The Last Six Million Seconds

“Certainly not. You summoned exactly the right amount of verisimilitude. We can’t have them thinking we’re ganging up on them at this stage.”

“Quite.”

“This Charlie Chan-a problem?”

Cuthbert shrugged. “I really don’t know. He sounds too good for what we want. And then there was a little thing Ronny conveniently left out. You remember that old chap who’s trying to raise awareness about laogai? The one we were thinking of deporting last year, until the press got hold of the story and some damned busybody MP threatened to ask a question in Parliament?”

“Matter of fact I do.”

“Chan vouched for him. The old man instructed lawyers, and the lawyers obtained an affidavit from Chan, who swore he’d known the old man for years and could vouch for his character. My chaps were furious, but Ronny protected his man. Chan hates the Reds all right. Very telling for Ronny to leave it out of Chan’s curriculum vitae.”

“So you do know all about Chan?”

Cuthbert’s eyes darted. “Yes, I do. I didn’t want Ronny to know how closely I’ve been watching him. It seemed important to act ignorant.”

They sat in silence for a minute.

Smith tapped the table. “Just out of curiosity, Milton, how did you swing it with those coastguards?”

“I rang their headquarters, told them to watch out for a Hong Kong police launch chasing a plastic bag.” He smiled. “Piece of cake.”

“Impersonating?”

Cuthbert took out an old silver cigarette case, selected a Turkish cigarette, lit it with a silver butane lighter. In doing so, he illuminated his long face, aquiline nose, case-hardened eyes: the disdainful features of an eagle.

“General Xian. I was phoning from Hong Kong after all. It had to be someone very senior who was based here.”

He produced a long phrase in Mandarin that Caxton Smith didn’t understand. The rough accent of an aging Chinese peasant general was instantly recognizable, however.

Smith shook his head. Ever since the beginning of the nineteenth century when the Great Game of intelligence and counterintelligence operations on the borders between the British Empire and Russia and China had begun, the Oriental Department of the Foreign Office had attracted the brightest and the best-and the most eccentric, men with double firsts from Oxford or Cambridge who behaved as if it were still 1897.

“You’re a damned clever chap, Milton. Damned clever. Of course it was you tapped Chan’s telephone and copied his files?”

Cuthbert inhaled on the fine Turkish tobacco, looked away. “Not clever enough, it seems.” Caxton Smith raised his eyebrows.

With his free hand Cuthbert pinched the narrow bridge of his nose. “I’ve been stalking or shadowing Xian, whichever way you want to put it, for more than half my career. I’ve got taps on his telephones and electronic surveillance to cover him twenty-four hours a day. I was convinced that the general couldn’t eat a spring roll without my knowing about it. But I’m damned if I understand what he’s up to this time.”

“You’re totally convinced he ordered these murders?”

Cuthbert dropped his hand. “No, I’m not. At first I thought that must be the reason he’s so obsessed with Chan’s investigation. Then I began to wonder. What does he care if he gets found out? Nobody’s going to prosecute him. So why the interest in the case? The old boy’s in a frenzy about it. Acting purely on instinct, I’m trying to block the investigation because after thirty years in diplomacy I can smell a scandal when it’s creeping down the Yangtze, and this one is big, whatever it is. In diplomacy, Caxton, a scandal is worse than a holocaust. One hint in the press of what Xian is really doing in Hong Kong, and there’ll be the biggest imaginable row. Can you imagine, eight weeks before handover?”

“Ah! Yes, that would land us in a bit of a pickle. And might one ask, strictly off the record, what exactly Xian is doing in Hong Kong? I think I’ve been wanting to ask you that question for as long as I can remember.”

Cuthbert studied the end of his cigarette. “Off the record, Caxton, he’s taking over whether anyone approves or not, and the West can shove its democracy up its arse. That’s a very rough translation from the Mandarin.” He put the cigarette to his lips and inhaled reflectively. “I couldn’t tell you the precise moment when my career became devoted to the study of General Xian. China was my business, with particular reference to Hong Kong. At first all one did was watch Beijing and read all the diplomatic dispatches. Then things began to fall apart, Chinese style. That is to say, you wouldn’t have known they were falling apart except for the subtlest signals that China watchers look for. Little by little Beijing was less powerful; there were centers of power elsewhere in the country; people began to talk about a return to the old warlord system. Xian is an extremely secretive man. By the time it became clear that he was a major player, he was already in control of most of southern China. Not officially in control, of course, but he more or less runs the place. All the senior cadres answer to him, and in a fight his troops would side with him against Beijing-which is why Beijing leaves him alone. China wasn’t my business anymore, he was.”

7

When Chan emerged from Central underground station that same evening in response to Tsui’s summons, Typhoon Alan had meandered a hundred miles closer. The wind had freshened, and the meteorological office had issued a Typhoon Signal Number Three. Although it was now past eleven o’clock in the evening, workmen were fitting vertical wooden slats to protect the plate glass windows of the shops all along Queen’s Road. Planters, portable advertising signs, anything unable to resist hundred-mile-an-hour gusts had already disappeared from the streets.

Chan walked up the slope under the Hong Kong Bank, crossed the street, took the stairs by the side of the branch post office to the officers’ mess, where Tsui liked to hold informal meetings. The commissioner was standing at the bar talking to the Chinese barman when Chan entered. After ordering a pint of lager for Chan, Tsui led the way to a small table far from the bar. He carried his own glass to which a cardboard beer mat had attached itself.

“Quite an adventure you had today,” Tsui said.

Chan twitched. “Mind if I smoke?” He lit a Benson & Hedges. “Scared me.”

Tsui watched Chan closely. “You know, you have quite a reputation.”

“Me? What for?”

“Fanaticism. Is that what possessed you to go into Chinese waters today?”

“I wasn’t checking our position. It could only have been a few yards. We needed that bag for the investigation.”

Tsui’s frown conflicted with the pride in his eyes. “But you could have got yourself killed. You know what they’re like.”

Chan swallowed the first inch of the lager, was about to put it back on the table, then gulped another inch. “Look, you tell me to stop the investigation, I’ll stop. Until then-I mean, I’m not going to be the one to give in to them. The British can, you can, but I won’t.” Under the commissioner’s gaze he added reluctantly, “Unless ordered, of course.”

Of course obedience was a Confucian virtue. During the siege of Nanking, Chan had read, Japanese machine gunners had fired down narrow streets into charging Chinese soldiers until the roads were blocked with mountains of bodies like sandbags and some of the guns had melted. Any other race would have taken cover after the first casualties, but the Chinese kept coming. Why? Because they had been ordered to. It was this self-obliterating obedience the British would rely on when they turned six million free people over to the criminal regime in Beijing. Anywhere else the riots would have started long ago.

Tsui dropped the frown. He smiled. Chan wondered if the tiny diamonds in his eyes were the beginning of tears. “You have my support-and my blessing. But please remember, we are a small tribe.”

“Chinese?”