Citizen One (48 page)

The PLA staring ahead, a cobble stone worn smooth.

“Colonel Zhong Qi, esteemed and much loved son and comrade of Senior Colonel Gu Qi, was unfortunately amongst those lost and is presumed dead. The Party would like to place on record its appreciation for the life and service of this esteemed comrade. A comrade who was an example to all, in terms of leadership and service to the Party and to the proletariat of the People’s Republic of China …”

Citizen One twisted the cap tightly onto the bottle of
Dukang
and stowed it away.

“A son, Comrade Senior Colonel, was it not worth having a son, if only for him to receive such a wonderful and touching epitaph?”

*

One hour later
.

A public telephone in the lobby of the Heping, Hotel of Peace. To the off-key strains of the septuagenarian quintet singing, ‘The Green, Green Grass of Home’, Citizen One pulling on his spectacles and dialling a number. The telephone receiver at the other end of the line picked up within two rings.

‘Ni nar.’

“Madam, you will forgive me if I speak in haste, but as you know I have much to do. Our internal differences have been resolved, but the international dimension still needs my full attention.”

So far away, but he would have sworn that he could hear the Sea of Bohai rolling to the beach.

“Madam, I must thank you for your invaluable assistance in contacting Comrade Ai Yu. The timely assistance of the Immediate Action Unit was invaluable in the operation to rescue the Comrade Senior Investigator.”

So far away, but he would have sworn that he could smell the camphor wood fires throwing their long shadows across the caramel hued sands.

“A very fine comrade, your husband, but I was surprised that you assisted me in my efforts to rescue a man that you appear to have so easily discarded, Madam.”

Several seconds, just the electronic white noise that pervaded all province to province telephone calls.

“It was my duty, Citizen One. He is still my husband.”

“Just duty Madam?”

Silence.

“Madam?”

“And I respect him. Is that a good enough reason, Comrade Citizen One?”

Even down the telephone line, sensing her smile.

“A good enough reason, Madam? Of course, perhaps the best reason possible.”

Removing his spectacles, the
tong zhi
, a part of the ritual of ending a call.

“Once again, Madam, thank you for your assistance. I will telephone you again next week.”

“Comrade Citizen One …”

Stilling the fall of handset to its cradle.

“Sun Piao, my husband, he is safe?”

“Yes, Madam, very safe and recovering well.”

“And where have you spirited him away to, Comrade Citizen One?”

“Have I not said, Madam?”

An invisible smile. Much that she could learn from a comrade such as this Citizen One.

“No, you have not said, Comrade.”

Seconds, the ocean of white noise ebbing, flowing.

“Strange, I thought that I had. Our fine Comrade Senior
Investigator Piao and his Deputy are in the land of Lenin and
of Stalin, in the land of dead tsars and cabbage soup, Madam.”

THE LONG MARCH CONFERENCE ROOM.

THE GREAT HALL OF THE PEOPLE, TIANANMEN SQUARE, BEIJING.

One dog barks at something, the rest bark at him
.

The private office of the General Secretary of the Central Secretariat, Comrade Su-Tu, just down the corridor from the Great Hall of the People. An office that few saw, in case the true nature of the beast be known.

“These are the last of them, Comrade General Secretary.”

A sheaf of papers. The words of politicians shaped into legalistic agreements by the Central Secretariat’s legal department.

“All returned, agreed, signed?”

“Yes, Comrade General Secretary. Forty-five nations have accepted our gift to them of Golden Rice. They are most appreciative.”

A yoke lifted from the shoulders. A smile from Su-Tu.

“Excellent, old friend. Excellent. And they know how to demonstrate their appreciation in this matter?”

“Of course, Comrade General Secretary. When the IOC meets next week in Geneva they will vote for the games to remain in Beijing.”

Su-Tu, fingers across the spines of books neatly stacked in shelves. Golden titles etched into leather. ‘The Art of War’, by Sun Tzu. Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’, ‘Dreams of the Red Chamber’, by Ts’ao Chan, Steinbeck’s, ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ and ‘Cannery Row’.

So many volumes, all unread.

“And these nations’ votes will have the desired effect?”

“An audit has already been carried out, Comrade General Secretary. It is favourable, but we do need America and the votes that they influence to be certain.”

A nod of understanding.

“Good work, old friend, we always knew that the mathematics in regard to this difficulty would be complex. However, we have what the Americans would call, ‘an ace card’ to play. You have been fully briefed?”

“Yes, Comrade General Secretary.”

“Excellent, excellent. I will communicate our progress to Citizen One. The American negotiator has already arrived and is waiting in the Long March conference room.”

Moving to the door, Su-Tu, a weighty hand on the comrade’s shoulder.

“Remember, Citizen One watches us. We have much to win, much to lose.”

“You will inform Comrade Citizen One of every detail of what we hope will be agreed with the Americans, General Secretary?”

“Yes, of course, old friend. The
tong zhi
will be fully informed with a version of what we will have agreed. And will be furnished with a version of the papers that will be drawn up.”

Patting the comrade’s shoulder.

“He deserves nothing less, yes, old friend? A version of the truth for a comrade who represents a version of our People’s Republic as it was a half a century ago.”

Again, patting the comrade’s shoulder.

“Now, do not let me down. I will expect a great deal from these negotiations, old friend.”

Moving to the door, the
cadre
.

“I will not let you down, Comrade General Secretary.”

Smiling broadly.

“Americans, they are predictable. Greedy. They will be as the hungry carp, happy to take the maggot, however sharp the barb of the hook.”

*

A room of perfect dimensions. Its width, a complex mathematical representation of the distance walked during the Long March, 12,000 kilometres. Its length based on the number of good comrades who started the march, 87,000. Its height, a calculation based upon the number of comrades who completed the epic journey, 10,000.

Across the full length of the conference room’s longest wall, un-breached by the triple glazed windows that took in the full expanse of Tiananmen Square, a massive tableau of the heroes of the Long March, painted in the grand Soviet style. At its epicentre, the Great Helmsman himself. Around him the swirl of a vast red banner. Across his shoulder the bloody birth of a rising sun. In his eyes the past, the future, meeting and welded together in a political ideology that would surely last until the sun had lost its fire.

At one end of the long conference table, the old comrade. At the other, the American negotiator.

Through his half-glasses the
cadre
watching her eyes, bluer than he had ever witnessed before, as they travelled across the printed lines of the report. Fully thirty minutes. Not a sentence that was not fully dissected. Not a full stop that was not examined. Finally her gaze rising.

“Everything is there, Madam Negotiator. Surely you can trust a man in my position?”

A politician’s smile.

“Comrade, I am not here to trust. I am here to negotiate. The two can be completely different, and often are.”

Looking down at the papers again.

“Yes, everything is here. Except the answer to my questions and the price.”

“Questions, Madam? What questions can you have? You know what it is that you are purchasing. Your experts will have already analysed the initial data that we provided for them.”

She, experienced, letting him talk.

“You know its worth, Madam, or you would not be sitting here. Several smallpox ‘chimaera’. The only smallpox that now exists in our world. Your nation, mine, the only ones to have such hybrid viruses. Also weaponised anthrax. Detailed data on ebola, clostridium botulinum, pneumonic plague, HFV-Lassa virus. Each you will get samples of.”

Letting him set out his stall.

“And detailed data. More than your nation could ever achieve itself. Far more. And you have questions?”

In her hands, data charts, graphs, virulence counts, toxicity levels, infection rates.

“Yes Comrade, I have questions. This data, these samples, where do they come from?”

“I regret, but this information is classified.”

Sensing her advantage.

“There could be human rights issues here, Comrade.”

Standing, the comrade.

“One minute. One minute …”

Moving to the door. Through a gap, another voice, in darkness. An animated conversation. One minute passing, then five. The American negotiator checking her watch. Watching his every step as the old comrade resumed his place at her side. Speaking reluctantly, his face turned away from her, and from the heroes of the Long March.

“Zhong Ma. You know these words, Madam?”

An ambiguous movement of the head. Neither ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

“Zhong Ma was a Japanese prison camp at Beiyinhe, just outside Harbin. It was there, and at Pingfang, between the years 1938 and 1945, that Unit 731 carried out human experimentation on Chinese nationals.”

She waiting for him to continue.

“1,000 autopsies, some while the patients were still alive. 3,000 deaths. Our nationals experimented on with anthrax, bubonic plague, cholera, typhoid, and many other diseases. Some refer to it as the eastern Auschwitz.”

“I am not familiar with the details, but I believe you are substantially correct.”

Close to her.

“From these experiments, anthrax used by the Japanese in specially designed fragmentation bombs. Cholera, typhoid, dropped into wells, ponds. From these experiments, plague infected fleas, dropped over Ningbo, in the east of my country. In Changde, in the central areas of the north of my country.”

Silence.

“Over 200,000 of my fellow comrades dying as a consequence of these experiments. In 1945, your General Douglas MacArthur sent an intelligence team, on behalf of your American government, to interrogate the Japanese scientists of Unit 731. Yes, Madam?”

“I believe that is correct.”

“The Japanese commanding officer, Shiro Ishii, and the team of Unit 731, were given immunity from war crimes prosecutions in exchange for their data on human experimentation. Yes?”

“I cannot comment.”

“The data that your government received from the war criminals of Unit 731 formed the basis of your biological weapons’ programme for many decades. It placed America in the forefront of this field of research.”

Silence.

“So I do hope that you will not question me on any of the human rights issues that might arise from such research, Madam Negotiator. American hands, they are not exactly clean in this area.”

Silence, for many, many seconds. As if within that span of time, theirs were the only lives still beating on the planet.

“Madam, we have another Zhong Ma, another Pingfang. This is where these samples and data come from. But this time the project was started by one of our own, a rogue army officer, and the research conducted by an eminent Russian scientist. One well known to your own government.”

She trying to remember the name in her last night’s briefing papers.

“You are still thinking about the human rights issues, Madam Negotiator. I suppose that you will now walk away. Fly home to your own country?”

No longer listening, just waiting for the next negotiating ploy.

“Madam Negotiator, there are other nations that would appreciate this data. Many nations, as you well know. But as I have stressed, our two nations have, have … how can I say this without causing offence? Our two nations have a ‘history’ in this field.”

Thinking, how could someone dealing in lives by the millions sound like a third-rate estate agent.

“It would be sad to end this special relationship at this point, Madam.”

Looking to the massive painting as if for inspiration.

“And the cost, Madam? Firstly your support and the support of America’s friends at the IOC meeting in Geneva next week.”

His eyes, from Mao’s, to the negotiator’s.

“And secondly, Madam, the sum of $5 billion for the data and for the unique samples that resulted from this new research. Alternatively we will accept an offer of $15 billion for an opportunity for your nation to work in partnership with us in this exciting research opportunity.”

Not a flicker, the scene rehearsed a thousand times.

“This research is on-going?”

“Yes, Madam. Although we have moved it to an even more secure location.”

“But the Russian who led your research project, he is now dead.”

Smiling, the comrade.

“Wherever did you hear that, Madam Negotiator?”

Shaking his head.

“No, no, no, Madam. The Russian is still in harness, but now invisible to the world. He still heads this research project and will continue its excellent work.”

Suddenly standing, the negotiator, straightening her skirt. Without a word, moving to the large double doors. Hurriedly following in her footsteps, the
cadre
.

“Madam, Madam. I did not wish to offend you. If it is about your concerns with regards to human rights issues …”

“I need to get to a telephone.”

“That will not be necessary, Madam Negotiator. If you wish to call for your car I will …”

“Comrade …”

Turning, the American negotiator.

“I wish access to a secure telephone line. I need to call my superiors in Washington.”

The rubric glow from the Great Hall of the People, framing her.

“I only have the authorisation from my government to offer up to $10 billion, and it is clear that this figure will need to be substantially increased.”