by Adam Hall
I turned away from him and walked for a bit, just a few paces, wanting to think, wanting urgently to think without his face in front of me, the face of my executioner, and when I came back I stopped a bit closer to him, four feet now, call it striking distance if I had to go for it.
'Sojourner died,' Trotter said, 'before we could get everything.'
'What? Oh.' Hadn't got the name of the general, so forth, yes. I hadn't been paying attention because in those few paces I'd done some thinking and it had shaken me quite a bit, because listen, I might have to trade the mask, not for my life but for the mission.
We get vain, you know, the longer we're in this trade, the more we get used to bringing the bacon home time after time with nothing much more than a broken ankle or a shark bite or a bullet lodged somewhere in the organism, we start thinking we can go on like that, start thinking we're invincible, that only we can see it through to the objective, bring it home. I suppose it's the same in most professions, but in this one it's a lot more dangerous if one day we find we're wrong.
The objective for Bamboo was to get Xingyu Baibing back into the Chinese capital, and I was in possession of the mask and the critical information that Trotter wanted from me, but my chances of taking Xingyu even as far as Gonggar airport were appallingly thin — all right, yes, grab him if I could and run the gauntlet with him through the streets and try to keep him buried somewhere in a cellar or a cave until we had to keep the rendezvous with the bomber, hell or high water, so forth, but that could simply be an act of braggadocio, of professional vanity.
The alternative looked better. Give this man the information he needed, give him the mask, let him keep Xingyu here in this temple, a place where the military had already made their search, where he wouldn't be disturbed, and let Trotter take him to the airport, openly, as a man already familiar to the police and to an extent trusted — they're used to me by now, you see, and I help them sometimes — and let the mission run its course without impediment to its objective. Because I was the impediment.
Must be mad.
'All right,' I said, 'tell me what you're going to do.'
Needed more time to think. Not mad, perhaps saner than I knew. But I couldn't go through with a thing like this without London's approval. Trotter would have to let me signal, before we did anything else.
You're suggesting that you hand over the mission?
London. Croder or Hyde or Bureau One.
Yes.
To a stranger, running a private cell?
Look, I know it sounds-
Have you conferred with your director in the field?
He can't make a decision this big. It's got to come from you.
Please confer with your DIF immediately and ask him to signal his report.
Look, there isn't time, and you don't know the facts.
Confer with your DIF.
Let me give you the facts-
Your instructions are to report immediately to your DIF.
They'd think I was mad. The instant I put the phone down they'd pick up theirs and get Pepperidge on the hotline through Cheltenham, tell him to pull me in and take me off the mission, send me home.
Head was throbbing again, I was pushing things, hadn't slept since the night before last, hadn't eaten, needed a break, wouldn't get one, but don't let go, for Christ's sake don't let go, there's got to be a decision made and not in London but here, where I was standing now with the lamps on the walls sending shadows beating in silence like great wings across the airy spaces, their bone-white beaks — watch it — the airy spaces of the burial ground — God's sake watch it you're — yes, straighten up a little, losing things, drugged my bloody tea and that hadn't helped, not just the lack of sleep-
'Would you like to sit down?'
'What? No.'
Watching me carefully, the man with the big black beard.
Four feet away, less, an inch or two less by my reckoning, go for it now, not the carotid-nerve thing, a heel-palm, drive the nosebone into the brain and take the other man as he came for me, not as difficult, then stay by the door and wait till they came in here and go for them in whatever way I had to, go for the kill to make it certain, done it before, do it again, but there's no future in that scenario, no future in it now, because he'd have more chance than I would, Trotter, getting Xingyu through to Beijing.
'I think we should sit down,' he was saying.
'What?' I made an effort to get him in focus.
'You look a little done-in,' Trotter said. 'Don't make things hard for yourself. Here,' he pulled the stool over for me.
Didn't sit down. 'How many people have you got?'
'People?'
'Men.'
'Oh, enough. But-'
'What sort of training have they had?'
'I'm sorry, but we've got to get on now. Dr Chen?'
The Chinese went over to the plinth and opened a black leather case, took out a few things and laid them near one end of the blankets where I'd been lying: hypodermic syringe, roll of needles, box with a picture on it — alcohol swabs, I suppose — small plastic tray with three glass phials.
Trotter turned back to me. 'What I would really like is for you to give me the information I need of your own free will, including the nature of what you call the «element». Are you willing to do that?'
Hate syringes, they're so bloody sinister, ritualistic, I'd been having a bad enough time with the insulin thing.
'I've got to telephone London,' I said.
He looked a bit sideways. 'I'm afraid you can't do that. I need-'
'Thing is, Trotter, you could have a point. You might get him through Gonggar better than I could. But not without the information and the «element». I think on the face of it I'm prepared to let you have them, give you a much greater chance. But it's a decision I can't make for myself; it means handing you the mission. But they might let me do it, if I spell things out for them, in London.'
He watched me, surprised. 'Why would you want to hand me your mission?'
'I've told you. I think you've got a better chance of flying him out.'
In a moment, 'It sounds a little altruistic.'
'Dirty word, I know. But I want that man in Beijing, and I don't care how I do it. Completes the mission for me, and you don't know what that means. It's the Holy Grail syndrome, completing the mission, risk our lives for it all the time, so I'm not-'
'Oh, I see,' he said. 'You're ready to make a deal for your life.'
'Not really. That's less important. I mean he's such a bloody good man, isn't he, and he could work miracles for all those people you love so much, if we could only get him to Beijing. I mean imagine the headlines — China Free — spectacular. I want to make it happen, you see.'
It wasn't absolutely certain they'd say no in London, not absolutely, you come up against the most bizarre situations in this trade.
'That's very touching.' Edge of sarcasm, but only an edge; I think he was a charitable man at heart, had a certain amount of compassion. 'But your life is surely one half of the deal.'
'Not essentially.'
There's an overweening confidence, as I've told you, in our own ability to look after ourselves. There could be a chance, somewhere along the line, for me to cut and run.
'You're an unusual man,' Trotter said.
'They broke the mould.'
'I would of course be tempted to accept your offer, Mr Locke; but there's no telephone here, and that would mean risking exposure in the street. And you'll give me the information I need in any case, and the name of the mysterious "element." They've made great advances in the field of psychiatric drugs, and unless you're willing to speak of your own volition, Dr Chen will induce your full cooperation. When I have what I need, he will ease your passage to the hereafter. There is of course no question of pain, except my own.' The reflection of the lamps behind me made a spark in each of his dark intelligent eyes; there was nothing I could see in them, no hostility, no enmity, perhaps if anything a hint, yes,
of pain, reluctance. 'What do you say? Will you speak freely?', We'd come down to the wire rather fast and the sweat glands were reacting and I could feel the old familiar heat of adrenaline in the blood.
'I can't,' I said, 'without London's okay. I really mean that. Neither of us is joking, is he? There's so much in the balance. All I need is a telephone.'
He turned away for a moment, had his back to me, and the muscles pulled tight and I was set to go, already in the zone where all the mind has got to do is say yes and stand back and let it happen, the targets selected and different now because he'd got his back to me, a chudan mae keage to the coccyx to paralyze the legs and a heel-palm to the occipital area to produce concussion and deaden the optic nerve, but it still wasn't the answer: the organism had simply noted the chance when the opponent had turned his back, that was all, it had had enough training, God knows, to do things without being told.
Go for him.
No.
It's you or him and he's exposed, he's-
I think we can get London in if I work on him.
Kill him for God's sake before he kills you-
Shuddup.
It's his life or-
Bloody well shuddup.
Turning back, Trotter was turning back.
'You'll really have to listen to me,' I said. 'I can't offer you more than the mission, and it'd work, you'd get him through to Beijing.'
He didn't answer for a moment. His face had changed in some way, his eyes, his expression, because of whatever he'd been thinking about, I suppose, while he'd stood there with his back to me. There was a softness about him, and it worried me.
In a moment-
'My dear fellow, you still don't understand. I appreciate your thinking, but there's nothing you can offer me. It's for the taking.'
And then- 'Are you a Catholic, by any chance?'
Said no.
With hesitation- 'I thought you might, perhaps, be willing to give me… absolution.'
It was a moment before I got it. Absolution for taking my life.
'What the fuck are you talking about, I'm not a priest.' Shocked him, did me good. 'And if I were a priest I'd damn you to hell.'
Do you know what a rattlesnake does when it injects its venom? It's partly of course to paralyze the prey, to kill it, but it's partly to digest its body. I mean it's to start the process of assimilation, to soften and prepare the tissues. I suppose other snakes do it too, cobras, for that matter, but I happen to know rattlers, lived with them for a bit. But isn't that awful, don't you think, for something to start digesting you before you're even dead? It gives me the bloody creeps.
'I understand your feelings, of course,' his voice very quiet.
'You bloody well don't.'
There'd been fright in his eyes, I'd noticed, when I'd talked about damning him to hell. He took his faith seriously, perhaps I could work on that. I didn't like him now, forget the compassion bit, this bastard had started digesting me.
He didn't say anything more, looked at the Chinese and gave a little nod, and Chen started getting things ready, breaking a needle out of the packet and pressing it onto the syringe, and I didn't like that, I was beginning to wonder why Trotter hadn't made an honest approach, come to me earlier and put it on the table and tell me his ambition was the same as my own, instead of dodging me like a bloody espion and setting me up for an interrogation thing under the needle and then the final insult, what had he called it, easing your passage to the hereafter, bloody hypocrite, meant kill me, kill me like a dog and hadn't got the guts to say so, but there was this thought above all — I was prepared to believe he wanted to get Xingyu Baibing into Beijing but for the first time I was beginning to question why.
It wasn't necessarily for the benefit of his beloved Chinese. He could be selling Dr Xingyu Baibing down the river in some way, and I didn't like that, Xingyu was mine, he was under my protection, he was the whole of the mission, Bamboo, and I didn't trust this man anymore, this man Trotter, and he went down but he'd seen it coming and swung away, very fast for such a big man, took only half the weight of the strike and was still conscious, shouting the place down, and I didn't have time to follow up with the killer because they were in here now, three of them, coming at the double with their guns out and I took the first one head on and heard the bone go, heard the bone go driving upward into the brain and he screamed very briefly and then it was cut off as he died, the second one coming but I wasn't quite ready because the whole weight of my body had gone into the strike and the momentum was still trying to carry me forward and I needed to recover, wasn't correctly set up-
'Zhua zhu ta! Bie kai qiang!'
Trotter, shouting again as the second man came at me and I did what I could, broke his arm but it didn't stop his momentum, his gun went clattering across the floor but he wouldn't have used it anyway, none of them could, Trotter wanted a live brain lying there under the needle and they knew that, he would have told them, instructed them, one of his hands trying to get a grip on my triceps and I smashed a hammerfist down but the target was too insensitive and he hung on and another man began locking my legs at the ankle and all I could do was try for an eye gouge and got it half right, got another scream but it didn't mean anything useful, they were hanging on me like dogs on a fox, Trotter's face somewhere above me, blood shining on it because I'd raked the skin open with the strike, his eyes frightened, because if he lost me now he'd lose the whole thing, tried one more strike, a strong hiji-uchi with enough force behind it to break whatever it hit, but it didn't connect because I was on the floor now and Trotter was up there, huge, dripping with blood, while they wrapped something around my ankles and he lifted me by the shoulders and they took my feet and between them they laid me on the blankets, on the plinth where I'd been before, got in a quick tiger-claw and drew blood again but technically it was ineffective, simply an attempt to save face.
They held me down, the three of them, Trotter and the two surviving Chinese, while Dr Chen broke open the top of one of the little phials and wiped it with an alcohol swab, from habit I suppose, there wouldn't be time for me to get any kind of infection, would there, the head throbbing a lot now because one of them had opened the wound under the bandage when we'd been milling about, I watched the Chinese, Dr Chen, as he pushed some air into the phial and tilted it and began suction with the plunger, they've made great advances in the field of psychiatric drugs, I could believe that, Trotter was an intelligent man, would know what he was doing, the weight of his huge hands on my shoulders keeping me down, I've never had to deal with anyone so strong, blood on his black beard, his eyes watching the syringe, the plunger still drawing the stuff in, quite a lot of it, we were nearing the 5cc mark on the barrel, I hate these bloody things.
One of the hit men was snivelling a bit because of the eye gouge I'd used on him, didn't look pretty, mucus dripping from his nose, couldn't wipe it away, had to keep both his hands on my legs, I tried a last essay, jerking my knees to connect with his face but it was no go, they'd been waiting for me to do something, didn't trust me anymore, bloody shame, my eyes closing against the flickering light of the lamp over there, watch it, yes, God's sake stay with it, yes indeed, one must remain conscious, mustn't one, opened my eyes again and slowed the breathing, deepened it, sought prana, drew it into the lungs, felt better, a little better now, he was stopping at 5cc, pulled the needle out of the phial and tilted the syringe, pressed the air out and got another swab, asking one of them to pull my sleeve higher, wiped my arm and dropped the swab and brought the syringe into position and I said, 'Trotter, you'd better listen to this.'
Chen looked across at him but Trotter shook his head, keep going, I suppose it meant.
'When I got him through Hong Kong and Chengdu and Gonggar,' I said, 'it was because he was wearing a mask. The «element». I couldn't have got him through without it. You won't get him through to Beijing without it either.'
'Zhan zhu.'
Dr Chen was holding the syringe like a dart,
ready to stab, but he didn't move now, watched Trotter.
I said, 'Listen, if this stuff is as good as you say it is, I'll tell you where the mask is, but it won't do you any good because you won't know how to put it on his face. It requires skill and experience, takes nearly an hour, and you haven't been trained, and I have. I'm the only one who can put that mask on, Trotter, so you'd better tell the good doctor, hadn't you, to put that bloody thing away.'
I suppose Trotter would have given it some thought but there wasn't time because the doors of the temple blew open and the whole place shuddered and I saw the light of the explosion on his face before the air blast reached the lamps and blew them out and I twisted and rolled and dropped and got onto my feet and began running through the dark toward the patch of moonlight where the doors had been.
'In there,' I told Chong and he lobbed the next one into the Buddha room and the force came in a wave and I went down under the blast and hit something with my shoulder and spun away and got up again, a few seconds of darkness after the flash and then the moonlight came back, filtering through the smoke where the roof had blown out.
Shot, whining close and bouncing against stone, someone had survived in there but the light was too tricky to let him do any more than shoot wild and 1 checked the vestibule on my left and didn't find anything more than rubble, crossed through the line of fire at a run and called for Chong to look after things and he lobbed another one through the doorway and the building bellowed again and I squeezed my eyes shut against the flash and waited for them to accommodate and then took the room on the other side and found him there, Xingyu, another man with him and I went for a certain kill and called out to Chong again, where was the truck?
Xingyu was conscious and on his feet and I found his flight bag and checked it for the insulin by the light of the flames that had broken out in the Buddha room and then got him through the rubble, another shot and I called out to Chong again but he didn't answer, we needed another bomb in there, Xingyu felt heavy against me and I had to half-carry him, smoke in the lungs and the light deceptive, shadows everywhere as the fire took hold and began blazing.
