Captain Hu told her to keep the conversation civil, and not to get excited. She seemed to be trying to force herself to calm down as she walked over to the window. With her back to me, she said quietly, ‘I’m not going with you. You don’t understand, I am a … bad person …’

‘I do understand, and I am sure you will be very successful with us.’

She started getting excited again, and shouted, ‘But I don’t want to do it! I am not going with you!’

‘You have no choice.’

She came right up to me and said threateningly, ‘It is not up to you.’ Then she turned to go.

I grabbed hold of her and asked where she was going, and she said, ‘I am going to talk to the principal. I am not leaving here!’

‘The principal has his orders,’ Captain Hu said.

She stared at me for a while, and then said through gritted teeth: ‘Who the hell are you? I hate you!’

Captain Hu got her to sit down, and then I said, ‘You clearly don’t understand the situation at all, but don’t you want to know what is going on? Since I have already decided that we want you, I can now tell you the truth. I am the Deputy Director of the research institute at the intelligence unit 701, and I have absolute power here. If I want you to join us, you have no right to refuse. You will have to come with me.’

‘If I don’t go?’

‘That is not possible.’

‘I beg you …’

‘No.’

After a short silence, I started to persuade her. ‘Comrade Huang, you’ve said yourself, and I know, that you’re a patriotic intellectual. The country now needs your help on an issue of national security and I believe that you will not refuse. The work we’re asking you to do touches on the sacrosanct issue of the survival of our country. I hope you will not continue showing this antagonistic attitude, but come with me of your own free will.’

She was dead set against it though, and stubbornly refused; there was no way that she would come with me. In the end it was Captain Hu who came up with a trick to make her move. ‘He’s just a middle manager, there’s no point yelling at him. Go with him and tell the senior people what you think. That’s more to the point.’

It worked, and she agreed to go with me.

The captain took me aside and told me what I should tell Director Tie to say to her. ‘When Director Tie sees her, he shouldn’t try and change her mind or appeal to her moral principles: that won’t work for someone like her.’

‘So what should he say?’