The Ninja and the Diplomat, page 9
part #2 of The Chinese Spymaster Series
“I am curious to know if our Central Asian friends have expressed any opinion or concerns about China in the Eastern Ocean and the South Sea,” remarked Wang.
Hu shook his head and said, “They are mostly concerned with their internal politics. I have not heard of anything otherwise. Now, I need to go and get my beauty sleep before going back into the fray.”
They shook hands just as General Chen approached.
“Leaving so soon, Old Chen,” teased Wang. “We need to have a quick word.”
“Yes,” agreed the general affably. “How much trouble is the missing inventory going to be?”
“I don’t know how much grief the Party will visit on the army,” replied Wang. “There are not any knives out for anyone, but the army will have to accept Party investigations for the present, and ongoing oversight of its security procedures. Resistance, in my view, will be futile.”
Chen nodded and whispered, “The generals may wish to put up some anyway to signal that they intend to remain masters in their own house. A little light exercise is good for the party officials.”
Wang smiled and shook his friend’s hand warmly but with a slight shrug. Their host for the evening, Wen, joined in the rituals of departure,
“Still working, Old Wang?”
“What are friends for?” responded the spymaster in his usual elliptical fashion.
“I hear the agency has need for my aide,” murmured Wen. “It is a good thing there is another bright young man ready for servitude to this old man.”
Still lingering at the doorway, General Chen turned around and, with Wang, said in unison,
“You’re not old. We’re not old.”
On the drive home, Xiao Shu teased, “I think we should have all our dinners at your office since you seem to do more work at these occasions than normal people do at the office.”
Wang smiled but remained silent, though he congratulated himself on his good fortune in marrying.
“I have heard rumblings at the office about the army and the security procedures it has for its supplies. Your advice to Old Chen is sound,” whispered Xiao Shu.
“They say plants absorb nutrients through osmosis,” murmured Wang. “Is it possible for us to learn about party politics in a similar fashion?”
Contents
CHAPTER 10
The second Tuesday, Shandong
“Older Brother,” cried the deputy minister of the MFa and former ambassador to the Court of St. James as he embraced his cousin, using a term of respect as he greeted the son of his father’s older brother. “It has been a lifetime since we last met. I came as soon as I could.”
The meeting was at a discreet family cottage in Shandong occupied only by a caretaker, his wife, his young son and older daughter. They took care of the house and served any of the Yu family that visited. Yu and his family visited it only once or twice a year, as a place to vacation away from Beijing. He liked mingling anonymously among the crowds of tourists who would come to Qufu, the city of Confucius’ birth. He knew that his cousin also came, perhaps to visit the ancestral shrine, but they had not met there since their fathers had arranged such a meeting a generation ago.
The diplomat looked at his cousin with concern. The message he had received sounded like a signal of extreme distress. Cousin Yu looked deeply disturbed and bore signs of not having had any sleep for days. He led the way into the small cottage that was in fact a renovated dwelling on the Yu ancestral property. Mostly, he seemed to bear a burden of guilt mingled with shame.
“I have done some bad things, younger brother. My father has been disgraced,” he confessed.
“What has happened?” demanded Yu.
“The man you helped at my request is in hiding and very likely dead by now or trying to escape. It is unlikely he will make it,” muttered Cousin Yu.
“Are you referring to your exporter friend? The one you asked me to help obtain an export license two weeks ago?” asked Yu.
“Yes,” whispered Cousin Yu. “He was exporting some goods for, um, a friend. He is missing and his friend is dead.”
“What are you talking about?” demanded Yu. His cousin coughed, avoiding his eyes. After a moment, during which Yu maintained his silence with the calm of the seasoned diplomat that he was, sitting out the tick-tock of a reluctant interlocutor.
Cousin Yu collected himself and elaborated, “My man in Beijing was exporting arms that his ‘friend’ stole from the People’s Army. When news broke in the media about his friend’s murder, my assistant called me once, then he must have gone on the run. It has been almost five days since we last spoke. He is probably trying to escape his fate, if he is still alive today.”
“Have you lost touch with your staff?”
“Not entirely,” responded Cousin Yu. “We have a protocol. He calls me at a fixed time of day and lets the phone ring twice then hangs up. If he needs to talk, he calls again exactly eight minutes later. If he cannot talk, he lets the phone ring three times in the first place and then hangs up.”
“How many days has he called and let it ring three times?”
“Four. But anyone who has kept him under surveillance would have guessed that, especially if they have obtained his cell phone.”
“I don’t suppose you could call him.”
“He is supposed to call from a different phone each day, but if he has been caught with one that had my number on it, all his captors would have to do…”
They were interrupted by the ringing of a phone. There were two rings and then silence. Cousin Yu brightened up with evident relief. The two men consulted their watches and waited in silence. The eight minutes felt like eighty as they stretched out seemingly so interminable. When the call came, Cousin Yu waited only one ring before whispering urgently and hoarsely, “Hello.”
“You are a dead man,” intoned an electronically disguised voice on the other end. Cousin Yu dropped his phone, his face as white as the proverbial sheet, and his hands shaking. Former Ambassador Yu started as his cousin clutched at his heart, but it had been only a skipped beat that had frightened the man.
He looked as if he was about to unleash a wail when Yu stopped him by declaring,
“How would they know where you are? Your phone has a Taiwan number and the roaming feature, right? You could be anywhere. Even if they had been listening to our calls, we never mentioned this place. We will leave immediately. Let me help you to some place safe and we will sort this out.”
“Ah, younger brother,” sighed his cousin, “the brains in the family must have been passed on to you. The sins are mine to bear. I have brought disgrace and danger to both of us. These people are very powerful and dangerous.”
“Who are they?” demanded Yu.
“I have worked with them mostly through intermediaries. I have met the head of the organization only twice, and we did not exchange names. He knew everything about me but I knew nothing about him. The people I had to deal with only referred to him as Mr. Y or the Yakuza.”
“He is Japanese?”
“I think so. He looked a little stocky to me, more like a tall Korean, but it is easy to mistake one for the other.” In the silence that followed, the two men thought about the same thing. Cousin Yu deeply regretted bringing disgrace and danger into their lives. The diplomat wondered what crime had been committed that entailed such dire consequences.
Cousin Yu finally said,“I have not offered you any tea. My apologies.” He rang a small silver bell three times then approached a small cabinet. “Perhaps you would prefer to join me in drinking something stronger.”
As his cousin shook his head, he stated, “My life has been mostly on the boundary of the law. I have avoided meeting you all these years for that reason. You have been good to remember every occasion my family has had for celebration. My wife probably has a higher regard for you than she does for me.”
After a bitter snigger, he continued, “A great opportunity presented itself last month when I heard of a potential arms purchase,” he paused and looked at Yu then bowed his head in shame. “I deeply regret involving you.”
“Which part of the arms deal were you involved in?”
“Which part?”
“Yes, missile launchers or tactical nuclear devices?”
“Do your people think those were two separate transactions?” asked Cousin Yu in surprise.
“We only linked them yesterday,” responded Yu. “Where are the weapons going? Who is paying for them?”
“I don’t know where the weapons will be used. All I know is that the Yakuza told me to arrange for the theft and sale. The missile launchers and the nuclear devices were to be shipped separately to Macau. He paid very well for them. I sent a handsome sum to my man in Beijing a week ago.”
The cousins looked at each other as tea was brought in and served, while Cousin Yu drained his tumbler of fiery amber liquid.
“You got your share too.”
Yu spat with disgust. “I knew it was dirty money!”
Loud cries came from the servants just outside the main door. The cousins ran out and found a very bloody mess. A man lay with his throat practically ripped out, as if someone had cut it from ear to ear and then decided to improve on the deed by tearing at the edges of the wound.
“Who is he?” cried Cousin Yu.
“He was my companion on this journey,” answered the former ambassador, shaking with anger, guilt and distress. “His father was an army aide to my father and he chose to work with me as driver and bodyguard, attending to whatever need arose.”
“They know where we are,” wailed Cousin Yu.
“It would appear so,” replied Yu. “Are you armed? Are these servants reliable, and those neighbors that have appeared as well?” Cousin Yu nodded at each question. “Well, let’s get out of here. I’m calling for help. You should come with me.”
He dialed an MFA number and spoke urgently, “Hello, I am in Shandong and need extraction back to Beijing. Please have our liaison with the police alert the superintendent here to send an escort.”
To Cousin Yu, he said sternly, “I think our troubles have only just begun. You will have to answer questions that the police and our intelligence agency might have. The safest place for you is in a military prison. I will arrange that when we are on the way. I’ll do all I can to make your stay there a comfortable one.”
***
The man from Taiwan was in a foul mood when he finally arrived at his destination in the mountains in north Fujian. To get there, he and his bodyguard had travelled from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur by plane, boarding with tickets purchased with cash at the gate. He had chosen that destination because of a visit long ago to a business associate and because it was low in profile while still enjoying the service of several flights a day. In addition, it would be easy to spot a tail if there was one in the diverse crowds of the Malaysian capital. From the airport they had taken public transportation, walking down a flight of stairs at the airport terminal to board a bus. At the bus station in the city, they left the air-conditioned comfort that cocooned all travelers to walk a few blocks through the sweltering, spiced atmosphere of the predominantly Indian area of the Malaysian capital. They went straight to the monorail that would deliver them to the terminus for south-bound long distance buses, including those from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore. Again, they paid cash at the gate before boarding.
Unfamiliar street smells, spices not used in Chinese cooking, made clear to the two fugitives that they were in a foreign country. On the monorail, the Taiwanese was startled when a young woman in a black headscarf tugged at his sleeve. She was offering her seat in the crowded carriage to a man clearly in discomfort.
From the bus station in Singapore, they took the metro to the airport and then a plane to Xiamen, once again purchasing all their tickets with cash at the gates. Finally, in Xiamen, they chartered a car to the mountain retreat owned by the man from Taiwan. In the planes and buses, his bodyguard sat ten rows behind him to keep watch over him. From Xiamen, they had directed the driver of the chartered car to a remote forest preserve and murdered the man. The bodyguard then drove carefully and circuitously. It was nearly five days from the time they had left Beijing before they reached this hideaway.
The escape had been decided upon as soon as news of a death by robbery or mugging of a certain army supplies manager appeared in the news media. The TV reporters could not get enough video coverage, it seemed, of a voluptuous woman weeping for her dead husband on an evening which had seemed to her to promise arrival at the financial, if not the social, standing to which she had aspired. The two associates did not linger to watch the media coverage, alert as they were to the danger they now faced.
Both men were exhausted. The bodyguard was excused after he activated every security mechanism in the house. He took a quick shower and fell asleep almost at once in a small chamber at the only entrance to his patron’s bedchamber.
The man from Taiwan was more highly strung and could not unwind until all the servants had been accounted for and ushered out. Then he placed a stout wooden bar across the main entrance to the house, thus complementing the electronic security devices. Finally, he ran a very hot bath, a practice he had picked up from his many visits to Japan. Toweling off after a lengthy soak, he was disturbed to hear faint noises. They sounded like shots from a silenced handgun, coming from the direction of his bedroom. He checked his own Glock 17 to assure himself that it was loaded and clicked its safety off, whirling around towards the slight sound of an almost silent attacker.
He saw a man in dark, tightly fitting sweater and pants, at the same time as he felt excruciating pain in his right arm. A ninja throwing star had slashed through the bicep of that arm. He tried to transfer the handgun to his left hand when his assailant kicked him in the solar plexus, knocking all the wind out of him and the gun out of his hands. He rolled slowly over towards where he hoped to find another handgun when the ninja kicked him viciously in the groin. Almost passing out from the pain of that blow, he found his throat gripped in an iron-like vise.
“Where is your paymaster?” the shadow whispered with menace.
“I don’t know what you mean,” blabbed the man from Taiwan, playing for time. The ninja simply kneed him in the groin one more time and stuffed a small towel into the suffering man’s mouth. Then he deliberately and slowly broke each joint of the shooting finger of the poor man’s right hand, displaying neither pleasure nor guilt as each joint crackled and snapped.
After his own muffled howls of pain and the stars of light that he saw subsided, the victim heard the shadow in dark clothes hiss, “You will not live, but if you don’t tell me what I want to know, you will beg for death for a long time.” A soft explosion was accompanied by the strong odor of bowels voiding.
“Tsk, tsk,” derided his attacker. “I have found four cell phones. Three of them have been used to call only one number. It looks like you must have grown tired changing phones. You called from one phone twice, on different days. Obviously you called at the same time each day. What is the protocol between the two of you?” The towel was taken out of his mouth.
The pain had subsided a little, but the man from Taiwan did not feel brave. He also did not want to die, and puffed, “Listen, I have money, you can have everything. Just let me live.”
“Are you going to tell me your protocol?” This icy question was the only response he got.
“I—.” Deliberately, the ninja stuffed the towel back and slowly tore off his victim’s right ear. He walked away and leaned against the door. After a few minutes, he remarked quietly,
“Your bodyguard is dead and you have secured this house from any outsider. How did I get in? You might well wonder. It does not matter; I shall not tell you. I shall tell you nothing. But you will tell me what I want to know.
“They say that one can get used to pain and even grow to like it. It has taken me much practice to find ways to overcome that trick a human mind can play. I don’t think you will become accustomed to any of the things I could do to parts of your body.” He bent down and removed the towel.
His victim searched his tormentor’s face for greed or mercy or any motive. The ninja’s intense dark eyes revealed nothing, not even cruelty. “Three rings then I hang up means I can’t talk. To talk, two rings then I hang up. I call again in exactly eight minutes.”
Death came as a relief. The man from Taiwan welcomed the cessation of his pain, the end to his torment. He was ready to face all the gods of the underworld that his Daoist grandmother had warned him about.
The ninja looked at the scene thoughtfully; then he went into the bodyguard’s room and carried the body into the bathroom. He placed it against the wall opposite the other man. He repositioned the bodies slightly, and retrieved the handgun with which he had killed the bodyguard. It had been the man’s own gun, conveniently left by his bedside with its silencer. He placed the gun into the left hand of the man from Taiwan and squeezed a shot into the bodyguard’s forehead. It would appear, on cursory inspection, to be a lucky last shot.
Then he left the same way he had arrived, through the roof. It would take the Chinese authorities days to get to the bodies and their crime scene analysts would have several mysteries to solve. The ninja smiled as he visualized the eventuality.
When the time came for the next call to the man known as Cousin Yu, the ninja let it ring twice then waited eight minutes, during which he prepared to replay a recording. He dialed again and was amused at the hurried response. Then he played the recording.
You are a dead man.
Contents
CHAPTER 11
The day after MFA deputy minister Yu called for help to extract him and his cousin from Shandong, Wang and Ma looked appraisingly at Chen and Wong as the latter entered the briefing room. On loan from the police, they had been working in Beijing at the agency on the case precipitated by Kim’s telegram for nearly ten days. Both were slim southerners about as tall as Ma, without his heft. Wong was the more muscular of the two. Their complexions were darker than the average Chinese but only Wong might pass at a quick glance for Filipino. Chen, who had been selected to go on the mission, would be taught some make-up techniques and given supplies.
