Into the Abyss (Dark Prospects Book 2)

by Xu, Lei

  When I finally left the medical camp two weeks later, everything had changed. Many tents had disappeared. The entire dam was now covered by a great curtain. Guards had been stationed out front and all but the top brass were barred from approaching.

  That night Wang Sichuan and some others held a welcome back party for me. I hadn't been able to relax and chat with my friends for a long time, so the evening was a lot of fun. While we were playing cards, I asked them what had been going on recently and why a curtain had been draped over the dam. As soon as I said this their expressions changed. I saw something flash through their eyes. Had something happened while I was incapacitated?

  When I asked them further, Wang Sichuan glanced outside the tent, and then in a low voice said, "Weird things have been happening ever since you two came back up."

  First of all, everyone continued to receive only top-quality food at mealtimes. Of course they all enjoyed this, but it also made them increasingly suspicious. Then the giant curtain was draped across the dam. Loud mechanical noises would sound periodically from behind the curtain. Equipment that had previously been covered by the waterproof tarpaulins began to disappear. Now they were sending people back to the surface in droves. Of course I wanted to be sent home, too, but I knew a part of me would remain unfulfilled if I never found out how it all turned out. On the other hand, if we remained there, who knew what was in store for us.

  While most managed to stifle their suspicions, Wang Sichuan couldn't bear the secrecy. What had Pei Qing told the higher-ups? No one had seen him since he gave his report. A few days before, while pretending to head to the bathroom, Wang Sichuan had attempted to slip behind the curtain. He was discovered by a patrolling soldier, locked up for three days and made to write a self-criticism. I asked him if he'd seen anything. Clapping a hand on his thigh and scratching his head, he said that he'd glimpsed only massive pieces of equipment. A whole bunch of them, in fact. After thinking about it, I said that, based on the situation, we were probably building some large-scale, Soviet-style radar.

  Wang Sichuan shook his head. "I doubt that," he said. "If you ask me, it's obvious what's going on back there: We're building another plane."

  CHAPTER

  38

  Behind the Curtain

  Although Wang Sichuan's suspicion made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, inside I remained skeptical. Anything involving aircraft fell under the supervision of the Chinese Air Force, a very mysterious entity. At the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, our military possessed only several planes, all of them captured from the Kuomintang. From then on, the development of China's aircraft industry was kept strictly confidential.

  Not that there was much to tell. China's only means of acquiring aircraft technology was through the Soviet Union. For a long time our lack of an industrial foundation made aircraft construction a near impossibility. Many of our engineering soldiers had never even seen a precision-operated crane. This became a big problem in the Korean War, during which the majority of our army's losses came from the sky. While stationed in North Korea, helplessly watching the slaughter of their men at the hands of enemy fighter pilots, Peng Dehuai, the Commander of the Chinese forces, turned to Mao Zedong and asked, "But what about our planes?"

  Four days after I returned to my unit, we were notified that our presence was required at a special meeting. The meeting was small. In fact, it was the smallest I'd attended since arriving there. It was held in a little tent with only 11 men present and no film projector. Each man facing us at the front of the room was a top officer, the kind accustomed to eating chicken legs for dinner every night. Commander Cheng was there, but he was not chairing the meeting. That honor fell to a 60-year-old man in a dark Mao suit. His eyes radiated energy in all directions. This was no ordinary officer.

  One by one Commander Cheng introduced the men in attendance and we stood to shake one another's hands. The man in the Mao suit was introduced last, and only then did I understand his true importance. I cannot reveal who he was, but he was high-ranking in both the military and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In fact, I was not at all surprised to see him there; given the size of the project and its strict confidentiality, it made perfect sense that someone from the very highest echelon of government would be sent to make sure everything went according to plan.

  When we'd taken our seats, this senior cadre began the meeting by once more swearing us to secrecy. This was my third time taking an oath over the course of this story. It was also the last. And if what has happened up until now has seemed unbelievable to you, then prepare yourself, because you ain't seen nothing yet. I decided from the start to tell my story in a simple and straightforward way so that, upon reaching this point, readers would be able to accept what happened next.

  Of the 11 people present, six were senior officers, while the other five were Wang Sichuan, Old Tian, Zhu Qiang, Abdullah Mohammed, and I. Wang Sichuan and I were grassroots prospectors, while Old Tian and Zhu Qiang were both academics. Old Tian had studied under Li Siguang and was already a director at the Party school. I now learned that his full name was Tian Little Trick, but in fact he was a good deal older than us. I didn't know what Abdullah Mohammed's role would be. From the looks of things I guessed he worked in the base command center. Zhu Qiang was a cameraman. He told us it was he who'd set up the projector at the post-rescue meeting.

  The meeting was very brief. They simply explained what was to come next and nothing more. First of all, they were sending more troops back into the abyss, but this time we wouldn't be sliding down a cable—we'd be flying in.

  Wang Sichuan glanced over at me, as if to say, 'What did I tell you?' There was nothing self-satisfied about his expression, though. He looked solemn and uneasy.

  Commander Cheng said they'd been planning to do this ever since Old Cat survived the first mission and told them what was hidden inside the cave. They had considered bringing a plane into the cave in pieces and had already brought in the crane lifts required, but it would be quite some time before the airplane parts arrived. Then Pei Qing discovered that all the components required to build a Japanese bomber were stored in the warehouse. This made things much simpler. We could build another takeoff structure according to the designs left by the Japanese, as opposed to designing a new one based on the specifications of our aircraft. Now, thanks to the tireless, round-the-clock work of the engineering team, the second Shinzan would soon be complete. Since no Chinese pilot was capable of flying a bomber this big, they'd found a Soviet pilot, one who was already staying in China. His copilot would be a surrendered Kuomintang airman. I realized immediately that they were talking about Ivan, but he was not at the meeting. Clearly there were things that even our pilot didn't need to know.

  I cannot describe how I felt at the time. For the rest of the meeting I barely took anything in. Still, by then I had already accepted my fate. After the meeting was over, we underwent a comprehensive physical examination. Then we continued to wait.

  It was Zhu Qiang who filled us in on Ivan's true background. He was a flight instructor for the Soviet Union and one of its top pilots. He was nicknamed Crazy Ivan because of his penchant for stunts. Supposedly, as part of his marriage proposal to Yuan Xile, he'd attempted an extremely difficult aerial flip. The maneuver had previously been considered impossible, but Ivan managed to complete it by sheer luck. Two things happened because of this: first, Yuan Xile decided to marry him, and second, he was arrested and brought before a military tribunal. To avoid punishment, he agreed to be part of the final group of Soviet specialists sent to China. Not long after his arrival, Chinese-Soviet relations turned hostile, but he decided to remain in China for Yuan Xile. In other words, at that moment in time there was only one man in all of China whose skills were up to the task ahead, and that man was Ivan.

  I listened in silence, thinking that my quest for Yuan Xile's heart was looking increasingly hopeless. There was no comparison between Ivan and me. I was an undistinguished slacker from the ge
ological team. He was a decorated ace pilot. Plus, he and Yuan Xile had already gone through so much together. By then, however, she'd already left camp. My chances of seeing her again were almost nil. Whatever her thoughts were on the matter, they no longer included anything for me.

  As the days passed, we continued to wait. Our minds filled with worry, yet never once did we discuss the mission. First of all, we weren't allowed to, and second of all, none of us wanted to. Honestly, who wants to discuss how one is probably going to die?

  Since Zhu Qiang was responsible for recording the mission, he was first to be allowed behind the curtain. He wouldn't say what was back there; just that he'd filmed some footage that needed to be delivered to the surface. They'd covered up the rising sun decal on the side of the Shinzan. Should the mission be a success and the footage released, the higher-ups didn't want the public knowing the bomber was Japanese. For them to be capable of filming the plane's facade meant it must have been essentially complete. I felt even more nervous than before.

  Had we met under different circumstances, Wang Sichuan and I never would have been friends. Our personalities were simply much too different. But during those anxious days we discussed everything; the past and the future, dreams and reality. We had the same doubts and fears about what was going on around us and so were apt to trust one another. Wang Sichuan called many of my opinions into question, to the point where I began to wonder about the very foundation of my value system. In some ways his thinking was more open-minded than my own—just as that of his ancestors had likely been. No matter how you put it, the two of us formed an alliance, and it is entirely thanks to this that I am able to tell my story today.

  ***

  At last we were led behind the curtain. Although we already knew what was back there, seeing it with our own eyes was another matter entirely. Gas lamps brightly lit the enclosed space. A giant bomber perched atop a sloping railway, the whole contraption aimed like an anti-aircraft gun at the silent void beyond the dam. It was the first time I'd seen an entire bomber—or at least one that was still whole—with my own eyes. Staring at the long, flowing dark green fuselage, I was practically awestruck. First of all, it was gigantic. The wrecked Shinzan at the bottom of the river had been shocking, but newly-made and still intact, it was, well, rather terrifying. The plane looked to me just like an enormous demon about to take flight.

  An eager technician gave us a tour of the plane's cabin, each of us stepping over the round, steel frames jutting along the length of its body like a man's ribs. Inside it smelled of soldered metal and kerosene. As we walked, the technician related a wealth of basic information to us—where we would sit and how things would be different in the air. I absorbed almost none of what he told us.

  That night, I had a strange dream. I was in the cockpit of the Shinzan, facing an endless darkness, and yet utterly calm.

  CHAPTER

  39

  Take off

  Little by little our flight date approached. Two days after we went behind the curtain, Wang Sichuan asked a guard for an envelope so he could write a letter to his family in case he didn't return. He did not want to die without having said a few things. I wrote a short note, too. When I took it to the organization department all the female soldiers looked at me with a strange light in their eyes. I wouldn't necessarily call it worshipful, but there was some strong emotion behind it. I thought of the uncertain road ahead and countless sensations flooded my heart. Day after day I continued imagining the most outrageous scenarios despite all my efforts to the contrary. We spent our days training, our nights holding meetings. Again and again our superiors would tell us to uphold the "Courage of the proletariat," though in fact, we were no longer particularly afraid. Soon enough, the big day arrived.

  Much to my surprise, I slept well my final night at base. The next morning I arrived long before the operation was to begin. A number of engineering soldiers were already there. They'd been practicing all through the night. I waited for the rest of the team, and then we lined up and walked inside the plane. Seeing Ivan at the front of the line, I frowned. I was not looking forward to having to work with him. We were each wearing Jap flight suits given to us by command. They fit most of us well, but Wang Sichuan and Ivan were both tall and solidly built. The suits and helmets appeared to be several sizes too small for them. We walked immediately to our seats and strapped on our seatbelts. Then we sat stock still, listening to the crackle of the flight cabin intercom and the shouts and mechanical noises reverberating from outside. We no longer felt nervousness; just resignation, numb resignation.

  The searchlights were all aimed straight ahead. The direction of the wind was extremely important. If it started blowing straight down, the plane would be forced downward as soon as it left the takeoff structure. We'd crash before we could gain any speed. The plane began to rock from side to side. They were removing the huge clamps that secured us to the track. Amid the swaying, Wang Sichuan handed out cigarettes. He then asked the three soldiers performing our final inspection where they were from. One was from Gansu, one from Shanxi, and one from Harbin.

  "You guys are really all over the place," said Wang Sichuan, making small talk.

  The eldest of the three replied that they'd all joined the revolution when they were little and were doing odd jobs in the Communist camps before they were in their teens. They'd served on the battlefields of the War of Liberation under the command of He Long, but then, just a few years later, the war was over. All three had been born into poverty and now army barracks were the only places they called home.

  One of them was from the same small region as me. I spoke a few sentences of local slang to him and his eyes lit up, but I could tell that behind his smile he was nervous. I smiled grimly. What reason did he have to be nervous? We were the ones about to fly. After finishing their inspection, they turned to us and saluted. It was as if they were saying goodbye to a group of dead men, I thought, suddenly feeling a lot worse.

  Pei Qing had said nothing this whole time. He hadn't even smoked. Instead he'd fiddled with his cigarette until it was bent out of shape.

  "Don't look so glum," Wang Sichuan said, patting him on the back. "This thing's not even that dangerous. When the Japs crashed their plane only the pilot died. Us back here have nothing to worry about."

  Pei Qing gave him a condescending look. "I'm not scared of death," he said. "Unlike you people, I've got no family."

  "Good," said Wang Sichuan. "Then since you're so enlightened, if we ever need to lose some weight, we can toss you off first."

  I could tell the remark stung, but Pei Qing didn't reply. Instead, he turned to the rest of us.

  "Any of you realized yet that an airplane is far from the best way to explore the abyss?" he asked.

  "How are we supposed to get in if we don't fly?" asked Wang Sichuan.

  "He's right," said Zhu Qiang. "For a space like this, a dirigible would actually be the ideal mode of transport. Command considered using one, but they lacked the technology to build it."

  "Technology isn't the issue," said Pei Qing. "If we weren't able to fly, the engineering corps would just build a cliff-side road running into the abyss. So the question is: Why do we have to use a plane?"

  "A cliff-side road might work," said Old Tian. "With enough people, anything is possible."

  I knew there was no use asking Pei Qing what he was hinting at. Just when I was about to change the subject, a voice sounded over the intercom. "Ground preparations are complete. Prepare for takeoff."

  A hush fell over the cabin. After a moment, Wang Sichuan spoke up. Placing a cigarette behind his ear, he said, "Where I come from, we do this for good luck."

  We glanced at each other, then one by one we followed suit. The only person who didn't was Pei Qing. He stuck his cigarette in his mouth, leaned against the side of the plane and said no more.

  We passed the next 10 minutes in silence. I could hear the engine start up. The plane began to vibrate. It rocked violently as we rolle
d along the track. It got so bad I thought we might topple off before we even made it into the air. As we rapidly accelerated all of our cigarettes dropped from behind our ears. Pei Qing smiled coldly at us. There was no time to be angry. An instant later my head was spinning and I was so dizzy I could barely think. Old Tian began to cry out. With my stomach in my throat and my teeth clenched, I pressed myself tight against the bulkhead and tried as hard as I could not to vomit. As we picked up speed my throat tightened. I don't care if we fly or crash, I thought, but, goddamnit, just let one of them happen soon.

  Just as it seemed I might pass out, the shaking stopped and all that was left were the sounds of the engine and the airflow passing over the fuselage. I was about to take a deep breath when, suddenly, the entire plane tipped forward and dropped. With our nose aiming downwards, we screamed into the abyss. The feeling of weightlessness hit and Old Tian finally began to vomit. My mind emptied of all thoughts, crying only, Hold on!