The Emperor's Tomb

“I have horses and goats,” Pau said to him. “We use the hoist to store hay in the top of the barn.”

The crane rose ten meters to a set of double doors in the gable. One of Pau’s men, the one from the video, stood in the upper doorway. The remaining three men—each wearing a green, sleeveless gown—fanned the flames of a steady blaze below, using dried logs and hay as fuel. Even from ten meters away, the heat was intense.

“It has to be hot,” Pau said. “Otherwise, the effort could prove fruitless.”

Night had come, black and bleak. The bound man hung suspended near the top of the hoist, his mouth sealed with tape, but in the flickering light Ni saw the horror on the man’s face.

“The purpose of this?” he asked Pau.

“We need to learn information. He was asked politely, but refused.”

“You plan to roast him?”

“Not at all. That would be barbaric.”

He was trying to remain calm, telling himself that Karl Tang had ordered his death. Plots, purges, arrests, torture, trials, incarcerations, even executions were common in China.

But open political murder?

Perhaps Tang thought that since the assassination would occur in Belgium, it could be explained away. The sudden demise of Lin Biao, Mao’s chosen successor, in 1971 had never been fully documented. Biao supposedly died in a Mongolian plane crash while trying to escape China, after being accused of plotting to overthrow Mao. But only the government’s version as to what happened had ever been released. No one knew where or how or when Lin Biao had died only that he was gone.

And he kept telling himself that the man dangling from the hoist had come to kill him.

One of the men motioned that the fire was ready.

Pau craned his neck and signaled.

His man in the barn rotated the hoist so that it was now no longer parallel but perpendicular to the building. That caused the bound man’s bare feet to hang about three meters above the flames.

“Never allow the fire to touch the flesh,” Pau quietly said. “Too intense. Too quick. Counterproductive.”

He wondered about the lesson in torture. This old man apparently was a connoisseur. But from all Ni knew about Mao, the entire regime had been masters of the art. Pau stood motionless, dressed in a long gown of white gauze, watching as the bound man struggled against the ropes.

“Will you,” Pau called out, “answer my questions?”

The man did not signal any reply. Instead he kept struggling.

“You see, Minister,” Pau said, “the heat alone is excruciating, but there is something worse.”

A flick of Pau’s wrist and one of the men hurled the contents of a pail into the flames. A loud hiss, followed by a rush of heat, spewed the powder upward as it vaporized, engulfing the prisoner in a scorching cloud.

The man’s thrashings increased wildly, his agony obvious.

Ni caught a scent in the night air.

“Chili powder,” Pau said. “The hot plume itself causes incredible agony, but the lingering chemical vapor increases the heat’s intensity on the skin. If he failed to close his eyes, he would be blind for several hours. The fumes irritate the pupils.”

Pau motioned and another batch of chili powder was tossed.

Ni imagined what the prisoner must be enduring.

“Don’t sympathize with him,” Pau said. “This man is an associate of Karl Tang. Your enemy. I simply want him to tell us all that he knows.”

So did Ni, actually.

The fire continued to rage, the flames surely beginning to scorch the man’s feet.

The prisoner’s head started to nod, signaling surrender.

“That didn’t take long.” Pau motioned, and the man in the barn rotated the body away from the flames. The tape was ripped from the man’s mouth. An agonizing scream pierced the night.

“There’s no one to hear,” Pau called out. “The nearest neighbors are kilometers away. Tell me what we want to know, or back you go.”

The man stole a few breaths and seemed to steady himself.

“Tang … wants you dead. Minister Ni, too.”

“Tell me more,” Pau called out.

“He’s going … after the … lamp. As we … speak.”

“And Cassiopeia Vitt?”

“She’s going after … it … too. She was … allowed to … escape. Men are … following.”

“You see, Minister,” Pau quietly whispered. “This is why torture has endured. It works. You learn a great many vital things.”

The sickening feeling in his stomach grew. Were there no rules, no boundaries, to his morality? What had happened to his conscience?

Pau motioned again, and the prisoner was lowered to the ground. One of the robed men immediately produced a gun and shot the bound man in the head.

Ni stood silent, then finally asked, “Was that necessary?”

“What would you have me do? Release him?”

He did not answer.

“Minister, how will you lead China if you have not the stomach to defend yourself?”

He did not appreciate the reprimand. “I believe in courts, laws, justice.”

“You are about to embark on a battle that only one of you will survive. No courts, law, or justice will decide that conflict.”

“I was unaware that this would be a fight to the death.”

“Has not Karl Tang just made that clear?”

Ni supposed he had.