Charlie’s Apprentice cm-10

by Brian Freemantle

  He failed to reach Li by telephone at the Foreign Ministry. The switchboard at once put him on the carousel of Chinese bureaucracy, plugging him through to one department who put him on hold to transfer him to another. On the second connection, Snow was careful to identify himself and leave the required message before the third attempt at a transfer. Before it succeeded, he disconnected.

  Snow had looked nostalgically around the church before he’d left it. He did the same now around the mission, and finally in his room there. And then concentrated upon his desk. The passport slipped easily into the inside of his jacket. He put the rosary into an outside pocket, patting it needlessly to ensure it did not bulge. His bible, the well thumbed, much used book his parents had given him the proud day of his graduation, was the only object left in front of the tiny, private altar. It was too big, both in length and width, for any of his pockets. He replaced it on the table, flicking open the cover to read the inscription he knew by heart: the ink in which his mother had written his name was already fading, tinged with brown. He closed it again but did not move from the desk. He wanted to take it. Needed to take it, his most precious possession. Carrying it in his hand would not indicate he was leaving. He was a priest. Priests carried bibles, although not often in proscribed China. But Catholicism was not proscribed: officially it was permitted. Snow picked the bible up again, testing how it looked if he held it upright, in his cupped hand close to his body. He was sure it hardly protruded to be visible at all: didn’t appear to be anything more than a wallet if it did show, and a wallet did not mean he was going anywhere.

  He would take it, Snow determined.

  He was at the door when he remembered the asthma medication. The two inhalers from the bathroom cabinet made a bigger bulge in his pocket than the rosary. Snow was at the door of the mission, about to step out into the street, when the abrupt fear gripped him, so that for a moment he was physically unable to move.

  ‘Dear God, please help me!’ he said aloud. ‘Help me!’ He forced himself to move, which he did with great difficulty, like someone suffering cramp or paralysis.

  The overcast sky seemed to blanket the heat upon the street outside, which was, as usual, jostled with people and bicycles: he couldn’t see the nightsoil-collectors but the stink of their cargo hung in the air. The last time I’ll walk this way, among these people, among these smells, Snow thought: I’m leaving, running. I’ll never see this place again.

  Were there people watching him? The man at the embassy clearly thought so, and from Li’s behaviour he supposed he had to accept it was so. But Li hadn’t been to the mission for over a week now: nearer two, in fact. Perhaps the suspicion was lessening. Perhaps … Snow stifled the hope, annoyed at himself. He didn’t know why Li hadn’t been to the mission but he did know the district in which John Gower had been arrested, which meant there hadn’t been any lessening of suspicion. It was a miracle he hadn’t been seized already, so he had to get away and today was his chance. His only chance, according to the scruffy man at the embassy. Snow wished he knew how to spot people watching him. Would it be easy, confusing them and evading them, as the man had made it sound yesterday? It had sounded easy then. It didn’t now. The instructions he’d been told to follow, to the letter, seemed totally inadequate now: impossible. He still felt sick and his chest was tightening. Should have remembered the mask: several people around him were wearing them and it might have helped. Too late to go back. No turning back. Just had to go on. Perspiration was making the cover of the bible wet and slippery in his hand. He didn’t want to draw attention to it, switching it from one hand to the other. Have to take some relief for the asthma soon. Stupid to put it off, which he knew he couldn’t: always had to be quick to prevent it becoming too severe. Couldn’t risk a severe attack today.

  Snow held out until he reached the bus-stop and its straggled queue. He used the inhaler there, grateful for the immediate relief and the awareness that he hadn’t left it too long. He put the bible in his other hand, too.

  Snow changed buses twice, which was necessary to reach the Foreign Ministry. The beginning of the confusion, he thought, hopefully, as he approached the building. He would have liked to know if those watching him were more confused than he was. There was certainly a babble of confusion inside the building. It was packed with people moving against each other and from place to place upon the insistence of officials who saw their function as never to make a decision, always to defer or sidetrack it untraceably on to someone else. The priest tried to use the mêlée, going into two crowded offices with only the minimal contact with officials to account for his moving on to yet further divisions. Only at the fourth did he attempt proper, sensible contact, repeating the name of Li Dong Ming, becoming finally convinced from the blankness with which he was met that Li was definitely attached to the Public Security Bureau. He had to insist the clerk take his offered, apologetic package addressed to Li, only at the last moment remembering further to insist upon a receipt, which would establish on its counterfoil proof of the delivery of the photographs.

  People were all too close, too cloying, all about him in the eddying corridors, and Snow felt the fresh distress, wanting to stop and rest and knowing there was no possibility of his doing so. He let himself be carried along by the human tide. Once he collided with an unmoving, rocklike knot of people and felt the bible begin to go from his grasp, snatching out to get a fresh grip only seconds before he lost it completely. His breathing worsened: trying to confuse he was becoming confused himself.

  The side door was small, quite different from the elaborate main entrance through which he had entered. Snow let himself be washed aside, thrusting gratefully out into the street: despite the overcast oppression it was cooler than inside the building. He wanted to pause, to relieve his breathing, but knew he couldn’t. He drove himself on, glad that this time he didn’t have to wait for a bus: one was pulling in as he reached the stop and he was aboard and moving within minutes. Snow slumped, panting, into a seat. He was soaked in perspiration and people immediately around were looking at him because of the snorting intake of his breathing. Snow put the bible openly on his lap, to free both hands from its wetness and let everything dry. Gradually his breathing quietened. No one had boarded the bus after him: he was absolutely sure of that. So if he had been under surveillance, he’d evaded it. Suddenly – wonderfully – what he’d been told to do didn’t seem inadequate or impossible any more. It was all going to work: make it possible for him to escape. His breathing became more even.

  The offices of the Gong An Ju were very different. This was the headquarters of the omnipotent control of the People’s Republic, the all-seeing eyes that saw, the all-hearing ears that heard. There were a lot of people in the outer corridors and vestibules, but none of the hither and thither turmoil of the other place. Snow was uncomfortable here, anxious to get away, but he obeyed the instructions, waiting for a vacant booth and talking generally of taking another country tour, to the north this time, leaving his mission address and his name. Feeling increasingly confident, he allowed himself to stray very slightly from the script, suggesting he return the following day to fill out a proper application form to establish his hopeful itinerary. Automatically responding to the possibility that he would not have to be the one to process the paper work the following day, the clerk instantly agreed.

  Almost there, thought Snow, going out once more through a side door and once more being lucky with a bus, which was again in sight as he came to the stop. Two men did get on directly behind him this time but both got off, long before the rail terminus. It was still only twenty to four: more than enough time for everything else he had to do, even taking into account the customary delay at the ticket office.

  There was a delay. In front of every window there was a meandering line of patient travellers, almost everyone burdened with enough belongings to start life anew in another part of the country. Snow started, actually emitting a cry of frightened surprise, at the sudden but insisten
t plucking at his elbow. The money-barterer was gap-toothed and moustached and wore a Western-style suit that didn’t fit. Snow went through the ritual of offer and rejection, concerned how quickly his breath was snatched: it was five minutes before the tout gave up. Something else I’ll never know again, thought Snow. Nor want to. He was getting away: leaving forever. And glad to be going. Whatever worth he’d had here was over.

  What explanation was he going to give the Curia, in Rome? Not the complete story, he thought. Just enough. He could talk of having had Zhang Su Lin as a pupil. Which was true. And of his not knowing, for a long time, that the man was a political activist and therefore dangerous. Again true. Zhang’s arrest was public knowledge. Which therefore made it essential he get out, with the emergency permission of Father Robertson, to avoid his becoming innocently involved and risking the very future of any Jesuit mission in Beijing. More than enough, Snow decided: Rome would accept the account and be grateful for his political acumen. And his conscience would be clear: there was no deceit, in anything he was going to say.

  He didn’t feel sick any more and his breathing had settled down after the fright of the money-changer. The bible felt solid and comforting in his hand, no longer wet. His confidence, just as solid and comforting, was returning, too. What would he read, when he was hidden away on the Shanghai-bound sleeper? There were several teachings about overcoming evil, in Philippians: one very apposite tract, about wrestling against the rulers of darkness, which he’d surely been doing for the past three years in Beijing. Snow at once curbed the arrogance. Perhaps the Book of Proverbs was more fitting: particularly the warning of pride going before destruction and haughty spirits before a fall. Except that he was not going to destruction. He was going to safety with a man whose planning was working out just as he had promised it would. By this time tomorrow they would be secure in the Philippines: maybe even have moved on. There was no real reason for his going to London: the man had already accepted the end of any relationship. He didn’t know, but it was probably easy to get a flight from Manila to Rome: if not direct, then by changing somewhere en route. He would have to talk about it, on the way to Shanghai. He’d definitely go straight to Rome, if it was possible.

  Snow finally reached the window. He hesitated, at whether he wanted a single or return to Nanchang, confronting a question they had not rehearsed. He asked for a return, guessing the clerk would remember him if any enquiry was made because he was a Westerner who had chosen hard-seat travel.

  Snow patiently queued to pass through the barrier, unconcerned at the returning shortness of breath. It wasn’t bad, hardly anything, and it was obvious there was going to be something because of the tension of these last few minutes. Literally minutes, he calculated: seven, before the Nanchang train pulled out, twenty-two before the departure of the train he’d really be on, to Shanghai. He filed through, without any interest from the inspectors, on to the common, linking concourse that joined all the tracks at their very top, where the expresses arrived and departed. Everything was exactly as it had been promised at the embassy, with two tracks, both empty, separating the trains. Maybe a hundred yards between them: a simple, unhurried walk. He was anxious now to get to the embassy man: to be hidden away and from then on be told by him what to do and how to do it. He’d done very well by himself, though: gone through it all precisely as he’d been instructed, without any deviation. Apart from the bible. He was glad he’d brought it.

  So close to departure, the Nanchang hard-seat carriages were overflowing with people, every available space already occupied. Snow didn’t bother to move from just beyond the door. Four minutes. As a precaution he brought the inhaler to his mouth. Three minutes. The noise of departure grew from outside, on the platform: a public address announcement, difficult to hear, and shouts from railway guards, and steam hissing up from beneath the skirts of the carriage. The whole train jerked forward, as the brakes began to release.

  Snow got off. He actually descended on to the platform into the billowing steam, glad of its concealment. No need to hurry: no need at all. Plenty of time. Beside him the train groaned into life, coughing more steam: asthmatic, like he was. Near the concourse now: ten yards, no more. Once he was on the concourse there were just the two intervening tracks to pass. Very close. Practically there. Snow turned on to the concourse.

  Which was when Charlie saw him.

  Charlie had been a long time at the window of their two-berth sleeper, straining for the first sight of the priest, wanting to be at the door when the man boarded, to hurry him inside as quickly as possible. Snow appeared to be moving well, just as he should, purposefully but without any hurry to attract attention. It was going fine, Charlie thought: absolutely fine.

  There must have been a shout, a challenge, but enclosed and still some distance away in his tiny compartment Charlie never heard anything. It all unfolded before him in a silent, sickening tableau. Snow jerked to a halt, staring straight ahead at something concealed from Charlie by the curve of the carriages. Then twisted behind him. Charlie did see them then: men in khaki uniforms and plainclothes officers as well, fanning out from the barrier. There was a lot of arm-waving from the men in suits. Still Charlie could hear nothing. Snow turned back again and began to run towards the train he was trying to reach, but halted almost at once. Into Charlie’s view came the squad Snow had first seen. The priest was looking frantically, hopelessly, in both directions: Charlie could make out the open, gasping mouth and the rolling eyes bulging in terror.

  ‘They’ve got you,’ said Charlie, to himself. Got us all, he thought.

  Snow ran again. Not towards either group but jumped off the raised platform on to the track, stupidly and pointlessly, so stupidly pointless that neither squad made any attempt to chase him because there was nowhere for him to run.

  Charlie realized what Snow was trying to do. The Nanchang train was starting forward but hardly moving, the brakes still not fully off, and Snow was stumbling across the empty lines to get to it.

  It was blind, desperate, unthinking panic, with no possible chance of escape because he was level with the tracks, putting the closed doors far above him, tall as he was. Snow still tried. In those last few moments he didn’t run properly at all. It became a lurch, arms clasped about his chest. Alongside the train he staggered parallel for a few moments, bringing himself to one last, supreme effort of leaping upwards for the door handle to pull himself aboard. The priest actually did get a hold on the handle and briefly, for just a few seconds, appeared to hang suspended. Then he let go and fell backwards, not on to the empty track but beneath the wheels of the Nanchang train. It continued on, carriage after carriage, no one ordering it to stop.

  Charlie didn’t wait to see it clear the station. He walked in the opposite direction from the platform from which the Nanchang train had just left, getting off the concourse by a far gate but turning back on himself when he was on the other side of the fenced barrier to see everything. There were a lot more soldiers, running from beyond the Shanghai express. And a lot more, with plainclothes Security Bureau men all down on the tracks, formed into a solid circle around the body, which was hidden from view. There was a lot of shouting and gesticulating but mostly they just looked. Charlie recognized one of the plain-suited men in the very centre of the gathering as the bespectacled Li Dong Ming, whose photograph he had memorized in London.

  As he passed, Charlie saw it was a bible that Snow had been carrying. He must have dropped it when he fled down on to the lines. It had fallen open on the concourse and the wind was blowing the thin leaves one way and then the other, like an unseen hand hurrying through for a lost passage.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Samuels swallowed, heavily, his throat going up and down. ‘You sure he’s dead?’

  ‘A train ran over him. At least four carriages. Of course he’s bloody dead!’

  ‘What about you? Do they know about you?’

  ‘No,’ said Charlie, shortly. He was glad the sleeper reservations had not been made by n
ame. The flight bookings, which had been in false identities, would have to be cancelled.

  ‘You’ll have to tell London. We both will, to our respective people,’ said the political officer. ‘What are you going to say?’

  ‘That Snow’s dead. And that the chain’s been broken. Providing he doesn’t confess, there’s no accusation that can be brought against John Gower now.’

  Samuels regarded Charlie with his lip curled. ‘Just that!’ he said, disgustedly.

  ‘That’s all they wanted,’ said Charlie. ‘All any of them wanted. They’ll think it worked out well.’ He didn’t. He thought he was going to have to watch his ass more closely than he ever had before. And a few others, too.

  Forty-seven

  A lot of things happened in a very short time. Some good. Some bad. Some Charlie couldn’t decide one way or the other.

  The official notification of Snow’s death came to the embassy from Father Robertson, who was officially informed by the Chinese. There was no public denunciation of the younger priest as a spy, which had been the immediate concern in messages to Samuels from the Foreign Office and to Charlie from Patricia Elder. In that same first cable to Charlie, the deputy Director-General ordered him to rebase to London as soon as possible. He didn’t acknowledge it.

  Father Robertson made two visits to the embassy to arrange for the shipment of the body back to England for burial in the family vault in Sussex. Samuels met him on both occasions, and on the third accompanied the elderly man from the mission to the Foreign Ministry, to complete the final formalities for the release of the body. Charlie asked to sit in unobtrusively on the embassy meetings. Samuels refused. Charlie, who thought Samuels was a pompous shit, did however time his own visits to be at the embassy when Father Robertson came. He saw a slightly bent, careworn man making an obvious effort to cope with circumstances threatening to overwhelm him. Dr Pickering was necessarily part of the group that met the priest on every occasion. In addition to Samuels and Pickering, both Plowright and Nicholson were at the meetings and also went to the Foreign Ministry interview, in the event of a legal question arising. None did.