The Chinese Assassin

by Anthony Grey

  He stopped and looked up to see how this information was being received. In the front row, Scholefield noticed, Percy Crowdleigh from the Cabinet Office had begun to shift restlessly in his seat again.

  ‘To make absolutely sure at what velocity these bits of metal and the hairs had been driven into the cushion, I got the Soviets to fix me up a gas-launcher and using a replica of our friend here’—he patted the foamed plastic cushion with something approaching affection—’I fired minute steel pellets into it. I used my maths to scale the sizes down and came up with a provable conclusion that the real bits in this cushion—like that human hair I found—must’ve gone in at a rate of above seven thousand feet a second. Now—’

  Crowdleigh jumped up suddenly, waving his evening paper again and shaking his head in irritation. ‘Doctor Stillman, this is all very fascinating, but at the risk of appearing ignorant I have to confess you’re beginning to lose me.’ Other voices around the room murmured agreement. ‘This may indeed be all very convincing but I feel obliged to ask whether we’re going to be provided with any documentary evidence to support this highly sophisticated scientific hypotheses.’

  Stillman half turned towards Yang, his eyebrows raised in enquiry. ‘I think I can say that copies of my full report have now been brought here for distribution.’ Yang nodded quickly and indicated the document case that had just been delivered.

  Stillman turned back to the man from the Cabinet office. ‘There is your answer, Sir. My purpose tonight is to give you a popularised and readily understandable introduction to my report. You will be able to take it away and study it at your leisure and no doubt subject it later to analysis by experts.’

  The diplomat nodded with ill grace and sat down again still fanning himself with the newspaper. Stillman pushed his spectacles up onto his forehead, rubbed the sockets of his eyes with two clenched fists, and peered out unseeing at his audience through screwed up eyes. ‘As I was saying, seven thousand feet per second, gentlemen—there is one thing and one thing only that will produce such a velocity and that is an explosion.’ He pursed his lips as though about to savour some invisible culinary delicacy. ‘Not to put too fine a point on it, gentlemen, an explosion brought about by the detonation of a bomb.’

  The members of the Fast Asia Study Group stared back at him, accepting his announcement in total silence. Then slowly Harvey Ketterman rose to his feet, scratching his head. ‘What you’re saying, Doctor Stillman, unless my unscientific American mind isn’t very much mistaken, is that Lin Piao’s Trident couldn’t possibly have crash-landed after running out of fuel. You say that it was quite definitely blown out of the sky by a deliberately planted high explosive bomb, put aboard secretly by persons unknown before it left China. Is that it, in a nutshell?’

  Stillman nodded. ‘Just so.’

  ‘And you claim that your scientific evidence is conclusive beyond any shadow of doubt whatsoever?’

  Stillman nodded again. ‘When you come to read my report you will find it runs to some 250 pages. There are more than a hundred photographs showing everything I have told you in tabulated detail. All my conclusions about the explosion are borne out by diagnostic microtopography.’

  Ketterman, still on his feet, leaned forward easily on the chair in front of him, grinning broadly. ‘If that’s some kind of new scientific religion, I have to tell you right away Doctor Stillman I’m going to reserve my judgement until I’ve had a chance to put your full report under some of our own highly agnostic microscope.

  Stillman bared his yellow teeth in a tolerant grin then poked another cigarette under the straggling fronds of his moustache. ‘There’s a great deal I haven’t told you yet, gentlemen,’ he said quietly. ‘I haven’t told you about bow the pathologists dug the big fragments that made those needle-sized holes in the cushion out of the charred back muscles of the body lying strapped to the seat.’ He stopped and drew hard on the cigarette. ‘I haven’t told you about the mock-up of the Trident’s fuselage that I had the Russkies build for sue to prove my theories beyond doubt. I simulated the explosion from the same place underneath the seat, you see. I deduced from the velocities and the position that it was a three pounder packed in a cold steel tube that had been exploded with a military “pencil” detonator. It blew a four-foot hole in the side of the fuselage, gentlemen, and ripped open an underfloor fuel tank at the same time, starting an immediate fire. The controls to the tail were smashed too, locking it horizontally. That’s how it glided in to land.

  ‘The blast even ripped the cushions from the nearest seats and they were sucked out of the hole—which explains why, quite remarkably, they survived the fire.’ Stillman’s eyes glittered and again Scholefield noticed that in his excitement his head was wagging slightly on his shoulders.

  ‘All that, gentlemen, is in my report—and more. I found evidence of other incendiary devices that bad ensured that the fire started by the bomb would spread rapidly. The pathologists’ report, which appears as an appendix, will show you that the victims all died by inhaling flames directly into their lungs—except the pilot, who died more slowly of carbon monoxide poisoning.’

  ‘Doctor Stillman, your scientific expertise is most impressive.’ Scholefield spoke quietly from his chair without rising. ‘But it’s all entirely irrelevant, isn’t it, unless you can prove something else that nobody else has managed to do positively so far—that Lin Piao was actually on the plane?’

  Several of the other men in the room stirred in their seats, watching Stillman’s face carefully to see bow he dealt with the question.

  ‘I’m an aircraft accident investigator, not a medical expert.’ Stillman paused and lit another cigarette. ‘The Soviet pathologists produced dental charts which they say they had kept since the Thirties when Lin spent several years in Moscow undergoing treatment for war wounds. These dental charts are presented side by side with a matching chart of the teeth from one of the nine charred bodies, in an appendix to my report.’ He tapped the document lying on the lectern in front of him with a note of finality. ‘That is all I have to say on the subject. Comrade Yang will distribute my report.’ He picked up his sheaf of papers and sat down, glancing at Yang, who had sat through most of the address staring expressionlessly in front of him.

  Yang nodded and reached for the case. He began unfastening the brass locks, using both hands. As he opened it, Scholefield heard Nina’s stifled scream. He looked up and saw she had risen to her feet. Her face was clenched in an expression of alarm and she was stating at Yang pointing with an outstretched arm towards the case whose lid was now raised in her direction, giving her a ‘view of its contents. She shouted something unintelligible and the Chinese looked up in astonishment as she flung herself towards him.

  For Scholefield the room tilted suddenly and he felt himself tumbling backwards off his chair. He fell, it seemed, only very slowly towards the floor. All the time his eyes were riveted on Nina, Yang and Stillman, although the rest of his body seemed to spin rapidly around the axis of his vision. All movement outside himself seemed to take place haltingly as though already recorded by a slow motion camera and be saw, the Chinese dive very deliberately for the cover of the heavy wooden dais. Then he felt an unbearable pressure squeeze his car drums tight inside his head. Stillman and Nina who had first of all been flung together in a violent, unwilling embrace, separated abruptly and began to glide apart above him in opposite directions as the great roar burst inside his brain.

  He hit the floor and at the same time saw Stillman floating jerkily away from him towards the ceiling, like a ping-pong ball on a fairground rifle range being propelled erratically upward by an invisible jet of water. He heard very clearly the heels of his shoes knock against the perforated acoustic tiles of the ceiling. Then great cataracts of plaster and other debris began cascading down all around him. A confused babble of shouting reached him through this curtain of grey, roaring fog. Then abruptly it ceased and he heard, and saw, nothing more.

  PART TWO

&nbs
p; The Death of Mao Tse-tung

  LONDON, Friday—Ten months after Mao’s chosen successor Lm Piao, his wife and four top military leaders vanished into the night—or into a Mongolian hillside, if indeed they were passengers in that mysteriously vagrant Trident jet—the Chinese have offered no official explanation of the event.

  The Economist, 8 July 1972

  9

  ‘Ring by eleven—and your coffin’s flying by seven! That’s what we promise at Jarvis’s, Mr. Ketterman.’ The dapper little cockney, dressed all in black, standing at the American’s elbow in the noisy crowded bar of the Black Horse in Marylebone High Street, looked up into the blank smoked lenses that covered Ketterman’s eyes and opened his mouth wide in expectation. His tongue flickered briefly out of the dark void like a stunted red antenna seeking reaction to the motto he had just chanted.

  When Ketterman didn’t reply he turned abruptly and sank his nose into the froth on top of the pint of bitter the American had just bought him. ‘You won’t find another FD in London who can match Arthur Cooper for speed—your consular officer tell you that, did he?’ He wiped his mouth and nose on the sleeve of his black jacket and set the pint mug down on a counter already awash with spilled drinks. ‘Should have done, if he didn’t. I’ve lost count of the cases I’ve handled for your embassy.’

  Ketterman nodded absently as he picked up his own half-pint tankard. His face twisted in disgust as he sipped the warm beer, and he pushed it away. He leaned back hard against the noisy crush of bodies that was threatening to squash him against the bar and looked down speculatively at the narrow-shouldered little funeral director. He could see from the discoloured roots on the crown of his head that he’d dyed 1is white hair black to match his undertaker’s clothes.

  ‘All the pubs are running out of ice about this time every night, y’know, in the heat Must be terrible for you Americans. You live on it, don’t you?’ He took another sip of his beer. ‘Here, what’s happened to you then, Mr. K? Looks as if you’ve had a nasty knock. There’s a lovely bruise turning out on your cheek, isn’t there?’

  ‘I had a fall earlier this evening.’ Ketterman waved a dismissive hand. He slipped a sealed foolscap envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed it to Cooper. The little man looked up into his face with a puzzled expression. ‘Take it to the washroom and count it,’ said Ketterman softly.

  Cooper picked up his beer with his other band and took a long gulp. ‘You were lucky to catch me so late, Mr. Ketterman,’ he said loudly. ‘It’s thanks to this little fellow of course.’ He pulled a bleeper, of the kind carried by doctors on call, out of his top pocket then slipped it back again. ‘If I hadn’t been out at the airport on another rush case for the Sudan, I’d have been at home in Potter’s Bar long ago.’

  Although all the windows and doors were wide open, the air inside the pub was hot and dank and condensation dripped occasionally from the ceiling onto the heads and shoulders of the drinkers. ‘Excuse me then,’ said Cooper with a leering wink, ‘I’ll just go and shake hands with the wife’s best friend.’ Ketterman leaned on the bar and watched the little man push his way through the crowd to a door beneath an illuminated ‘Gentlemen’ sign.

  Outside in Marylebone High Street the last flush of light was fading from the sky. The traffic had died to a trickle and even the swallows wheeling and swooping above the rooftops seemed to be moving slowly and listlessly through the heavy, humid air. Ketterman watched Cooper coming back through the crowd in the mirror. The envelope and the money were nowhere to be seen. Under cover of the dark glasses he watched the funeral director mop his glistening brow with a grey handkerchief. With sweating fingers he pushed the already greasy knot of his black tie tight against his bulging Adam’s apple and stepped forward to tug at Ketterman’s elbow. ‘That’s four times what it would cost for us to airfreight the deceased urgently to Washington for you, Mr. Ketterman, did you. know?’ His voice was a hoarse whisper and his mouth opened wide again revealing the tip of his tongue dickering hopefully in its frame.

  Ketterman put a cigarette in his mouth and immediately, with a deferential gesture born of his profession, the little Londoner produced a silver-plated lighter from his pocket. ‘That’s the first installment of a personal and private retainer for you,’ said Ketterman quietly as he bent his head dose over the proffered flame. ‘Your firm’s account will be settled separately through the embassy.’

  Cooper closed his mouth and the lighter with a simultaneous snap. He screwed up his watery blue eyes and stared at the American. ‘Your consul said on the phone you were a government officer and you would want my personal attention for the urgent transshipment of very important remains, Mr. Ketterman.’ He stopped and looked round to see if anybody was listening. ‘I’m not averse to doing a bit of “overtime” in return for a backhander. But a tenner’s the most your embassy’s ever slipped me for running out to the airport for a night flight.’ He looked round uneasily again and leaned close. ‘Nobody, Mr. Ketterman, has ever offered me two thousand quid.’

  Ketterman raised his eyebrows significantly. ‘That’s only ten per cent of your eventual gross—if you do the job to my satisfaction.’

  ‘Ten per cent?’ Cooper’s mouth opened wide again and this time stayed open. He cocked his head on one side, looking at the American like a loyal but puzzled puppy. ‘Whose corpse is it?’

  It was Ketterman’s turn now to look carefully around him. But the roar of conversation and laughter from the crowd swirled unheeding around their heads. ‘I don’t have a corpse, Mr. Cooper. I want to rent one from you.’

  ‘Rent a corpse?’ Cooper’s eyes widened in disbelief.

  ‘Let’s say an elderly, white, Anglo-Saxon, embalmed male. For an hour or so in the morning. Long enough to get the right legal documentation so the coffin can go out on the six p.m. flight to Washington.’

  Cooper suddenly straightened up, squaring his puny shoulders. ‘Mr. Ketterman, it’s more than my job’s worth to do anything illegal.’

  Ketterman signalled to the barman and ordered another pint of bitter for Cooper. When he’d paid for it he turned back to the little undertaker, removed his dark glasses and smiled. ‘You’ve been in your line of business for 49 years, man and boy, Mr. Cooper. Shipping coffins out of London since before the war. Only about six a year went Out by sea, then, right? Now you fly out around a thousand a year all over the world—up to a half dozen every day. Almost all of ‘em are tourists who die visiting Britain or sickly Arabs who come to Harley Street for medical treatment. You use metal-lined coffins and wrap them in hessian sacking so pilots and passengers don’t get unnerved by the idea of flying with the dead. And when you put your hermetic seals on the zinc inner box at your embalming premises, as the law requires, and swear a written declaration that there’s only a cadaver inside, the customs men, who don’t like looking in coffins any more than anyone else, know you well enough to feel certain that’s going to be true. Because you personally and your company are highly respected and want to stay in business. Right?’

  Cooper sipped his fresh pint of beer and stared apprehensively at Ketterman, nodding wordlessly.

  ‘And you can get documents too—fast. Death certificate from Caxton Hall, certified permission to take remains abroad from the Westminster Coroner, a no-contagious-diseases clearance from the Medical Officer of Health in Victoria. All those officers know you and trust you personally. And the coffin has to be in the airlines cargo area four hours before take-off: You’re the only people who can do it. “Ring by eleven—fly by seven.” Right?’ Cooper nodded quickly again and Ketterman lowered his voice. ‘That’s the kind of back-up, Mr. Cooper, that’s worth twenty thousand to me.’ Cooper stared transfixed at the American, his face flexing and unflexing with indecision.

  Ketterman watched him for a moment longer. ‘You retire, Mr. Cooper, six months from now. And although you’ve been a loyal servant to Jarvis’s for forty-nine years your pension won’t top three thousand pounds a year after ta
x.’ Ketterman drew on his cigarette, looking steadily at the undertaker through narrowed eyes. ‘You won’t refuse, Mr. Cooper.’

  The little man swallowed hard and took a deep breath. ‘How do you know all this, Mr. Ketterman?’

  The American replaced his dark glasses and smiled again. ‘Call it careful forward planning.’

  Cooper’s eyes narrowed. His mouth opened again and his tongue flickered calculatingly. ‘If I agree to help you out, when will the rest of the cash be handed over!’

  ‘At ten o’clock tomorrow morning you’ll deliver your “goods” to an address near Grosvenor Square. Then you round up the documents. When we seal the coffin at mid-day at your premises—just you and me alone, no other staff around—you’ll get another installment like tonight’s. When I’m satisfied the casket’s safely on board the six o’clock Pan Am flight to Washington in the pressurised hold I’ll hand you the other sixteen thousand.’

  Cooper’s eyes took on a haunted look. He raised himself on his toes and leaned close to Ketterman. ‘Only one of the four holds on the 747 is pressurised, Mr. Ketterman. Why must it go pressurised?’

  Ketterman looked at him steadily bat didn’t reply.

  Cooper stared at him in growing alarm. ‘I have no control over what happens to the casket after I deliver it to the cargo bay, you see! They work out the cargo distribution by computer, so the weight’s evenly spread The cargo supervisor is the one who does all that.’

  Ketterman placed a reassuring hand on Cooper’s sleeve. ‘We are looking after the cargo supervisor.’