“Assassin To The Heir Apparent” by Peter Newall

My name is not recorded anywhere. I will freely tell you my name; it is Gu Losai, but I repeat, you will not find it anywhere, neither on a birth certificate nor a high school diploma, amongst military or police records, in the records of the Government or the Party, nor anywhere else in the length and breadth of China. Even the official report on the matter says there were only four passengers on the plane. There were five, and I was the fifth.

I matter only for one reason; I was second secretary to the Great Helmsman, Mao Zedong, in 1971. At that time, my name was on all kinds of documents, including letters to and from the Great Helmsman, and no doubt my birth certificate and school class roll and diploma still existed then.

As second secretary, I was routinely in the Great Helmsman’s office, and occasionally even in his apartment, on official business. One of his apartments, I might say, for he had a number there. But I attended him only in the Library of Chrysanthemum Fragrance. It was to there that I was called to duty one evening in September. That was the evening Lin Biao came to dinner.

Of course I am dead now, as Lin Biao is dead, as – once impossible to imagine – the Great Helmsman is dead. But that night all three of us were alive.

When I received the call, I left my meal half-eaten and hastened to the apartment. Armed guards wearing white gloves were as usual on sentry duty outside the main door. I showed my pass and was admitted. I was astonished to find no other official there. Only Mao Zedong was in the room, in which food was set out on a low table.

The Helmsman greeted me warmly, and placed his hand on my shoulder as he spoke to me. This intimacy was such a great shock that my legs weakened, and I trembled. He must have felt me shaking, with his hand resting on my shoulder, but he gave no sign. As I struggled to summon my strength and stop quivering, he asked me if my parents were well. Of course I answered ‘Yes, thank you, Comrade Chairman!’ Actually my father was gravely ill with kidney disease then, but it would have been inauspicious to give the Great Helmsman that answer. Then he said to me, looking directly into my eyes:

‘Our dinner guest tonight cannot be allowed to leave, except lying down.’ He gestured to a side table; on it lay a revolver. I stared at this black shiny thing as if it were a snake looking at me. Mao gestured toward it again, nodding his head. ‘You are the only one I trust,’ he said. I could not speak. My mouth was like chalk.

So it was I who killed Lin Biao. I waited in a side room, and re-entered the central room at exactly nine o’clock, as Mao had instructed me. Only one man was sitting at the table, although it was laid for two, and two had obviously eaten. I knew at once it was Lin Biao. But it did not matter who it was. The Helmsman had told me his guest could only leave lying down. So I walked up to Lin Biao, took out the revolver and shot him in the temple. It was all very quick.

I realised I had no instructions what to do after this. I put the revolver down on the side table where I had first seen it and was about to leave the room when four men entered, in plain clothes. One was carrying a rolled-up carpet. With astonishing speed and dexterity they unrolled the carpet next to the slumped body of Lin Biao, dragged his corpse onto it, then rolled it again; this time three of them picked it up. The fourth man beckoned to me, and I followed. I didn’t know what else to do.

We went out a side door, and down a flight of steps. The three men carrying the carpet grunted as they took the weight of the body down the angled stairs. The fourth man walked behind me.

At the foot of the stairs was another door, which opened onto a courtyard of some sort. It was raining. There were two black cars there, nose to tail. The rolled-up carpet was bundled into the back seat of the first, and two men got into it. The man behind me opened the door of the second car, and told me, ‘Get in.’ I did. What else could I have done?

We drove – can I say for an hour, because I don’t really know now, although I remember watching Zhongnanhai fall behind us, then the outer parts of the Forbidden City, then industrial areas – until we came to the gates of a military airport. Both cars drove onto the shiny wet tarmac, right up to a plane.

The rolled-up carpet with Lin Biao’s body was carried up the aircraft’s gangway. The two men in my car got out, and beckoned me again to follow. This time I didn’t want to; I hesitated. The fourth man got out a revolver. ‘Come on,’ he said, and then used my name. I think it must have been the last time my name was ever spoken in China.

I got out of the car and climbed the metal steps. It was a military aircraft of some sort, I don’t know the types, and had seats along the sides and a big open space in the middle. In that space lay three persons. I don’t know if they were alive or dead; hoods had been drawn over their heads. The rolled carpet was laid next to them. The engines were already running. I could just make out the silhouettes of the heads of two pilots up front; they both wore headphones.

The plain clothes men turned to leave the plane. I grabbed at the sleeve of the fourth, the only one who had spoken to me. Perhaps I felt we had some understanding, some kinship. ‘Please shoot me now,’ I said. ‘Please.’ He pushed my arm away. They all trooped out and the door was closed.

So I was sitting on a fold-down seat with four bodies, or three living people and one dead man, at my feet, and we were about to fly somewhere. The aircraft began moving, taxiing, then I almost fell out of my seat as we took off.

We flew for – again I don’t know; two hours? The plane vibrated and roared, and I had to grip my flimsy seat with both hands. But that didn’t matter. I understood, of course, that I had to die, that I would never get out of this plane. What I didn’t know was how soon I had to die, and how I had to die. That was the terrible part.

But fear is a strange thing. Sustained for long enough, it becomes exhausting, and provides its own remedy. I swear I had almost nodded off to sleep when there was a great noise, and a violent, heavy blow, as if something had hit us, and I saw fire at the rear of the plane, already inside the fuselage. I heard one of the pilots yelling. ‘Bastards!’ he screamed. ‘Bastards!’

I could tell we were falling. The fire was licking up the floor toward where I sat. I stared at it, unable to move, barely hanging on to my seat, we were at such a steep angle. Then we smashed into the ground, and the plane exploded, and we were all burned, me, the dead Lin Biao, the three wearing hoods, and the two pilots, however many of us that were still alive when we hit, were burned to death.

Events shortly after that are not quite clear, but I do know people came to the crash site. We were all decently buried, and I began to feel calmer. But later, and I can remember this more clearly, we were disturbed once more; Russian-speaking men came and dug us all up again. They cut off the heads of two of the corpses, Lin Biao and one whom by then I knew was his wife, Ye Qun. Fortunately they did not remove my head. They buried us all again, except that Lin Biao and his wife were without their heads.

Since then the time that has passed has brought me some peace. I returned to bardo, and wait quietly in the void. I will not be permitted back on earth for a long time. But while I may be completely unknown down there, I am recognised in this realm. I am one of those, eternally recurring, eternally necessary, whose function in the world is to kill the Heir Apparent. We are a small cohort, the recent ones anyway, and here at least our names are known; Princip, Mercader, Kubiš, Sirhan, Gu Losai.

Peter Newall is a writer, musician and graphic artist. He has lived in Sydney, Kyoto, and until the war, Odesa, Ukraine, where he sang for a local rhythm and blues band. He has been published in England, Hong Kong, India, Australia and the USA.