Free Typhoon by Charles Cumming Page A

God. But the bad times briefly passed. For once I was not ashamed to be Han, and it was a source of deep regret to me that my parents had not lived to see this period for themselves. For the first time under communism, China officially acknowledged that the Uighurs of Xinjiang were a Turkic people. Nomads who had roamed the region for centuries were allowed to continue their traditional way of life as the Marxist ideologues realized that these men of the land would never be loyal state workers, could never alter their lives to suit a political system. At the same time, the Arabic language was restored to the Uighurs, their history once again studied in schools. Koranic literature was circulated without fear of arrest or punishment and many of those who had had land or property confiscated by the state were compensated. It was a better time, Mr. Richards. A better time.”
    Joe was conflicted. As a student of China, a Sinophile, to hear the history of the region related so intimately by one who had lived through it was a rare and valuable experience: the scholar in him was enthralled. The spy, on the other hand, was frustrated: RUN was failing in his Lenan-appointed task to squeeze the truth out of a man who had risked his life in the waters of Dapeng Bay to bear a potentially priceless secret into the arms of British intelligence. But Wang seemed no closer to revealing it.
    “And what was your role at this time?” he asked, in an attempt to push the conversation along.
    “I was in my thirties. I was teaching and lecturing at the university. I had completed postgraduate work at Fudan University and was determined only to succeed in my career as an academic. In other words, I was a moral coward. I did nothing for the separatist movement, even as Uighur students protested the barbarism of nuclear testing, even as they took to the streets to demand the reinstatement of the Uighur governor of Xinjiang who had been forcibly and unfairly removed from power.”
    “And then came Tiananmen Square. Is that what changed you?”
    The question had been no more than an instinctive lunge for information, but Wang reacted as though Joe had unlocked a code. “Yes, Mr. Richards,” he said, nodding his head. “You are correct.” He looked almost startled. As Wang cast his mind back to the events of 1989, recalling all of the horror and the shock of that fateful summer, his face assumed a dark, contemplative mask of grief. “Yes,” he said. “The massacre in Tiananmen changed everything.”
     
     
9
CLUB 64
     
     
     
     
     
     
    By coincidence, Miles, Isabella and I were drinking at Club 64 in Wing Wah Lane, a Hong Kong institution named after the date of the Tiananmen massacre, which took place on the fourth day of the sixth month of 1989. Shortly after midnight, in the middle of a conversation about Isabella’s new job—she was working for a French television company in the run-up to the handover—Miles excused himself from our table and went downstairs to make a phone call.
    On the consulate recording of the conversation, the official who picks up sounds startled and sleepy.
    “I wake you?”
    “Hey, Mr. Coolidge. What’s happening?”
    Miles was using the bar landline, feeding coins into the slot. “Just a question. You guys have any idea where Joe Lennox went tonight? He got a call at dinner and took off pretty quick.”
    “Heppner Joe?”
    “That’s him.”
    “Let me check.”
    There was a long pause. I walked downstairs on my way to the gents just as Miles was taking the opportunity to check his reflection in a nearby mirror. He wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead, then ducked his nose into his armpits to check for BO. He saw me looking at him and we exchanged a nod as I passed.
    “Mr. Coolidge?”
    “Still here.”
    “We’re not getting anything from the computer, but Sarah says somebody’s using Yuk Choi Road.”
    “The safe house?”
    “Looks that way.”
    “Who’s in there?”
    “Hold