Jin said: ‘If it was true that the rebellion was over, Kang would be pretending it had never happened. The fact that he’s saying it’s over suggests to me that it’s not. This may be an attempt to cover up their failure to suppress it.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
Kai nodded thanks, and Jin left.
He was still pondering the news when his personal phone rang. He answered: ‘This is Kai.’
‘This is me.’
Kai recognized the voice of General Ham Ha-sun, who had to be phoning from North Korea. Kai said: ‘I’m glad you called.’ He meant it. Ham would know the facts about the rebellion.
Ham got straight to the point. ‘Pyongyang’s announcement is shit.’
‘They haven’t crushed the insurrection?’
‘The reverse. The ultras have consolidated their position and now they control the entire north-east of the country, including three ballistic missile facilities as well as the nuclear base.’
‘So the Supreme Leader lied.’ As Kai and Jin had guessed.
‘This is no longer an uprising,’ Ham said. ‘It’s a civil war, and no one can predict who will win.’
That was worse than Kai had thought. North Korea was boiling up again. ‘This is a very important steer,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’
Kai intended to bring the conversation to a close then, knowing that every second added to the danger Ham was in. But the general had not finished. He had an agenda of his own. He said: ‘You know that I remain where I am for your sake.’
Kai was not sure that was entirely true, but he did not want to argue. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘When this is over you have to get me out.’
‘I’ll do my best—’
‘Forget about doing your best. I need your promise. If the regime wins, they will execute me for being a senior officer on the wrong side. And if the rebels ever suspect that I talk to you they will shoot me like a dog.’
It was true, Kai knew.
‘I promise,’ he said.
‘You may have to send a Special Forces team across the border in helicopters to get me out.’
Kai might struggle to make that happen for the sake of one spy whose usefulness was at an end, but this was no time to confess to doubts. ‘If that’s what it takes, we’ll do it,’ he said, with all the sincerity he could fake.
‘I think you owe me that.’
‘I certainly do.’ Kai meant it, and hoped he would be able to pay his debt.
‘Thank you.’ Ham hung up.
The implication Kai and Jin had drawn from the speech of the Supreme Leader had been confirmed by the most trustworthy spy Kai had ever had. He had to share the news.
He had been looking forward to a quiet evening at home with Ting. They both worked hard and at the end of the day, neither of them wanted to dress up and go to fashionable places where they would see and be seen. Quiet evenings were their delight. In their neighbourhood a new place had opened called Trattoria Reggio. Kai had been looking forward to some penne all’arrabbiata. But duty called.
He would tell the vice-chairman of the National Security Commission, who was his father, Chang Jianjun.
There was no answer from Jianjun’s personal phone, but he would probably be at home by now. Kai dialled the number and his mother answered. Kai spent a few moments patiently answering her questions: he was not getting sinus headaches and had not suffered them for some years now; Ting had had her annual vaccination for influenza and had suffered no side effects from the jab; Ting’s mother was very well for her age, and not suffering any more than usual from her old leg injury; and, finally, he did not know what was going to happen next on Love in the Palace. Then he asked for his father.
She said: ‘He’s gone to the Enjoy Hot restaurant to eat pigs’ feet with his comrades and he’ll come home stinking of garlic.’
‘Thank you,’ said Kai. ‘I’ll catch him there.’
He could have phoned the restaurant, but the old man might resent being called to the phone during a dinner with old companions. However, the place was not far from Guoanbu headquarters, so Kai decided to go there. It was always better to talk to his father in person rather than on the phone, anyway. He told Peng Yawen to notify Monk.
Before leaving, he told Jin what he had learned from General Ham. ‘Now I’m going to brief Chang Jianjun,’ he said. ‘Call me if anything happens.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Enjoy Hot was a large restaurant with several private rooms. In one of them Kai found his father dining with General Huang Ling and Kai’s boss, Fu Chuyu, the Minister for State Security. The room was full of the steamy odours of chilli, garlic and ginger. All three men were members of the National Security Commission; they formed a powerful conservative group. They looked sober and serious, and seemed irritated to be disturbed. Perhaps this was more than a convivial get-together. Kai would have liked to know what they had been discussing that required privacy from other diners.