The Dragon and the Needle (20 page)

Dr Mike Clifford, appropriately dressed in French para uniform, will accompany section four. This section will be the one given the exact location in the Centre of Dr Johnson. It will also be the section responsible for the safety of the two doctors.

Mike looked up and saw the Colonel giving him the thumbs-up sign. Mike duly responded, thinking that now, only a short time on since seeing Eleanor, he would be amongst the first to be with her again.

In the Malinya medical centre, Eleanor did not turn around to face Chen. Dr Han seemed to just fade away, to slip away, leaving the two alone. Had Eleanor, in her subconscious, rehearsed the scene? What she would do, say or react to … should she scream, knowing perhaps that she was dreaming a nightmare, and that the screams would wake her up and Mike would be beside her? In deep shock, she saw herself as an insignificant, dwindled woman, deceived, cheated; forgetting, like all those under severe stress, any of her achievements.

He had taken his hands off her shoulders, but he was there, behind her, whispering words. Now it was, ‘Forgive me.’ Others followed, mostly meaning nothing to her. ‘Saving the world.’ There was a rumbling
thrap
,
thrap
noise of a helicopter flying overhead. It was the only sound other than Chen’s voice that could be heard – but it was at least something other than his voice.

‘Eleanor?’ His voice was alien to her, as though coming from afar. ‘Turn around and face me.’

She found herself beginning to obey, turning slowly towards him on the sofa, but then she stopped. She looked straight ahead once more, towards the window. Snow was falling gently, but across a valley the sun rays caught and held the tops of snow-lined trees. Then the scene vanished, blocked by Chen; he had silently moved from behind her and was standing in front of her. Her eyes were level with his waist.

Eleanor struggled to keep her eyes at that level, and in doing so, regained enough strength to rally. Chen had stopped talking, but now he softly placed his fingers under her chin. His touch revived her strength even more. Could she look up at him now? She did so and then, standing up suddenly, she was at him, her hands slapping his face, forgetting, for a moment, why she had come to Malinya.

He grabbed her wrists, pulling her tightly against himself. She felt revulsion and looked at his face for the first time. It had changed. Chen looked much older, and there was power and strength in his look of supreme superiority.

‘Let me go!’ she shouted at him.

He released his hold on her, and she stood back, wondering how a man could have done what he did to a woman he loved – to a woman who had given him so much love.

Chen looked at her, and keeping his eyes fixed on hers, sat down on the edge of the desk. He said, ‘I didn’t imagine it would be like this.’

Now she could talk. ‘You didn’t imagine it would be like this? What in the name of God did you expect! Loving arms?’ Her voice rose to a sarcastic pitch. ‘I wonder whose body it was I saw in New York? And I was in China, and you were there … alive!’

He cut in sharply. ‘I wasn’t there at that time!’

They stared at each other, silently, each waiting for the other to make a move. She turned her back on Chen and
began to walk towards the window. As she walked away, her mind switched to Mike. She reached the window and in its reflection she saw Chen staring at her. Outside it was snowing harder. She thought, where is Mont Louis? Is Mike there yet? She still felt sickened, yet she had borne up better than she thought she might have done. She was here for information, and was lucky perhaps to have come this far.

She had to find out how Oriental medicine was connected with ENDS. Now she must play along, play games to find out. She could never love Chen again. She casually crossed her arms, with the palm of her left hand gently feeling the microchip. Innocently, Chen had given her an opening by saying that he was not in China whilst she was in Beijing.

She turned quickly and broke the silence. ‘If you weren’t in China when I was there, where were you? Here?’

He came over to her side by the window. ‘I did love you,’ he said, ‘so deeply and …’

‘Where were you?’

‘I was not here. Yes, I was in China most of that time, though seldom in Beijing.’

‘But why?’ Eleanor said. ‘Why did you do such a terrible thing?’

‘I loved you, but I loved China too. China was on the scene long before you.’

‘Wasn’t there a difference between love for me and China?’

‘When you put it like that, it all sounds so easy, doesn’t it?’

She sensed that he wanted to reduce the tension even more, but for the moment it was better to keep attacking. ‘What do you mean, “it all sounds so easy”? What about your debt to America? It taught you all you needed to know about Western techniques!’

‘I felt I owed little to America.’ He paused. ‘You remember Carry Tiger to Mountain? Who do you think organised your life in China for you?’

‘I don’t know who arranged that. I thought I had done that myself,’ Eleanor said. ‘But I do remember that Carry Tiger to Mountain was a plan to unite the world by peaceful means, using the benefits of medicine.’

He did not react to her words, but instead spoke incisively. ‘Yes, it was I who organised your life for you! You lived with my father, remember? It was I who prevented the police from troubling you! It was I who taught you everything you know about China and Oriental medicine. Now you must follow me. I have things to show you and talk about.’

‘Before we go,’ she said, ‘what do you do here and why are you here?’

‘I don’t work here. Dr Ah-Ming thought this was the best place for us to meet. But you will see here just a small section of what we are doing worldwide.’

Chen looked into her eyes, remembering his past life with her. As he did so, parts of that life returned to him as clearly as if it was last week, and not so many years ago. She could tell from his look that he was thinking about the past. She too, remembered his expressions, his apparent vacant look at times – always followed by the mention of a memory, of China, of his youth there, of his family. He had the same look on his face now. She felt fear mounting from the depths of her thoughts. Was he going to make her go back with him to China?

For Mike, the most important part of the operations room was the screens in a corner section. There were the pictures of the Medical Centre at Malinya, and above them, a sensor continually sending out a signal. The Colonel explained, through his interpreter, ‘That’s the signal being sent from Dr Johnson, and the loudspeaker magnifies it. Listen to it.’

Mike heard the continuous, high-pitched note, like a musical high C. He stared at the loudspeaker, knowing that Eleanor
was connected directly with that sound. It was a remote, unconcerned sound. Mike listened, agonised.

The Colonel realised how much strain Mike was under. The Frenchman placed a firm hand on Mike’s shoulder. ‘I know what you must be going through, Doctor. But take heart: once we get a code through from our man in Malinya, the one planted in the Medical Centre, we’ll be able to follow the exact location of your colleague at any moment in time.’

Mike cleared his throat and bit his lip hesitantly. ‘How will that be done, Colonel?’ he asked.

‘Micro-cameras have been placed in positions in all the main corridors. It means that whenever Dr Johnson is in a corridor, we’ll see her, and more importantly we’ll see which room or lecture hall she enters. From our plans of the inside of the building, we’ll know exactly where she is at any given moment.’

‘Have you had that code yet?’ Mike asked.

‘No. But don’t worry, we’ve got one of our best men inside.’ But there was a tone of anxiety in Mike’s voice. ‘Colonel, if my friend Dr Johnson is right about a theory she has, we might well know the cause of ENDS. But whatever happens, we must get Dr Johnson out of that place in Malinya alive and well!’

Before the Colonel could reply, there was a commotion from the far end of the room.

‘What the hell’s the problem over there?’ he called out, and hurried over to the confusion. But it was not bad news. It was the best he could have had.

‘There’s no problem,’ an operator called out, and rising from his seat he shouted louder, ‘The cameras are in position! All’s OK and working fine!’

Mike understood the news a moment later. He could see on many of the screens pictures coming through of long corridors inside the Medical Centre. Things were beginning to go right.

* * *

Eleanor left the secretary’s office, following Chen, feeling hatred for this man, once her dear husband. She wanted to punish him. Somewhere there had to be a law, a punishment, for what he had done to her. As she followed behind him, she briefly recalled the dark days after his ‘murder’ in New York. He had now made his meaning clear: China came first in everything, nothing else mattered. There were millions upon millions of Chinese ready to die for China.

They stopped outside a door marked ‘Consulting Room’. He opened the door and beckoned her to enter. But once inside, there was little sign of its use for consultations. A desk, a chair behind it, and on the walls, instead of medical charts, there were maps of the world. Pointing to the charts, Chen said, as if speaking to himself, ‘Carry Tiger to Mountain!’ He looked at Eleanor who was standing beside him.

‘You see the small Chinese flags on pins covering the world? All the major cities!’ As he swept his hands across the maps, he read out the names aloud: ‘New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Montreal, Quebec, and many other towns and cities in North America!’ Chen moved to the map of Europe. ‘London, Birmingham, Bristol, Paris, Berlin, Moscow…’

Eleanor followed his hands with her eyes, but her thoughts went back to her time in New York with Chen. She remembered his kindness, his profound knowledge of Western and Oriental medicine, his ability to blend both together subtly, for the health of patients. He would lecture with so much enthusiasm, warmth and penetration that what he had to say always moved his students.

He had moved his hands to the map of Asia. He was saying, ‘India, Bombay, Calcutta …’

She remembered meeting him, one bleak wintry evening, before they lived together, outside the New York Medical Centre. They had only been introduced to each other a day or so before, and they might have passed by with a nod. But he had come across and taken her by the arm. ‘I think you
can help me,’ he had said. ‘Perhaps we can help each other.’ They had walked together arm in arm, along the rain-swept avenue, laughing and so happy. He had then taught her so much about Oriental medicine, and life, and China.

Now Chen had moved across the maps to Australia, New Zealand. What was he doing? What were all these flags doing on maps of the world? How was it part of Carry Tiger to Mountain? She was here to find the key to it all; yes, the key. There was so much she did not understand about the plan of CTTM. It seemed to have changed so radically. But this much she had learnt: the key was a mixture of good and evil. And now this propaganda from Chen. Was it leading to them wanting her, perhaps even forcing her, to join them? Was that why they had brought her here?

Chen turned around to face her, finishing with the words, ‘Now you can see how widespread we have become in the world, on the world!’ And he quoted a Chinese proverb, ‘“When the forces of good rise one foot, the forces of evil rise ten feet.”’

She stared at him. Ah-Ming had quoted the same proverb to her. ‘That means,’ she said quietly, ‘that evil often triumphs over good.’

He smiled at her thinly. ‘You understand, don’t you?’

Eleanor said, ‘Yes. And the significance of the flags?’ She nodded towards the maps.

‘They locate the International Centres of Oriental Medicine.’

‘That’s wonderful,’ she said. ‘Wonderful to know that Oriental medicine has established itself so securely.’

‘Yes, isn’t it?’

‘And is showing the world,’ Eleanor continued, ‘that it’s a science.’

‘You are correct,’ Chen said. ‘And from those centres we send out our qualified doctors of acupuncture, to use their skills and to practise the art of Chinese medicine.’

She said nothing, the silence penetrating her thoughts. For
her, the shock of seeing Chen again was wearing off. Even now, the strength of Mike’s love was helping to overcome her fear.

She felt able to say, ‘What else is there to show me? And why has it been so important to see me?’

‘Surely the answer to your last question is obvious. It was to prove to you that I’m still alive.’

Again nothing was said, and they stood for a long minute, both totally changed, both unknown to the other. She was thinking, does he know he means nothing to me now, and never will?

Then he answered her first question. ‘There is more to show you. Please follow me again.’

Mike saw Eleanor first. Minute after minute, he had stood behind the operator controlling the corridor pictures. She suddenly appeared from a doorway and then behind her a man, Chinese, came into view. Was he Eleanor’s husband, Chen? Days ago, he had decided not to linger on the possibility of the man still being alive – all he wanted at this moment was a safe return for Eleanor. Had he known that Chen was still alive, he might have tried harder to stop Eleanor from even attempting her mission. Not that he would have succeeded in that. But now, there she was in front of him on the screen.

The operator shouted, ‘There she is!’ and the commotion that followed brought the Colonel quickly over to Mike.

‘That’s her?’ the Frenchman asked.

‘Yes.’ But the couple on the screen were walking quickly away from the camera, turning a corner, to be immediately picked up on another screen.

A hundred questions flashed through Mike’s mind. But for his peace of mind, he asked the most important one first. ‘If she signals for help, how long will it take for us to get to her?’

‘Well,’ the Colonel began, ‘put it this way. If it takes more than five minutes I’ll be very surprised.’

Five minutes, Mike thought. A lot can happen in a minute, let alone five. He asked again, ‘What about flying through that snow?’