by Adam Hall
I wanted to look at things so I walked a little way from the car. It was very quiet. There were upward of a hundred armed troops standing at readiness here in the half dark; there would be as many on the other side; but it was quiet. A man coughed, a light flicked on and went out, metal made a ringing sound instantly silenced, and the quiet remained. It was the battlefield hush of the hour that comes before the attack.
In the stillness I could hear the mosquitoes whining in the glare of the lamps above my head. Beyond the lamps the sky was black, but in the east a crack of light showed. My watch said six.
Loman had not let me down. Walking was painful; it meant he hadn’t allowed the doctor to dope me even with one aspirin. My head felt clear, with the super-awareness that comes from not eating. I was unhopeful; Loman’s estimation of the odds seemed about right.
The new day came into the sky quickly and a car was started up at the far end of the bridge and there were, commands.
I went back to the military convoy and got into the camouflaged saloon where the guards had Kuo. The dawn light showed his face to be pale. He watched me steadily. I ordered the guards out of the car. Only a few of us knew what was going to happen: Loman, the Charge d’Affaires, the two Mil. 6 people. It was going to be tricky and we didn’t want anyone else to know, especially the soldiers. One man, unnerved, might fire by accident and entrain wholesale bloodshed.
I had to bring the Person safely across to us without a shot. And send Lee back to England.
‘Kuo,’ I said carefully, ‘you understand English perfectly, I think?’
‘Yes.’ His fear was revealed even in that one word: it came out on a breath. His fear was all I gambled on - his fear of dying. That was why I had not killed him in the rice-field. No weapon is so powerful as fear in the enemy.
Then answer my questions. Was the proposal made direct to you from Peking? The proposal to abduct the English dignitary?’
‘Yes.’ There was no hesitation. He was in my hand.
‘What precise powers were you given over the military - Chinese and Vietcong - to help you mount the operation?’
‘I do not quite understand.’
He watched me the whole time in the growing light that came into the car. We sat so close that I could hear his breathing, and feel his fear.
‘For instance, you engineered the assault on the Nontaburi roadblock by signaling Peking from our Embassy. Is that right?’
‘Yes. I was able to do that because Peking offered me facilities before I crossed into Thailand. I did not use them before the assault operation.’
‘And have you papers giving you any kind of temporary authority over the military in general?’
He produced two guard passes and a special letter countersigned by the Commander-in-Chief of the Vietcong forces in Laos. I read this slowly, asking him for a translation of the words I didn’t understand. The letter gave him access to the operational chiefs-of-staff of whatever area in which he found himself, and power to request armed assistance in strength according to the situation. It looked official and was obviously genuine but I didn’t like its vagueness. I gave it back to him with the two passes.
‘It should suffice.’ I had to encourage him; it wasn’t the time for doubts. ‘Now listen to me carefully. You will have to make a choice. One alternative is that you are taken back to face your trial in Bangkok. You are certain to be convicted and executed. Perhaps you know the method of execution in this country. The religion is Buddhism, which is against the taking of life. The condemned man is therefore put behind a sheet of fabric on which a target is painted. The squad fires at the target, not at the man. But you will die just the same, and it seems a fitting death for a marksman.’
I watched his eyes and I was satisfied. The other alternative is that you walk to the middle of that bridge out there and make it understood to the Chinese officer, in charge of the exchange that you are replacing the agent Lee. You are the candidate to be exchanged for the English dignitary.’
There were engines being started up outside the guardpost. A party of soldiers went past the windows of the car. The lamps across the bridge had gone out and it was full daylight.
Kuo said on a breath: ‘They will not agree.’
I turned back to face him. That is up to you. You can use your papers. Tell them you have received instructions from Peking at the last moment. Or tell them that you have spoken to Huang Hsiung Lee and that he wishes to return to England because he is about to gain certain information far more vital than the information he has now. Tell them that his memory is not sufficient to retain so many technicalities and that he has a chance of acquiring essential documentation from sources with a contact inside the prison. He urges you that if he is exchanged, it will cost the Republic of China the loss of scientific data that he could otherwise obtain, given a few more months in England.’
I paused so that he could think, but he said almost at once: ‘I could not convince them.’
I leaned nearer him and spoke quickly.
‘Tell them what you like - lie, bluff, throw your weight about, threaten them in the name of the Commander-in-Chief of the Vietcong forces, General Kweiling, who has countersigned your written authority and will punish those who disobey. Use any means you can.’ I paused again to give him time. ‘The alternative is execution in Bangkok.’
He said nothing. His eyes were blank. Only the quickened breathing told me that he was hooked. And I knew what was in his mind.
I said to him: There is a white line painted on the roadway in the middle of the bridge. It is for the purpose of the exchange. You are to walk as far as that line. Then stop. The other side of that line is your freedom. This side you will die. The other side you will live. You may cross that line only if the Englishman is allowed to come over to us unharmed.’
A klaxon sounded. A Jeep drove past. The first rays of the sun touched the wall of the guardpost.
‘Yes,’ Kuo said, nodding quickly. ‘Yes. 1 will try to do this.’ He breathed as if he had been running.
I got out of the car at once. The police officer was waiting for me and I took the Husqvarna from him. When they brought Kuo out I let him watch as I put a full magazine into the chamber and flicked the bolt and set the catch to ‘fire.’
‘Kuo,’ I said. ‘The people of Bangkok are in mourning for those you murdered. Your execution would ease their grief, since it would avenge the dead. I was given permission to bring you here, and it is unthinkable that I should allow you to escape across the line if you fail to bring about the exchange. If they insist on our sending the agent Lee, you will be brought back and will return to Bangkok.’
He could not look away from the Husqvarna. Better than most men he recognized its terrible power.
‘And if you make any unexpected movement, if you. run for cover, if you cross that line before you see the signal I shall give you, I shall shoot you dead.’
His head swung up at last and he looked into my eyes and saw in them what I knew was there: my readiness to kill.
The klaxon sounded again from the far end of the bridge. I could hear someone talking on the telephone in the guardspot. Loman was coming across to me.
Kuo said to me in slow, strained accents, ‘What signal will you give?’
‘I will lower the gun
They took him away.
Loman spoke to me before I followed the others.
‘Does he agree to make the attempt?’
‘He wants to live, doesn’t he?’
I had taken up my position halfway from the guardpost to the middle of the bridge. There was a low plinth and I had pulled myself up to stand on it, using one of the iron stanchions as a support for the Husqvarna. The effort of climbing had opened the left shoulder wound and the pain burned there. It wouldn’t affect my aim.
Our party had been given orders to keep at a short distance from Kuo so that I would have an unobstructed line of fire. When he reached the white line he looked back once, and it was then that I pu
t my eye to the telescopic lens. The range was close and he was looking straight into the gun. Then he turned and began speaking to the Chinese commander of the exchange party.
Several military vehicles had driven to the middle of the bridge from each end, making a U-turn and lining up facing the way they had come. A few minutes ago some civilians had got out of the leading car and I saw the Person among them. He was bare-headed and wore no topcoat. He took the few paces to the white line with an easy deliberation, his hands clasped behind him.
With my finger clear of the trigger I swung the gun and sighted on him. Strain showed on his face. If he had slept during the past three nights it would have been with the help of the sedation. The memory of the incident in the Link Road was fresh in his mind, together with an anguish more personal: his family did not know, at this moment, whether he still lived.
His self-command was perfect, and I had never thought I would witness such a thing as this: a prisoner, in the midst of his alien captors, was impeccably performing the highest duty of ambassadorship, which is to inspire respect for the country he represents.
I could no longer see him. The Bausch and Lomb Balvar 5 was centered again on the figure of the Mongolian and my finger was hooked at the trigger. Kuo was still speaking to the officer, showing him his papers, slapping them with his spread hand, his squat body jerking as he insisted on his authority.
His feet did not move. He stood within inches of the white line. The officer moved about, conferring with a civilian, coming back to face Kuo. But Kuo did not move. One pace would take him across this miniature frontier and into the protection of armed men of his own race, but he knew that the range was less than sixty yards and that the crosshairs were focused on the center of his back.
The stillness had come into the morning again. The groups of the exchange party on each side of the line stood motionless, watching. Behind them at each end of the bridge the military were drawn up, their rifles at the alert.
I began to sweat. The big Husqvarna grew heavy at the butt. The crosshairs moved by a centimeter across the target and I moved them back. I was losing the sensation of time.
A hundred to one against, Loman had said. The odds looked longer now. Kuo was still talking; I could hear his shrill voice and some of the words. They were to the effect that a soldier of the Chinese Republic was not expected to concern himself with the high and secret affairs of state but to obey orders. Any breach of this sacred duty would be signaled at once to his commander-in-chief.
The officer replied briefly and then I saw Kuo’s hand flash in the air and strike him across the face.
There was a shout and a rattle of rifle-bolts from the military escort.
The scene froze into stillness, silence.
My pulse began hammering. This was what Loman had meant when he said there was a risk. Two hundred armed men faced each other across the bridge and between them stood the Person.
My left eyelid began flickering and I cursed the weakness in the nerves. The big gun was very heavy now and the crosshairs were shifting again across the spine of the man in the lens. Sweat was doming out onto my hand, onto the trigger finger.
The officer had turned away and the civilian was talking to Kuo. His accent was clear but strange to me; he was saying something about responsibility. Kuo nodded vehemently. The civilian turned to the second-in-command of the military escort and spoke to him and got a punctilious salute.
A shouted order echoed among the girders of the bridge. The escort presented arms. The civilian spoke across the line to the British Charge d’Affaires. A word was addressed to the Person.
Then suddenly Kuo swung around and looked straight into the lens. The crosshairs dipped and wavered but I kept them inside the target area. I could see nothing outside the frame of the lens but there was a lot of quiet movement going on now; people walking, the slam of a car door, engines starting up.
I kept the aim on the Mongolian. It wasn’t over yet and I didn’t trust him. My finger was growing cramped on the trigger and the left eyelid was worse and I couldn’t stop the flickering. I had never known a gun to be so heavy.
A car drove past toward our end of the bridge and another followed. The tramp of a squad on the march. The sharpness of exhaust gas in the air.
Kuo stood motionless, staring into the lens.
Footsteps neared me and I heard Loman call:
‘It’s all right, Quiller. We’ve got him.’
I lowered the gun. On the way to the guardpost where everyone was gathered I took out the magazine and threw it over the bridge.
THE END
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
