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.The same guards were on duty and they searched only Scholefield.His letter of safe conduct produced a marked lessening of hostility and when the search was over they directed him politely into the carpeted antechamber beyond the archway.But there the general, beside the leaden door, greeted them with a hostile stare.He barked an order to them to stand with their backs against the wall and called in two of the guards from outside.He watched closely while Scholefield was searched again.They removed his shoes and inspected the lining of his cap, then one guard worked carefully inch by inch up.both legs, after checking all his pockets and both sleeves.Finally he felt inside his jacket under each armpit.When he had finished the general nodded sourly towards Tan Sui-ling.‘Nu-jen!’ be snapped—now the woman!She glared back at him and the younger guard hesitated.The general returned her stare with equal hostility arid nodded peremptorily for the guard to start at her feet.Without taking her eyes from the general’s face, Tan Sui-ling took a step back and kicked off both her slippers.When he was satisfied with his inspection of them the guard pressed his hands inch by inch against her legs moving upward from her ankles.She continued staring at the general, her face contorted in fury.‘I will report your actions in full when I am inside.Your attempt to humiliate a trusted comrade of the Chairman will not go unrewarded!’A shadow of doubt puckered the general’s brow and she saw it.When the guard had reached her thighs Tan Sui-ling suddenly unfastened the buttons of her jacket and ripped it off ‘Perhaps this is what you really wish to see! You sexual pervert!’ She shouted loud enough for the guards outside to hear and there was a stir of consternation from their direction.‘Come on.’ She backed against the wall and tossed her head scornfully at the general in invitation.‘Search my body personally with your own filthy hands if it will satisfy your twisted mind.’The young guard, crouching in front of her at her feet stared up at her open-mouthed.The general, thoroughly disconcerted by the sight of her naked breasts shouted an order for her to replace her jacket immediately and turned away.He waved the two guards off to join their comrades then swung back and stood glowering at Tan Sui-ling.In his confusion, his right hand had fallen from the butt of his revolver and be stood clenching and unclenching his lists spasmodically at his sides.He waited until she had refastened the jacket then turned scowling and unlocked the lead-covered door.Without looking at her directly he stood back and angrily waved them inside.At that moment the Warszawa cruised to a halt in the narrow deserted hurting outside the Peking No.3 Watchmaker’s Shop for the second time in half an hour.The hollow-chested cadre got out, followed by two other guards from the Grass’ Mist Lane Prison.They pushed and dragged the manacled figure of Yang across the pavement and when the wizened watchmaker opened the door, they propelled him quickly inside.The cadre took the proffered torch and hurried to slide back the door to the tunnel.A minute later the light went out in the shop and the manacled figure of the lone survivor of the Trident crash in Mongolia began clanking slowly and painfully along the darkened underground passageway following the light of the torch towards his appointment with the Chairman of the Communist Party of the People’s Republic of China.PEKING, Wednesday—Heavy damage was reported in the wake of two major earthquakes that struck the heavily populated Peking-Tientsin area of north-east China early today.The first shock was the most powerful anywhere in the world for twelve years;International Herald Tribune, 28 July 197627‘If you have studied the Chinese classics you will know of Chung Kuei!’ His head had fallen slackly to one side on the snowy-white pillow and his clouded eyes seemed to roam the thickly packed bookshelves in the shadows on one side of the subterranean library, as though vaguely seeking a confirmatory reference for his statement.Scholefield found he had to strain to catch the meaning of the slurred Hunanese tones.He moved a pace nearer the couch and glanced up at Tan Sui-ling, standing on the other side by the cluttered desk.‘Chung Kuei was a legendary scholar of the seventh century whom the emperor Hsuan Tsung met in a dream.’ Scholefield spoke slowly and quietly, exaggerating his enunciation of the Chinese words for the sake of clarity.‘Cluing told the emperor he possessed the power to repel ghosts and evil spirits.When the emperor awoke he described him to the court painter and the likeness of the scholar he sketched became a symbol that was hung above the door throughout China at New Year to ward off invasions of ghosts.’The silence that followed lasted a full minute
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