INCARNATION

by Daniel Easterman

  ‘I couldn’t live in China.’

  'I do not mean China as you know it, Laing Shiansheng. Trust me, there is more to the Hui Hou than even you can guess. In a little while, you and I shall travel together. I want you to see the monastery I mentioned. The monks would make you at home. It is one of seven monasteries in that region belonging to the Hui Hou. You would be welcome at any one of them. After all you have endured, they will offer you a little peace.’ He paused. ‘But now is not the time to talk of this.’

  Chang Zhangyi turned and opened the door. As he stood in the opening, he turned back to David.

  ‘Laing Shiansheng, you will understand why you may not have a key. It is, I think, as much for your own safety as for ours.’

  David bowed low.

  ‘I have all I need here, thank you,’ he said. ‘Except for Nabila.’

  ‘Of course. I will see to it that she is brought to you shortly. In the meantime, perhaps you would like two or three of our prettier girls to help you bathe. You must be tired and filthy after such a long journey.’

  ‘No, thanks. I’d rather bathe alone.’

  ‘Very well. I have some urgent paperwork to see to. It should take me about half an hour. Time enough for you to freshen yourself. Someone will bring you to me when I’m ready, and I’ll show you round.’

  The colonel looked hard at him for a moment, then bowed and was gone. The second the door closed, David started to search the suite. He was looking for three things: cameras, audio bugs, and anything he could turn into a weapon.

  In the course of the next ten minutes, he located and destroyed eight bugs and three cameras. The weapon wasn’t so easy. There were no blades anywhere, not even a blunt paper knife.

  The bell rang. When he opened the door, Nabila was standing in the corridor with two guards. One of them grinned and said he’d been instructed by Colonel Chang Zhangyi to deliver this package.

  ‘She stinks of camel’s piss,’ said the other. ‘I’d give her a good wash if I were you.’

  She stepped forward into the suite, and David took her and kissed her on the forehead. He used his foot to kick the door shut. It clicked, and Nabila fell into his arms, sobbing.

  She had thought he was dead, she said between sobs, and wished she were dead herself. He told her about Chang Zhangyi and all he had said. About his promises, and his veiled threats. About the sheet of paper that could give life back to Maddie.

  ‘I think you have a simple choice,’ she said. ‘Turn them down and be shot, and leave Maddie to whatever terrors her life has left. Let me be shot as well. Or give them what they want in return for her life.’

  ‘You know it’s not that simple.'

  The telephone rang. He’d tried it earlier and found he could not ring out.

  He picked up the receiver. A woman’s voice came on the line, speaking in English. Her voice was well-educated, softly modulated. A mental image formed of the speaker: young, attractive, ambitious.

  ‘Mr Laing, my name is Huang Zhengmei. I am the personal assistant to Colonel Chang Zhangyi. The colonel is still tied up with his paperwork, but he is eager to commence your tour of inspection as soon as possible. I will come to your suite in ten minutes and bring you to his offices. Please be ready, both yourself and Dr Muhammadju.’

  David put down the telephone.

  ‘Looks like Chang Zhangyi wants to see us both.’

  Nabila shuddered. She remembered the massacre in front of the Shaanshi Mosque, the growling tanks, the tall figure strutting among the dead and wounded. And Kashgar. She remembered Kashgar.

  ‘I can’t face him,’ she said. ‘I can’t bear to look at him.’

  ‘You have to. We both have to go through with this charade.’

  ‘Why can’t they just kill us and be done with it?’

  ‘They may still do that. I’m more worried about you than myself - you’re of no real use to them. We can’t just sit about waiting for them to take you off, or shoot us in the back of the head when it suits them.’

  ‘What can we do? We don’t have any weapons. How on earth are we supposed to turn the tables? Even if we got out of here by some miracle, we’d just find ourselves back exactly where we started.’

  She sank down on to a sofa and closed her eyes. She felt wrung out and drained of hope, like someone who has looked down a long street, waiting for someone to come, and seen only dust moving in spirals. With an effort, she opened her eyes.

  ‘If you could make telephone contact again, ask your people to send a helicopter in at least.’

  Briefly, he told her about Anthony Farrar and the cessation of hope from home.

  She said nothing for a while, then looked up eagerly.

  ‘We can make our own weapons,’ she said. ‘How long have we got?’

  ‘About five minutes, I think. But I’ve already looked all over the place - there’s nothing here we can use. There’s a little kitchen, but all it has are blunt dinner knives.’

  ‘Coat hangers?’

  ‘Wooden. Built-in.’

  ‘What about ...?’

  She got up quickly and ran into the bathroom. Next to the washbasin stood several bottles of aftershave and toner. She took one and slipped it into her pocket, then tossed a second to David.

  ‘Hit their eyes,’ she said. ‘This will blind somebody for a minute or two.’

  Next to the main mirror was a round shaving mirror at the end of a crisscross extending arm.

  ‘Quickly,’ she yelled, ‘have you got a screwdriver?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  But she was already on the move again, yanking open drawers, rifling through their contents. From the third she triumphantly pulled out a nail file. She used it to unscrew the circular steel band that held the mirror together, and pulled out two sheets of glass. With the help of a towel, she snapped off several large slivers.

  David had gone back to the room that passed as a combination of study, library, and TV room. He pulled out several desk drawers and came running back to the bathroom with a roll of Sellotape. The tape wrapped again and again round the long glass slivers to make strong handles.

  Nabila tore strips from the towel.

  ‘Wrap the blade in this,’ she said, passing one to David. ‘You don’t want to cut yourself walking along, or …’

  The bell rang, an incongruous musical chime, the sort of thing David’s Aunt Trudy would have loved.

  A young woman was waiting. She was dressed in PLA fatigues, but contrived to make them look smart. A calculating face matched the voice. When introductions were completed, she looked him up and down.

  ‘You haven’t changed, Mr Laing?’

  ‘My clothes? No, I’d prefer to wait until there’s time for a proper soak. I’ve got a lot of sand and sweat to wash off. Fresh clothes will feel a lot better once I’m properly clean.’

  ‘Is Dr Muhammadju here yet?’

  ‘Yes, she’s inside.’

  ‘May I come in? I’d like to make her acquaintance.’

  David smiled and ushered her in.

  ‘I’m afraid she’s in the bathroom,’ he said.

  ‘Colonel Chang Zhangyi will be growing impatient. I think we should leave soon. Would you mind asking her to hurry?’

  I’m not sure if ...’

  Huang Zhengmei went up to the door and knocked on it. Speaking in fluent Uighur, she asked Nabila to get a move on. A minute or two passed, then Nabila appeared.

  ‘I’m afraid I left a bit of a mess in there,’ she declared.

  Huang Zhengmei looked at her appraisingly.

  ‘You don’t seem to have spent much time in any bathroom recently.’ She hesitated. ‘If you’ll forgive me, I need to use the bathroom myself.’

  Without another word, she strode past Nabila into the bathroom. There was a click as she locked the door behind her.

  Nabila hurried across to David.

  ‘I’ve done my best to tidy everything up. She can’t possibly guess.’

  ‘We might h
ave been watched. I couldn’t find a camera in there, but there has to be at least one.’

  ‘She got here while we were still finishing off.’

  ‘They could have telephoned her.’

  ‘What if she ...?’

  ‘We don’t have any choice.’

  There was the sound of a toilet flushing, then Huang Zhengmei appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. Her eyes moved from one to the other of them. There was no warmth in her face, only cold intelligence. She brought her right hand out from behind her back. In it she was holding two small slivers of glass.

  ‘I was most concerned to find these on the floor,’ she said. ‘You could very well have hurt yourself. Glass is extremely ... dangerous. And I noticed that part of your shaving mirror has been broken. Do you have the rest of the glass? I’ll make sure maintenance take care of it at once. And I think you need a fresh roll of Sellotape.’

  She crossed to the telephone and picked up the receiver.

  ‘Wei. This is Huang Zhengmei. Send two guards to the jade suite right away.’ She dropped the receiver and looked round to see David standing a couple of feet from her.

  ‘Why do you need two guards to deal with some broken glass?’

  ‘I think you know, Mr Laing. I think ...’

  She froze. Nabila had come round behind her and was pressing something hard against her throat.

  ‘I think you know more than you need to, Miss Huang,’ Nabila said. ‘It may prove very dangerous knowledge. Slitting your throat open would come very easily to me. Now, stand up slowly and go back to the bathroom.’

  Once there, David cut a long strip from a bath towel, making a rope with which he could tie Huang Zhengmei’s hands behind her back. He then gagged her, using a rolled-up face flannel and a shorter strip of towel. Once she was secured, they hurried to make stronger ropes from the bed-sheets. They’d barely finished when the doorbell rang again.

  ‘Huang Zhengmei asked us to come here. Is something wrong?’

  The guards were new faces, but they seemed no friendlier than their predecessors.

  ‘She had to go back to her own quarters. A violent headache. But she rang to ask if you could take us to Colonel Chang Zhangyi’s office. He’s been expecting us for some time. In fact, Huang Zhengmei said he was getting impatient.’

  The guard made a quick phone call and nodded.

  ‘His secretary says I’m to get you there as fast as possible. Let’s go.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE

  ‘Let me show you my realm. It will make your eyes pop out of your head.’

  Chang Zhangyi sat aloof and alone on a high metallic chair, from which he looked down on David and Nabila. He had changed from black into the well-pressed tunic and trousers of a Guojia Anchuanbu official. A half-smoked cigarette hung from his mouth. At his back, a huge window of plate glass allowed him to gaze out over rows of desks at which functionaries worked, like restless fish in a vast freshwater tank.

  ‘I’d like you to see as much as possible,’ he said to David, marking him out as beyond the pale. He’d ceased to pose a threat, so why shouldn’t he see everything?

  ‘I know you came here to destroy this place,’ he went on. ‘I don’t hold that against you; you had a job to do, just like myself.’ He paused to take a pull on his cigarette, and David noticed a small vein beating sluggishly in his temple. ‘Unfortunately, Dr Muhammadju is another matter. She is a Chinese citizen who has openly betrayed her country. The sentence for that is death. To commute that sentence would require a special effort on your part, Mr Laing. Do you understand me?’

  ‘She’s done nothing to ...’

  ‘She has helped a foreign agent. Slept with him. Conspired with him to destroy a Chinese military installation and its personnel. Plotted the overthrow of the legitimate government of this country.’ He paused. ‘Shall I go on? Even you in England have laws, even you treat treachery with the contempt it deserves. Be very careful, Mr Laing. I can accommodate you in most things. But to save Dr Muhammadju’s life, I should have to pay off some very powerful people.’

  He stepped down from the chair and crossed to Nabila. His eyes made what they could of her, of her emaciated body, tanned skin and torn clothes.

  ‘You should take a bath, Doctor,’ he said. ‘It is unfitting for a doctor to be dirty. To smell. To offend.’

  He reached out a hand and ran its back along her cheek and down to her neck. David stiffened. His hand slipped into his pocket and his fingers tightened around the handle of the makeshift knife.

  Chang Zhangyi turned quickly, as though he’d sensed the threat. He looked at David, noting his posture.

  ‘In spite of all that,’ he said, ‘I understand perfectly. I would sleep with her myself if I didn’t think it would degrade me to do so.’

  David bit back the retort that came so readily to his tongue, and the urge he had to hit the man harder than he’d ever been hit in his life.

  ‘I thought you’d brought us here in order to show us round the sites.’

  ‘Of course.’ He looked at his wristwatch. ‘We can talk about these matters later.’

  He snapped his fingers, and two guards appeared.

  ‘Women zou ba!’ he said, holding the door open.

  Buggies were waiting for them, little red ones that would go almost as fast as they wanted.

  At first there seemed to be nothing but the endless corridors and the closed doors that appeared at regular intervals. But slowly each level opened out, and Chaofe Ling appeared to them for the first time in all its complexity as a city. Level 3, which was restricted to high officials, was laid out like a small town, with a piazza, gardens, fountains, even small trees and lawns. Exactly where the water came from to supply the needs of a place this size, David could not begin to guess.

  They made their way from level to level, like a procession of grandees passing through a principality. To David, it was more reminiscent of Dante’s Inferno, and the slow descent through the degrees of hell. When they walked about, Chang Zhangyi would take up the rear. He seemed as delighted by the glories of Chaofe Ling as though he was seeing them for the first time. Time and again, he would exclaim his pleasure out loud, or clap hands at what seemed inappropriate moments, or sigh or laugh or mutter that something could have been done with more taste. By the time they got to the third level, he had started to get on David’s nerves.

  On Level 4, they had built a small university, where any of the workers in Chaofe Ling could study for a degree or continue earlier studies. Inevitably, most of the courses were in scientific subjects; but Chang Zhangyi explained that they also offered modules in literature, calligraphy, fine art, and music.

  ‘We have a young man who may one day become a master of music,’ Chang Zhangyi said. ‘When he finishes work here, I shall send him to the temple of Baiyun Si, to study under the Master Ah Shuji. His instrument is the zheng. Perhaps we shall go to hear him one day.’

  He turned to Nabila.

  ‘And what about you, Doctor? Do you know anything about music? Or just what you Uighurs use in your dances?’

  ‘I’m not much of a musician, thank you. But I do enjoy the songs of Cui Jian.’

  Chang Zhangyi pretended not to have heard. Cui was a popular singer whose lyrics castigated the government and called for reform.

  On Level 6 they were shown round a supermarket so large admission was by timed ticket only. Men and women walked round it as though hypnotized. David noticed food items on the shelves that had been imported from Europe and the United States. Chaofe Ling’s inmates did not go short of provisions.

  When they came out of the low temperature environment of the supermarket, the heat at this level was immediately more noticeable.

  ‘How is everything brought here?’ David asked. ‘There aren’t any roads, there’s no airstrip, no helicopter pad

  ‘Nothing has ever come here on the surface,’ Chang Zhangyi replied. ‘Not even the materials for building the city. We
built a tunnel between Lop Nor and the site selected for Chaofe Ling. An enormous tunnel, larger than the one that connects your country to France. We used it to bring in raw materials, equipment - all the supplies we needed, and we built Chaofe Ling up from the bottom.’

  ‘Most impressive.’

  ‘It’s the world’s biggest engineering project. It’s just a pity we can’t tell the rest of the world what we’ve achieved.’ He hesitated. ‘Would you like to see the tunnel, Laing Shiansheng?’

  David nodded. In spite of himself, he was knocked out by the sheer scale and organization of the complex.

  Chang Zhangyi led them down a very long corridor at the end of which stood a metal-plated door. He stubbed out his cigarette in a tall ashtray beside the door, inserted a key, and let them through into a small foyer. The door closed and locked itself automatically behind them. In front of them was a second door with a glass front.

  'This is a private lift,’ Chang Zhangyi explained. ‘It’s used by the Director of Chaofe Ling, General Wen Shunzhang, by myself, and half a dozen other senior cadres.’

  Only one guard could get in with them: the other would have to wait till they sent the lift back up.

  It took only seconds to make the rest of the descent. The door opened on to another foyer, identical to the first. A second door slid open, and they stepped out on to the shiny black floor of Level 7.

  They could hardly take it all in at first. The scale of the whole enterprise was vast, unobscured here by walls or doors or corridors. The ceiling climbed up far above their heads, and was filled with bright lights, like an over-active sky.

  The centre of the space was taken up by a large circular pool half the size of Texas, its water made purple by batteries of lights deep underneath. Ripples passed back and forwards across the surface, driven by some concealed mechanism.

  To one side of the pool stood a huge silver sphere with steps leading up to a small entrance near the top. Off to the other side was an enormous glass dome in which sat a small black dome. Right ahead of them was the tunnel. It seemed like a gigantic mouth, stretched wide open and ready to swallow all that came within spitting distance. A large black locomotive with closed wagons sat half-in and half-out of the tunnel entrance. On the platform, a . row of open trucks led to the wagons, and David had no doubt that the slim shiny objects stacked on them were warheads.