The 9th Directive

20 The Shroud

The new day was fragile. It seemed to have dawned only here in the flowered garden. Beyond the garden the streets were still night-quiet.

Petals opened as the sun touched them; a branch of orchids hung above water where pond lotuses widened their wax-white cups in the warmth. The scent of camellias grew heavy on the honeyed air and small sights, small sounds were colored and sharp, alerting the senses as if they were significant: a bee hummed, a leaf fell, a bead of dew shone among shadows.

He moved again and I at once moved with him to keep him in sight through the gap of leaves. It was half an hour since I had sent the Hindu away. He had been glad to go, nor was I sorry: his fear of Kuo and anything to do with Kuo was distressing to be near and I was happier now that I was alone.

The Chinese moved back and I kept him in sight. He was waiting for someone and they were late and he was nervous because the patrols were everywhere. I could do nothing about that, only pray that a patrol wouldn't decide to question him and pick him up because then I would lose him and lose Kuo and the chance of reaching the Person.

It was the chance that made the new day fragile. I had a thread in my fingers, drawn fine, so fine that it seemed that the drop of a single leaf would break it.

If they picked him up they would take him for questioning and he wouldn't answer them. From somewhere – not from a ruin or a wharf or any place obviously to be searched – this one member of the Kuo cell had come into the open, purposefully.

Theory: Kuo was sending them out one by one to set up an escape route for himself and his prisoner. If they were left alone they would make contacts, extend the route more surely, protect it with strength in numbers. If they were picked up they would protect the route by their secrecy: the death pill is proof against every method of interrogation known to man.

The chance was so fragile. I had to keep him in sight, move when he moved, follow him and find his contacts and follow them through a city where police teemed and where police action against any of these men would snap the thread and smash the whole day down.

Pangsapa knew. Whatever his reasons he was dedicated to tracing the Person and he knew that to put the police onto this man would be to kill the only chance we had.

The heat was coming. Haze was forming above the trees as the sun drew moisture from the green places in the city. Traffic was beginning, a soft rush sounding from the wider streets.

The man moved and I moved with him. He was standing with his head turned away from me and I looked beyond him and saw the car coming.

Contact.

The operation was already planned in my mind. It didn't follow that his contact would arrive on foot simply because he was himself on foot. I could have told the Hindu to bring me a car or send a taxi here to wait for me in case I wanted it, but the situation was so delicate; the Chinese was living these minutes on his nerves and the unexplained appearance of a car might scare him enough to break his rendezvous and get clear.

He wasn't scared by the car that was coming because he knew about it and had been waiting for it and was already moving to the edge of the pavement as it slowed under quiet brakes. I watched it until it stopped, then took ten paces toward the entrance of the gardens and held myself ready.

It was a Lincoln sedan: a seven-seater executive-style transport, flat-sided, massive in black and discreet steel fittings. The chauffeur was alone. He leaned nearer the Chinese and they spoke together and then the Chinese opened the rear door and climbed into the car and I did the only thing possible.

If I lost sight of them the fragile thread would snap and I might never see them again – the Chinese, Kuo, the Person. I had to follow them and the only transport I could use was theirs. The great Lincoln was gathering speed past the entrance of the gardens when I judged correctly and got the rear door open and lurched inside, pulling the door shut behind me as the chauffeur screwed his neck round and called something, slowing.

The Chinese told him:'Keep driving.'

He was a young man, younger than Kuo but not unlike him, slim-hipped and wide at the shoulder and with the calm eyes of a top athlete who had dedicated his life to challenge. His control of the situation was perfect. He had made successful contact and the nervous strain of waiting was over and his tone was as calm as his eyes.

'Be careful, please.'

The arm rest was down and between us and I looked at it. The barrel lay along it, a few inches from my liver.

The sole advantage of the spring-gun is silence. It is more silent than any powder gun, however heavily baffled. Even at medium range – six feet and over – it is inefficient if it has to fire through clothing. Even at four feet an overcoat will shield the body from most of the impact. The spring-gun can kill through light clothing at any range below two feet providing it can be aimed to strike a vital organ without hitting bone. As a useful weapon it has value only if its limitations are known and allowed for.

It would take its natural place among those weapons carried by a cell such as Kuo – a professional marksman – controlled. The sound of a gunshot in a city patrolled by massive police forces on the watch for anything even slightly unusual would provoke immediate alarm. The man beside me carried a spring-gun against the necessity of having to threaten or shoot while he was in the open and cut off from his base, and it was simply his good luck that this necessity had arisen in the confines of a closed car.

There would be another gun on him, for use in extreme circumstances and at longer range. At present the spring was the perfect weapon.

It was aimed well within killing distance and the needle point steel dart could pierce a vital organ – the liver – without risk of hitting the bone of hip joint or lower rib.

The Chinese spoke again to the driver in Mandarin with a Shanghai accent. 'Make for the park and circle it.'

The Lincoln turned down Phayathai Road toward Rama IV. We had begun heading away from their base. That was inevitable. They would be embarrassed by having to look after a second prisoner at a time when they were desperate to move the first one to a safer place. My only hope had been to get the upper hand and either force them to reveal the location of their base or give them to the police after making sure they had no access to a death pill. It was still my hope.

He asked me in good English: 'Where is the woman?'

The Lincoln had a bench-type front seat that was solid from pillar to pillar and immovable. The leather seat at my back was luxuriously cushioned and would indent up to a good six inches.

'At the safehouse,' I told him.

It was natural for them to think we were in the same group. They had seen us together in the streets when she had been tagging me. They had possibly seen us, singly, entering or leaving the British Embassy.

His immediate idea was two birds, one shot.

Six inches was sufficient. The barrel of the spring-gun would be aimed past the front of my diaphragm by the time he fired.

'Where is the safehouse?' he asked me.

We were turning left along Rama IV and heading for Lumpini Park. The kite warehouse was nearer than the gem shop and there would be more room to move about in there and a chance of doing some work on him.

'In Soi Narong 9,' I told him, and took a breath and kicked hard at the front seat to jack-knife and press back into the cushion to give him the six-inch clearance that would send the steel dart wide as I brought my right hand down in a strong chop for his gun wrist.

'Be careful, please,' he said.

Blood began trickling from the edge of my hand.

There had been only a slight phutt from the gun. Its barrel had swung up a degree to meet my hand and the dart had ripped flesh away.

A trained athlete reacts as fast as a cat, and muscle obedience to the motor nerves is almost instantaneous.

He said to the chauffeur: 'Go to Soi Narong 9. Drive at a moderate speed.'

A police car overtook us and the crew raked us with a long hard glance and the barrel bit into my side as a reminder and I sat still and watched the police car slot in between us and the car ahead; then it pulled out and we lost it.

'What number, in Soi Narong 9?'

'The warehouse,' I told him.

He spoke again to the chauffeur.

Slowly, and looking at the Chinese, I moved my hand forward so that the blood could drip onto the carpet instead of my trousers. He smiled, nodding.

When we reached the warehouse he asked: 'Which door do you use, please?'

'The one in the alley.'

He told the chauffeur to reverse the Lincoln as far as the first door. That was normal procedure because the alley was a dead end and he had seen as much and wanted the car to be pointing in the right direction in case anything happened. It wasn't because he was nervous, and this fact worried me. He showed no emotion. At close quarters I like the adverse party to feel something, preferably fear, though hate is as useful. The category matters less than the degree: the stronger the emotion the more it will blur his thinking.

He showed none. That one word – 'please' – was an indication of his absolute confidence. He was a man typical of Kuo's choice: the brain and sinews of a cat, the heart of a machine.

The car stopped and I had three or four seconds to review the chances. They didn't look very good. With an ordinary thug I could have guaranteed success, even though there were two of them, because there was so little room to move: the Lincoln blocked the alley, and both the door of the car and the door of the warehouse had to be opened and shut. Lack of the freedom to move is an asset when the adverse party is toad-slow to react. Fast reactions, such as I would get from this man, were dangerous at close quarters. This was why I had chosen to take him into the warehouse and avail myself of elbow room, and why nothing could be done until we got inside.

The throb of the V-8 engine was loud in the narrow passage.

In Mandarin: 'When I have left the car, drive to the place. Tell them I will be there in an hour.' In English: 'Is the door locked?'

'Yes,' I said.

'You have the keys?'

'Yes.'

'Go in there. And be careful, please.'

They watched us come in – the big male chulas with their livid coloring, the female pakpaos with their slender tails. They hung motionless: the morning was airless and the opening of the door made no draft.

I heard him shut it behind us. The throb of the Lincoln rose and then died away. In the cavernous shed there were no echoes; his footsteps were muffled; their sound told me that he was backing away four paces, five. I knew why.

'Turn to face me, please.'

He had changed weapons. At five paces the spring-gun was ineffective. He held a .38 automatic and it had a silencer.

'Silencer' is a misnomer. No gun can be made silent. A full baffle will absorb a lot of noise but it will also cost a lot of impact and can make the difference between a kill and a maiming wound – and a man with a maiming wound can run and can even fight and can even close in before the second shot comes. This was a half baffle designed to cut down the noise without costing too much fire power. It would be heard in a building or a street. It would make noise in here but no one outside would hear it because the kites were themselves a massive silencer. Seeing them, and noting the acoustics as we came in, he had changed weapons with the instinctive judgment of a professional.

'Where is the woman?'

Sunshine fell from the skylights; we stood on our own shadows. At five paces I could do nothing: he would pump the stuff into me as I leapt for him. There was the chance only of selling him a reason for taking me out of here, for taking me to his base so that Kuo himself could question me.

'She's not here,' I said. Time was needed. I had to think of a reason to sell him.

'You told me she was here.' It was a flat statement, made without surprise. He looked around with small and precise jerks of his head, allowing me less than half the time I needed for a spring. 'But I cannot wait for her to come.' He faced me fully again. 'My orders are to kill you on sight if possible. It is possible. The same for the woman. But she is not here. I cannot wait for her.'

My spine had begun crawling. It wasn't a human being inside that suit of clothes but a little killing machine set ticking by a specialist: Kuo.

'They've got a plan,' I said. 'The police.'

It was the only reason I could sell him.

'The police?'

It was going to be difficult because he was a machine set for the kill and the ticking could not be stopped: a clock won't stop if you shout at it.

I felt the blood gathering at my fingertips, congealing as the flow became slower, like wax congealing on a candle. The wound was closing by infinite degrees; the body had set up the automatic process of healing itself. Given two weeks it would do it, even without medicaments. There was no point. It would not be given two minutes.

'They've got a plan ready for action,' I said. 'It will leave you absolutely no chance of getting out of the city, with or without your prisoner. I know the details of their plan. I helped them with it.'

He wasn't listening. With small jerks of his head he studied the area immediately around me. I said:

'When their plan is put into action, and Kuo is caught, he'll realize that I knew the details and could have told him in time. He'll realize that in killing me you allowed him to walk into the trap they have set. What will he do to you?'

The processes of my body congealed the blood to staunch the wound and preserve life. The processes of my brain worked to the same end. But I knew I had begun to die.

'Stand by the box, please.'

He jerked the gun, indicating the nearest of the long crates. It was to my left. He was a strong youth and could easily lift my dead weight into the crate, but why should he? One dislikes shifting garbage.

'In front of the box, please. At this end of the box.' The gun jerked again.

I said: 'I value my life, like most people. Take me to Kuo and I will guarantee his. And yours.'

'Quickly, please,' he said.

The sweat began and I was suddenly angry. It had always worked before: I'd thought my way or fought my way out of corners worse than this; there were scars on me but they were living tissue, that was what mattered. Final appraisal of situation: If I didn't move over to the box he would shoot. If I moved over to it he would shoot. If I tried to go on talking he would shoot. If I leapt for him I would leap against the first bullet and the second and the third would go into me as I dropped. No go. I turned my head and looked down at my coffin.

'Move, please,' he said and there was a slight shrillness in his tone. Not command. Worse: impatience.

One always thinks, if one thinks of it at all, that when it comes to the point there'll be a fighting chance or at least a dog's chance, however big the odds, and that one's many gods will at least allow that one is not led into the dark like a beast into the abattoir.

I moved over to the box, not in obedience but because it would prolong my life by a few seconds, and in those few seconds something might happen that would allow a fighting chance, or at least a dog's chance.

Standing in front of the box I looked at him. The anger had gone and my thoughts were clear and I was even interested in what he would do with my remains. He had allowed himself an hour to return to his base, so my remains must be concealed temporarily to prevent any alarm being raised. He would probably unhook one of the kites and lay it across the box, and go.

A bizarre enough shroud.

His hand moved fractionally into the killing attitude, pressing the gun against his side to cushion the recoil.

He said, 'If you wish, you may close your eyes.'

I said, 'I thank you for your courtesy. I prefer to leave them open.'

'Very well.'

Because of the silencer the report of the gun was not very loud, though the fragile paper kites shivered to the vibration.