Chapter 2914: The Suspect

"A reporter?" The man finally spoke. His voice was not loud, but it carried weight. "What's a reporter doing drawing this?"

He pointed at the sketch of the ship and tapped one fingertip on the gun position.

Mai Ruibao swallowed, and strove to make his voice sound steady. "I'm — I cover ports and shipping. I saw this ship was of unusual form, so I... so I drew it. I meant to write a dispatch. A dispatch on developments in shipbuilding..."

He dressed the motive up in as professional a set of clothes as he could manage.

"A dispatch." The man chewed the word over, the corner of his mouth twisting faintly downward. Behind him the other three closed in from either flank and, without show or sound, cut off Mai Ruibao's line of retreat. One of them, a shorter man, bent to pick up the pencil Mai Ruibao had dropped on the sand, weighed it in his hand, glanced once more at the badge, and gave the leader a slight nod: the badge did not look to be false.

But the leader seemed not to care a straw whether the badge was false or true. He shut the sketchbook, clamped it under his arm, and pressed forward a step. Mai Ruibao gave back half a step without meaning to; his heel sank into the wet sand, and a fistful of ice-cold water poured at once into his shoe.

"I'm asking you." The man's voice dropped suddenly, low enough that only the two of them could hear. "Last night. You were out here too, weren't you?"

Mai Ruibao's heart clenched hard.

"I—" His mouth worked; his throat had stopped up as with something.

"Take it easy." The man actually smiled — only the smile never came anywhere near his eyes. "When we anchored and blew off steam last night, there was just the one soul on that strand. You. We saw you plain."

Cold sweat soaked Mai Ruibao's back in an instant. Only now did he understand: last night, thinking himself safe in the dark while he watched the ship, he had in fact been in plain view of the men aboard — or, more precisely, of the men standing watch — from the first. Coming back this morning had been nothing but walking into the net with his own two feet.

"Enemy agent! Seize him!" The leader brandished the sketchbook, his voice shooting up sharp and hard. "Caught with the man and the goods together!"

The short man drew a length of thin hemp cord from his waist and noosed it with a practiced flick. The other two clamped Mai Ruibao's arms, left and right, with force enough to crack a report out of one shoulder joint. Mai Ruibao sucked in his breath at the pain, but bit down and did not cry out.

"Master! No — Comrade — I'm no enemy agent!" he shouted, struggling. "I'm a reporter with The Young Companion! I have papers — at home — come with me and I'll fetch them—"

"Spare the chatter." The leader stuffed the sketchbook into his jacket, raised a hand, and dealt Mai Ruibao a slap on the chest that knocked him back on his heels — only the two men gripping his arms kept him off the ground. "Take him back. The Political Security Bureau will dispose of him."

Mai Ruibao's head rang. The Political Security Bureau. Those four words fell on him like a basin of ice water poured straight over his crown, stopping every plea in his throat. He had seen the people the Political Security Bureau carried off. Back in Lingao, in the print shop next door to the paper, there had been a compositor forever grumbling at the works regulations; once, into his cups, he had said, "This rotten shop has rules enough and to spare — one good fire would sweep it clean," and the next day he was gone. He came back three days later a full size thinner, walked wide around everyone he met with his head down, and never after said one word beyond his business.

"Comrade—" Mai Ruibao's voice broke into another register. "I truly am only a reporter. I drew these only—"

"A reporter?" The man looked back at him once; in his gaze was a thread of appraisal, and a thread of something that could not be named. "Then a reporter should write his dispatches and draw his sketches, like a good fellow. Some things — what you oughtn't see, don't see; what you oughtn't draw, don't draw."

So saying, he waved to the short man. The cord went round Mai Ruibao's wrists; the coarse hemp bit into his flesh, hurting and itching at once.

The morning light had now spread over the whole sea; in it the strange ship looked vaster than ever, her figures still busying themselves aboard, all unknowing of what had passed on the strand. Jostled up toward dry land, stumbling, Mai Ruibao plowed a deep furrow through the sand. He looked back at the ship one last time — the awning was half rigged by now, and it stood just then over the two round-barreled great guns, as though some secret had been tucked away beneath it, covered tight.

The sea wind freshened all at once, setting the colored signal flags at the masthead cracking and snapping. And Mai Ruibao suddenly remembered — he had drawn the mast, the guns, the funnel and the ventilators; only the little steam launch had he forgotten. The launch lying close against the great ship's side — there had seemed to be characters painted on her bow.

He narrowed his eyes, wanting in this last instant to make out those characters — but the hands had already shoved him round the rocks, and there was nothing left to see.

Only the sound of the tide pursued him, unappeasable at his back, as though it were laughing at his curiosity.

The Political Security Bureau's port office occupied a two-story brick building west of the shipyard. The building was new-built; it bore no outward mark of any kind, only a sign in black characters on white by the door: PORT AUTHORITY INVESTIGATION AND STATISTICS OFFICE — the building being, in point of fact, shared between Polsec and the Cheka.

When Mai Ruibao was pushed through the door, the place was in a furious bustle — men trotting the corridors with files hugged to their chests; at the turn of the stairs, two men in plain clothes talking low, and as he passed, their gazes shaved over him like a pair of razors.

He was taken to a room at the end of the second floor. It was not large: one long table, three chairs, windows set high, and the shadows of the iron bars lying across the wall like a threshold no one could ever step over. Blinds hung at every window, throwing each face in the room into indistinct gloom.

In there he set out, one and five and ten, the whole of it — who he was, what he had done these several days, what he had seen, whom he had met — and then "recalled" it all over again, more than once, from the beginning.

After a long while a middle-aged man came in. The leader laid the sketchbook on the table and spoke a few low words to him. The middle-aged man wore no uniform, only a blue cadre suit washed near to white, with a thumb-sized badge pinned at his breast, engraved with the Political Security Bureau's initials. He took up the sketchbook, turned the pages one by one, his brow knitting and easing by turns, his fingers tapping softly on the tabletop — tok, tok, tok — as if knocking upon Mai Ruibao's chest.

"Mai Ruibao." The middle-aged man spoke at last, his voice flat as a clerk reading out a document. "Reporter, The Young Companion pictorial. Higher-primary diploma, art specialty..."

He paused and lifted his eyes to Mai Ruibao; through the lenses his gaze came, calm and restrained.

"Studied, I take it, under one or another of the Chiefs as well?"

Mai Ruibao nodded, his throat too dry for speech.

"Then you ought to know." The middle-aged man closed the sketchbook, pushed it to the corner of the table, and laid his laced fingers on the desktop. "Some things — the drawing of them is itself the offense."

"I only—" Mai Ruibao wet his cracked lips. "I only thought the ship remarkable. Professional habit. And so I..."

"Professional habit." The middle-aged man repeated the words, the corner of his mouth moving slightly — one could not tell whether it was a smile or something else. "Comrade Mai Ruibao, your profession is reporter, not staff officer in Naval Intelligence. What class that ship is, what guns she carries, how her masts were altered — what business of yours is any of that?"

Mai Ruibao had no answer.

The middle-aged man was silent a moment, then changed course without warning. "Your brother-in-law is foreman of the forging gang at the shipyard?"

"...Yes."

"Your second sister is the shipyard's storekeeper?"

"...Yes."

"Your third brother—" the middle-aged man turned another page of the sketchbook, his gaze coming to rest on a line of small characters in the corner — "is a sailor with Dabo Shipping. A veteran?"

Mai Ruibao's heart sank, a little at a time.

"My third brother... served in the Sea Guard." The words came with effort. "Then, because of a wound—"

"Discharged for wounds. We know." The middle-aged man cut him off. "Your third brother's affairs have already been looked into. His record with the shipping company is good. But you—"

He rose, came round the table, stood before Mai Ruibao, and looked down at him from above.

"You — a reporter — out in the dead of night instead of asleep, down on the strand drawing a warship. Back again the next day, and drawing it finer. Gun positions, mast, funnel, ventilators — you even drew the signal flags. Comrade Mai Ruibao — tell me: put yourself in my place. What would you think?"

Mai Ruibao's lips trembled; no words would come at all.

The room stayed quiet a long while. On the iron bars outside the window a sparrow alighted, chirped and chattered a few notes, then fluttered off, casting a wobbling patch of shadow on the wall.

"Now, here is how it will be." The middle-aged man spoke at last, his tone easing somewhat. "Your identity we will verify. We will wire the magazine's office as well. Until the answer comes—"

He glanced at the leader.

"Put him in the detention room. No contact with outsiders."

So saying, he turned back, sat down behind the table, took up a fountain pen, and wrote several lines in a notebook. When he had finished he closed the book, took off his spectacles, and kneaded the bridge of his nose — he looked tired, and cold.

"Take him down."

As Mai Ruibao was led out, someone else came hurrying down the corridor with a file in his arms, shoe soles slapping the concrete. He looked down at the red welts the hemp cord had raised on his wrists, and suddenly remembered the evening before, when his brother-in-law and Second Sister had set out together for the night shift, how Second Sister had turned back to smile at him and say, "Ah-Bao — come home early. Don't stay too late by the sea."

He had answered yes — and had stayed out till dark all the same.

Now, standing in that corridor, listening to the iron door clang shut behind him, he felt he had never in his life been so small — and every high-hearted flight of days past was gone in an instant, without a shadow left.

The detention room's walls were white, white to the point of pain in the eyes. A small window barred with iron; a little square hatch in the door, barred with iron too. Mai Ruibao sat on a hard plank bed, his back to the wall, watching the blue sky through the window and consoling himself: it's nothing; once they've looked into it, it will be settled.

He felt inside his jacket: the notebook confiscated, the pencil gone, nothing left on him at all. Only in the corner of his trouser pocket did something small and hard still jab. He dug it out and looked: half a length of pencil lead, snapped off, fallen in who knew when — shorter than a little fingernail.

Mai Ruibao clenched that half-length of lead in his palm, and held it there a long time.

Then he turned over, faced the wall, and with the lead, gently, stroke by stroke, drew the ship's outline once more upon the white.

Footsteps came from beyond the door, far off, then near, and stopped before the detention room. Voices murmured, thick and indistinct, their words past making out. Mai Ruibao hastily rubbed the drawing from the wall with his thumb, leaving behind one small gray-white smear.

(End of Chapter)