Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station

and how heroic it is to give oneself totally to one’s Motherland—and
of course to Mao. Because of this we hope he’ll prove sympathetic enough to
pinpoint the location of that camp for you.”
    ”He’s a barber now,” put in Bishop.
    Carstairs nodded. ”Yes, in Xian. He also speaks enough English to
communicate,” he added parenthetically. ”We gleaned this information from his
brother, who fled China for Hong Kong , where refugees from the mainland are
habitually questioned. It’s the right camp—Ching Ho Forestry Camp—which means
Clear Stream in English. They have a penchant for giving camps and prisons
delightful names,” he said dryly. ”And contacting Guo Musu will be your job.”
    ”I see,” said Mrs. Pollifax, looking dazed. ”But if Mr. Guo chooses not
to pinpoint the location, or can’t be found in Xian?”
    ”We’re not entertaining thoughts of failure,” Carstairs told her firmly.
”This Mr. X has got to be found and brought out before the Russians get to
him.”
    ”Russians!” exclaimed Mrs. Pollifax.
    ”Yes.” Leaning against the corner of his desk he said, ”One of our
agents who works for the Soviets—a double-agent, needless to say—has brought us
information of X’s existence and of the Soviets’ interest in him. Before
summer’s end the Russians will be mounting a major undercover operation to get
this chap out of China ,
too.”
    ”But—one may ask why?”
    ”Because our friend X knows a great deal about China ’s
fortifications along the Russian border,” Carstairs said. ”I n fact,
he designed a good share of them—the below-ground sections added in the late
sixties and early seventies, at least. By our good fortune no one in the
government has remembered him yet. Apparently somewhere along the way, through
some error in the records or through being mistaken for a prisoner who died,
our Mr. X has acquired the name and identity of another man. I don’t want to
confuse you with names, but if I tell you that X’s true and proper name is Wang
Shen, and that his current name is Wong Shen, then you can share speculations
on what happened.”
    Mrs. Pollifax nodded. ”I see... He’s an engineer, then. But how did he
end up in a labor camp?”
    ”That we don’t know,” Carstairs said. ”Some indiscretion or other, a
confidence shared with the wrong person, a banned book seen in his
possession—it scarcely matters; it happened to so many people during Mao’s
time.” He nodded toward the map. ”What matters is this seven hundred miles of
shared border between the two countries, between Russia—her former mentor and
big brother, now an uneasy and threatening neighbor—and China, struggling to
assert her rightful position in the world. It’s worth a great deal to the
Soviets to learn in precise detail what booby traps face them along that
frontier— and no one in China realizes that Wang Shen, with all that information in his head, is still
alive.”
    ”Astonishing,” said Mrs. Pollifax, blinking at this.
    ”It’s especially important to prevent Wang from falling into the
Russians’ hands,” went on Carstairs. ”We could, of course, notify the Chinese
of the Russians’ interest in the man, but frankly we’re not sure what the
government would do about it. He is presumably listed as a
counterrevolutionary, a revisionist, a capitalist-roader, or some such, or he
wouldn’t be in a labor reform camp. He’s also thousands of miles from Peking , in a country still heavily weighted with Mao
bureaucrats. Someone just might decide that killing him would be the simplest solution.”
    Mrs. Pollifax, considering this, could see his point.
    ”And,” he continued, with a faint smile, ”lest you think we’re being
altruistic here, we’d be delighted to have a chat with Mr. Wang ourselves in
the interest of preserving the balance of power on this fragile planet.” He
sighed. ”Very touchy thing, that border. Our satellite photos can’t tell us
very much because so many of China ’s
defenses are underground. The Chinese military can be charmingly frank about
being years behind in defense, but they can also be charmingly vague about what
they have over there to hold Russia back—other than a billion people,
underground shelters, and anti-aircraft on every hill, of course.”
    ”I begin to understand,” said Mrs. Pollifax dryly.
    ”Yes. A great deal depends on China ’s being strong enough to keep
the Russians in check. Since we’d never attack