by Adam Hall
'Chong!'
Crackling of timber and a beam came down with a crash and sparks flew, a billow of smoke rolling through the doorway and clouding gray in the moonlight, the eyes stinging as we reached the open and I saw the truck, 'Chong!' but no answer.
I got Xingyu into the Dongfeng and checked for the radio and the map and started the engine and waited. 'Chong, we're going!'
The whole place was roaring and I thought I saw Trotter, his huge body silhouetted against the flames as I hit the gear in and rolled the thing out of harm's way, still no sign of Chong, but there was a sweep of bright light coming in from the highway and I got into motion again with the headlights off and took a dirt track where the smoke was rolling, used it for cover and kept going as more lights silvered the landscape and I saw a personnel carrier, red star on the cab, it must have been in the area and I suppose you can't blow a temple up in the dark without attracting attention, Chong, where was Chong, we had to keep going before the military picked us up in their headlights, I think the first time I'd called out to him without getting an answer was just after the shot, the second one, so it could be that.
Something bumping against me in the cab, Xingyu, and I pushed him upright.' When did you last get insulin?'
'Who are you?"
He sounded lethargic, slurred, sat there lolling, so I reached over and got his seat belt round him and hit the door lock down, who are you, stressed out of his mind.
The dirt track was coming to an end and I turned the lights on and kicked the dip switch and took the road to the right, away from the blazing temple, throttling up and shifting into top, the main town to the left, to the north, the river on the other side, Gonggar behind us in the west but forget Gonggar, find shelter, it was all we could do now, I'd been with Chong when he'd drawn the map, sitting in the truck while I was watching for Su-May.
'Okay, this is where the foothills begin, so this is where they are, along this line here."
The caves.
'Which one should we make for?'
'Listen, we take our pick, a whole lot of them are going to be big enough to hide the truck, so we can set up our base facing the south, keep a watch on the road, this one here, the only way in and it ain't that hot anyway, mostly rocks, but if they take the search parties that far it's the road they'll use.'
We checked our radios and synchronized watches and he started peeling a fresh stick of gum and I said, 'All right, this is what we'll do if I can get them to pick me up. You'll take over the truck and keep me in sight until you see where they're taking me. If it's in the town or where anyone else can get hurt, report on your radio to my DIP and he'll bring in support. If it's anywhere remote, where you can use your bombs, do it at your own discretion.'
He thought for a moment. 'Okay. Zero?'
Eighteen hundred hours. 'I'll work around that. But you're only a backup, Chong. If I can do anything on my own, I'd rather do it. A bomb is a blanket weapon and if Xingyu's there I don't want him endangered.'
He dropped the Wrigley's wrapper onto the floor. 'Like to kind of modify that,' his tone a little hurt, 'I mean you can pick locks with those babies, you do it right.'
'No offence.'
We talked about where to bring the truck, covering a dozen assumed sites, urban and remote and in between. We talked about signalling if any were possible, access, egress, how to keep Xingyu protected, how to get him clear. And finally we talked about eventualities and their appropriate action. 'If one of us can't get away,' I said, 'he's left behind, and the other one takes Xingyu.'
'Gotcha.'
He'd got out of the cab of the truck and buried himself among the equipment we were carrying back there, and began waiting it out.
'Where are we going?'
Xingyu. I looked across at him in the backwash from the headlights. He was crouched into his coat, his face drawn, his eyes dull, but he sounded interested in who I was, where we were going.
'Dr Xingyu, it's a few minutes past six in the evening. When did you have you last shot of insulin?'
'I cannot remember. Are we going to Beijing?'
'Yes. To meet your wife.' No particular reaction, perhaps a look of cynicism. 'How much warning,' I asked him, 'do you get when you're running low on insulin?'
He turned his head to look at me. 'A little while.'
'What do you mean by a little while? Ten minutes or an hour or what?'
'About half an hour.'
'Then I want you to tell me as soon as you feel you're ready for another shot.' He didn't say anything. 'Do you understand?'
'Yes.'
'Are you hungry?'
'No.'
'Thirsty?'
'No.'
'All right. Let me know if you need anything.'
Chong had dumped a bag of provisions in the back of the truck when he'd kept the rendezvous, and I'd asked him to include a first-aid kit. The mask was still in its cheap cardboard box wedged behind the seat, and I would have liked to use it, but we'd need fresh water, clean hands, and time, up to an hour. The risk of taking this man along a highway in a truck tonight without the mask on was appalling, but the risk of being stopped by the police or the military was worse, if I tried fitting the mask and failed to get it right: they'd detect it and rip it off his face, finito. The risk of pulling up anywhere to look for shelter was the worst of all, and the only chance we had was to get to the foothills and the caves and stay there until Pepperidge could work something out.
The blaze was well behind us when I looked back, a bright ember against the horizon that left a trail of orange fire reflected along the river. Headlights were sweeping the area as the emergency teams moved in, and two vehicles, quite distinct, were behind us on the road out of the town. I noted them, because they could be military.
I picked up the radio and switched it on.
'Calling DIF, DIF, DIF.'
'Hear you.'
'Subject is in my care.'
In a moment: 'Very good.'
Since we'd broken radio contact soon after noon today Pepperidge had been sitting in his hotel room trying to make himself believe that I'd somehow manage to stay alive, because he'd known I meant to get in their way and that's something the directors in the field always hate and always try to keep you from doing: the risk is of course totally calculated but wickedly high. He hadn't expected jam on it: I'd located and secured Xingyu Baibing.
'I'm proceeding according to plan.' It was all he needed:
I'd told Chong to take him a copy of the map and it showed the caves. 'We should be there in an hour.'
'No precise location at this point.'
'No. I'll send that.' I watched the two sets of headlights in the mirror. The distant vehicle had pulled up on the one immediately behind me. 'There's a temple on fire southeast of the town and the emergency crews — and I assume the police and military — are already on the scene. There are several dead. One of them might be Chong.'
In a moment: 'Noted.'
'He did very well. The subject appears physically normal except for stress and extreme fatigue.'
'You have insulin?'
'Yes. But please note: I estimate that we shall be exposed for another half hour on a public highway, and the Koichi artifact is not in place, repeat not in place.'
Hesitation, then, 'Half an hour.'
'Estimated.'
I gave him tune to think. I'd located and secured the subject but the chances of getting him under cover were shockingly thin, with his face undisguised and a major search operation by the military still in progress. There was also an added risk: if any of them had got out of that temple alive they would have tried to follow this truck. One of those people had still managed to pull off a couple of shots after the first bomb had gone in, or it could even have been the two of them, each with a gun. Trotter had been running a first-class cell with highly trained personnel and if he'd been killed in the Buddha room, any surviving hit man would know what he'd got to do. If Trotter couldn't fly Xingyu into
Beijing himself, he'd want him dead.
'Obviously you have no alternative.'
Pepperidge. No alternative but to try getting Xingyu to a cave in the hills through a military dragnet.
'No. It's the least risk.'
'So be it. Anything more?'
'Nothing more.'
'What's your condition?'
'Fully active.'
That wasn't inaccurate. If I didn't get some sleep before too long I was going to drop in my tracks and the drug they'd put in my tea had left the motor nerves a degree sluggish and my reflexes were less fast than I was used to and the head wound was still throbbing, but if anything critically active started I'd be all right because the adrenaline would make up the difference: once the survival mechanism is triggered and you're functioning in the zone, the body chemistry shifts into a different equation and the strength-of-ten-men syndrome kicks in.
'You could probably use some support.'
'It's not feasible. The only chance we've got is to keep a strictly low profile.'
Things had changed, in the mirror: the vehicle immediately behind had peeled off, and I saw the red star on the side. The other one was closing on us; I would have said it was a Beijing jeep by the short distance between the headlamps. There was now a bit of traffic starting to come the other way, and I kicked the dip switch.
'If you felt you needed support, would you ask for it?'
'Yes.'
He'd got my thinking straight on that point before: the man slumped behind me in the cab was potentially the most powerful figure in the Asian hemisphere and if I thought that even one support agent could help me protect him then I would say so.
'If the situation changes,' Pepperidge said, 'I can send in a whole cadre.'
He was worried, thought I was digging my heels in; no director in the field's all that happy when the executive's walking a tightrope with the subject of the mission in his arms.
'Noted.'
We were going to have to find a hole, Xingyu and I, find a hole in the night and stay there, sleep there, hibernate until the dawn, and any kind of support would attract attention, flush us out.
'I'll signal Control. Remain in contact.'
'Will do.'
I switched to receive-only and put the radio on the seat. It'd cheer them up a bit at the board in London, Executive has located and secured the subject, so forth.
A truck came past from ahead of us and in the glare of its lights I saw the red star again and a huddle of soldiers swaying in the back. I checked on Xingyu before the light had gone; he was sitting more upright now, staring through the windshield, and he squeezed his eyes shut and jerked backward against the seat as the shot smashed through the rear window and into the windshield and it snowed out and I hit a hole in it and got the truck straight again.
'Keep down.'
Shot hit a tyre and it blew and the truck lurched and I got it back and bits of snowed glass flew inward as Xingyu started hitting at it, shouted at him again, keep down, headlights coming the other way and the glare blinding, wiping everything out, and I felt the truck lurch again and then the tire came off and we were on the rim, took my foot off the throttle, lights again, there was a whole line of stuff coming past, keep down I told him, right in the line of fire for Christ's sake.
The twin lights of the jeep behind us were jazzing around in the mirror and I tilted it and tried to see where the road was, there was no border, it just ran into a waste of flat land with boulders standing black on one side, silvered on the other by the lights, a whole string of them, this was an army convoy, red stars glowing on the sides, shot and the mirror went, the force of the bullet throwing it forward until it caught the windrush and blew back into the cab, Christ's sake keep down I told Xingyu.
The Dongfeng lurched again and a truck coming past us the other way had to swerve but it wasn't enough and we clipped his fender and the driver leaned on the horn, the Doppler effect bringing it down to a moan in the night as I dragged at the wheel and went for the flat land and kicked the headlights full on and watched out for the boulders and then things began happening behind us, lights sweeping in an arc across the terrain and then another shot but it was wild, and I suppose one of the army trucks had made a U-turn to come back and overhaul the jeep and ask them what they were popping off a gun for, either that or it was the truck I'd hit, coming back to talk about the damage, you don't, you do not hit an official vehicle of the People's Liberation Army without being asked some questions, it was no go, it was no bloody go in this thing and I chose a boulder and got to the other side of it and used the brakes and slewed the Dongfeng at an angle and hit Xingyu's seat-belt buckle, 'Out, we're getting out.'
I hooked the radio into my coat and got his flight bag and the provisions from the back and found him wandering in the moonlight, a cold wind cutting across the scree, 'Come on,' threw an arm around his shoulders, 'Come on, quicker than that,' huddled against the wind, the two of us, leaning on it, tripping on stones, the lights on the road very active and men shouting but no more shots, I suppose it was all he'd been able to do, keep on firing even though he knew they'd ask questions, keep on firing in the hope of a killing shot, and he'd come close, hit that bloody mirror a foot from Xingyu's spine.
'I must go to Beijing.'
His voice thin against the wind.
'What?' Out of his mind. 'Of course, yes, Beijing.'
Sweat running on me because we'd left the Dongfeng less than a hundred yards from the road and if they started sweeping their lights across the scree they'd see it and we hadn't got far enough yet, not far enough along the road to Beijing, dear God, what was he talking about, what had they done to him in that temple, lurching along together like a couple of drunks and not fast enough, not nearly fast enough, I could see the dark rim of the foothills against the stars but it looked like five miles, could be more, and I didn't know if he could make it on his feet or if I'd have to carry him, get him far enough before the need for sleep knocked me over, the rim of the hills dipping as I watched it, rising and dipping, the air coming into the lungs like knives and stone loose underfoot.
Shots down there, some shots, back along the road, no particular theory coming to mind, they were trying to take him I suppose or both of them if there'd been two, and they wanted to keep on our track, shouting again, a lot of shouting as the line of trucks shunted to a halt, the officers wanting to know what was going on, another shot and that was the last I heard, Xingyu heavy against me, 'We've got to walk quicker than this,' I told him.
'Yes. I must go to Beijing.'
Merciful God. 'Listen, Dr Xingyu, they are soldiers back there, and we've got to get away from them.' I didn't know how much he understood about things. 'We've got to keep going.'
'Yes. Keep going.'
Snow on the wind, flurries of it like last night.
'Listen to me,' I said. 'If anyone follows us on foot, I want you to go that way, toward Sirius — you see Sirius?'
'Yes.'
'That's your direction, if we have to separate. Go that way, to the east, and find shelter and lie low. I'll go in the other direction, you understand? I'll lead them away. Now do you understand?'
'Yes.'
But I couldn't tell if he did, or if he just saying it, this bloody wind freezing against the skin, the eyes streaming. 'I'll give you your bag, and the insulin's there, all right? All you do is lie low and wait, and I'll send for help. Understand?'
'Yes.'
All he could say, like an automaton, lurching over the stones. 'I'll radio your position, as close as I can get, if I have to send for help.' If the situation changes — Pepperidge — I can send in a whole cadre. 'All you do is lie low, and use the insulin when you need to. Are you listening to me?'
'Yes.'
He tripped and started to go down and I pulled him upright, poor little bastard, doing his best, facing straight ahead of him against the wind with tears freezing on his cheeks, one foot in front of the other, soldiering on, I must not let
them get this man, he was the messiah, potentially a name to go down in history if I could get him to walk faster, for Christ's sake, faster than this, we could still hear them shouting down there and all it wanted was for one of them to turn his truck and pick up our Dongfeng in his lights and we'd have to separate because they'd take a look at it and find the engine warm and then they'd start looking for the driver, finis.
Snow on the wind, flakes sticking to our faces and freezing the skin, he tripped again and I caught him, held him closer, an arm around his shoulders, the rim of the foothills rising and dipping and the stars swinging, I would like to sleep, swinging across the night sky and swinging back, the stone loose underfoot, treacherous, the night treacherous with stones and soldiery, Lord, I will lay me down to sleep in another mile, another mile of this, lay me down to sleep.
'I must get to Beijing,' he said, Xingyu, and tripped and dropped like a dead weight and I wasn't quick enough and he stayed there on his knees, a dark shapeless bundle against the stones, the messiah, head hanging like a dog's, the wind howling among the boulders and his voice crying in it, 'I must get to Beijing,' his gloved hands hitting the ground in frustration, and I dragged him onto his feet and he started walking, my arm around him again, walking into the wind and the whirling snow, and I said to him, 'Yes, you must get to Beijing.'
Chapter 24: Fugue
It was very quiet.
There was a hole in the sky and I watched it.
Feet ached, my feet ached, those bloody boots. Feet were cold, too, frozen, looked down at them, felt them, no boots on, that was the trouble, I'd pulled them off when we got here.
'I must go to Beijing.'
'What?' Then everything came back and I said, 'Yes,' and looked at the luminous digits of my watch, slept for three hours, I'd slept for three hours and six minutes because I'd checked the time when we'd got here and reported to my DIF.
Not a hole in the sky, this was the cave and the hole was the entrance down there, full of moonlight.