Don Winslow - Satori

His chin on his chest, Chen hung, quietly weeping.

An interior door opened and Kang Sheng made his entrance.

Nicholai had to admit that it was dramatic – the lighting perfect, the moment correct, and he held an ominous prop that glistened in the lamplight.

A wire, perhaps a foot long, needle-sharp on one end.

“Good evening, Mr. Hel, I believe it is?”

“Guibert.”

“If you insist.” Kang smiled.

Nicholai fought the terror that he felt rising in his throat and forced himself to keep his mind clear. Kang has already made the first mistake, he thought. He has shown his opening position on the board by revealing his knowledge of my real identity.

“Perhaps,” Kang said, “when I have shown you what I have planned for you, you might decide to be more cooperative.”

“There’s always that chance,” Nicholai answered.

“There is always that chance,” Kang agreed pleasantly. Hel’s bravado was delightful, so very sheng. And how thoughtful of him to play his role so beautifully – the fall of a falcon is so much more dramatic than the fall of a sparrow. He turned his attention to Chen, who would play the perfect chou, the clown. “Counterrevolutionary dog.”

“No,” Chen blubbered. “I’m a loyal -”

“Liar!” Kang screamed. “You were part of this conspiracy! You helped him every step of the way!”

“No.”

“Yes!” Kang yelled. “You took him to the church, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but -”

Nicholai said, “He had nothing to do with -”

“Be quiet,” Kang snapped. “It will be your turn soon enough, I promise you that. Just now it is the fat pig’s. How many yuan do you eat a day, pang ju ? Is that why you like entertaining foreign guests, so that you can fatten yourself on the backs of the people?”

“No…”

“No, it is because you are a spy.”

“No!”

“ ‘No,’ “Kang said. “I will give you one chance to confess.”

This was the boring part of the play. The shangching, the preamble. Prisoners never confessed at this point, knowing that they would be signing their own death warrants. They knew the pain they were about to suffer, knew that they would eventually confess to the capital charge, but human nature is such that they must first struggle to survive.

Chen was silent.

“Very well,” Kang said.

Nicholai saw Chen’s eyes almost bulge out of their sockets as Kang approached him with the needle. Kang giggled. “I have never done this before, so it might take a little experimentation.”

Chen jerked as Kang touched the point of the wire to one of his balls.

“The problem is the flexibility,” Kang said.

He pulled the wire back a couple of inches and then pushed.

XUN HUISHENG HIT a marvelous note, rich in tone, pitch-perfect, rising in an oblique ze.

Look, my poor mistress frowns every day

And the young man is sick and skinny.

Despite the punishments imposed by the Old Lady

I, the Little Red Maid, will help their dreams come true.

Voroshenin clapped as the audience below shouted, “Hao! Hao! ” in approbation of the superb performance.

COLONEL YU SAT in his office and worried.

The so-called Michel Guibert had not arrived at the opera, nor was he in his room, and none of the watchers knew his location. All they could say was that they had seen him get into the car outside the Beijing Hotel.

Was he in Voroshenin’s hands?

Or in Kang’s?

Either way it was a desperate situation. Who knew what Kang would make him say? If Mao was ready to make a move against General Liu, this could be the prime moment. “Guibert” would confess to the murder plot against the Russian commissioner, and Kang would make him implicate General Liu.

Escape routes had been set up through the south.

Was it time for the general to flee?

Activate “Southern Wind”?

Perhaps, Yu cursed himself, it had been too bold a move – premature perhaps – for them to have allowed the American plot to move forward. Perhaps they should have tossed Guibert out of the country five seconds after he stepped in. But it had been so tempting to set Stalin and Mao back at each other’s throats. The Russians would move Gao Gang into place prematurely. Mao would respond but lack the strength to succeed. General Liu would move in to fill the power vacuum.

So tempting, so rich with possibilities…

And the idea to kill Voroshenin at the opera was lovely in its irony. Very un-Western, but then again, this “Guibert”…

Should I go and tell the general? Yu asked himself. Actualize the escape plan and demand that he leave immediately? Years of long work would be wasted, hopes squandered, dreams of a truly Communist country indefinitely delayed, perhaps destroyed… But can you take the chance of the general being arrested, tortured, shot?

Where is this man “Guibert”?

NICHOLAI STRUGGLED not to vomit.

Chen screamed and screamed, his body tossed against the chains as Kang sawed the wire back and forth through his testicles, all the time offering advice on how to better vocalize.

“Hum qi,” he coached, using operatic terms. “ ‘Exchange breath’ – slow in, slow out. Now ‘steal breath’ – a sharp intake, please, sudden, fierce. That’s it… very good…”

Nicholai made himself focus on his own breathing. In deep through the nose, force it down into the lower abdomen, hold and store, release… deep through the nose, force it down into the lower abdomen, hold and store, release… hold and store, hold and store, deeply in the abdomen until you can feel it in all your muscles…

He tuned out the sound of Chen’s agony.

“I confess, I confess I confess!” Chen screamed.

But Kang appeared not to hear him and continued “Drawing the Jinghu Bow Across the Strings” until Chen shrieked at a pitch that was scarcely human. He would not stop until Chen demonstrated all the mouth shapes of a proper opera singer: kaikou – open mouth; qichi – level-teeth; houkou – closed mouth; and, finally, cuochun – scooped lips.

Kang pulled the wire out and Chen’s neck dropped. His body went limp. Sweat dripped off his skin onto the concrete floor.

“I am a spy,” Chen said between sobs. “I was part of the conspiracy. I helped him every step of the way.”

“To send arms to rebels in Yunnan?”

“Yes.”

“To murder Chairman Mao?”

“Yes.”

“Who gave you your orders?” Kang asked. “Was it General Liu?”

“Yes, it was General Liu.”

Nicholai knew that Chen would say anything now, agree to anything, to prevent Kang from resuming the torture.

And Kang had revealed more of his strategy.

Remain calm - Kishikawa-sama came to him - and keep your thoughts as clear as a pool. Breathe and store your ki.

Liu is the target, he realized, and you are only a string of stones on the way to that target.

Very well.

Kang turned to him and said, “Now, Mr. Hel, it is your turn.”

He held up the wire.

“IT REALLY ISN’T NECESSARY,” Nicholai said. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

Kang smiled. “Admit that you are not ‘Michel Guibert.’ ”

“I admit that I am not Michel Guibert.”

“Admit that you are Nicholai Hel.”

“I admit to being Nicholai Hel.”

“Why did you come to Beijing, Nicholai Hel?”

Nicholai leaned forward in his chair as far as the straps would allow. He looked straight into Kang’s eyes and answered, “I came to Beijing to kill Yuri Voroshenin.”