by Adam Hall
In a moment: ‘Noted.’
‘He did very well. The subject appears physically normal except for stress and extreme fatigue.’
‘You have insulin!’
‘Yes. But please note: I estimate that we shall be exposed for another half hour on a public highway, and the Koichi artifact is not in place, repeat not in place.’
Hesitation, then, ‘Half an hour.’
‘Estimated.’
I gave him tune to think. I’d located and secured the subject but the chances of getting him under cover were shockingly thin, with his face undisguised and a major search operation by the military still in progress. There was also an added risk: if any of them had got out of that temple alive they would have tried to follow this truck. One of those people had still managed to pull off a couple of shots after the first bomb had gone in, or it could even have been the two of them, each with a gun. Trotter had been running a first-class cell with highly trained personnel and if he’d been killed in the Buddha room, any surviving hit man would know what he’d got to do. If Trotter couldn’t fly Xingyu into Beijing himself, he’d want him dead.
‘Obviously you have no alternative.’
Pepperidge. No alternative but to try getting Xingyu to a cave in the hills through a military dragnet.
‘No. It’s the least risk.’
‘So be it. Anything more?’
‘Nothing more.’
‘ What’s your condition?’
‘Fully active.’
That wasn’t inaccurate. If I didn’t get some sleep before too long I was going to drop in my tracks and the drug they’d put in my tea had left the motor nerves a degree sluggish and my reflexes were less fast than I was used to and the head wound was still throbbing, but if anything critically active started I’d be all right because the adrenaline would make up the difference: once the survival mechanism is triggered and you’re functioning in the zone, the body chemistry shifts into a different equation and the strength-of-ten-men syndrome kicks in.
‘ You could probably use some support.’
‘It’s not feasible. The only chance we’ve got is to keep a strictly low profile.’
Things had changed, in the mirror: the vehicle immediately behind had peeled off, and I saw the red star on the side. The other one was closing on us; I would have said it was a Beijing jeep by the short distance between the headlamps. There was now a bit of traffic starting to come the other way, and I kicked the dip switch.
‘If you felt you needed support, would you ask for it?’
‘Yes.’
He’d got my thinking straight on that point before: the man slumped behind me in the cab was potentially the most powerful figure in the Asian hemisphere and if I thought that even one support agent could help me protect him then I would say so.
‘If the situation changes,’ Pepperidge said, ‘I can send in a whole cadre.’
He was worried, thought I was digging my heels in; no director in the field’s all that happy when the executive’s walking a tightrope with the subject of the mission in his arms.
‘Noted.’
We were going to have to find a hole, Xingyu and I, find a hole in the night and stay there, sleep there, hibernate until the dawn, and any kind of support would attract attention, flush us out.
‘I’ll signal Control. Remain in contact.’
‘Will do.’
I switched to receive-only and put the radio on the seat. It’d cheer them up a bit at the board in London, Executive has located and secured the subject, so forth.
A truck came past from ahead of us and in the glare of its lights I saw the red star again and a huddle of soldiers swaying in the back. I checked on Xingyu before the light had gone; he was sitting more upright now, staring through the windshield, and he squeezed his eyes shut and jerked backward against the seat as the shot smashed through the rear window and into the windshield and it snowed out and I hit a hole in it and got the truck straight again.
‘Keep down.’
Shot hit a tire and it blew and the truck lurched and I got it back and bits of snowed glass flew inward as Xingyu started hitting at it, shouted at him again, keep down, headlights coming the other way and the glare blinding, wiping everything out, and I felt the truck lurch again and then the tire came off and we were on the rim, took my foot off the throttle, lights again, there was a whole line of stuff coming past, keep down I told him, right in the line of fire for Christ’s sake.
The twin lights of the jeep behind us were jazzing around in the mirror and I tilted it and tried to see where the road was, there was no border, it just ran into a waste of flat land with boulders standing black on one side, silvered on the other by the lights, a whole string of them, this was an army convoy, red stars glowing on the sides, shot and the mirror went, the force of the bullet throwing it forward until it caught the windrush and blew back into the cab, Christ’s sake keep down I told Xingyu.
The Dongfeng lurched again and a truck coming past us the other way had to swerve but it wasn’t enough and we clipped his fender and the driver leaned on the horn, the Doppler effect bringing it down to a moan in the night as I dragged at the wheel and went for the flat land and kicked the headlights full on and watched out for the boulders and then things began happening behind us, lights sweeping in an arc across the terrain and then another shot but it was wild, and I suppose one of the army trucks had made a U-turn to come back and overhaul the jeep and ask them what they were popping off a gun for, either that or it was the truck I’d hit, coming back to talk about the damage, you don’t, you do not hit an official vehicle of the People’s Liberation Army without being asked some questions, it was no go, it was no bloody go in this thing and I chose a boulder and got to the other side of it and used the brakes and slewed the Dongfeng at an angle and hit Xingyu’s seat-belt buckle, ‘Out, we’re getting out.’
I hooked the radio into my coat and got his flight bag and the provisions from the back and found him wandering in the moonlight, a cold wind cutting across the scree, ‘Come on,’ threw an arm around his shoulders, ‘Come on, quicker than that,’ huddled against the wind, the two of us, leaning on it, tripping on stones, the lights on the road very active and men shouting but no more shots, I suppose it was all he’d been able to do, keep on firing even though he knew they’d ask questions, keep on firing in the hope of a killing shot, and he’d come close, hit that bloody mirror a foot from Xingyu’s spine.
‘I must go to Beijing.’
His voice thin against the wind.
‘What? Out of his mind. ‘Of course, yes, Beijing.’
Sweat running on me because we’d left the Dongfeng less than a hundred yards from the road and if they started sweeping their lights across the scree they’d see it and we hadn’t got far enough yet, not far enough along the road to Beijing, dear God, what was he talking about, what had they done to him in that temple, lurching along together like a couple of drunks and not fast enough, not nearly fast enough, I could see the dark rim of the foothills against the stars but it looked like five miles, could be more, and I didn’t know if he could make it on his feet or if I’d have to carry him, get him far enough before the need for sleep knocked me over, the rim of the hills dipping as I watched it, rising and dipping, the air coming into the lungs like knives and stone loose underfoot.
Shots down there, some shots, back along the road, no particular theory coming to mind, they were trying to take him I suppose or both of them if there’d been two, and they wanted to keep on our track, shouting again, a lot of shouting as the line of trucks shunted to a halt, the officers wanting to know what was going on, another shot and that was the last I heard, Xingyu heavy against me, ‘We’ve got to walk quicker than this,’ I told him.
‘Yes. I must go to Beijing.’
Merciful God. ‘Listen, Dr. Xingyu, they are soldiers back there, and we’ve got to get away from them.’ I didn’t know how much he understood about things. ‘We’ve got to keep going.’
Snow on the wind, flurries of it like last night.
‘Listen to me,’ I said. ‘If anyone follows us on foot, I want you to go that way, toward Sirius - you see Sirius?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s your direction, if we have to separate. Go that way, to the east, and find shelter and lie low. I’ll go in the other direction, you understand? I’ll lead them away. Now do you understand!’
‘Yes.’
But I couldn’t tell if he did, or if he just saying it, this bloody wind freezing against the skin, the eyes streaming. ‘I’ll give you your bag, and the insulin’s there, all right? All you do is lie low and wait, and I’ll send for help. Understand!’
‘Yes.’
All he could say, like an automaton, lurching over the stones. ‘I’ll radio your position, as close as I can get, if I have to send for help.’ If the situation changes -Pepperidge - I can send in a whole cadre.’ All you do is lie low, and use the insulin when you need to. Are you listening to me?’
‘Yes.’
He tripped and started to go down and I pulled him upright, poor little bastard, doing his best, facing straight ahead of him against the wind with tears freezing on his cheeks, one foot in front of the other, soldiering on, I must not let them get this man, he was the messiah, potentially a name to go down in history if I could get him to walk faster, for Christ’s sake, faster than this, we could still hear them shouting down there and all it wanted was for one of them to turn his truck and pick up our Dongfeng in his lights and we’d have to separate because they’d take a look at it and find the engine warm and then they’d start looking for the driver, finis.
Snow on the wind, flakes sticking to our faces and freezing the skin, he tripped again and I caught him, held him closer, an arm around his shoulders, the rim of the foothills rising and dipping and the stars swinging, I would like to sleep, swinging across the night sky and swinging back, the stone loose underfoot, treacherous, the night treacherous with stones and soldiery, Lord, I will lay me down to sleep in another mile, another mile of this, lay me down to sleep.
‘I must get to Beijing,’ he said, Xingyu, and tripped and dropped like a dead weight and I wasn’t quick enough and he stayed there on his knees, a dark shapeless bundle against the stones, the messiah, head hanging like a dog’s, the wind howling among the boulders and his voice crying in it, ‘I must get to Beijing,’ his gloved hands hitting the ground in frustration, and I dragged him onto his feet and he started walking, my arm around him again, walking into the wind and the whirling snow, and I said to him, ‘Yes, you must get to Beijing.’
Chapter 24
Fugue
It was very quiet.
There was a hole in the sky and I watched it.
Feet ached, my feet ached, those bloody boots. Feet were cold, too, frozen, looked down at them, felt them, no boots on, that was the trouble, I’d pulled them off when we got here.
‘I must go to Beijing.’
‘What?’ Then everything came back and I said, ‘Yes,’ and looked at the luminous digits of my watch, slept for three hours, I’d slept for three hours and six minutes because I’d checked the time when we’d got here and reported to my DIF.
Not a hole in the sky, this was the cave and the hole was the entrance down there, full of moonlight.
Missing something.
‘Dr. Xingyu, are you all right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Need insulin?’
‘No.’
I was missing something and it worried me; I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it was something important. Xingyu was sitting upright against the wall of the cave, looking straight in front of him, and I felt gooseflesh along my arms; this man had changed; he was different now, giving me answers like an automaton, yes and no, sitting bolt upright like that and staring in front of him, saying he’d got to go to Beijing, hadn’t said it before, at the monastery, so what was in his mind, I didn’t like this, there were things I wanted to know.
Oh Jesus yes, got up and staggered as far as the mouth of the cave and switched to send—‘DIP, DIP D—’
‘Hear you.’
‘Have you been trying to raise me?’
Wo.’
So relax, but I wasn’t terribly pleased with myself; there was a bloody mountain on top of this cave and he couldn’t have raised me if he’d wanted to. The last time I’d signaled him we’d been still outside in the open.
‘Three hours’ sleep.’
‘Excellent.’
Sounded happy about that. Part of the job of your DIP is to look after your welfare, hour by hour, and Pepperidge had known when I’d last got any sleep because I’d reported on it.
‘Subject is with me, no injuries.’
I confirmed the bearing I’d given Pepperidge when we’d got here three hours ago and then began giving him the general picture, not terribly reassuring.
The snow was still coming down in flurries, making a hazy screen across the terrain below the hills, and through it I saw lights moving. This cave was the third opening along from a granite bluff an estimated four miles, south by southeast of the road where it turned north in a wide curve with an estimated radius of one mile; it was the fifth opening from a low escarpment in the other direction that jutted at thirty degrees from the lie of the hills. There were no other landmarks except for the boulders, some of them huge, ten or fifteen feet high, but they were strewn across the scree at random like thrown dice.
They’d set up a roadblock, the military, halfway through the curve in the road. They’d been alerted by the shooting from the jeep behind me and the obvious decision would have been to trap all traffic in the area: there’d be another road block set up toward the west, though I couldn’t see its lights from here because of the snow. But I could see the lights of the convoy; it was still stationary, most of the vehicles facing west, the way we’d come in from the temple. It was difficult to say how many vehicles there were down there: perhaps twenty, twenty-five; the ones that had passed me from the east had been personnel carriers. Estimate, then, three hundred armed troops, at least three hundred. Some of the vehicles had been swung at various angles to the road, providing a fan of light southward toward the hills and containing 180 degrees.
From this distance and with the snow flurries blowing I couldn’t see the Dongfeng truck we’d abandoned near the road, or if I could see it I wouldn’t be able to distinguish it from the boulders. But it would be there, standing in the fan of light, and they would have checked it out, three hours ago, and found the engine warm, and they would now be looking for the driver and any passengers. Those were the moving lights I could see as the soldiers spread out in a systematic search. They were already a mile from the road, making their way across the scree like a tide rising toward the hills, toward the cave.
I reported this to Pepperidge.
The line of soldiers was at ninety degrees to my angle of vision, and we’d have to allow a margin of error:
perhaps fifteen, even twenty percent. This being given, I estimated that they would reach the caves in the hillside before morning, at the latest.
This too I reported.
Nothing but static for a moment or two, then: ‘And at the earliest!’
‘I can’t predict that. If they increase their speed they could be here sooner than that.’
I didn’t like telling him, I did not like telling him this, crouching here in the cave mouth in the freezing wind with that man inside there looking so strange, talking so strangely, giving me ideas, one of them so appalling that I couldn’t express it to my director in the field until I’d tested it out, because it would change everything, it would blow Bamboo into Christendom.
‘But if it occurs to them,’ I told Pepperidge, ‘that the people in the truck might have headed for the caves, they’ll logically send troops in three or four files straight in this direction and spread out and start a search at this level.’
, Static
. I waited. ‘They could reach you, then, in two or three hours.’
‘Yes.’ Waited again.
‘ What are your plans?’
‘All I can do is play it by ear. I can get out of here and take him deeper into the hills, or stay here and explore the cave and hope to find a bolt hole and cover our tracks. If we start moving higher we’ll be making a race of it with three hundred men and I don’t think we could win it. On my own, yes, but I don’t know how long he can hold out. I haven’t questioned him yet. If we stay here, there’s the chance that you might be able to do something, you or London.’
He’d said earlier tonight: I can give you a whole cadre if you need one.
We’d need a regiment.
In a moment: ‘I signaled London the moment you reported you were at the caves. I said it was impossible for you to get him to Gonggar, that you had no transport, that the Koichi artifact was not in place. That was correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘But now the situation is fully urgent.’
Argot. In any signal, any briefing, any instructions, fully urgent has ultra-priority and takes precedence over everything else: it means sound the alarms, freeze all other action, bring Bureau One into the signals room and clear all communications lines to and from London through the intelligence mast in Cheltenham and the DIP controlling the field in the host country, using scramblers or speech code or audio-grids or whatever means that will pull the whole network together and keep the shadow executive in constant touch with London Control and the signals board and the agents-in-place and the sleepers and support groups and courier lines right across the spectrum of the mission, and if I told Pepperidge yes, the situation was fully urgent, that whole process would kick in and start running.
Said yes.
A beat, then: ‘How much time have we got, would you say, before you could be discovered, if they began sending probes into the foothills and the caves directly? What is my deadline?’
