Shanghai (100 page)

And that night, a new force entered the terrifying world of Nanking under Japanese occupation: the Guild of Assassins. Seventy Japanese soldiers were severely wounded or killed before the sun rose—and the people of Nanking held their breath. They knew the Japanese would retaliate, and they did. Seventy Chinese men were forced into a Taoist temple and the building was set ablaze while their families were forced to watch and hear the screams of their loved ones.

But the next night the assassins were on the darkened city streets again.

Night after night the assassins struck. Day after day the Japanese retaliated—ten, then twenty Chinese died for every Japanese hurt or killed.

Every night the Guild's presence was felt by the Japanese. The Guild members were not particularly
subtle, and they preferred to use the double-edged piercing knives they called swalto blades. Maximilian had heard their leader, the Assassin, reminding them that they did not need to kill Japanese—maiming was often more valuable. “Make them fear the coming of the night and the night will belong to us.” They had been doing just that for almost a week and had lost only two of their members. The Japanese toll was closer to four hundred killed or maimed. But each morning the Japanese would bury their dead and savagely attack the populace in ever more horrifying ways. For every Japanese soldier killed or maimed, thirty Chinese males were crucified or staked out in public squares, their bellies split open so the rats could do their nasty work. The Japanese built a firepit and boiled water in a large cauldron into which they tossed Chinese boys, whose screams pierced the unearthly silence of the city for hour after hour.

It takes a long time to boil to death.

* * *

MAXIMILIAN PUT ON THE PARACHUTE HARNESS that the Assassin had given him as a souvenir of the previous night's raid. He threaded the long silk rope he had found through the front ring, tied a knot that somehow his hands knew, although his mind did not, and tossed the end over the rafter beam. Caught it, threaded it through a pulley, then twisted it through the front ring and pulled.

He was not surprised that he rose smoothly from the ground. Nothing about Nanking surprised him. Every night he wandered the streets and listened to the city moan in the throes of pain. Maximilian knew this place—everything about it. He had never been here
before but he knew exactly where everything was and how everything worked, even knots.

He pulled on the silk rope again and rose to the level of the upper windows.

He looked down on the sleeping men in the room, the twenty men of the Guild of Assassins and their leader. Most slept, some talked quietly, all waited for the darkness, and the call to do their deadly work.

During the day the Komodo dragons strutted down the ancient streets, but as night fell the dragons retreated to their lairs and prayed for the dawn.

* * *

TWO WEEKS OF NIGHTLY KILLING hadn't changed the Assassin's demeanour even a little, despite the loss of two fingers on his right hand. Maximilian had seen him cauterize the wound with the white-hot end of a log he had put in the fire. The smell of roasting flesh had nauseated him, but, like the pain, had had little effect on the Assassin.

Maximilian knew that eventually the citizens of Nanking would yield to Japanese pressure and betray them. He told the Assassin as much. The man responded, “Why is this important?”

“Because we can't go on like this forever, that's why,” Maximilian said, trying to control his now ever more present temper.

“Perhaps you'd like to hit me,” suggested the Assassin, with what Maximilian was beginning to understand was the man's version of a smile dawning on his face.

“I hardly think that'd be fair, considering you are missing two fingers from your right hand,” Maximilian replied, with a smile as well.

“I'd cut off two of yours if it would make you happier, to satisfy your
Fan Kuei
sense of fair play.”

“Very clever, but our position here is precarious and you know it. You lost another man last night. It's actually amazing you haven't lost more. We need help from outside.”

“Outside doesn't care about silly Chinks.” The final word slid through his almost completely closed lips like something slimy and foul—which it was.

“Maybe. But if they knew what the Japanese were doing here. If they knew …”

“Then they would laugh. One set of heathens killing another set of heathens—what business is that of theirs? They still get silk and tea shipments from the Middle Kingdom, that's all they care about. We've already built their railroads for them—it's all that Slants are good for, as far as they're concerned.”

Maximilian didn't deny that. How could he? He'd heard those sentiments often enough from the lips of the men who had sent him to the Celestial Kingdom. But he rallied himself to the task and put his hand on the Assassin's face. “We have to try. We have to tell the rest of the world of the horror of Nanking.”

The Assassin looked at the red-haired
Fan Kuei
and nodded slowly.

Two nights later the entire Guild gathered round a small fire down by the river and the Assassin repeated Maximilian's argument. The men considered it—as only thoughtful men could consider things—in silence. Finally the youngest of the assassins spoke.

“My family lives just above a newspaper kiosk. Every morning hundreds of people come to that one kiosk. Those who can't read wait for someone to read the news to them. They all look at the pictures. And
that's only one kiosk in Shanghai. There must be thousands there.”

“Yes, but the Japanese control all publishing in Shanghai.”

“Not in the Foreign Settlement or the French Concession,” said Maximilian.

“True,” the Assassin said.

More silence.

In his broken, although quickly improving Mandarin, Maximilian asked the youngest man to repeat what he had said. Maximilian listened carefully and, after asking for a few clarifications of words and meanings, said, “Pictures. More people look at the pictures than read the paper. Pictures are more powerful.”

“More ghastly,” the Assassin said.

“So we need photographs,” Maximilian said, “it's that simple.”

“Do you have a camera and film, Mr. Missionary?” the Assassin asked.

“No, but …”

The Assassin ignored Maximilian and turned to the men. In rapid Shanghainese he ordered them to search out cameras, film, and other photographic equipment in that evening's “roamings.” Then he dismissed them, kicked dirt on the fire, and was asleep within minutes.

By the end of the following night there were three cameras and some accessories sitting on a table in the safe house.

“That's all?” Maximilian asked.

“Apparently the Japanese confiscated every camera they could find,” the Assassin said, keeping his voice matter-of-fact only with some effort.

Maximilian carefully inserted rolls of film into each of the cameras, then handed one to the Assassin and one to the young Guild member who had spoken first.

“Who gets the third one?” another Guild member asked.

“Me,” Maximilian said.

He quickly instructed them how to aim and shoot, how to get the focus right and keep the iris open to allow in as much light as possible. They would be shooting at night and they'd need time for the exposure to work. He handed each of them a simple tripod and showed them how to mount the camera. Then he said, “One man to watch the camera, two to guard him. It could take upwards of five minutes to get the shot to work.”

“No,” the Assassin said. “That's too dangerous. The Japanese are looking for us already. Our weapon is stealth, not standing still taking pictures. I won't allow it. These are brave men and I will not senselessly risk their lives.”

“But—”

“No. And that's final. We're not going to stand around waiting for light to mark paper while the Japanese gun us down like dogs. No.”

There was a protracted silence. Finally Maximilian said, “What if we could take pictures in an instant, in a flash?”

“Then fine, but you just said that we needed to wait for up to five minutes—”

“But not if we have a flash of light, like the phosphorus they use in photographic studios.”

“And do you know where we could get some of this phosphorus?” the Assassin asked, clearly ready to end this conversation.

“I think I do. Do you remember the parachute harness you brought back for me?” The Assassin nodded. “Those men parachuted in at night, didn't they?”

“You know they did, or we wouldn't have caught and killed them.”

“How did they see where they were going at night?”

The Assassin stood and took three long steps away from the young missionary. “With flares—flares made of phosphorus.”

Two nights later they were ready. Their cameras were equipped with phosphorus taken from flares stolen the night before from parachute troops, and their swalto blades were sharpened.

The rain began early that night and fell in sheets.

“Can we take photographs in the rain?” the Assassin asked.

Maximilian had no idea. He understood only the principle of light on photo-sensitive paper.

The rain proved more problematic than he had thought. They couldn't keep the water off the lenses, and they knew that what few photographs came out would be next to useless.

“It's not just the rain that's the problem,” the Assassin said.

He didn't really have to elaborate. Both Maximilian and the young Guild member had faced the same dilemma: shoot the picture or save the victim?

“It's easier if they're dead,” the young Guild member said.

“But not as effective,” Maximilian said, and instantly regretted his comment. Two of the Guild members spat in the fire. The hiss was unusually loud.

“Enough,” the Assassin said. He turned on the
Fan Kuei
. “Would you feel the same way if white-skinned,
red-haired people were lying there in pain while you did nothing to help them—just took their photograph?”

Maximilian nodded.

“No, now it's important for you to speak.”

“Yes,” Maximilian said loudly. “Yes, their skin or hair colour doesn't matter to me. They are human beings being treated like animals—worse than animals. So yes and yes again.”

Maximilian was sure the Assassin was going to throw the cameras in the fire and be done with the whole damned thing. But he didn't. Instead, he picked up his camera and said, “Maybe tomorrow it won't rain.”

For seven nights they photographed the horrors of Nanking. Then, on the eighth, they met with a man who was identified only as a riverboat captain. No one had to be told the man was a pirate.

“Can we trust him to get the photographs to Charles Soong?” Maximilian asked.

The Assassin smiled and invited the man to the far corner of the safe house. “Turn around,” he ordered his men. They did, and he removed his shirt. The pirate looked at the cobra on the Assassin's back and grunted. The Assassin took out two sets of pictures. Loudly he said, “If these photographs don't get into the hands of Charles Soong …” Then in a whisper, referring to the second set of photographs, he said, “… and these into the hands of Jiang, I will personally see that you and your sons all feel the wrath of the serpent on my back. Is that clear?”

The pirate nodded, and the deal was sealed. Hopefully the world would see the obscenity of what was happening in Nanking, and Jiang could get the photos to the Soong sisters, whose men could join forces and put an end to it.

But the horror continued in what passed for the light of day. Only as the sun began to set did the Japanese retreat, hunker down, and await death from the darkness.

And each night the Guild of Assassins attacked. And days passed, too many days … and the Assassin was not the only one who knew it.

“The photographs mustn't have gotten through,” Maximilian said.

“Perhaps,” the Assassin said, suspecting rather that the rift between the Communist forces and their Kuomintang enemies was too great for even the catastrophe of Nanking to bridge the gap.

“We have to create a safe zone—a sanctuary. A place where we can protect the remaining populace from the Japanese,” Maximilian said.

“And how exactly would we do that?” the Assassin demanded. He waited for a response. When one was not forthcoming, he sharpened his swalto blade and curled up in the corner, seeking sleep before the night's work.

Maximilian had no answer, but he sensed that he would find one soon. He had been on the rooftops every night since they'd got their cameras and had travelled great distances above ground—distances that, somehow, he knew. On his first night on the rooftops he'd spied a tall post atop a hill in a city park. The next night he'd found two more poles that, along with the first, formed an almost perfect equilateral triangle. The next morning he'd asked the Assassin what the poles were for and the Assassin had replied, “They were watch towers of some sort. There are wild stories about a
Fan Kuei
general of the Taiping who flew on ropes from one post to the other, but it sounds a bit fanciful, don't you think?”

Maximilian didn't think it was fanciful, and the laughing voice in his head kept encouraging him to
Search, search for it, bring it to light.

The next night Maximilian ventured out on the streets of the city. He moved quickly into the shadows of alleys and made his way to the westernmost tall pole. When he reached out and touched it a thrill raced down his arm and circled his heart. He looked down and was surprised to see his hands set into fists, then he tasted the blood in his mouth. He was ready to fight. No. He was
anxious
to fight. But fight with what? With light? He stepped back from the pole and his heel hit the curb. He turned and stared at the curb. He kicked it a second time, and this time he heard it clearly—a hollowness. Then he smelled it. Oil.