Do you even want to go through with this? he asked himself.
True, the Americans are offering me a vast sum of money, a passport, and my freedom, but the temptation is to go in and wake Solange, pack a few things, and run where they cannot find us.
But where, he asked himself, would that be?
You have no passport, no papers, no money. Where and how far could you run if you couldn’t get out of Japan? And in this closed, tight society, where could two round-eyes hide? And for how long? A few weeks, at the most optimistic assessment. And then what? Now that you know the identity of the target, the Americans would have to terminate you.
And Solange, too.
They’ll believe you talked to her, told her everything. While it is usually true that what you don’t know can kill you, in the topsy-turvy world in which I now exist, what you
So there you are, he thought. She is a hostage to your actions.
I cannot allow another person I love to die.
I couldn’t bear it.
But can you do it all? he asked himself. Assassinate Voroshenin and still have a life with Solange? Is it too much to ask in this world?
Perhaps, he thought.
But he decided to try.
Solange came out of the bedroom and into the garden. Her hair was charmingly tousled, her eyes heavy and still sleepy.
Nicholai put the file on his lap and closed it.
“We are keeping secrets?” she asked. “Don’t worry, I don’t want to know.”
She lit cigarettes and handed him one. “I don’t care about whatever men’s business you and Haverford are cooking up. In the end, there is only food, wine, sex, and babies. That’s all anyone really cares about. The rest of it? Silly male games. Go play. Come back and give me a baby.”
“I would like that,” Nicholai said. “Very much.”
“Good. I want to get dinner ready.”
She kissed him on the forehead and went inside.
Nicholai went back to studying the file. He couldn’t have cared less about Voroshenin as a human being, assuming a fact not in evidence, but was deeply interested in him as a target. As such, it was necessary to know how his mind worked – his likes, dislikes, his habits.
In addition to a predilection for sadism, the man also drank, perhaps to excess. But all Russians drank. Nicholai doubted there was a vulnerability there.
The file suggested that he also liked his women – no surprise to Nicholai. Could that present an opening? Possibly, but the “new” Beijing was famously puritanical. The Communists had closed the brothels, and most of the professional mistresses had fled with the Kuomintang. If Voroshenin had a woman in the city, he would keep her well hidden – which suggested possibilities – but would also keep the arrangement very secure.
What else?
Voroshenin played chess – again, most Russians did – but apparently quite advanced, as one would expect. He liked to eat well, he knew his wines, and had developed in his years in China a taste for Beijing opera.
That was about it.
Nicholai closed the file.
16
SOLANGE WAS AWAKE when Nicholai came into the bedroom.
“I’m leaving in the morning,” he said.
“I know,” Solange said. “I felt it.”
He lay down beside her. She rolled over, laid her head on his chest, and he put his arm around her. “I’ll come back for you.”
“I hope so.”
“I will.”
When he went out the door in the morning, she had only one word for him.
Outside, a maple leaf detached from its branch, flickered beautifully in the sunlight, and then fell.
Part Two: BEIJING, JANUARY 1952
17
BEIJING WAS Freezing.
The north winds swept down from the vast Manchurian plains and coated the willows, their branches already bending under snow, with a sheen of silver ice. The sun was a pale yellow, a thin disk in a pearl sky.
Nicholai stepped out of the train station and took a breath of the freezing air, which bit into his lungs with a burning sensation. He pulled the collar of his Russian coat up around his neck and wrapped the scarf around his neck.
The street was virtually devoid of traffic save for a few military vehicles – Soviet trucks and American Jeeps liberated from the Kuomintang. Most people were on foot, the luckier few struggled to hold bicycles steady on the snow as they bent low over the handlebars to escape the wind. A few rickshaw drivers picked up arriving passengers and pedaled off with them, the back wheels slipping in the snow.
Then a long black sedan, its front fenders festooned with small red flags, emerged out of the snow and pulled up on the curb. A stocky Chinese man in a padded wool overcoat and a PLA cap with a red star on the front got out and walked up to Nicholai.
“Comrade Guibert?”
“Yes.”
“I am Comrade Chen,” the man said. “Welcome to Beijing. Long live the People’s Republic.”
“Yes, we were told you speak fluent Cantonese.” Chen smiled. He gave the slightest emphasis on “Cantonese,” just to let Nicholai know that it was inferior to Mandarin, the preferred dialect of government. “You lived in Guangzhou, was it?”
“Hong Kong.”
“Ah, yes.”
Silly games, Nicholai thought.
Endless, silly games.
“I will be your escort in Beijing,” Chen said.
“Escort,” Nicholai thought, meaning “spy,” “watchdog,” and “informer.”
“I’m appreciative.”
“Shall we get out of the cold?” Chen gave a curt nod back toward the car and the driver got out, took Nicholai’s suitcase, and loaded it into the trunk. Chen opened the back passenger door for Nicholai. “Please.”
Nicholai slid into the back of the sedan and Chen came around and got in on the other side. The car heater was working manfully, if futilely, against the intense cold, and Chen stomped his booted feet on the car floor.
