by Adam Hall
'There you are,' Trotter said, 'nothing to worry about, rest up a bit, right as rain.' He looked around and brought a teakwood stool over and sat on it facing me. 'But tell me how you feel.'
Tone hearty, voice coming from a barrel. I'd noticed how strong he'd felt when he pulled me upright, formidably strong.
'I feel,' I said, 'like anyone else would feel when someone's drugged his fucking tea.'
I'd meant to follow them to their base so that I'd know where it was, but this place could be anywhere; there were a thousand temples like this one all over Lhasa.
Trotter said, 'Sorry about that, yes.' His tone had changed, dropping the false bonhomie. 'Time was of the essence, you understand. I needed you here.'
The coloured light was fading now; dusk would soon be down. I'd been out cold for five or six hours: we were running it terribly close. All I could hear were distant sounds, some dogs fighting, the chanting of monks, the rumble of a cart, prayer bells, no modern traffic, no trucks. This temple was on the outskirts of town.
'I see.' I tilted forward and got onto my feet, nearly fell but he caught me, used some kind of cologne. We stood like that for a bit, dancing in a sinister way, sinister because this man was so strong and even if I'd been in good condition I wasn't sure I could have reached his nerves before he threw me against the wall.
'Take it easy,' he said, and when he thought I could stand on my own he took his hands away. 'Doing rather well.'
Stray shred of incoming data: he wanted me on my feet, not sitting down anymore.
'Thank you,' I said. Jumping to conclusions could be misleading, possibly dangerous. He'd probably killed Bian, the monk, or had him killed, but that didn't make him a barbarian, in this trade. If I got a chance of playing him I might do well to play him like an English gentleman, in deep with some kind of spook faction; he didn't seem deranged but he could be neurotic, psychotic, a latter-day Philby, and he was certainly running a professional cell.
'Want to walk about?' he asked me.
'Yes.'
Took a few steps, felt the motor nerves stirring, the balance mechanism making frantic adjustments and then getting it right until I could walk from one wall to the other, looking at my watch when I turned, didn't want him to know how very important it was that I should get it all back, a clear head and usable muscles, reasonable strength, enough to overwhelm if I could be quick and get in there for the major paralysis strikes. Dr Chen wouldn't give me any trouble unless he had a gun under his robes and I didn't think so, he looked so very old, so very wise, could be perfectly genuine, a doctor turned monk or a monk turned doctor, his services available to anyone in need of them, to a man like Trotter, who would be generous, pay him well. But I didn't count on it; those people running China were old, too, and murderous.
A lot of thinking to do but I'd got one thing now: it didn't make any difference to Trotter whether I could walk from one wall to the other; he wanted my head clear, because he'd brought me here to talk, so we needed to get the circulation going again, get blood to the brain and the liver, deal with the lingering effects of the drug.
That was all right: I wanted my head clear too and it was no good making out I was still groggy, there wasn't time.
'The military,' I said, 'have they been here?'
'Yes. They searched the place late yesterday. They won't disturb us.'
I kept walking, throwing in the odd word or two when I was facing him because I had to see his reactions if he let any get through. 'Were you in Bombay?'
'Yes. I hate to seem uncivil, but I need answers from you, not the other way round.'
Facing him — 'Did you kill Sojourner?'
No reaction.
'Did you have that snake put in his bed?'
'Of course not. That was the work of a jealous lover.'
'But you got him out of hospital, sucked his brains dry, killed him, had him killed?'
With studied patience, 'As I have said, the questions are for me to ask, not for you. But first of all there are a few things you need to be told. It will help us both.' I heard Dr Chen moving behind me but not with any stealth: his sandals flapped. A spark came into each of Trotter's eyes as a lamp was lit. 'The operation I am running is precisely similar to yours, Mr Locke. My avowed intention is to get Dr Xingyu Baibing out of Lhasa and into Beijing, so that he can go in front of the cameras at eighteen hundred hours tomorrow. We-'
'You've got him here?'
'Yes. He's perfectly well, and we're giving him his injections as prescribed.'
'You killed the monk? Had him killed?'
I just wanted to know his style.
'It was an accident, I'm afraid. Those were not my instructions. There was a struggle.' He shrugged. 'These things happen when there is a great deal at stake, but believe me, I feel about him — he was nothing more than a holy man doing what he believed was right. Exercise a little, if you want to. Just a little — don't overdo it.'
I swung my arms, up on the toes and down again. When I'd looked at my watch a few minutes ago it had been 5:46. Eleven minutes, now, give or take forty-five seconds. I began worrying, because I wanted to know things from this man, everything I could, before we were interrupted. And I wanted my strength back, as much of it as possible.
'You also need to know,' Trotter said, 'that I have not only been keeping pace with your operation, but protecting it.'
Keeping pace since Bombay, since he'd had Sojourner worked over, since Bamboo had been blown, oh Jesus, long before we knew it, the shadow executive, his director in the field and London Control, let them put that on the signals board.
In the chill of this place with its marble and stone and hard surfaces I began feeling the outbreak of sweat. This English gentleman with his style and his manners was not only formidably strong, he was formidably intelligent. It had crossed my mind that he could have been sent to Bombay by some other branch of the Secret Service, but he hadn't used a word of the language, and that's always the dead giveaway.
I would have said he was from Beijing, not London.
'Protecting my operation," I asked him, 'in what way?'
'Oh, keeping a watching brief, that's all. I told Wang Su-May to look after you, and I got you away from the temple out there where you killed that KCCPC agent, got your head fixed up, offered you sanctuary, nothing major, but helpful, I hope you feel. Try a few knee bends, what do you say?'
'My head's clear enough now.'
'Oh, good. Well the crux of it is, Locke, that I can't any longer protect you. That much is obvious.'
'Not to worry.'
He was left-handed; I'd noticed that before. If I could do anything at all I'd have to go in on his right side; he hadn't turned his back to me since he'd come in here. He wasn't Secret Service — 'operation,' not 'mission,' 'sanctuary,' not 'safe house' — but he was nevertheless a professional, not to be underestimated — I could go in on his right side or anywhere else but I could get myself killed if I got it wrong.
Nothing could be relied on. It wanted ten minutes, now, to six o'clock, but nothing could be relied on, and those ten minutes could give me the last chance I'd get.
'Let me,' Trotter said, 'put it briefly for you.' His thick arms hung easily, and this too I noticed. 'You need perspective. Your operation is very big, and it's sponsored by H.M. Government and its intentions are to secure the future of the Chinese Republic and incidentally to save Hong Kong. Now I take that very seriously, of course. But try to understand that I am now in a position to take over — that I have to take over — if those aims are to be achieved.' His massive head on one side — 'Trust me.'
Dr Chen moved and I turned my head to keep him in the periphery of my vision field. 'Look,' I told Trotter, 'time is of the essence for me too, and I've got to go now.'
Just to see what he'd say.
'I'm afraid I can't let you.'
Tone softer, no smile now. The Chinese was lighting another lamp, that was all.
'I'm afraid you've got to.'
/> The double doors were heavy, twenty-five feet away. I couldn't see any other exit although there were some broken-down screens leaning in a corner, could be a door there. But if I got that far, got outside, there would be people of his there and they'd be trained killers, because that was the kind of cell this man was running.
'If I let you go,' Trotter said quietly, 'you'd get yourself arrested within the hour. The police are looking for you and the military are going through this town systematically, work it out for yourself.' He took a step toward me. 'You know what the PSB agents are like — they'd flay you alive until you told them all they wanted to know, and you'd give me away and they'd come for me too and they'd have me shot for harbouring a criminal. You know this. You know this.'
Dogs still fighting over something out there, and the sound of a truck now. The light in the stained-glass window had died to an ember's glow. Eight minutes, seven, more like seven.
'You worry too much, Trotter.'
Slight reaction for the first time: he didn't like being made light of. Just a flicker, deep in his eyes. Perhaps I could work on that, unbalance him emotionally, enough to give me an edge.
'I was born,' he said, 'in China. I spent my first ten years there, first with a nanny and then a tutor, at a British consulate. Then England, of course, prep, public, Oxford, but my first country is China, and my love for its people is deep and abiding.'
Getting down to basics: here was his soul.
The altar bowls were heavy brass, small enough to use in one hand, big enough to use as a curved blade and to kill, given the necessary force to split the skull. There was nothing else — I'd have to break the screens up before I could make a weapon. The best chance would be to work on his nerves with the bare knuckles, use science, not bloody bric-a-brac, the sweat springing on the flanks now, time running out, five minutes, less.
'When did you hear I'd got something going?' I asked him.
Head on one side. 'Sojourner was indiscreet. So you see, I'm prepared to do a lot for China. That's why I'm here now, to take over your operation. And be assured-' his huge hand rose in a gesture of avowal- 'be assured that I shall see our friend safely in Beijing according to plan.'
I thought I'd better put it on the line, because I needed to know exactly what I was up against. 'If I let you leave here with him, I mean supposing I trusted you to see things through, where would I stand?'
The heavy brows lifted, I think he was surprised, thought I already knew the answer to that one. 'You can't use this as your sanctuary forever. You'll have to show yourself in the streets, tomorrow or the next day. You're a risk, you see. You'd expose me as soon as those buggers in the PSB got down to the questions.' A little shrug- 'and I can't afford that. It could destroy my plans for him, for us all.' Another step closer. 'There would be nothing personal, you must understand. It's a question of expedience.'
These things happen when there is a great deal at stake, but believe me, I feel bad about him — he was nothing more than a holy man doing what he believed was right.
I heard myself asking a strange question, those bloody birds on my mind, I suppose.
'Would I be given burial?'
Chapter 23: Needle
'Burial? Only if you insisted, and if we had time.'
'A dead body's going to attract attention.' Trotter was within six feet of me now, still not close enough.
'But it couldn't be made to talk. Forgive me for putting it like that. I have great admiration for you, and if things had turned out better you would have completed your operation and our friend would have reached Beijing under your aegis, and I personally would have been mightily pleased.' He took another step closer, perhaps because Chen was here, and understood English, and this was an intimate matter we were talking of now, Trotter and I, my death at his hands, directly or otherwise. 'I can only hope it's a consolation for you to know that your goal will be reached, nevertheless.'
This worried me too: he wasn't putting it on, wasn't enjoying this. He meant what he was saying, that he would have to kill me to keep me quiet, crudely put, if you like, but that was the crux of the matter. And he'd feel genuine reluctance, genuine sorrow, and it worried me because it gave him deadly credibility.
I needed to know more; the organism was clamouring for information: my eyes were measuring the distance between us and the height of the carotid artery on the right side of his neck and noting that his left foot was slightly in front of his right and would spin him effectively out of reach if he was faster than I when I moved; my ears were sifting the aural data available: street sounds, the moan of the wind gusts through the cracks in the wall, alert for anything that could give me clues to the environment outside; but it was my mind that was desperate for information on a level far more subtle, and it could only get it from the mind of the man in front of me.
'Why did you take him by force like that from the monastery, get a man killed to do it? Why didn't you contact me instead, as soon as you started thinking I couldn't get him to Beijing, and ask me to hand him over?'
A smile of disbelief. 'You would have agreed?'
'Just wanted to know if you were listening.' But I'd learned a bit more. 'So where do we go from here?'
'I need certain information from you — the name of the man who's to meet our friend at Gonggar, the type of aircraft I must look for, the time of its arrival.'
There were four minutes to go, give or take a bit to allow for mental-clock error, and the nerves were tight now, the adrenaline coming into flow. I took a step toward him, five feet away, slightly less, but still not close enough.
'Oh, for Christ's sake,' I said, 'how on earth do you think you can put him on a plane at Gonggar, get him past the security, the police, the PSB agents, the military?'
'More easily than you. I'm not a wanted man.'
'But they'll recognize him, don't you know that?' Nerves in my voice, it was a shade too loud, a slight slackening in control, and dangerous, I'd have to watch for that. We were getting down to the centre of things now and the rational fear of my getting killed had given way to the overwhelming thought that these people would take Xingyu Baibing to Gonggar and try to get him through and lose him to the police or the military, finis.
'In winter here,' Trotter said reasonably, 'everyone is wrapped up in hats and scarves, as you know.'
'Listen, anyone trying to leave Gonggar is going to be told to take off his hat and his scarves and stand under a bloody floodlight, you're not even thinking, Trotter.'
His eyes flickered again; he didn't like being told off. 'You got him through Hong Kong,' he said, 'and Ghengdu, and Gonggar. If-'
'At that time the whole of the People's Liberation Army wasn't hunting him down.'
And he'd had a mask on. Couldn't tell him that.
Look, there's this to be said: he had a point, I was a risk. If he was really trying to get Xingyu into Beijing I could stop him in his tracks if the police picked me up and I couldn't get to the capsule and they beat everything out of my skull — they'd start hunting for this man too and find Xingyu, capito.
'You can't get him airborne at Gonggar,' I said, 'unless I remain alive.'
I had the mask.
'That is untrue, in my opinion.' Quietly said, but with an edge: he was starting to dislike me. That would be useful to work on, get him riled, off-balance.
'Look, Trotter, what's your motivation? Who's running you?'
'No one is running me. I'm engaged in this enterprise because of my profound love for China and her people and because of what happened to them in Tiananmen Square.' Black eyes smouldering. 'There is my motivation in Tiananmen.'
'Off on your own little crusade. Tell you this, Trotter, you can not get him out of Tibet if you kill me off, because there's a certain element involved that will guarantee his getting through Gonggar and onto the plane, and you haven't got it, and I have.'
He watched me carefully, seemed interested. 'An element. Would you be more specific?'
'As good a
s a passport, as good as a laissez-passer, the only certain means of getting him through.'
In a moment,' «Element»… "means"… I'm sorry, but I don't believe you. Unless you're prepared to tell me precisely what it is.'
'Not bloody likely.'
He looked offended. There was something frighteningly genuine about this man. He was telling me quite simply that it was regrettably necessary to kill me off and that I was expected to feel consoled to know that at least Xingyu Baibing would reach Beijing, and he seemed surprised that I wasn't totally ecstatic about the idea. I was missing something.
Then I got it.
Tiananmen.
He'd spelled it out for me, after all, but it hadn't connected. His rage at Tiananmen was all-consuming, and the only thing he had in his mind was to turn it into action, put the messiah back in the capital and kick out the geriatric junta there and let the people free, lay the bloodied ghosts of Tiananmen. And compared to that, the life of one solitary spook, already hunted by the police, already on his way to the execution yard, was not to be counted.
'Then I'm afraid we must proceed,' he said.
'Do what you like. Kill me, you lose him, you lose everything.' Needed time to think.
Trade? Time to think about that. Trade my life for the mask, let him take me to Xingyu and fit the mask and let them go on their way, and then get under the ground and tunnel my way out of Tibet like a bloody mole.
We may start to think like that when things get tricky, when it looks as if there's not a single chance left of staying alive, it's natural enough, the grave's got a certain smell to it, can turn your stomach, you can't blame me and I don't give a damn if you do, it's my life on the line, not yours.
'The other information I shall need,' Trotter said, 'concerns Beijing. I want the name of the PLA general who has committed his forces in your support, and the arrangements for having our friend escorted to the Great-'
'Oh for Christ's sake, give him a name, can't you, Xingyu, Dr Xingyu Baibing, this "our friend" thing is so bloody coy, and incidentally I'm surprised to hear you still need so much information, I thought you'd got the whole thing buttoned up.'
