Satori

The door opened and the agents pushed Nicholai inside.

It was indeed a cave, or at least an effort to replicate one in concrete. Communists, Nicholai thought, they do love their concrete. The ceilings were curved and the walls painted with streaks to imitate geological striations.

This “cave” was beautifully furnished with rosewood tables and chairs, a lounging sofa, and the machinery of torture. There was a bench of sorts, obviously used for beatings and perhaps sodomy, a staggering variety of whips and flails hung neatly from assigned hooks, and two straight-backed chairs, the seats of which had been removed, bolted to the floor.

The cops shoved Nicholai down onto one of the chairs, removed the cuffs, and used heavy leather straps to tightly fasten his wrists to the arms of the chair. Nicholai watched as they took Chen, roughly stripped off his clothes, and then hung him by the handcuffs from a steel rail that ran across the ceiling. Then they tied his ankles down to bolts in the floor, so that he was spread-eagled.

His chin on his chest, Chen hung, quietly weeping.

An interior door opened and Kang Sheng made his entrance.

Nicholai had to admit that it was dramatic – the lighting perfect, the moment correct, and he held an ominous prop that glistened in the lamplight.

A wire, perhaps a foot long, needle-sharp on one end.

“Good evening, Mr. Hel, I believe it is?”

“Guibert.”

“If you insist.” Kang smiled.

Nicholai fought the terror that he felt rising in his throat and forced himself to keep his mind clear. Kang has already made the first mistake, he thought. He has shown his opening position on the board by revealing his knowledge of my real identity.

“Perhaps,” Kang said, “when I have shown you what I have planned for you, you might decide to be more cooperative.”

“There’s always that chance,” Nicholai answered.

“There is always that chance,” Kang agreed pleasantly. Hel’s bravado was delightful, so very sheng. And how thoughtful of him to play his role so beautifully – the fall of a falcon is so much more dramatic than the fall of a sparrow. He turned his attention to Chen, who would play the perfect chou, the clown. “Counterrevolutionary dog.”

“No,” Chen blubbered. “I’m a loyal -”

“Liar!” Kang screamed. “You were part of this conspiracy! You helped him every step of the way!”

“No.”

“Yes!” Kang yelled. “You took him to the church, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but -”

Nicholai said, “He had nothing to do with -”

“Be quiet,” Kang snapped. “It will be your turn soon enough, I promise you that. Just now it is the fat pig’s. How many yuan do you eat a day, pang ju? Is that why you like entertaining foreign guests, so that you can fatten yourself on the backs of the people?”

“No…”

“No, it is because you are a spy.”

“No!”

“ ‘No,’ “Kang said. “I will give you one chance to confess.”

This was the boring part of the play. The shangching, the preamble. Prisoners never confessed at this point, knowing that they would be signing their own death warrants. They knew the pain they were about to suffer, knew that they would eventually confess to the capital charge, but human nature is such that they must first struggle to survive.

Chen was silent.

“Very well,” Kang said.

Nicholai saw Chen’s eyes almost bulge out of their sockets as Kang approached him with the needle. Kang giggled. “I have never done this before, so it might take a little experimentation.”

Chen jerked as Kang touched the point of the wire to one of his balls.

“The problem is the flexibility,” Kang said.

He pulled the wire back a couple of inches and then pushed.

69

XUN HUISHENG HIT a marvelous note, rich in tone, pitch-perfect, rising in an oblique ze.

Look, my poor mistress frowns every day

And the young man is sick and skinny.

Despite the punishments imposed by the Old Lady

I, the Little Red Maid, will help their dreams come true.

Voroshenin clapped as the audience below shouted, “Hao! Hao!” in approbation of the superb performance.

70

COLONEL YU SAT in his office and worried.

The so-called Michel Guibert had not arrived at the opera, nor was he in his room, and none of the watchers knew his location. All they could say was that they had seen him get into the car outside the Beijing Hotel.

Was he in Voroshenin’s hands?

Or in Kang’s?

Either way it was a desperate situation. Who knew what Kang would make him say? If Mao was ready to make a move against General Liu, this could be the prime moment. “Guibert” would confess to the murder plot against the Russian commissioner, and Kang would make him implicate General Liu.

Escape routes had been set up through the south.

Was it time for the general to flee?

Activate “Southern Wind”?

Perhaps, Yu cursed himself, it had been too bold a move – premature perhaps – for them to have allowed the American plot to move forward. Perhaps they should have tossed Guibert out of the country five seconds after he stepped in. But it had been so tempting to set Stalin and Mao back at each other’s throats. The Russians would move Gao Gang into place prematurely. Mao would respond but lack the strength to succeed. General Liu would move in to fill the power vacuum.

So tempting, so rich with possibilities…

And the idea to kill Voroshenin at the opera was lovely in its irony. Very un-Western, but then again, this “Guibert”…

Should I go and tell the general? Yu asked himself. Actualize the escape plan and demand that he leave immediately? Years of long work would be wasted, hopes squandered, dreams of a truly Communist country indefinitely delayed, perhaps destroyed… But can you take the chance of the general being arrested, tortured, shot?

Where is this man “Guibert”?