Quiller Salamander

by Adam Hall

  Pringle unzipped his briefcase and Flockhart studied the three sheets, sometimes brushing back his wisps of greying hair, sometimes dropping a word or two that neither of us could understand, weren't, perhaps, expected to. For the first time it occurred to me that Flockhart was a man driven by inner fires, no longer enraged by the Bureau's indifference but transferring his rage to a galvanic energy; I also sensed that he was committing himself to something conceivably beyond even his powers to achieve, and that he knew it. I couldn't see it in his square, bland face, or in his pale eyes. I could simply detect, on the subtlest level, a smell of burning.

  'I congratulate you,' he said at last, looking up at me, 'on having made a safe return from your ordeal in the jungle. Also on having brought back the film, which of course is now the key element in this enterprise.'

  Stroking me. I didn't like that, didn't answer. I didn't like the word 'enterprise' either, we weren't bloody buccaneers; the errand of an intelligence agent is to gather intelligence.

  'Should we rely on this rumour about Pol Pot, that he's ill?'

  'I got it confirmed last night,' I said, 'when I questioned a KR rebel. I can guarantee he was telling the truth - as far as he knows it.'

  'I see. And where might Pol Pot be sequestered, as an invalid?'

  'I've no idea.'

  'Probably Bangkok,' Pringle said, 'under medical supervision.'

  'Then I wish him the least speedy of recoveries.' Flockhart's tone was hushed: perhaps he was over-correcting. I thought that if he ever found himself within touching distance of Pol Pot he would kill him with his bare hands, and not quickly. 'Pringle,' he said to me in a moment, 'has sketched a rough map of the area embracing the Khmer Rouge camp and the village, according to your description.' He spun the sheet of paper around for me. 'Does it look accurate?'

  'As accurate as he could make it, from what I told him.'

  'The village is approximately fifteen kilometres from the camp, is that correct?'

  'It was the monk's estimate.'

  Flockhart's finger traced its way across the sketch. 'The road would be more or less straight?'

  'It'll be a bullock track, not really a road. But probably straight, yes - the area's just flat jungle, so it wouldn't have to go around any hills.'

  'A track - but it's used by motorized vehicles?' He was glancing at Pringle's notes.

  'According to the monk.'

  'And frequently.'

  'Yes.'

  'In terms of acoustics, how close would you think one could take a motorized vehicle to the camp, with complete security?'

  'In deep jungle like that I'd say a mile, coasting in neutral over the last hundred yards and depending on wind-direction and the type of vehicle used, the type of engine and exhaust system.'

  Flockhart turned to Pringle. 'Do we have anybody here who could do that?'

  'Bracken's available in Phnom Penh. I could fly him here in an hour, by daylight. Another three hours from here to the village' - glancing at me - 'which is the time it took you to get here, coming the other way. Is there any difference in elevation?'

  'Not much. The track runs through valleys most of the time.'

  Flockhart got out of his chair, I thought a little wearily. He wouldn't have slept much on the flight from London through Kuwait; this burning energy of his would have kept him restless. He began pacing, hands dug into his pockets, and on the wall the salamander trickled towards the grille.

  'Do you think we should put a vehicle there, a mile or so from the camp, concealed in the jungle and manned round the clock?'

  He wasn't looking at either of us so I waited for Pringle, who gestured with a hand, giving the question to me.

  'On principle,' I said, 'yes.' Flockhart was going by the book: having located the opposition it's good practice to set up surveillance.

  Control looked at Pringle: 'Bracket is what, a sleeper or an AIP?'

  'Bracken, sir. Actually he's stand-by support.'

  Flockhart looked down at him. 'Better still. Is he married?'

  I liked him for that. Doing a peep single-handed on an encampment of twelve thousand armed men was a short-fuse assignment.

  'No, sir.'

  'He's experienced?'

  'He led the support group for Cobra in Pakistan.'

  'Indeed. You did well to have him available.'

  'Thank you, sir.' Liked being stroked. But in fact he'd done well, yes, because he'd not only had to bring the man in but he'd had to keep him from getting assigned to the next official mission to hit the signals room.

  'I suggest we send Bracken out there,' Flockhart told him, as soon as we're finished here. You have a radio available?'

  'Yes, sir. We can receive on this one.'

  'Give it to him.' To me, with a swing of his head - 'How are you off for sleep?'

  Either it showed or he was simply assessing my resources, had something lined up for me.

  'I need a few hours.'

  'Get them.' He took another turn and came back and stood with his hands on the back of a chair. 'Then as soon as you can, I want you to locate General Kheng. There can be no hope of a decision from London, obviously, until we know for certain where he is; an air strike at his forces alone could well fail if he remains at large. The moment you have any information I can contact the prime minister direct on his hotline from here. Will you need any kind of back-up?'

  'No.'

  'Have you any questions?'

  I looked at Pringle. 'Did you mount a peep on Slavsky?'

  'Yes, with a contact in support.'

  'I think that's it,' I told Flockhart.

  'Very well.' He hesitated, looking at neither of us as he went on quietly, 'We should keep it in mind that if in fact General Kheng intends to launch a missile attack on the capital on the nineteenth, we have only until midnight to stop him.'

  Chapter 24

  SONG

  Kim woke me just before noon.

  He was the man Pringle used as a contact, knew where to find me, at the house of the one-legged girl. He told me that Slavsky, the Russian, had gone to the airfield.

  I drove there in the Mine Action van I'd used before: they were perfect camouflage, you saw them everywhere looking for those bloody toys.

  The peep was waiting for me inside the gate to the freight area, short, round-shouldered, pointed face, bush jacket, looked like a pleasant rat, the way Disney would draw one.

  'Symes,' he said. Pringle had flown him in from Bangkok, said he was first class.

  We hadn't made contact before so we exchanged code introductions and he got it wrong the first time and I had to insist before I was sure of security, I wasn't worried, it sometimes happens, you just have to check it out. Then I got him aboard the van.

  'Did you signal the DIF?' I asked him.

  'Yes, from the airline office.' Trans-Kampuchean Air Services.

  'Where's Slavsky now?'

  'Over there. The three jeeps and the staff car. He's in the car.'

  A motorcade, looked important. Breakthrough?

  We were standing off the target by a hundred yards so I got my 10 x 50s and focused, still couldn't see anything more of Slavsky but a pale blurred face behind the window.

  'Where's your vehicle?' I asked Symes.

  'By the gate.'

  Battered jeep, and I noted the number plate. 'Stand off somewhere on the perimeter road,' I told him, 'and take up station when we move. If I lose the staff car, stay with it and contact the DIF when you can, give him the score. I'll pick it up from him as soon as I can find a phone.'

  'Roger.' He slipped out of the van, moved at a loping walk to the nearest cover, the chain-link fence, shoulders hunched as you often see in surveillance people, the unconscious physical expression of their conscious need to hide.

  I began watching the sky.

  The noon heat was down, spreading a mirage across the airfield and leaving the line of sugar palms beyond the perimeter track standing in water.

  We should keep
it in mind that if in fact General Kheng intends to launch a missile attack on the capital on the nineteenth, we have only until midnight to stop him.

  Did he think we didn't know that, for God's sake?

  Chopper.

  Did he think we couldn't count, read a calendar, know how to synchronize watches, manage our buttons, see the bloody obvious when it was staring us in the face?

  Chopper, coming in low from the south, a Kamov KA-26, twin rotors, the same type, possibly the same machine, that had brought Colonel Choen here from Phnom Penh.

  This was at noon plus twenty-six and I began noting the time because Salamander was obviously shifting into a new phase and it could be important for Pringle to know how things were developing, to know the time of the arrival and departure of vehicles and their travel patterns simply as a matter of keeping a moving target in the sights. This didn't mean he might not have to sit at his base for hours on end without a shred of information coming in from the field as the day drew out: it would depend on how and when we could find a telephone without breaking cover.

  The Kamov was drifting in across the sugar palms towards the freight area, turning a few degrees before it touched down and blew the mirage beyond it into swirling mists.

  I fine-tuned the focus again.

  Two men got out of the staff car: Slavsky and a Cambodian in battledress with a Western-style army beret, officer rank. Five, six men climbed down from the helicopter, one of them leading the others across the tarmac. Salutes were exchanged, and as Slavsky came forward to shake hands I recognized the leader of the visiting group. I hadn't seen him before but he was the Khmer Rouge officer in the photographs I'd seen at the villa in Phnom Penh, standing close to Pol Pot in every shot, a younger man in jungle battledress with epaulettes and a peaked cap, one picture with his name below it: General Kheng.

  16:12.

  I'd started thinking by the twenty-four hour clock at this stage because signals were being exchanged and Pringle would be keeping an official record as they came in: I'd phoned him from an American drugstore opposite the Hotel du Lac soon after Slavsky and General Kheng had arrived there from the airfield.

  Thirty minutes later they'd come out of the hotel together, shaking hands before Slavsky had got into his rental Chevrolet and turned south, possibly back to the airfield: I wasn't curious. Kheng was now the target and he'd climbed into the staff car, moving off with one of the camouflaged jeeps ahead of him and one behind.

  He was still inside the white two-storey building next to the temple where I'd kept watch before, waiting for Colonel Choen. The general had been there for more than three hours now. There was no sign above the bullet-scarred doors but the building was obviously the local headquarters of the Khmer Rouge: since I'd been here I'd seen half a dozen jeeps arriving and leaving again, some carrying an officer with an escort, some with only a driver.

  It was 17:23, with the late sun lowering across the skyline, when I decided it was time to take action. Flockhart had wanted to know the whereabouts of General Kheng and he now had that information, but it was beginning to look as if Kheng might have come here to stay the night at headquarters, bringing the deadline down to zero. If there were a conceivable chance of jumping ahead of him I wanted to take it, get information for Control, this time as to where Kheng would go next - back to the capital, out to the camp in the foothills here or to the main Khmer Rouge base in the jungle. Whatever Flockhart had in his mind, this information could now be critical, conclusive, as time ran out.

  I flashed my parking lights twice, and waited.

  Symes came up from behind the van and put his face in the window.

  'Look,' I said, 'there's something else I've got to do, so if I leave here at any time don't worry, just stay with the target wherever he goes. He was the leader of the group who got out of the chopper and his name is General Kheng. Signal the DIF as soon as you possibly can at every stage if he starts moving. Questions?'

  'If he gets on a plane?'

  'Find out where it's going and signal the DIF from the Air Services office.'

  'Roger.'

  He went back to his jeep.

  It was an hour before I could make a move.

  In the mirror I saw a Chinese jeep leaving the KR headquarters with an officer at the wheel, unescorted, and as it passed the end of the street I started up and took two rights and a left and saw the jeep bouncing over the potholes fifty yards ahead and took up the tail. It was following the same route as Colonel Choen had taken, but I needed to talk to this officer long before we reached the camp.

  There were fewer buildings now, a few huts, then a wasteland of scrub and after a few miles a huddle of broken concrete slabs that might have been buildings once, before the revolution, their walls scarred with shrapnel and dead palm trees leaning across them. One of the buildings still stood, fissured and windowless, and I thought it looked suitable, well out of earshot from the nearest habitation and some way from the road.

  The Chinese jeep was half a mile in front and it took two miles to catch up and overtake, and as I went past it I used the horn and held my hand up, asking the driver to stop, cutting in a little to reinforce the message as I hit the brakes and ran the van into the scrub and switched off the engine.

  Then I left it there and trotted back to the jeep. The KR was sitting at the wheel with his right hand on the butt of his revolver so I relaxed him a little by introducing myself.

  'Je suis un collegue de Slavsky!'

  'Eh bien?'

  I didn't say any more because I was close enough now and used a half-fist to his carotid artery to cut off the blood to the brain for a few seconds and then caught him as he keeled over, taking him round to the passenger seat and propping him there and slipping the gun out of its holster and pushing it into my belt. He was waking up a little now and I worked on the thyroid cartilage, enough to make him fight for breath, and while he was doing that I took the jeep in a U-turn and gunned up.

  He was fluent in French then, hadn't asked me to repeat what I'd said; this I would have expected in a man of his rank: he wore captain's insignia.

  There was cover for the jeep under some slabs of fallen concrete and I got the captain's assault rifle and the big flashlight from the back and slapped his forehead with a slack back-fist to shock the pineal gland as he tried to throw me with a thrust to the back of the knees, been sleeping like a fox, one eye open.

  'Don't do that,' I told him in French, beginning tuition with the basics. 'I don't want you doing things like that.' He could understand, could hear me well enough, I knew that; he was just disorientated by the pineal strike: it's what we use it for.

  The sun was down as I dragged him into the windowless building; the ground floor room had possibly been intended for storage: there was just the open doorway and a floor littered with debris thrown into relief by the flashlight - broken concrete and rusted iron bars and dead birds and a small skeleton the size of a rat. The doorway faced the scrub on the other side from the road, so the light wouldn't be seen by the traffic as the night came down.

  Somewhere there was a cricket singing.

  'Who are you?' the captain asked. His speech was slurred.

  He was heavily built for an Asian, had muscle, would be well trained, probably, but not in unarmed combat: he should have gone for the coccyx out there, not the knees, could have paralyzed me if he'd done it fast.

  'I don't want any questions,' I said.

  'You told me you were a colleague of Slavsky's.'

  'No questions - and that is the last time I'm going to tell you anything twice. Kneel down over there with your back to the wall.' I swung the assault rifle up. 'Do it now.'

  The weapon seemed to impress him and he backed off against the wall but didn't kneel, stood watching me like a jungle cat, furious, a man of pride, what the shrink we use in training at Norfolk would categorize as strong, excitatory. Pride was something I could use, work on, given enough time.

  I backed away too, as far as the op
posite wall, and dropped the assault rifle and the revolver onto the floor, then moved towards the captain again until I was within striking distance.

  'There are things you've got to understand,' I said. 'You're quite an educated man, and can probably think well, so it won't be difficult. You need to understand that you're my captive, and that there's nothing you can do, nothing at all, to free yourself. You must also understand that the only time I shall injure you is when you ask for it. Only then.'

  He went on watching me. I'd put the flashlight on the floor to one side, its beam directed towards him. It shadowed his face, making it look like a mask lit obliquely to give it drama; the light was reflected in his narrowed, amber eyes. It would take days to break a man like this one physically. It could be done; it can always be done; but I hadn't got days, only a few hours. The quickest way would be to destroy him from the inside, reduce his persona, his creaturehood, to nothing.

  'I told you to kneel,' I said, 'and this is the second time.' He tried to block it but wasn't fast enough and the strike rocked his head back and it hit the wall and for a moment I thought I'd misjudged things, used too much force, but he didn't go out, he just stood watching me, surprise in his eyes, I'd started to make him think. There wasn't any blood: it had just been a hammer-fist to the forehead.

  'Remember,' I told him, 'you'll be injured only when you ask for it. Kneel.'

  I gave him a few seconds but he didn't move, watched me with the anger coming back into his eyes now that he could think straight again, so I went across to the opposite wall to fetch the assault rifle, turning my back to him, already hunched over to the correct degree so that as he made his run I went straight into a basic aikido roll that flung him against the wall, then caught him as he came down so that he didn't land anywhere near the two guns.

  'Don't do things like that,' I told him. 'I don't want you to do things like that. You need to think more, with your brain instead of your gut. This is an intellectual exercise we're doing together, can't you see that by now?'

  He didn't answer, mainly because he'd hit the wall with quite a lot of impact and it had left him disoriented.