Quiller's Run

11 Shoda

Dusk was falling. It lowered among the cypresses, softening the edges of the shadows as the day's light died, covering them minute by minute until the lawns and the pathways began losing substance, leaving only the slender trees to stand on their own, holding the sky aloft on their dark columns. The air, even at this hour, was not still; it was filled with the gong's vibrations.

The gong was huge, hanging between the beams of its timber frame, and the striker itself was massive, ten feet long and hewn from a single tree trunk, its end capped with cowhide to muffle the sound, its cords passing through a pulley as big as a man's head. A monk in a yellow robe dragged on the end of the main rope, timing the strokes at long intervals, so that the gong's sound was a continuous vibration, booming and fading but never becoming silent. It seemed to possess the power of something palpable, as if without its presence filling the air the whole temple would fall down.

I had come alone.

The catafalque was ornate, red and gold and encrusted with carvings, and six men were bearing it step by step across the ancient stones; four monks paced beside it, intoning the prayer for the dead.

Khor hai khwarm song cham khong thun dai rap karn uay phorn… Khor hai Phraphuttha-ong rap than wai nai phramaha-karunathikhun talord karn…

Dominic Edouard Lafarge.

Inside the temple the light was low, coming mainly from the lanterns hanging from the arched ceiling but also from the rows of candles burning beneath the many Buddhas; as the guests came in, more were lighted, and more prayers said.

Khun yang khong pen thi rak loch yang khongyu nai khwarm song cham khong thuk khon. Khwarm khit khamnueng khong rao thueng than ca tham hat vinyarn khong than pay su sukhati talord kam.

In here the air was heavy with incense. There was no music, but the cavernous space made an echo chamber for the booming of the great gong outside. The guests were either in black or white, many of them robed. As the catafalque was lifted to the raised platform, two men opened the top, and the right hand of Dominic Lafarge was exposed, palm upwards, with its fingers curled. The mourners had already formed a line, and one after another poured the holy water into his hand, above a chased-silver bowl.

Than priap samuean phi khong rao sueng sathit yu ban suang sarvan.

I'd come alone because I didn't want the responsibility of anyone else's life. I hadn't even told Rattakul where I was going, because where I was going was into hazard, taking a calculated risk. This was hostile ground, and my only chance was that it was also sacred.

There weren't many guests, but I sensed that it wasn't because Lafarge lacked status but because Mariko Shoda's organisation practised privacy. Most of the people here would be the elite of her entourage, including, I hoped, General Dharmnoon. I suppose the chances of talking to him in any safety were less than a hundred to one, but if I could talk to him, knowing what I did, I could accelerate the mission and get close to the objective and find out what I had to do then, how to destroy Shoda without killing her. This much had been understood by Pepperidge and was understood by Prince Kityakara and his intelligence services: the only time I've ever killed except to save my life was to avenge a woman's death. It's never, in any case, an elegant solution; to take a life shows a lack of style.

Chrvit than nai lok manut dot rap toe ktvarm chok-di Lath chrvit khong than bon saman korjah pen chen dio-kan.

There were several round-eyes among the guests, as I knew there would be from what Chen had told me: Shoda employed Europeans. Otherwise I couldn't have come. As it was, I stayed at the back of the congregation, near the massive decorated doors. There was constant movement; the mourners were now approaching the catafalque again, to light candles and leave them on the dais below it, with posies of cane-work flowers smoking with incense.

One of the mourners was in uniform, but not of the Thai Army. Two aides flanked him: perhaps General Dharmnoon. I began watching him, wherever he moved.

I was also watching the environment as more people came in. Along the gallery that circled the temple there was movement sometimes, or it seemed like it: I couldn't be sure. The lamplight threw shadows there, and there seemed to be patches of reflected light, the size of a human face. Aware of them, I began thinking for the first time that coming here had not been a calculated risk, but a fatal error.

Nerves. The ritual of death in here was subtly playing on them.

Five monks in saffron robes took their place near the catafalque, bare-headed but holding ornate fans to hide their faces as they chanted their prayers.

Rao phu sueng mai dap rap khrvarm karuna hat farm than pai jah raluek thueng chrvit khong than duai khwarm thert-thun talord karn.

Then it began, and I wasn't ready for it.

One of the women, only half-seen in her black robes, was moving down the aisle towards the catafalque, and several others were going with her, but at a slight distance, falling away in a soft wave of silk and giving her room; their robes too were black. Their sandals would be making a susurration on the marble floor, but because of the monks' chanting they seemed to move in perfect silence, spreading out as they reached the wide space before the dais, like the petals of a black tulip opening. At the same time there was movement among the rest of the throng, though hardly even that; a stirring, an expression of sudden attention, as if their breath was now held as they waited. I could have been wrong, but I thought that the chanting of the five monks had become softer behind their spread fans, more resonant, like the vibration of the gong outside whose waves of sound had floated endlessly on the air.

This had been the risk, and I'd taken it, and it was too late now.

The woman was kneeling, her hands together and her head lowered, facing the red and gold catafalque. The others followed, and now I could see them clearly enough to know that there were eight of them, four on each side and forming a double arc with the single woman at the centre. I could have believed they'd rehearsed their tableau for hours a day, and knew that they hadn't.

No one, anywhere, was moving now, and in the great stillness my mind slowed to the rhythm of alpha waves, and three-dimensional reality began losing its definition, drawn into the shadows by the vast stillness here, by the heady fumes of the incense, the mesmerising glimmer of a hundred candle-flames and, above all, the presence of death.

Too late, yes, but already I could believe that it wasn't simply a calculated risk I'd taken, but that she'd somehow drawn me here to the temple, the woman who kneeled alone, Mariko Shoda, drawn me here by the ethereal force of whatever demonic spirit burned in her, and burned those who touched.

People always tell me the same thing about Little Kiss-of-Steel – don't stand too close, and above all don't touch.

There was still no movement anywhere. The sense of time was slipping away, because time, too, was an illusion, a part of the three-dimensional reality that no longer held any meaning in this place. The monks' rhythmic chanting never ceased; it had become the sound of endlessness, the continuum of the universe. The smoke of the incense was the essence of Nirvana, distilled from the scents of life's experience long forgotten until now. My eyes, focused on the slender neck of the woman who knelt there, Shoda, the woman who prayed there, Mariko Shoda, could look nowhere else, because there was nowhere else.

Danger. This mood is lethal.

Yes, but I would have thought of that a long time ago, if it hadn't already been my karma to come here. The left brain can be very tiresome at a time when — You mean you 're ready to give up life?

I wouldn't say that.

Then what else can you be saying?

I think I moved, then, feeling the return of beta consciousness, raising my head and looking along the shadowed gallery. Yes, there were faces there in the gloom between the lamps, faces looking down.

So be it.

You 'II go as easily as that?

Leave me alone.

It had been a try, I suppose. I'd slipped back into reality enough to check the environment, and wished I hadn't. Serves you right, so forth.

My eyes went back to the kneeling woman.

She's very spiritual – Chen – she always prays for you before she kills.

So be it.

A cold draught somewhere, though it didn't worry me; a movement of the air, its chill coming against me but not touching my skin, waking me a little, bringing enough reality back to let me know what it was: the creeping of the sense of death along the nerves.

Then there was nothing, for a time, for whatever period of timelessness it was that seemed like time. We were held, all of us, in the cosmic thrall that had its centre in the woman there, Shoda, the woman praying. There was nothing. Nihil. It had stilled us forever, and we no longer breathed because there was no need to breathe, no need to experience anything but Nirvana, the stillness of perfect love.

Shock came and I flinched, unprepared for it as she began moving, the woman there, lifting her head and letting her arms fall beside her as she rose to her feet and stood for a moment facing the catafalque. I'd felt the shock go through the others here; some of them had caught their breath. The incense smelt acrid suddenly and the monks' chanting took on monotony, became obtrusive. One of the children I had seen earlier had started crying, unable to deal with the sudden change of dimension.

Do what you can.

Yes, I know what you mean. But there's nothing. Nihil.

She turned, Shoda, and began walking back towards us, and the other women held for a moment where they were and then closed in a little, following, their steps in unison with hers, Shoda's. Their eyes were soft, in the way that can be seen when karatekas are joined in kumite, in contest, or when Olympic athletes are performing 'in the zone'. The eyes are not focused, but simply allow vision to come in from the entire field, so that you look at nothing but see everything.

I saw only her face.

It was long, noble, the cheekbones rising to wide, luminous eyes, her brow clear, ivorine under her night-black hair; but that's just a description and there is no way of telling you how the face of Shoda appeared to me in the temple on that evening, because it was more than the face of a woman – it was also the face of death, fashioned in beauty. My own death, of course, no question of that.

So easily?

I know what you mean, but when there's no question you don't question it, do you, surely that's reasonable?

You haven't got very long now. What are you going to do?

The cold draught came again and this time my skin crawled and I went straight into left brain and the shock went through to the bone because it was true: I'd been insane to come here even though I'd believed there was a chance of getting away with it and accelerating the mission and somehow surviving.

Sheer bloody pride – I hadn't got a chance in hell.

You're just going to let it happen?

Oh, I wouldn't quite say that, no. When it comes, I'll go down fighting, never say the, lads, so forth, nerves like ice while I whistled in the dark because it wouldn't be very long now. This time they'd make certain.

There were some other things done, though I'm not sure I can remember exactly what; I think they took the wooden coffin out of the catafalque and carried it into the ornamented hearth where the flames were to be lit. People came and went, and some kind of reed instrument began playing.

You could leave now, while there's time.

I looked upwards again, but the faces along the gallery weren't any clearer, even when I centred and relaxed to stimulate the retinae and the optic nerve, though I detected a slight movement by one of them and this told me at least that they were, yes, faces, watching. Well, of course they'd be there: they'd be everywhere. She not only has a whole bunch of bodyguards around her – Chen – but she has a whole lot more waiting around in the area.

I turned and looked towards the big entrance doors; they were wide open still, and people came and went bringing candles and wickerwork posies, some of them crying as they left the temple, one of them a boy of six or seven – 'C'est pas vrai, maman, c'est pas vrai…' The woman with him, then, was the widow, leaving before the anguish of the condolences could begin.

The bodyguards on each side of the doorway didn't move; a dozen of them, women in black silk robes because track-suits, of course, wouldn't be appropriate. Have to watch the proprieties, but there wouldn't be one of them without a blade on them, sheathed under the silk.

So there we are.

Make your run. Make it now.

Don't be so bloody silly.

Sweat on my sides; I could smell it, the raw emanation of fear, and that familiar bitter taste in the mouth as the adrenalin began flowing into the blood. C'est pas vrai… Mais out, c'est vrai: la man m 'attend, m 'attend.

Flamelight strengthened against the walls as the fire beneath the coffin burned brighter. Mourners were gathered there in a circle, and the voices of the monks rose more strongly from behind their fans; the piper's notes became infinitely sad.

She hadn't moved, Shoda. She was in her own space, isolated by her women, standing with a stillness that hypnotised, the stillness of a reptile, of a creature totally in command of its environment.

Just turn and walk through the doors. They can't do anything here.

No, not here. They'll wait till I'm outside – they'll need the dark for this.

The flamelight grew, fanning across the coloured walls, deepening the scarlets and turning the greens to ochre. It was all rather beautiful, as it was meant to be, and I suppose you could say there were worse preludes to the act of extinction; what I mean is, we don't often get this kind of luck, the shadow executives, the busy little ferrets in the field, we usually finish up spreadeagled in the dust at a checkpoint with the guns suddenly silent, or smeared under a truck or shoved in an unmarked grave because otherwise we'd stink and there are the local health laws, so forth; I mean, we don't expect this kind of thing, a temple indeed, with candles and prayers and everything, the impressive trappings of ritual -because that's what she's doing now, you know, she's said her prayers for Dominic Edouard Lafarge and now she's praying for you, hasn't that occurred to you, for Christ's sake: she prays before she kills, didn't you hear what Chen said – sweat running, stinking the place out, the mouth like a husk, so come on, let's get it over with, let's make Shoda moved. Moved with that extraordinary suddenness that brought a shock to the senses, because now it seemed she'd never been still. She was turning and walking this way as her women fell aside a little and then closed in, beautifully done, absolutely first-class choreography – a part of my mind was standing off from the reality of what was going to happen very soon now and indulging itself in an appreciation of the fine arts while the brain stem was producing a stream of desperate last-ditch schemes for snatching some kind of survival from the obvious certainty of death.

She was close to me now, Shoda, and her head turned on its slender neck and she looked at me, stopping and standing there a few yards away, and I was staring into the eyes of the angel of death, the luminous night-deep eyes of the woman who was to be my executioner; and I knew now without any doubt that she'd been praying for me, because I felt, in these last moments of my life, raised to a state of grace.

You mean you won't even Oh, I'm not hanging around, don't worry, I'm going out there now and let them get it over with, too many of them this time, but fight like a tiger, yes, of course, as a gesture at least, to let everyone know I was capable of doing more than just stand there and bare my chest for butchery.

So I turned and went out of the temple, dodging between people but not running, not even hurrying, one has to be seemly in a sacred place, just making my way out, knowing she was following me now, Shoda, knowing also that as I went through the enormous doorway the others were following too, the women I'd seen standing there guarding the doors, and when I reached the temple gardens I crossed the grass towards the black columns of the cypresses so that we could play out the matter in privacy, and with the cool night air on my face and my shadow moving ahead of me in the moonlight I heard them coming for me with a rushing of silk and I turned to face them and saw the shimmer of drawn blades.