Assignment Peking Read online

  "All right, Ike."

  "Everything is healed. Beautifully, lovely. By the time

  Chu flies you into Red China, the surgical marks won't be found. Your skin, of course, was another problem. Your Cajun ancestry makes the texture and color impossible, of course. The pigmentation pills you've been taking are derived from trioxsalen, which sensitizes and mobilizes the melanin cells of the dermis to react to the stimulation of ultraviolet light. That's why you've been under the lamps daily. Washington thought this method safer than trusting to theatrical makeup dyes to get your skin this brownish-yellow color. It's from the inside out, so to speak. Much safer, yes. Your skin color will certainly last for the three weeks you will be in the People's Republic of China with Colonel Chu."

  "Chu isn't staying with me," Durell said. "He just flies the airplane."

  Colonel Chu smiled and lit a cigarette. Ike Greentree picked up a large glossy photograph from his desk and studied it, comparing it with swift glances at Durell. Durell knew it was a dossier enlargement of a man once known as Shan Tze Peng, an agent of L-5's Taiwan Department in Peking. The man in the photo had been quietly killed in Taipei, over a month ago, to allow Durell to take his place.

  "Fortunately," said Greentree, "your hair is black and naturally straight, Sam. But your Caucasian facial bone structure was a hell of a job. The idea was to make your face as round and Chinese as the original Shan's. We could have injected silicone directly, as in the illegal, cosmetic breast surgeries sometimes performed for entertainers—"

  Chu laughed. Durell said, "Thanks for nothing."

  " but that would have been dangerous. The fluid sometimes sags and moves about in the body tissues. Not to mention all sorts of dangerous side effects, speaking physiologically. So I worked on your malar prominences —those cheek scars you have are invisible now—and I inserted a plastic bag of the proper shape in each cheek, preformed to round your face to the contours of Shan's, lodging the plastic in the subcutaneous tissue. They're filled with a thin, oily silicone fluid, so your flesh is quite soft and malleable. Very natural to the touch and normal in its action when you talk or eat. The preshaped bag keep the fluid from moving away from where it's been implanted. The plastic is tough enough so you needn't worry about its failing as a prosthetic device. And to reverse what I've done, surgically, will be a simple matter of removing the plastic shapes when you get back."

  "If I get back," Durell said, looking at the elegant Colonel Chu.

  Ike Greentree frowned. "You're the field agent, Sam. I've seen your file. You've come through a lot in the past."

  "My survival factor is down to 0.56," said Durell.

  "Well . . ."

  "And I ought to retire."

  Chu drawled, "Does anyone ever retire from our business, Mr. Shan?" He was impatient, watching the dawn brighten beyond the cottage windows. "Are you quite finished with him, Dr. Greentree?"

  Ike sighed, then nodded decisively. "Yes. I've done all I can. Add my work to Durell's ninety-seven percent recall capacity from those tapes, and his mnemonic abilities from other training sources, and—yes, he is now Shan Tze Peng."

  "All right, then. Good," the Chinese said. Chu wore his Nationalist China military uniform with easy authority. He fixed Durell with dark, opaque eyes. "From now on, Shan, nothing but Mandarin. Your life depends on it."

  Three

  It was a seven-hour drive north to taipei, and when they had done three hours of it and stopped at Tai-chung to eat, Durell was thoroughly tired of listening to Colonel Chu's exquisite Mandarin.

  "We should have arranged your training and the sur-

  gery in Tainan, far south," the KMT man said. "So few people go there, although it is a lovely old town. Have you ever seen the rebel Koxinga's temple there? And giant old banyan trees. I wonder if your assassin had been hiding out in Tsung Shao, with the aborigines? We must clean those people out of there, one day—but they do bring in tourist dollars. It will be difficult to arrange." In Taichung there were water buffalo, rice paddies like geometric lakes, and laundry floating from long bamboo poles, and, higher up, farmers picking tea on the hillside. It was warmer here, down from the elevation of the lake. There were many Nationalist Army trucks on the roads. "You do not say much, Shan," Chu complained. "You talk enough for both of us." "Come, we must be friends. We are in this dangerous matter together, are we not?"

  "All you do is fly the plane in and out. I'm the fellow who jumps. And I still don't know why."

  "You will be completely briefed this evening. Then all will be clear to you." "I'll bet."

  "You are—how do you say it?—a most reluctant dragon, sir. Quite different from what I had heard of you."

  "Because I have sense enough to be afraid?" "Fear is healthy, sir. It sharpens the wits. But one must have the moral purpose to pursue one's course despite danger."

  Durell didn't bother to answer. He liked the purposeful control of Colonel Chu less and less. A month ago he had been on rest leave back home in the bayous, at Peche Rouge, deep in the Louisiana delta country. It had been good to spend those quiet days with the old gentleman, his grandfather Jonathan. He had been in Key West and Singapore before that, with four rich young ladies and Jasmine Jones, a Chinese prostitute from San Francisco. After that, the sounds of birds and water fowl along the dark green canals and narrow chenieres of the delta country were like a restful symphony. He was, and had been for some years, an assistant chief in charge of field operations for K Section, that anonymous, trouble-shooting branch of the Central Intelligence Agency, under General Dickinson McFee, who answered only to Joint Chiefs and a weekly briefing in the President's private sitting room at the White House.

  Durell often told himself he had been in the business too long, but it was the only life he had known ever since early OSS and G2 days, following his law degree at Yale. It was all a long time ago, he reflected grimly when he considered the gray in his black hair, the furrow of lines around his eyes and mouth, the look he had acquired that marked him, despite the easy litheness with which he moved, as a man set apart from other men. He was big, with a heavy musculature; but he had the slender, facile fingers of a gambler, and he was as deft at cards as old Grandpa Jonathan, who had been among the last of the old-time Mississippi riverboat gamblers.

  The hulk of the Trois Belles, once one of the most graceful of river sidewheelers, was now the one place Durell counted as home, serene in her mudbank in the soft green light of the bayou. He had spent part of his leave sleeping or drifting about the old galleries and decks, the faded, dusty salons and ballroom, or talking gently to the old man up in the pilot house above the hurricane deck. It had been a calm, quiet week, but he knew he could never stay there in spirit. The time for changing his habits of life was long past. There were red-tabbed dossiers on him in Moscow's priority files in the grim offices of the Soviet KGB; and more, since the Singapore assignment and Jasmine Jones, in L-5 up at Peking. He was marked as extremely dangerous. He knew intimately most of the dark alleys of the world's cities and a number of the shadowed corners of its jungles. He could kill, and had done so when needed, with a pencil, a rolled newspaper, a needle, or simply with the strong fingers of his graceful hands. He had seen friends die, too, in this shadow war of espionage and counterespionage, in a world too often and secretly threatened by atomic oblivion.

  Now a new dimension had been added to his identity, and as Chu drove on and talked about the glorious aims of the Generalissimo and the ambitions of the Kuomin-tang to return one day to mainland China, Durell rubbed the side of his face softly, feeling roundness where there had been bone and lean flesh, sensing the Oriental shape of his eyes, the color of the skin on the back of his hands. He felt a duality not easy to adopt or accept. He was Sam Durell of K Section, and he was Major Shan Tze Peng of Peking's dreaded L-5—all at once, in a personality identification that would be difficult to control.

  "You are perfect," Colonel Chu said softly. "When I spotted and arranged to kill the original Major Sh
an in Taipei, it was all done with the utmost discretion. An opportunity of a lifetime, thanks to the skills of Dr. Green-tree. No one ever heard a whisper of Shan's death."

  "Don't congratulate yourself," Durell said. "Somebody heard of it."

  "How is that?"

  "Otherwise, why did a killer come for me?"

  They left Taichung, with its National Museum housing China's treasures of calligraphy, bronzes, porcelains, and jade from the old Imperial treasure house, and by midaf-ternoon were on the outskirts of Taipei, the island capital. Here and there they had passed small settlements of nuns and monks growing tea and vegetables to trade for rice. At Pital, the Green Lake seven miles south of the city, Chu halted again for tea, and they sat briefly on a small terrace overlooking the town of Hsintien. Far below, the massive rock cliffs kept the lake in perpetual, mysterious shadows. Boatmen crossed its surface like Venetian gondoliers, gliding under the delicate suspension bridge that swayed above the glistening Hsintien River.

  The scream of a jetliner lowering for Taipei International Airport accompanied them into the Nationalist capital. The tranquillity of small villages, paddy lands, and terraced mountainsides was abruptly shattered by the noise and stinks of the streets. Chu guided the car expertly through the hubbub of the downtown district along Heng Yang Road and Westgate, turned north past the China House on Chung Shan, which was crowded with tourists eager for coral jewelry, straw-plaited goods, Tientsin-style rugs, buffalo-horn souvenirs. Chu seemed to be taking a devious route.

  "Are we being followed?" Durell asked quietly.

  "It is always possible, is it not?"

  "Not only possible. Probable."

  "But the work done on you was perfect! With uttermost security, Shan. And yet "

  "Yet someone found me back there."

  Chu nodded. "So I take precautions. Be patient."

  They twisted and turned through Taipei's streets and alleys. All of Durell's training and instinct were turned to spot anyone on their trail. Taipei was a relatively new city, named by the old Manchu government a hundred years ago. Its old walls and huge gates reflected some of the old Empire charm, but the buildings were generally ugly, with few temples except for the bright coloration of the Lungshan Buddhist temple in the Wan Hua district, one of the original areas of the city. Its stone sculpture and the delicate wood carvings on its ornate roof slid by the windows of Chu's car. Durell could not detect anyone following them, but Chu was not satisfied.

  At the hub of the city, near New Park and the southern gate, they passed the chief executive government buildings, not far from the bust of General Chennault of the Flying Tigers.

  "There," Chu said. "One of them."

  He lifted a delicate finger to indicate a middle-aged man admiring the Mei Ling orchids in the government park, under tall and graceful palm trees. The man raised his head, as if he could hear them in the car as they passed, but his glance seemed casual enough.

  "From Peking?" Durell asked.

  "Of course."

  "Why is he free to roam about, then?"

  "It is better to learn from him than to kill him."

  "Then you should have kept Major Shan alive, so I could live with him for a bit, and learn some of his mannerisms," Durell pointed out. "And it's five o'clock. Do I get briefed sometime this year?"

  "He has not followed us," Chu said, making a display of considering his rear-vision mirror. "We go there now."

  They crossed the Chungshan bridge, passed the zoo and the Martyr's Shrine on a small hillside, skirted the Shilin Institute of Horticulture and halted at the Ma Tsu Hotel, named after the ancient goddess of the sea. It was near the site of what had originally been a Japanese Shinto shrine, remodeled into a spectacular example of Chinese palace-style architecture. Built on the hill north of the city and the Tanshui River, it overlooked the sprawling capital and was less than ten minutes from the downtown shopping area.

  Chu stopped the car some distance from the main gate entrance to the Ma Tsu. "It would not be discreet," he murmured, "to be seen together from this point on. Your room is number 404 in the Green Dragon section. You can find it by walking around the pool behind the lobby. The dragon is in the center of the pool. Your briefing officer will be waiting. You will see me tomorrow. We fly to the mainland then."

  They shook hands. Chu's fingers were soft and smooth and cool. The Chinese smiled. "I wish you had more enthusiasm for this project, Mr. Shan."

  "I might, when I know what it is," Durell said.

  He got out and walked in the late afternoon sunlight through the gate and up the ornate drive between lush shrubbery to the main lobby. The lobby, done in Manchu Imperial style, had ornate green columns, a carp pool, a rock garden, and a fretted, timbered ceiling that let in the evening light. It was more crowded with American and Nationalist military uniforms than with civilian tourists. There was a bar called the Three Golden Coins to his left as he entered, and jazz music came from there. Under palms and reproductions of giant Ming vases were settees and lounges in cloistered groups ensuring privacy. A wall of glass shimmered with an emerald fish tank, in which brilliant tropical creatures darted and flashed. It was the cocktail hour, and it seemed to Durell that he had been away from civilization for much longer than the three weeks of isolated surgery and training with Ike Greentree and Colonel Chu.

  He paused just inside the elegant doors, aware of seeing something or someone familiar out of the corner of his eye. He didn't turn his head immediately for a better look. Assuming a manner that Major Shan would have used, he walked to the desk. The Chinese clerk regarded him blandly, indifferently, and he suddenly realized he was being greeted as a Chinese himself, rather than as an American. It made a difference.

  "The key to 404, please," he said in Mandarin.

  "Sir?" The clerk replied in English.

  "Major Shan's key, please."

  "Oh, yes, sir. Of course. You are expected."

  The key hung on a solid bronze replica of Ma Tzu, the sea goddess. There was a sense of wetness on the metal figurine, as if a sweaty hand had just relinquished it He stared at the clerk.

  "You are certain I am expected?"

  "Yes, sir. Your reservation for tonight has been most highly honored."

  Durell put the key in his left hand and turned to survey the broad expanse of the lobby, looking again for the familiar note that had caught him among the people passing in and out. Nothing. American generals, aiguilletted aides, women tourists overloud in describing their day's bargains, some young Chinese women.

  Then he recognized Jasmine Jones.

  Singapore. Madame Hung and her Seven Isles of Pleasure. Remembered pain, torture. And a friendly Chinese-American voice. A warm and urgent body. And then the tiny grill of steel pins skewering her lips together as punishment for talking to him, for offering him aid and comfort.

  The images flickered through his mind and ended. Jasmine stood taller than most Chinese girls, long-legged and high-waisted, with firm arched breasts and strong thighs that the white silk frock made no attempt to conceal. She looked at him and through him and away, then touched a white-gloved little finger to her right cheek. Her Chinese face was thinner than most, and she had large, luminous black eyes under fine, arched brows. Durell thought he saw shock and disbelief in those eyes for the moment that her glance brushed across his. His own face showed nothing at all. He had recommended Jasmine for work with K Section after her help to him in Singapore the year before, but he hadn't followed through on it and had not known whether General McFee had accepted her.

  Apparently he had.

  Her signal with her finger to her cheek meant, Be careful. I will follow you.

  He flipped his room key in his hand and walked out through the back of the lobby and around the wide pool, with its green stone dragon. His room was in a modern wing of box-crate architecture that could be found anywhere that tourists traveled in groups around the world. There were noisy tennis players on the courts nearby. Pretty Chinese serving m
aids in black skirts just a bit too short hurried back and forth with trays of drinks and food for the people at the pool. It was a bit too public, Durell thought. His room was on the second floor with a small private balcony overlooking the green dragon in the pool. An American girl in a pink bikini had climbed up on the stone dragon and was posing for her picture. Durell turned his key in the lock and pushed the door open with his fingertips.

  Nothing happened.

  Nobody shot at him. The room did not explode. The air inside, coolly air-conditioned, was scented with some spicy odor he found unattractive. He went in, using all the routine precautions against surprise, and did not think the effort wasted when Number 404 turned out to be just another impersonal, sterile hotel room.

  He closed the door, but did not lock it, and checked the lamps and switches for listening devices, knowing how anxious the Generalissimo's intelligence organs were to get informal American opinions of themselves. He hadn't quite finished when he heard the door open and close quietly behind him. She hadn't wasted any time.

  "It's all right," she said huskily. "The room is clean."

  He turned and walked toward her and took her chin in his cupped hand, not saying anything, and almost brutally turned her face to the light from the window. He studied her mouth. A muscle twitched in her smoothly powdered cheek. Her lips quivered. On the upper Up and below the mouth were a number of tiny white pinpoint scars that nothing could erase.

  "Do you doubt that I'm Jasmine?" she asked, her voice almost inaudible.

  He let go of his grip on her face and spoke in Mandarin again. "I know. Who sent you?"

  She spoke unnaturally, in English. "I can only speak California Cantonese, if you want to call it that. Isn't that ridiculous? I'm Chinese and can't speak my own language; and you're Sam Durell, dearest Sam, and I used to think I loved you. But now you look like one of my own people, and not at all like yourself, and I'm all mixed up and wish I'd never let McFee send me here. But he thought it best."