Satori - Don Winslow [26]
The file suggested that he also liked his women — no surprise to Nicholai. Could that present an opening? Possibly, but the “new” Beijing was famously puritanical. The Communists had closed the brothels, and most of the professional mistresses had fled with the Kuomintang. If Voroshenin had a woman in the city, he would keep her well hidden — which suggested possibilities — but would also keep the arrangement very secure.
What else?
Voroshenin played chess — again, most Russians did — but apparently quite advanced, as one would expect. He liked to eat well, he knew his wines, and had developed in his years in China a taste for Beijing opera.
That was about it.
Nicholai closed the file.
16
SOLANGE WAS AWAKE when Nicholai came into the bedroom.
“I’m leaving in the morning,” he said.
“I know,” Solange said. “I felt it.”
He lay down beside her. She rolled over, laid her head on his chest, and he put his arm around her. “I’ll come back for you.”
“I hope so.”
“I will.”
When he went out the door in the morning, she had only one word for him.
Survive.
Outside, a maple leaf detached from its branch, flickered beautifully in the sunlight, and then fell.
Part Two
BEIJING, JANUARY 1952
17
BEIJING WAS Freezing.
The north winds swept down from the vast Manchurian plains and coated the willows, their branches already bending under snow, with a sheen of silver ice. The sun was a pale yellow, a thin disk in a pearl sky.
Nicholai stepped out of the train station and took a breath of the freezing air, which bit into his lungs with a burning sensation. He pulled the collar of his Russian coat up around his neck and wrapped the scarf around his neck.
The street was virtually devoid of traffic save for a few military vehicles — Soviet trucks and American Jeeps liberated from the Kuomintang. Most people were on foot, the luckier few struggled to hold bicycles steady on the snow as they bent low over the handlebars to escape the wind. A few rickshaw drivers picked up arriving passengers and pedaled off with them, the back wheels slipping in the snow.
Then a long black sedan, its front fenders festooned with small red flags, emerged out of the snow and pulled up on the curb. A stocky Chinese man in a padded wool overcoat and a PLA cap with a red star on the front got out and walked up to Nicholai.
“Comrade Guibert?”
“Yes.”
“I am Comrade Chen,” the man said. “Welcome to Beijing. Long live the People’s Republic.”
“Wan swei.”
“Yes, we were told you speak fluent Cantonese.” Chen smiled. He gave the slightest emphasis on “Cantonese,” just to let Nicholai know that it was inferior to Mandarin, the preferred dialect of government. “You lived in Guangzhou, was it?”
“Hong Kong.”
“Ah, yes.”
Silly games, Nicholai thought.
Endless, silly games.
“I will be your escort in Beijing,” Chen said.
“Escort,” Nicholai thought, meaning “spy,” “watchdog,” and “informer.”
“I’m appreciative.”
“Shall we get out of the cold?” Chen gave a curt nod back toward the car and the driver got out, took Nicholai’s suitcase, and loaded it into the trunk. Chen opened the back passenger door for Nicholai. “Please.”
Nicholai slid into the back of the sedan and Chen came around and got in on the other side. The car heater was working manfully, if futilely, against the intense cold, and Chen stomped his booted feet on the car floor. “Cold.”
“A bastard.”
“Do you mind if I smoke?” Nicholai asked, knowing that the answer would be “no,” and also knowing that Chen would appreciate a cigarette. He took a pack of Gauloises from his inside coat pocket and held it out to Chen. “Please.”
“Most kind.”
Chen took the proffered cigarette and then Nicholai leaned over the seat and offered one to the driver. He could see Chen’s annoyed look from the corner of his eye. Even in the “classless” society, there are classes, Nicholai thought.
The driver took the cigarette and, gloating, smiled at Chen in the rearview mirror, so Nicholai knew now that he was not terribly subordinate. A watcher to watch the watcher, he thought. He took out his