by Adam Hall
‘I’m ready,’ the soldier said, and pressed the trigger.
I was watching the plane towing the drone. ‘What altitude’s that thing?’
‘Three thousand feet.’
The missile left the canister and lifted fast but was slowing; then it accelerated again.
‘That’s the main booster coming in,’ Hickson told us. ‘It’s to protect the firer - there’s too much noise and fumes going on when she cuts in, so we made it two-stage. The Yanks have done the same thing with their Stinger.’
The missile reached the drone and there was a bright orange flash and then bits of debris started flowering from the centre of the explosion.
‘Thanks, Lee.’
Hickson shoved his hands in his pockets. We knew each other’s names but that was all. Instructions from Pepperidge had been to that effect: Hickson wasn’t to know any more than that I was a civilian guest of the Thai government. This was an exercise to strengthen my cover, not to blow it.
‘I asked for that altitude because with a towline as short as that one there’d be a very definite risk of hitting the plane instead of the drone.’ Thin, terrier-faced, earnest, he swept a look around us. ‘That isn’t because we can’t aim the Slingshot accurately even at thirty thousand feet; it’s just the nature of the beast - she seeks the most heat she can find, and, after all, you’re not going to be towing drones around in a war.’
I’d phoned Pepperidge earlier today and asked him to set up a demonstration for me. My cover was that of a rep for Laker Foundry and to maintain it I needed to know as much about the Slingshot as possible.
I hadn’t told him about the temple thing.
‘How much does it cost?’ I asked Hickson.
‘Six thousand pounds per missile. Considering you can take down a twenty million pound aircraft with it, I wouldn’t say it’s all that expensive, would you?’
I didn’t know whether he was being defensive because of the price or because he was uneasy having me here, an unknown. This was his toy and he liked to know who watched him play with it. Or he could simply be worried because of the leak in Birmingham.
Prince Kityakara came over to me. ‘Would you like to see another firing, Mr. Jordan?’
‘Not unless you would, sir.’
He turned to Hickson. ‘I think we might send another one up.’
There was something very attractive about the Slingshot -the size of the thing, only five feet long, and its devastating potential - and I had the impression that Kityakara and his army chiefs here were as pleased as Hickson with it. They had fifty of them, stored under the heaviest security I’d ever seen.
One of the aides switched on his radio and asked for another drone.
It would only have worried Pepperidge if I’d told him. There are phases in every mission where you decide to push things right to the brink, not because of the exciting way it tickles but because you’ve weighed the odds and calculated the risk and looked at all the data again and then gone for it, shit or bust, and that’s what I’d done when I’d decided to go to Lafarge’s funeral. I’d known that Mariko Shoda might be there but it wasn’t certain, and that had given me enough margin of safety to make the decision. After that point I’d relied on what Johnny Chen had said.
She’s very spiritual. She prays before she kills.
But she hadn’t been able to kill on sacred ground.
‘ - Mr. Jordan?’
‘I’m sorry?’
He whipped the little inhaler across his mouth. ‘You haven’t seen the Slingshot in action before, in England?”
‘No, sir.’
‘Are you impressed?’
‘Very.’
We began walking about to relieve the tension. You had to stand perfectly still when that thing was being fired; it was like watching those people at St Andrews.
She’d wanted to scare me, of course. Maybe not scare, but get the message across: she’d one day be my death. That was why she’d let them get their knives out before she’d called them off. Then all I’d heard in the shadows of the cypresses was her quiet voice, ‘Dio Korn! Plot man wai Karri? It could only have meant No, not now, or Leave him, something like that. Not a pardon, though. Just a reprieve.
‘It’s mounted with these control surfaces in the nose,’ Hickson said. ‘They produce roll and lateral shift.’ He was holding the thing like a baby, cradling it. Pepperidge had told me that Hickson had been in on the actual design.
I could hear the aircraft climbing again.
‘Fire-and-forget,’ Kityakara said. He was looking at the specifications. ‘What does that mean, Mr. Hickson?’
‘Pretty well what it says, sir. Once she’s fired and on her way, the soldier can move off to a new position if he wants to, or get under cover if there’s the need. The Slingshot’s computerised, fully automatic. She thinks for you.’ A definite note of pride.
It had been nerves, that was all. I’d been in the wrong mood for pushing myself into hazard. I was already morbid after the long night in the jungle, picking over those tortured bodies, and the ritual in the temple had made things worse, and what the boy had said, that it wasn’t true, his papa couldn’t be dead. And finally, of course, there’d been Shoda, and the almost mystic power coming from her, and her eyes when she’d looked into mine, with the need for my death in them.
I can put a car through a checkpoint and take the barrier with me and I can undo a bomb in a barn and take the fuse out and I can go through implemented interrogation inside Lubyanka and come out sane, but Shoda was different, operating on a psychically different wavelength, with a force in her that chilled you to the bone when she came near.
I didn’t just walk away two nights ago, don’t think that; I didn’t just walk out of the cypresses and get into the car and drive off. I’d come away shivering, with my feet unsteady and my eyes flickering, close to what I’ve read about shell-shock. And I knew this feeling wouldn’t leave me, not entirely. If I could get through this mission it was going to be with the constant fear of death inside me, like a haunting.
‘Stand away, please,’ Hickson said.
The Thai soldier plugged in the cable from the battery strapped to his waist and got the pistol grip into his right hand and heaved the canister onto his shoulder and took a sighting; then he flicked some switches and swung the missile to the right, angling it to something like 50 degrees; then he began tracking as the military jet trailing the drone began its pass across the airfield. Kityakara was using his inhaler every half-minute or so now, becoming very tense; the others weren’t moving or saying anything - three full generals and a small crowd of colonels and lower brass, all immaculate, strictly on parade, and not only because Kityakara was here but because of the Slingshot. With its sinister potency it outranked them all.
‘When you’re ready,’ Hickson said.
The soldier nodded and went on tracking the drone.
‘Watch out for the gas cloud, gentlemen. Don’t breathe any in.’
Tracking.
The man squeezed the trigger and there was something like a second’s delay while the pressure from the initial charge built up in the tube and then the missile was forced out and began climbing, twisting to the left and correcting its course before the main booster came on and kicked the thing higher, leaving a plume of white smoke that drifted on the breeze. I was counting, and got to ten seconds before the Slingshot nosed into the drone and made the hit and left an orange fireball hanging in the sky.
Silence on the ground; then the sound-wave reached us, nothing more than a soft ‘woof because of the distance and the fact that the drone carried no fuel.
When I looked down, the soldier had moved almost fifty yards away, demonstrating the Slingshot’s ‘fire-and-forget’ capability.
‘Of course,’ Hickson said - and I thought his tone was deliberately conversational for the sake of effect - ‘with a rocket-powered drone you can shoot at thirty thousand feet. They’re on their way.’
Prince Kityakara
gave a brief nod. ‘Thank you, Mr. Hickson. An impressive demonstration. Are there any questions, gentlemen?’
It took half an hour, with two interpreters picking up when the non-English-speaking people wanted to know things; then Kityakara took me across to his staff-car and we got in.
‘I’m sure I don’t need to emphasise, Mr. Jordan, the devastation that weapon could cause, in the wrong hands.’
‘Or the right.’
He tilted his head. ‘I am not talking of war, but of full-scale revolution, initiated by someone like Mariko Shoda and her organisation. It’s not just the technical capability of the Slingshot that makes it so deadly. In jungle terrain, one man could use it at five-minute intervals and continue to move around so that he could never be flushed out. One man could bring down half a squadron of bombers, and, of course, any given number of helicopters moving in at low level.’ Inhaler. ‘It means that any armed revolution could proceed with its enterprise in the certainty that it was completely safe from the air.’ He laid a hand on my knee, became suddenly aware of protocol and removed it at once. ‘It means, Mr. Jordan, that if the Shoda organisation acquired this weapon, it could set Indo-China aflame within a week. And that, of course, is its intention.’
‘Noted.’
‘I’m kept fully informed of your reports. Can you give me any hope that you can move into Mariko Shoda’s operation before too long?’
‘I met her yesterday.’
‘Shoda?’
‘Yes.’
His head was turned to watch me from behind his tinted glasses. ‘I don’t understand. She lets no one near her.’
‘I didn’t talk to her.’
‘But how - ?’ He left it hanging.
‘I took a chance, in the hope of getting some information. It didn’t come off. Or maybe it did. I know more about her now, what kind of adversary she is. It’s not always,’ I told him, ‘the angle of the shot, or the distance from the target, or the timing. Sometimes you just need to know how to get under their skin, and work from there.’
‘I see.’ His voice was hushed. ‘I shall pray for you, Mr. Jordan.’
Rattakul flew me in a Thai military staff aircraft to Singapore and their embassy had a rented plain van waiting for us on the tarmac and I climbed into the rear, which was facing away from the terminal buildings.
I was given an envelope with the insignia of the British High Commission in the top left-hand corner and I slit it open.
I’ve been doing a bit of homework for you that I think might help. Why not let me cook some spaghetti for you this evening if you ‘re not doing anything? You know my address.
It was now 15.31 and I thought about it. She wouldn’t be fooling: underneath the ingenue breathlessness she had a good mind, and she knew what sort of information I wanted.
‘Drop me here, will you?’
South Canal Road, with some of the best cover in the area to protect my return to the Red Orchid. Al said there were no messages but in any case they could only be from the Thai Embassy, because this was my safe-house and security hadn’t been breached, but just before five o’clock Lily Ling told me there was a phone call and I went down to the bar.
‘I am glad you did not take plane.’
A soft woman’s voice, but it sounded like an explosion because security had been blown away.
‘What plane?’
‘Flight 306.’
Smells came into the lobby from the street: fruit, spices, chickens. It had rained again, and the air was sticky, even in here.
I didn’t ask her how she’d found this number - it was better to let her think it wasn’t important. Instead I said, ‘I owe you my thanks.’
‘You are welcome, Mr. Jordan.’
‘May I know your name?’
‘It is Sayako.’
‘Sayako-san, how did you know dial plane was going to crash?’
Silence, then: ‘Someone tell me.’
‘Who gave the order?’
‘Enemy of Shoda.’
Target: Dominic Lafarge. I said, ‘Which enemy?’
‘Is not important. Was important to warn you.’
‘Why are you telephoning me now, Sayako-san?’
‘To warn you again.’
‘About what?’
‘Shoda has ordered you killed.’
‘Quite probably.’ I didn’t like the way she was using short sentences, which was the classic method of drawing people out.
‘She is furious with you.’
I knew that. I didn’t say anything.
Lily Ling came slipping from the kitchen to the desk in the lobby, walking like a flame in her red shift. Al had fired her twice since I’d arrived here; the humidity was getting people down.
‘Do you know -why?’
Why Shoda was furious with me. ‘She lost face, I suppose.’
‘Yes. You went to temple knowing she could not attack you there. It was insult, as if you say, you wish to kill me, so here I am, yet you cannot. You understand, Mr. Jordan? This is very important.’
‘I understand.’
Lily Ling was still at the desk and I could ask her to get Al very fast and ask him to phone the special number I had at the Thai Embassy and tell Rattakul to see if he could get her number traced, Sayako’s, through the Singapore police; but at best it would take twenty minutes and I wouldn’t be able to keep her talking that long.
‘Shoda has ordered one man to kill you, Mr. Jordan. His name is Manif Kishnar. He has never failed to kill. He will leave Bangkok soon now.’
‘What does he look like?’ All Indians didn’t wear turbans. But the real experts favoured piano-wire.
‘I do not know. Of course, you must now leave your hotel. But he will find you, unless I can warn you in time where he will be, and what he will be doing.’
Longer sentences, which made me feel better. There was also a timbre in this woman’s voice that attracted me, in terms of trust.
Don’t trust anyone.
Quite, but she’d saved my life, and even though she’d done it for her own purposes it meant she was a friend, not an enemy, and might remain one. A friend in Shoda’s camp was worth having. But I’d better check that out.
‘Sayako-san, are you in .Shoda’s organisation?’
In a moment she said, ‘I have access to information.’
I watched a cockroach skirting the base of the bar, darting around a bottle-top and a half-burnt match. I knew what Ferris would have done with that.
‘Why are you helping me, Sayako-san?’
‘You are here on mission to destroy Mariko Shoda. I wish for that.’
The only way this woman could have got my number was from the Thai Embassy. They didn’t have it officially even though I was working for them but they’d come here to take me to the birthday party. They could be working, then, through this woman, to help me.
I didn’t think so. She sounded like a lone wolverine.
‘You wish for Shoda’s destruction,’ I said carefully. ‘Why?’
Shoda had deadly enemies but I wanted to know if there was something personal.
In a moment: ‘It is not important.’ Her voice was like ice suddenly. ‘But you know that others have tried, and not succeed. It is because no one can kill Shoda with a gun, or a way like that. You make the right way, I think. You know how to do this thing, by knowledge of woman.’
I didn’t ask her, but was Shoda a woman? The divine face, the slender body, yes, but what I’d seen in her eyes was the evil of Diabolus. And it was attracting me, and I knew it, and knew its dangers. This was going to end when one of us brought death to the other.
‘If we could meet, Sayako-san, you could tell me more about her.’
She hesitated so long that I began listening for background sounds, other voices, the turning of a tape. ‘No, we cannot meet. It is too dangerous for me. I will help you as much as I can, by telephone.’
That could be true. Anyone informing on Mariko Shoda was in deadly peril.
&n
bsp; ‘All right,’ I said.
‘I will need to know where to telephone to you, when you will leave your hotel.’
I was going to ground now as soon as I could but it wouldn’t be to any kind of safe-house because I didn’t know of one, and in any case you don’t give away the phone-number of your safe-house even to someone who’s just saved your life. But a temporary number would work.
‘How do I contact you?’ I asked her.
‘Write your new number down and place into an envelope with name Sayako on. Deposit in night safe at Bank of Singapore, in Empress Place.’ She added quietly, ‘I will call.’
She knew some of the rules. ‘I’ll do that,’ I told her.
‘Very well. Now please listen to me, Mr. Jordan. Manif Kishnar is to leave Bangkok by air, at some time on day after tomorrow, which is Thursday. I will find out his movements for you, and tell you what I can. But please believe me that you must do everything possible to protect your life. This man succeed to kill always. Always.’ Noted.
CHAPTER 13
ZABAGLIONE
Bolognaise. ‘Too much garlic?” ‘Not for me. It’s excellent.’
‘I didn’t think you’d come.’
‘Why not?’
She spilled some spaghetti from her fork. ‘God, I’ve always been a messy eater. Because you put me through the third degree the other day at the embassy.’
‘That day I wouldn’t have trusted my own mother.’
Day of the plane crash.
‘Yes, I understand that now, but it took a bit of time. I was furious when I left there.’
‘Then it didn’t show.’
‘That’s not bad, for me. Have you still got a mother?’
‘What? Oh. No.’
‘Father?’
‘No.’
‘I thought not.’ She gave me her level stare, her blue-grey eyes narrowing as they focused. ‘You come across like an orphan.’
What can you say to a thing like that?
The shutters were still open to the last of the daylight; if I asked her to close them now it’d be too early. She was looking particularly sensual this evening, not exactly looking but behaving, with slight body movements, bringing her thin shoulders forward in that now-familiar way, her head tilting in brief gestures as she left things unsaid, her hand brushing the air when she couldn’t find the word she wanted. Sensual because intimate, knowing I trusted her again.
