The Chinese Assassin

by Anthony Grey

  ‘They killed the American Ketterman in Washington because he sent Yang back to us. They are clearly furious that their meticulous campaign to vilify you and your supporters has collapsed and humiliated them instead.’

  The hoary head with its thin wispy grey hair nodded with a slow and obvious satisfaction.

  ‘Yang has confessed everything concerning his four years imprisonment in Moscow under interrogation. 1 will arrange for him to be brought before you in chains within the bout to explain himself and offer personal atonement.’

  His head turned slowly to look at her. ‘And the Englishman? Has he arrived in Peking?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, Comrade Chairman. He is here, waiting to be called to your presence.’

  ‘Is his arrival in the capital widely known?’

  She shook her head quickly. ‘Only a few men loyal to me know he is here. Even Wang Tung-hsing is ignorant of the fact.’

  His eyes closed and his deeply lined face lapsed again into an expression of intense weariness.

  ‘I shall bring him—and later Yang—through the tunnel for greater security if that is your wish. You will inform your personal duty guard?’ -

  He nodded again slowly without opening his eyes.

  She turned to go. At the door she stopped and looked back. His eyes remained closed and he appeared already to be sleeping. As the door swung shut behind her, leaving him alone in the room once more, the claw-like fingers of his right hand tightened convulsively round the butt of the black revolver.

  PEKING, Sunday—A decline in public discipline, growing tension, a sense of unease.... China is awash with rumours and secondhand accounts of what is going on, and foreigners have been accumulating individual experiences that add up to a picture of a troubled country.

  Toronto Globe and Mail, 25 July 1976

  25

  ‘You were perhaps deceived for a moment Mr. Scholefield.’ The crackling coal furnace illuminated the Public Security Bureau captain’s face from below ‘with a demonic glow as he moved round behind it towards the Englishman. His lips retreated from his teeth in another sneering smile. ‘You were possibly not aware you were paying a visit to a museum.’

  Scholefield didn’t reply. He looked round again at Yang who was slumped back now in the interrogation chair, his head twisted to one side in an effort to escape the direct glare of the torch bean

  ‘We find it quite effective to bring such prisoners as the renegade Yang here to remind them of the horrors that were once perpetrated by the Nationalist scum of Chiang Kai-shek.’ The captain stopped close beside Scholefield. ‘These cellars below ground level were part of the original foundations of the Buddhist monastery. This was one of several isolation cells used by the monks. When the Nationalists razed the monastery to build a prison here in the nineteen thirties they hit upon the brilliant idea of incorporating them as torture chambers.’

  The captain took a key front his pocket and leaned over to unlock the manacles on the arms of Yang’s chair. Scholefield noticed then that his ankles were also chained together. Yang stretched his cramped arms with difficulty and chafed at his wrists, still keeping his head turned away from the light. The captain signalled to the guard holding the torch to turn the beam aside, then swung back to face Scholefield. ‘It is part of our educative process in the prison to allow difficult prisoners to contemplate what might have happened to them if they were not being dealt with under the humane socialist principles laid down by Chairman Mao and the Party.. We find it helps them realise their responsibility to be truthful’

  ‘The first twist of the “Faucet” in Yang’s case.’ Scholefield spoke the words contemplatively, almost to himself; not troubling to hide the disgust in his voice.

  The officer looked steadily back at Scholefield for a moment then his features broke into another slow, dangerous smile. But he said nothing. Instead he turned suddenly and shouted at Yang. ‘Now tell the Englishman why you and your Russian masters implicated him in your treacherous plot!’

  Yang lifted his head slowly, to look at Scholefield. His face was haggard with fatigue. ‘When I approached you in London, I was acting on the orders of vile revisionist traitors who have long ago since abandoned the socialist path of Marx Lenin and Mao Tse-tung.’

  Yang’s voice was little more than a croak and Scholefield had to move nearer to hear dearly what he said. “They had held me prisoner in Moscow for four years, waiting for the moment when they could employ me for their own evil ends.’ Yang coughed suddenly and lifted his sleeve to wipe the perspiration from his face. The captain signalled quickly to the second guard who filled a cup from one of the water torture jugs. Yang took the cup and drained it greedily, spilling a lot of it down his tunic front.

  ‘You see, Mr. Scholefield,’ said the Public Security captain softly, taking the cup from Yang’s hands, ‘we use water not to torture a man’s body but to refresh it, to encourage his mind towards correct socialist thinking.’

  ‘Your subtle Thought Reform techniques are well enough known to the world,’ replied Scholefield sharply without turning round. ‘The instruments you use to disfigure the mind have the obvious advantage that they are invisible. Future generations will find no trace of your racks and branding irons—but that’s only because you’re better versed in deceit, not human principles.’

  The Public Security captain’s hands clenched suddenly at his sides. He took a quick pace towards Scholefield ‘Do not forget that your personal safety in Peking rests in only a very few hands.’

  ‘They used drugs to addle my mind and turn me against Chairman Mao Tse-tung.’ The sound of Yang’s voice resuming his confession broke the tension between the two men. They turned to see him staring obliviously into the fire. ‘They believed that if they could plant false “evidence” on western governments through China specialists showing that the Chairman’s close supporters murdered the traitor Liz Piao—and were also planning a greater crime, the murder of Chairman Mao himself —then the bourgeois rightists in positions of some power in Peking would be emboldened to try to seize power by a coup d’état. The Kremlin plotters believed this would produce a new leadership in China more favourable towards them and thus help to foster a false and treacherous new friendship with the Chinese Communist Party.’ Yang paused and wiped his brow again. ‘This is an urgent requirement for the Soviet socialist imperialists because the ordinary Soviet people are deeply dissatisfied with their wasteful preparations for war along the border with China. The economic sacrifices these war preparations demand is enslaving the Soviet peoples. Also the Soviet leaders anticipated that rapprochement with China would deal a severe blow to Sino-American friendship and put Washington at a global disadvantage.’

  Twenty feet above their heads, at ground level, the headlights of the Warszawa carrying Tan Sui-ling and the hollow-chested cadre turned once again into the mouth of Grass Mist Lane. The driver eased back to a crawl over the uneven surface of the hutung and as the vehicle swung and creaked on its inadequate springs the cadre beside her plucked at Tan Sui-ling’s sleeve in the curtained darkness of the rear seat. In the gloom she watched him unzip a document case and rake out a dried bamboo leaf fan. He waved it once or twice in front of his face and grinned. Then, still grinning, he held it, stem first, towards her. The moment she grasped it, he pulled the flat leaf sharply back towards himself.

  In the half darkness they both stared at the narrow tapering shaft of steel left protruding from her fist.

  ‘Hsieh hsieh.’ She nodded her thanks perfunctorily and he giggled inanely by way of response. Then he re-furled the body of the dried leaf carefully back round the blade of the stiletto and with great care placed its shaft once more in her hand. He reached into the briefcase again, and after checking ahead through the windscreen that there was still time, he took out a broad roll of flesh-coloured adhesive tape and a tiny pair of nail scissors. These she tucked into the pockets of her baggy blue trousers. When the car pulled up at the outer gate of the prison, she banded out
her pass for inspection and sat back in her seat, perfectly composed, fanning herself quietly. ‘We have returned to visit the prisoner Yang,’ she told the guard without looking at him

  Two minutes later the car passed through the third gate into the inner courtyard and she got out, to be met by the same three guards who had been on duty earlier. They led her to the door on the far side of the compound and with one guard in front and two behind they escorted her along the hot fetid passageways, across the empty echoing lecture hall and on down towards the cellars. As she walked she continued to fan herself with the dried leaf of the bamboo.

  Scholefield looked speculatively down at Yang. The Chinese had stopped talking and was sitting with his head bowed in the flickering light from the fire.

  ‘If you were the loyal supporter of Marshall Lin Piao that you first claimed,’ said Scholefield quietly, ‘why did the Russians need to use drugs to poison your mind against Mao Tse-tung? Surely the fact that you had to flee with Marshall Lin because of persecution by Mao and his supporters left you with a natural antipathy towards the Chairman.’

  When Yang raised his head he wore a wary expression. He looked quickly at the Public Security captain then back at Scholefield. ‘I was forced to fly on the Trident with the traitor Lin Piao,’ he said softly. ‘He had been deserted by all his followers with the exception of his close family. Members of his staff like myself were forced onto the plane at gunpoint. We did not want to accompany him. We wished to stay and give loyal support to Chairman Mao but were prevented from doing so.’

  ‘So all the folios you wrote were complete lies? The new “plot” to kill Chairman Mao was a fiction?’

  He nodded, keeping his eyes averted. ‘They were the sole work of the Russians. They threatened me with death if 1 did not act out my role. I am ashamed now to admit that I agreed to do this in the hope of saving my own worthless life.’ His head dropped onto his chest and his voice became muffled. ‘I wish now too late that I had chosen death instead of treachery.’

  In the silence, the sound of several pairs of slippered feet pattering quickly down the narrow steps reached them from above. A moment later Tan Sui-ling and the three guards appeared in the narrow opening into the torture chamber. She stood looking down, moving the bamboo fan slowly back and forth in front of her face. ‘Within the hour,’ she announced in a ringing voice, ‘you will have the opportunity to ask Chairman Mao personally to grant you a speedy death to atone for your treachery.’

  Yang stared blankly up at her. She returned his gaze with a sneer of contempt twisting her face, then paced slowly down the remaining steps. ‘Has he given a sufficient explanation to the Englishman?’ She addressed her question to the Public Security captain, in a peremptory voice making her superior rank plain.

  He nodded quickly. ‘He has repeated his confession in flail, Comrade Tan.’

  She turned to Scholefield smiling faintly. ‘You now have, I hope, a fuller understanding of the Kremlin’s vicious nature.’

  Scholefield smiled a sudden grim smile. ‘I have learned, I think, above all else, that nothing in China is what it seems to be at first sight.’

  She looked at him with a startled expression for an instant. Then she turned back to the captain and motioned towards Yang. ‘Handcuff him again immediately and take the Englishman up to the car! I wish to be left alone with Yang for a moment to instruct him on how he should conduct himself in the presence of Chairman Mao.’

  The captain nodded obediently and motioned for Scholefield and the others to leave. He fastened the cuffs on Yang’s wrists and locked them, then turned and followed the others up the steps. Only when the noise of the iron-clad door slamming shut echoed back down the narrow passageway did she turn to face Yang again.

  They stood looking at each other for a moment in silence. Then without taking her eyes from his face Tan Sui-ling withdrew the long stiletto slowly from the stein of the bamboo leaf fan. Its polished blade shimmered red suddenly in the dying glow of the coal furnace as she pushed it towards him.

  They both stared at the knife their faces clenched in awe, as if it were a symbol of deep mystical significance. She laid the fan aside and with her free hand began to unfasten the buttons of her tunic. When the jacket hung open to the waist she jerked the knife towards him breaking the spell that had gripped them both. She reversed the blade and he raised his manacled hands awkwardly in front of his chest to receive it, handle first.

  The silence in the cellar was broken by coals shifting in the furnace and a flurry of sparks spluttered up towards the low roof as she shrugged out of the jacket and stood facing him, naked to the hips. He watched the firelight casting its dappled patterns across the smooth bareness of her small breasts for a moment, then turned his eyes away. She said nothing, waiting quietly until he raised his head. When he did she reached out and covered his chained hands gently with her own and they clasped their hands tight together for a long time as though in mute supplication. With an effort she gathered herself at last and swung abruptly on her heel

  Fumbling in her pocket she took out the flesh-coloured roll of adhesive tape. With the nail scissors she quickly cut off five strips of equal length and attached them to the edge of the torture bench. Then she turned to take the knife from him and passed back the first strip with her other hand. Turning away she twisted her right arm behind her back holding the stiletto by its point, so that the handle rested against her spine between her shoulder blades. Moving his cuffed hands with difficulty, he fastened the first piece of tape horizontally across the blade just below the hilt and pressed it against her skin on either side.

  She handed him the four remaining pieces of tape in turn and he pressed them carefully into place, one below the other, until a secure scabbard for the knife had been formed which left the handle standing free of the tape in the small of her back.

  When he bad finished, she picked up her jacket and slipped it on. She buttoned it up and turned her back to him so that he could survey the results. The knife had been taped so dose to her skin that no hint of its shape disturbed the line of the loose cotton jacket between the sharp jut of her shoulder blades. The chains linking his ankles clanked as he moved round in front of her and nodded. She picked up the remainder of the reel of adhesive tape and dropped it into the fire along with the pair of scissors,, then she peeled away the joints that had held the knife in the bamboo fan and dropped them into the fire too. Flapping the innocent leaf in front of her face, she walked to the far side of the cellar and turned and stood looking at him. After a moment she began walking slowly in his direction, fanning herself as she came.

  She stopped three feet away and spun around, dropping the fan as she did so. She unfastened her jacket, shrugged out of it, and took two paces towards the bench, all in the same movement. Yang rushed forward simultaneously raising his manacled hands to pluck the knife from its sheath between her shoulder blades. As she felt him grab the knife, she stepped smoothly to one side and with aloud clank of his ankle chains, Yang moved past her in a fast shuffle, the knife held high above his head. With one great lunge, be brought it down two-handed with all his strength and buried the blade deep in the wood of the torture bench.

  He crouched over the low table for a moment, breathing noisily. Then slowly he straightened up, and together they stood gazing at the still quivering knife. Then she looked at him and nodded. After a moment he nodded his head slowly too.

  He remained standing, breathing deeply through his nose to regain his composure while she tugged the knife free. She handed it to him and he returned it carefully to its sheath between her shoulder blades. She made him check its position once more before replacing her jacket. Then when she had buttoned it up, the led him, manacled hand and foot, up the steps and out of the cellar.

  PEKING, Wednesday—A powerful earth tremor shook Peking early today sending thousands of people rushing onto the streets, smashing windows and cracking walls. The tremor began at 0345 local time and lasted about two minutes.
/>   Reuters, 28 July 1976

  26

  Although midnight had long passed, the clammy breathless beat of the streets had not abated. To Scholefield, as he sat in the back of the moving Warszawa staring out of the open window at the low-roofed houses, the heat if anything seemed to have intensified. The houses bad obviously become intolerable ovens in the darkness and everywhere their occupants were sprawled outside the doors on stools and chairs, or on the ground itself; stripped down to their underclothing. A slow-moving night soil collection cart edged down the street in the opposite direction leaving a rank, ammoniac stench hanging heavily on the air in its wake.

  In the shadowy entrances to several hutungs, Scholefield caught a glimpse of determined-looking groups of men and women who had obviously set themselves apart. Their demeanour was more alert and the long wooden truncheons they carried marked them out as members of the People’s Militia, the paramilitary force built up by the radical wing of the leadership. Thunder grumbled in the far distance once more as the car swung south onto Wang Pu Ching, Peking’s main shopping street. It was almost deserted because of the hour and Scholefield immediately recognised the entrance to the East Wind Bazaar, the covered market of six hundred stalls where he had often hunted for jade and lacquerware bargains during his student days. The mandarin figure on his desk in London that Yang had admired) he remembered suddenly, had come from the market. A giant coloured portrait of Mao, flanked by two of his quotations in gold lettering on red boards, decorated the entrance now. The street itself he saw from a signpost, had been re—named Street of the People as a result of the Cultural Revolution. The car slowed as it passed the Peking Department Store and the New China Bookshop’s main depot and turned into the mouth of a narrow hutung at the end of which stood a tiny, old-fashioned shop now labelled ‘The Peking No.3 Watchmaker’s’.