Toasts were proposed and drunk.
“Our French guest.”
“Our Chinese hosts.”
“The eternal friendship between our three countries.”
It was another test, Nicholai knew, an effort to loosen his tongue with alcohol, to see if he was who he said he was. And a dangerous test, for getting into a drinking match with Voroshenin was no mean feat – the Russian was big, a practiced drinker who could hold his liquor. So could Yu, for a small man, and the toasts went on.
“Our beloved Chairman, the Great Pilot.”
“Comrade Stalin, who shows the way.”
“Jean Jaurès.”
Between toasts, Nicholai struggled to keep his head and recall his briefings as Voroshenin pushed the conversation toward Guibert’s background.
“There is a café in Montpellier,” Voroshenin said casually, “renowned among the locals for its pain au chocolat -”
“Le Rochefort.”
“On the Square of St. Martin.”
“On the Place Ste.-Anne, actually.”
“That’s right.”
Through his thickening head, Nicholai thanked Solange for her attention to detail and incessant drills, even as his head began to swim. But that was the point of drill, after all – just as in the martial arts, repetition trained one to go beyond thought into pure reflex.
Voroshenin kept at it. The Russian invited him to share memories – some true, others false – about restaurants, regional dishes, even the local football side.
Nicholai fended off each probe.
Then Chen started in about Hong Kong. He had been there as a young man, when he had fled the Nationalist police for a while. He waxed on about Victoria Peak, the Peninsula Hotel, the street markets of Kowloon.
“Where did you live?” he asked.
“On the Hill,” Nicholai answered casually, recalling Haverford’s briefing and the fact that staged photographs had been created of him outside Guibert’s home in Hong Kong, pictures that were doubtless in Chen’s file.
Chen then proceeded to ask him about a tea merchant on the Hill that didn’t exist and Nicholai admitted to ignorance of any such place. It would have been a childishly easy trap to avoid had Nicholai been anywhere near sober, but with three brands of strong liquor swirling around his stomach and brain, nothing was easy.
He realized that they had been at the table for nigh unto four hours, and not a jot of business had been discussed.
But I have been vetted, he thought, and now I must wait to see if I’ve passed the tests.
Voroshenin rose unsteadily to his feet. “Back to the office for me, I’m afraid. You know the Kremlin – night owls.”
“It is the same with us,” Yu said, pushing back his chair. Chen steadied him as he got up.
“A pleasure,” Voroshenin said to Nicholai. “Those eyes… I wish I could remember… A countess, would you believe… I will see you at the opera, then? Thursday night?”
“It’s a date,” Nicholai answered.
I will kill you during The Dream of the West Chamber.
Sleep well, Comrade Voroshenin.
26
VOROSHENIN CHOSE TO WALK home from the banquet, to let the cold air attempt to clear the alcohol-induced fog from his head.
One bodyguard walked ahead, the other two kept a pace or so behind him, their hands in their coats, on the butts of their pistols. Idiots, Voroshenin thought. Beijing – especially this quarter – is perhaps the safest city in the world. The criminal class had been mostly exterminated in public executions, and an assassination attempt was highly unlikely. The only people who might try are the Chinese themselves, and if they want to kill me, these three aren’t going to stop them.
But Mao still needs to maintain his crouching posture and suck Stalin’s balls, so we are all pretty safe in China. The greatest risk is being bored to death. Or the related danger of cirrhosis of the liver.
But this Guibert, if that’s his name.
If he’s a French gunrunner, I’m a Japanese sumo wrestler.
The man is a Frenchman, all right, down to the stench of his cologne, but an arms merchant? He’s far too… aristocratic… for that bourgeois occupation. He possesses the slightly remote and superior air of a Russian -
Those damn green eyes.
Was it possible?
Back in his legation quarters, Voroshenin picked up the phone and dialed Leotov’s rooms.
“Get down here.”
“It’s two o’clock in the -”
“I own a watch. I said to bring your skinny ass down here.”
Five minutes later, a sleepy and slightly resentful-looking Leotov appeared in Voroshenin’s office.
“Get on a secure line to Moscow,” Voroshenin ordered. “I want everything on this Michel Guibert and his family.”
Leotov glanced at his watch.
“Don’t say it,” Voroshenin ordered. “Beria’s men rather famously work nights, or would you like to find that out for yourself? Also, I want everything on an old White, the Countess Alexandra Ivanovna. I believe she might have left Petrograd sometime in ‘22.”
“That’s thirty years ago.”
“Is it? Well done, Vasili. See, you’ve already got a start on it.”
A soon as Leotov left, Voroshenin opened the desk drawer and pulled out the bottle. Despite himself, he poured a stiff drink and knocked it back.
Those damn green eyes…
27
GENERAL LIU ZHU DE was small of stature.
His iron-gray hair was cut short, and his browned, lined face showed both his southern roots and every step he had taken on the long journey from guerrilla leader in Sichuan, through the Long March and creation of the 8th Route Army, to the hideous losses he had suffered in command of the Korean venture.
It was said that Liu felt the death of every soldier. He had opposed the Korea invasion, hadn’t wanted the command, but took it as a matter of duty. Now, almost two years later, each of the three hundred thousand casualties showed in his eyes, and rumor had it that he blamed Mao for every one of them.
Colonel Yu knocked on his door, received permission to enter, and sat down in the gray metal chair across from the general’s desk.
He admired Liu more than any man alive. A fellow native of Sichuan, the general was a true Communist and a patriot, unlike the would-be emperor Mao. General Liu worked for China and the people, Mao worked for Mao and Mao.
“How was dinner?” Liu asked. His voice sounded tired.
“Voroshenin showed up.”
“Didn’t we think that he would?”
“He knows about the weapons to the Viet Minh.”
Liu nodded. “Kang tipped him off. He has spies in our department, I’m sure.”
“Shall I send Guibert away?”
“Not necessarily,” Liu said. “Tell me about him.”
Yu related the events of the dinner – Guibert’s knowledge of Chinese, his manners, his intelligence, his little victories over Voroshenin.
“So you think he could be our man?” Liu asked.
“Possibly.”
Liu sat back in his chair to think.
Yu knew the issues.
The Russians were keen to prevent Chinese influence in Vietnam. As such, they wanted to interfere with arms shipments that might earn China just that influence.
Mao was a fool. He had already let Stalin trick him into the Korean disaster, and now he was falling even deeper into the Soviets’ arms. But a quick look at the map showed the danger – the Russians already controlled North Korea, and with it the long northeast border and the strategic Yellow Sea. They retained bases in Manchuria to the northeast and “Outer Mongolia” to the northwest. To the west, they threatened Xinjiang, its Muslim population eager to join their brethren in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Let the Russians gain control of Vietnam as well, and they would have the southern border too. The French were walking ghosts in all of Southeast Asia; it was only a matter of time. The Russians would scoop up Cambodia, then move on to the weak sister in Siam and Burma. Soviet agents were already busy in India.