by Don Winslow
It was said that Liu felt the death of every soldier. He had opposed the Korea invasion, hadn’t wanted the command, but took it as a matter of duty. Now, almost two years later, each of the three hundred thousand casualties showed in his eyes, and rumor had it that he blamed Mao for every one of them.
Colonel Yu knocked on his door, received permission to enter, and sat down in the gray metal chair across from the general’s desk.
He admired Liu more than any man alive. A fellow native of Sichuan, the general was a true Communist and a patriot, unlike the would-be emperor Mao. General Liu worked for China and the people, Mao worked for Mao and Mao.
“How was dinner?” Liu asked. His voice sounded tired.
“Voroshenin showed up.”
“Didn’t we think that he would?”
“He knows about the weapons to the Viet Minh.”
Liu nodded. “Kang tipped him off. He has spies in our department, I’m sure.”
“Shall I send Guibert away?”
“Not necessarily,” Liu said. “Tell me about him.”
Yu related the events of the dinner — Guibert’s knowledge of Chinese, his manners, his intelligence, his little victories over Voroshenin.
“So you think he could be our man?” Liu asked.
“Possibly.”
Liu sat back in his chair to think.
Yu knew the issues.
The Russians were keen to prevent Chinese influence in Vietnam. As such, they wanted to interfere with arms shipments that might earn China just that influence.
Mao was a fool. He had already let Stalin trick him into the Korean disaster, and now he was falling even deeper into the Soviets’ arms. But a quick look at the map showed the danger — the Russians already controlled North Korea, and with it the long northeast border and the strategic Yellow Sea. They retained bases in Manchuria to the northeast and “Outer Mongolia” to the northwest. To the west, they threatened Xinjiang, its Muslim population eager to join their brethren in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Let the Russians gain control of Vietnam as well, and they would have the southern border too. The French were walking ghosts in all of Southeast Asia; it was only a matter of time. The Russians would scoop up Cambodia, then move on to the weak sister in Siam and Burma. Soviet agents were already busy in India.
The Soviets could soon have China surrounded, and then they would gobble up Manchuria and the rest of Mongolia, and Xinjiang.
But for now, Vietnam was the key. The Korean stalemate was all but over, the Soviets would control the North, the Americans the South.
Vietnam was the next front.
The problem was that the Americans were going to move in to replace the French. That would be a terrible mistake for the United States and a huge problem for China. An American move against the Viet Minh would derail any possible détente between Beijing and Washington, and drive China toward Moscow.
The Americans were busy making their own worst nightmare come true — a Communist monolith.
But the future of China — General Liu knew it and Yu believed it — was not with Russia but with the United States. Only America could provide a counterweight against the Soviets, only an alliance — or at least a working relationship — with Washington could bring China the economic prosperity it needed to develop.
Approaches, indirect and tentative, had been made, but had been rebuffed by antiprogressive elements in the American intelligence and diplomatic communities. The diplomats in Washington were as afraid of their right-wing radicals as the Chinese were of their own left-wing extremists. Yet approaches had been made, people were at least talking, and if General Liu could count on Washington’s support, he might feel strong enough to make a move against the faux-Communist dictator who now terrorized China.
But Yu knew they were in a race against the clock.
The Viet Minh were going to win in Vietnam.
The Americans were also sending aid, money, and weapons to the French and had the CIA crawling all over the country, laying the foundation for the eventual takeover. Only a quick and decisive victory against the French might dissuade Washington from a disastrous intervention that would keep America and China apart for decades.
And such a quick victory would require weapons.
Rocket launchers, for instance.
But, Liu thought, we cannot afford to be seen doing it just yet.
We need middlemen.
We need the Michel Guiberts.
28
NICHOLAI KNELT OVER the toilet and vomited mao-tai, vodka, Pernod, and most of the contents of what had been a superb feast.
It is as the Buddhists say, he thought, resting between retches — everything changes and at the end of the day the most pleasurable food turns a disgusting mess. He vomited again, then splashed some cold water on his face and brushed his teeth.
Not bothering to undress, he just flopped face first on the bed for a few hours’ sleep. He awoke early, just before dawn, got dressed, then jotted a quick note in code, which when Haverford transliterated it would read, Zhengyici Opera, Thursday night. He rolled the thin paper into a tight cylinder and put it in the left pocket of his jacket.
On the street just as a fragile sun was coming up over the city, he made a show of stretching just as a sleepy and very grouchy-looking Xiao Smiley emerged, his arms wrapped around his chest against the cold.
Nicholai took off jogging.
The air burned his lungs and the wind stung his face, but the exercise felt good and the acceleration of his heartbeat quickly warmed him as he ran north toward Beihai Park. Workers were already out, sweeping last night’s light dusting of snow off the sidewalks, and the night-soil collectors were coming back from delivering containers of human waste out to the countryside. On the hutongs of Xidan Market, the vendors were setting up their stands and lighting small fires in braziers, stopping from moment to moment to warm their hands over the flames. The smell of charcoal was in the air.
Nicholai kept running, aware that he was leaving the chugging Smiley far behind. It wouldn’t be long, though, before the Greyhound joined the chase and caught up with him. He sped up, barely avoided a spill on a sheen of black ice, regained his balance, and kept running until he reached Beihai Park.
He slowed to a jog again and trotted along the edge of the lake.
Even in winter, the early-morning tai chi players were out, moving slowly and gracefully against the silver sky, and Nicholai was suddenly, serenely happy to be back in China again. He ran along the lakeside and then turned left on the arched bridge to the Jade Isle.
He stopped at the apex of the bridge, put his hands on the tiled rail, and stretched his legs. Looking under his arm, he saw the Greyhound running along the lake, headed toward him. Nicholai reached into his left pocket, his hand screened by his body, took out the note, and slipped it under the loose tile.
Then he finished his stretch and resumed his run, making a circuit around the White Pagoda and then heading down toward the South Gate. Smiley stood on the south bridge, cupping a cigarette in his gloved hands. Nicholai ran past him and headed back toward the hotel.
The air in the lobby felt hot and close.
Nicholai went straight to his room, coaxed some lukewarm water from the tap, and took a quick bath. He made a single cup of tea from the water in his thermos, got dressed again, and went down to the dining room, where he got more tea, a baozi, and some pickled vegetables. He enjoyed the moist, chewy warmth of the steamed bun as he thought about the “dead drop” he had made on the bridge.
Fairly confident that he had done it cleanly, he had to acknowledge the possibility that he had been caught at it, in which case he knew that the note was now in the possession of code-breakers, and that he would soon be back in a prison cell, a torture chamber, or both.
He couldn’t read Chen’s face as his handler came through the door and approached him.
“How are you this morning?” Chen asked.
“A little the
worse for wear,” Nicholai answered. “And you?”
“Very good,” Chen said. “Colonel Yu would like to see you now. Are you ready to go?”
Nicholai was ready.
29
THE MONK, HIS HANDS FOLDED in front of him, stepped out of the White Pagoda.
Earlier, just after dawn, the monk known as Xue Xin had meditated in the tower and stared out the window onto the Jade Isle bridge and seen the man lean against the railing.
Now he walked slowly toward the bridge. Slowly because he did not want to appear to be in a hurry, but also because his legs were oddly bowed and he had little choice but to walk slowly.
He knew that he was risking his life, knew that there was a strong possibility that any of the other strollers in the park, or one of the tai chi players, or a street hawker, even one of the other monks might be a police spy waiting to see who came to pick up the message.
Then one of two things would happen. Either they would arrest him immediately, or they would lay back and follow him, hoping that he would lead them to the entire cell. But he knew that he wouldn’t let that happen — he was experienced enough to spot surveillance, and skilled enough to dispatch himself with his own hand should it come to that.
Xue Xin would not allow himself to be captured.
He had been captured before.
Tortured, he had learned what no man should have to learn — the sounds of his own screams — and when they returned him to the cage it was only the kindness of his cellmate that kept him alive, gave him hope when he wished to die, shared the meager handfuls of rice that were their starvation diet.
Now, ten years later, he still limped.
He knew that he shouldn’t be alive at all. His captors had decided to kill them all before the Japanese took over, so they marched them to a field outside the prison, handed them sharpened sticks, and made them dig a long trench.
When the common grave was finished, they were lined up in front of it, and Xue Xin was eager for the bullet that would end this life. But the commandant explained that they were not worthy of expensive bullets, and would be slashed and stabbed to death instead.
Then it started, a blur of silver blades and spraying blood, and Xue Xin felt himself fall backward into the trench and was glad for death. It seemed days later when he felt the dirt falling on him, and he wanted to scream that he was still alive but he swallowed his fear and pain with the dirt.
The monks came that night.
Like ghosts they padded through the fog and dug with their hands, literally pulling him from the grave. Weeks later he could stand, weeks after that he could walk, if you could call it walking. He had bad dreams every night, waking in that grave.
Now Xue Xin walked past the loosened tile in the bridge, deftly snatched the message, and tucked it into his robe. In his other hand he clutched a slim sharp blade, meant for his belly if they came for him or if he detected anyone following him.
But no one did.
He walked undetected out of the north gate into a hutong in the north-central district. Five minutes later he was in the back of a small house, squatting by the dim glow of a small radio transmitter, into which he read the coded message.
He left the house reciting, “On mani padme hung.”
The jewel is in the lotus.
30
THE BLADE PLUNGED deep into the victim’s belly.
The man gasped and then tried to stuff his innards back into his stomach as he staggered through the alley near Luang Prabang’s crowded marketplace, but it was far too late.
The Cobra jerked the knife back, turned away, and walked quickly out the dark alley into the streets of the northern Laotian town.
It all had to do with something called “Operation X,” but the Cobra didn’t really care. All that mattered was the money, and the payments from this client were always prompt and reliable.
The Cobra fingered a small medallion and could feel the outline of the embossed face and the script —
Per tu amicu.
For your friendship.
31
A LARGE CROWD had formed in Tiananmen Square.
Traffic stopped, and Nicholai looked out his window to see a military caravan — Soviet trucks and American Jeeps — come past as the crowd hooted and jeered.
Nicholai spotted the objects of their derision.
Two men, one Western and one Asian, stood in the back of an open Jeep, propped up by PLA soldiers holding their legs, their arms bound to their sides by ropes. In an open truck behind them, a squad of soldiers sat, their rifles held barrel up. Members of the mob threw garbage and old vegetables, shouted insults, rushed at the Jeep and spat at the prisoners.
“Spies,” Chen explained, watching for Nicholai’s reaction. “An Italian and a Japanese. They were plotting to assassinate the Chairman.”
“Truly?”
“They confessed.”
Chen’s car fell in behind the military caravan as it slowly made its way past Tiananmen Square toward the Temple of Heaven. The parade halted at the Bridge of Heaven and the crowd swarmed around it like an amoeba. Soldiers jumped out of the truck and roughly pulled the prisoners from the Jeep and shoved them to an open space at the base of the bridge. Other soldiers used the rifles to push people back, as an officer formed other soldiers into a file.
“You execute them in public?” Nicholai asked.
“It teaches a lesson.”
In a reversal of ethnic stereotypes, the Italian stood silent and stoic while the Japanese prisoner’s legs gave out and he dropped to his knees, sobbing. A soldier yanked him back and then Nicholai saw a man dressed in a long black coat and black hat emerge from the back of a car and walk toward the prisoners.
He held sheaves of paper in his left hand.
“Kang Sheng,” said Chen, a tremor of fear in his voice.
Nicholai watched Kang strut in front of the crowd, stand beside the prisoners, and shout the proclamation that recited their crimes and condemned them to the people’s righteous rage. The Chairman in his mercy had allowed them to be shot instead of strangled, beheaded, or simply beaten to death by the mob.
Kang finished the speech, posed for a moment, and then stepped offstage.
The officer shouted an order and the rifles were lifted with a metallic clatter that echoed through the crisp air. The Italian braced himself, but Nicholai could see the stain of urine darken his trousers. The crowd saw it too, and made much fun of it.
“Look! He pisses himself!”
“He drank too much wine last night!”
The Japanese dropped to his knees again. A soldier started for him, but the annoyed officer shook his head, barked another order, and three soldiers adjusted their aim. The officer had a feel for the moment, and he lifted his arm but paused for dramatic effect until the crowd quieted.
There was a moment of silence, and then the officer dropped his hand and shouted. The rifles roared and Nicholai saw the two prisoners crumple to the ground.
The Temple of Heaven, its famous blue-tiled roof glistening in the sun, loomed over them.
“Spies,” Chen concluded.
32
NICHOLAI’S MESSAGE was relayed five times before it reached Haverford in Tokyo. Still, it arrived accurately, and Haverford decoded it instantly.
Zhengyici Opera, Thursday night.
The staff at the CIA station in Tokyo rushed into action. Within minutes, Haverford had a map of Beijing and several aerial photographs in front of him, and he drew a red circle around the Zhengyici Opera House.
Minutes after that, a Chinese refugee, a Beijing native, was in the room and identified the building as being in the Xuanwu District, southwest of the Old City, not far from the Temple of Heaven. One of the oldest parts of the city, it was a rabbit warren of narrow hutongs and old tenement houses. Before the Communist takeover, the area was host to the Bada Hutongs, the redlight district.
Haverford thanked and dismissed him, then got on a secure line to Bill Benton, chief
of station Beijing, now working out of Macau.
“I need photos and plans of something called the Zhengyici Opera House,” Haverford said, “and an asset check in the Xuanwu District.”
Normally a request like this would take weeks, if it was answered at all, but Benton had been told in no uncertain terms that Haverford had Immediate Access Status. The requested pics and plans were on the wire within fifteen minutes, and an hour later Benton was back on the horn.
“What do we have in Xuanwu?” Haverford asked.
“You’re in luck. The Temple of the Green Truth is right down the street.”
“And what, pray tell, is the Temple of the Green Truth?” Haverford said as he scanned for it and then found the building on the map.
“The oldest mosque in Beijing,” Benton answered.
A photo of the temple appeared under Haverford’s nose. It looked like any old Chinese temple — Buddhist or Daoist — with blue-and-red columns and a sloping roof. But then Haverford noticed that the roof tiles were not the usual blue, but green. “The Commies left it standing?”
“No choice — it’s in the middle of a Hui neighborhood.”
Haverford knew that Benton was playing the “I know more than you know” game. But it was typical of the old China hands, always defensive about the fact that they “lost” the country to the Communists, and ever resentful at now being subordinate to the Asia Desk and Johnny-come-latelies like Haverford. But he was sympathetic — most of their assets had been rolled up, and now an entirely new network had to be built, slowly and painfully.
“Chinese-speaking Muslim minority,” Benton explained. “Been in Beijing for a thousand years. They call their brand of Islam qing zhen — ‘the Green Truth.’ ”
“Do we own a few of these Huis?” Haverford asked.
“More than a few,” Benton answered. “They hate the fucking Reds, see them as godless infidels trying to suppress their religion. Also, they’re hooked into the Muslim minority out in Xinjiang who are looking to secede.”