Never

Chang Kai asked Ting to leave town.

He contrived to slip away from the frantically busy Guoanbu office and meet Ting and her mother, Anni, at their gym. They went whenever Ting had a free day. Anni did physiotherapy exercises for her old leg injury, and Ting ran on the treadmill. When they came out of the changing room today, he was waiting in the café with tea and lotus paste buns. As soon as they sat down and sipped their tea he said: ‘We need to talk.’

‘Oh, no!’ said Ting. ‘You’re having an affair. You’re leaving me.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ he said, smiling. ‘I’ll never leave you. But I want you to get out of town.’

‘Why?’

‘Your life is in danger. I think there’s going to be a war, and if I’m right, then Beijing will be bombed.’

Anni said: ‘There’s a lot about that on the Internet. If you know where to look.’

Kai was not surprised. A lot of Chinese people knew how to get around the government firewall and access news from the West.

Ting said: ‘Is it really that bad?’

It was. The South Korean bombardment of Sino-ri had taken Kai by surprise, he who was supposed to know everything. President No was obliged to consult the Americans before taking such action. Had the White House approved the attack? Or had President No just decided not to ask? Kai ought to know, but he did not.

However, he did have a strong sense that nobody told No Do-hui what to do. He had met her, and he called to mind a thin, hard-faced woman with iron-grey hair. She had survived an assassination attempt orchestrated by the regime in North Korea. The attempt had killed a senior advisor who – Kai and a small number of insiders knew – had been her lover. This undoubtedly contributed to her hatred of the Supreme Leader.

Sino-ri had been flattened, and President No had triumphantly announced that no more missiles would be launched by that North Korean base. She talked as if that ended the matter, but of course it did not.

Supreme Leader Kang’s ability to retaliate was limited but, in a way, that made matters worse. Half the North Korean army was already under rebel control, and the other half had now been further weakened by the destruction of Sino-ri. Two or three more strikes like that would leave the Supreme Leader almost powerless against South Korea. He had phoned President Chen and demanded reinforcements of Chinese troops, but Chen had told him to attend President Green’s peace conference instead. Kang was desperate, and desperate men were reckless.

World leaders were fearful. Russia and the UK, normally on opposite sides, had joined forces at the UN Security Council to press for a ceasefire. France had backed them up.

There was a slim chance that the Supreme Leader would accept President Green’s proposal, hold his fire, and attend the peace conference; but Kai was pessimistic. It was hard for a tyrant to de-escalate. It looked weak.

When Kai thought about all-out war, what he feared most was that some harm would come to Ting. He was responsible for the security of all China’s 1.4 billion people, but he mainly cared for just one of them.

He said: ‘China and the US have lost control of events.’

Ting said: ‘Where do you want me to go?’

‘To our house in Xiamen. It’s more than a thousand miles away from here. You’d have at least a chance of survival.’ He looked at Anni. ‘You both should go.’

Ting said: ‘It’s out of the question. You know that. I have a job – a career.’

He had expected her to resist. ‘Call in sick,’ he said. ‘Go home and pack. Leave tomorrow morning in your beautiful sports car. Stop somewhere overnight. Make a holiday of it.’

‘I can’t call in sick. You know enough about our industry to realize that. There are no excuses in show business. If you don’t show up, they find someone else.’

‘You’re the star!’

‘That doesn’t count for as much as you think. I won’t be the star for long if I don’t appear on the screen.’

‘It’s better than dying.’

‘All right,’ she said.

He was surprised. He had not expected her to give in so quickly.

But she was just being theatrical. She said: ‘I’ll go – if you come with me.’

‘You go, and I’ll join you when I can.’

‘No. We must go together.’

That was not going to happen, and she knew it. He said: ‘I can’t.’

‘But you can. Resign from your job. We’ve got enough money. We could live for a year or more without running short; longer, if we’re careful. We could return to Beijing as soon as you think it’s safe.’

‘I have to try to prevent this war happening. If I can, it’s the best way to protect my family and my country. And it’s not just a job, it’s my life. But I have to be here to do it.’

‘And I have to stay here because I love you.’

‘But the danger—’

‘If we’re going to die in a war, let’s die together.’

He opened his mouth to speak, but he had nothing to say. She was right. If there was going to be a war, they should face it together.

He said: ‘Would you like some more tea?’

*

When Kai got back to the office there was a message on his screen from his boss, the Minister for State Security, Fu Chuyu, announcing his resignation. He was leaving in a month.

Kai wondered why. Fu was in his mid-sixties, which in itself was not a reason for retirement in the upper levels of the Chinese government. Kai spoke to Yawen, his secretary. ‘Have you seen the minister’s message?’

‘Everybody got it,’ she said.

That was a significant snub to Kai who, as one of Fu’s two deputies, would have expected a heads-up. Instead, he had been informed at the same time as the secretaries.

Kai said: ‘I wonder why he’s going?’

‘His secretary told me the reason,’ said Yawen. ‘He’s got cancer.’

‘Ah.’ Kai thought of Fu’s ashtray, made of a military shell case, and his brand of cigarettes, Double Happiness.

‘He’s known for a while that he had prostate cancer, but he refused treatment and told only a few people. Now it’s gone to his lungs and he has to be treated in hospital.’

This explained a lot. Specifically, it accounted for the smear campaign against Ting and, by association, against Kai himself. Someone who wanted Fu’s job had been tipped off in advance and had tried to discredit the leading candidate. The villain was probably the domestic intelligence chief, Vice-Minister Li Jiankang.

Fu was a typical old Communist, Kai thought. The man is dying, but he’s still plotting. He wants to make sure his successor is someone as rigidly orthodox as himself. These people don’t stop until they drop.

How much danger was Kai in, personally? It seemed a trivial question when Korea was on the brink of all-out war. How can I be vulnerable to this kind of crap, he asked himself, when my father is vice-chairman of the National Security Commission?

His personal phone rang. Yawen left the room and he picked up. It was General Ham in North Korea. ‘Supreme Leader Kang is fighting for his political life,’ he said.

Kai thought Kang was probably fighting for his literal life too. If the South Koreans did not kill him, the ultras probably would. But he said: ‘What makes you say that right now?’

‘He can’t defeat this rebellion. He’s fought them to a temporary standstill, but he’s running out of weapons, and they have the upper hand. The only reason the rebels haven’t yet wiped out the remaining government forces is that they think the South Koreans are going to do the job for them.’

‘Does the Supreme Leader know that?’

‘I believe he does.’

‘So why is he provoking a war with South Korea? It seems suicidal.’

‘He thinks China can’t afford to let him lose. You’re going to save him. That’s a fixation with Kang. He believes you’ll have to send him reinforcements – you have no choice.’

‘We can’t send Chinese troops into North Korea. It would embroil us in a war with the US.’

‘But you can’t let South Korea conquer North Korea.’