by Don Winslow
But that was before the damn “reformers” came along—first the persnickety Chiang and then Mao, and now Beijing was a city as desexualized as the eunuchs who once ran it. Sure, there were a few “black gate women,” independent prostitutes who risked arrest on the street, but a man would have to have access to far better pharmacists than were available in present-day Beijing to resort to that.
The only person getting any illicit sex in the new China was the chief puritan himself, the Chairman. Soviet intelligence had confirmed that Mao had a personal battalion of “actresses” from the National People’s Opera at his beck and call. But it was just like that son of a bitch to feast while everyone else starved.
Even by Stalinist standards, Mao’s China was a cloud-cuckoo land of epic proportions. It would be easy to say that the lunatic was in charge of the asylum, but Mao was crazy like the proverbial fox. All of his mad proclamations were ultimately self-serving and brought him yet more power and control.
The Three Antis Campaign was rapidly stripping the country of its bourgeois middle management, and the recently launched Five Antis Campaign (I’ll see your Three Antis and raise you two, Voroshenin thought with a chuckle) — tax evasion, larceny, cheating, bribery, and stealing economic information — would soon rid China of most of its private businessmen.
And Mao had used the Korean War to conduct a witch hunt for “spies” and “foreign agents” that was reminiscent of the Red Terror in Russia thirty years ago. Neighbor was encouraged to inform on neighbor, suicides and executions were daily events, and the atmosphere of suspicion, fear, and paranoia in the city was palpable.
No wonder Uncle Joe was jealous.
Voroshenin tipped back the rest of his vodka and then heard Leotov’s distinctive knock. The man taps on a door like a mouse, Voroshenin thought — timid and tentative. As the months in this frigid open-air prison went by, Voroshenin found his chief assistant more and more annoying.
Then again, he thought, Beijing is making us all crazy.
“Come in.”
Leotov opened the door and stuck only his head through, as if making doubly sure he’d received permission to enter. “It’s time for the three o’clock briefing.”
“Yes, it’s three o’clock.”
Leotov minced his slight frame over to the desk and stood there until Voroshenin said, “Sit down.”
We do this every afternoon, Voroshenin thought. Every damn afternoon at three o’clock you stand in front of my desk and every damn afternoon at three o’clock I tell you to sit down. Could you not just once come in and plant your skinny ass down in the chair without an invitation?
I’m going stir crazy, he thought.
I need a woman.
“So, what’s new in the asylum today?” he asked.
Leotov blinked, then hesitated. Was this some sort of rhetorical trap that would get him denounced and then purged?
“The briefing?” Voroshenin prodded.
Leotov sighed with relief. He ran down the usual goings-on, the reports from moles in the endless Chinese committee meetings, the Chinese Defense Ministry’s thoughts on the stalemate in Korea, the latest round of executions of corrupt officials and counterrevolutionaries, then added, “And a new Westerner arrived in the city.”
Voroshenin was bored out of his mind. “Indeed. Who?”
“One Michel Guibert.”
“Only one?”
“Yes.”
Leotov was devoid of humor. A literal-minded drone of the sort we seem to crank out like tractor gears, Voroshenin thought. And completely useless as a chess opponent — plodding, unimaginative, and tediously predictable. Maybe I should have him arrested and interrogated just for amusement. “Go on.”
“A French national. The son of an arms dealer with ties to the French Communist Party. The father was apparently quite useful to the Resistance.”
“Weren’t they all, after the fact?” Voroshenin said. “That was a rhetorical question, Leotov, it doesn’t call for you to come up with a correct response. I couldn’t bear watching you attempt it. What’s this Guibert doing in Beijing?”
“We don’t exactly know,” Leotov answered. “But we do know he’s having dinner with General Liu’s aide, a certain Colonel Yu, tonight.”
Well, that’s interesting, Voroshenin thought. A French fellow-traveler, an arms dealer, being received by a high-ranking officer in the Defense Ministry. Surely the Chinese aren’t looking to buy weapons from the French. But it must be a matter of some urgency, otherwise the Chinese would make this Guibert sit on his hands for weeks, just to improve their bargaining position. They would make him work his way up through multiple levels of bureaucracy before getting to an important general like Liu, if he ever got there at all. So, for a high-level officer like Yu to host Guibert on the first day …
“Where is this dinner?” Voroshenin asked.
“In the banquet room of the Beijing Hotel.”
“A banquet, is it?”
“Apparently.”
Voroshenin stared at him. “Do I detect irony, Vasili?”
“Certainly not.”
Voroshenin frowned until little dots of sweat emerged on Leotov’s upper lip. Satisfied, he said, “Get on the phone to Liu’s secretary and tell him that my invitation was apparently lost and I need to know what time I should show up.”
“Do you think he will —”
“We pay him enough, don’t we?” Voroshenin snapped. “He can come up with an invitation to a lousy dinner. Just tell him to strangle another chicken or press another duck, or whatever the hell it is these people do.”
“Yes, Comrade.”
“Oh, stop it. Get out, Vasili. Go see if the phones are working.” He watched as Leotov jumped up, crossed the room, then slowly closed the door so as to make the least possible noise and not give offense. It was profoundly aggravating.
As was the sudden appearance of a new player, this Guibert. The game was at a critical juncture — the move of a knight or even a pawn would achieve checkmate — and what a pleasure it would be to take this particular king off the board.
He’d had to deal with the obnoxious Chairman for twenty years — tolerate his boundless ego, his sexual voracity, his hypochondria and hypocrisy, his endless treachery and relentless ambition, but soon he would able to view Mao’s severed head in a bamboo cage hanging from the Gate of Heaven.
They’d already chosen his successor — Gao Gang was the Chinese party boss in Manchuria, and he was ready to step in. Just waiting for the word to be delivered via Voroshenin from the puppet-masters in Moscow.
If all goes as planned over the next few months, we will replace the troublesome Mao with the pliable Gao.
So this was not the time for an additional complication, especially one involving Liu. The general was too smart, too tough, and his own man. He’d already rebuffed numerous offers to buy him. And now what’s he up to with this gunrunning Frog?
Voroshenin opened his desk drawer and took out the vodka bottle. He’d promised himself that he would only take one drink in the afternoon, but Beijing was really getting to him and the alcohol might quell his sexual frustrations. Perhaps they would have actresses at the banquet tonight, maybe even whores.
As if there’s a difference.
As if there’s a chance, he admitted.
He knocked back the drink in one throw, looked at his watch, and decided that there was time to go and visit Kang Sheng, the head of the Chinese secret police. Another broken promise, he thought sadly. The better part of him didn’t want to go see the man, despised himself for it, and yet he was drawn.
22
KANG SHENG DRESSED all in black.
At this moment, the head of the Chinese secret police wore a black lounging robe and black pajama pants over black slippers, but he was known to go about in public in black padded coats, black suits, and black fur-lined hats. On a lesser person, this sartorial eccentricity would have been labeled counterrevolutionary decadence and had potentially dis
astrous consequences, but no one in Beijing had the nerve to think, much less utter, such an opinion.
Kang Sheng had been Mao’s chief torturer since 1930. He had personally tormented thousands of Mao’s rivals back in Jiangxi, and survivors whispered that they had heard the howling of his victims during the long nights in the caves of Yenan. What he didn’t know about xun-ban, torture, had yet to be discovered; although, to give him his due, Kang Sheng was ceaseless in his efforts to discover new methods of inflicting agony.
In fact, at this very moment Comrade Kang was diligently conducting research.
His new home near the old Bell and Drum Towers in the north-central district of the city was the former mansion of a recently deceased capitalist. More of a small palace, it had guest houses where Kang’s armed guards now resided, as well as courtyards, walled gardens, and pebbled pathways. Kang had done nothing to change it, except for the construction of a concrete-lined “cave” far in the back garden.
Now, teacup in hand, he sat back in a deep chair in the cave and enjoyed the screams of his latest subject.
She was the wife of a former general in the northwest district who had been accused of being a spy for the Kuomintang regime in Taiwan. A beautiful young lady — sable hair, alabaster skin, and a body that was a sensual pleasure to behold — she bravely refused to supply incriminating confirmation of her husband’s treachery.
Kang was grateful for her uxorial loyalty. It prolonged his pleasure. “Your husband is an imperialist spy.”
“No.”
“Tell me what he said to you,” Kang demanded. “Tell me what he whispered to you in bed.”
“Nothing.”
A knock on the door interrupted his enjoyment.
“What is it?” he snapped.
“A visitor,” came the answer. “Comrade Voroshenin.”
Kang smiled. There were so many ways of achieving power and influence. “Send him in.”
23
THE KEY TO THE CURRENT condition of Chinese plumbing, Nicholai decided, was never to take no for an answer.
He tried three times to get hot water from the taps of the bathtub before he succeeded, and when it finally came, it did so with a scalding vengeance, an all-or-nothing-at-all response to his repeated entreaties.
Gently lowering himself into the water, Nicholai was reminded of the tub he’d enjoyed at his Tokyo home in what seemed like a lifetime ago, but was barely four years. They had been happy, albeit short days, with Watanabe-san and the Tanake sisters in the garden he had carefully constructed with the goal of shibumi.
He might have lived his whole life there quite happily, had it not been for the honor-bound necessity to kill General Kishikawa that caused his subsequent arrest, torture, and imprisonment at the hands of the Americans.
And then the offer of freedom in exchange for this little errand.
To terminate Yuri Voroshenin.
Moreover, Nicholai despised nothing more than a torturer. A sadist who inflicts pain on the helpless deserves death.
But Voroshenin was only the first torturer on Nicholai’s list.
Next would come Diamond and his two minions who had shattered Nicholai’s body and mind and come close to destroying his spirit. He knew that the Americans didn’t expect him to survive the Voroshenin mission, but he would surprise them, and then he would surprise Diamond and the two others.
It would mean leaving Asia, probably forever, and that thought saddened him and caused him some anxiety about what life would be like in the West. A European by ethnicity, he had never even been there. His entire life had been spent in China or Japan, and he felt more Asian than Western. Where would he live? Not in the United States, certainly, but where?
Perhaps in France, he decided. That would please Solange. He could envision a life with her, in some quiet place.
Nicholai pushed the thought of her out of his mind to focus on the present. Picturing a Go board in his head, he played the black stones and placed them in their current position. The point now was to push forward to gain proximity to Voroshenin. To create a position from which to get Voroshenin in a vulnerable place.
Given the close surveillance, he couldn’t simply track the target down and find an opportune moment. No, he would have to find a way to lure Voroshenin to an isolated spot, while at the same time losing his Chinese tails.
He studied the imaginary board to find that opportunity, but couldn’t find it. That didn’t worry him — like life, the go-kang was neither static nor unilateral. The opponent was also thinking and moving, and very often it was the opponent’s move that provided opportunity.
Be patient, he told himself, recalling the lessons his Go master Otake-san had taught him. If your opponent is of a choleric nature, he will be unable to restrain himself. He will seek you out, and show you the open gate to his vulnerability.
Let your enemy come to you.
Nicholai sank deeper into the tub and enjoyed the hot water.
24
HAVING MADE a life’s study of human weakness, Kang noticed the Russian’s fascination with the torture. It emanated from him as strongly as his body odor, which stank of stale sweat and alcohol.
Kang didn’t judge. He was a sadist himself, it was simply his nature, and if the Russian joined him in deriving pleasure from other people’s pain, it was merely a sexual preference. The odor, however, was offensive. A man could not change his nature, but he could bathe.
Voroshenin tore his eyes off the woman and said, “Actually, I came on business.”
Kang smiled. You came on the pretext of business, he thought, but very well. We shall humor your self-delusion.
“The Vixen Yips an Opera,” he said to his assistant, naming a relatively mild yet exquisite torture that he knew Voroshenin would find compelling, both from his taste for pain and his passion for Beijing opera.
“Manban,” he added, meaning that he wanted the beating conducted at a slow tempo. Kang knew that Voroshenin would appreciate it. “We can go to my study.”
Voroshenin followed him into an adjoining room, where he noticed that Kang left the door ajar.
“You mentioned something about business,” Kang said, enjoying the Russian’s discomfiture.
“This Frenchman who arrived today,” Voroshenin said. Of course Kang would already know about him. Nothing of note occurred in Beijing without its being reported to the head of the Chinese secret police.
Voroshenin heard the high-pitched yelp, which did indeed sound like a vixen yipping for her mate.
Kang smiled in acknowledgment, then said, “Guibert?”
“I believe that’s his name.”
“And what of him?”
“What’s he doing here?” Voroshenin asked.
“Something to do with arms to our revolutionary little brothers in Vietnam,” Kang answered.
“Guns to the Viet Minh?”
“Apparently.”
“He’s French,” Voroshenin said, “and he’s selling weapons to be used against his own people?”
“Since when do gunrunners know nationality?” Kang asked. “Or capitalists morality?”
The woman’s cry was perfectly in tune with the overall composition.
Voroshenin objected, “Vietnam is in the Soviet sphere.”
“A glance at the globe would indicate differently.”
“You’ve never given a damn about Vietnamese independence,” Voroshenin grumbled, listening to the woman’s moans.
Kang heard them too. The whimpers were now an underlying theme. “I am offended. We care deeply about the plight of all peoples suffering under the imperialist lash.”
“This is Liu’s operation?”
“It would seem so.”
“And you trust him?”
“I trust no one.”
It was an open secret among the higher echelons of the intelligence communities that Liu loathed Mao and was always searching for an opportunity to displace him. It was only the general’s personal power and popularity a
mong the army that kept him alive and out of this very cave.
As much as Voroshenin shared Liu’s distaste for the Chairman, Liu’s success would be a disaster for the Kremlin. They already had their man waiting in Manchuria. A complete puppet, unlike Liu, who would be independent and might very well edge China toward an alliance with the West.
It couldn’t be allowed.
The woman hit a high note of crystalline purity.
Voroshenin stood up. “I should be going.”
Ten years, Kang thought. It was absolutely essential to preserve the Soviet alliance for ten more years. The ultra-secret military-industrial development was already under way in the southwest and would be completed in a decade. And by that time, China would have the atomic bomb, would be an economic powerhouse as well, and they would have completed the transformation of the society. Then there would be a reckoning with the condescending, patriarchal, neo-imperialist Soviets.
But they would need ten more years of Russian economic aid and military protection to realize their plans, and nothing must be allowed to interfere with that. So he stood up, took Voroshenin by the elbow, ushered him back into the torture room, and asked, “Do you want her?”
The Russian didn’t answer, and Kang took his silence as assent. He walked over to the woman and asked, “Do you want to save your husband?”
“Yes.”
“There is something you can do.”
“Anything.”
Kang drew Voroshenin aside.
“Take her,” he said. “Any way you want. My gift to you. But for added pleasure? When you are about to climax, whisper into her ear the truth that her husband is already dead. It will be exquisite, I promise you.”
He left Voroshenin alone with the woman, but lingered outside the cave to savor the subtle change in the tone of her screams, what in the opera they would call wawa diao, an aria of highest emotion.
