The 9th Directive

21 The Negotiators

There were three people in Room 6 with Loman and he got rid of them as soon as I came in, but the telephone rang and he did a lot of listening, sometimes looking across at me without any expression.

Then he hung up and said tartly: 'I have been trying to contact you.'

'You got some news?'

'Yes.' He looked at my hand again. 'I have some news. What happened to you?'

'Nothing useful. Is it official, then? The swap?'

He went shut-faced and I got fed up with him because he never liked people knowing more than he did. I stuck one haunch onto the edge of the table and waited. He couldn't stop himself asking.

'How did you know it was an exchange?'

For snatch read abduction. For swap read exchange. Never a bloody spade. I said: 'Mil. 6 told me.'

'How did they know?'

'They've known all along.'

He stared at me brightly. He looked very polished this morning, like a balloon at bursting point.

They can't have,' he said flatly. 'They would have done something about it.'

They heard there was a swap coming up but they didn't think the Person was in the running. They thought it was me.'

His small hands flew in the air. That is the stupidity of inter-Services rivalry! They knew there was an attempt going to be made against the Person. If we had shared information we would have put two and two together and pulled off a joint mission. Why don't--'

'Christ,' I said, 'have we got time to reorganize Whitehall now? Just give me the news.' My day had begun badly and I didn't want it to go on like that. I didn't even know how I could face Pangsapa: he'd given me a chance in a million on a plate and I'd mucked it.

Loman span a sheet of paper toward me across the table. 'Read that.'

There was no heading; it was just a plain typewritten original hastily done.

Precis of Release No. 34/33/L202. Official approach made through Ambassadorial channels as follows. The Republic of China informs the U.K. that certain parties at present unidentified have offered to negotiate the immediate transfer of the Person to Chinese territory against payment of the sum of Eighty Million Hong Kong Dollars. While the Republic of China has no interest in this offer it appreciates the grave anxiety felt by the United Kingdom over the situation in Bangkok and is willing to effect the safe release of the Person by such payment, given an undertaking that the U.K. will release a patriot of the Republic, by name Huang Hsiung Lee, at present under detention in Durham Prison, England, and will escort him to whatever place agreed upon so that proper exchange of the two parties can be made. The Republic of China would demand full reimbursement, at the same time, for the sum paid out. The offer is made as a gesture of amity among nations and in recognition of the inviolable rights of man.

Loman was watching me with impatience.

I said: 'So.'

He exploded with talk. 'The approach was made in the early hours of this morning and it is of course being given priority consideration. There is no question of declining the deal because no one can be sure of finding the Person before he is harmed or even killed. I am told that the exchange will in fact be made and that the arrangements are now being planned – in parallel with the intensive search currently mounted. It is thus a question of time. The exchange will take place within days from now; public anxiety in England is exerting enormous pressure on the situation – and the public will not be informed of the exchange until it has been effected, for obvious reasons.'

He was walking about and I stopped watching him. My hand was throbbing and I savored the pain; it was the pain of a living body and I hadn't expected to feel such a thing again.

One more answer to one more question had come in: this thing was on government level, although I had never thought it could be. China had it made. The snatch had been done by 'unidentified parties' – not by the Chinese. It had been done in Thailand – on territory that was not Chinese. It had been done for the simplest of motives: ransom. It was a motive quite unconnected with a Chinese agent under detention. But… as a gesture of amity among nations – and since there was in fact a Chinese agent under detention – why couldn't we all get together and live happily ever after?

Even commercially it was a neat set-up. China would pay Kuo 80,000,000 Hong Kong dollars for the snatch and would get it back from the U.K. Huang Hsiung Lee was being bought for nothing. Thrown in was an item of scientific data that would enable Communist China to build a weapon capable of challenging the whole world East and West.

'A question of time,' said Loman again.

'How long, precisely?'

'We don't know yet. But the moment the Person is known to be on Chinese soil I am assured that the offer will be officially accepted. I am told that Huang Hsiung Lee has already been released from Durham and is on his way to London Airport. That will give you some idea as to how fast things are happening. I have been on the direct Embassy line to the Bureau twice in the last hour and the orders are specific: locate the Person and bring him to safety before the exchange can be made.'

The telephone had begun and he had the receiver to his ear before the second ring.

'Speaking.'

He jerked his head to me and I went over and took the line. Her voice was cool and slow and all she said was: 'I have a call for you.'

Now I would have to face it.

'Were you successful?' He didn't give his name.

'No.'

'What happened?'

'I lost the chance.'

We couldn't say anything much in case the line was bugged. He asked evenly:

'It was not the fault of our contact?' He meant the Hindu.

'No. He was very efficient. It was my own fault.'

Loman was staring at me and I looked away.

'It is difficult for you. They are desperate now. I hope for further information. If I obtain it I shall need to pass it to you without any delay. Can you hold yourself immediately available?'

'Yes. Rely on that.'

'I shall do so.'

Someone was banging at the door and Loman went over to it as I put the receiver down. It was one of the Embassy staff and Loman spoke to him and turned back to me. 'Important?'

'Fishmonger.'

'Will it wait?'

'Yes.'

He nodded and went out. We had given Pangsapa that cover name because of the tank with its blood-red water.

I was alone and wanted to pick up the phone again and ask her was she all right but there was no point. She was all right. All I really wanted was to hear her voice again, just because it was possible, as the pain in my hand was possible.

The police surgeon had put five stitches in and asked some questions, but I told him I'd caught it in the lavatory seat and he'd shut up and got on with the job.

The strangeness had lingered because of the big paper kites and because of the close companionship to death in the final second: imagination had flared up. One of the kites had been directly behind the Chinese as he stood there with the gun held in the killing attitude, and the kite was one of those with a face painted on it, so that I saw their three faces in succession.

The face of the Chinese was impassive in the instant of the gun's firing, then it opened in surprise as he began falling. He fell slowly, and as he fell he revealed the second face, the face of the paper kite, fierce-eyed and cruelly fanged. She moved from the edge of the kite to watch him fall and her face, the third face, was squeezed in a grimace of loathing as she stood looking down. Then it cleared and she closed her eyes, and her face had the calm of a sleeping child.

The Chinese hadn't moved. Blood came from the hole in his neck. She had shot for the third vertebra in the cervical region, smashing it and severing the nerves. It was a surgically accurate shot, consideration having been taken of the limitations of so small a gun.

The fumes rose from the little barrel, gray in the sunshine that fell from the skylights. She opened her eyes and I stepped over the body and took the gun from her. She wouldn't want it any more. This was her one fine day and the legend of Halfmask was ended.

We walked to the Embassy, taking our time. The park was on our way and we walked slowly under the magnolias like lovers. I didn't speak because she had the trauma to deal with but she felt like talking and she talked about ordinary things.

'Lawson phoned me soon after dawn and said you'd flushed him near Telephone House, so we put out the usual alert. He went back to your hotel and Green was sent to cover Soi Suek 3. I took the warehouse. It was just the way things went – it could have been any permutation.'

She reached once for my hand, quickly and suddenly, and I felt the tremor shaking her. She had killed because of what they had done to Richard: I had given her the excuse, that was all. It would take time for her to justify and forget.

Her fingers moved and I let them free. She said:

'I saw the car backing up – the Lincoln – so I went in by another door in case there was something I could do.'

I knew that her group had the keys to the place; she had opened a door there before, the night she had tagged Loman.

'He would' – and she had to get a breath and have another go – 'he would have killed you, wouldn't he? Otherwise?'

'In the next half second.'

Justify and forget.

'I don't mean--'

'I know,' I said.

'I'd have done it anyway, one day, for any reason. I'm glad it was you.'

The magnolias floated their leaves on a sky bluer than I had ever seen it; we walked through gold light. I said, 'I'm not complaining.'

She began laughing softly but it went on and turned strident and I said sharply, 'Cut that out.' She was all right after that and I put her into a cab and told the driver the British Embassy, and walked on to the Police Hospital a few blocks away to get the hand fixed up.

Loman came back in ten minutes and didn't say why he'd been called away: they like playing it big when they're in the field with the agent-- 'I have been on the direct Embassy line to the Bureau twice in the last hour.' That sort of thing.

'What did Fishmonger want?'

'Requests availability.'

'He is a very good man,' Loman said. 'Don't underestimate his resources as an informant.'

'Christ, I know that. He gave me a lead this morning and it could have been good – damned good.'

He stood absolutely still, listening.

'Well?'

'No go. I got myself cornered. One dead.'

He nodded. 'Do you need any smoke out?'

'No.' It was like that with Loman. Just when you wondered how much longer you could stand him he said something nice. He should have stood on my face for losing a good lead when we were desperate for one.

He was halfway to the phone when I stopped him. 'I passed it to local SB from the hospital when I was waiting for them to fix my hand. Black Lincoln, Bangkok registered, number and everything, spring-gun dart lodged in the rear door, inside – if they ever get the chance to look for it.'

He asked me about directions, coming and going, so forth, and I told him the essentials. He didn't ask about the bump: providing I didn't need smoke out he was satisfied.

'Perhaps they can find it,' he said. 'There aren't many Lincolns. But they won't pass it to the Metropolitan for a general search – you know Special Branch sensitivities, the world over.' He turned away and asked, 'You didn't report the casualty?'

'No.' It is always left to the discretion of the intelligence director in the field whether a killing is reported or not. Circumstances vary. 'You mind holding off, Loman?'

'Reason?'

'There's some more to do in that area and I'd like it kept clear for a bit. Give it a few hours.'

He considered. 'Very well.'

He was playing me softly today because we looked like losing the mission and he didn't want to stack up any blame for wrong decisions. He was leaving things as much as possible to me: it was the only lesson he'd learned. I liked working alone and he knew he'd have to let me. But he still thought we were going to lose.

I looked at my watch. They'd had an hour and a half.

'I'll report as necessary.'

'If Pangsapa has anything for you… ?'

'Have you a lead, Quiller?'

'Straight run or a dead end, one or the other.' There was nothing for him to do but give me the overall score. 'We have something like forty-eight hours,' he said. That is the period within which they can get Huang Hsiung Lee from Durham to London and by air to the Chinese frontier. The Kuo cell will know this. They will know that the deal is going to be accepted and that no one must waste any time in getting both parties to the exchange point. Kuo will make an all-out attempt to leave Bangkok today or tomorrow.' He came with me as far as the door. 'The feeling in England is still one of shock and grave anxiety. The general public knows only that the Person is missing and in danger. That is of course still true. Among those few in Whitehall who know of the exchange offer there is an added anxiety -that the exchange will have to go through and that we shall hand over, with Lee, a weapon of awesome potential to a Communist state.'

I said: 'Forty-eight hours. You can do a lot in that time. But we'll want some luck. Christ, we'll want some luck.'

I took a cab there and got out near the warehouse and walked as far as the door in the alley. I didn't hope for much but it had to be tried. The Chinese had told the chauffeur that he would be back at base in an hour. Thirty minutes ago they would have begun to worry. It would take another thirty to convince them that he'd got fouled up somewhere. If they could stand the strain of not knowing, they'd forget him. I didn't think they could stand the strain in their present situation: they had to find out for certain that he hadn't been grabbed, that he wasn't being grilled by professional police interrogators after the potassium-cyanide pill had been forced out of his fingers in time. They had to know if they were still safe, that their base wasn't quietly being ringed around with police in depth at this precise minute.

They would have to pick a lock or break a door and I didn't know which door they'd go for so I'd have to be inside when they came. I didn't have a gun because there wouldn't be any necessity: if they came at all they wouldn't even know I was here. The operation would begin when they left, and tried to get back to base without my tagging them there.

If I could do that…

The alley was clear. I had gone the whole way round the warehouse, cat's-eyed. Now I went in, using the keys and locking the door after me because that was how they'd expect to find it. Then I turned round.

The dead Chinese had gone.

I stood very still.

Small pool of blood still on the boards, darkening. Kites motionless. No sound.

The nerve-chill was creeping down my spine but I made myself stand and watch the big paper kites for two minutes. They were excellent cover because of sound absorption, but anyone taking a single step from behind any one of them would set it moving, however slightly.

They hung dead still.

Findings: Chauffeur reported situation but Kuo had not waited, had been worried that Chinese was alone with adverse party even though in control. A man ordered here straight away to ensure security. Body found and removed.

I was a little too bloody late.

Very quiet in here. Five minutes to look around. A lot of self-anger, frustration, contempt churning up in the stomach while I tried to think, tried to hope there was still a chance, that they still hadn't gone.

But they'd gone, and I unlocked the door and went out and caught sight of sudden movement at the edge of the vision field. I plunged into a run that pitched me down a dozen yards from the door as the blast came and the shrapnel tore at my clothes and my ears were blocked by the explosion.