by Adam Hall
‘We’ll know a bit more tomorrow.’
His mouth quivered silently, blocked by a rush of too many words. He was really very cross with me. He finally managed to speak. ‘I wish I had your limited view, Quiller.’
‘My view’s limited by crossed hairs in a circle. Someone’s got to concentrate on that. You look after the consequences while I pop the weasel. Then there won’t be any.’
’How much,’ he asked me as if I’d never spoken, ‘do you think Kuo will be paid? If he succeeds?’
‘He doesn’t work that way. The cost of a dead body is a few bob and the cost of a bullet is a few pence. It’s the set-up that’s expensive and the fee’s already in his pocket. I’d put it at five hundred thousand pounds.’
Loman nodded. ‘Who can afford a sum like that? Only a government. That’s why I can’t ignore the question of consequences.’
I turned away from him. He could stay awake all night if he wanted to. I had to be fresh for the job.
‘Worry it,’ I said, turning again and watching him from a little distance. ‘Worry it out. I’ve got my limited view. All I need to know is that the consequences of crooking the index finger are a hole in a skull.’
He didn’t answer. I shall always remember him standing there among the colored kites, fearful and bright of eye, wondering what he’d got into and wondering how to get out. It was easier for me and my terms were simpler. A dog hungered for dog.
‘Goodnight, Loman.’
It was the last time I saw him before the kill.
Chapter 12
The Set-Up
One of the vital duties of an intelligence officer is to see that the agent he is directing in the field is left unworried by every aspect of the mission that does not directly concern him.
Thus Loman had angered me because he had broken this rule and tried to saddle me with considerations of the consequences. But I knew that subconsciously he was rationalizing and that the real basis of his fear was more personal, more intimate and more closely concerned with my precise operation than any general thoughts on wide scale repercussions. He was worried because:
I had to kill.
I might fail to kill.
I might kill for nothing.
And whichever way it went he was going to lose: because one of those things was going to happen.
That was why he had immediately refused to sanction my proposed operation when I put it to him in our room in Soi Suek 3, and why I had to work on him so hard to make him finally agree. He knew at the outset that one of those three things was going to happen and his real struggle had been to decide whether it was worth it.
I don’t think he ever reached a conclusion. He reached a decision - to sanction my proposal - but he was never certain how much it would be worth letting me do what I wanted. He brought me to the day of the 29th in the hope - and nothing more than the hope -that we would be proved right in allowing the mission to swerve into this new and very dangerous direction.
That was why he had talked about consequences, the last time I saw him before the action. But I think he meant the consequences to us, not to the broad Southeast Asian scene.
My proposal could not have been more simple. It comprised seven factors with two corollaries.
1)Although there was a threat to assassinate a British subject the responsibility for his protection rested with the Thai Government.
2)Those few British groups who were able to set up collateral protection (whether officially recognized in that role by the Thai Government or not) were the Special Branch protection officers, Security, Mil. 6 and fringe departments at the British Embassy, Bangkok. And they would work on their own according to the long-established tradition of inter-Services rivalry.
3)Loman and I could not - even through our Bureau in London - convince either the Thai Security forces (Colonel Ramin) or the British groups, of the danger to be expected from Kuo, because it would imply lack of efficiency on their part. Further, we did not exist; therefore it would be similar to an unknown herbalist seeking to advise a panel of Harley Street surgeons.
4) For the same reasons - that the Bureau does not exist - we could do nothing officially. We could not warn, advise or call upon anyone at all, anywhere.
5)Supposing for a moment that we could warn Colonel Ramin of the danger expected from Kuo, he might feel disposed to hunt him and arrest him on suspicion. But from my intimate knowledge of Kuo, gained during many days of observation and conclusions, it would then be left to one or more of his cell to proceed with their plans for the assassination - and Colonel Ramin would not even concern himself, since the chief danger would seem to have been eliminated by
Kuo’s arrest.
6)Therefore, we had no hope of invoking Colonel Ramin’s cooperation to any useful effect. It was pointless to insist that he take action against Kuo because if he took action the danger would remain.
7)It was to be hoped that the Thai Home Office departments - Security, CID and Metropolitan Police - plus the small British groups offering collateral protection, would succeed in stopping an assassination attempt. But if they failed we would try to prevent it by a last-ditch action.
The two corollaries were:
1) Loman’s ability to sanction homicide was by virtue of the fact that the Bureau does not exist. Discipline within its own walls is uncompromising, but it is not officially responsible to any department or minister. It can operate only on the understanding that it fills a gap in the intelligence complex, that it takes no action without the most serious pre-thinking, and that if an action falls outside the dictates of national and international law, it will guarantee to face the consequences in the event of exposure and will involve no one else. There are many reasons why the existence of the Bureau is officially denied, but the most important reason is that it sometimes resorts to illegal methods for the sake of expediency. These include homicide.
2) Given that Loman, as my intelligence director, was able to consider sanctioning an act of homicide, it could not take the form of random murder. On the principle that we suspected Kuo to have arrived in Bangkok for the purpose of assassination, I could have killed him out of hand before now. Up to the time of his going to ground there had been many opportunities. But Loman had rightly made the proviso that if we were to kill a man we must kill him in the very act of attempting the thing we had to prevent. Otherwise we would never be sure of our moral right to do it. There was only one time, then, and one place where he should be killed: at what I had now come to think of as the ‘rendezvous’ - a word expressing both a time and a place. (There was another reason why we could not kill Kuo at any time prior to the 29th, It would have been as useless as Colonel Ramin’s arresting him: the danger from the Kuo cell would remain. For the record, this was not our chief reason for holding fire. The Bureau follows the tenets of jungle justice.)
Summarizing: My proposal to Loman was that if all else failed and it was up to us to stop an assassination, we must let Kuo plan his set-up and perfect it, so that once his finger was on the trigger there would be no time for him to put a reserve plan into operation. It was feasible that he could post a guard inside the doorway of the temple, so that even if Colonel Ramin decided to search the place and arrest Kuo at the fifty-ninth minute, as the motorcade entered the Link Road, the guard could make a prearranged signal to a reserve marksman in the area who was briefed to shoot in those circumstances. That would be a professional set-up, and Kuo was a professional.
Regardless of whatever action both the Thai and British protection groups would take, there was only one method that was a hundred per cent certain: to shoot first, and at the last minute. In three major waves of arrests the police had neutralized upward of two hundred known agitators, subversive elements, and Communist agents as part of their ‘drive against crime.’ Today, on the morning of the 29th, a thousand police were combing five thousand unoccupied rooms along the motorcade route. Uncountable bouquets of flowers would be examined for hidden bombs. But the only
certainty lay in an overkill.
Loman was worried, because in sanctioning my proposal he was going to let one of three things happen. If I killed Kuo it would be a premeditated act, and if I were caught and put on trial I would have to involve others in my defense, however indirectly, in order to plead justifiable homicide, and the Bureau would be seen suddenly to exist - and in the moment of its existence it would be blown apart. If I failed to kill, because of the heat haze or sweat on my finger, or a fault in the mechanism of the gun, the Person would suffer public execution. If I killed for nothing - that is, if Kuo had arranged for a reserve marksman to take over regardless of what happened to Kuo himself-the Person would still be shot dead.
Loman had angered me by voicing his fears, even though they were not his true fears. He had angered me, not by breaking a rule strictly enforced on intelligence directors in the Bureau, but by reminding me of my own fears, the ones that were with me now as I crouched in the small high room of the condemned building, the Husqvarna across my knees.
Let him be damned for that.
For me the day passed slowly through three stages.
During the first few hours of the morning the Link Road below my window looked fairly normal, the only difference being that it was a national holiday and the pavements were filled with strollers.
At eleven o’clock I heard the news on my transistor. The main item was that Prince Udom had passed a comfortable night but was expected to be confined to his bed for several days. His place beside the distinguished visitor was to be taken by H.R.H. Prince Rajadhon, who was on leave from his studies at Basel University in order to participate in the Palace receptions.
The news contained an announcement of the definite itinerary of the motorcade. (Pangsapa’s information to Loman was perfectly correct.) It was the first time the exact route had been made public, and within half an hour the strollers on the pavement below the condemned building had grown thicker, and the police began setting up guard ropes on each side of the road. Motorcycle patrols were now slowing the traffic because of danger to the crowds.
Halfway between the condemned building and the temple the Link Road curved at a boomerang angle of some 150° and the people pressed more thickly at that point because it offered a better view.
The street looked pretty: flags, flowers, bunting, women in silk. Soon after two o’clock the traffic was diverted along Rama IV and the Link Road was quiet except for the voices of the crowd. A chapter of Brahman priests made a patch of bright yellow among the other colors. The sun was hot and parasols opened like big flowers; soft-drinks men worked their way through. Small children were delighted as their fathers lifted them to let them look. The police moved systematically, taking the bouquets from some of the women and weighing them briefly, handing them back.
First-aid men of the Thai Red Cross had posted themselves at intervals along the guard ropes.
I heard a door open below me in the building. I had been listening for it and went along to the elevator. Their voices were amplified by the central well of the staircase and other doors banged as they began searching the second floor. I went into the elevator. There was no electric power in the place; it had been cut off when the building was marked down for demolition; but I had tested the manual emergency handle the day before and now I turned it, winding the elevator down to the blank walls between the fifth and sixth floors. All my gear was with me, leaving the room bare for the inspection. Cheap carpet, sleeping bag, tripod and camera, field glasses and gun. It looked like a second-hand store.
I waited. Their footsteps echoed sharply on the stairs. They opened every door, calling to one another. They were part of the army of a thousand police who were searching five thousand uninhabited rooms in buildings along the route.
Colonel Ramin was being very thorough. The blanket operation of a full-scale search is typical police routine and in most cases it is of value. Even on this day it had a certain advantage: the Colonel would be able to claim, later, that his men had searched every room.
They reached the top floor. I stood watching one of the elevator cables which was frayed: two strands had parted, the ends curling; in the bottom of each curl was a crescent of dust and plaster congealed by the damp that had leaked through the roof. The cable would never be repaired now.
They were taking their time. The heat was stifling but it was a stray thought that made the sweat spring: would the emergency handle still work all right when they had gone? How much would the Southeast Asian complex of warbrink policies be affected by one man getting stuck in an elevator?
They were checking every room. My watch said 3:15 and Loman would be calling again in ten minutes if the schedule were running to time. I felt for the on-off switch of the two-way radio again to make sure Loman’s voice couldn’t come through. That was bad: you shouldn’t have to check things more than once, at a time when the nerves ought to be at their optimum pitch, about two-thirds up the scale.
In the heat I could smell the oil on the mechanism of the gun. A sound came and one of them opened the metal doors above me on the sixth floor to see if anyone were on the top of the elevator. They didn’t see anyone so they shut the gates. Thoroughness is an admirable quality. I had been thorough too: there was a main emergency handle in the elevator well at ground level for winding it up and down, and yesterday I had taken the grub screw out.
The first of them began going back to the stairs and when the rest followed I looked at my watch again. We were running it close for Loman’s next call. The main exit doors were slamming shut and I waited another minute and then grasped the handle, overcoming the half second of irrational fear that it wouldn’t work, and wound the elevator back to the top floor.
A lot of the stuff could stay where it was; all I needed was the carpet, the tripod and the gun. The Jupiters gave x8 magnification and the Balvar scope was only x5, but since first light this morning I had stopped using the field glasses so that I could get used to the scope. It was the scope that would give me my last sight of him.
The second stage of the day now began. The police had made their search and the main doors below had been shut. Yesterday I had made a hole in the plaster above the door of my room with a rusty nail and now I hung up the cheap carpet. This was sufficient. The sound of the report would be trapped before it reached the ground floor inside the building; the main doors would provide additional silencing. Most of the sound would remain trapped in the room itself because the Husqvarna would be mounted far back from the window. The residual sound would be diffused in the open air, impossible to place because of the height of the window from the street.
The second stage of the day was easier than the first. There had been a lot of last-minute doubts to cope with mentally and they had been worrying until I caught the first sign of movement in the middle oriel of the Phra Chula Chedi. With the Husqvarna resting on the camera tripod I took three sightings within half an hour. The details of his face were blurred by the heat haze, but every time he stopped moving I found I could keep the point of the crosshairs within the target area: the face and head. When the time came he would be perfectly still, in the same attitude as I.
The most worrying doubt was now eliminated: the rendezvous would be kept.
Loman had called me up for the first time at one o’clock. From that moment the whole mission suddenly became real for me and I understood the measure of the thing he had taken on. Last night in the kite warehouse I hadn’t grasped it. All he said on the radio was:
‘He has arrived at the Palace.’
Until that moment the Bureau’s 9th Directive hadn’t been much more than a theoretical exercise, a practice operation, interesting but without substance. The Person was very much a part of his official background, a public figure pursuing his onerous affairs for the public good, essentially a Londoner, his image inseparable from the image of tall gates and monuments, Westminster and the Mall. London was a far cry from this city of golden towers where the petals of magnolia fell to the monso
on wind, but suddenly he was here among us and the theory and practice took on substance and the mission was thrust into our hands, cold, hard and uncompromising as a cocked gun.
Chapter 13
Overkill
Isolated in the small high room of the condemned building I was kept in touch with events by the transistor and two-way radio. A general report was now in from Loman and it added a few details to the public announcements. It was as follows.
The arrival of the Person at Don Muang Airport was without incident. He looked very fit and said he was delighted to see the sunshine. There was great enthusiasm from a large crowd. The police were present in strength. It was confirmed that Forsythe and Johns of the Special Branch were accompanying the Person. Prince Rajadhon was among the official welcoming party and it was therefore certain that he would take his place beside his distinguished guest in the public procession. Details of this had now been made official: the motorcade would be led by ten motorcycle outriders of the Bangkok Metropolitan Police. Traveling in the Royal car would be the Person, Prince Rajadhon, the British Ambassador, the First Counselor of the British Embassy, and two bodyguards of the King’s Household. The second and third cars would contain ministers, equerries and security men. The central section of the motorcade would be flanked by twelve outriders and there would be a rear guard of fifteen motorcycle police. All officers would be armed.
Some time before my building was entered and searched there had been a further signal from Loman and for the first time there was the suggestion of nerves in his voice.
‘The motorcade has just left the Palace and is now heading north toward Rajdamnoen Central Avenue.’
It was from that point that the worst of the waiting began. It was broken up by the police search of the building, but once I had gone back to my room and fixed the carpet over the door there was nothing else to do.
When I switched on the two-way radio again it was apparent that Loman had been trying to signal.
