'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 clamouring 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 centre 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, capito.
'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 smouldering. 'There is my motivation in Tiananmen.'
'Off on your own little crusade. Tell you this, Trotter, you can not 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 Baibing, 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 DIF immediately and ask him to signal his report.
Look, there isn't time, and you don't know the facts.
Confer with your DIF.
Let me give you the facts-
Your instructions are to report immediately to your DIF.
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.
'You're an unusual man,' Trotter said.
'They broke the mould.'
'I would of course be tempted to accept your offer, Mr Locke; but there's no telephone here, and that would mean risking exposure in the street. And you'll give me the information I need in any case, and the name of the mysterious "element." They've made great advances in the field of psychiatric drugs, and unless you're willing to speak of your own volition, Dr Chen will induce your full cooperation. When I have what I need, he will ease your passage to the hereafter. There is of course no question of pain, except my own.' The reflection of the lamps behind me made a spark in each of his dark intelligent eyes; there was nothing I could see in them, no hostility, no enmity, perhaps if anything a hint, yes, of pain, reluctance. 'What do you say? Will you speak freely?', We'd come down to the wire rather fast and the sweat glands were reacting and I could feel the old familiar heat of adrenaline in the blood.
'I can't,' I said, 'without London's okay. I really mean that. Neither of us is joking, is he? There's so much in the balance. All I need is a telephone.'
He turned away for a moment, had his back to me, and the muscles pulled tight and I was set to go, already in the zone where all the mind has got to do is say yes and stand back and let it happen, the targets selected and different now because he'd got his back to me, a chudan mae keage to the coccyx to paralyze the legs and a heel-palm to the occipital area to produce concussion and deaden the optic nerve, but it still wasn't the answer: the organism had simply noted the chance when the opponent had turned his back, that was all, it had had enough training, God knows, to do things without being told.
Go for him.
No.
It's you or him and he's exposed, he's-
I think we can get London in if I work on him.
Kill him for God's sake before he kills you-
Shuddup.
It's his life or-
Bloody well shuddup.
Turning back, Trotter was turning back.
'You'll really have to listen to me,' I said. 'I can't offer you more than the mission, and it'd work, you'd get him through to Beijing.'
He didn't answer for a moment. His face had changed in some way, his eyes, his expression, because of whatever he'd been thinking about, I suppose, while he'd stood there with his back to me. There was a softness about him, and it worried me.
In a moment-
'My dear fellow, you still don't understand. I appreciate your thinking, but there's nothing you can offer me. It's for the taking.'
And then- 'Are you a Catholic, by any chance?'
Said no.
With hesitation- 'I thought you might, perhaps, be willing to give me… absolution.'
It was a moment before I got it. Absolution for taking my life.
'What the fuck are you talking about, I'm not a priest.' Shocked him, did me good. 'And if I were a priest I'd damn you to hell.'
Do you know what a rattlesnake does when it injects its venom? It's partly of course to paralyze the prey, to kill it, but it's partly to digest its body. I mean it's to start the process of assimilation, to soften and prepare the tissues. I suppose other snakes do it too, cobras, for that matter, but I happen to know rattlers, lived with them for a bit. But isn't that awful, don't you think, for something to start digesting you before you're even dead? It gives me the bloody creeps.
'I understand your feelings, of course,' his voice very quiet.
'You bloody well don't.'
There'd been fright in his eyes, I'd noticed, when I'd talked about damning him to hell. He took his faith seriously, perhaps I could work on that. I didn't like him now, forget the compassion bit, this bastard had started digesting me.
He didn't say anything more, looked at the Chinese and gave a little nod, and Chen started getting things ready, breaking a needle out of the packet and pressing it onto the syringe, and I didn't like that, I was beginning to wonder why Trotter hadn't made an honest approach, come to me earlier and put it on the table and tell me his ambition was the same as my own, instead of dodging me like a bloody espion and setting me up for an interrogation thing under the needle and then the final insult, what had he called it, easing your passage to the hereafter, bloody hypocrite, meant kill me, kill me like a dog and hadn't got the guts to say so, but there was this thought above all — I was prepared to believe he wanted to get Xingyu Baibing into Beijing but for the first time I was beginning to question why.
It wasn't necessarily for the benefit of his beloved Chinese. He could be selling Dr Xingyu Baibing down the river in some way, and I didn't like that, Xingyu was mine, he was under my protection, he was the whole of the mission, Bamboo, and I didn't trust this man anymore, this man Trotter, and he went down but he'd seen it coming and swung away, very fast for such a big man, took only half the weight of the strike and was still conscious, shouting the place down, and I didn't have time to follow up with the killer because they were in here now, three of them, coming at the double with their guns out and I took the first one head on and heard the bone go, heard the bone go driving upward into the brain and he screamed very briefly and then it was cut off as he died, the second one coming but I wasn't quite ready because the whole weight of my body had gone into the strike and the momentum was still trying to carry me forward and I needed to recover, wasn't correctly set up-
'Zhua zhu ta! Bie kai qiang!'
Trotter, shouting again as the second man came at me and I did what I could, broke his arm but it didn't stop his momentum, his gun went clattering across the floor but he wouldn't have used it anyway, none of them could, Trotter wanted a live brain lying there under the needle and they knew that, he would have told them, instructed them, one of his hands trying to get a grip on my triceps and I smashed a hammerfist down but the target was too insensitive and he hung on and another man began locking my legs at the ankle and all I could do was try for an eye gouge and got it half right, got another scream but it didn't mean anything useful, they were hanging on me like dogs on a fox, Trotter's face somewhere above me, blood shining on it because I'd raked the skin open with the strike, his eyes frightened, because if he lost me now he'd lose the whole thing, tried one more strike, a strong hiji-uchi with enough force behind it to break whatever it hit, but it didn't connect because I was on the floor now and Trotter was up there, huge, dripping with blood, while they wrapped something around my ankles and he lifted me by the shoulders and they took my feet and between them they laid me on the blankets, on the plinth where I'd been before, got in a quick tiger-claw and drew blood again but technically it was ineffective, simply an attempt to save face.
They held me down, the three of them, Trotter and the two surviving Chinese, while Dr Chen broke open the top of one of the little phials and wiped it with an alcohol swab, from habit I suppose, there wouldn't be time for me to get any kind of infection, would there, the head throbbing a lot now because one of them had opened the wound under the bandage when we'd been milling about, I watched the Chinese, Dr Chen, as he pushed some air into the phial and tilted it and began suction with the plunger, they've made great advances in the field of psychiatric drugs, I could believe that, Trotter was an intelligent man, would know what he was doing, the weight of his huge hands on my shoulders keeping me down, I've never had to deal with anyone so strong, blood on his black beard, his eyes watching the syringe, the plunger still drawing the stuff in, quite a lot of it, we were nearing the 5cc mark on the barrel, I hate these bloody things.
One of the hit men was snivelling a bit because of the eye gouge I'd used on him, didn't look pretty, mucus dripping from his nose, couldn't wipe it away, had to keep both his hands on my legs, I tried a last essay, jerking my knees to connect with his face but it was no go, they'd been waiting for me to do something, didn't trust me anymore, bloody shame, my eyes closing against the flickering light of the lamp over there, watch it, yes, God's sake stay with it, yes indeed, one must remain conscious, mustn't one, opened my eyes again and slowed the breathing, deepened it, sought prana, drew it into the lungs, felt better, a little better now, he was stopping at 5cc, pulled the needle out of the phial and tilted the syringe, pressed the air out and got another swab, asking one of them to pull my sleeve higher, wiped my arm and dropped the swab and brought the syringe into position and I said, 'Trotter, you'd better listen to this.'
Chen looked across at him but Trotter shook his head, keep going, I suppose it meant.
'When I got him through Hong Kong and Chengdu and Gonggar,' I said, 'it was because he was wearing a mask. The «element». I couldn't have got him through without it. You won't get him through to Beijing without it either.'
'Zhan zhu.'
Dr Chen was holding the syringe like a dart, ready to stab, but he didn't move now, watched Trotter.
I said, 'Listen, if this stuff is as good as you say it is, I'll tell you where the mask is, but it won't do you any good because you won't know how to put it on his face. It requires skill and experience, takes nearly an hour, and you haven't been trained, and I have. I'm the only one who can put that mask on, Trotter, so you'd better tell the good doctor, hadn't you, to put that bloody thing away.'
I suppose Trotter would have given it some thought but there wasn't time because the doors of the temple blew open and the whole place shuddered and I saw the light of the explosion on his face before the air blast reached the lamps and blew them out and I twisted and rolled and dropped and got onto my feet and began running through the dark toward the patch of moonlight where the doors had been.
'In there,' I told Chong and he lobbed the next one into the Buddha room and the force came in a wave and I went down under the blast and hit something with my shoulder and spun away and got up again, a few seconds of darkness after the flash and then the moonlight came back, filtering through the smoke where the roof had blown out.
Shot, whining close and bouncing against stone, someone had survived in there but the light was too tricky to let him do any more than shoot wild and 1 checked the vestibule on my left and didn't find anything more than rubble, crossed through the line of fire at a run and called for Chong to look after things and he lobbed another one through the doorway and the building bellowed again and I squeezed my eyes shut against the flash and waited for them to accommodate and then took the room on the other side and found him there, Xingyu, another man with him and I went for a certain kill and called out to Chong again, where was the truck?
Xingyu was conscious and on his feet and I found his flight bag and checked it for the insulin by the light of the flames that had broken out in the Buddha room and then got him through the rubble, another shot and I called out to Chong again but he didn't answer, we needed another bomb in there, Xingyu felt heavy against me and I had to half-carry him, smoke in the lungs and the light deceptive, shadows everywhere as the fire took hold and began blazing.
'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.'