The Red Bicycle

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Praise for The Red Bicycle

An important piece of writing – a highly readable novel about foundational events in the nation’s road to independence.

Dr. Diana Wong

Sociologist; Independent Researcher

A tale of political subterfuge set against a fascinating portrayal of Malayan society and the MCP in the 1940s. An interesting and informative read.

Dr. Jeyakumar Devaraj

Member of Parliament Sungai Siput

This is an interesting novel, based partially on historical fact, set in the period of the Japanese occupation and its immediate aftermath. It deals with the courage, sacrifice and sufferings endured by a people determined to fight against oppression and, in particular, of a small band of the MPAJA led by the CPM and the treachery and betrayal by its leadership.

Dr. Poh Soo Kai

Founder member of the People’s Action Party

This is Dave Anthony’s second historical novel. It is based on characters and personalities and events of history that are related to those in the first novel. I consider this to be a better piece of work. It deserves a wider audience than just the Malaysian readership.

Dr. Syed Husin Ali

Senator in the Dewan Negara and

former Deputy President of Parti Keadilan Rakyat

Author of Ethnic Relations in Malaysia: Harmony and Conflict

Also by Dave Anthony:

Love & Struggle: Beyond the Rubber Estates

Kaatu Perumal: Folk Hero of Sungai Siput

The Red Bicycle

A Historical Novel

Companion to

Love and Struggle: Beyond the Rubber Estates

Dave Anthony

Gerakbudaya Enterprise

Petaling Jaya, Malaysia

Copyright © 2016 Dave Anthony

Published in 2016 by

Gerakbudaya Enterprise

2, Jalan Bukit 11/2, 46200 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia.

Email: support@gerakbudayaebooks.com

Website: www.gerakbudayaebooks.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia / Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Anthony, Dave

The Red Bicycle: A History Novel / Dave Anthony.

ISBN 978-983-2344-68-1

e-ISBN 978-983-2344-72-8

1. Malaysian fiction (English).

2. English fiction.

I. Title.

823

Edited by Nine

Cartography by Dhiyanah Hassan

Cover design by Daniel Anthony

Layout by Janice Cheong

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Part One: Espionage

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

Part Two: Treachery

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

Glossary of Non-English Terms

Glossary of Acronyms

Also by Dave Anthony

About the Author

To Chin, Daniel and Joel

Foreword

The Red Bicycle is an extraordinary book which can be read on two levels, and Dave Anthony must be commended for providing us with it. The first level is a story of the heroic struggle of people forging a party to liberate their country from powerful foreign occupying forces. On the second level, through a fictional narrative of this struggle, this book provides an important account of one of the most interesting and controversial – but yet neglected – aspects of Malaysian history: the betrayal of the Communist Party by its leader.

This book’s primary merit is its focus on the Communist Party’s contentious leader, once a highly respected secretary-general who was eventually found to be a spy, not just for the British colonial government but also for the Japanese when they occupied Malaya during World War II. (Reputedly born in Vietnam, he was also believed to have been a secret agent for the French colonial government.) Although speculation abounds about his role as a double agent, historians have not sufficiently reviewed his involvement in the Communist Party and how his role as a double agent undermined its efforts to liberate Malaya from foreign occupying forces.

The Red Bicycle, which can be read as a fictional biography of this communist leader, is undeniably an important contribution to Malaysian literature and, one can argue, to the discipline of history. This book provides readers with a useful account of how the Communist Party functioned as it led an insurrection against the Japanese and then the British. The book does not veer far from respected historical accounts of colonial rule of the peninsula. However, under the veneer of historical fiction, there are interesting insights into the personal struggles encountered by members of the party in their endeavour to liberate Malaya while also dealing with shock, even disillusionment, at their leader’s duplicity and treachery.

By providing an account of this historical epoch in fictional form, The Red Bicycle does not overpower its readers with overwhelming details of key actors and events, a problem seen in academic treatises of the Communist Party. Presented here as a non-political account of the party and the role of its leader, this book offers a view of the atrocities of Japanese rule as well as the injustices perpetrated by the British after their return, with the help of the communists, as the governing force after World War II. The British betrayal of the Communist Party as the colonial government sought to consolidate its control over a peninsula that was rich in above- and under-soil resources is well captured in this narrative. This is a tale too of the naked greed of individuals and colonial governments and of brutal oppression to protect vested economic interests.

A thoughtful reading of this historical period, from the perspective of this book, will draw attention to man’s inhumanity to man, as seen in the intensity of oppression by colonial powers. The lives of the key characters in this book and the nature of their discussions with each other about their struggle indicate a self-realisation that the route to liberation from oppression must come from the people themselves and at great sacrifice. Their lives were also devoted to a struggle to awaken a national consciousness among fellow Malayans.

This book reminds Malaysians of core aspects of colonial rule. The fundamental purpose of colonialism was economic, while racism featured as an essential tool employed by the British to divide the colonised. The love shared by the key characters, Kuppu and Chin Leng, indicates another feature of the Communist Party: its trans-ethnic dimension, one that historians inadequately discuss. The necessity of revolt to achieve this vision of a free de-racialised society with equitable distribution of the country’s wealth is a powerful idea that runs through this novel. A high price had to be paid by the communists who resisted the injustices of colonial rule. There will, of course, be disputes about the form of the struggle and whether the ends justified the methods employed by the Communist Party, but such debates precipitated by this book will be another of its major contributions.

This book must be read by Malaysians who are now confronted with similar struggles: the disillusionment with political leadership, one espousing unity and equity, and yet betraying its citizens with covert corruption; and of public discourses about moderation and inclusion while parties conduct their politics along divisive ideas based on race and religion. This book reminds us of the need to revisit Malaysian history, to read it more thoughtfully and from the perspective of the oppressed. The Red Bicycle, if read with these ideas in mind, obliges all Malaysians to struggle for the cause of justice, particularly in the face of the duplicity and treachery of its leaders.

Terence Gomez

Edmund Terence Gomez is Professor of Political Economy at the Faculty of Economics & Administration, University of Malaya.

Preface

History is documented as the story of gains achieved by powerful forces. The underside of history can reveal another narrative where its course, navigated by lesser individuals, produces a different story based on the people and their responses to the ebb and flow of forces in diverse times.

Malaysia could have been a Communist Republic of Malaya, but that did not happen. Victory was claimed by the British and the Malay Nationalists. Why it did not happen, even for a while, was due to an inherent weakness in the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM).

The extensive British Empire was the largest in the history of the world, with Malaya a jewel in that empire. The British were nonchalantly preoccupied with the exploitation of Malaya’s resources. The Communist Party of Malaya was an irritating mosquito disturbing the enterprise of the British East India Company. That mosquito was repelled through a spy network.

The CPM was just beginning to flex its muscles under a new leadership when World War II broke out. Great Britain was shocked that it was defeated in Malaya by what it considered an ‘inferior’ Asian power, Japan.

Desperate situations called for desperate measures. The enemy became an ally. The British cooperated with the communists against the Japanese. Connecting the British, the Japanese and the communists, the three corners of the triangle, was a master spy. The intriguing espionage work of this triple agent pulled the brakes on what could have been a communist revolution in post-war Malaya.

This book picks up the underside of history, weaving the threads into a tapestry of fiction. The enigmatic secret agent’s manipulations behind the scenes cripple the activities of the CPM in the first half of the book. The second half of the book traces the manhunt for the traitor.

This work of historical fiction is a companion to Love and Struggle: Beyond the Rubber Estates, which speaks of a love that blossoms in the lives of oppressed and exploited migrant rubber workers, in the context of an alternative history of Malaya rarely heard. The same characters emerge in this novel and another love blooms in the jungle in a continuing narrative.

For background to the communist struggle, I have relied largely on Chin Peng’s My Side of History.

My gratitude goes to Terence Gomez, tan beng hui, Diana Wong, Poh Soo Kai, Jeyakumar Devaraj and Syed Husin Ali for reading the manuscript and giving me valuable feedback by pointing out discrepancies and suggesting alterations. A further thanks to beng hui for her detailed editing.

I am mostly indebted to Lim Chin Chin, my wife, who, being extremely critical, made the painstaking effort to meticulously check and edit the script to streamline the text and tighten up the story, forcing me to eliminate parts that did not push the plot forward, in order to make the book more pleasurable for the readers.

A very special thanks to Nine who did the final editing, streamlining and polishing the text. Finally, I want to thank Professor Edmond Terence Gomez for writing the foreword. The cover design was created by Daniel Anthony, my son. I hope you will enjoy reading the novel as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

Dave Anthony

Part One: Espionage

"Oh, treacherous night!

Thou lendest thy ready

veil to every treason,

and teeming mischief’s

beneath thy shade."

AARON HILL

1

31 August 1942. It was raining in bright sunshine.

Rubber and canvas jungle boots were sloshing in the mud. Communist cadres, high-ranking guerrilla fighters and senior leaders of the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) were making their way to a cave within a limestone hill for an important meeting.

They walked past an abandoned cement factory along a narrow-gauge railway track leading to the limestone crusher, clinker and rusting cylinder. Now standing idle, this was the British Batu Caves Cement Works that produced the famous Portland Cement. They tracked a steep path and climbed many wooden steps, like railway sleepers, to a height of three hundred feet, towards the yawning entrance of a cave.

Unknown to them, hidden eyes were watching their movements through binoculars.

Around 400 million years old, the limestone hill was at one time submerged under water. The Orang Asli, the indigenous people of Malaya, belonging to the sub-tribe called Temuan, were believed to have used these caves as shelters.

The hill had three large caves and a few smaller ones. The largest of the caves had a very high ceiling, not unlike the dome of a Gothic cathedral. Stalactites menacingly threatened to pierce from above, while stalagmites cropped out of the floor. Several alcoves, like side chapels, contained Hindu deity shrines.

Hindus, mostly comprised of Indians, one of the three main ethnic groups in Malaya, frequented these caves to fulfil vows and to pray. From the 1800s, the British brought in a large flow of them as a labour force from South India. Indian presence, however, went back as far as the fourth century CE; the Indian kings even conquered the northern part of the Malay Peninsula. Indian settlements then comprised mostly merchants and traders.

An Indian trader by the name of K. Thamboosamy Pillai promoted this cave as a place of worship in 1890, installing a statue of Lord Murugan in it. Lord Murugan, the god of war, was mounted on a peacock, holding his divine spear and blessing with his open palm. This place became known as the Batu Caves Temple.

The cave became popular with Hindu devotees especially during the festival of Thaipusam, celebrated on the full moon in the Tamil month of Thai. On normal days, the place had its regular share of visitors and devotees climbing up and down the hill. The communist leaders, dressed in civilian clothes, mingled with them as they made their way up. Several macaques sat on tree branches and on the steps watching them.

Below the Temple Cave was the Dark Cave, not readily visible from the outside. Sentries, in civilian clothes, stood discreetly about 65 steps below the entrance to the big Temple Cave. Recognising the officers, the sentries directed them to another path leading to the Dark Cave.

The path along the cliff side to the Dark Cave was a ledge with tree roots which had dug into the crevices like the clinging fingers of a mountain climber. The officers went past another group of sentries armed with machine guns. Guides, with torch lights and kerosene lamps throwing flickering rays of light into the darkness, led them through a dark passage. Fissures overhead allowed natural light in as well. They were greeted by an overwhelming pungent aroma: bats were flying about and the floor was carpeted with their droppings, or guano. Sections of the guano had been scraped off by the local farmers for fertiliser. Spiders nestled in the centre of their spreading webs; crickets could be heard, while cockroaches ran erratically on the floor.

More stalactites were ominously hovering from the ceiling above, and intricately formed stalagmites rose from the floor, resembling gargoyles. Brushing away spider webs stuck to their hair, the officers proceeded cautiously on the wet floor for another hundred yards.

The passage opened into the mouth of a large cave with very high walls that exposed the sky. Raindrops descended like arrows from the sky. The only sound was that of tiny waterfalls and rivulets that converged into a small pond in a dark corner. Attap huts had been erected for the meeting and accommodation, as well as a kitchen where women cadres were preparing meals.

This high-level meeting, called by the Secretary General of the CPM, brought together high-ranking and second-tier leaders from the states of Selangor, Johore, Perak, Kedah, Pahang and Penang. They numbered more than a hundred.

Among them was Ah Kow, an experienced leader, passionate about the communist cause. Everyone called him Ah Kow, his full name was Goh Ah Kow. He was the commissar from Perak.

Ah Kow’s father, who came from China, had lived through the first Sino-Japanese war and had horrific stories to tell about the Japanese atrocities experienced by his family. After coming to Malaya, he settled in the town of Gemas. Ah Kow was born and grew up in Gemas. As a boy, Ah Kow would accompany his father to Singapore to listen to talks given by Dr. Sun Yat-sen promoting revolutionary ideas and encouraging the reading of newspaper stories. He read about Chiang Kai-shek. He was moved by Tan Kah Kee urging anti-fascist feelings among the Chinese in his public speeches. Seeing the British domination, he joined the CPM, and his anti-fascist feelings were fired up with the coming of the Japanese.

Among the second-tier leaders were Nadesan, Kuppusamy and Chin Leng. Nadesan and Kuppusamy were popularly known as Desa and Kuppu. They were among a small number of Indians who hailed from the rubber plantations. Desa and Kuppu joined the CPM to avenge their ordeal after escaping from the Burma Death Railway. Chin Leng, whose full name was Lee Chin Leng, joined the CPM one year after leaving school. As a young girl she was traumatised by the brutal manner in which her mother was killed by the Kempeitai. Ever since, she had vowed revenge against the Japanese. She was subsequently attracted by the communist ideology.

Chin Leng, preparing the noonday and evening meals, remarked, This is a very good hideout, but where can we run to if we are attacked?

Aiyaa, you are right lah. Didn’t they think of that? agreed another woman who was chopping vegetables.

Ah Kow, who came to check on how the women were doing, overheard the conversation. He had wondered about it himself. He took a stroll around the camp, panning his view over heavy undergrowth, noticing the shallow pond in a corner.

Long tables and benches, with split bamboo tops lashed onto a wooden framework, were stuck into the ground. Much work had gone into preparing this meeting place. The delegates had an early meal of rice, stir-fried kangkong, and soup made with chicken feet. After the dishes were cleared, they got ready for the meeting in the same main hut, keeping their firearms by their sides as was their habit. Even the women cadres had their firearms within reach while cooking. The sentries on security worked shifts.

They could not start the meeting proper because their leader, the Secretary General from Singapore, had not yet arrived. So they had a preparatory meeting instead.

Hew Li, whose real name was Choo Ah Ming, Central Committee member and Senior Party official, began. Our Beloved Leader is scheduled to arrive about ten o’clock tomorrow morning. In the meantime, let’s start with the preliminary issues. Let’s begin with our state reports.

Hew Li, short and stout, had studied at the Anti-Japanese Military College in Yen’an, China. As chief of the Overseas Operation Corps, he was sent to Malaya to mobilise overseas Chinese for the anti-Japanese war.

The commissar from Penang asked, We’re expecting our Beloved Leader to reveal the overall blueprint for the military campaign against the Japanese. He should have sent the agenda ahead of the meeting. Do you have any idea about this?

No, our Beloved Leader has not revealed anything to me. He does not want anything leaked before the meeting. He’ll reveal it to us when he arrives, answered Hew Li.

One by one, the state representatives reported on their activities. This went on till five in the evening, when they took a break for a cup of Chinese tea and Marie biscuits. Some of them got up and walked towards the makeshift barrier near the pond to relieve themselves. They resumed meeting.

This meeting is not known to anyone but us, not even to our lower-rank officers, Hew Li informed the assembled. You all know that we were initially supposed to meet in Kanching, at the old bicycle shop. The venue was changed at the last moment by our Beloved Leader for security reasons. What others know is that we’re having a meeting but not the venue of the meeting. Is there any other issue you’d like to bring up?

Ah Kow, the experienced jungle fighter, asked, Why was the venue changed? Is this place more secure than Kanching? Although this appears to be an appropriate hideout, I see no escape route. If we’re ambushed in here, we’ll be slaughtered like rats.

We’ve the entrance well-guarded, Hew Li assured him. We also have an outer ring of armed men lower down the hill. Our Beloved Leader will not take chances and will not call for this meeting without proper security measures.

One of the security personnel added, There’s a small side cave that leads to an opening on the side of the hill. It’s narrow and difficult to negotiate. Once out, you have to scale down the limestone cliff. It’s precarious and I hope we will not have to use it.

I still do not feel secure, said Ah Kow. Show us where this cave is.

They all went out to inspect the escape route. There was still light coming from above. The security man took them around the little pond to the far side of the cave. Beside a small waterfall that fed the pond was a narrow opening into another, tiny cave. It was well concealed by thick shrubs. They checked it out, but still did not feel at ease.

It was dark when they resumed their meeting. Oil lamps and naked carbide flames were flickering on the table tops, throwing a kaleidoscopic pattern on the attap roof above. Small insects, attracted by the light, dived into the flame like mini kamikaze pilots. Mosquito coils burnt in the corners like red-eyed sentinels.

They were surrounded by a mix of noises, strange and familiar: the sound of crickets, the hoot of the owl, the slow trickle of water and the frequent clap of hands smacking mosquitoes.

This band of guerrillas had been set up as a result of an unholy alliance between the British and the CPM when the Japanese began their offensive in Southeast Asia. The British in Singapore had set up the 101 Special Training School and prepared 165 members of the CPM for guerrilla warfare. These men were under the direct command of their own CPM leader, but under the overall command of the British.

Chen Shu, the commissar from South Johore, said, It was only in February that we established our own fighting force and deployed two detachments to sabotage the Japanese logistical support lines. Our Malayan Peoples’ Anti-Japanese Army is gathering momentum. We’ve to be focused since we’re operating in Japanese-occupied territory. Our best men and women are on the frontline. We’ve received a directive from the Central Committee to focus on the industrial front. It makes no sense. Because of the war there’s hardly any industrial activity in Malaya or Singapore. Most of the tin dredges, mines, rubber factories, and rubber estates are lying idle. The workers are unemployed. What is the point of organising labour under these circumstances? It’s the frontline offensive that requires our attention.

Ah Kow had in the early days initiated the Perak People’s Anti-Japanese Army (PPAJA), even before it was called the MPAJA. This happened when contact was lost with the Central Committee in Singapore. Critical, but usually reticent, he became vocal again: You all know that the Perak guerrillas are among the strongest and most effective CPM armed forces in Malaya. Now, we get a directive from the Central Committee that our guerrillas are to come under its control. This has caused a split in the Perak State Committee: one takes care of military affairs and the other directs political matters. It does not augur well.

Many nodded their heads and quietly wondered about the leadership in the Politburo. No one had been brave enough to offer a different opinion. Now, in the absence of the Secretary General, some attempted to speak their minds, while others advised caution.

Xu Qing Biao, the Selangor State Secretary, a China-born Chinese, advised, We should never doubt our Beloved Leader. Our party lacked a proper direction until he took over the reins of leadership. He’s a good organiser and a great strategist. He restructured and built up the party to what it is today. He deserves our respect and loyalty. He’s unwell and, in spite of that, he still dedicates himself to the Party. I hope he will arrive safely and not be ambushed on the way.

He’s a very cautious man. Only he knows his own movements. We need not worry about him, Hew Li assured him.

They were at a loss as to how to proceed. This was to be a secret meeting and only the Beloved Leader had the agenda. They continued discussing other matters like the arms caches. Each division had cached arms in secret places in the jungle. The Beloved Leader had issued orders to reveal these hiding places to him.

It’s vital to safeguard the secrecy of these places, said Chen Shu from South Johore. There are many betrayers in our Party. If there’s a leak, we’ll lose all our weapons.

Ah Kow took up the issue. While we’re safeguarding our hidden ammunition, we get a directive from our Beloved Leader to reveal the coordinates of these hiding places. This isn’t the first time we have received such an order. Even before the war, when we were fighting the British, we were ordered to reveal our weapons’ hiding places. It’s just too risky.

Everyone murmured their agreement. They took a break for dinner, comprising leftovers from lunch and a small piece of fried chicken, along with bananas and papayas.

The Kempeitai – the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army – had come to know of the Batu Caves meeting one week in advance. It was not a conventional military police, and was not unlike Nazi Germany’s Gestapo.

News of this meeting was received in Syonan, the Japanese name for Singapore, by Rikugun Shosa (Major) Orochi, who was the Kempeitai subsector commander-in-charge of screening anti-Japanese Chinese activities. Orochi, 41, with high cheekbones, straight black hair combed back, and a long bridge on a non-prominent nose, was a veteran military police officer with 18 years’ service in Manchuria. Orochi immediately took this information to the Kempeitai Commander Rikugun Chusa (Lieutenant Colonel) Osamu, a short stout man with a protuberant moustache.

The YMCA building on Stamford Road had been sequestered by the Japanese occupation of Syonan for use as the Kempeitai headquarters. A three-storey solid structure of grey slab bricks, it had a symmetrical design in the style of neoclassical architecture. The high portico was supported by two stone pillars that rose up to the second floor, enclosed on three sides with huge windows, crowned with flat arches of decorative stonework. Astride the pillars stood two tall areca nut palms, like large candlesticks on a high altar. The bay windows on the second-storey frontage, also crowned with elaborate arches, embellished with dentil mouldings, supported balconies above. The third storey had evenly spaced shuttered windows recessed behind verandas with balustrades. The pointed tiled roof structure was pedimented on the front, rear and sides with wide overhanging eaves supported by beams. The interior of the top floor was dark and foreboding for an otherwise impressive building.

Orochi ascended the stone steps in the portico leading to the entrance, which was guarded by two sentries who recognised him by sight and saluted. On the right of the hallway was the office of the Rikugun Chusa. The top floors were only accessible to the officers of the secret police; the rooms upstairs were the dark chambers of torture. Various tortures and executions were carried out, mainly on Chinese suspected of anti-Japanese activities. At night, people walking the streets around this building could hear screams and cries coming from the top floor.

The Japanese were desperate for information about the CPM and the increasing strength of their newly formed army known as the MPAJA. Now Orochi had information about an important meeting which provided a unique opportunity of wiping out, in one fell swoop, the top echelon of the CPM and the leaders of the MPAJA. Armed with this information, Orochi knocked on the door of the Commander, entered and saluted.

Where is this secret meeting to be held? Osamu asked.

In the cave of a limestone hill on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, replied Orochi. He pointed to Batu Caves on the huge topographical wall map in Osamu’s office.

Is your information reliable?

"Absolutely, Rikugun Chusa."

Have the place watched and gather more information on the ground.

This is a rare opportunity for a strategic strike.

All right, after you have conclusive evidence, make plans for a tactical strike. Eliminate them all.

"Hai, Rikugun Chusa." Orochi saluted and left.

He returned to his screening centre at Jalan Besar, where he had his own operations room with maps, dotted with different coloured pins, on all the walls. In a superior and self-important manner, he cleared his table by pushing the books and papers to one side, lit a cigarette and started writing on a clean sheet of paper. The first thing he did was to handpick his team: Rikugun Tai-i Suzuki; two field officers, Rikugun Chūi Makoto and his Executive Officer, Rikugun Shōi Takeru; and his two confidantes, Junshikan Shigeru and Shocho Yoshiyuki.

Orochi pointed to Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaya, on the wall map. We’re going to conduct a tactical ambush of the CPM here.

He pulled out the map of the Gombak district from several detailed maps. Tracing a straight line from Kuala Lumpur, he pinpointed a spot. "This is a limestone hill called Batu Caves, four miles from the city. There are a number of deep caves here and it’s in one of these that the meeting will be held. The members will come from all over Malaya.

We’ve to conduct surveillance of the people in this area. Those coming from the north would have to come through the town of Rawang; those from the south, the city of Kuala Lumpur, referred to as KL; those from the west, the town of Sungai Buloh; and those from the east, the town of Bentong. We need to deploy our men in these four towns. They would be the outer ring. For the inner ring, we need to select places closer to Batu Caves. Looking at the map, he selected three strategic villages: Kampong Nakhoda, Kampong Laksamana and Kampong Melayu, which he tapped with his pencil in succession.

"Chūi Makoto, marshal your buntai, he said. Get your Junshikan to command twenty troops each and deploy them in the outer ring." Orochi commanded Shōi Takeru to marshal his bunkentai and call up the tokumu-han, a special duties squad, to go undercover and mingle with the local people of the three villages.

"Tap the local informers in these places. You have to move fast. Information has to be fed back every day from the spy rings.

"Tai-i Suzuki, with the help of Junshikan Shigeru and Shocho Yoshiyuki, you will collate all the info. Any questions?"

"Rikugun Shosa, can we enlist the auxiliary units of the local ethnic force in KL?" asked Makoto.

You have authorisation from the highest command. Get whoever you need and whatever you require. This is a high-priority mission. You’re dismissed, said Orochi.

He then turned to his confidantes, Shigeru and Yoshiyuki. "Squeeze out from our informer the latest up-to-date information regarding the meeting, especially the names of people attending.

Suzuki, you are to mobilise 2,400 troops to be ready to attack on your given order. Make it a clean sweep, he commanded.

Convoys of troops began moving to Kuala Lumpur. The buntai and the bunkentai sections were immediately dispatched to the outer and inner rings respectively.

Five days before the Batu Caves meeting, Tong Shi Chang, only five foot four in height, lean but muscular, made his way on his old red bicycle along Orchard Road in Singapore to his business associate Yong Lee Kong’s house. It was raining and he had his hat pulled low on his forehead, shading his brown