The Chinese Assassin (41 page)

* * *

Inside the back door of the former Windsor Park Hotel, Tan Sui-ling stood beside the Central External Liaison Department’s station chief as two junior diplomats wheeled the stretcher bearing Yang across the basketball court. Against the glare of
the
floodlights they were gawky silhouettes. Behind, them the American ambulance reversed towards the gates in the high fence. As they watched, it stopped in
the gateway, and the black driver jumped out and ran back to the doorway. The CELD man went forward to meet him.

‘The special Japanese Airlines f
l
ight J
L
719
scheduled to leave Dulles in
90
minutes will be held for him,’ he said tersely. ‘Customs and security at the airport have been primed to allow hint through unconscious. The Japanese have agreed to co-operate for this one f
l
ight to Tokyo to make a connection to Peking with no questions asked. If you don’t get him out tonight, we give no further guarantees.’ Without waiting for a response the black man turned and ran back to the ambulance. He jumped in and moved the vehicle out onto Connecticut Avenue. The gates were slammed shut behind it and the floodlights on the asphalt basketball court suddenly blacked out.

The two diplomats pushing the stretcher trolley manoeuvred it carefully in through the double doors and the CELD nun stepped forward to inspect Yang’s face in the overhead passage light. A moment later he picked up his right wrist and felt for a pulse. He stood with his head on one side for fully ha
l
f
a minute, checking his watch. Then he dropped the wrist and nodded briefly to Tan S
u
i-ling, before swinging round to lead the way along the corridor towards what had once been the hotel’s service lift.

Tan S
u
i-ling walked beside the stretcher, with her back to the two men pushing it. As the party moved down the dimly-lit corridor, Yang’s -eyes flickered open. The first thing his gaze lighted on was Tan Sui-ling’s face. Shielding the movement from the men pushing the trolley with her body, Tan let her hand fall on Yang’s arm. She applied quick, gentle pressure with her fingers and smiled at him. Immediately he
cl
osed his eyes again.

21

Scholefield
lunged down the stairs two
at a
time, ran across the
lobby
and wrenched open
the door to
the
street.
Then
he stopped.
Harvey Ketterman was standing
stock still at the kerb. He had
given
himself up entirely to a foul
and fluent stream
of
cuss-words which only ceased
when he noticed
Scholefield
standing
beside ham

‘It
was
right here,
dammit!’
He
pointed foolishly
into
the empty gutter.
‘I left it right here
and
the bastards have towed it away.’ Another torrent of four-letter words escaped his lips in an unbroken flow. ‘Christ,
if this isn’t
my lucky day!’ He rubbed his jaw
again and
glared at his watch. It
was
ten
minutes
to midnight.

‘Your
bio-rhythms have obviously all
hit zero
at once, Harvey. You should go home, go to bed
and stay there till there’s an upturn.’

Ketterman
ignored
Scholefield
and stepped off the
kerb. He
ran
across in front of
two f
a
st-approaching
cars,
coming
dangerously near to cannoning into the front
wing
of one of them. The
wail
of
blaring
horns from
two drivers,
more
relieved than
angry at
having narrowly avoided slaughtering another insane jaywalker,
faded fist into the night as they
rushed
on
down Virginia Avenue.

Scholefield waited
for a safe gap in
the traffic
then
ran
after Ketterman. He
caught him
up
on the grass by the
mounted statue of Bernardo Da
Galvez and fe
ll
into stride beside him. They rounded
the western
wing
of the
State
Department
and turned
south down 23rd Street. A high grassy
bank rose
abruptly on the western side of the street topped with a
chain
link fence
and barbed
wire. A signboard
announced
that they were passing the Naval Bureau of Medicine
and
Surgery.

‘Have
you got
Yang
in there, Harvey?’
Scholefield
nodded towards the sign.
‘Pumpi
n
g
truth drugs into him
and shining
bright lights in his eyes?’

Ketterman didn’t
reply.

‘I know you flew him to Washington
after
the
Russians
brought him to England on a submarine-and-rubber-dinghy package tour. Then you used a
friendly
Triad gang to snatch him from St. George’s.’

Ketterman stopped
suddenly and
turned to face Scholefield. ‘Why
did Tan Sui-ling
approach you?’

‘To complain about your
treacherous
ways, Harvey, of
course. What else?
Everybody’s doing
it these days.’ Sch
o
l
e
f
i
eld’s
tone
was deliberately offensive.
‘The Chinese, the
Russians—even Katr
in
a. And
certainly Percy Crowdleigh
and his
friends aren’t going to be very pleased when
they find
out you smuggled Yang out of
the country
under
th
e
ir noses.’

‘She wouldn’t
give
you
that information
without
some
special motive!’

‘Maybe the
Chinese
are
growing tired
of
their perfidious
superpower friends
and are looking to
a reliable
third
force in
dear
old Europe.’

Ketterman put a
hand
on Scholefield’s
shoulder in
a confiding gesture. ‘Look Dick, I’m genuinely sorry I can’t throw more light on this. But this
isn’t
a matter of
swapping notes
on a Red Flag editorial
any
more. It’s up as high
as
the
White
House roof right now—and those who don’t know you
like
I do, would
say
“How the hell do we know be
isn’t
working for the
Chinese?

Scholefield
shook his
head
slowly in
disbelief: “Deceit makes
the world go round”, is
that
your motto, Harvey? To you nothing
seems
what
it really is. I’m surprised
you can
tell
who
you’re
working for
any
more.’

The
two
men
glared
at one another for a moment without speaking. In the brief silence a police
siren wailed distantly then grew stronger. Above their heads
the
disembodied landing lights
of an aircraft
swung
slowly down
the sky heading int
o
the National Airport

Ketterman
spread his
hands
outwards su
dd
enly in a
gesture
of
resignation.
‘Okay Dick, I’ll give you a picture, right? It won’t be everything
because
as I’ve told you this whole thing is in the White House now.
And I can’t
compromise
any
of
that.’
He took Scholefield by the elbow and guided him down the hill towards Constitution Avenue
arid
the park.
‘Yes
okay, I
talked
to
“Yang”.
That’s not his
real
name. He won’t
say
what it is. But he
claims
he’s a genuine survivor
and
old Toktokho
did
give him
succour and
sustenance—that part at
least
of his folios seems true. I’ve had him sign a
Ninth
Folio
that counteracts the
other eight
which
he concocted together
with
the KGB’s
disinformation f
ai
rytalers.
A lie for a lie, a
truth
for a
truth—but
it blocks the
goddamned Russkies,
okay?’

Scholefield was listening
intently,
his head bent
as
he
walked. ‘What
really happened on that Trident?’

‘We think Lin’s men got to know it
was going
to
be sabotaged
by the
radicals
so they put a Lin-Piao “look alike” on
board and
kept the
genuine article
at home,
meaning
to produce him
later. Yang went along
to supervise
the spoof—and jumped
on a parachute before the bomb went off. He kept
the
Russians
in
the
dark
about that for
the
four years they held him.’

Scholefield let a long breath
whistle
out
between
pursed lips. ‘So what
are
the Russians
trying
to
pull
out of the hat now
with
the folios?’

They had come out onto Constitution Avenue at the
foot
of
the
hill
and
the
fast
flow of
traffic
halted them abruptly at
the
pavement’s edge.
Ketterman
stared across at the bright flood of
white
light illuminating
the
Doric colonnade of-the
Lincoln
Memorial
The dark
matchstick-sized figure
of a man
was
visible
standing
silhouetted against the
white
stone
between
the massive
middle pillars
of
the
northern
face
of the monument. Ketterman
stif
fe
ned
for a brief
instant.
‘Yang says they’re planning to
assassinate
Mao
in
Peking
any time
now.’ He
had
to shout to
make himself
heard above the roar of the traffic
rushing
through the green light. ‘They’re
using
Yang
and the
folios
as
a smoke screen to
hang it
all
on the radicals. They want to cool the border thing, he says,
and
bring home a million and a half boys to work in the refrigerator factories and on the farms to
build
a Soviet fatherland
running
with milk and consumer goods.’

‘Where’s Yang now?’

The lights
changed
suddenly
and
the flow of traffic
screeched
to a
standstill. Ketterman
immediately hurried across.
Inside
the park it
was quieter.
‘I’m
sorry
Dick, I can’t reveal
his
whereabouts to you—now or ever.’ He looked at
his
watch and quickened his pace again.

They walked on in
silence
for a minute then Scholefield stopped in
mid-stride.
‘You’re
handing the poor
bastard back to
Peking!’

Ketterman swung round, studying Scholefield’s face intently, but
saying nothing.

‘It was a
guess,
Harvey,’ Scholefield nodded silently. ‘But I know from your face it’s
right.
It fits
your style—and
the White
House, too.
You’re
beyond
disgust.’
They
stared
at
each
other in silence for a mom
e
nt. Then Scholefield’s brow furrowed into a frown. ‘But I
can’t
help wondering whether you haven’t
both miscalculated. Has
it occurred to you
that
the Russians may
not
have been trying
to kill Yang at the Institute—but
just trying
to give that impression? He dived for cover pretty smartly—almost as if he knew what
was
coming.’