by Adam Hall
I think I had never tagged a man so mercilessly well. He never knew I was there. He led me straight to an apartment block on the river side of the city and I was still there at the curb in the Toyota half an hour later when Kuo came out with his two bodyguards and got into a car. He got in first and the two men handed him, very carefully, a roll of gold cloth.
The temptation to throw blind was strong: to hang back and let them go, remove all risk of their sensing me; to take the series of short cuts that would get me there before them and give me time to climb the stairs of the Botanical Museum. But there was a greater risk: that they were going somewhere else, somewhere I didn’t know about.
In the end it was a compromise. After ten minutes the Kuo driver sensed me and began square turns, block after block, playing the lights on the amber and using his speed through Lumpini Park. It was no go. He would never lead me anywhere useful now that he knew I was there in his mirror. Kuo would order him to keep on driving until he flushed me, however long it took.
So I dropped back, putting up a fair show of being balked by the traffic at the angle of Sukumvit and Rama IV and making a couple of feints and turning back up Sukumvit into Dheb Prasit Lane and into Rama IV and speeding up dead straight and due west toward Lumpini, working on a seventy-thirty chance. It was all I had.
They didn’t come into the mirror. The Botanical Museum was in the Link Road area and I left the Toyota in the driveway and took the field glasses with me.
At the Museum there is a staircase at one side with a small window on each landing. I had been there more than once in the last eight days, going up to the reading room on the top floor so that the girl at the desk in the main hall wouldn’t hear my footsteps halt at the third landing and wonder why (the place echoed a lot), then coming quietly down to the small window that overlooked the Phra Chula Chedi, the temple on the Link Road.
They came within minutes. I focused the Jupiters.
One of them - not Kuo - got out of the car and went through the temple gardens, coming back with a man in a yellow robe, a priest. He leaned at the window of the car; in the 8 x 60 lens I could see his lips moving. Then he straightened up and they handed him the roll of gold cloth. He carried it with reverence through the temple gardens and the car drove away.
I am not easily moved to repugnance, but it was the ritual that was so ugly, the ritual.
Chapter 8
Diabolus
The whole thing nearly came unstuck.
It was typical of our relationship: we’d known from the beginning that we weren’t going to get on together; we’d known also that somehow we would have to. But this time it wasn’t personal; it was on a question of policy.
‘I can’t sanction it.’ That was his first reaction.
He spent most of the time walking about and I had to suffer his long silences while he stopped to stare at the rosewood Buddha and the moonstone and the Pan-Orient Jewel Company calendar on the wall.
‘I cannot see how I could sanction it.’
After a bit I just sat down and shut my eyes except when he came up to talk to me. Even then he was talking half the time to himself, playing it aloud, trying to get a grip on it. I was hard up for sleep and would have dozed off in the chair if I hadn’t been sitting on a bomb.
‘It is the most sensitive operation I have ever been presented with.’
I could hear by his footsteps that he was standing in front of me again so I opened my eyes and said:
‘You asked me for a set-up. It’s the only one that can work. There are plenty of others but they’re all chancy. You’ve thought of them and I’ve thought of them and there’s something wrong with all of them except this one, so don’t let’s waste time going over—‘
‘Everything is wrong with this one.’
‘And everything is right.’
I sat watching him struggle. Certainly there was a lot to this operation that would put the fear of Christ into a seasoned agent - the whole set-up was pivoted on a needle point. But it had advantages, big ones, bigger than any of the other plans could give us. He wanted to launch it; he would give a great deal to see it run; he was an intelligence director of long experience and this thing excited him, fascinated him. It was sensitive and it was elegant. What he was doing, as he shifted about and stared at things he didn’t see, was trying to talk himself into saying yes.
I let him struggle with it while I sat there with thoughts of my own. I had already made my decisions: if he agreed to directing this operation I would set it up and push through with it win or lose. If he couldn’t sanction it I would sign off the mission and get out of Bangkok. No half measures: if he tried to talk me into one of the other plans it was no go.
The second reason (the first was the Maltz mechanism) for the strong homing of my instincts on the temple near the Link Road was that it was one of the alternative set-ups I had given Loman some time ago. It was the feature of one of the ‘assassination arrangements’ he had first asked me for. The Phra Chula Chedi, with its white-frescoed walls and golden tower and beautiful gardens, was a perfect vantage point for Kuo. It was a gun sight commanding the whole length of the Link Road.
It was to the temple that Kuo himself had taken the roll of gold cloth, consigning it to the safekeeping of the man garbed as a priest. There had been people about, passing along the pavement. It didn’t matter. Gold cloth-tapestries, sacred draperies - were common enough in the city temples. This one had been something over three feet long and its weight - judging by the way they had handled it - had been ten or twelve pounds. Gold fiber is heavy: the cloth itself would weigh in the region of five or six pounds.
It didn’t matter that people had been passing along the pavement there in full daylight and had seen the gold cloth. In another way, it did matter. It was Kuo’s hallmark: stylishness. He had taken a braggart pleasure in bringing to this sacred place, in view of the people of this city, the instrument of Cain that would send this city - and all England - into mourning.
The thing had been done with the semblance of a ritual. Kuo the Mongolian was a man short in the body and with a deliberate gait, his face disguised by smoked glasses; but he would be more accurately described as a man who would do this thing in this way. Here was his whole character expressed in one gesture. He was Diabolus.
So Loman’s misgivings didn’t count with me.
He was standing over my chair again and I opened my eyes. He said almost pettishly: ‘You know perfectly well that in any case I can’t sanction homicide.’
‘I’m not asking you to.’
‘But the entire operation hinges on—‘
‘For God’s sake, Loman, we’re wasting time.’ I got out of the chair, fed up with him. ‘One of them’s going to die, isn’t he? Which d’you want it to be?’
He started off again, fretting up and down till I stopped him and made him talk and go on talking. In half an hour we reached a deadlock and it took another half an hour to break it. Talking had helped him, helped us both. We were getting used to the operation and it didn’t scare us anymore.
‘We are always up against the same difficulty, Quiller.
Lack of peripheral support. We haven’t any junior agents to do the general background work - tagging, guarding, manning a courier line. All chiefs and no
Indians. That’s why you lost Kuo at the Lotus Bar - we didn’t have a man on the other exit. We can’t ask for assistance from any police department; as I’ve told you, Colonel Ramin will have nothing to do with me. For this reason we have very little information. Plenty of raw intelligence but nobody who can analyze it for us and give us a complete picture. Therefore we know practically nothing of what plans the Bangkok Metropolitan people have in mind - or even what our own Security is doing. Their responsibility is very high and they’re jealous of it.’ He took a couple of turns and came back, giving me a hard bright stare. ‘By which I mean that if we launch this operation we shall be on our own. Entirely on our own.’
I said, ‘It’s th
e only way I can work. You know that.’ I [had to sell him this point. The mission suited me but it [didn’t suit him: he specialized in operations with a well-organized cell, established access and first-class communications. This wasn’t in his field. It hadn’t been mine until the Kuo pattern had shown me the way in. There was no point now in telling Loman that he had roped in the Bureau and me with it and that it was his own responsibility. He had to be sold my operation by positive, not negative, argument. I told him:
‘Lack of peripheral support isn’t a difficulty in this case. It’s because we’re on our own that we can work as we like. We’re responsible to Control for results and the means don’t count. No one is responsible to us - there aren’t any junior agents to get caught in the blast when we light the fuse. That’s the whole idea about the Bureau, isn’t it? You’ve said it yourself: we don’t exist. It lets us do things that no other department can do.’ I stood close to him. ‘You can’t lose, Loman. With a bit of luck and some good organization, the Security people sent out with the Person are going to give him all the protection he needs. If they can’t stop Kuo then the local networks will - the Thai Home Office, Special Branch and Metro Police. With luck. But if he gets through them all … and if all the luck runs out … we’ll be there, you and I, plugging the hole.’ We stood so close that I could see my own reflection in his hard bright eyes. I need do no more than to murmur. ‘And we can bring it off. And if we bring it off, who’s going to ask how we did it? Control? Control never asks. It would never keep an agent if we had to account for our methods. So we’re in the clear and we’re on our own and the set-up’s waiting.’
I moved away from him and gave him five seconds to think. He had to have those few seconds without my eyes on him so that he could look into himself for his own counsel - but I gave him no more than five because the final shot had to go in timed to exactitude:
‘And it’s a beauty … isn’t it?’
Sensitive, elegant, simple, brutal and just. A classic. Dog eat dog.
It was absurd. He’d spent so long, before, talking me into this mission. Now I’d had to sell it back to him.
‘What do you need?’ he asked.
And I knew it was a deal.
‘Three things. A base. A darkroom. A look at the car.’
‘Nothing else?’
‘Your general supervision. I’m out of sleep. I could make a mistake. There won’t be much time for sleep, I’ve got your direction in any case. I’m all right, Jack -how are you?’
He asked me: ‘What kind of base do you need?’
He spoke with the dulled tone of a punchdrunk. He had committed himself and had no time to think about it yet, I wished him joy in the small hours of the night.
There’s an office block at the intersection of the Link Road and Rama-IV facing east with the name Taylor-Speers on a board. They’re demolition contractors and the work doesn’t start till the middle of next month because they’re held up with their schedule: they’ve wrecked an electric main under the tram terminal sheds they’ve just pulled down. It’s a British outfit and you’ll find them in the book. I want any one of the top-floor rooms at the front and no one’s to know I’m there.’
He didn’t like it.
‘Colonel Ramin,’ he said, ‘tells me that the police will be checking upwards of three hundred uninhabited rooms overlooking the motorcade route on the morning of the 29th. They are already working on the lists of residents of several thousand other rooms.’
‘I can deal with that. I’ve been in there.’
He still didn’t like it.
‘Taylor-Speers are bound to let their workers into the building on that day to watch the motorcade. It’s declared a national holiday and it would be natural for them to do that.’
I said, ‘That’s what I want fixed. No one goes into that building on the day except the police. It’s a British firm and you’ve got a set of official credentials - pick any one. This is a big chance for Messrs.’ Taylor-Speers to demonstrate their steadfast loyalty to the country whose ancient soil, so forth.’
‘I’ll do it in my own way,’ he said stuffily.
‘That’s our motto - the means don’t count.’
‘What kind of darkroom do you need?’
‘Nothing special. Somewhere lightproof enough to use an enlarger in the daytime. Somewhere as near the condemned building as you can find. I don’t want to show myself in the open street.’
‘Camera gear?’
‘I’ll choose it myself.’
‘When do you want to look at the car?’
‘As soon as you can fix it.’
Our voices sounded hollow. Everything we said now, every small word, took us nearer the thing we were going to do.
‘I shan’t waste any time,’ he said.
‘I know you won’t.’
He went first to the door. I would wait five minutes. That was the routine. ‘One thing I forgot, Loman.’ He turned to look at me. ‘Can you get me a guest membership card at the Rifle Club? I need a couple of hours on their 1000-yard range. We’re working on a long-shot and we don’t want to miss.’
Chapter 9
The Oriel
Bangkok is a city whose temples have towers of gold and whose hotels rise alabaster from emerald palms. Here fountains play in marble courts and women walk in silk with jeweled hair; the air is heavy with the perfumes of all Araby. It is a paradise expressly fashioned for the beguilement of princes; by day the sun spills rose light along private paths and the blue of night is webbed about with music.
The tramp curled up on his sleeping mat in the corner of the duty floor where flakes of plaster fell softly from the walls with a dead-moth flutter. Mildew smelled on the air: water from the last rains had leaked from fissures in the roof and was rotting the ceiling battens. It would never dry out; the hammers would be here first, felling the whole edifice like a beast in the abattoir.
Loman had worked fast, say that for him. Taylor-Speers had rallied to the flag and this rotting hulk was my lair for the last of its days. The ghost had moved in early, his nose quick for the smell of a death.
Sometimes I slept but waked often on a thought that had to be examined (Who was she, and was it important to know? Was there a parallel operation mounted? By Mil. 6 or some other group? If so it couldn’t be by coincidence. By what, then? What design?)
Loman had also found me a darkroom in the next block and I had permission to use it as required. He had even convinced the Palace Security of his bona fides and we had been fetched in a police car. Our papers were checked by guards at two points in the private grounds before we reached the Royal garages.
It was an interesting vehicle: a Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado in ivory white with gold metal fittings and amber hide. The 340 horsepower engine would push the two-ton gross weight to 120 miles per hour. The coach-work had been converted to provide six seats, two of them folding into the mid-squab, the main rear seat being raised nine inches for a better view. Four aerials gave radio linking with outriders and the command security vehicle. Steel-reinforced side platforms dressed with ribbed white rubber provided foothold for a guard if he had to perform his prime duty - that of getting his body between the bullet and the man he is protecting. Special equipment included a built-in police siren, emergency lights, fire extinguishers, medical kit and bulletproof tires.
There were five dismountable roof sections, one of sheet steel, four of bulletproof transparent plastic.
I had told Loman: ‘It’s important to know which sections are going to be mounted - if any.’
‘That may be difficult. It’s nobody’s particular decision. Our Security people and Thai Security will ask for all the plastic sections to be put up. The Person himself will opt to dispense with all of them, because that is his character. Prince Udom will be in the car with him and the Palace directive is almost certain. Nobody here wants it to be demonstrated that one can travel safely through Bangkok only by virtue of bulletproof shields.’
; ‘Find out what you can, that’s all I ask.’
It was important. -These shields formed part of a pattern that comprised a lot of factors: distance, trajectory, trigonometry, ballistics. Take one shield away and it would affect the whole set-up. It could even shift the location of the sniping post. And we had to work on the premise that whatever we knew, Kuo could find out.
Kuo wasn’t just a thug with a gun for hire. He wouldn’t be in the crowd at the edge of the route hoping to get in a chance shot and run before they lynched him. Hope and chance weren’t in his reckoning: he was a professional. In a way he was like Loman: he worked best with a disciplined cell and good communications. Since Kuo had come to this city he had been directing his cell with precision and they would have gone out ‘ hard for information. They had to know the defense pattern and they had to find its weaknesses. They had to break it before they could kill.
Assume they know everything. Everything.
Except that I am where I am, curled on the floor like a dog in its den, waiting the chance to eat dog.
135 x 2 x 8 = 2,160.
The tilt of the planet itself was a factor.
Framed in the window of my small high room was the Phra Chula Chedi, magnificent in the morning sun. The walls were white and had no apertures except for the immense golden doors half-seen among the temple gardens. Above the walls rose the dome in a half globe of shimmering gold, supporting the slender tower. Between dome and tower was a ring of small unglazed openings, and only from these oriels could a marksman sight the Link Road.
At a range of some two hundred yards I could look directly into them at eye level - but it was summer and the sun was high and they were at all hours in shadow. The field glasses couldn’t beat this light factor. No optical lens of whatever magnification could define detail inside the ring of oriels. It could be done only with a camera.
A camera, set for time exposure, can produce a detailed image of a room so dark that objects in it are barely visible to the human eye. The camera is a light-gathering device.