by Adam Hall
Within half an hour I'd checked the various closets, lift-shafts, and — alcoves on the eighth, ninth and tenth floors and noted five people go into Suite 9 and four come out: two Europeans, the rest Asians. None of them saw me.
Then I went down the emergency stairs at the rear of the hotel and pushed open the door on the ground floor and waited, checking the environs and checking particularly the skyline where the tops of the buildings were broken here and there by the heads of the palm trees. A sniper works from ground level only when he is certain that no obstacle will cross his line of fire, and this courtyard had vehicles parked against the walls, one of them backing out and turning for the gates.
Two further checks: one halfway across, one at the gates to the street. Blank.
The three cars parked behind the cab I was using were all empty. So were the two in front. My driver was squatting on the pavement beside his battered Citroen, making a pair of porter-thong sandals.
'Remember me?'
He got up quickly and I watched his eyes. He hadn't been got at while I was away: I would have known. Only a poker player could have kept it hidden, or a trained spook. This boy was a cab driver.
I told 'him I wanted kitting out and he took me north towards Central Market and found one of the army surplus stores that had been springing up in the past few weeks and taking anything the refugees and troops couldn't carry out of the city. To change the image I chose a para-military bush jacket and slacks with outside pockets and a sheath on the belt.
'Have you got any sunglasses?'
'Comment?'
'Lunettes fumees.'
'Par ici, m'sieur.'
Through the narrow doorway I kept my driver in view. I had to watch everyone, everything. The 'scope-sight had passed across my image and settled on Chepstow before the finger had squeezed because Chepstow had been the target and not me. The marksman had been the paid employee of a private operator or the hit-man for an intelligence cell and there'd been nothing personal involved; but he would have reported that his target had been sitting with a companion who wasn't from the embassy and who hadn't been seen before, and it was conceivable that his report would be followed up, even though it didn't sound significant: Chepstow could have had a hundred friends and acquaintances. And if the report-were followed up it could become, in the end, significant: my objective was Erich Stern and the closer I went to him the higher the risk of drawing his attention and the parallel became obvious — Chepstow had got in his way and they didn't like it, and the next time the 'scope-sight moved across my image it might well move back, and centralize.
Nothing personal but this was why I had to watch everything and everyone including the man squatting over there by his battered Citroen, making his sandals.
'Combien je vous dois?'
'Allons voir, m'sieur.'
He made the total and I paid him in cash and told him to wait for five minutes and then go across to the man with the Citroen and tell him I wanted him parked outside the Royal Cambodian Hotel, the side entrance opposite the jade emporium. Then I made my way between the rows of clothing and glass beads and sandalwood carvings and soup-kitchens and left the place by the rear entrance and walked three blocks to the cabstand I'd noted on the way up.
The sunglasses had a slight distortion in the frame and halfway to the hotel I took them off and bent one of the side-pieces, tilting them up a little and then down before I put them on again. The metalescent-grey Peugeot 404 turned off at the next intersection, taking its reflection with it. Discount.
The Citroen was already parked opposite the jade emporium when I went into the hotel by the side entrance. I passed close enough to driver to make him look up from his leather-work but he didn't recognize me and I felt a bit more comfortable.
Another tremor came from the distant 81-mm mortars and the people in the foyer froze for a moment in an impromptu tableau, and voices trailed off. I think they were listening for the actual volume of the sound, trying to tell whether the Khmer Rouge were closer now to the city. Apparently they weren't, because everyone began talking again and moving about as they'd done before: there was no particular mood of apprehension. Most of the voices were French, as they'd been at the restaurant: the man in the surplus store had told me that several hundred had decided to remain in Phnom Penh as the insurgents closed in.
The boy I'd engaged to survey Suite 9 was scraping the candle-grease from a brass tray near the stairs, looking up quickly at anyone who passed him. I kept clear of him and crossed the area in front of the desk at a fair distance, just close enough to make sure mere was no message-slip in the niche for 91: with the lift out of service I didn't want to rely on a written message being sent to the ninth floor. It could come from only one person: the boy I'd engaged.
I went out through the front entrance and round to the courtyard, using the emergency stairs. The boy was watching everyone on the main staircase very efficiently and if he saw me I doubted if he'd recognize me, any more than my driver had done; but there was a risk and I didn't want to take it. This was normal procedure and right out of basic training: five hundred dels can buy you a friend but a thousand from someone else can buy you an enemy. I'd engaged the services of two mercenaries and then changed the image and from this point I would stay clear of them unless I needed the Citroen. The bell boy could contact me indirectly, by the room telephone or through the embassy, so at this precise point in the Phnom Penh phase of the Kobra mission the state of security was one hundred per cent On the ninth floor I made another routine audio check at the door of Suite 9, noting the acrid scent of a Gauloise and the clink of a glass. There were voices but they were too low to penetrate a door this thick. A telephone rang once and was immediately answered; then the voices took up again. They were unintelligible but one was speaking in educated German: I'd heard it before, when I'd listened here on my way down the emergency stairs ninety minutes ago. I assumed it belonged to Erich Stern.
I turned away and went along to Room 91 near the end of the passage and put the key in the latch and stopped moving.
In most trades people develop a sixth sense appropriate to the work they do. In my trade we call it mission-feel. The instincts of man have become blunted and distorted by technology and habit: he will breathe carbon monoxide fumes for extensive periods in a traffic jam and accept them as normal, even though he knows they are lethally toxic in concentration; whereas a wild creature, scenting the first whiff of smoke, will run for safety. In the nervy business of active intelligence the instincts remain sharp in the almost constant presence of danger; and even in the early phases of a mission these instincts can approach the refinement found in the wild creature. The intention of the organism is to survive.
Incoming data was fairly banal as I stood at the door with the key in the lock and my fingers on the key. Visual and aural perception didn't give me anything of interest: the door was unmarked by any sign of a forced entry and the latch bore no scratches: there was no sound coming from the other side of the door. The subtler senses gave me nothing either: no vibration in the key or movement of air against my skin; no smell but the lingering scent of the Gauloise; nothing to taste.
There was only mission-feel.
Think.
Fact: if there were nothing of interest in the incoming data, it must be in the past, in the recent memory: because that was where the information existed now. In the memory. The eye had seen something; the ear had heard something; or my fingers, pushing the key into the lock, had felt something; and alarm arousal had taken place.
Remember.
Try to remember.
But it was difficult because the information had been presented so subtly that it had been barely on the conscious level.
There is an area of the eye that has no vision. But it detects movement, right at the periphery of the retina, and signals the motor nerves to turn the head and look in that direction. The ear is as sensitive, and even a microscopic shift of the eardrum will be recorded consciously: when
the basilar membrane shifts through a distance of less than one hydrogen molecule a tonal sensation results. But other sights and other sounds, being grosser, overlay these refined experiences: the light in the window at the end of this corridor; the vibration of the mortars in the distance.
I turned my head slowly to the right, then to the left, remembering the flight of the bee. There was nothing, no one.
I left my fingers where they were: on the key.
Changes were taking place in the organism: the pituitary gland was being stimulated hypothalamically, promoting the release of adreno-corticotrophin; these and other sympathetic physiological changes were preparing to protect the organism against the effects of stressors.
The intention was to survive.
Consider possibility of psychological imbalance: I'd been with him when the thing had smashed his head open and it had been a shock and the shock still lingered and I might be standing here in front of this door in a dead funk because the nerves were still on edge and if that were the case then I'd better get a grip on myself and turn this bloody key and go in there.
Don't.
Wait.
Think.
Fact: shock doesn't induce hallucinations. I hadn't imagined anything. I hadn't seen anything or heard anything that wasn't there.
Touched anything?
The key.
My fingers were still on the key and I left them there because I didn't want to move. The organism was queasy, ready to start whining about ail this, I don't like it, there's something here I don't understand, I — .
Shuddup.
Bloody well concentrate.
The tactile area was a strong possibility because the visual and aural environs had no particular interest. It could be something to do with the key, the way it had felt when I'd pushed it into the lock. Or it could be something to do with the door. Some kind of movement or lack of movement:, something unusual.
Think of everything.
Perhaps just the nerves. The aftermath of the Chepstow kill.
Listen for Christ's sake I know what I'm doing, I've taken on most things in this trade that'd kill a man if he didn't know how to operate and get away with it time after time, get away with his skin. There's nothing dramatic about it: you've just got to be cautious, that's all. Push your luck a bit now and then, but not right out of the window.
Faint voices.
Not from inside this room: they were coming from Suite 9. The city was in flight and this hotel would be deserted if it weren't for the few people staying on to the end: the brave, the stupid, the loyal, the ostrich-brained and the handful of international opportunists who were backing their chances of cleaning up by doing a deal with the Communists when they took over the place. But they weren't many, and most of the rooms in the Royal Cambodian Hotel were gathering dust; on the ninth floor only Suite 9 and Room 91 were taken, and none of the skeleton staff felt like climbing this high to turn down the beds.
For this reason the voices coming from Stern's quarters were audible to me, and a new hazard was presented. These voices had only just become loud enough for me to hear and the immediate explanation was the simple and obvious: in human congress the volume of sound during greeting and farewell is higher than during normal speech, since the parties concerned are at a greater distance from each other: they begin their speech when moving closer and continue their speech when drawing apart, raising their voices slightly.
Assume present visitor is taking his leave of Erich Stern.
Make a decision.
Not easy because vital factors unknown. I didn't want to go into this room: my whole instinct was against it. But I didn't want to be seen here in the corridor because Stern himself might emerge with the other man. When you are surveying an objective you will succeed only to the point when you are yourself seen: then you're blown because there's too big a hole in security and the next time the objective sees you he'll recognize you. Finis.
Once seen, you have to take so many precautions that the thing breaks down: you find yourself driving ten vehicles behind the objective instead of two, with ten chances of losing him instead of two; you get to the point when you have to go down a wall ledge by ledge over a sheer drop because if you take the stairs or the lift he'll see you for the second time and recognize you for what you are: an amateur. Some, people do it — or try it. In a minor operation it doesn't add up to anything because the situation isn't loaded but if you're on a major kick and the phase is sensitive and you chance your luck on a thing like that you'll muck it up. Conway tried it, near the end-phase of the Bombay assignment when he was cut off from signals and directives and escape lines and had to keep on going or get out: and he kept on going and they saw him twice at the wrong time in the wrong place and some kid found his head on a rubbish heap when he was looking for cast-off shoes, Dusseldorf, 1973.
So I didn't want Stern to see me and I didn't want to go into this room so I made the decision because the time was short: I had no practical data concerning this key or this door and if Stern or another man came out of Suite 9 I would turn my key and go inside before they saw me. It was a one way situation because there wouldn't be time to reach the nearest alcove or the emergency stairs when their voices reached the pitch when it was certain one of them or both of them was coming out.
Control new hazard.
And concentrate on the immediate threat: the assumed danger of opening this door. Cover every aspect, analyse, and calculate the risk. Most of the necessary thinking had already been done and it had presented close to zero.
Make a guess but don't make it wild.
During my absence someone had conceivably raided Room 91 and searched it or bugged it. Unlikely because security stood at one hundred per cent.
Or: the lock had been tampered with and therefore the key had felt different when I'd inserted it. More likely because it would explain the sensory alarm-reaction when I'd done that.
Or: nerves. Not totally discountable because my arguments against this theory could be based on pride.
There were several other theories and I covered them and discounted them. The voices seemed progressively louder from the other end of the corridor but I waited because I could still use every available second for exploring the situation: once the door of Suite 9 opened I could get in here faster than they would be coming out.
The key was still under my fingers and I hadn't moved. Thought process is electronically quick and no more than nine or ten seconds had passed since I'd pushed the key into the lock.
Recapitulate.
But there wasn't time because the voices became suddenly clear and I heard the click of the latch along the passage and acted on the decision I'd made and turned the key and opened the 'door and the whole of the wall blew out and hurled me into the dark.
Chapter Eight: FOXTROT
'Cheers.'
'Cheers.'
He drank up.
'Which one are you down for, old boy?'
'Foxtrot,' I said.
'Same as me. Cheers.'
He gave a gusty laugh.
His group had been here since dawn, he'd told me.
There were thirty or forty of them in the breakfast-room and they were making a lot of noise and my present threshold of stress was close to zero and in another minute the whole place began swinging round and round and I shut my eyes and leaned my head back against the banquette.
'You all right, old boy?'
'Yes.'
'Look a bit shot-up.'
'That's my affair.'
'No offence,' he said.
The thing was to keep still. Keep perfectly still.
And do something about the anger. Control it 'Who are you with?'
'Agency,' I said. It was no good saying Europress: he worked for Reuters and knew it didn't exist.
The anger was getting in the way of recovery and I thought up a few excuses but they didn't really work because there was no excuse for doing what I'd done: none whatsoever. I'd been warned
by mission-feel and ignored it and they'd put me into an ambulance and sent me to one of the foreign-national casualty groups at the US Embassy compound for early evacuation and I'd finished up at Pochentong Airport before I came to and found what was happening. That was an hour ago, at noon.
They'd wanted to ship me out in one of die helicopters because I was down as a concussion case with possible complications but I said there was someone I'd left behind and I had to go and get them and they didn't argue: these were the last planes out of Phnom Penh and they could fill them ten times over.
A lot of the telephone lines were still intact and I rang the Royal Cambodian Hotel and asked for Mr Erich Stern and they said that Mr Erich Stern had checked out early this morning and that was why I had so much anger to control because I'd put myself out of commission for nearly eighteen hours and lost the objective.
'Weren't you in Warsaw, old boy? For the talks?'
'Not me,' I said, but that was where he'd seen me. I'd been using a second cover, journalist, working for Der Urheber.
'Seeing doubles.' He laughed again.
I went on sitting still. Perfectly still.
Four zero Alpha. This is D Donald.
The head of each evacuation group had been issued with a walkie-talkie. Considering the proximity of the Khmer Rouge batteries the whole thing was incredibly well organized.
Assemble your group at my location please.
I opened my eyes. Fifteen or twenty of them were putting down their drinks and moving towards the hotel foyer, hitching their cameras and recorders.
'Christ,' said Burroughs, 'when's our turn going to be?'
He went to get another drink. He'd been on foreign assignments for years but I assumed this was the first time he'd got mixed up in a last-plane-out situation and it was getting on his nerves.
I finished my glass of pineapple juice and shut my eyes again and tried to put some of the pieces together. There were quite a lot of questions but the answers to a few of them were obvious.