Citizen One (34 page)

The ‘Stalin’s Moustache’ bar, the Port of Shanghai
…

The sailor, the look of a man who was constantly regretting his mother’s fertility, was easily recognisable. A glass eye, grey-blue, to his natural eye that was the colour of day old black coffee. A mesmerisingly schizophrenic effect, making you feel that you were talking to two people at the same time.

“Information?”

Yaobang sitting. The Reeb beer in front of the sailor, as blond-headed as an American movie starlet, making his throat feel band-saw dry.

“I’m not going to screw with that
tai zi
…”

“Qi?”

“That’s what they called the bastard. He was the
cadre
in charge. He was the one that gave me the co-ordinates.”

“Co-ordinates?”

“Deep water for that area.”

Glass set down. Foam in slow slide. Yaobang beckoning over a sad-eyed waitress. Another Reeb ordered.

“Tell me more, Comrade. To speak is good for the fucking soul.”

“But not good for my health. I’m not going to fuck with that princeling. The look of a man who could hasten a death in the family.”

The Big Man extravagantly reaching into an inside pocket. Purposely, a glimpse of his shoulder holster and a pistol’s dark arse. In his hand a fresh harvest of US dollars, letting them fall from his hand and onto the worn Formica table top.

“You look like the kind of man who would recognise a good business opportunity, Comrade. You look like the sort of comrade that I can make an offer to that will free his fear of a death in the family. You must understand that I’m making you an offer, Comrade, that must be fucking accepted.”

Calloused-fingertips across Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Alexander Hamilton.

“Fuck it. I sail at high tide. I’m away for three months …”

Draining the glass of Reeb.

“What’s one death in a family of hundreds?”

*

The ‘Celestial Right’ Archaeological Research Vessel
.

Big and Little Yangshan Islands, Hangzhou Bay, 27 kilometres off Shanghai’s southern coast
.

Piao’s head, an internal blackboard. Adding things to his list, changing things, crossing things off. The release of crossing things off. Rising from the bunk and the comforting discomfort of rough blankets to an iron floor shivering with vibration. In the Big Man’s hand a chipped steaming enamel mug of
lucha
. Refusing it, the Senior Investigator, with a limp wave of the hand. Rising, thinking that fresh air would help up on deck.

A sky of rain which was reluctant to fall. A chill breeze and clouds the colour of amalgam. But the air not helping. Shivering, sweat across his forehead. Pulling his collar up and sitting on an oil drum, his arms crossed, slumped on rust-blistered rails. His sutured calf, burning like an orange coal. Its pain the only reality in a universe of sea-sickness. Yaobang hauling an oil-stained tarpaulin across the deck, wrapping it around his Boss, Piao nodding his thanks. Looking out to sea across Hangzou Bay, Xiao Yangshan and Da Yangshan Islands, a deeper grey set in grey, biting into the horizon.

A hand on his shoulder. Bone, thinly veiled with liver-spotted skin.

“Not a good sailor, young Piao. Like your dear mother.”

Recognizing the voice. Chieh, Director of the Bureau for the Preservation of Cultural Relics, massaging the Senior Investigator’s shoulder.

“I took her sailing on the lake, years ago. So many years ago. As sick as a pregnant sow.”

Laughing.

“Did I ever tell you, Sun Piao, your mother, the most beautiful girl in Songjiang? How I loved her. But it was not to be.”

Piao, his head raised just long enough to expel the words, as few as possible.

“I did not expect you here, Director Chie.”

“This is my ship, my responsibility. I loan it to you only because I owe you
guan-xi
for favours that you have performed for my bureau. The return of the ‘Men of Mud’ during your last investigation was much appreciated.”

A smile illuminating the back of the old man’s eyes. Emperor Jing Di, fifth ruler of the Han Dynasty, the ‘Men of Mud’, his army of terracotta warriors to protect him in the afterlife, always having that effect on all who viewed them.

“I loaned my bureau’s research vessel to you also because of your dear mother’s friendship.”

Spreading a handkerchief, then sitting on an oil drum beside the Senior Investigator.

“And because there is little reason to leave my office nowadays. My work, busy, busy, busy. And, of course, there is my secretary, Miss Lau. Old, but good breasts, firm thighs.”

Laughing.

“And there is so much that is new to see, young Piao. You see where the foundations spike? The longest transoceanic bridge in the world will be built there, an eight lane highway spanning these waters. 12 billion
yuan
creating a thirty-six kilometre long bridge, shortening the journey between the two Yangtze River Delta cities by 120 kilometres. Can you imagine?”

Pointing toward Big and Little Yangshan Islands.

“And there, the Yangshan Port Development. The largest port project under construction in the world. Built to deal with our city’s growth rate of 29% a year and to handle the third and fourth generation of cargo ships. It will include a deep water port, where there will be a fifty-two berth container terminal. 18 billion dollars of investment. Amazing. Amazing …”

Shaking his head.

“Progress, progress, progress. As long as we do not lose the values of the past. But that is the reason why I exist, Sun Piao. And you. The past …”

His voice lower.

“Tell me, young Piao, I have come here to see the sights, but you?”

Screws reversing. Grey waters blooming with a brown blush. The anchor pinning them firmly to GSP data provided by a sailor for US Dollars that would not even buy the comfort of a decent whore for the night.

“Why are you here?”

The Senior Investigator looking up and squinting into the wizened monkey face.

“Like you, the past. To give honour to that past, Director Chieh, and to give honour to those who lost their future to it.”

*

Ritual … of rubber, steel. Rites … of buckles, dials, pipes
.

Dive Marshal’s keen-eyed patrol. Three divers, pre-dive safety checks. The Buoyancy Control Device, weights, releases. Compressed air, 232 Bar. 12 litre tanks at around 25 metres giving around 30 minutes at depth. Air on. Turning the knob all the way, then half a turn back.

Two divers with a rope attached to a buoy, their forms melting, deeper, bubbles escorting a rope into darkness. 27 metres, securing the rope in place. A small crane swung over the side, its steel cable securing a weighted, holed plastic tray. A live feed video camera in an underwater housing and arc lighting; wires spilling as a loosely coiled spring. Torches, basic tools and rope. The third diver into the water, one hand to the rope, the other to a fiercely beamed torch, following the tray into darkness.

Piao concentrating on the buoy until there was a shout from the bridge.

“Live feed’s started.”

Grey steel bathed in green radar light. Broken monochrome splinters from the small monitor. Oscillations across faces; noses shunted sideways, mouths twisting, untwisting. A face, mask encased. A hand, thumb extended.

Hongcha
laced with
Maotai
in chipped enamel mugs as Piao watched the divers’ precise ballet. One, in static position, feeding out a rope to a second tethered diver circling around him. Each revolution, a metre fed out in sharp-eyed arc search. The third diver observing, filming. Thirty minutes passing, Piao counting them out. Links in a chain.

Thirty minutes … nothing. The monitor fading to black, at is centre, a bright star slowly imploding. Piao, limping badly, the first out of the bridge and to the rails as the divers returned for fresh tanks, watching their heads breach waves and their awkward clamber on to the rusted iron. The Dive Marshall replacing tanks, double checking regulators, gauges. Thick bubbled spits onto the insides of face masks.

By the time that Piao had made it back across the deck and up the ladder to the bridge, the monitor had sparked back into life. Sitting at the back of the bridge closest to the door, his eyes glued to every movement as the minutes ticked by. Nothing.

Lighting another cigarette, and in its cadmium strike a blur of movement across the monitor.

“They’ve fucking found something, Boss.”

The third diver moving forward. The video camera their eyes. Shapes, ill-defined … two divers, rope-tethered. A larger shape looming, beyond that, another. The video camera’s zoom lens following the diver’s pointing finger. The shape filling the lens and the monitor. Chieh, the Captain and some of the crew moving closer, pulling the detail into focus. Something, the briefest shaving of a second, familiar, but unfamiliar, out of context with the bottom of a sea.

“What was that?”

Chieh’s spectacles removed, gaze riveted to the Senior Investigator’s eyes. Back to monitor, but the video camera already in swirling freefall. Snatches of stone, flippers, the rippled sea bottom and the diamond diffused sky. A diver’s manic sprint for the surface. Other hands already picking up the camera, following his frantic bubbled flight. The Dive Marshall running for the door, shouting.

“Call for a helicopter, we need an immediate transfer. There is a Dayang class support and rescue ship in the Port. It has a de-compression chamber.”

Sliding down the steps, followed by the crew. Running to the rails; a broil of bubbles breaking to the sea’s surface. The diver puncturing the waves like a black leaping dolphin. Life-jacketed bodies in water, hauling him from weightlessness to iron.

The Captain turning to Piao, his breath, still of
hongcha, Maotai
laced.

“The diver, he came up too quickly. He should know better. His lungs could be ruptured. He’ll almost certainly have ‘the bends’.”

His gaze diverted across the Senior Investigator’s shoulder to the monitor. His irises widening.

“What is this?
Ta ma de
, what the fuck is this?”

Piao already knowing, and not needing to see the eyeless face, the curve of a decomposing cheek, or the black hole of a mouth … a fish emerging from its torn-lipped darkness.

The Senior Investigator turning away. Only the sound of the sea against their iron oasis and Yaobang’ scorching words on the back of his neck.

“I think we’ve found what we were fucking looking for, Boss.”

*

Only seeing him by the play of cigarette tip’s light, at the bow of the ‘Celestial Right’, black against sea of darkness. Yaobang helping Director Chieh negotiate the deck, the cables, hatchways and tethered cargoes.

“How are you feeling, Boss?”

No answer. Piao, eyes to the lost horizon, counting the deep trenched ride of freighters. Only the Director’s bony hand on his shoulder pulling him back to the undulating iron deck.

“Sun Piao, you should have told us.”

“How is the diver?”

The Big Man moving forward, constellations of ships’ running lights, eclipsed. Lighting his cigarette from the Senior Investigator’s.

“He’s all right, Boss. No permanent damage. Nothing that will get in the way of living a normal life. He was lucky. Maybe just a few nightmares.”

‘A normal life, whatever that might be.’

“Yes, he was very lucky.”

Director Chieh, moving around to confront him.

“You should have told us what to expect, Sun Piao. You should have explained the situation when you asked for my support. A diver nearly died and we who have witnessed what is on the bottom of Hangzhou Bay are compromised. You should have been honest with me, Sun Piao. Honesty is the mark of a virtuous man.”

“Do not talk to me of virtuous men, Director, as yet, beside my Deputy, I have met none.”

Piao flicking the cigarette butt into the air over the ship’s railing.

“And as a virtuous man yourself, Director, what would you have done? I would have told my story, given my reasons, talked of those who life no longer possesses, of girls slashed to death and abandoned in the Wusongjiang, murdered and entombed in concrete. Of comrades crucified, tortured …”

Lighting another cigarette.

“And you, Director Chieh, you would have apologised. You would have said how busy you were. Your ship, this ship, out of commission, or involved in a major archaeological research project. Our meeting, it would have been erased from your diary. Files, with my contact details, lost in a very deep cabinet. Your secretary briefed, with a water-tight alibi, as to where you were at the time of our supposed meeting.”

Silence. A deep drag on the China brand.

“There is no need for embarrassment in this, Director. I, more than anyone, know the game and know how it is to be played. It is a game that we all know and play in this People’s Republic of ours.”

A hand on the old man’s shoulder.

“You are a good man, Director Chieh. A good man and a good comrade. But sometimes the two do not go together well. Sometimes they are incompatible. To my personal cost, I know this also to be a truth.”

“You are right, very right. I am sorry, Sun Piao. We should think of those who life no longer possess. What have we come to? A shadow, and we stay at home peeking out of the corner of our curtains. A stranger looking at us, and we come back to our office and shred documents. What do we do now?”

Silence. Just the night. Just the sea. No shadows. No strangers.

“We will play the game that we all play, Director. And we will play it well. Your crew, your divers, they were never here. You will support them in developing solid alibis. You will change all the paperwork relating to this voyage. You have a long arm, Director Chieh,
guan-xi
will buy the harbour master’s memory.
Guan-xi
will erase the details that relate to the diver’s transport to the decompression unit and his brief stay in hospital.”

Piao standing and walking to the rails. The ship’s life flowing in vibration up his legs and centring in his chest.

“The only copy of the video film that was taken after the diver panicked, you will give it to me. The Global Satellite Positioning data of the bodies in the concrete, you will also give to me.”