A Death in China - Carl Hiaasen [56]
Wang Bin laughed.
“Fool! You understand nothing. My brother was of great assistance to me, yes, although he did not know it. I did not need him to smuggle contraband, Professor, but to bring me something. Something perfectly legitimate. He did it willingly.”
“I’ll bet.”
“There is one other thing you should know, fool: My brother is not dead.” Wang Bin hurled the words with ferocity.
“He’s dead and you killed him. You can lie to me, but I doubt if your own government will be impressed. I have written a letter—everything I know about David’s death, including the fact that you killed him. It is somewhere safe. If something happens to me, then it will be opened and forwarded to the Chinese government.”
Wang Bin paused to consider.
“A letter, perhaps, with one of the members of your tour group, given to him before leaving Xian.”
Stratton said nothing. That is what he might have done—if the document really existed.
Then Wang Bin smiled and Stratton knew his desperate ploy had failed.
“I think the letter is your invention, but if it exists, it cannot trouble me. For me, the time is ready. And your time is finished, Captain.”
Stratton looked at the arrogant Chinese without expression.
“Does it surprise you to hear your old rank? It should not. We are thorough people, we Chinese, patient people with long memories. We have files for everything. There is a fat security file in Peking with your name on it, and a black ribbon across it. The ribbon is a special distinction. It means kill on sight. So, in addition to all your other crimes, you are a spy. It will be a great pleasure to kill you, a service to the Revolution—my last gesture.”
“How?” Stratton was too nonplussed to invent a denial.
“How did we ever know the name of the dashing captain of intelligence in Saigon who always undertook the most dangerous infiltration missions? The hero of many medals who led raids into North Vietnam and, once, even into China?
“How simple Americans are! Heroes are never truly anonymous, Captain, and soldiers can never be trusted with secrets. Can they? Think back to Saigon. Many Americans knew the true identity of the secret ‘Captain Black.’ Can you believe they never talked? To their girls, to friends when they were drunk. It took some time; the file says as much. But within a few months, North Vietnamese intelligence knew you were Captain Black. After your raid into China, they shared their information—we were allies then, remember. The Vietnamese wanted you very badly, and after your slaughter of innocent peasants, so did we. Too bad you left Saigon before the assassination teams could find you.”
“You got the wrong guy,” Stratton said without conviction.
“I think not. Your death, at least, is something for which the Revolution will thank me. Goodbye, Captain. I hope you will find hell even less hospitable than China.”
Wang Bin stormed from the makeshift cell. Stratton heard the heavy wooden bar fall against the door. He lay for a long time on the fetid ground, thinking, listening.
Then, painfully but surely, he pulled himself to his feet. He hurt, but not as badly as he had led Wang Bin to believe. Teeth clenched, moving with the jerky uncertainty of an old man, Stratton began a series of painful limbering exercises. As he bent and swayed, Stratton replayed the conversation with Wang Bin. If the mind is too occupied to register pain, then there is no pain.
The man was angry, and he would be merciless. That was the bottom line. Yet there had been bits of information within the conversation that Stratton might use. He began to gnaw at them.
He was in the south of China. What he had seen of the vegetation Wang Bin had confirmed. Guangxi Province, Stratton tried to superimpose the train ride on a map of China. South for three days. He couldn’t be far from the coast.