One morning in February 1967, Lin Hua, a staff member of Guangzhou Baiyun Airport, as usual, conducted a security check on the passengers coming and going. A foreigner appeared in front of Lin Hua with a suitcase, and at first he did not care that there were foreigners coming and going here every day.
But an inadvertent discovery made Lin Hua feel that something was wrong. This foreigner was well-dressed and did not look like an ordinary person, but in his suitcase, there were two rats. Lin Hua felt very strange, and he and his colleagues immediately checked the passenger's luggage.
In a large thick suitcase, there are two ordinary-looking rats deliberately placed, and ordinary people can't do this kind of thing. Lin Hua immediately questioned the passenger, and the foreigner looked a little surprised to see that the security personnel had found the rat. He quickly calmed down and said that he liked studying rats very much, and he came to China this time to take two Chinese rats and take them back to his hometown to study.
Such a statement naturally could not deceive the experienced Lin Hua, who felt that things were not simple, but he did not have the right to investigate this person. So he thought of a good way, he asked his colleagues to find a way to stabilize the person first, not to let him leave, and he quickly called his superiors to inform him.
This seemingly ordinary thing soon attracted the attention of Zhang Wenqi, head of the Enemy Special Department of the Ministry of Public Security in Beijing. At that time, China was not completely open, the entry and exit inspections were relatively strict, and Baiyun Airport was the most important checkpoint for most foreigners before leaving the country.
Since the founding of New China, many foreign spies have infiltrated China to engage in espionage work in the name of doing business. Zhang Wenqi was specifically responsible for the investigation of enemies in foreign trade work, so after receiving the news, he immediately felt that there was something strange about things. He immediately prepared to fly from Beijing to Guangzhou to personally investigate, but baiyun airport could not resist. After the man was temporarily retained, he was in a very bad mood and demanded that he be released for various reasons.
There was not much reason to keep him at the airport, and Zhang Wenqi thought that they had only found two rats, and there was no actual evidence to prove that the man carried these two rats. So he said hello and asked the airport to release people first, but people could let them go, and rats couldn't take them away.
There was no suitable reason for the airport to detain the rats, Zhang Wenqi thought of a way, he asked the staff to catch two ordinary rats, and adjusted the rats carried by the man. In this way, the man left China with the rat, but the rat he had originally carried had fallen into the hands of the investigators. After Zhang Wenqi arrived in Guangzhou, he organized an investigation of the man while finding relevant experts to study the two mice.
The man, George Watt, was on his way to Hong Kong, a technical expert at a chemical company in Lanzhou. At that time, some domestic companies will import foreign advanced equipment, but their own technology defects, once the equipment fails, only rely on the company's own technical personnel can not repair, some companies will request the import of equipment companies, send relevant experts to this side to guide the work, once the failure occurs, there are these experts in time to repair.
That's why Watt was sent to China, where he worked for a while and was very popular with the locals. This time he left to apply for a vacation, watt carried two mice, after the expert's examination, did not find abnormalities, the rats have nothing else in the body, there is no virus on the body, it is completely ordinary mice.
After reaching this conclusion, Zhang Wenqi looked at Watt's resume again, and suddenly a bad conjecture emerged, but he did not make a sound, and when Watt returned from vacation, Zhang Wenqi made a disguise and went to the unit where Watt worked to investigate.
He made intentional or unintentional contact with Watt and soon discovered something unusual. The Watt seems to be a technologist, but he rarely answers technical questions. Zhang Wenqi, as an inspector, asked him to answer some technical questions about nylon, and Watt reluctantly answered. Zhang Wenqi concluded in his heart that this person was definitely a fake expert, because Watt's answer was completely memorized according to the technical material provided by the British company.
Subsequently, Zhang Wenqi continued to investigate the company's internal affairs and soon found more unusual places. It turned out that this Watt claimed to be British, but when he was drunk, he said that his hometown was in the United States, and he often spoke some American language, obviously to hide his identity.
The company provided Walter with a place to live and arranged a special car for him. Watt is very grounded, does not take a car on weekdays, and likes to ride a bicycle around the factory. He also used travel as an excuse to often visit the surrounding areas of Lanzhou, sometimes staying outside all day.
Combined with the existing information, Zhang Wenqi confirmed his conjecture that Watt was definitely a spy. He came to Lanzhou for China's nuclear weapons. He thought of the two rats that were all right after quarantine, so he asked the staff to send the rats to the research institute to test the condition of the rats.
Sure enough, there were varying degrees of radioactive material on the mice. Zhang Wenqi's conjecture was completely confirmed, and he immediately notified the enemy special department, arranged manpower to closely monitor Watt's every move, and waited for the opportunity to arrest Watt. However, Watt was quite alert as a spy who had been lurking for a long time. In order not to scare the snake, Zhang Wenqi also wanted to see what lurking characters were behind Watt, so he pretended to relax the monitoring of Watt.
Soon, Watt's wife came to Lanzhou from Hong Kong to see him, which attracted Zhang Wenqi's attention. He immediately reported the situation in Lanzhou, and when the Ministry of Public Security learned that the enemy spies were preparing to obtain information on nuclear weapons, everyone did not dare to be careless and immediately reported the matter to the central authorities.
Premier Zhou, as one of the main leaders of nuclear weapons research, was once the ace intelligence officer of the CCP, and his rich intelligence work in the early years made him realize that there must be a large gang involved behind this matter.
So he immediately gave instructions to Zhang Wenqi and others not to rush to catch Watt, but to put a long line and catch a big fish. With the prime minister's instructions, Zhang Wenqi continued to hide in the factory, monitoring Watt at any time.
Watt's wife came to the interior and took her and Watt's children with her. The old and spicy Zhang Wenqi immediately saw from the look of contact between the two of them that these two people were a fake couple. When Watt's wife's family visit was over, Zhang Wenqi followed him all the way to the airport, and under his instructions, inspectors conducted a close search of Watt's wife's luggage.
Soon, Zhang Wenqi found an unusual object, which was a frame of Chairman Mao.com. Although this thing is common in the country, foreigners rarely get particularly interested in it. Zhang Wenqi had the mentality of trying it out, and let people check the frame, and sure enough, they took out a map behind the frame, which contained a detailed map of the Lanzhou atomic bomb industrial base.
Subsequently, they found a miniature film in watt's children's toy, which was actually a military topographic map of Lanzhou.
At this point, this major espionage case was successfully solved, and the Watts and his wife were immediately arrested. The two men, trained as professional spies, shirked their responsibilities in various ways during interrogation and denied espionage. Although the evidence at hand was sufficient to prove the crimes of the two of them, the superiors deliberated and believed that the matter should be handled with caution.
Watt has been lurking in Lanzhou for a long time, and he can always hide his identity and engage in espionage work, and he must have other people to help. Digging out the Watts and his wife does not mean that Lanzhou is really safe, maybe in the local area, there are Also Watt's accomplices, if you deal with this matter immediately, it will be a grass snake, Watt's accomplices are prepared, and it will be very difficult to find them.
Zhang Wenqi continued to investigate the people around Watt, and he soon discovered the problem. Watt came to China as a member of the British Panel of Experts, and there are many experts in this team. After a long period of observation, a person named Di Carter in the expert group attracted Zhang Wenqi's attention.
During his time in Lanzhou, like Watt, he often liked to ride around the neighborhood, and he often went to shoot near military facilities. After discovering the anomaly, Zhang Wenqi took decisive action this time, taking advantage of his once going out to photograph military facilities, and arrested him on the spot.
He then put Dikat under house arrest and sent someone to keep a close watch to see who was in contact with Dikat. Soon they made a major discovery, someone often walked around the vicinity where Dikat was being held, and handed dikat some notes.
Zhang Wenqi, in turn, tracked down these people, and finally found out that the main person in charge of the espionage operation was Xu Linde, the leader of the expert group. When this person learned that Dikat had been arrested, he was very anxious and risked sending someone to pass on a message to Dikat, asking him to commit suicide.
Unexpectedly, the information they transmitted was intercepted by the investigators, but they were all exposed. Through a search of Dikat's residence, they found a large amount of malicious false accusations against the Chinese government, and it seems that the spies intend to use these things to make a fuss. However, the matter was not over, Zhang Wenqi reported the results of the investigation to his superiors, and the central government immediately made arrangements.
Soon, as Xu Linde prepared to return to China, the ambush investigators arrested him. Like Watt before him, Schlind's clothes were stained with radioactive material, and it looked like he wanted to take the secret away in this way. After being arrested, Xu Linde and others confessed all the truth, and as Zhang Wenqi guessed, they came for the atomic bomb.
So far, this extraordinarily large espionage case has been successfully solved, and China's important secrets have been protected. In this case, the keen insight of Zhang Wenqi and others played a decisive role, and they used a casual matter to finally find out this big case, which was indeed too powerful.