100. Fu SuoAn (from a red guard to a spy)
Fu SuoAn (06/05/1949—04/13/1974) was born in a so-called intellectual family in Tianjin city, close to the capital Beijing. It was a harbor city with the Yellow Sea to its east. Her father was a doctor in a hospital. Her mother was a translator of English language in a research institute. She was beautiful and her photo of childhood was enlarged and displayed in the show window of a photo gallery. Her photos had been taken from baby till 1968. But her parents burned them all when she escaped into Soviet Union.
In 1966 when the so-called Great Cultural Revolution began, she was only a student of the first grade in a high school (equivalent to tenth grade in America). She was a student leader in her class and a vice secretary of the Youth League branch. She was an active girl. Then she became a red guard, and even one among the red guards received by Chairman Mao on TianAn Men Square on the eighteenth of August in 1966. Twenty years later, her younger brother gave a description of her in 1968 as a tall girl, 1.70 meters tall, weighing 55 kilograms, with oval face, regular features, large eyes, black curving eyebrows. She was always wearing a green uniform, with a green cap to match. And a red armband round her upper right arm, bearing the words: Red Guard.
Then the red guards toured all over the country to create chaos as Mao planned. But most of them just went for sightseeing. However, she was a different girl. She went on the social investigations. During the three months, she had been to the far west region and to the northeastern China and Inner Mongolia. She did not go to cities. Instead, she went to small villages. Qima village was only twenty kilometers from the Argun River, which divided the territory of China and the Soviet Union. In that village, she called an old woman as her dry-mother (almost equivalent to god-mother, but without religious sense). Just a closer relationship than others. Somewhat like a relative.
At the end of 1966, she returned to her hometown. At the time, Mao called on people to rebel against local governments. That was his second plan to seize power from the local followers of his political enemy: Liu Shaoqi. When she was back to Tianjing city, there were a lot of so-called rebellious groups. As she was an active girl, many groups wanted her to join them. However, she refused. She wanted to organize one of her own. During the cultural revolution, the family background of a student mattered much. Any student who came from the family of landlord or businessman could not join the red guards. If the father or mother of the student was a reactionary, the student could not join the red guards, either. Most rebellious groups did not take such students in. But she accepted all those students who wanted revolution. While general students were criticizing their teachers and school masters, she skipped them and directly criticized the head of the educational bureau of the city. That was why she could be one of the red guards to see Mao on the TianAnMen Square.
At the time, almost everyone in any group wanted to be the leader. As she took in all sorts of students, there certainly were some ambitious ones who wished to replace her. Therefore, she was supplanted out of her own group. She left with some of her faithful followers. Then she needed a seal to organize another group. She asked a neighbor to engrave one for her, but the neighbor was scared. For secret engraving of a seal without the approval of the police was deemed guilty. Of course, in such chaos, some bold engravers would do it. As this neighbor refused, Fu was angry and hit him on the head. He fell in swoon. He was the clue person in an important case. Therefore, Fu was wanted by the police. She had to escape out of the city to Qima village, to her dry-mother for shelter.
Only two kilometers from the Qima village, there was another village called Baojia village. They jointly built a small reservoir for irrigation. But the water supply from the reservoir was not enough for both villages. Therefore, they often had disputes.
As the universities stopped enrolling during the movement, all the high school students were sent to the countryside to live and work with peasants. They lived separately in the homes of local peasants. Fu went to the Qima village in this name, as she had been there before. She wished to help the Qima villagers. So one night, she led a group of Qima villagers to Baojia village. And there arose a fight between the two villages. Five of the Baojia villagers were injured, including three with broken bones and one with a blinded eye. The police came to stop it. She was thought to be the cause of the fight. She was thereby criticized, beaten and confined. She could not stand it and fled, but was caught and handcuffed. She was a clever girl and studied how the handcuff worked. So one night she opened the handcuff and jumped out from a window. She ran away under the cover of night from the village towards the Argun River. She was a good runner at school. When she was swimming across the river to the other side, she was found by a Soviet patrolling boat. Across the river, there was the No. 36 area of the KGB. She was taken to the captain, who wanted to see her ID. But she said that no ID card was issued to anyone in China. When she was asked what was her identity, she replied that she was a red guard. She wanted to lead the conversation to politics, which might benefit her a bit.
The captain asked again, “If you are a red guard, why you come into our territory?” She replied, “I risked my life to come to you for my political asylum.” Question again, “Why's that?” Answer, “ Because China has deserted Marxism-Leninism. So I want to come to Soviet Union for that.”
Therefore, the captain reported the event to the headquarters of KGB. Andropov, head of KGB at the time, was struck with a wonderful notion: why not to train the Chinese girl to be a spy for their country. She might be useful some day in dealing with China. So she was sent to Tver Intelligence school. At school, she showed herself to be an excellent spy.
Her first task was to assassinate the Soviet traitor, Yuri Pavlov, who escaped to Japan and lived in Tokyo at the time. For necessary preparations, she stayed in a private place. A man came to show her how to use a thick pen gun, which, when triggered, would discharge some poisonous gas. The gas would vanish in one or two seconds without leaving any trace to be found. Then A woman came to teach her Japanese, till all the necessary training was completed.
Yuri Pavlov had been a soldier in the Patriotic War of Soviet Union against Nazi Germany. After the war he was sent to study in a military academy and became a weapons expert. He had used money freely, and too freely that he was always in heavy debt. He also liked beautiful girls. In November of 1967, when he was invited to Bulgaria on lecturing tour. But there he disappeared and betrayed his country. In March of 1968, he got death verdict in the military court in his absence. Later he was found living in Philadelphia. So Soviet Union sent some spies to assassinate him, but failed. The second try was also failed when he was found in Hawaii. About one year ago, he was accidentally found in Tokyo, Japan. KGB concluded that why two tries failed was because the assassins they sent were all his kinsfolk that he was always on the alert of. So this time, if they sent a Chinese girl, it would be out of his expectation. Besides, a beautiful girl might be easier to get access to him.
In April of 1970, Fu used a fake passport, in disguise of a Hong Kong resident by name of Li Nali to travel to Japan to visit her uncle. She went through Japanese customs without a hitch. KGB arranged a mid-aged Japanese man to come to meet her. He was called Takashi Saburo, who was supposed to be her landlord, i.e., she would stay in his house. But he knew nothing of her task. She paid him her board and food, plus some gifts.
That first night, she took out a photo of Pavlov after his plastic surgery. After impressing his image in her mind for a long while, she was sure that she could recognize him among the crowds. She burned the photo and flushed the ash in the toilet. Next day, she toured Tokyo the whole day. She was surprised to find that the city was exactly the same in even details to the model in the Stereo sand table in KGB office.
From the third day, she began to follow and watch her target. Pavlov lived in Tanimachi in the south of Tokyo. It was a luxury apartment house, only fifteen minute walk from her lodging place. His daily life was that at six every morning he would walk in a nearby small garden, for forty-five minutes, accompanied by two bodyguards. Then he went to the flyover in front of the garden. There were some newspaper vendors and some shoe polishers. He would buy a newspaper and sat before a shoe polisher to have his shoes polished while reading the newspaper. Then he went home. After breakfast, he would ride in his car to his office, where he would stay till seven in the evening and go home. He lived with his Japanese wife and two pretty female secretaries as well as maidservants. He liked beautiful women. The plan of assassination was to be carried out in his office building. Generally the bodyguards would pay less attention to their protective object when he was at home or in office. Supposedly, the two places would provide more chance for the job. Nevertheless, after she studied the situation in the office building, she found otherwise. She must find some other ways to finish her task.
She contacted her liaison to get permission to change the plan and got supplies for the job. She disguised her as a newspaper vendor on the flyover. She would use a poisonous smog gun to kill him. The poisonous gas should touch his face for the fatal result. As Pavlov came to buy newspaper, she held out a newspaper, smiling to him. He liked a beautiful girl and bought the newspaper from her. It might be a chance to kill him, but she found that since she was sitting on a low footstool, she could not reach his face unless she should stand up. But any movement from her would catch the eyes of the bodyguards right behind him. She regretted that she did not think of disguising herself as a shoe polisher. She would be in a closer position to aim her gun at his face.
When Pavlov bought the newspaper from her, he asked, “You are supposed not Japanese?” she said, “No. I came from Hong Kong.” She smiled her best smile. She had to give up this chance. She must change a bit of the details of her action. She needed more people to help her.
It was Monday, the thirteenth of April in 1970. Thirteen is a black day for European people. When Pavlov accepted the newspaper from the girl, he murmured, “Charming Oriental beauty.” As usual, he went to sit to have his shoes polished while he smoked a cigarette, reading the newspaper. All of a sudden, there was the shout “help!” from the girl. He looked that way and saw two big guys chasing the girl. The girl ran his way. Naturally she was holding a rolled-up newspaper, inside which she hid her gun. Pavlov called to her, “Come here!” And to his bodyguards, “Stop them!” Meaning the two big guys. Just then a guy kicked the butts of the girl, sending her forth towards Pavlov. The two bodyguards turned to stop them while the girl rushed to Pavlov, and shot the gun to his face. Pavlov gave out a cry of pain and the girl hid the gun in her clothes and threw down the newspaper. The two bodyguards ran to Pavlov and got him to the hospital, where he died. The girl left Tokyo and flew back to Moscow.
General Cimbal, the head of the action department of KGB, received her and gave her a gold watch of female style made in Switzerland. She was then sent to a rest home for her nerve and physical recovery from the task. Generally she could rest for two months, but after half a month she was sent to rest in Hong Kong. She realized that she might soon have some new task.
After that she was assigned several other tasks. She did them successfully. On the thirteenth of September in 1971, she was ordered to fly to Öndörkhaan in Mongolian Republic. On the way there she was told that an airplane from China crashed there and nine bodies were in it. One of them should be that of Lin Biao. As she was from China and had chances to see Lin or his picture before, she had more ability to recognize which body was Lin's. When she reached there, the nine bodies were already covered up by local people. Their faces changed a little through rotten process. She first recognize Ye Qun, the wife of Lin, by her long hair. She was the only one wearing long hair. Others were all men. Then she pointed out which was Lin's body best as she could by his short stature and skulk.
In 1974, she was found to have severe liver disease and felt painful besides having high fever. Although she had injection to ease her pain, she could no longer bear it. She was found to hang herself in her room by a cloth rope made from torn sheets on the thirteenth of April. Thirteen is indeed a bad number.