Hsinchu City, Taiwan
THE NEW ARRANGEMENT was doomed from the outset. Later, when the two officers from Taiwan’s National Security Bureau would write up their reports, they admitted that, with hindsight, Chen Chin-lung had not, after all, been a suitable candidate as a double agent.
Incapable of concealing his nervousness, he had immediately aroused the suspicions of Lihua, his Chinese handler, within minutes of his arriving for their first meeting following his arrest. His hands trembled, his voice was different from last time and he kept avoiding eye contact. All these things she noticed because Lihua, which, of course, was not her real name, was a highly trained operative with China’s Ministry of State Security. She already had four years of agent-running under her belt before she had even approached Chen for recruitment.
‘Is everything all right?’ she had asked him gently. ‘Has something happened?’ She was giving him a last chance to confess that he had been turned, but Chen had brushed it off, just as the two women from the NSB had taught him to. Troubles at home, he had explained, nothing more than that. Unfortunately for Chen, Lihua could see through him like a glass door. She knew at once what had happened. But she was canny enough to say nothing, not until she had sent off his latest packet of material to Beijing for analysis.
And the response that came back from MSS headquarters, at 100 Xiyuan in Beijing’s Haidian District, confirmed her suspicions. The intelligence Chen had supplied was corrupted. As far as Beijing was concerned, he was now a burnt asset, and expendable. Lihua knew exactly what she needed to do.
So she brought forward their next meeting, greeting Chen with the warmest of smiles from her quiet corner in the café. She even touched his arm as they spoke, putting him at ease, softening him up for what was to follow. Lihua had arranged for a particularly attractive waitress to be working the tables that afternoon. She needed him to be distracted. And while the man’s gaze was otherwise engaged, she acted. Chen Chin-lung never saw the thin stream of colourless liquid Lihua squirted into his cup or the tiny syringe being popped back into her purse. It was not until eighteen minutes later, having finished his drink, that he began to experience a tightness in the chest. He complained of a feeling of an unbearably heavy object pressing down on him. She observed him dispassionately as he clutched first his arms, then his throat. He appeared dizzy and short of breath. Chen Chin-lung gripped her wrist, his eyes wide with terror, his lips silently pleading for help. And Lihua was gentle and attentive in those final moments. With her free hand she stroked his hair, and mopped his sweating brow with a napkin from the table. It was only when he finally slumped forward, his eyes open but lifeless, that she called across the café for help. ‘An ambulance!’ she cried. ‘I think this man’s having a heart attack!’
Lihua – Pear Blossom – hurried outside for help. And did not return.