by Adam Hall
Just to see what he’d say.
‘I’m afraid I can’t let you.’
Tone softer, no smile now. The Chinese was lighting another lamp, that was all.
‘I’m afraid you’ve got to.’
The double doors were heavy, twenty-five feet away. I couldn’t see any other exit although there were some broken-down screens leaning in a corner, could be a door there. But if I got that far, got outside, there would be people of his there and they’d be trained killers, because that was the kind of cell this man was running.
‘If I let you go,’ Trotter said quietly, ‘you’d get yourself arrested within the hour. The police are looking for you and the military are going through this town systematically, work it out for yourself.’ He took a step toward me. ‘You know what the PSB agents are like -they’d flay you alive until you told them all they wanted to know, and you’d give me away and they’d come for me too and they’d have me shot for harboring a criminal. You know this. You know this.’
Dogs still fighting over something out there, and the sound of a truck now. The light in the stained-glass window had died to an ember’s glow. Eight minutes, seven, more like seven.
‘You worry too much, Trotter.’
Slight reaction for the first time: he didn’t like being made light of. Just a flicker, deep in his eyes. Perhaps I could work on that, unbalance him emotionally, enough to give me an edge.
‘I was born,’ he said, ‘in China. I spent my first ten years there, first with a nanny and then a tutor, at a British consulate. Then England, of course, prep, public, Oxford, but my first country is China, and my love for its people is deep and abiding.’
Getting down to basics: here was his soul.
The altar bowls were heavy brass, small enough to use in one hand, big enough to use as a curved blade and to kill, given the necessary force to split the skull. There was nothing else - I’d have to break the screens up before I could make a weapon. The best chance would be to work on his nerves with the bare knuckles, use science, not bloody bric-a-brac, the sweat springing on the flanks now, time running out, five minutes, less.
‘When did you hear I’d got something going?’ I asked him.
Head on one side. ‘Sojourner was indiscreet. So you see, I’m prepared to do a lot for China. That’s why I’m here now, to take over your operation. And be assured—’ his huge hand rose in a gesture of avowal— ‘be assured that I shall see our friend safely in Beijing according to plan.’
I thought I’d better put it on the line, because I needed to know exactly what I was up against. ‘If I let you leave here with him, I mean supposing I trusted you to see things through, where would I stand?’
The heavy brows lifted, I think he was surprised, thought I already knew the answer to that one. ‘You can’t use this as your sanctuary forever. You’ll have to show yourself in the streets, tomorrow or the next day. You’re a risk, you see. You’d expose me as soon as those buggers in the PSB got down to the questions.’ A little shrug— ‘and I can’t afford that. It could destroy my plans for him, for us all.’ Another step closer. ‘There would be nothing personal, you must understand. It’s a question of expedience.’
These things happen when there is a great deal at stake, but believe me, I feel bad about him - he was nothing more than a holy man doing what he believed was right.
I heard myself asking a strange question, those bloody birds on my mind, I suppose.
‘Would I be given burial?’
Chapter 23
Needle
‘Burial? Only if you insisted, and if we had time.’
‘A dead body’s going to attract attention.’ Trotter was within six feet of me now, still not close enough.
‘But it couldn’t be made to talk. Forgive me for putting it like that. I have great admiration for you, and if things had turned out better you would have completed your operation and our friend would have reached Beijing under your aegis, and I personally would have been mightily pleased.’ He took another step closer, perhaps because Chen was here, and understood English, and this was an intimate matter we were talking of now, Trotter and I, my death at his hands, directly or otherwise. ‘I can only hope it’s a consolation for you to know that your goal will be reached, nevertheless.’
This worried me too: he wasn’t putting it on, wasn’t enjoying this. He meant what he was saying, that he would have to kill me to keep me quiet, crudely put, if you like, but that was the crux of the matter. And he’d feel genuine reluctance, genuine sorrow, and it worried me because it gave him deadly credibility.
I needed to know more; the organism was clamoring for information: my eyes were measuring the distance between us and the height of the carotid artery on the right side of his neck and noting that his left foot was slightly in front of his right and would spin him effectively out of reach if he was faster than I when I moved; my ears were sifting the aural data available: street sounds, the moan of the wind gusts through the cracks in the wall, alert for anything that could give me clues to the environment outside; but it was my mind that was desperate for information on a level far more subtle, and it could only get it from the mind of the man in front of me.
‘Why did you take him by force like that from the monastery, get a man killed to do it? Why didn’t you contact me instead, as soon as you started thinking I couldn’t get him to Beijing, and ask me to hand him over?’
A smile of disbelief. ‘You would have agreed?’
‘Just wanted to know if you were listening.’ But I’d learned a bit more. ‘So where do we go from here?’
‘I need certain information from you - the name of the man who’s to meet our friend at Gonggar, the type of aircraft I must look for, the time of its arrival.’
There were four minutes to go, give or take a bit to allow for mental-clock error, and the nerves were tight now, the adrenaline coming into flow. I took a step toward him, five feet away, slightly less, but still not close enough.
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ I said, ‘how on earth do you think you can put him on a plane at Gonggar, get him past the security, the police, the PSB agents, the military?’
‘More easily than you. I’m not a wanted man.’
‘But they’ll recognize him, don’t you know that?’ Nerves in my voice, it was a shade too loud, a slight slackening in control, and dangerous, I’d have to watch for that. We were getting down to the center of things now and the rational fear of my getting killed had given way to the overwhelming thought that these people would take Xingyu Baibing to Gonggar and try to get him through and lose him to the police or the military, finis.
‘In winter here,’ Trotter said reasonably, ‘everyone is wrapped up in hats and scarves, as you know.’
‘Listen, anyone trying to leave Gonggar is going to be told to take off his hat and his scarves and stand under a bloody floodlight, you’re not even thinking, Trotter.’
His eyes flickered again; he didn’t like being told off. ‘You got him through Hong Kong,’ he said, ‘and Ghengdu, and Gonggar. If—’
‘At that time the whole of the People’s Liberation Army wasn’t hunting him down.’
And he’d had a mask on. Couldn’t tell him that.
Look, there’s this to be said: he had a point, I was a risk. If he was really trying to get Xingyu into Beijing I could stop him in his tracks if the police picked me up and I couldn’t get to the capsule and they beat everything out of my skull - they’d start hunting for this man too and find Xingyu, capita.
‘You can’t get him airborne at Gonggar,’ I said, ‘unless I remain alive.’
I had the mask.
‘That is untrue, in my opinion.’ Quietly said, but with an edge: he was starting to dislike me. That would be useful to work on, get him riled, off-balance.
‘Look, Trotter, what’s your motivation? Who’s running you?’
‘No one is running me. I’m engaged in this enterprise because of my profound love for China and her people and
because of what happened to them in Tiananmen Square.’ Black eyes smoldering. ‘There is my motivation in Tiananmen.’
‘Off on your own little crusade. Tell you this, Trotter, you cannot get him out of Tibet if you kill me off, because there’s a certain element involved that will guarantee his getting through Gonggar and onto the plane, and you haven’t got it, and I have.’
He watched me carefully, seemed interested. ‘An element. Would you be more specific?’
‘As good as a passport, as good as a laissez-passer, the only certain means of getting him through.’
In a moment,’ “Element” … “means” … I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you. Unless you’re prepared to tell me precisely what it is.’
‘Not bloody likely.’
He looked offended. There was something frighteningly genuine about this man. He was telling me quite simply that it was regrettably necessary to kill me off and that I was expected to feel consoled to know that at least Xingyu Baibing would reach Beijing, and he seemed surprised that I wasn’t totally ecstatic about the idea. I was missing something. , Then I got it.
Tiananmen.
He’d spelled it out for me, after all, but it hadn’t connected. His rage at Tiananmen was all-consuming, and the only thing he had in his mind was to turn it into action, put the messiah back in the capital and kick out the geriatric junta there and let the people free, lay the bloodied ghosts of Tiananmen. And compared to that, the life of one solitary spook, already hunted by the police, already on his way to the execution yard, was not to be counted.
‘Then I’m afraid we must proceed,’ he said.
‘Do what you like. Kill me, you lose him, you lose everything.’ Needed time to think.
Trade? Time to think about that. Trade my life for the mask, let him take me to Xingyu and fit the mask and let them go on their way, and then get under the ground and tunnel my way out of Tibet like a bloody mole.
We may start to think like that when things get tricky, when it looks as if there’s not a single chance left of staying alive, it’s natural enough, the grave’s got a certain smell to it, can turn your stomach, you can’t blame me and I don’t give a damn if you do, it’s my life on the line, not yours.
‘The other information I shall need,’ Trotter said, ‘concerns Beijing. I want the name of the PLA general who has committed his forces in your support, and the arrangements for having our friend escorted to the Great—’
‘Oh for Christ’s sake, give him a name, can’t you, Xingyu, Dr. Xingyu Bribing, this “our friend” thing is so bloody coy, and incidentally I’m surprised to hear you still need so much information, I thought you’d got the whole thing buttoned up.’
I turned away from him and walked for a bit, just a few paces, wanting to think, wanting urgently to think without his face in front of me, the face of my executioner, and when I came back I stopped a bit closer to him, four feet now, call it striking distance if I had to go for it.
‘Sojourner died,’ Trotter said, ‘before we could get everything.’
‘What? Oh.’ Hadn’t got the name of the general, so forth, yes. I hadn’t been paying attention because in those few paces I’d done some thinking and it had shaken me quite a bit, because listen, I might have to trade the mask, not for my life but for the mission.
We get vain, you know, the longer we’re in this trade, the more we get used to bringing the bacon home time after time with nothing much more than a broken ankle or a shark bite or a bullet lodged somewhere in the organism, we start thinking we can go on like that, start thinking we’re invincible, that only we can see it through to the objective, bring it home. I suppose it’s the same in most professions, but in this one it’s a lot more dangerous if one day we find we’re wrong.
The objective for Bamboo was to get Xingyu Baibing back into the Chinese capital, and I was in possession of the mask and the critical information that Trotter wanted from me, but my chances of taking Xingyu even as far as Gonggar airport were appallingly thin - all right, yes, grab him if I could and run the gauntlet with him through the streets and try to keep him buried somewhere in a cellar or a cave until we had to keep the rendezvous with the bomber, hell or high water, so forth, but that could simply be an act of braggadocio, of professional vanity.
The alternative looked better. Give this man the information he needed, give him the mask, let him keep Xingyu here in this temple, a place where the military had already made their search, where he wouldn’t be disturbed, and let Trotter take him to the airport, openly, as a man already familiar to the police and to an extent trusted - they’re used to me by now, you see, and I help them sometimes - and let the mission run its course without impediment to its objective. Because I was the impediment.
Must be mad.
‘All right,’ I said, ‘tell me what you’re going to do.’
Needed more time to think. Not mad, perhaps saner than I knew. But I couldn’t go through with a thing like this without London’s approval. Trotter would have to let me signal, before we did anything else.
You’re suggesting that you hand over the mission?
London. Croder or Hyde or Bureau One.
Yes.
To a stranger, running a private cell?
Look, I know it sounds— Have you conferred with your director in the field?
He can’t make a decision this big. It’s got to come from you.
Please confer with your DIP immediately and ask him to signal his report.
Look, there isn’t time, and you don’t know the facts.
Confer with your DIP.
Let me give you the facts— Your instructions are to report immediately to your DIP.
They’d think I was mad. The instant I put the phone down they’d pick up theirs and get Pepperidge on the hotline through Cheltenham, tell him to pull me in and take me off the mission, send me home.
Head was throbbing again, I was pushing things, hadn’t slept since the night before last, hadn’t eaten, needed a break, wouldn’t get one, but don’t let go, for Christ’s sake don’t let go, there’s got to be a decision made and not in London but here, where I was standing now with the lamps on the walls sending shadows beating in silence like great wings across the airy spaces, their bone-white beaks - watch it - the airy spaces of the burial ground - God’s sake watch it you’re - yes, straighten up a little, losing things, drugged my bloody tea and that hadn’t helped, not just the lack of sleep— ‘Would you like to sit down?’
‘What? No.’
Watching me carefully, the man with the big black beard.
Four feet away, less, an inch or two less by my reckoning, go for it now, not the carotid-nerve thing, a heel-palm, drive the nosebone into the brain and take the other man as he came for me, not as difficult, then stay by the door and wait till they came in here and go for them in whatever way I had to, go for the kill to make it certain, done it before, do it again, but there’s no future in that scenario, no future in it now, because he’d have more chance than I would, Trotter, getting Xingyu through to Beijing.
‘I think we should sit down,’ he was saying.
‘What?’ I made an effort to get him in focus.
‘You look a little done-in,’ Trotter said. ‘Don’t make things hard for yourself. Here,’ he pulled the stool over for me.
Didn’t sit down. ‘How many people have you got?’
‘People?’
‘Men.’
‘Oh, enough. But—’
‘What sort of training have they had?’
‘I’m sorry, but we’ve got to get on now. Dr. Chen?’
The Chinese went over to the plinth and opened a black leather case, took out a few things and laid them near one end of the blankets where I’d been lying: hypodermic syringe, roll of needles, box with a picture on it - alcohol swabs, I suppose - small plastic tray with three glass phials.
Trotter turned back to me. ‘What I would really like is for you to give me the information I need of your own free
will, including the nature of what you call the “element.” Are you willing to do that?’
Hate syringes, they’re so bloody sinister, ritualistic, I’d been having a bad enough time with the insulin thing.
‘I’ve got to telephone London,’ I said.
He looked a bit sideways. ‘I’m afraid you can’t do that. I need—’
‘Thing is, Trotter, you could have a point. You might get him through Gonggar better than I could. But not without the information and the “element.” I think on the face of it I’m prepared to let you have them, give you a much greater chance. But it’s a decision I can’t make for myself; it means handing you the mission. But they might let me do it, if I spell things out for them, in London.’
He watched me, surprised. ‘Why would you want to hand me your mission?’
‘I’ve told you. I think you’ve got a better chance of flying him out.’
In a moment, ‘It sounds a little altruistic.’
‘Dirty word, I know. But I want that man in Beijing, and I don’t care how I do it. Completes the mission for me, and you don’t know what that means. It’s the Holy Grail syndrome, completing the mission, risk our lives for it all the time, so I’m not—’
‘Oh, I see,’ he said. ‘You’re ready to make a deal for your life.’
‘Not really. That’s less important. I mean he’s such a bloody good man, isn’t he, and he could work miracles for all those people you love so much, if we could only get him to Beijing. I mean imagine the headlines - China Free - spectacular. I want to make it happen, you see.’
It wasn’t absolutely certain they’d say no in London, not absolutely, you come up against the most bizarre situations in this trade.
‘That’s very touching.’ Edge of sarcasm, but only an edge; I think he was a charitable man at heart, had a certain amount of compassion. ‘But your life is surely one half of the deal.’
‘Not essentially.’
There’s an overweening confidence, as I’ve told you, in our own ability to look after ourselves. There could be a chance, somewhere along the line, for me to cut and run.