The Whisper of the Axe

by Richard Condon

  “Well, the hell with that, Kiddo,” General Doncaster said. “We’ve got to go along. And I don’t give a good goddam what you think of Baum. He hasn’t failed us yet, and if he says the Agent is sealed then that Agent is sealed.”

  “All right then, Petey! But for the record, of which there is none present, I say right now that the Chinese, with their guile and techniques, are going to nail this Agent.”

  Bosco Beemis spoke delicately, to get them on to a new subject. “Did anybody figure out any way for the Agent to get intelligence out of China?”

  “Well, maybe it could be done, General Beemis, if we knew where he was. We could probably pay some Chinese to go in from Hong Kong to contact him, but there are two things wrong with that,” Marek said. “First, we can’t let go of the identity of the Agent, and certainly not to some makeshift Chinese drop. Secondly, finding where those people have been sent in a country the size of China is really going to be like finding a needle in a haystack. We’ve got to start with some educated guesses as to where we would establish a base camp for people like that, then we’ve got to begin to overfly it and photograph it systematically and take our chances on the political flack.”

  “Well,” Gordon Manning said, “I’ll tell you something that is no news to anyone here. This thing purely scares the shit out of me.”

  21

  April 1971

  The seven American soldiers were flown by daylight from Kunming to Chengtu in the Szechwan Province, about 600 miles, in a battered, gallant DC3. At Chengtu they were transferred to a railway train which took them 480 miles northeast to the big junction at Pao-chi, then by another train northwest for another 390 miles to Hsi-ning, capital of the Tsinghai Province.

  “You gotta say one thing about these people,” Teel said to Kranak during the rail journey, “they sure don’t worry about comfort.”

  The Tsinghai Province, in the far west of China, on the Plateau of Tibet, which is the loftiest highland area of the world, had an average elevation of 13,000 feet, sustaining about 12 percent less oxygen than at sea level. The mountains of the Tsinghai Province descended in broad steps from The Roof of the World at Ch’iang-t’ang, down to mountains that ranged at about 6,000 feet, then, at the eastern part of the province, at the Kansu border, down to only 3,000 feet.

  The Tsinghai Province had the smallest population of all the states of China; 2,000,000 people in 278,000 square miles; eight people to the square mile. (The Kuang-Tung Province, in south China, had an area of only 87,000 square miles and a population of 42,800,000 people.) Perhaps the Mongols and Tibetans—45 percent of the people of Tsinghai—were responsible for the small population because of their tradition of having one son from every family enter a lamasery. Tsinghai had come under Chinese control in the third century B.C. It was made a province of China in 1928. Summers were intensely hot and dusty here; winters dry, cold, and windy with temperatures averaging 12 degrees below freezing.

  The eastern part of the province was a high plateau between the complex Ch’i-lien and Nan-Shan ranges on the north and the Pa-yen-ku-la range in the south. These were broken by a series of ranges with their axes running northwest to southeast. The mountains reached 11,000 feet and enclosed the basin of the 70-mile-long, 45-mile-wide Lake Kokonor.

  “Lissen, I’m tellin’ ya something,” Buckley said. “I gotta get outa here. Who ever saw so many Chinks? It suffocates me.”

  “So—mail yourself home to Mommy,” Kranak said.

  “Mail?” Buckley snorted. “Where’s the mailbox? Where’s the telephone? Where’s the Daily News?”

  “You can’t even buy a fuckin’ samwitch. On a fuckin’ train platform, you can’t buy a samwitch,” Fingus keened.

  “Aaaa, shaddup!” Kranak said.

  “How many days we been traveleen?” Reyes said rhetorically. “What they gonna do—hide us someplace? What kinda job ees thees gung be, hombre? I tell you what I tell them when I see them. Shove you job up you ass. I quit. Get me outa here.”

  “Listen—fellas—” Dawes said quietly. “Now you might as well take it easy because any operation that is as long and elaborate as getting seven Americans into China, then keeping them traveling for days, sure sounds to me like we’re in for a long, long stay.”

  “How long?” Buckley said harshly.

  “How do I know? I mean—well, say, maybe a year—who knows?”

  “A year?” Fingus sounded really frightened.

  “I can’t take it in any kind of army for like even a month,” Anderson whined. “I just cain’t take any army. I mean, I wasn’t meant to be in any army.”

  “You been in prison?” Teel asked abruptly.

  “Course I been in prison. What that got to do wid anything?”

  “This is better than bein’ in prison, ain’t it?” Kranak asked. “I mean, you got travel, you got twenty-five grand to fall back on, you got mystery, excitement and—”

  “Better than prison? Man, are you crazy? What’s wrong with a good prison? What the hell good is my twenty-five thou out here with a buncha people who talk like they won a free two weeks in a zoo? Travel—this travel is breakin’ my ass—”

  “Lemme tell ya something. No fuckin’ around on this thing. Sooner or later we got to get where we’re going,” Buckley said, “and I’m gonna lay the facts on The Man. These are The Facts: I’m gettin’ out of this fuckin’ country, if I gotta walk all the way out.”

  “These goddam people out that winda all look alike!” Dolly Fingus said wildly.

  The seven Americans had no layover in Hsi-ning, the only large city in the province. They were hustled out of the train and into an ancient but immaculately kept Reo sedan and driven to the local military airport where they were put into a Japanese-built Sikorsky S-62A helicopter, which could be pushed along as fast as a cumulus cloud, about 105 miles per hour.

  “Where we going?” Kranak asked the bald, middle-aged Chinese who had been assigned to them. Kranak spoke very slow, probably very broken, P’u-t’ung-hua, the most universal Chinese speech. He seemed to get through. The man answered. “Ssu-hsin.”

  “How far?” That was an impossible question because the man didn’t understand distances in miles. Only in changs. Kranak couldn’t figure changs. It took 154 minutes to get to Ssu-hsin, so Dawes later figured the camp must be 200 miles west of Hsi-ning.

  “How did you ever pick up the lingo?” Dawes asked Kranak.

  “Hell, it’s the basic speech of Southeast Asia as well as China. These people trade everywhere. I been out in Asia a long time, like maybe six years before I went in the army. That’s how I made Special Forces. I always had an ear. Well, not an ear, you know. I was never afraid of wadin’ right into these languages.”

  Everything turned back into Armyland when they alighted at the training camp. A spit-and-polish, parade-ground major of Chinese regular infantry was waiting for them at the chopper pad. He spoke California American, all diphthongs and drawls with R sounds as hard as diamonds and a two-note lilt. He shook their hands like an insurance salesman let loose in a fold of lottery winners. He motioned to three Chinese enlisted men to take the American gear.

  “I’ll hang on to my rifle if you don’t mind,” Kranak said nervously.

  “In a pig’s ass,” the major said. He snarled at one of the soldiers who pulled the rifle off Kranak’s back. “It’ll be a long time before you need a rifle,” the major said sweetly.

  He led the way toward a gaggle of wooden buildings saying, “This is Camp Cody.” It looked like most forward military reservations around the world. It had barracks, offices, classrooms and an officers’ club grouped around a central common. Scattered over the electrically fenced 495 acres, some of them wooded, there were weapons ranges, jump towers, a maze of metropolitan city streets complete with sewers and underground conduits just as if this were the old back lot at Metro. Away in a different direction from these central and sprawled facilities were heavily guarded off-limits sites, used for the heavy clandestine work,
simulating super-secret projects such as training an important agent from the enemy side, or for torture techniques expansion, or for de-briefing a recent defector. The more painful side of brainwashing was done out in these areas; called “psychological de-briefing.” Every trainee had to undergo fourteen weeks of this rigorous experience beginning the second day after his arrival.

  Classes from each country were shown films of city problems of their own country four times a week. These films directly applied to the courses of study so that the students could relate the abstracted problems to the terrain with which they were familiar, right down to traffic patterns, lighting, uniforms, and the people they would be expected to destroy. Specific films showing interiors of various government buildings in many important cities of the world had been obtained to provide clear lessons in assassination opportunity.

  “How many trainees you got here?” Dawes asked.

  “About sixty right now,” Major Wong said. “Now-hear this! This is the general rule. You fraternize with the other trainees at night—if you can still stand-at the Officers’ Club. There is no Enlisted Men’s Club because there are no enlisted men. Every trainee here is going out of here to become an important, high-ranking guerrilla leader. But you are going to earn it. All day long, from six ayem forward, we work your ass off and you better believe it.”

  “We’re back in the fuckin’ army,” Kranak said.

  “Right. Now—practice calling me Cal—not Major Wong, repeat, not Major Wong—because psychological studies say the use of a given name makes everything easier for Americans, Australians, and Irish. Each man has his own room. Each man has an orderly. Each man gets four American magazines and comic books a week and a copy of the Albanian edition of Playboy, called Po, with whom we have a special deal. Each man gets forty minutes with a woman each week, on a staggered schedule, and an option, not compulsory, for another forty minutes on Sunday afternoon between four and six.”

  “I thought you guys had outlawed prostitution,” Dawes said.

  “Prostitution? These are female non-coms from our Western Army! They’re entitled to a little recreation, too, you know.”

  They were given the rest of the day to get settled. “Feel free to wander around the compound but no farther,” Major Wong said. “Beginning tonight and for the next three years you’ll be messing at my table, Little America. Chow at six peeyem. Only me or the doctor can get you out of chow.”

  “What’s the food like?” Jonas Teel asked.

  “You’ll be so hungry after a day’s work, you’ll love it.”

  “But what’s it like?”

  “It’s army chow. Does that answer your question, mister?”

  “I got a coupla questions myself,” Tom Buckley said. “What the hell is this? Whatta we doon here?”

  “Yeah!” Anderson said. “Nobody told us we gone end up wid a buncha fuckin’ COMMnists! What you guys trine do here?”

  Major Wong looked at them with elegant distaste. “You have been paid—each one of you—enough money to keep this entire province eating for some time.” He walked slowly to stand in front of Anderson. “When you speak to me, you will ask my permission to speak, then you will stand at attention as you speak.” Anderson began to mumble. Major Wong struck him across the face so hard that he spun almost entirely around. Every American gasped.

  “Attention! All of you!” Wong barked. They came to attention.

  “You are here to be trained. Fortunately for you it is going to be easy and pleasant for you and you are going to look forward to each day when you awaken because you are going to be indoctrinated—debriefed—then, if you reach the standards that have been set by your American leader, you will become important military commanders in your own country. If you fail in this matter of adjusting to what we require of you, you will be considered psychologically useless and you will be shot.”

  “Sir!” Dawes said smartly.

  “You may speak, Lieutenant Dawes.”

  “The basic question that seems to be repeated by the men, sir, is—how long can they expect to be on this duty?”

  “Four years.” There was a strangled sound from the men. “But, you have your revenge,” Major Wong said smiling. “I will be required to be here with you. When you have dismissed the men, Lieutenant Dawes, they will go to their quarters and you will remain here and Private Teel will remain here.”

  “Yes, sir. Dis-miss!” The five men tumbled out of the area to sit down and talk the catastrophe over.

  When they had gone, Major Wong said, “I have all the dossiers. I know you are a West Point graduate, Lieutenant Dawes.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What is your opinion of these men?”

  “They have no morale, Major Wong.”

  “Don’t worry about their morale. Our modern techniques, based on ancient studies, will take care of reconditioning them. Are they healthy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are they murderous and deeply violent?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Those are the things we cannot instill in them, so that is good news indeed. Private Teel,” he smiled. “Mr. Teel, I should say. You will be leaving to spend the next three years away from these great and good friends,” he smiled more broadly, “working with our nuclear scientists in the Hupeh Province. Very international there, Teel. You’ll be able to use your French.”

  The five other men gathered in Kranak’s room. “Okay, democracy rules,” Buckley said. “I move we conk the Chink and hijack that helicopter and then make him fly us out to Hong Kong.”

  “I’m witchew!” Dolly Fingus said.

  “I’m the one who gits to do the conkin’,” Anderson said, “’cause I’m the one who hadda take his shit.”

  “Well, I theenk you guys is crazy—but—” Reyes shrugged—“eet’s the only game in de tonn.”

  “What you say, Sarge?” Buckley asked Kranak.

  He looked at them blankly. “Say? Say what?”

  “Say let’s conk the Chink and hijack a plane outta here.”

  “Oh, fahcrissake!”

  “Whatsamatta? You chicken.”

  “That’s it. That’s right. Exactly right. I am chicken.”

  “Whut the hell you talkin’ ’bout, man?” Anderson said aggressively. “You jes’ do whut you told and maybe even then you won’t be all raht.”

  “I’ll do what I’m told. Every time that major tells me. Did you happen to notice the Permanent Party here or did yiz find some blow someplace and you are too stoned to see? There are about three hundred Chink soldiers inna Permanent Party here an’ they run with nice, new Russian automatic weapons. Does that tell you something, Dr. Einstein?” he said to Anderson. “There is a doctor inna balcony, Captain Marvel,” he said to Buckley.

  “Oh, shit! We stuck,” Dolly Fingus moaned.

  “You bet you ass we stuck,” Reyes said. “But not oney that, hombre.”

  “What?” Fingus asked, always ready with the straight line.

  “We stuck for four years, amigo.”

  Dawes and Teel came in. “What goes?” Buckley asked.

  “Teel goes,” Dawes answered, grinning. “He’s being sent to nuke school.”

  “Nuke school? You mean bombs?” Anderson said blankly. “When did we give up the secret of the bomb to foreigners?”

  Dawes said, “It’s not going to be too bad, fellas. I can tell. This is a good, professional operation.”

  “It’s sure isolated, even for China,” Kranak said. “Do they keep it out here just to age it, then send it in to the Middle West? Or do they keep it here so we can’t get out?”

  “We know there’s a town only two hundred miles or so away,” Dawes said. “There’s got to be a road to it.”

  “Some town,” Buckley said. “Metered yaks.”

  “At least you guys’ll have each other’s company and hear American. I’m goin’ out there into Babel,” Teel told them.

  “But, Jesus,” Kranak said, “could you screw a Ch
inese non-com?”

  “Jes’ make it another famous first, Eddie, you be all right,” Teel chuckled.

  Major Wong appeared twenty minutes later to take them to meet the Commandant. “You look fine,” he said. “Real soldiers. The Commandant will like that. He’s new here.”

  They walked in pairs to the headquarters building. They were shown into the commandant’s office.

  “Sir!” Major Wong barked, saluting.

  The Commandant came out from behind his desk where, because he was so tiny, it had appeared that he was sitting down. He shook hands with each man. “I am Colonel Ho,” he said. “Welcome to Camp St. Patrick and call me Paddy if it puts you more at ease.”

  “This is the new American group, Colonel,” Major Wong said.

  “Aaaah. So. Our first American group. Well, well, well. Welcome to Camp Cody.” He walked to a fireplace, turned abruptly to face them, teetering on his boots, his hands clasped behind his back. “Psychological tests show that each national group enjoys calling this camp by a familiar, nationalistic name,” he said. “To our Latin Americans it is Camp Cantinflas. To the French it is Camp Moi. To the English it is simply called The Teabreak. And so on. Tomorrow begins your psychological de-briefing. That de-briefing will last for fourteen weeks. It was designed to indoctrinate trainees into the most unwavering concepts of world revolution as expressed by Chairman Mao. It was also designed to uncover imposters, if any, because the entrenched society beyond China would very much like to place their agents in here. Also, the de-briefing will recover from your minds a knowledge of your attitudes, skills and other factors which will permit us to make the most of you. Some men complete the de-briefing in seven weeks. Some men have taken as long as eighteen weeks to yield anything useful. We have shot two agents. You will be more valuable soldiers and more valuable human beings if you can last through it. In four years you will lead the finest revolutionary program we have ever seen, itself the creation of your leader. You will return to your country highly trained to destroy its counter-revolutionaries by terrorizing and destroying your petit-bourgeoisie to create an international society of safety for your people. Major Wong is your link to me, but you must call him Cal. That is all. Enjoy your dinner, gentlemen.”