“Okay, okay, okay. So, two years ago, in ’61, I met Shan Dao at a poetry reading in Paris. Only, he wasn’t introduced as Shan Dao. He was introduced as the son of Mei Hankong, a Chinese cultural attaché assigned to the embassy in Bern. But of course, I’d recognized him right away. It was Mei Jinzhao.”
Out of the corner of his eye he watched that ripple around the room. Cheuk-Kwan made a harsh sound to quiet the others, and Tinseng smiled down at his wine, thankful for his didi.
“We fell back into our close acquaintance right away,” Tinseng continued. “Jinzhao knew they’d hired me to translate Mandarin and Cantonese into French, part of their bilateral intelligence agreement with France. But, well, by the time Jinzhao met me, I’d realized I might have miscalculated the nature of the assignment. I was unhappy, and Jinzhao helped me see that.”
The lie will be good for all of us, he thought. They didn’t need to know everything, and besides, Jinzhao was asleep. If he’d wanted to keep Tinseng totally honest, he would have made more of an effort to stay up.
“Anyway, I quit, so it doesn’t matter anymore, but it’s important because of what happened next. Around two years ago, his mother sent him a strange telegram. He was immediately concerned. He took the first train he could without sending a telegram back, and he didn’t tell anyone he was coming. He thought if he had to get her out, it was better to have the element of surprise.” Tinseng laughed once, a hateful thing. “He surprised them all right. He heard them leaving out the back.”
“Oh,” Yukying breathed, her hand over her mouth.
“He didn’t even have a knife,” Tinseng said, feeling very far away from himself. “They could have killed him. But they fled. Probably heard the front door. He found her in the bedroom. His father was in his study.”
Yukying made a noise. In his periphery, he saw Yingtung put an arm around her, and she hid her face in his shoulder.
“He called the police and waited for them to arrive. But someone from the embassy arrived first. Strange, since he hadn’t called the embassy yet. They kept him at the house for hours. Every time he tried to leave they stopped him. He started to wonder why. When he asked too many questions, they took him away to question him.”
“They didn’t think he—” Chiboon started.
“He’s the son of two Chinese nationals. He’s automatically suspicious to the Swiss.”
“Bastards,” Cheuk-Kwan spat.
“They keep files on their own children just for asking to see a Little Red Book for school reports,” Tinseng said tiredly. “It’s not exactly surprising. What was surprising was how the CID was acting. They did nothing to shield Jinzhao. Usually no one over here would act against a Chinese agent. If any of the CCP officials in Bern had so much as sneezed, the Swiss would have backed away from Jinzhao immediately. So why weren’t they putting the full force of their diplomatic corps between Jinzhao and the Swiss?”
“Because they already knew Li Xifeng had flipped,” Yingtung said.
“Right.”
“And they were willing to lump Mei Jinzhao in with them?”
“A safe bet,” Tinseng said with a shrug, “at least from their point of view. He’s their son.”
“What about the other one?”
“The other son? He’d been in China since he was fourteen and is now working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing. Jinzhao hasn’t seen him in more than ten years. He actually comes into the story right now. Eventually, they released Jinzhao and he went straight to the embassy. That’s when he knew something was wrong. They wouldn’t let him past the lobby. So Jinzhao tried to get through to his brother. It was nearly impossible, probably because he was dodging the calls, but Jinzhao finally managed—only his brother said he had nothing to do with it and told him not to contact him about it again.”
“Sensible,” Yingtung murmured. Tinseng’s imagination supplied a vivid depiction of throttling him.
“Was it? Both parents murdered, but not an ounce of curiosity why? Sensible. That’s an interesting word for it, Yingtung; your insights are always so—”
“Tinseng.” Cheuk-Kwan’s hand put weight on his shoulder.
“Right.” Tinseng tried for a smile. “Sorry. We must differ in opinion on how someone should react to the murder of their parents. Anyway, Jinzhao was crushed by this response. He stayed in town to take care of all the arrangements, but at every turn he was ignored. It was almost as if no one wanted to admit two people were murdered at all. And eventually they wrote in the papers that it was a robbery. The house had been cleaned out, but no one would tell Jinzhao anything. So he came back to Paris and asked me for help. We hadn’t gotten anywhere when someone leaked the whole thing to the press. And we know what happened then. The Mei Affair. That at least made sense of why Jinzhao’s parents had been killed, and why the CID acted the way it had. So that part was wrapped up, if you could call it that.”
Tinseng took a long drink, nearly finishing his glass. No one else said anything.
“Anyway, as we were investigating the murder, we discovered something else. Just a rumor, at first, until the story broke. You see, there are lists of potential recruits maintained by every power. Too many lists to mention; MI6 probably has dozens. And in Switzerland, there was one in particular called 明单.12 As far as we could tell, it was a very short list until a few years ago. Then someone took it over, and it became very successful: a list of Chinese-natives, in both Switzerland and China, who were sympathetic to the Soviets after the Sino-Soviet split. You can imagine how dangerous a list like that was.”
Tinseng wished they had stayed in the other room after all; retelling the story would be easier if he could see Jinzhao.
“The person who maintained the list didn’t care that they could ruin the lives of everyone they named. If the list was ever discovered, the reputation of those students would be tarnished forever. The journalists they named would never be able to live in China again. Any officials would have to fear for their lives. But that risk was worth it to the owner of this list.” Tinseng finished his wine. “I think you know where this is going, huh? A copy of the list got out. Grodescu has it, and he wants to sell it to the highest bidder. And I’d probably be trying to get it back regardless of the names on it, but the person who identified possible recruits so well was Jinzhao’s mother. And she put Jinzhao’s name on it.”
A burst of pandemonium followed. Tinseng took the opportunity to eat a few bites of chicken and open another bottle of wine. Surprisingly, it was Yingtung who refilled his glass.
“But how’d you find this all out?” Chiboon asked when they’d all resettled.
“It doesn’t really matter. Just research and connections. Knowing how to ask the right questions.”
“You did all this in a year? While you were still working?”
Tinseng shrugged. “I was thinking of getting out anyway. Once Jinzhao showed up at my door, the decision was made for me. I told them I was out, that I’d gotten an offer at the new university they were setting up in Hong Kong. We lived off our savings.”
That was a generous interpretation of events. Mei Hankong’s will had given everything of value back to the state; the idea of inheritance ran counter to the basic tenets of communism, and he didn’t want his sons to perpetuate societal inequality. Jinzhao had less than Tinseng, and Tinseng hadn’t exactly had savings so much as scraps from his last few paychecks.
“Savings?” Cheuk-Kwan asked, too used to Tinseng’s bullshit to buy it.
“We made it work,” Tinseng said defensively. “Anyway, it was only for a few months. They let me go without too much fuss.”
“On what condition?” Cheuk-Kwan asked, already picking up on the rules of the game. They exchanged a look, and Tinseng thought, They chose the wrong brother.
“If I happened to see any bright young things in my classes, they’d appreciate if I dropped them a line. A little 明单 of Britain’s own. But if I don’t see anyone I think is a good fit, that’s not my problem.”
“And so, what about this man?” Chiboon asked. “Grodescu? The one who apparently kidnapped Mei Jinzhao?”
“All you need to know is that he has a copy of the list. He doesn’t know how to read it, but he doesn’t have to; he just has to sell it. Our plans to get his copy haven’t exactly worked out so far.” Tinseng glared at his brother. “What, Cheuk-Kwan, would you like to say something?”
