The Chinese Assassin (19 page)

But long
befor
e
,
without our knowledge,
the plotters
had infiltrated their
own
personnel
into key positions in
the Peitaiho control tower and among
the air and
ground staff
manning
the Trident itself. And as the evening breeze from off the
sea
began to cool the exceptional heat of the
day
on
12th
September, they struck.

Just
as the
sun
was
setting,
Marshall Lin’s daughter ‘Tou-tou’, named affectionately at birth by her father after the beans he loved so well, was strolling disconsolately in the
sand dunes
beside the shore. She had wandered out on her own, deeply depressed and,
like the rest
of the family, beside
herself with anxiety
for her father. She was worried too about the
effect his
fate might have on all their lives
and because
of
this,
she scarcely looked where she stepped. She had taken to walking out alone at that same
time
each evening since our arrival in Peitaiho
and this
had obviously allowed our enemies to draw up a strategy.

Because of her distress she took little notice at
first when a
group of
men appeared among the
dunes, chasing
a dog. As they drew nearer, however, she noticed that the men were shouting wildly
and waving their
arms. The dog was baying, too, in a most unnatural manner and she first began to be apprehensive when she
saw it bounding
towards her.

She
turned
and
began
to run. But the dog, a
powerful animal
of
the kind
used to guard military installations,
caught
her easily.

It sprang upon her back
and
she fell screaming to the
ground with the dog snarling and tearing
at her clothes. Before it
was
able to inflict more
than superficial
injuries, however, the crowd of
army
men and civilians giving
chase
arrived and drove the dog off

Tou-tou, shocked
and
hysterical,
did
not resist when one of them
carrying
a leather satchel with a
red cross
painted on it
declared
himself to be a doctor. He told her that the dog
was believed
to be rabid and that
was
why it was
being
pursued. The dog’s attack had left scratches
and lacerations
on her neck
and arms and
he drew a hypodermic from his bag, explaining that an early
injection
could protect her
against
a possibly fatal infection.

Her brother, Li
n
Li-kuo, had been attracted by
the commotion
and
he ran to her side from the nearby
grounds
of Marshall Li
n
’s quarters. As he arrived
breathless
on the scene, the doctor
was just withdrawing
the
needle
of the empty hypodermic from his sister’s arm. At that moment a volley of shots rang out
and
the men
pursuing
the
dog
cheered as
the
animal staggered
and
fell dead in the
surf
on
the
beach. Before the
bewildered Lin
Li-kuo
had fully
realised what had happened, the doctor
had persuaded
him that he
too
should have an
inoculation
against possible
infection, and
he rolled up his sleeve on
the
spot.

Between
them he
and
the ‘doctor’ carried the shocked Tou-tou back to the house. She was very pale
and
near to
unconsciousness.
Because of
their
great consternation,
Marshall Lin and his wife
also submitted without
demur
to the doctor’s immediate insistence that the entire household,
family
and
domestic
workers, should be
inoculated too.

Marshall Li
n
sat, quietly
at his
desk with
his eyes downcast as the
needle
punctured
the
slack,
scrawny muscle
of his left arm. He watched the ‘doctor’ press home the
ounce
or
two
of colourless
liquid
without
knowing
it would
finally
quench the long
indomitable fighting spirit that had made him one of China’s greatest-ever warriors. Or perhaps deep within
himself
he
did
know—and
still
refused,
because of
his courage and his li
fe
-long loyalties to
the ideals
of
the
old Chairman Mao, to turn aside.

The
details
of this might have remained
unknown
to me if Marshall Lin’s young cook, Sao Li, had not taken fright as he waited in
line
in the study
with
the rest of the
staff
for his turn
under
the needle. He
was
a thin, squeamish youth, and after seeing Marshall Tin injected he suddenly took to his
heels and ran from the
house
without knowing
why.

He
ran
through the town to the Palace of Culture where
Lao
Kao and I were
attending a performance
of revolutionary music. We had gone
there
for an hour or two’s respite from the
deep pall
of unbearable
despair
that
gripped
the household. When Sao Li
burst
into the packed auditorium I recognised his
scarecrow
figure
at once. He stood by the stage
staring
round
uncertainly
at sea of
faces in the
audience. In the
unknowing
alarm of his expression I at once read
confirmation
of my worst nightmares. I pulled
Lao
Kao to his feet
and
shouted
and
waved to the cook. When he
saw
us we all
ran
headlong from the
ha
l
l,
heedless of the commotion we ca
u
sed.

I took the wheel of
our car
and drove at
breakneck
speed back to the
house.
My heart sank as Sao Li related what had
happened.
I cursed
myself
again
and
again in an agony of remorse for
leaving Marshall Li
n
’s
side. The cook could not
explain
why he had run out to fetch us. But I think he
was
as instinctively aware,
just
as we as outsiders were, that the ‘mad dog’ hue
and cry was just
the
beginning
of some terrible
subterfuge.

Lao
Kao
and
I
did
not exchange a single word. He sat
white- faced
beside me
clutching
the
dashboard
as we raced along
the
beach road. There
was.
no moon
that
night,
and
the
surf
roared loudly in
the
blind
darkness
beside the highway. I
expected
to
find
the house ringed with
hostile troops and
I
had
quickly become reconciled
during
that
wild drive
to
giving
myself under
arrest
to them in order to demonstrate my loyalty to Marshall
Lin.
But when we arrived the house stood dark
and
silent. At
first
I thought it was a
trap.
But
once inside
we found the rooms empty. Nothing had been removed, nothing packed, no preparations made for departure.

We stood in
Marshall
Li
n
’s
study,
the three of us
,
staring helplessly at one another. The
house was
silent as a grave. I picked up an empty syringe from
the desk and
held it
in
my hand. I would have jabbed
its point into
my
own
heart at that moment in my
misery.

Then we heard a
groaning
from the rear of the house. I dashed through to
the
kitchen
and found the
wash amah slumped in a corner, her head in her hands. She tried to look up at us but she
couldn’t focus her eyes because of the drug that had been injected into her. The cook shook her
roughly
and asked her
where
everybody
had gone.
Had they been
taken away by force?

‘No, no,’ she
sobbed.
‘Lin Tou-tou became hysterical. She began to suffer
spasms and
foam at the mouth. The doctor
said
she must go at once to Shanghai for treatment or she would die.’

I grabbed the a
m
ah by the shoulders. ‘How
did
they travel?’ I shouted at her.

The woman seemed on the point of
losing consciousness.
I slapped her sharply in the face
and she
opened he eyes
with
the shock. ‘The Trident!
They
are all flying to a hospital in
Shanghai.
They left
half an
hour ago.’ She groaned something
unintelligible and
collapsed against me, her face
ashen.

At
that
moment we heard a footstep in
the
stone passageway behind us and
turned
to
find three soldiers with
rifles confronting us. Broad-bladed bayonets
jutted
from the ends of their
weapons and
I recognised this ‘badge’ of
the
special
troops
from Unit 834
1
, Chairman Mao’s
crack
personal bodyguard
in the
Chung
Nan Ha
i

I leapt to my feet
and
backed away holding
the
now
unconscious
amah in front of me. I shouted to
Lao Kao
to
make a dash
for the door
behind
us. It
was
at the
end
of a narrow passageway beside the
fireplace and
from
the
corner of my
eye I saw
him fumble
with
the door for a moment
then
hurl himself out into the
courtyard.