‘Your safety is his safety.’
‘Are you sure?’
He wasn’t, realized Charlie. ‘Positive,’ he said. ‘But there can’t be the slightest mistake. We’ll only get one chance. So I want to know everything from the beginning. And from the beginning I mean from the moment you were approached to work for London. In as much detail as you can recall.’
It took a very long time, because Charlie frequently interrupted, pressing constantly for every possible thing, refusing even to accept a generality he could have filled in for himself from the dossiers he had studied in London. Several times Snow had to stop completely, until his breathing improved, and when he finally finished he was slumped, drained, in his chair. Still Charlie wanted more.
‘This problem of contact only began with Foster?’
Snow nodded. ‘In the last six months. With Bowley and Street everything was fine. Foster said we had to be far more carefuclass="underline" that the times I could legitimately come here were sufficient and that we should keep the outside visits to the barest minimum.’
‘How long was this man, Zhang Su Lin, a source?’
‘Just under a year, I suppose. He started at the classes very soon after Tiananmen, but I had no idea he was a dissident at first, of course. He was in Tiananmen when the massacre happened.’
‘How good was he? As a source, I mean?’
‘He seemed very well in with people in Beijing. He told me once that he expected to get arrested after Tiananmen because all the others rounded up knew him and he thought they would name him during questioning. But he wasn’t. He gave me some Shanghai leads, too.’
‘Why did he cease coming to the classes?’
‘I never knew. He just didn’t turn up one day: there was no warning. I wondered if he had been arrested, after alclass="underline" he was very much into writing and issuing the protest wall posters and bulletins. But he obviously wasn’t. Not until last month.’
‘Did he know you were passing the information on?’
‘Not in the way you mean. As far as he was concerned, we were just talking, but of course he expected me to tell others, outside China. That’s the whole point, getting the information out that there is protest, within the country.’
‘So he’ll name you?’
‘He could say he attended my English classes, for a period. That was no secret anyway. But not that I knew him as anyone actively connected or particularly interested in the dissident movement.’
It wouldn’t matter, thought Charlie. The connection between Zhang and Snow would emerge, during the questioning of the Chinese dissident: it probably already had. Which gave them more than enough for a completely genuine spy trial, according to Chinese law. And that was before they even got to Snow’s trip and the material he had gathered in Shanghai, for which they were patiently waiting, believing Snow trapped and Gower at their mercy, for whatever they chose to do. Reminded, Charlie looked to the side of the room, where the small desk obviously utilized when it served as an office had been pushed against the wall in an unsuccessful effort to create more space. Nodding towards the package lying on it, he said: ‘There’s your photographs.’
‘I’ve got what Li gave me,’ announced Snow, in return, groping into the inside pocket of his jacket.
Charlie laid out on the table the Shanghai shots that had been doctored in London and then directly beneath each frame made the match from what the Chinese had provided. They weren’t absolutely identical – the innocuous Chinese shots were not precisely from the same spot – but Charlie accepted that scarcely mattered, for the use the Chinese intended to make of them. The technicians in London had done the best job they could. Snow’s prints appeared to have been very badly developed: in only one was there even a suggestion of a ship, and if he had not been looking specifically for it Charlie’s first impression would have been that it was a low cloud base. The down side was that the Chinese would be looking specifically.
‘They’re very good!’ said Snow, at his shoulder.
‘Not good enough,’ said Charlie.
‘What are we going to do then?’ demanded the priest, in instant alarm.
Charlie thought again how quickly the man would collapse, under pressure. ‘There’s a way round it,’ he promised, in fresh reassurance. ‘It’s all going to be all right.’
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow.’
Snow’s sigh of relief was audible, beyond his strained breathing. ‘I’ve got Father Robertson’s permission to leave.’
‘You told me.’ Charlie still wished the stupid clerical bureaucracy hadn’t been necessary, despite the security of the confessional.
‘I want to go to Rome, as soon as possible. I’m going to ask to go into a retreat. I need a lot of time.’
‘Let’s just think of getting out of Beijing at the moment,’ urged Charlie.
‘I won’t do any more,’ declared Snow.
Charlie frowned at the man, not understanding. ‘Any more what?’
‘Work for you. I thought it was important: still do. But it’s brought too much suffering. To the man who’s been arrested. And to Father Robertson. I have a lot of apologies to make, in prayer.’
‘We wouldn’t expect you to, not any more. We accept that this is the end.’ The man wouldn’t have any use, once he was out of Beijing, but Charlie decided it wasn’t necessary to make the cynicism as clear as that.
‘What must I do?’ asked Snow, obediently.
‘Everything exactly as I say,’ insisted Charlie. ‘And in precisely the sequence I set out. Don’t deviate, in any way…’ He picked up the London-supplied photographs, keeping them in his hands. ‘It’ll take the Chinese a while to prove these have been altered. Certainly more than a day…’ He started to separate the prints into two sets, carefully putting to one side the particular print that more obviously than all the rest showed something that Snow should not have photographed. Charlie added one more Shanghai picture and three innocent prints to the held-back pile, offering the rest to Snow. ‘For Li.’
‘He’ll know some are missing.’
‘I know he will,’ agreed Charlie, at once. ‘You’re going to tell him. Remember, everything in the order I dictate.’
‘Tell me how.’
‘You’re not sure if Li is Foreign Ministry or definitely the Public Security Bureau?’
Snow shook his head. ‘I’m fairly sure it’s the Bureau. He refused to let me try to contact him, when I offered. Said he’d always come to me.’
‘Good,’ said Charlie. He hesitated, wanting his explanation to be as clear as possible, to avoid Snow misunderstanding. ‘What we’re trying to achieve is the maximum confusion among people who might be watching the mission or watching the embassy and trying to connect the two of us.’
‘How much time do you think we’ve got?’ demanded the priest, dispirited.
Don’t collapse on us yet, thought Charlie: it was unsettling enough to consider the man collapsing at all. ‘Enough,’ he encouraged. ‘It won’t be easy and there are things that could go wrong, but if you do it like I say, there’s a bloody good chance it’ll all work out fine.’ That was an exaggeration, conceded Charlie: he couldn’t think of a better way and he’d known escapes far more tenuous than this – his own from Moscow, the first time he turned his back on Natalia, for instance – but this was pretty threadbare.
‘Just tell me what to do.’
There was a dullness in the way Snow was talking, a resignation that Charlie didn’t like. ‘Tomorrow morning, early, telephone the Foreign Ministry. Try to reach Li. But don’t try too hard. All we want to establish is that you tried to get in touch, and then get him and everyone else moving in the wrong directions when they get the message and you start to do what I’m going to tell you. Leave a message that you’re sending something to him. Then go personally to the Foreign Ministry…’
‘Go there?’ exclaimed Snow, astonished.
‘First,’ expanded Charlie. ‘Before you go to the Security Bureau offices.’
Snow was shaking his head, bewildered. ‘This doesn’t make sense…’