by Adam Hall
‘He can’t.’
I pictured Croder, thin, his face cut out of flint with a battle-axe, his black eyes showing nothing but the reflection of the telephone in his articulated metal hand.
‘But he’s the replacement, sir.’
No names.
‘Yes, but from the information I’ve been given, you are in these circumstances irreplaceable. Your personal influence over the opposition is a special case.’
Voice like a knife being sharpened.
‘That’s my original point. I think it’s strong enough to bring her down. Look, this isn’t just a last desperate throw. I’ve given it a tremendous lot of thought. And you know my record, sir.’
Waited.
The thing was, this was something new. If I’d said I wanted to infiltrate a KGB operation or blow a checkpoint or bring a top-level defector across a frontier he’d have let me. But there was an exotic, untried element to the end-phase of Red Lotus, and its name was voodoo.
‘Tell your control I’d like to talk to him.’
So I got Loman in and left him at the phone and went back into the salon and stood there with my arms folded and the chill seeping along the nerves because if Croder finally said no I’d lose the day and those snivelling little clerks in the records room would take a pen and fill in the blank space at the end of the operations report, mission unaccomplished, and if Croder finally said yes I’d have to go out there and face Shoda, alone and with no backups, no shields, no support and no escape route, no chance of getting out alive except the one I was ready to take and God knew what it was worth.
I could hear Flood, over by the stained-glass windows, whistling between his teeth. Katie was somewhere behind me; I didn’t know what she was doing, I just knew what she was thinking. Pepperidge was standing quite still with his hands in his pockets, head down for a time; then he took a couple of steps towards me and stood close and said softly, ‘Whatever we go into, old boy, I’ll give you full measure.’
‘I know.’
He turned away and gave me room, left me space to move in if I wanted to. I could hear Loman out there on the phone and thought, Jesus Christ, I should’ve stayed with him and insisted on him selling Croder my plan. On the other hand Loman would try and do that anyway because he wanted this mission finished so that he could take a plane back to London, of course the executive didn’t have a chance of pulling it off until I vent out there, bloody tin medal for his sparrow’s chest, he’s always - no, that’s unfair, he does a good job, don’t needle the poor little bastard.
Nerves, last chance nerves.
‘Would you stop that?’
I was looking across at Flood, didn’t really know I’d been going to say it, whistling between his teeth, got on my nerves.
‘Sorry, sir.’
But of course he’d got a lot to think about too because if I came unstuck he could be pushed into this mission within a matter of hours.
‘Can I-‘
Katie, close to me, somewhere behind me, but I never heard what she’d been going to say. Could she what? Get me anything, a drink? Could she ask me something and if so what, at a time like this? I never heard it all, would never hear it all, because Loman came in just then and we turned and looked at him.
‘We have Mr. Croder’s approval.’
That was at 15:14 hours with the mid-afternoon sunlight slanting through the stained-glass windows, and we began waiting.
I went through the whole thing in my mind God knows how many times, testing it for faults and unnecessary risks and over-sanguine assumptions, testing it for possible surprises and unpredictable situations, breaking up the overall picture into bits and pieces and changing them around and putting them together again.
Long afternoon, it was a very long afternoon, with Flood manning the phone again, taking periodic calls from our people in the streets, the bell ringing in my guts every time, jangling along the nerves because we were now on a collision course with the deadline and the deadline was 21:14 plus a minute, two minutes for them to radio Shoda with the news that the Slingshots had landed in Prey Veng.
Tea, we had some tea, it revives you, nothing like a good hot cuppa, so forth, even in this stinking heat.
Then at 18:09 when the sun’s light began dying in the stained-glass windows we got the signal from the second unit to say they’d flown to Phnom Penh and switched the contents of the twenty crates for obsolete typewriters and at 20:46 they signalled again to tell us the freighter was airborne on schedule from Phnom Penh and at 21:14 we got the final signal telling us it had landed on schedule in Prey Veng and seven minutes later our contacts in Saiboo Street reported that Shoda was leaving the house in a limousine with two escorts.
End-phase running.
CHAPTER 31
END PHASE
Havelock Road, crossing New Bridge. Loman leaned forward and spoke to Katie. ‘What kind of escort has she got?’
Katie undipped the radio-phone, one hand on the wheel.
‘C3. Can you tell me what kind of escort she has?’
Smoked glass windows, we couldn’t see much from inside but I was getting glimpses through the side mirrors.
‘Is anyone looking after our tail?’
‘Oh yes,’ Loman said. ‘Our own escort comprises five unmarked cars, two ahead of us.’
I saw a street sign, St Andrews. We were moving north.
C1, please.
‘Come in.’
She has a car in front and behind.
‘Thank you,’ Katie said.
She half-turned her head and Loman nodded. Pepperidge was on the other side of me. He hadn’t spoken since we’d left the night-club; I didn’t know what was on his mind but I suppose he wasn’t feeling dissatisfied with his performance: he’d successfully entrapped me into a Bureau operation and had monitored my action in Singapore from Cheltenham, reporting to London and taking his own briefing from them. He’d successfully run me as a director in the field until Loman had flown out here to liaise with Chief of Control and he was now going through the end-phase with me and his job was to watch me like a hawk for any signs of cold feet or bravado that will often send an executive right into a trap of his own making, his fear driving him to doing things he wouldn’t normally take on.
What I was feeling at this moment was a sense of betrayal, because I valued this man and as the spook he was personally running I should have told him the whole of my plan for bringing Shoda down, and I hadn’t. I daren’t, because he’d have pulled me right away.
Now entering Nicoll Highway, going North.
Shoda.
Sitting in her limousine among her lethal bodyguards with their black track-suits and their kitten faces and their knives, ready to do anything for her, to give or take lives. What was in her mind, as she drove North along Nicoll Highway?
Let me tell you something. Pepperidge. Shoda is afraid of you.
She very strong, very hard. Sayako. But like glass, one day break easily. You make her break, I think, one day.
Everything depended on that. On her fear of me. It was the only weapon I could take to her. Voodoo.
Katie had swung the wheel again and I saw another sign: Ophir Road.
I asked her, ‘Where is she now?’
‘Ahead of us, on the East Coast Parkway.’
‘Heading for the airport.’
‘It looks like it.’
There was nothing else in this direction, except for resorts and tennis clubs.
Take stock and report. The thigh bruise wasn’t any real problem - I could run close to the limit if I had to. The laceration to the rib had stopped limiting the lung-capacity two days ago, or I couldn’t have worked as I did with Kishnar. The right hand was useless but the arm was perfectly fit, without any degree of paralysis: I could block with it. The sutured artery in the left wrist must have healed to the point -of handling very high systolic pressure, or - again -1 couldn’t have got through the Kishnar thing. Everything else normal.
Hand on
my arm. ‘How-‘
Top line.’
Not necessarily telepathy; he’d been waiting for my assessment and report at this stage, within minutes of the action.
He nodded and took his arm away.
C1, please.
‘Come in.’
Flood’s voice. He’d stayed behind at the night-club to liaise.
Can you give a status report for the board?
Signals board. That was to say Croder.
Loman leaned forward. ‘Tell him that we’re proceeding to the rendezvous as planned, and anticipate effective action.’
Took some saying. The man had guts, admit it. He was reporting to C of C and there were other ways he could have put it: estimations are sanguine, complications not foreseen at this stage, a nice cosy phrase that would mean that we were all sitting here with our fingers crossed and our sphincter muscles tight and our minds turned away from the unthinkable. The control and the director were, after all, escorting the executive in the field to a deliberate confrontation with the objective, who had put a small army into the streets of Singapore to wipe me out.
C1… C1…
Katie took the phone.
‘Come in.’
The 727 is being readied for flight. Chinese voice, American accented English. Fuelling has commenced and the systems are being checked.
‘Thank you. Please keep me informed.’ She turned her head. ‘Did you get that, Mr. Loman?’
‘Yes.’
He didn’t speak again until we passed the first of the Changi International Airport signs. Two more calls came in, giving us the present position of the Shoda convoy, and Flood signalled with a request for updated information, obviously for London.
We hadn’t stopped at an intersection since we’d left the night-club; when the lights had been at amber or red there’d been a marked police car standing there with its lights flashing and we’d gone straight through. This was why Pepperidge had said it was a forty-minute run to the airport with escort.
I looked out of the windows, trying to get the thought out of my mind that I was sitting in a Black Mariah on my way to the execution block. I wasn’t having any second thoughts:
if this thing finally didn’t work then that would have been written in the stars. There was no other end-phase operation we could hope to pull off and we knew that. The nerves were tightening, that was all, normal at this stage, ignore.
The Loman spoke.
‘It’s my opinion,’ carefully, ‘that your estimate of the time factor is on the pessimistic side. I’d say you have more than a five-minute period to work in. There will be quite a little panic when the crates are opened, and they won’t signal Shoda’s aeroplane immediately. Do you want further briefing on this?’
‘No.’ Beacons were coming up, red lights at the top of radio masts sliding past the darkened windows. ‘That’s all I need.’ A jet was taking off, its vibrations palpable inside the car.
‘If I’m wrong, of course …’
If he was wrong it’d blow the whole thing into Christendom. No, not the whole thing, just the executive; but Flood would have a rotten job to take over.
The main tower showed through the windscreen, black against the glow of the terminal lights. The smell of kerosene was coming in through the air-conditioning ducts.
‘Gentlemen.’
Loman showed us his watch. 20:13 hours; Pepperidge altered his to synchronise.
I was aware of the outline of Katie’s face on the right side, the curve of the cheekbone, the curl of hair.
I wish we could have met before. But then I suppose it wouldn’t have worked out.
Slowing. A red light flashed from the rear of the Mazda ahead of us.
‘They’re taking us straight onto the tarmac,’ Katie said. ‘Is that right, sir?’
‘Yes.’
She slowed again.
Martin, will you stay the night? There’s not much of it left anyway.
Another jet went sliding across the roofs of the buildings, lifting clear and leaving its sound filling the night.
She swung the wheel, following the Mazda.
Keep back the dawn. Wasn’t that the title of something?
Slowing.
Gates, Personnel Only.
Two uniformed guards checking the Mazda, asking for IDs. Two guards, I suppose, because there’d been an attempted hostage situation at this airport a month ago.
Ice.
One of the gates swung back and the Mazda was waved through. We followed.
Ice along the nerves.
Hand on my arm. ‘The way you’ve got things worked out, old boy, it should be a pushover.’
‘Yes.’
Perfect direction in the field, close attention to the minutiae of the situation, tot of rum for the troops, so forth.
Tarmac. Vehicles moving; fuel tankers, baggage trains; security patrols. A jumbo on the main east-west runway, rolling under power, a windsock flying out in its wake, then dropping. The last met report had said still-air conditions at ground level.
A lot of noise now from the jumbo, NorthWest Orient. When it had died away Loman asked me, ‘You still prefer a police car?’
‘Yes.’
The High Commission limo would stand out, I didn’t want that. The whole thing had to be performed in low key, no rush, no excitement, softly, softly, catchee monkee, too much confidence, too much bloody chutzpah, it’s not going to be as easy as that, it’s not going to be a pushover.
Steady, lad.
We slowed and stopped. I could see the 727 standing near the line of hangars, at least I assumed it was the one.
‘Is that-‘
‘Yes, over there,’ Katie said. ‘TH-9 J-845.’ To Loman, ‘Shall I wait here, sir?’
‘See if you can get in there between the fence and the service truck.’
We moved off, did a slow turn and slotted into cover. I could see a limousine standing a hundred yards away, not far from the 727 and flanked by two smaller cars.
C1. C1, please.
‘Come in.’
Their ETD is down as 20:25.
Thank you.’ To Loman, ‘Sir?’
‘Yes, I’ve got that.’
He picked up his field-glasses and focused them.
Seventeen minutes.
Close, we were getting very close now.
The main taxiing-lane was behind us and I could hear the aircraft rolling there; I could see the red wingtip lights on the starboard side reflected in the outside mirrors. The line was almost unbroken.
I’ve given this a tremendous lot of thought, I’d told Croder, and you know my record.
Too much pride? Not really. The way I thought I could handle things, there was a chance. That was all we needed, a chance.
Loman, beside me, suddenly petulant, ‘I would feel very much better if you would arm yourself.’
I think it was just something to say, to fill the silence, break the waiting, because he knew bloody well I never used a gun, those things are more nuisance than they’re worth.
Didn’t answer.
‘This car will stay right here,’ Pepperidge said. ‘So if-‘ and he broke off because we were all watching the limousine over there and an Asian woman in a track-suit was getting out and opening a rear door, standing aside. At this distance and in this light I couldn’t see more than four small figures moving quickly from the car to the steps of the jet. The car didn’t move, stayed where it was. Within sixty seconds the steps began retracting and half a minute later the cabin door was closed.
‘Two women,’ Loman said with the field-glasses raised, ‘and two army officers.’
Noted.
A mechanic in overalls and with a sound-muffler on his head walked in front of the aircraft and turned and looked up and signalled, and the first engine began moaning.
A feeling of unreality now, of floating towards a frontier of some kind, not an international frontier with checkpoints and all that, just a quiet, personal boundary, not even physical, perh
aps the rather blurred line between doubt and certainty, past and future, life and death. It was quite pleasant, a releasing, I suppose, of the endorphins as I approached the zone where I was going to ask exacting things of myself, and expect to get them.
Then the feeling passed and I pulled myself forward and caught a glimpse of Katie’s face as she turned; then I climbed across Pepperidge and snapped the door open and dropped onto the tarmac and went across to the nearest Mazda, got in.
‘Jordan.’
‘Yes, sir.’
They were in plain clothes, both Chinese, sitting upright in the front of the car. I could see more of what was going on now because the windows of the police car were clear glass, not darkened.
The jet began moving. I looked back through the rear window and saw five other aircraft strung out along the taxiing-lane, the first of them turning onto the runway. The 727 was joining the line, slowing and turning, coming to a stop.
A call came over the radio for the police car and the passenger responded, said they were stationary.
I leaned forward. ‘Have you got contact with Mr. Loman?’
‘Yes, sir. You have a message?’
‘No.’
Just wanted to know. It was a lifeline, in a way, the link with my control and my director. Soon I’d have to break it.
The second jet was airborne, and the 727 rolled again, keeping station.
20:38. She was due for take-off in four minutes.
The pervasive burning sensation in the left hand had faded out as the endorphins worked on the nerves. No particular feeling of anxiety: it was too early yet. A sense of suspension, of holding back while the clocks flicked to the next digit, while the big jets rolled again in their orderly line, while life went on.
20:40.
The two Chinese sat stiffly, not talking, not moving, watching the 727. No more calls came through. Another jet turned into line behind the 727, rolling to a halt, Air France.
I could see the High Commission vehicle slotted between the fence and the service truck. Loman silting inside, Pepperidge, Katie. Were they talking? What are you saying, my good friends, my erstwhile lady love with your thin shoulders and your blue-grey eyes?
The last aircraft was airborne, the last one before the 727, and the sound came back, surging across the metal bodywork of the car in a wave, passing beyond, fading.