Quiller Salamander q-18

by Adam Hall

  A cricket was singing somewhere outside the building, and as I waited, listening to the footsteps, I saw a flickering against the wall over there in the gloom as a salamander came in through the open window, tracing a shadow across the plaster.

  There was no mirror in the room. The man out there wouldn't know where I was — wouldn't know there was anyone here at all — until he came right through the doorway, and by that time I would see his hand with the gun in it, if he had one with him, and that was all I would need, this close, say three feet from my sword-hand to his wrist.

  The footsteps weren't slowing, but he wasn't yet within five or six doors of this one, wouldn't have noticed from that distance and in the wan flickering light out there that this one was open.

  He might of course make a dramatic Drug Enforcement Agency entrance, hitting the door wide open and going into the shooting stance and yelling freeze. If he did that I'd have to move, and very fast; it could even be a little dangerous if he began sweeping the gun from this angle, be a matter of half a second to work in, all I'd get.

  Hadn't slowed, they hadn't slowed, the footsteps. And it's sometimes like this in the course of a given mission, where the whole outcome, success or failure, the executive's life or death, depends on something quite trivial: whether the opposition's vehicle is closing in at three kph or four at a max of ninety, whether the drop from a roof is too high to use without critical injury, whether the footsteps along a corridor in the heat of the night are slowing, or simply coming on at a steady pace.

  Signal: The night hasn't gone well, but for what it's worth I've taken a prisoner. There'd be one of his bloody silences on the line. They think you don't feel anything, the directors in the field, when things go wrong.

  If this was Slavsky coming it wouldn't be Gabrielle's fault; she had what the recruiting desk at the Bureau calls 'espion-like qualities,' an eye for shadows, reflections, artifice in a man's walk; an ear for echoes, footsteps, deception in a man's tone. Nothing of this was manifest in her; I simply recognized it as a mirror image — or I could never have asked her to help me with Slavsky.

  Now they were slowing, the footsteps, as the man out there reached the door of his room, or noticed the door of this one, half open.

  Slowing.

  I relaxed my legs, let my right arm hang loose, shook the tension out of the fingers like shaking water off, watched the floor where his shadow would come when he reached the doorway, breathed deeply, slowly, let the nerves receive the automatic signals from the brain — that in a little while, perhaps in fifteen seconds, ten, the organism might be required to undertake action at maximum speed and with maximum force — let the understanding build in the autonomic nervous system that copious quantities of adrenalin might be needed at an instant's notice to fire the muscles, waiting, I was waiting now through the final count-down until suddenly the man was standing in the doorway, his shadow reaching across the floor.

  I listened to his breathing.

  'Tae mien nehna tii non te?'

  Then the shadow of his arm moved, lifting, and I felt the rush of adrenalin come surging through the system as the mind took a millisecond to rehearse the action of the sword-hand swinging up, power-driven from the heel through the hip, the shoulder, the entire organism now taut as a drawn bow as the hand of the man moved to the door and he closed it and went on his way along the passage, a janitor, security guard, someone like that, finding a door open and closing it, a trivial function of his duties done.

  It took me less than ten minutes more to find what I hoped I would find, and as I stood looking at it in the beam of the flashlight with the unused adrenalin still shaking the muscles and souring the mouth, I saw that here, yes, I had the specific information Pringle had asked me for at our first meeting at the airport in Phnom Penh: the objective for Salamander.

  16: SHADOW

  There was a smell of pigs in here.

  'I was able,' Pringle said, 'to get through to London almost immediately after you telephoned.'

  Presumably because traffic through the Australian satellite was less heavy at night. I'd phoned him from the hotel with the information as soon as I'd left Room 27, according to the book: the executive is to debrief anything of importance as soon as he can in case he's got at, and can't. I'd simply given him the position marked on the map I'd found in Slavsky's room: 12°3′N x 103°10′E. The rest wasn't major.

  'What did Flockhart say?' I asked Pringle.

  'That he would take immediate action.'

  'What action?'

  Pringle gave a slight shrug. 'I really can't say.'

  'But do you know?'

  I was feeling sour, which is typical in this bloody trade when you've brought home the product and dropped it proudly on the doormat like a freshly-killed rat; there's a sense of let-down, especially when things have been easy, and tonight's work had been so easy it worried me. You wonder if you've missed something, some little thing that's going to come back at you like a whiplash. Paranoia, yes, but tonight the adrenalin was still in the bloodstream and there was no kind of physical action I could take to disperse it — you try jogging athletically through the streets of Pouthisat, Cambodia, at ten o'clock at night and you'll be shot on sight by some zealous lad in the police or the army on the safe assumption that you've either stolen a watch or set a land-mine somewhere.

  'No,' Pringle said evenly, 'I don't actually know what kind of action Control is going to take. He keeps me less informed than some might suppose, as a matter of principle.'

  What he was telling me was that I was forgetting that the director in the field is also at risk during a given operation, and that the less information he has in his head the less the opposition can get out of it when they start work with the burning bamboo sticks under the nails and so on. I hadn't forgotten; I just thought our smooth Mr Pringle knew more than he was ready to tell me. That was all right, provided he'd got good reason, but I didn't know what it was.

  I let it go. 'What's that awful smell of pigs in here?'

  'I really can't say.'

  His favourite answer to whatever you asked him, you put the penny in and out it came. It was stifling in this place; the power station was on overload again so the ceiling fan wasn't working, and all we had for light was a kerosene lamp. Pringle had told me the building belonged to a volunteer mine-clearing unit; he knew them and had asked for the key, and this was also from the book — the executive and his director in the field never use the same rendezvous location twice unless it's considered secure. This place wasn't much more than a big shed, with mine detectors stacked against the wall and pairs of huge padded protective boots as big as snow shoes lined up on the concrete floor. Someone had started everything off with a flair for record-keeping when they'd set up shop: there was a map of the town on the wall with big red blotches on it and a sprinkling of little green dots; it looked as if they'd made a red dot every time a mine had exploded, and there'd been so many that the dots had become blotches, mostly around schools, bus depots, temples, where the most feet could be expected to pass. The green dots presumably marked the places where mines had been detected and brought here for defusing, but there weren't enough to become blotches yet.

  Pictures on the wall, one of the queen, two of Charles playing polo, no Di anywhere. Photograph of three men and a woman, all smiling happily, black crosses above their heads, one of the men holding a small pig — that explained it — some words scrawled underneath the photograph with ornate serifs and curlicues to give them solemnity, They Did Their Job. A picture of the pig on its own with a red ribbon round its neck, caption, Little Stinker. A picture of a Cambodian girl, eleven or twelve, crutches, radiant smile, two men holding her in a bear hug, huge fatherly grins. On the wall opposite the cluttered desk was a dartboard with Pol Pot's face crudely painted on it.

  'How do we know for certain,' I heard Pringle's cautious tones, 'that the position on the map in Slavsky's room indicates the main guerrilla base of the Khmer Rouge?' He was looking at
the topographical map he'd brought with him.

  'We don't.'

  Bastard didn't like the look of my freshly-killed rat.

  'How certain,' he asked, 'are you?'

  'Put it this way. We think Pol Pot is ready to launch a new offensive, possibly on the nineteenth of this month. The only way he can do it is by remote control, because the Cambodian army is virtually on stand-by to counter any land operation. So we're talking about missiles.' The ceiling fan began turning again but the lights didn't come on: Pringle hadn't thrown the switch when we'd come in because the lamp was all we needed. 'Then I see Boris Slavsky, a known arms dealer — according to your briefing — land in a Khmer Rouge aircraft and Colonel Choen leaving him with an attache case full of Swiss francs, and we assume it's in payment for the missiles — or if you like it better, I assume. I assume also that the map was left with Slavsky to indicate the exact location where delivery is to be made. That location is buried in deep jungle, according to your topo, and even though it's not far from the coast there's a mountain range in the way with absolutely no roads — not even tracks — where any kind of transport can be used. If — '

  'You studied the map thoroughly?'

  Best left ignored. 'The nearest airfield,' I said, 'is at Phumi Tuol Koki on the coast, and the only access by sea is through a fishing village.' Pringle was leaning over his topo, following me. I didn't look at it, kept my eyes on the fly-encrusted ceiling fan, wanting him to know just how thoroughly I can look at a map when I'm searching someone's room for information. 'There's a minor road fifteen kilometres from the marked position, but fifteen kilometres of jungle is like fifty kilometres of open terrain, in terms of accessibility. So if the mark on Slavsky's map doesn't show the exact location of the main Khmer Rouge base, I can't think what else it could mean.'

  I waited.

  Pringle let a few seconds go by, possibly to show he'd noticed I'd ignored his question about my having studied the map, and was not pleased. That was a shame, because if he asked me another stupid question I was going to walk out of here — what precisely did he mean, had I studied the map? Did he think I was — steady now, yes, it's just the adrenalin talking, no need to go overboard.

  'I think I agree with your assumption,' Pringle said, 'that we now know the exact whereabouts of Pol Pot. I'm just not sure that London will be convinced.'

  Something tried to alert me when he said that, but I couldn't pin it down. He'd said Pol Pot, not the Khmer Rouge base. Was there a difference? I let it go.

  'It's up to London,' I said.

  'Of course. It's up to Mr Flockhart.' He went on staring at the map, then after a while folded it and turned his cool grey eyes on me, and I thought again how young he looked for this job, for running an executive through a field where the opposition was an army twelve thousand strong.

  Was Pringle the only man Flockhart had been able to find for this one? The only DIF prepared to run the executive through the mission unknown to the signals room, unknown even to the Bureau itself? Or had Pringle been like me a week ago, prowling the corridors of that bloody building in Whitehall desperate for a job?

  'You've no idea,' I heard him saying, 'how the assumed missiles will be delivered?'

  'By air.'

  'You discovered this?'

  'I didn't have to. The only — '

  'By the way,' he cut in, leaning forward slightly, his face earnest in the lamplight, 'I meant, of course, had you had time to study the map thoroughly.'

  It took a second for me to realize what he was talking about. 'Oh,' I said, 'of course.' But Christ, had it been simmering in his mind all this time, until he'd had to blurt it out so that I'd know he hadn't wanted to give offence? Had Flockhart briefed him to be this careful with me? Make quite sure you don't offend the executive — he's touchy and we can't afford to lose him. So what made them think I might drop this one cold at any given minute and take the next flight home?

  I could smell subterfuge again, acrid as brimstone, and when I got to the truth I would take, yes, the next plane to London.

  'The only way they can deliver the missiles,' I said, 'is by air. There's no need for them to risk interception at sea or on the ground, if somebody finds out what they're doing, as in point of fact we have. Slavsky's going to move a helicopter in to mow the trees at nought feet and leave the radar screens totally blank. Given something like an SA 321L with an 8,000-kilo payload he can ship in fifty or sixty high-explosive and incendiary short-range ground-to-ground missiles, more than the KR would need to blast Phnom Penh into a fireball.'

  Pringle leaned back, tilting his head and watching me along his nose. There was a shot from somewhere outside in the streets, and I saw his pupils expand a degree and contract again. 'You mean there's no way anyone can stop the delivery of missiles to Pol Pot?'

  'Only at the source, and even if you found it and blew it up, the KR would simply go to any one of a hundred other sources and start again.'

  In a moment Pringle tilted his head down again and said, 'We don't seem to have many options, do we?'

  'I told you, we'd need a battalion.'

  'Do you believe Pol Pot would actually turn Phnom Penh into a fireball?'

  'He likes to kill, and by the million. So I think that's what he'll do, yes, if the king ignores his ultimatum.'

  Shots came, a burst this time and more distantly, no return fire. I thought of Gabrielle.

  Pringle folded his topographic map, his pale hands deft with the creases. 'I need to know where you are,' he said without looking up.

  I told him. I didn't trust either him or Flockhart, but they wouldn't blow me to the opposition: I was working for them.

  'I'll signal Control again,' he said, 'on the debriefing. After he's taken whatever action seems indicated, he'll get back to me. At that time it's possible he'll want to speak to you personally, and I'll send a contact to fetch you. But it won't be at least until morning. Suppose, then' — looking up now — 'you make yourself available at your safe-house from nine o'clock onward?'

  'Will do.'

  'I'll be taking the call here in this office.' He stood up, tucking the map into his pocket.

  'Code designation for the contact?'

  He suggested one, and at the door I said, 'Perhaps you ought to put a peep on Slavsky, see if he goes anywhere interesting. But it'd have to be someone very good. If he sniffs any smoke he'll go to ground.'

  'There are two people in Phnom Penh I could use, if — '

  'No one local; we need a real pro.'

  'Symes is in Bangkok.'

  'If you want to fly him over, yes, he's first class.'

  'I'll do that.' He opened the door and waited for me to go out first, but I held back.

  'I need to make sure you're clear.'

  'Oh yes, of course.' As if he'd forgotten. He hadn't. It had just been another subtle gesture of deference to the executive they couldn't afford to lose, and I noted it, I noted it well.

  Someone was screaming in the distance, the sound shrilling in the heat of the night; perhaps there'd be another little red dot for the map tomorrow. I stood watching Pringle's thin figure receding as he walked away, his shadow trailing him and then moving ahead as he passed under a lamp, and the unnerving thought flashed into my mind that if he were suddenly attacked I might not feel inclined to save him.

  'I shot first, you see,' Gabrielle said.

  She watched me from the low bamboo couch, perched on her haunches, naked, her arms across her knees, her body lit and shadowed by the lamp, the wide bandage around her like a sash. I wondered if she always made love like that, so desperately, despite her wound, or whether it had been because she'd thought it might be for the last time, life in this place being so cheap. I'd come to the mission to thank her for helping me with Slavsky, that was all, but she'd asked me to stay.

  I pressed the plunger of the big plastic water dispenser and poured her a glass of Kristal Kleer from Michigan, Illinois.

  'Then he shot back?' I asked her.
>
  'Yes. Then it was my turn again.' She took the water and drank, her face silvered with moisture, her lashes casting shadows on her ivory cheekbones, the surface of the water sending reflections flashing softly across her forehead and the wall behind. She lowered the foam cup at last and I took it from her.

  'And you made a hit?'

  She nodded. 'Yes.'

  So those were the three shots I'd heard when I'd been debriefing to Pringle in the burned-out bus. 'How long have you been doing this?'

  She turned her head, watching the stars through the open window, faint in the heat haze. The moon had swung down towards the west by now: it had bathed us in its light as we'd made love, less gently than I'd wanted to because of her wound, but I'd been unable to calm her.

  'Oh,' she said, 'for quite a while. He was the seventh.'

  I drank some water and went back to the couch to be with her, and the bamboo creaked. God knew what Sister Hortense must have thought, earlier; she'd been the nun who'd let me into the mission, as Gabrielle had asked her to if I came by at whatever time.

  'Seven,' I said, 'isn't a bad score.' I realized now why she hadn't shown any particular emotion when she'd told me at the hospital that the man who had wounded her was dead.

  'That's a man's way of killing, isn't it? Keeping score, treating it like a game; I never thought I'd understand that. The thing is, I'm going to go on doing it until there aren't any left, or they kill me.'

  'How did it start?'

  'Oh, I happened to see one of them actually setting a mine, under the arched gate of a school — this was in Phnom Penh. I reported it to the nearest Mine Action unit, and started thinking. I knew where most of the mines were being set, so I bought a rifle in the black market and started hanging out at night near the schools and the temples and the other target points, anywhere with just enough light to see by. I called out quietly to the first one, and I think the second, I don't remember, so that he'd turn in my direction and see the gun and know he was going to die; then I stopped doing that — I wasn't killing these people out of vengeance, I didn't want to play God, I just wanted them dead, so they couldn't hurt any more children.' I watched a tear creeping on her cheek, jewelled in the light; she didn't lift a hand to wipe it away. 'When I was quite small,' she said softly, 'I started learning flower painting from a Japanese in my father's consulate, and it quite consumed me — I knew I'd never want to do anything else but paint flowers, all my life long.' She turned her head to look at me, smiling now. 'I'm thirsty again.'