The Pekin Target

19: Vigil

Eagle to Jade One.

Playing bricks.

Eagle to Jade One.

One on top of another.

He would take his time, of course. I might be armed.

Eagle to Jade One.

A fourth stone, to bridge the lower three. Playing bricks with the boulders, the small ones; but it didn't have to be too fancy; it had to look natural.

Where the hell is Ferris?

07:12.

Eagle to Jade One.

In another hour the sun would clear the bluff to the east of my position and I would no longer be in shade. But then he wouldn't see me, because of the boulders. The set was live, crackling. I wanted more than that, for God's sake. This thing was a lifeline.

Eagle to Jade One.

The peephole was too big: all I wanted was -

Jade One to Eagle. You're very faint.

And very relieved.

Eagle to Jade One. DH is dead. My present situation extremely hazardous. Will report if possible.

Repeat that.

Did so. He acknowledged and we broke.

Within the next half hour I completed the low rock wall; it was built on the assumption that he would pick up the tracks I'd left for him and follow them to the area immediately below the ledge where I was waiting; I could sight through the rocks in three places, and if he looked up, all he would see was my eye, and my eye would be in shadow, and it would be narrowed. If he was a cautious man he would circle the whole area first and climb to higher ground; in that case he would see me; but there was nothing I could do about that, except hide up in a foxhole and wait until he found me; there was no point.

Very faint because of the mountains. Up at the monastery, if I could reach it, the reception and transmission would be a lot better. It had been good to hear his voice, even faintly.

The executive signalled at 07:14 to say his situation was extremely hazardous. That was the last we heard of him.

Ignore. Too much bloody imagination. Eye on the ball.

07:46.

09:51.

He wasn't here yet.

He must be very close now.

The mountains were silent under the rising warmth of the morning; I would have expected more bird-life here; the sound of birds is reassuring, reminding of spring, when the world is new again and nothing can go wrong.

There was open terrain below, where my flying jacket had gone jerking through the air; he could make his approach from that direction in almost a straight line without any risk, even if I were armed. Cautious bastard.

So cautious, perhaps, that he was making a wide detour and climbing to higher ground; then he would be close enough to put one straight into me with great force, at close range.

Has there been any further signal from the executive?

No.

How long has it been?

Two and a half hours.

Do we write him off

Not yet. Not yet. Give me a chance.

The scent of the pines was heavy on the air as the day grew warmer. I wondered if you'd noticed it. Isn't it lovely? Safe under her stones and unafraid.

Something snapped and I jerked my head and stared at the rocks to my left, heart thudding and breath held as I waited.

Nothing there. Tree bark cracking in the warmth, or dead timber splitting.

Perhaps I should have tried making a break to the west, clambering through the tumbled rock and making a run for it across the open ground beyond, dodging like a hare while he tried to keep me centred in the sights.

Trickle of sweat; it had sprung from the skin when the sharp sound had come a minute ago. I wiped it away from my eyes and manned the peephole again and saw him.

He was standing perfectly still, looking at the marks on the ground; then in a moment he raised his head, gazing across the wall I had built, across the hidden glint of my eye. He looked like a Korean, young and athletic in a striped track suit and running shoes; the long Remington was slung at the horizontal in both hands, ready to swing up and fire.

I narrowed my eye until the lids were almost together, and watched him as his head turned slowly to note the stones of my wall, studying them for a while and then passing on. The distance between us was some hundred feet. He began moving again, his head going down to follow my tracks, and when he turned to his left, towards the ledge where I was waiting, I brought my eye down to the third peephole and watched him from there.

He stopped again, lifting his head and turning it by degrees to look around him, glancing across my shadowed eye and surveying the heights at my back. It was five or six minutes before he was satisfied; then he moved on again with his head lowered, until he saw the dark bloodspots I had left directly beneath the ledge; and now he stopped.

An hour ago I had brushed the ledge free of loose stones, and measured the distance from the rock wall to the edge; it was the distance necessary to give momentum for the leap. The time estimated was three seconds, but if I controlled my breathing he would see me before he heard me, and that wouldn't give him long enough to swing the gun up and take aim; he shouldn't see me for at least half the total estimated time: for at least one second and a half; and he would need more than that. It was a long rifle and weighed ten or eleven pounds and he'd have to swing it upwards against the inertia.

Of course he might move faster than I'd reckoned, and make use of the final half second before I was on him and blocking the swing of the gun. In that case I would drop straight against the muzzle and receive the shot at point blank range. The issue was unpredictable.

His head was still lowered and I took a slow breath and whipped the muscles into movement, clearing the edge and dropping with my feet going first. He probably died before he hit the ground because I kicked downwards with my right boot and felt its impact on the side of his neck: he was much slower than I'd estimated and had only got as far as turning his head to look upwards as his peripheral vision had warned him of the changing light factor. I heard the snap of his neck and was briefly aware of sequential images: the shine of the rifle barrel swinging; the gold-rimmed sunglasses hitting the ground and for an instant showing the reflection of his face before the lenses shattered against the stones; his body meeting its shadow and blotting it out.

I span full circle, breaking my fall with a shoulder roll and getting up as the two men on the track stopped dead and brought their revolvers into the aim.