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on those who had to scrape a living up here from its bleak, treeless terrain, where the relentless winds from Siberia raked the surface free of soil like fingernails scraping dirt off the skin. Yet something about this place satisfied his soul, something hard and demanding; the mountains a symbol of stillness and balance.
    Not like the soft humid breezes that he had grown used to in recent months down south in the provinces of Hunan and Jiangxi. That was where the Communist heartland lay. There in Mao Tse Tung’s own hideout near Nanchang, Chang had smelled a sticky sweetness in the air that turned his stomach. It was in the paddy fields. On the terraces. In the Communist training camps. That smell of corruption. Of a man crazed by power.
    Chang had spoken to no one about his awareness of it, told none of his brother Communists of his sense that something at the heart of things wasn’t quite as it should be. They were all, himself included, willing to fight Chiang Kai-shek’s ruling Nationalists and die for what they believed in, yet… Chang inhaled sharply. His friend, Li Ta-chao, had been dedicated to the cause and had died with his sixty comrades in the heart of Peking itself. Chang spat his disgust on to the barren rock. His friend had been betrayed. Executed by slow strangulation. There was nothing definite Chang could point to and say, This is where the corruption lies . Just an uneasy rustle in his soul. A cold wind that cut deep and made him wary.
    It was certainly nothing he could mention to Kuan. He turned to her now and studied her intense young face with its straight brows and high, broad cheekbones. It wasn’t what any man would call a pretty face but it possessed a strength and determination that Chang cared for. And when she smiled – which was rare – it was as if some dark demon vanished from her spirit and let the light inside her glow bright as the morning sun.
    ‘Kuan,’ he murmured, ‘do you ever think about the lives we take when we commit ourselves to an action like this? About the parents bereaved? About the wives and children whose hearts will break when the knock comes to their door with the news?’
    Her body shivered close beside his shoulder and she turned her head quickly to face him, the soft pads of her cheeks red with cold. But he could sense the shiver was not one of horror, could see it in her eyes, hear it in the shallow rhythm of her breathing. It was a shiver of excitement.
    ‘No, my friend, I don’t,’ she said. ‘You, Chang An Lo, are the one who planned this operation, who guided us here. We followed you, so surely you’re not…’ Her voice trailed away, unwilling to give life to the words.
    ‘No, I’m not altering my plan.’
    ‘Good. The train is coming, you say.’
    ‘Yes. Soon. And Chiang Kai-shek’s dung eaters deserve to die. They massacre our brothers with no hesitation.’
    She nodded, a vehement jerk of her head, her breath coiling in the grey air.
    ‘We are at war,’ Chang said, his eyes on the gun at his belt. ‘People die.’
    ‘Yes, a war we will win so that Communism can bring justice and equality to the people of China.’ Up on the godforsaken icy mountain ledge, Kuan smiled at Chang and he felt the heat of it warm just the outer edge of the cold void that lay black and empty in the cavern of his chest.
    ‘Long live our great and wise leader, Mao,’ Kuan said urgently.
    ‘Long live our leader,’ Chang echoed.
    The doubts were there in those four words. His own ears could hear the weakness in them, little worms of disbelief burrowing deep, but Kuan’s eyes sparkled with conviction, satisfied with his echo. Her neat little ears had not detected the worms.
    Chang rose to his feet and drew a long slow breath, stilling the unsettled beat of his heart. In front of him the mountain fell away steeply to the narrow gulley below and rose again in a sheer bleak rock face on the opposite side. No villages or cart tracks or even wild goat trails in