Razing Beijing: A Thriller by Sidney Elston III Page B

open each eyelid were
three silvery surgical staples. Inflamed tissue sagged between the staples at
one end where they attached to an eyelid, at the other they tugged at the
swollen red skin beyond eyebrow and cheek through ovalized holes and globules
of pus.
    “Now then, Comrade Zhao. What fools planned your escape
north and away from the border?”
    The heavily drugged prisoner’s jaw dropped open and
revealed his blotched tongue. His pupils quivered as they stared into space
from beneath a dull, milky glaze. “Where is she...must see Meilin’...she is
sick. I—” A spasm froze the prisoner’s back in an arch.
    This incoherence prompted a lively exchange of harsh
whispers and expletives. A People’s Liberation Army nurse wearing green
fatigues and a surgical mask approached Zhao and squeezed an irrigating stream
of saline solution into his eyes. Next she reached up and twisted the petcock
to interrupt the intravenous drip of amyl nitrate, removed the bottle, and
replaced it with a bottle of Lactated Ringer’s solution. Finally she re-activated
the drip and scurried back to the shadows.
    Thirty minutes passed before the heart rate monitor
displayed a stabilized increase in rhythm, signaling the prisoner’s gradual
emergence from the drug-induced state. Zhao Bocheng’s raspy breathing labored
with the terror of consciousness.
    “Who was it that directed you north, away from the
border? Why should you be loyal to them? If not for their foolish prescriptions
you might have evaded our net. Who is it that helped you? How were you
contacted? Tell us, Zhao. Or should we simply ask your wife?”
    The prisoner responded sluggishly. “What have you done with
her?”
    The interrogation slogged on for another forty minutes, the
prisoner becoming gradually more lucid. The detention facility there beneath
Zhongnanhai in Beijing was unlike Qincheng and the rest of the Chinese gulag. Its
cells were reserved for subversive or corrupt high-level cadres, dissidents
particularly threatening to the perceived legitimacy of the Party. It was here
that Mao Zedong had slapped into irons two of the Cultural Revolution’s most
wronged national heroes, Liu Shaoqi and later, Deng Xiaoping. Tonight the six
tiny hard cells, concrete corridor, and iron-barred infirmary adjacent to the
interrogation vault were otherwise empty.
    Suddenly a woman’s scream filled the air with an intensity
so shrill that Zhao convulsed, the skin of his ankles and waist bulging beyond
the edge of the leather restraints—the muscles contorting his face tore free
from the staples.
    “Comrade, you must stop.”
    “Meiling! What have you done!”
    “We ask the questions.”
    From far outside the vault came the sound of sobbing; a
guttural cry. It ceased abruptly.
    “You snakes— she is innocent! I am the traitor! She
is very ill. You must let me see her!”
    Minutes later came the scraping sound of approaching
footsteps, the squeal of the door on its hinges while sloshing across the
surface of water. The voice from the unseen face beyond the horizon of shadow
was patient, almost congenial. “Comrade Zhao, we have decided to allow you to
see your wife, after all.”
    A PLA soldier approached the prisoner carrying a folded
white towel—and presented it to the prisoner, who strained his neck to look
down. The young man unfolded the towel. Against the knuckle and just above the
mutilated sever of a single finger was the gold glitter of a ring.
    “NO!” Tears of anguish streamed down Zhao’s cheeks.
    “You may see her, indeed. One piece at a time.”
    Ninety minutes later, two State Security officers left
the nurse to her ministrations of the prisoner. Outside the entrance to the
vault, the senior officer picked up a telephone and delivered a message
confirming that the interrogation begun hours after his capture at Hong Kong’s
airport was complete.
    *     *     *
    STATE SECURITY Deputy
Minister of Operations Chen Ruihan received the text version of