But it would all — including the phrase “destroy the evidence” — make perfect sense if it had been suggested by others, and for a completely different purpose. While the fateful plane was still in the sky, the secret telephone network used by those following the escape must have echoed and re-echoed with the words: “We must shoot it down — otherwise how are we going to destroy the evidence?” Getting rid of the evidence — a perfectly natural preoccupation after such a murder. In this case, “evidence” meant details of the trap: the summoning of the marshal to Peking, the sabotaging of the plane, not to mention the disposing of the witnesses. During those feverish hours the phrase “destroy the evidence” must have been used over and over again: and something had to be done to explain such a compromising expression. So they attributed it to a conspirator who had been unmasked. Then it was all right. All those who had heard it occurring again and again during the incident could stop worrying: it had indeed been uttered, but by a traitor.
But in fact, as everyone knew, the suggestion was rejected, Mao wouldn’t agree to having the plane shot down. Why? The answer went without saying: he didn’t share the anxiety of the others, for the simple reason that he knew something they didn’t know. Then another question arose: what did the others know? And what didn’t they know? Were those who suggested shooting the plane down so ill-informed as to think such a solution was possible? Didn’t they know that the plane of the marshal supposedly invited to Peking was doomed never to land? You’d have to be very naive to believe they were ignorant. No, they were all perfectly well-informed: after all, it was they who’d prepared the trap in all its details — the take-off, the re-routing towards the Mongolian frontier, the bomb placed on board or the sabotage of the landing gear, designed to cause a fire. They knew all this. But still they suggested shooting the plane down.
Every so often Gjergj was consoled by the thought that he wasn’t the first person to rack his brains over this affair. Hundreds of people must have followed that flight. To make the theory of attempted escape more plausible, all the airports in China had been put on alert. But just as on the plane itself those who were leaving or thought they were leaving all had different notions about what was really happening, so too did those who were still on the ground. Most of them — officers in charge of military airfields or rocket launchers, pilots ready for take-off, radar experts and so on — had been informed about the marshal’s attempt to escape. But one thing they couldn’t make out: why had there been no order from Peking to pursue his plane or even shoot it down? Even when the plane appeared on the radar screen the order didn’t come. The pilots had difficulty holding themselves back — they longed to fall on their prey and tear it to pieces, and were afraid other pilots from another base might be given the chance instead. But soon, through some channel or another, the explanation came: Chairman Mao hadn’t allowed the plane to be shot down. Apparently he’d said: “Let him go if he wants to!” This information filled some people with admiration (the great Mao dealt with a traitor as calmly as he might have brushed off a fly), and others with amazement (this was no joking matter, and the marshal, far from being a fly, knew all the state secrets…).
But a much smaller circle was in possession of quite a different set of facts: the summons to Peking, the attempted escape to Mongolia, and above all — yes, above all — the setting fire to the plane by means of a bomb or the sabotaging of the landing gear. They’d also had wind of the possibility that the marshal might be executed in the air. “If anything unforeseen happens, kill him on the plane!”
As soon as they heard the plane had taken off they heaved a sigh of relief. Thank goodness the whole business would soon be over now. That’s what they thought at first. But soon, as the flight continued, they began to be assailed by doubts: wouldn’t it be more efficient to bring the plane down with rockets? What if the time-bomb didn’t go off, or the pilot managed to land the plane safely despite the sabotaged landing gear? (Hadn’t there been many such cases?) How could they bear to let their prey slip through their fingers?
They probably went and told Mao about their anxiety. One of them added: “Even if Lin Biao were already dealt with — should the witnesses be allowed to survive?”
Mao heard them out patiently, but showed no sign of going back on his decision. Finally he answered curtly: “As I said before, let him go. If he’s lucky enough get away in spite of the bomb and the sabotage, it means fate has decreed that he should live!”
They exchanged glances. This was his new style. They weren’t used to it yet. It must be due to his spells down in the cave — they joked about these sometimes.
But their anxiety only increased. Mao had assured them the plane had been doubly sabotaged, by the planting of the bomb and the damaging of the landing gear, but they couldn’t suppress their doubts. It wasn’t that easy to sabotage a plane Lin Biao was travelling in!
Mao himself was perfectly at ease. For the simple reason that he knew another secret. Never mind the bomb and the damage to the undercarriage — Lin Biao was dead already. Killed not in mid-air, as their feeble brains might imagine, nor in the Mongolian desert, but on Chinese soil.
As they dithered around him trying to tell him their worries, Mao looked them over sardonically. They always forgot he came from a peasant background — and a peasant always trusts terra firma better than the sky. Could he possibly have been so reckless as to let Lin Biao fly around before he was killed? He couldn’t afford such a luxury. That was why he’d said “Let him go!” so placidly, He’d known he was talking about a corpse.
So Lin Biao and his wife and son had died, like the vast majority of human beings, on earth. On a landing strip or in a hangar in some remote airfield. Or else they were liquidated even more coldbloodedly inside the marshal’s official residence, as they were taking a stroll round the garden after breakfast. They were shot with a machine-gun through the iron railings, and their bodies were put in a van and driven to the little military air-base. There the bloody corpses were lashed to their seats in the waiting plane.
If Mao was so calm it was because he knew all that. Bet he had never confided in anyone except Zhou Enlal. The reason for his silence was simple: he was protecting his owe prestige. He felt that the planting of a bomb on a plane and the sabotage of its landing gear were strategems which might have damaged his reputation, whereas a ground operation was something quite different. He hadn’t even spoken about it to Jiang Qing. Zhou was seriously ill and hadn’t got long to live, so the secret was safe with him. As for the killers, they would soon follow their victims to a place where they could tell no tales.
Meanwhile the little army plane was flying over northern China. Deep silence reigned on board. No questions were to be heard, no gunshots — only the monotonous purr of the engines. The bullets which were soon to put the whole world in a turmoil were already in the bodies. Every so often the corpses, now beginning to cool, would slip down off the seats. One of the killers had probably thought it enough to fasten them into their seat belts.
Gjergj felt a tremor go through the giant plane, and leaned towards the window. The lights had gone on asking passengers to fasten their seat belts. They were apparently about to land. Night was falling; the tiny purple-glinting windows far below seemed to belong to another planet. The plane was bumping more often now. Gjergj ‘s ears were hurting. The ground was coming closer and closer, and he found himself glancing towards the place beneath the wings where the landing gear would soon emerge, with a faint jolt that would run right through the fuselage.