Assignment Peking

by Edward S. Aarons

  "Nothing surprises me now."

  "You were betrayed from the start, you see. Your mission was aborted before it was properly originated."

  "I knew that."

  "This is why you were reluctant to go, back on Taiwan?"

  "I never trusted you," Durell said. "How long have you been working for Peking?"

  "Always. Since I left the Chinese mainland." Chu lit a cigarette with delicate gestures. He wore racing driver's gloves, the fingers exposed, long and tapering. "You really should not have killed Chien, you know. We wanted more information from him."

  "Tai Ma did it with his litde switchblade."

  "Do not provoke me with lies. You have no hope for mercy unless you cooperate with me." Chu walked back and forth in the narrow cell. The light reflected glossily from his slick black hair, his youthful face, his thin moustache and somewhat pouting mouth. He had been speaking in English, Durell suddenly realized, and now he saw in a corner of the room an elaborate tape recorder that had been dutifully taking down DurelTs replies. But Chu was different from the rather foppish, effeminate KMT flight officer Durell had known in Taiwan. There was a sense of power and assurance that had not been there before. Durell was grateful for the ebbing of the pain in his head from Chu's blow. He turned his head and the movement pulled at the blood caked on the back of his neck. He tested the leather straps tentatively. He couldn't move in any direction on the table.

  "How can I cooperate?" he asked quietly.

  Chu turned sharply, and his black eyes gazed down at him with utter lack of passion. "You have been given into my hands. No one in the Black House understands your significance as a catalyst except myself. Do you know what that means?"

  "I'm going to die," Durell said simply.

  "Yes. The question that remains is simply how it will happen. Easily and quickly—or slowly and hard? No one here knows your true identity—not even Tai Ma, who is clever and dangerous, but not completely informed." Chu's brief smile meant nothing. "Tai does not know I am one of the Six Sentinels he seeks. Chien did not know it, either. I do not believe that even your former chief, General McFee, who betrayed you, knows it—although I do not discount that man's capacities."

  "If you're a Sentinel, whose side are you on?"

  "These are difficult times. It is easy for a man to lose his head. One cannot trade safety for ideals in this modern world, or be a martyr to any cause. One must be pragmatic. Today's deathless 'cause' becomes only an uninteresting item in tomorrow's history, and the man who dies for such a cause is a fool. I plan to live a long and comfortable life."

  "You won't," Durell said.

  "Do you still threaten me, helpless as you are?"

  "It's.a statement of fact."

  "You sound stupidly certain of yourself."

  Durell tested his ankle straps. It was hopeless. "What do you want of me, Chu?"

  "I have reconsidered your role in this affair. You have actually accomplished part of your mission. Chien is dead and silenced. Therefore, you must be my source of information. However carefully I tried, I never was able to capture and inspect one of the Zebra Program mechanisms."

  "The what?"

  Chu's eyes were bleak. "Chien Y-Wu did not know what or how they were made, or by what electronics company in the States. We tested his reactions carefully to all this. His information and the schematic drawings he yielded were all of routine electronic espionage mechanisms. Nowhere was there a hint of the Zebra device. We thought he might have some data on it, but nothing he said gave us a hint about it."

  "The 'Zebra device?'"

  "Do you pretend to be ignorant about it?"

  "I never heard it mentioned. You attended my briefings."

  Chu's mouth tightened. "Do not toy with me, I warn you. You will die hard, and beg me for death when it comes!" He drew a quick breath. "I give you thirty minutes only. You could know much, or nothing. I believe you were secretly briefed in Washington on your true assignment here. Your value—and the time remaining of your life, and whether you go easily or in utmost agony —depends on you."

  Durell saw a thin sheen of sweat on Chu's youthful face. His petulant mouth showed a dangerous lack of patience.

  "All right, I'll cooperate," Durell said. He watched Chu's mouth twitch slightly. "But tell me what you know of the Zebra program. As far as all the others are concerned, it's merely a flight program over mainland China for aerial high-altitude photography and intelligence-gathering missions."

  Chu regarded him for a silent moment. "I think you are pulling a crude bluff. And yet you are a subtle and dangerous man, Durell. A bluff within a bluff? I cannot tell." He smiled. "I confess my uneasiness readily, as you see."

  "You can afford to," Durell said.

  Chu paced up and down the cell. He spoke quickly and tersely, sticking to his Oxonian English. The Zebra program over the mainland was a cover for dropping and establishing the Zebra device to trusted agents of the KMT and the National Security Agency under General Hay-stead's command. So far, none of the devices had been recovered by the Black House counterespionage apparatus in Peking. Great advances had been made in the miniaturization of listening devices tuned to an infinitely small and remarkably powerful transmitter planted at the site of the objective. It was known that some of the Chinese government's innermost secret conferences had been recorded by Zebra, from many miles away.

  "You've been taken," Durell said, interrupting.

  "How so?"

  "No such gadget has been developed yet. It's still in the laboratory stage in the basement at K Section's headquarters."

  "But it is in Haystead's hands "

  "It is in McFee's hands, not the NSA's."

  Chu looked confused. "But my information "

  "You've been misled. Our business is like the shell game run by a carnival trickster. Now you see it, now you don't. It was decided that although the Zebra Program was designed for ultimate use of the device, no one was to know of it until it was ready. And it is not ready. It has not been used."

  "You lie to me!" Chu shouted. He took a quick step toward the table, and his long, strong fingers began manipulating the cords of Durell's throat. Pain exploded in his skull like bursting skyrockets. A groan escaped his clenched teeth. He bit his tongue and tasted blood. It was only the beginning, he knew, of Chu's immoderate temper. And it had to be provoked further. He had to induce Chu to knock him out, and quickly. He spoke through the blood in his mouth.

  "You've been suckered, Chu, just like me, just like most of us in the business. The people on top use us, betray us, sacrifice us—for their own ends—most of which are wildly improbable adventures that cost only our own lives, not theirs, and bolster their own egos and positions. You think you are one of the Six Sentinels? How do you know? Maybe it was just a gimmick to make you perform better for the real brains behind this plot to provoke Red China into a nuclear attack on Taiwan—and in turn, cause American nuclear retaliation. Peking thinks it's big enough to survive such a holocaust—but not with the hell bombs and germ warfare and every other demoniacal mechanism that certain madmen, in the fury of war, will try out. You don't know which end is up, Chu. Chien Y-Wu was never important. The Zebra Program is only a cover. You and I are only being used as cat's-paws, to torture and kill each other for purposes we can only guess at."

  Chu took a tremulous breath and looked at his airman's wristwatch. Durell licked blood from his lips as the man said, "I am only interested in personal survival. I despise you, Durell. Your patriotism is well known, although you conceal it always behind a cynical fagade. You shall not provoke me. You will tell me more of the Zebra device."

  "Are you afraid?" Durell asked quietly.

  "Afraid? Of what?"

  "You've been with the KMT too long, and no one trusts you here. Anyone who's been abroad and in the upper echelons of capitalist society is suspect here in Peking. They can't really trust you. You must deliver something to them, right? Something to prove your value to the Black House. You h
ope to get it from me. But you won't. You're going to die along with me, Chu. If you kill me, you're finished, too. Make up your mind to it."

  Chu turned pale under his yellow skin, and his dark eyes glittered. His fist smashed Durell on the jaw, and as Durell's head snapped aside, he felt his face ground into the hard table to which he was strapped. His body spasmed, his muscles strained, and the strap on his left wrist suddenly gave way. His fist swung in a wild arc and slammed into Chu's throat, his knuckles extended like a handful of pebbles striking flesh. Chu twisted and staggered away, clutching his neck with both hands, coughing and retching. Durell desperately reached with his left hand to undo his right. Chu, bent double, slowly turned back to the table. Their eyes met, and Chu's hooded glare was insane with frustrated rage. His glance slid to the humming tape recorder, and horror touched his eyes. He brought his fist down three times on the machine, smashing it into immobility. Then he came forward to the table again.

  "Very well," he gasped hoarsely. "You made your decision. You will die with me."

  He locked his fists together and brought them down, like a maul, on Durell's face. Durell's last thought was one of satisfaction. If he lived through this, he at least could not be made to talk. Then the blow struck, and again he knew nothing more.

  Fourteen

  He awoke to a feeble light glowing far off in the distance. A woman's voice said in Cantonese, "Major Shan, please wake up. It is all right. You are safe. Wake up.

  The thin light blinded him and stabbed pain into his head. He breathed with difficulty—blood clotted his nasal passages. He felt a warm, wet cloth applied to his face, which felt swollen, like his tongue in his bloody mouth.

  "Shan, darling?"

  The voice was familiar; the urgency was not unexpected. He had an instant of deja vu, as if he had been here before. He tried to move and found he had been freed of the straps that had bound him to the table when Chu was questioning him. How much time had passed since then? He could not guess. His mind felt numbed, still shocked by the massive blow Chu had delivered.

  "Shan, please!"

  Now fear mingled with the urgency of the woman's voice. He opened his eyes again. The feeble light became a glow that took the shape of a curved, brick doorway, a wet stone slab floor. He heard other sounds now. Running feet. A distant shout. He was in an alcove of one of the old Imperial tunnels, lying in two inches of slowly trickling water that smelled like a fetid sewer. He shuddered and immediately felt a strong young arm lift him up.

  "Can you hear me at all, Shan?"

  "I hear you," he whispered.

  "Oh, good! Can you stand up?"

  "Doubt it," he mumbled.

  "You must! There is no time left."

  All at once he knew the voice. "Jasmine?"

  "Yes, I'm here, darling. Darling, look at me. Oh, your poor face! They'll be coming here soon. I can't drag you any farther, I just can't."

  "Colonel Chu "

  "I hit him. I think he's dead, but I'm not sure."

  "Shouldn't have. He knows—things. He "

  "Get up. Please! Now!"

  He summoned all his strength and lifted himself to his knees. His head rang with a million bells. His stomach lurched, and he threw up like a child. The nausea passed. Jasmine tugged at him. "On your feet, please!"

  He heard the sounds of searching men nearby. "How did you find me?"

  He saw her face now, in the dim light. She wore some kind of black cotton women's uniform. Her long, black hair was pulled back into a severe bun. Her eyes were luminous with the pressures of fear, but she smiled and said, "Didn't Chu ask you about a Zebra listening device?"

  "How did you know that?"

  "Because it exists. I heard everything. We planted one of the mechanisms in his ball-point pen. He never knew it, never suspected. He wanted to have one desperately, to deliver to his masters here, but the joke was on him. The move was dangerous, but I had to know where Chu was, at all times."

  He said grimly, "You know a lot more than I, Jasmine. Did you take the pen back?"

  "Yes."

  "Give it to me."

  She hesitated, briefly enough to kindle every wild suspicion he'd ever entertained about her, and then she handed him an innocuous-looking pen, the sort that are made by the millions. He put it away in an inside pocket of his battered cotton suit. His gun was gone, he noted. So was his watch and every other personal item that identified him as Major Shan, of L-5's Black House. He wouldn't get far, he decided grimly. But he had to try.

  He got to his feet. The tunnel expanded and swayed and rotated in his dizziness. He clung to Jasmine.

  "How can we get out?"

  "The same way I came in. Hao had only a partial map of these tunnels. There's one unused section that connects with the Black House complex. This way. To the left Hurry!"

  He managed to put one foot ahead of the other and stumble along with Jasmine's help. Lights flickered behind them some distance away. He could not have been unconscious very long—half an hour at the most, he guessed. With each step, he regained a small measure of his strength, although his knees felt like rubber and his face throbbed. He did not know if Chu had broken his nose or not. He seemed to swim uphill against a dark river of pain, following Jasmine's tall figure in her dark, utilitarian uniform, feeling the strong, cool pressure of her hand as she led him. She had saved him once before, in Singapore, he remembered, when he had gone after the notorious Madame Hung. Now, risking her life again, she was leading him to safety once more. And still he did not trust her. His long term of service in K Section had made him somewhat less than human, he reflected dully. He had given up a normal capacity for trust and friendship and replaced it with a minute-to-minute awareness of death and danger. You trusted no one, you depended on no one.

  He checked his stumbling progress.

  "Where are we going?"

  "It's a long way yet." Jasmine breathed with difficulty.

  "Where can we be safe? I've something I must do "

  "Hao will help us. He's a little wonder. He's one of McFee's most trusted people here "

  'He takes orders from McFee? But I thought-

  He fell silent, reflecting that she could not put him into any greater danger than that from which he had just escaped. He stumbled on, up a ramplike section of the old brick tunnel that grew narrower and darker with each step. They had taken several careful turns where the tunnels forked, when Jasmine halted and searched her memory for the way. Now the shafts were totally dark, and they had been proceeding for some time by following the waUs with their hands. The smell of sewage, rat droppings, and other indefinable odors, had grown thicker. They waded through ankle-deep water, over the stone floor that was slippery with slime. The air tasted heavy and dead.

  The way seemed endless. The tunnels formed a maze without beginning or end. For a time, he feared Jasmine was leading him in dark circles—but she did not falter long, except to take her time at intersections to make certain of their course.

  Now and then he had to pause for rest. His face ached more savagely with each passing minute, and he wondered if any damage had been done to the plastic sili-cone-filled sacs that Dr v Greentree had inserted to round out his features to the accepted Chinese conformation. "We're almost there," Jasmine said thinly. "We've lost the Black House men," he said encouragingly.

  "Yes, but these tunnels go on for miles "

  "You're doing fine." "Are you all right?" she asked. "Better every minute. Here's a stairway, I think." She halted, came back, bumped into him in the darkness. Her hair still had the essence of her identifying perfume, brushing against him as she squeezed into a dark crevice in the crumbling brick wall. Water trickled under their fingers as they felt their way along the invisible, rubbled stairway.

  She breathed with relief. "Yes, this is it." "Where does it take us?" "Up into about a million people," she said. Now and then the steps vanished in a slide of debris that was treacherous underfoot. There was absolutely nothing to see for several
moments as they labored up-* ward. Once Jasmine slipped and started to slide down with a small cry. He caught her wrist in the dark and held her tight. She lay there for some minutes, breathing quickly and unevenly. "Thanks, Sam." ' "I owe you my life again," he said. "We're not home safe yet."

  The stairs angled to the left. DurelTs hands were bleeding as he scrabbled upward on the broken brick. He guessed they had gone several miles from the area of the Black House, and his sense of direction, even in the blackness, suggested that they might be under the palaces of the Forbidden City.

  Suddenly there was a gray glimmering ahead and above. At the same time, he became aware of sound, like the rise and fall of a far-off sea. It took a moment for him to realize that he was hearing, even at this subterranean level, the measured shouts and tramping of half a million people gathered at the great Gate of Heavenly Peace at the entrance to the Imperial Palaces. It was National Day in full progress.

  As they climbed, the light became a thin slit of gray gloom, a vertical line about the height of a door panel. Distance was deceptive. They came upon it moments before he expected it.

  Jasmine paused. "We must be absolutely still. We're under the Hall of Earthly Tranquillity." Her face was dusty and ashen from their long tour through the ancient tunnels. "There are dozens of courtyards here that Hao showed me, not far from the Chunghotien, the Hall of Complete Harmony. It was once used by the emperors as a resting place on their way to the Throne Room. There's a golden roof, and triple terraces, and a great central building, all surrounded by smaller palaces, and halls and courtyards once occupied as residences for members of the Imperial family and their concubines."

  "You've had quite a tour," Durell said.

  "I was briefed for it," she said shortly. "Well, we can't stay here. Keep your fingers crossed that some delegation from Pakistan or Africa isn't standing around."

  She pushed lightly on the panel that she had left ajar. It moved outward easily, for some ten inches, then stuck. She made a srqall sound, then said, "We'll squeeze through."

  "Ill go first," he offered.