If those measures, of course, were adequate. Maybe I was paranoid, but the fact remained that if this meeting had taken place a few years ago, the Foreign Office could have been represented here by Kim Philby.

'Before Ambassador Qiao presents his ideas, are there any questions?'

'What's going to be our timing?' Hyde asked him. 'How quickly have we got to move?'

'Almost immediately, as far as I can gather, but we'll have a more precise idea from Ambassador Qiao.'

It was getting stuffy in here, and I took off my bomber jacket. There was also a certain amount of heat generating from the nerves: Barstow had said we'd have to move almost immediately and by tonight the Bureau could have catapulted me straight into Beijing, and I didn't feel ready for that.

'If there are no questions, I'll ask Ambassador Qiao to take over.'

The Chinese got out his handkerchief again and when he'd finished he said with a note of apology, 'I hope that the proposals I'm about to give you will offer a chance for my country to free itself of its present onerous regime, and at the same time break down the barriers between China and the rest of the world. But there are risks. There are very grave risks.' He shifted to the edge of the seat and leaned his elbows on his knees, his small pale hands hanging loose; the light glinted across his glasses as he turned his head sometimes to look at us, though mostly he looked down. He didn't have the air of a renegade storming the barricades, but that was obviously what he was going to do, and as I watched his face, hollowed by fatigue, I felt something that doesn't often get through the scaly carapace of suspicion and distrust that forms around us in this dirty trade. It was compassion.

'In one sense,' Qiao said, 'the recent uprising is already causing more anguish than the one in June 1989, when the reaction by the government was confused and at first indecisive, and when the ensuing bloodshed evoked, at least, the attention and the sympathy of the rest of the world.' His head was lowered now and there was an edge to his tone that cut through the silence when he spoke again. 'This time there was immediate reaction by the government; there was almost no media coverage of the event; there was almost no bloodshed, since the security forces were quick to move in; and very little news has leaked out from Beijing. Let me tell you, gentlemen, that this new uprising has in effect proved an infinitely greater tragedy than the last one, since most of the participants were intellectuals of high standing, with more chance and more hope than before of combating and ousting the government, only to see that hope shattered within days. And instead of visible bloodshed in the streets, we have a secret and most sinister operation under way that is bringing the intellectual elite from their homes in the thick of the night, torn from their families and thrown into the torture chambers and finally to the execution squads of this merciless regime and if you feel, gentlemen, that I am resorting to the idiom of cheap journalism' — his head swung up to look at us — 'in order to get your sympathy, it is not the case. These people, the most enlightened intellects behind science and industry and education, are indeed being taken from their homes and tortured and finally shot to death, as we sit here now. My brother is one of them.'

The silence hit us in the face and then I heard someone say 'Oh, Jesus,' under his breath.

'I'm sorry.' Jarrow, Secretary of State.

'But what is more important,' Qiao said quickly, 'is that whereas the uprising of 1989 slammed the door on our hopes of democracy in the People's Republic of China, the recent flare-up of dissension has locked and barred it and drawn chains across it that we shall not, I think, see broken in our lifetime.' He took his glasses off and wiped them, and I noticed the edge of his eyelids glistening. 'Unless of course we can succeed in what I shall propose.'

I had questions but couldn't ask them. Were these tears for his brother or for China? How much had his personal tragedy pushed him into betrayal and defection, into bringing us down here tonight to listen to him? Hyde would know. He knew the whole thing: he'd probably been at the conference at № 10 with Qiao, because the Bureau is responsible directly to the Prime Minister. He'd known enough, at least, to set up the mission and select me for the field and get me down here tonight, privy to information that would rock Beijing if it got out: I need hardly say, gentlemen, that the most extreme discretion must be used by all those present, yes indeed.

Qiao was using his handkerchief again; I didn't think it was really a cold; it was because of the cable he'd had, the signal to the embassy in Portland Place: Regret to inform Your Excellency that your brother has been arrested and his whereabouts are not at present known, or words to that effect. It could have been only hours ago when he'd heard it, perhaps even less.

'There is one man,' he said, 'who has so far escaped the firing squad. His name is Dr Xingyu Baibing, our most renowned astrophysicist and the most popular intellectual in the country, since his outspoken criticism of the present regime has brought it home to the people, and especially to his fellow intellectuals, that oppression by the ruling clique and corruption within it do not necessarily have to be endured for all time. This man became a popular figure in 1987, when he was ousted from the Communist Party for making speeches on behalf of democracy and inciting student rebellion. His standing with both the Chinese intellectuals and the people in the street is comparable with that of Lech Walesa in Poland. Today Dr Xingyu has been branded by the Communists as a traitor and — I quote — among the scum of the nation. He is accused of committing crimes of counter-revolutionary propaganda and instigation, and his immediate arrest has been ordered.'

The young counsellor, sitting next to him, unzipped the heavy briefcase and brought out some papers, but Qiao motioned them away. 'The night before last, Dr Xingyu sought refuge inside the British embassy in Beijing, and he is there now as a guest of the British government and under its protection.'

Reflected in the windows opposite I saw Hyde turn his head to look at me. I didn't look back. I watched Qiao. In his last few words he'd focused the whole thing for us, like a zoom lens moving in.

'We should not, of course, expect that the Communists in Beijing will necessarily respect international laws designed to protect foreign embassies. We should remember the sacking of the US embassy in Tehran, and the torching of the British embassy in Beijing itself by Mao's Red Guards. The safety of Dr Xingyu cannot be guaranteed, since it is in inverse proportion to his importance to the democracy movement. He endangers the regime by his very existence, and the British government is under great pressure by the Chinese, as you can imagine, to turn its guest out of the embassy into the hands of the militia now waiting outside the gates.' He glanced across at Jarrow, the Secretary of State.

'That, yes, is the position,' Jarrow said. 'Her Majesty's Government is of course resisting the belligerent demands of the Chinese and will continue to do so.' He looked as weary as Qiao and his counsellor, or maybe it was the dim yellowish lighting; but for the last two nights he would have been in late and exhaustive sessions with Thatcher and her advisers. 'I should tell you, however, that we are working out a plan on the highest diplomatic levels to obtain an undertaking from the Chinese that if we were to release Dr Xingyu from our embassy — that's not quite the word, of course, since he's a guest and not a prisoner — if Dr Xingyu were to leave the embassy at his own request, he would be allowed free passage to the airport.' He passed a hand over his eyes, squeezing them shut for a moment. 'The exchange has been going on pretty intensely, of course, and the good ambassador and I have not had too much sleep — nor indeed has the Prime Minister. On the one hand, my government is trying to persuade the Chinese that since we intend to continue our hospitality to Dr Xingyu for as long as he wishes — for years, if it comes to that — it might be better for them to throw him out of the country and into exile, where he couldn't do much harm. On the other hand, they're very keen to get him under their control and brainwash him and push him in front of the television cameras to confess his sins and declare himself reformed, putting him through, politically speaking, a frontal lobotomy and rendering him harmless to the regime. From our side, we are of course offering certain trade concessions to give our argument a little weight. Look,' he said to Barstow, 'do you think those chaps outside could rustle up some tea?'