"It's stopped," he whispered.
He moved deeper into the shadows of the yellow-painted temple portico. It was difficult to see through the rain and the darkness. Jasmine shivered against him. Then he heard the tramp of military boots, a soft command, and lights flickered from several hand torches as the street gate was opened. Shan drew a long, soft breath. No one moved.
The dim shapes of half a dozen men strode in. Faint light reflected from the gleaming metal of their automatic rifles. They moved at a dogtrot to posts about the courtyard while two officers, with flashlights, made for the apartment. Durell wondered what traces of their occupancy there might be found. He couldn't think of anything. The food dishes had been cleaned and stowed up; the pallets on which they had slept were not in themselves incriminating. But he could not remember what Jasmine had done with the medicating salves for his face. He turned his head very slowly to look at her as they stood motionless in the shadows of the portico. He could barely see her face, although she was less than an arm's length away.
The officers were in the apartment for what seemed an interminable time. When they came out, their stride was not hurried, and Durell was relieved; they had found nothing suspicious.
One of the soldiers hawked and coughed and spat. His nearest companion reprimanded him.
"Sacred building?" the first jeered. "You must get rid of such revisionist sentiments, Comrade. It's all capitalist garbage, meant to keep the people in ignorance. This place should be burned down, or turned into a school for our children!"
The two officers started directly for the temple steps where Durell stood. He held his breath as their flashlights danced curiously over the wet, painted timbers and the
tiled, dripping roof. There was a leak in the eaves, and the heavy rain had started a solid sheet of water pouring down over the steps, directly in the officers' path. At the same time, the second soldier at the gate responded with an angry argument to the one who had coughed and spat The two officers hesitated, then turned away to calm an incipient fight.
Durell and Shan and Jasmine did not move. There was more conversation at the gate, while the rain came down heavier. The soldiers grumbled. At last the two officers doused their flashlights and the little squad, in their blue uniforms, formed ragged ranks and marched away.
They left the gate open.
In the dark emptiness of the temple sanctuary, Jasmine found a small candle. The gongs and cymbals gleamed on their brass stands. They followed the girl silently through the shadows as she led them into a small room hidden beyond the gleaming, ruby-eyed statue of a gently smiling Buddha. Against the walls were square teak pigeonholes containing silk-wrapped scrolls with jeweled handles and scarlet tassels.
"Hao showed these to me." Jasmine looked helpless. "But there are hundreds, and I don't know where to start."
"Did Hao show you any in particular?" Durell asked.
"These over here. Just one or two. They didn't mean much, except for their beautiful calligraphy."
"Maybe he was trying to lead us here by telling you of this, in case he met with trouble."
It was after three in the morning when Durell and Shan started examining the scrolls, and he posted Jasmine at the door in case the militia returned. By four o'clock they'd had no luck. At five, his eyes blurred from scanning the ancient parchment scripts. Durell's Mandarin was not quite up to translating all of the finely brushed characters, and Shan did almost double his amount. There was a faint gray light of dawn when Durell pulled another scroll out and unrolled it—to find several sheets of rice-paper, obviously new in contrast to the yellowed parchment.
"Here it is," he murmured.
Shan came quickly to his side. "Yes, it's Hao's code for contacting your Zebra people. Of course, I know that Haystead's E Branch of the NSA initiated the entire Zebra and Lotus operations. It was not difficult," the Chinese smiled, "to discover that the I.P.S. Electronics Company in Taipei, where Haystead makes his headquarters, is simply a front for your NSA's electronic warfare. I tried to penetrate the I.P.S., but I failed—the signal alarms beat me—and that was when Colonel Chu trapped me."
"Let me see the code," Durell said.
Shan handed him the rice paper. "Now all we need do is broadcast for help. We run the risk of detection, with the Black House as alert for you as they must be."
"They don't know there are two of us," Durell said. "I'll give the transmitter a whirl now, before Hao, the poor little devil, breaks down and talks. If he does, then everything hits the proverbial fan."
Eighteen
It rained all day, the roof drains overflowed, the streets gurgled with water, and there were several inches of water in the temple courtyard. The militia did not return, and Durell wondered if little Hao were alive or dead.
Duiell kept the tiny transmitter going at regular intervals during that dark afternoon. An hour after he told Shan his plan, Shan left the temple grounds like a gray shadow, and was gone for a long time. He came back as silently and suddenly as he had vanished. His black almond eyes twinkled.
"I let a militiaman see me at Peihai Park. He was easy to escape, but there is a general alert out. The story given out publicly is that the militia must be armed to repel imperialist aggressors from across the Yalu." Shan laughed
softly. "I made sure the militiaman saw me, so it would be reported that I was wandering in the rain in the northeast area of Peking. Here."
The Chinese handed Durell a long-barreled Russian machine pistol. It was heavy and bulky, but Durell felt better immediately. The magazine was loaded, and he thrust it into his waistband. "And you, Shan?"
"Next trip. Anything on the radio?"
"No response yet."
At dusk Shan went out again and was gone longer this time, almost two hours, and it was totally dark when he reappeared.
"I went to Peking Central Station," he reported, grinning. "One of the regime's showplaces, eh? I tried to buy a ticket back to Wuhan. I was spotted at once, as I wished to be."
"You're taking big chances," Jasmine said tightly.
Shan looked at her with a new expression veiled in his black eyes. "It is my city, of course. I was brought up here, except when the Japanese came when I was a boy and I left with Mao Tse-tung and his Communist cadres for the Long March. As an urchin under the old regime, I learned every alley and corner of Peking. You see, I was a thief."
Jasmine was interested. "It sounds like the way I was brought up in San Francisco."
"I have never met an American Chinese, Jasmine."
"Maybe you're lucky," she said wryly. "You haven't seen my dossier, have you?"
"I know about you," Shan said gently.
"Women with my past have been swept off Peking's streets like so much garbage," Jasmine said bitterly.
"Don't be ashamed," Shan said, "of what the capitalist imperalists made of your childhood, or of what you were forced to do as a young girl to keep body and soul together."
"It doesn't bother your Communist morality?"
"One deals with the facts of the present, and in hope for the future." Shan looked at the girl for a long moment, and again something stirred in his long eyes. "In
Peihai Park there is a white Buddhist dagoba, very unique. The people joke about it and call it the 'Peppermint Botde.' I would like one day to show it to you."
"I doubt if that time will ever come, Shan." Jasmine's voice was soft. "But it is a nice thought to keep."
Shan had returned with two militia uniforms and two more guns. The largest, with its thin quilting, fitted Du-rell reasonably well. Jasmine's was too large, but she pulled and pinned and adjusted it to suit.
Shan said abruptly, "Do you love Sam, Jasmine?"
She considered him. "Yes, I do."
"But he is like a Chinese."
"I know what he really looks like," she said.
"But now he looks like me," Shan pointed out.
"Yes. Exactly like you."
On his next trip, which lasted only an ho
ur, Shan reported going to the celebrated Fan Shan restaurant and enjoying a dinner reflecting the same menus enjoyed by the last Dowager Empress. He brought some of the food back with him.
"The waitress recognized me; she was a Black House agent I had once worked with. I saw her go to the telephone, and by now Tai Ma is properly confused. He thinks his men are reporting you, not me, and it keeps this place safe for a time while you use the radio."
"I haven't raised anything yet," Durell admitted. He had not stopped poring over the monk Hao's code books by the light of the guttering candle.
"When I left the restaurant," Shan went on, "I took a bus to the Great People's Hall. It is a truly magnificient place, bright with chandeliers, busy with correspondents and photographers. I made sure I appeared in several news photos being taken of visiting dignitaries from Africa, attending the State banquet." Shan grinned and looked almost boyish. "No, the People's Hall is not truly magnificent, except in size. Its taste is execrable. Metallic columns with iridescent glitter and most conventional designs. Chou En-lai himself was there, with a thousand bureaucrats. The man has charm, but he is rather saturnine, don't you think? One never really knows what goes on in his brain. Did you know he prefers Western symphonies? He endured one of our traditional pieces—the three-stringed fiddles and our chang, the mouth organ; but he truly applauded Brahms."
Shan had brought a bottle of fiery North China wine, which they shared while Durell kept broadcasting. Once he thought he heard an uncertain response; but the dim voice faded away almost instantly. He kept at that frequency, murmuring into the tiny transmitter, using the emergency code words that demanded a prompt reply. But nothing more happened.
With Shan's help, they were now all armed and in militia uniform. With Shan's popping up everywhere in Peking, the Black House would not be likely to return to search the temple hideout. Durell was aware of Shan and Jasmine murmuring quietly together as he continued with the radio. His voice had gone hoarse, and exhaustion dragged at his nerves and mind. He was thinking of McFee, hardly aware of his companions, when he heard a whispering:
"Zebra Twenty-six, Lotus Two. Zebra Twenty-six "
Tht words faded. Desperately, he turned the tiny adjustment dial. Infinitesimal cracklings were his response. He turned it the other way.
"—Lotus Two, come in, I hear you -"
The Chinese voice was precise. "This is Zebra
"Lotus Two," Durell said quietly. "I read you clear."
"Good. This is not an auti|orized transmission time "
"I have a Mayday signal for you."
"Very well. Transmit, please."
"We need the Zebra courier in twenty-four hours. It is urgent. Top priority. Can you do it? Can you do it?"
"Can try, Lotus Two. The usual coordinates?"
"Give them to me, please, Zebra."
There was a moment's silence. "It is not in the regulations to transmit ■"
"I told you, Mayday." Durrell spoke urgently and hoped the distant Zebra man recognized his conviction. "We need help. Give me the coordinates."
The Chinese voice went cold. "You are not Lotus Two, are you?"
"No. This is Shan."
Another silence. "Understood. Where is Lotus Two?"
"Gone. Perhaps permanently."
"Just a minute."
The tiny receiver crackled, then went dead. Durell stared at the tiny mechanism in his hand. Surely, he thought, somewhere in Peking they were being monitored, vectors and intersecting coordinates being calculated. Then
"Lotus Two, this is Zebra Twenty-six. Here are the coordinates for one nine hundred hours on Three-Ten. Are you ready?"
A brief list of numerals followed, intoned with a mechanical precision. Durell asked for a repeat, received it, and said, "Roger, Lotus Two. Out. And thank you."
"Please be prompt. The safety factor allows only eight minutes at rendezvous."
"We'll be there. There are three of us."
"But "
"Three passengers for Zebra headquarters," he said firmly. "Out."
He clicked off the microtransmitter and turned to Shan and Jasmine. They stared at him as if he were a stranger.
"Let's get out of here," he said.
The rain was a help, thickening the darkness. According to the coordinates, the landing field used by Lotus planes was almost two hundred miles north of Peking, in the direction of Chengteh. They would have to go through the Great Wall of China, that ancient guardian barrier erected in the Ch'in dynasty by Shih Hwang-ti in the third century B.C.. Running 1500 miles from Kansu to Chin-wangtao, in Hopeh province, along the southern edge of the Mongolian plain, it was built in the east of earth and stone, faced with brick, and was pierced at regular intervals with "Grand Stations," gates and watch towers added by the Mings over five centuries ago. It would be a difficult point to cross, Durell estimated, even in this day.
The Peking University professor, Jen Feng-Bao, met them at dawn in his battered but precious Warszawa. When they scrambled in, outside the temple gate, the scholarly little man picked up speed at once.
"Have you heard anything of my friend Hao?" he asked.
"We think the Black House has him," Durell said.
"Then he will die, because he will not talk."
"How far can you take us?"
"Just outside the city. We would be noticed if I went farther. I have train tickets for you to Chengteh. But you must get off at the first village after Amyang. Do you know where to go from there?" Durell nodded, and Jen went on: "There is a farmer there—he was once a great landowner, but he obtained a new identity years ago— who will meet you in a cart on the Western road from the rail station. He will take you to the rendezvous." The professor smiled thinly. "I wish you luck."
"Will you be safe?" Jasmine asked.
"I put my trust in Hao's silence, as we all must."
A westerly wind, bringing the first wintry gale from the Gobi, had changed the tempo of life in Peking. The red and yellow leaves were battered from the trees, and the air smelled of coal smoke from the stoves in the low, walled houses. A few trucks passed by, carrying apples and brilliantly orange persimmons. Most of the provision traffic into Peking consisted of carts pulled by donkeys, horses, or oxen, and even some hauled by the peasants themselves. The Warszawa threaded carefully through this dawn traffic. Jasmine looked longingly at the warm padded pants and quilted jackets the farmers wore, but for the hour's trip in the gray, wet dawn, they were all silent.
At a small center where vegetable stands were being set up, filled with cabbages and carrots, sweet potatoes and beans, the car halted, and Jen said reluctantly, "It is as far as I can go. The rail station is just that way. I wish you good luck. The train should be in within twenty minutes."
"You've been a big help," Durell said.
Jen looked from him to Shan, and shook his head. "I do not know how this was done, but it is remarkable. I do not know your purpose, but I trust it will be for the good of the people and my students."
"We hope it will be," said Shan.
The train was on time. Shan boarded at one end, Durell and Jasmine at the other. There were militiamen in the coaches, but thanks to Shan's many appearances in the city, the search was being concentrated within Peking—at least for the time.
There were the usual propaganda speakers on the train's system, the dust-women and tea service, which they accepted gratefully. The train was overheated, and their wet clothing steamed. In their militia uniforms, they were accepted without another glance as the train rumbled north through a drowning countryside. Veils of mist drifted across the fields and hills, and occasional solid fog blotted out the landscape entirely. At the third stop, a village crowded with troops and peasants, they bought rice, tea, and smoked fish for breakfast. Shan had provided them with currency to pay their way. Durell looked for his duplicate on the train platform, but did not see him, and credited Shan with keeping out of sight so they wouldn't be noticed together.
After two hours,
the train lurched to a halt. They seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. The countryside looked desolate. Newly planted copses of trees were shrouded by rain. Water ran across the tracks. After a few moments, the train started again and eased carefully across a trestle, with the rails out of sight under the running water of a flooded stream.
"Do we have enough time?" Jasmine murmured anxiously.
"Six hours on the train," Durell said. "I've allowed two more to get to the airfield. We don't have to arrive until seven this evening. It should be dark then, and safe enough."
The delays due to flooding were an unexpected factor. There were two more halts, one in the middle of a drowned plain of water that reached invisibly through the mist. The last delay was for almost an hour, and Durell bought a newspaper from one of the women attendants and pretended to read it with Jasmine, as militiamen restlessly wandered up and down the coaches. Once, a stout, moon-faced lance-corporal stopped and stared at Durell, his small black eyes puzzled. He looked as if he were about to say something, scratched his head, and stared back at the rear coaches, obviously remembering he had seen Shan. But he only shrugged and went on.
The rain persisted. At noon, they reached the checkpoint at the Great Wall. The delay here was longer. The militia detrained, and Durell and Jasmine also got off into the cold mist at the base of the towering old bastion. There were regular army troops here, along the wooden platform that ran through the tunnel in the Great Wall. Army jeeps of Chinese manufacture, some field guns, and truckloads of more troops had collected here, where a small village had sprung up of modern, barrack-like buildings. Durell and Jasmine walked along as if part of the militia company. He did not see Shan. There was an argument between the militia officer and an army captain. The captain demanded something, and the militiaman resisted complying. The delay seemed interminable. The militia settled down under sheds along the tracks to eat, and in the middle of it, Shan appeared, walked up to the disputing officers, and said something to them. Both men stared at him resentfully. Shan exhibited some cards and papers, and there was a prompt lowering of voices and then the army captain, with his red shoulder tabs sagging on his sopping, quilted coat, turned away.
Assignment Peking Page 14