The 9th Directive

3 Kuo

The English word 'assassin' is borrowed from the French but stems originally from the Arabic hash-shashin, meaning 'hashish-eaters.'

There were two good reasons why Loman had given me Pangsapa as a possible informant. Modern man will take great risks for money and greater risks for sex; but when he has need of drugs he will hazard himself the most fearfully. Driven beyond all caution he will expose, sell and surrender himself to the despotic sovereignty of men like Pangsapa.

Pangsapa was a narcotics contrabandist and would therefore know people who were prepared to kill for a fix of snow, or who were prepared to expose the most sacrosanct confidences of friends and inform on them.

We wanted information and we wanted information about assassins, so Loman had sent me here.

He knew in addition that the only good contact I had ever had in this city was dead, because that evening on Rama IV Road in the poor light they had mistaken him for me.

Pangsapa wanted to talk and I let him.

'I remember when your Princess Alexandra made a visit here a few years ago. It went off marvelously. Everyone loved her on sight and we coined a new title for her – the Gentle Ambassadress. She's having the same success with her current excursions; and last year she went over wonderfully in Tokyo. It's so intelligent for the British to send interesting people abroad as a change from those dreary diplomats with rumpled waistcoats and Derby winners' teeth.'

I hadn't told him why I had come. Loman must have given him a hint. I had only one question for him: Where were the professionals? But he wanted to go on talking.

'You may think it odd that I hold such an affection for members of the British royalty. After all I was born in poverty. I remember very clearly the time when I was beaten by a merchant for thieving – my choice was to steal or starve in those days. It happened when I was ostensibly watching a state procession on the river, with the Royal Barge and all the trimmings. Have you ever seen that barge, the Sri Supanahongs? It's quite enormous and covered entirely with pure gold leaf. The bag of rice I was filching at the time from one of the market canals was half soaked in filthy water, but it kept me alive for six days.' He smiled wistfully. 'It wasn't likely to endear me to the monarchy, my own or any other. But events happen so quickly. My father – or the man I believe to be my father -was toying with a certain hazardous operation in cahoots with a ship's captain not long afterwards, and the wind was fair. Five years later I was at Oxford, of all places.'

He sat with remarkable stillness and his smile was seraphic. 'My degree is in economics. But I cherish far more the spiritual experience the life of your country vouchsafed me. It was in those years that I learned to bear a certain love for complete strangers – I'm talking again of the monarchy.'

He leaned toward me an inch and his lisp became more pronounced. 'I would be sorry if anything happened in a few weeks' time on the 29th.'

'You might be able to prevent it.'

'I would welcome the chance.'

'All I want to know is where the professionals are. If any of them are here. In Bangkok.'

'The professionals?'

I got up from the cushions to walk about. Maybe he hadn't been briefed fully enough. 'Did Loman come to see you?'

'I don't know that name.'

'Who told you I was coming?'

'No one.'

I stopped and stood looking down at him.

'You didn't expect me?'

'Not before you telephoned.' He sat like a small dark effigy, only the light in his yellow eyes showing that he was alive.

I said: 'All right, Pangsapa. What was all that about your undying love for the monarchy?'

Patiently he said: 'You forget that the whole city is preparing for this important visit on the 29th. The police and security branches are very active, and it is obvious that trouble is expected – specific trouble. What else could you have come about? You seek information.'

I said: 'You've never seen me before.'

'You have been in Bangkok before.'

I accepted that. He'd been given to me as a source of information and no source of information was much good if it had never heard about my job here two years ago. I pressed him, though.

'Have you ever been in contact with us before?'

'I know a man called Parkis.'

'All right.' Parkis was in London Control. 'Let's talk about the professionals. I want to know their travel patterns.'

He looked perplexed. 'I'm not quite sure what you mean by the "professionals." '

'I mean Vincent, Sorbi, Kuo--'

'Ah, yes

'Quicky the Greek, Hideo, the Mafia boy, what's his name?'

'Zotta.'

'That's it – Zotta.'

I relaxed again. He hadn't denied knowing Zotta. The Mafia channelled most of their stuff from Bangkok through Naples to Recife now that the Buenos Aires route was blocked following the death of Primero, and it was Zotta who did the bump. Pangsapa would know about that. It was his business.

'Zotta is in Recife,' he said. 'You can forget him.' He stood up suddenly and without effort, without even taking his hands from the folds of his robe.

'Vincent?'

'He's in prison in Athens. They're getting him out, of course, but that will take longer than three weeks because his people are disorganized.'

'Sorbi?'

His hands appeared, pale against the black robe. Who ever knows where Sorbi is?'

'Kuo? Hideo? The Greek?'

'When I have had a little time,' he said, 'I will get in touch with you. I know that the information would be valuable to you.'

'It depends.' London is precise on this. When you go shopping you have to do a bargain when you can.

'We can arrange it later.' He shrugged. 'Where can I find you?'

Takchong Hotel.'

As we went toward the door, I noticed the water in the tank was clear again, changed by the filter-flow system. The fish swam alone, a six-inch compact rainbow-colored killer. A professional.

In two days I was ready to tell Loman the mission was refused. It was a security job and that wasn't in my field. The place was slopping over with security people anyway and any one of them could handle this thing better than I could: they knew the formula and they were trained to work with it.

I had gone to see Pangsapa because I might need him one day if a real mission ever brought me back to Bangkok. There'd been no point in not sounding him on the travel patterns of the professionals: I always like to know where people are. But if his sources were as good as Loman believed, he would have contacted me by now even if only to report on their whereabouts. He would know that London would cough up a little even for negative information. But he obviously couldn't get any.

It was no go. The thing had no shape. I was drifting about the city without even a decent cover or a cover story, and every time I checked for tags there weren't any because no one wanted to know where I went or what I was doing.

I knew why Loman had called me in. It was typical of him. He hadn't given any real answer when I'd asked him who roped the Bureau in. He'd done it himself: sold this abortive scheme to Parkis and the others and chosen me for the field. He must have talked well. His whole project was based on the spurious premise of a threat. Anyone planning an assassination would never put out a threat before the attempt; all it would do would be to alert the security forces, and that was precisely what it had done. Security was geared to combat any action by a psychopath, reasonably enough: there were always psychopaths in the crowd whenever a VIP did the rounds. The Pope's visit to New York in 1965 put eighteen thousand city police on special duty, with bomb squads combing the route and riflemen manning the rooftops simply because of a few letters from anonymous religious eccentrics.

This was routine work. The Bureau never took that kind of thing on: it was set up to promote specific operations. Why the hell had they listened to Loman?

I tried contacting him through Soi Suek 3 but he hadn't shown up since the day I flew in so I went to the Embassy and asked for Room 6. He had said it was all right for me to do that.

The young man looked nervous.

'Room 6?'

'Yes.'

'That will be Miss Maine, won't it?'

'Will it?'

'If you'll just take a seat.'

I watched him making tentative hops toward the next office. He hadn't even asked for my name.

If Loman was in Room 6 I would tell him I knew why he'd roped in the Bureau and why he'd roped me in, then watch his face.

The Harrow type came back and took me along the passage into another room. The door said 'Cultural Attache.' I was alone five minutes and a girl came in, a woman, I never know their ages.

'Can I help you?'

'Do you know where I find Room 6?'

She looked at me a long time. I didn't mind. The staffs of Embassies always need a few days to put one thought after another. It's almost relaxing.

There's nobody there at the moment. Perhaps I can help you.'

'Are you the Cultural Attache?'

'His secretary.'

'Well that schoolboy hasn't got his sums right. I want Room 6. If that doesn't mean anything I want to see a man named Loman.'

'Mr Loman isn't here.'

'Oh for the Lord's sake. Well if you ever see him just tell him I've tried contacting him all the afternoon and now I'm taking the night plane on the London run.'

Undisciplined behavior. Tell it to the Lowry.

'Just a moment, please.'

She walked well and had a calm clear voice. I found it mollifying. Maybe that's what she was here for, to stop people blowing up about the malorganization.

A man came in next and she wasn't with him. He shut the door and offered his hand. 'Have a chair?'

'All right,' I said, 'they're all yours.' I dropped my papers onto the desk. With the flap on about the 29th they were probably security-checking the Ambassador himself every time he came back from the lavatory.

Now I knew why no one had asked for my name. Names don't mean a thing.

He gave the papers a quick run-through. 'You're based in where… exactly?' He peered at page 2 as if he couldn't read the writing. I said:

'Whitehall 9. Liaison Group. Lovett sees to me.'

'Ah, yes. Lovett. How is he these days?' He pushed a cigarette box across. 'Like to smoke?'

'He's very well.' To save time I went through the lot. 'He was in Rome last week on the Carosio thing and Bill Spencer took over in London. Your boys were Simms and Westlake. They--'

"That's all right, yes. But I thought you were there too.'

'It says Paris on my passport, doesn't it?'

He pulled back the cigarette box, took out a cigarette and lit it. 'Are you going to be in Bangkok long?'

'No.'

'No?'

'I'm flying out tonight unless Loman turns up.'

'He won't be here until tomorrow.'

'Then give him my love.' I stood up and held out my hand for the papers. He said with a wrinkled smile, 'I'm surprised you're not staying.'

'You don't need me here. You'll do all right.'

'If you don't mind I'll ask Miss Maine to show you out.'

'I know my way.'

It was stinking hot in the street and I took a trishaw back to the Pakchong, trying not to think about Loman. When you're meant to be directing someone in the field you don't slide off and subject him to security checks.

At the hotel twenty minutes later the desk called me and said my visitor would not give a name, so I went down. I don't like nameless people in my room.

The lobby of the Pakchong has one of those beautiful trellis arches at the entrance to the fountain court and she was standing framed by it, her lean body sideways on, her throat shadowed by the angle of her head as she looked across to the staircase, her eyes regarding me coolly as they had before. A shantung suit, tan shoes, no jewelry.

Only her head moved as I crossed the mosaic. The place was very quiet and she pitched her voice low.

'May I use your name?'

'Nobody knows it,' I said.

'Your cover name.'

'Who cares?'

'I came to apologize, Mr Quiller. I should have recognized you at the Embassy.'

'I'm not often recognized by the secretaries of Cultural Attaches. Yehudi Menuhin's more their type.'

'I wasn't far from Rama IV two years ago.'

Now that I was close to her I could see that something had happened to her face on the left side. It didn't quite balance. The skin was perfect but someone – someone very good – had done a job on it.

'What are you?' I asked her. 'Mil. 6?'

She didn't answer, didn't seem interested. I said:

'Not Security.'

'No.' She changed the slim tan bag into the other hand. 'I just came to apologize. You can't be used to the indignity of security checks.'

I didn't quite laugh. 'You'd be surprised at the indignities I'm used to.' Along with Dewhurst and Comyngs my cover name on file had the 9-Suffix Reliable Under Torture. 'Will you have a drink?'

'I can't stay. They say you're leaving tonight.'

'Yes.'

'Have a good trip.'

I watched her cross the mosaic. Not many women can walk like that when they know a man's watching them. Not many women can walk like that anyway.

I went up and,finished packing. To apologize? She couldn't have thought that one up for herself; she was too intelligent. Why had they wanted to know that I was physically and in all truth at the Pakchong Hotel? They could have checked on me in a dozen better ways.

Blast their eyes, I was on Flight 203.

The only other thing that happened that day was a phone call from Pangsapa, asking me to go along there.

It was dark but most of the shops were still open and some of them were already redressing the windows with colored bunting and gold-framed photographs of the Person.

I had the trishaw drop me some distance from the house in Klong Chula Road and walked along the river in the evening heat. Pangsapa received me straightaway and said:

'The information I have for you is worth something in the region of fifty thousand baht.'

It was too late but I didn't say so. It would be amusing to milk Loman's expense account and let them fry him when he got back to London.

'Fifty thousand,' I said. 'All right.'

'You can guarantee that sum?'

'Verbatim.'

'Your word is quite sufficient.'

I knew now that I shouldn't have come. It was a lot of money and it would be a lot of information and I didn't want it, didn't want to be involved.

Pangsapa said softly: 'Three days ago one of the "professionals" crossed over the Maekong River from Laos into Thailand and tonight he arrived in Bangkok.'

'Which one?'

'Kuo the Mongolian.'

So there was nothing I could do about it now.