Satori - Don Winslow [41]
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