless. ‘The enemy have opened their mouth. Either they swallow us up, or we swallow them. There is no other way.’

  I placed my hands on his arm, cautioning him to silence. ‘The room will almost certainly be monitored,’ I whispered.

  He didn’t seem to hear me. In the pale light filtering through the curtains I could see the wood and metal spikes still sticking out all around the crown of his head. ‘This is a life and death struggle now. He’s using his old tactics of winning over one group and striking at another. Today he woos A and strikes at B. Tomorrow he will woo B and strike at A. Today he talks sweetly to those whom he wishes to win over, but tomorrow he charges them with non-existent offences and condemns them to death. A man can be his guest one day but his prisoner the next.’

  His voice trailed off and I put my fingers to my lips and motioned him again to silence. But be ignored me, still staring wide-eyed into the empty darkness. ‘Has anyone promoted by him escaped a political death sentence later? Has any political force been able to co-operate with him from beginning to end?’

  He paused and I could see him shaking his head mutely in answer to his own questions. ‘We’ve all closed our eyes so long to the truth, but his secretaries have all been arrested or committed suicide. All his confidants have been sent to prison.’ His voice broke with bitterness. ‘Even a son begotten by him was driven insane,’

  I rose from my chair and began pacing back and forth across the room in my anxiety that he should say nothing more that could later be used against us. But Marshall Lin seemed oblivious to good sense and his voice rambled on. ‘He takes a strange delight in maltreating others, doesn’t he? His philosophy is extremism. Once he thinks someone is his enemy he will blame all evil deeds on him.’ He stopped and drew a long despairing breath. ‘All those who have been dropped by him one after another, as if from a merry-go-round, are actually his substitutes who’ve been punished for the crimes committed by him.’

  In my alarm I ran to the window and threw back the curtain. The sunlight of the August evening streamed in. Seeing him sitting hunched and bewildered at his desk, a flail, pathetic figure wearing that bizarre spiked headband, wrung my heart. He blinked quickly in the light and rose unsteadily to his feet. He removed the band, dropped it on the desk, then walked slowly to the window and looked out at the haze gathering round the high mountain peaks.

  It was only then that I saw the dried grass stalks on the other side of his desk. I knew there would be forty-nine strands—I had burst in on him whilst he was consulting the ancient oracle of the I Ching, the Book of Changes.

  I went to the desk and glanced down at the hexagrams he had formed. Marshall Lin was standing with his back to me looking out of the window. “The dragon exceeds the proper limit and there will be occasion for repentance.”

  He had intoned the classical description of the divination that had declared itself among the stalks. Now he stood waiting by the window for my response. We had often played this game, testing each other’s knowledge and memory of the ancient writings. But I stared at his back dumbly, reluctant this time to speak in interpretation. ‘Go on, Comrade Yang,’ he said softly, still without turning round.

  I cleared my throat and looked down again at the hexagram. ‘When things have been carried to extremity. . . calamity ensues.’

  He nodded his head slowly, still gazing out at the mountains. I rushed to his side and gripped him by the shoulders. ‘But the calamity need not be ours! It could be his! The army is behind you. Their loyalty would be to you!’

  He said nothing for a long time. Then he shook his head. ‘I can’t fight against him. I have fought for him and by his side in too many battles. China’s destiny was in him. If it has gone from him now in his sickness, if he is being used by evil forces, I still cannot turn against him.’

  ‘But to survive, we must!’ I pleaded.

  He shook his head. ‘No. Even though this failure to act means we must die.’ His shoulders shook suddenly. ‘This time we will not engage the enemy.’

  He wouldn’t turn his face from the mountains then. Though I couldn’t see, I knew that in the fading evening light tears were streaming down his cheeks.

  WASHINGTON, Wednesday—An astounding report is circulating here which reveals that it was President Nixon who sent Mao Tse-tung the first warning of a conspiracy led by Marshall Lin Piao to assassinate him and set up a new regime of hard-line military men.

  London Evening Standard, 26 January 1972

  6

  Outside the red gates of the Soho Market at the end of Gerrard Street the Chinese street photographer was working hard on the lunchtime flood of tourists. Shirtless, and streaming with perspiration, he snapped his shutter and handed out address tickets with an unflagging, metronomic regularity. The amplified output of three or four competing pop record stalls beat the ears of the jostling crowd with a heavy, discordant jangle of noise, and the pungent reek of star anise and other acrid Chinese spices from steaming food stalls assailed the senses in their noses and mouths with equal ferocity.

  When Scholefield’s taxi drew up at the gates the photographer glanced back along Gerrard Street He saw the pursuing mini-cab turn the corner and flash its headlights twice. He switched immediately to the second camera slung around his neck. This was fitted with a telephoto lens and while appearing to focus on tourists on the pavement he took several fast frames of Scholefield paying off his driver against the background of the blue and white striped awning over the market entrance.

  He watched and waited while Scholefield pushed his way slowly through the throng to where Yang, with his back to him, was buying Chinese leaves from the corner vegetable stall. The man in the rear of the cruising mini-cab lifted a hand in brief acknowledgement to the photographer as the car swung sharply left and accelerated fast away towards Shaftesbury Avenue. inside the black Mini with smoked windows that was parked on a meter on the other side of the street, Razduhev and Bogdarin were watch- Yang and Scholefield so intently that they failed to notice that the photographer was recording several frames of them, too.

  Yang wore dark glasses but Scholefield recognised him because, despite the heat, he was still dressed in the dilapidated fawn raincoat. He was holding three pale green. bomb-shaped lettuce plants in his arms, arguing loudly in Chinese with the stallholder about the price, given on a ticket as 16p a pound. Eventually an abacus was produced and Yang received an extra ten pence in change from the disgruntled merchant. He turned with a snort of contempt and found himself face to face with Scholefield. Thirty yards away the street photographer surreptitiously pushed the long telephoto lens through a gap in the chain link fence and got off three shots of the two men facing each other in profile. ‘Follow me,’ said Yang softly, scarcely moving his lips, and brushed the Englishman aside without giving any outward sign of recognition.

  Scholefield stood staring after him as he hurried away between the stalls, dragging his left leg in a shuffling, ungainly limp. He removed his jacket and loosened his tie then started through the crowd in pursuit. Tan Sui-ling, standing in the shadowy interior of a tiny kiosk selling Communist publications from Peking, watched them threading their way through the stalls towards her. Revolutionary figures in bold primary colours strode across posters on the kiosk walls proclaiming ‘Socialism Advances in Victory Everywhere—Our Great Motherland is Thriving’. She drew further back into the shadows behind the girl serving and studied Yang’s face intently as he approached the stall. Her expression softened suddenly and she saw the faint surprise in his eyes as they fell on the Communist slogans. He paused to look more closely at the books and magazines from the Chinese mainland spread out on the stallfront. He was scrutinising an English paper-backed edition of Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Du
sk by Lu Hsun as Scholefield approached.

  ‘Have you got this in Chinese?’ Yang screwed up his eyes to penetrate the gloom and spoke quietly in English. In the shadows behind the counter he suddenly caught sight of the slender figure of the Chinese woman, standing against a giant portrait of Mao Tse-tung on the rear wall. Scholefield saw his eyes widen suddenly as though in elation. He looked sharply into the shadowy interior of the. kiosk—but he was not near enough to see the woman’s face. Then almost immediately the expression had gone and Yang placed his purchases deliberately on the counter to leave his hands free

  Tan Sui-ling didn’t move as the girl bent out of sight and rummaged for a moment beneath the counter. When she stood up again she was holding a Chinese edition of the book. She dropped it into a paper bag and banded it over. He put down some coins without looking at her. Half turning to conceal his action, he lowered the book below the level of the counter and took a folded wedge of pink paper from his raincoat pocket. He inserted it carefully between the pages then dropped the book back into its bag. ‘I’m going into the cinema for an hour to get out of this heat,’ he said quietly to Scholefield, and the street photographer managed to get three more frames of them side by side as he thrust the package quickly into the Englishman’s hands.

  As Yang limped hurriedly away Scholefield. pulled the book from its wrapper and studied the Chinese characters on the cover. Then he glanced into the kiosk. He found Tan Sui-ling staring t him intently. His eyes locked with hers for a moment but her broad face, indistinct in the shadow, remained blank and unsmiling. He replaced the book hurriedly in its bag and gazed out over the milling crowd again, looking for Yang. He was nowhere to be seen and Scholefield had to run to the market gates before he caught sight of the Chinese on the far side of the street, hobbling awkwardly round the black Mini and up a flight of steps to a side entrance of the Kowloon Cultural Services Emporium.