Accompanying Rong Jinzhen was a man of an incredibly serious demeanour, rather tall, with a dark complexion, a somewhat big mouth and triangular eyes. Adorning his chin was a longish moustache which stubbornly curled up on itself, rather like hog bristles. His stiff mode of conduct made people think of steel wire, and his determined approach suffused everything he did. In many ways, he gave off what seemed to be an aura of death. Saying that this man projected a lethal spirit, a ferocious appearance, is perhaps not saying enough. The fact is that throughout Unit 701, this rather serious man was held in very high respect; he had always possessed a certain power and prestige. But, as people also said, his power was not the same as that of Rong Jinzhen, whose importance lay in his intelligence. However, the man had a very special role to play: whenever a senior member of Unit 701 needed to travel beyond the complex, they would always want him along for the ride. Because of this, everyone called him Vasili, after Lenin’s bodyguard in the 1939 Russian film Lenin in 1918. He was Unit 701’s Vasili.
Most people would say that they had never seen Vasili wearing anything other than his fashionably large windbreaker. His hands would always be stuffed in its pockets. He walked with long strides, full of energy — an awe-inspiring figure, just what you would expect in a bodyguard. Amongst Unit 701’s younger members, there were none who did not harbour a mixture of envy and respect for Vasili. They would often gather together and talk about him enthusiastically — his vigour, his various demonstrations of bravery. Even though his hands were always in his pockets, this only made people speculate fantastically on what lay therein, saying that in his righthand pocket was a German-made B7 pistol, ready to be drawn at a moment’s notice. In his left, a special permit, handwritten and given to him by the head of the intelligence service — some famous highranking military officer: all he had to do was take it out and wherever he needed to go, he went; not even the prince of heaven would dare to obstruct him.
Others swore that under his left arm he also had another pistol. But to tell the truth, no one had ever seen it. Still, not seeing it doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. After all, who was able to look casually under his arm? Even if one was to see that there was no gun there, the young members of Unit 701 would never concede the issue, saying instead with great gravity that he only carried his pistol when he was on assignment.
Of course, that is quite likely.
Most professional bodyguards carry more than one pistol, as well as an assortment of concealed weapons, just like Rong Jinzhen would sport more than one pencil or pen, and more than one book. Put simply, there is nothing odd about this; it is rather quite as it should be, just like people needing to eat.
Nevertheless, even though Rong Jinzhen had this man of extraordinary capabilities accompanying him, he still did not feel safe or at ease. Upon departure from the complex, he couldn’t help but sense some indescribable foreboding. He felt as though everyone on the train were staring at him, as if he were the Emperor without his clothes. He was sweating profusely; he was nervous, uneasy, terribly out of sorts, and he had no idea as to what he should do, and certainly no clue as to what would make him feel better. Actually, his state of mind was due in large part to the fact that he was overly concerned with his own personal welfare and the importance of his task — [Transcript of the interview with Director Zheng]
I’ve already said this, but the low-level cryptographer from Y country who was abducted by X country’s agents could not compare to Rong Jinzhen: the difference between the two was like that between heaven and earth. It wasn’t that we were being overly cautious, and it wasn’t that Rong Jinzhen was just frightening himself. The mission they were on involved quite a bit of risk. Even at the beginning, we felt that something was a little strange. After Rong Jinzhen had cracked PURPLE, despite everything being kept quiet about his accomplishment, the levels of secrecy on the part of X country were maintained intact, as if they already knew the cipher had been broken. Of course, they would learn sooner or later that PURPLE had been cracked; things of such magnitude cannot be kept silent for long even if we hadn’t used any of their secret files. But they knew, even though they shouldn’t have. In fact, not only did they know that it was Rong Jinzhen who had broken PURPLE, they were also intimately familiar with much of his work. Realizing the situation, all relevant sections and specialists set about investigating the breach, arriving at certain suspicions and threads in the story. All these threads led to Jan Liseiwicz. This was the initial reason for us to begin to suspect his actual identity, but at that time, they remained only suspicions — there was no concrete proof.
One year later, we received an extraordinary report detailing how Jan Liseiwicz and that notorious anti-communist Georg Weinacht were one and the same. It was then that we understood Lisceiwcz’s truly repulsive nature. We wondered how was it that Liseiwicz had gone from being a scientist to a virulent anti-communist and why he was attacking communism in such a roundabout fashion (even changing his name). That, I guess, is a secret he will carry to his grave. But once the veil was drawn from his true face, his attempts to conspire against us became all too obvious. Perhaps there was no one other than Liseiwicz who truly understood Rong Jinzhen’s formidable talent — after all, he had also worked in cryptography, and had feigned attempts to crack PURPLE. Liseiwicz seemed to guess that Rong Jinzhen would follow the same path towards cryptography, sensing that he would most assuredly become an expert. The decryption of PURPLE was, in a sense, inevitable. Knowing this, Liseiwicz had initially made great efforts to prevent Rong Jinzhen from moving into this field, but upon discovering that Jinzhen was indeed a cryptographer, he shifted his efforts towards hindering the cracking of PURPLE. Once he learnt that it had been broken, he tried misdirection once again, launching a covert stratagem aimed at ensnaring Rong Jinzhen. I think much of what Liseiwicz did was at the behest of political interests, something he little choice about. Consider, for instance, that had Rong Jinzhen broken PURPLE right at the beginning, Liseiwicz would have become a disgrace — it would have been worse than having all of his possessions stolen. But the alarm never sounded. At that time, his role was as an early warning system. How else could it have been discovered that Rong Jinzhen was the man responsible for cracking PURPLE? It had to have been Liseiwicz that put two and two together. He got it right! However, there is one thing that he could not have thought of and that was that his scheme to ensnare Rong Jinzhen would have no effect! You could say that in this matter, God was on Rong Jinzhen’s side.
What is more, the enemy’s JOG radio station propaganda broadcasts over the next few days spoke evasively on the subject, offering huge amounts of money to ‘buy’ our cryptographers; such and such a person for such and such a price. I clearly remember that the bounty they first put on Rong Jinzhen was over ten times that for a pilot: 100,000 yuan.
Can you believe it!? One hundred thousand!
According to Rong Jinzhen’s reckoning, such a bounty put him up in the heavens and, simultaneously, put him one step away from hell. He realized that since such an amount had been placed on his head, those seeking to harm him would have sufficient cause and incentive; it would attract not a few people. All this left him feeling helpless. This was his mistake, as our security preparations to ensure his safety far exceeded any danger that he might run into. Besides the faithful Vasili, there were any number of plainclothes protectors accompanying him every step of the way, including those trained in advanced combat techniques. They were all ready for the unexpected. He didn’t know about any of this, so feeling himself being jostled by the hordes of people coming and going along the train made him feel really nervous.