Quiller's Run

I stopped rocking on my chair.

By the window, Major-general Vasuratna uncrossed his legs, looking at no one. The other man, Captain Krairiksh, was watching the Prince, his hands locked tightly together on his lap. In the courtyard outside the rain fell steadily, ringing on something metal, perhaps the shade of an ornamental lamp. I remembered the quiet, urgent voice of Charles Floderus, inside that London cab. The background is geopolitical, but that shouldn't concern you. This is in fact precisely your kind of operation — the very careful, clandestine infiltration of a major opposition network.

The objective, then, didn't involve making a critical document snatch or bringing a hot spook across a frontier or digging out a mole. It involved defusing an East-West military confrontation in Thailand.

And Floderus had offered a job like this to Pepperidge?

Something wrong.

'And such an event,' Kityakara was saying quietly, 'should, I feel, be energetically avoided.'

I got up and paced, needing movement. Something wrong, yes, or maybe the people in London hadn't realised the size of this thing. Maybe Kityakara had played it close to the chest, and just asked them to send someone out. 'But that couldn't actually happen,' I told him. 'I mean the actual engagement of Soviet and US forces on Thai soil.'

'Not quite that, Mr Jordan.' His cup rattled on the saucer as he put it down. 'But any element of armed confrontation, with East-West tension as high as it is, could bring about a cataclysm.'

'By escalation?'

'Yes. By a naval vessel's going off course at the wrong time and the precipitate order for a carrier to send up its aircraft and finally someone's finger on the button in a missile silo and the sheer lack of time to use the hotline and call a halt.' Inhaler. 'Once inertia has been overcome, Mr Jordan, in whatever field of experience, the momentum is difficult to stop. It has happened before, in two world wars, and it took everyone by surprise. Perhaps this time' – he shrugged uncertainly – 'we can avert the third.'

I waited, then said, 'Does that complete the background, sir?'

'That completes the background. And it seems to me, and to my advisers, that the best way of preventing catastrophe is to re-stabilise the power structure in the region, to discourage the rebel anti-communist forces and render them incapable of overturning the present regimes in Laos and Cambodia. This can be done by cutting off their supply of arms and equipment.' He picked up the teapot again, but got nothing more than a dribble. Captain Krairiksh got up at once and made for the door, but the Prince stopped him. 'It doesn't matter.' He finished the dregs in his cup. 'Unfortunately the supply of arms and equipment has been increasing of late, and substantially. We've been allowing a steady trickle across Thai territory from China, of course, and that will now be stopped. But the greater part of the increasing supplies has been coming from five major international sources, funnelled through one distributor in Southeast Asia. And that distributor is very powerful. So far, we've been quite unable to effect counter-measures.'

'What have you tried?'

'We've tried negotiation, by offering a high government post, with its attendant advantages. We've tried threats, including vigorous legal proceedings. We've tried massive police action in the hope of discovering drug shipments alongside the armaments, without success.' He glanced to the door and away again. 'And we finally tried assassination.'

I moved my head. 'Who was the target?'

'The chief of the organisation.'

'How many attempts were made?'

'Three.'

'And?'

The Prince hesitated, then looked at his chief of military intelligence. 'You know the details better than I do. Would you – ?'

Vasuratna sat to attention. 'Sir.' He turned to me. 'We decided the only way was to make a personal attack on each occasion, but this organisation is extremely capable of defending itself. The first of our agents was dropped off the tailboard of a truck outside the gates of the presidential palace, full of bullets. The second was dumped outside police headquarters with signs of having been rigorously tortured. We have not found the body of the third agent, but his head was delivered to my office in a cardboard box.' He looked down suddenly. 'They were my best men, very experienced, very efficient. I have accepted the blame, of course.'

I realised he was no longer speaking to me, but to Kityakara.

So here was the mission, if I wanted it.

'You're not expected to blame yourself,' the Prince told Vasuratna. 'We're up against someone exceptional this time.'

'Who is it?' I asked him.

'A woman. Mariko Shoda.'

5 Yasma

'Here for long?'

'I'm not sure yet.'

'Come and see us at the Commission. Always something going on, lots of parties.'

'How nice.' I gave him a nod and turned away, finding a gap in the crowd and using it.

I'd left Kityakara half an hour ago and he'd wanted to give me an escort to take me back to the Red Orchid, but I'd said no. On the face of it the mission they had to offer looked feasible, and at this stage I didn't want to be seen around any more with security men. In any case I wanted to stay on a bit here and check out the guests to see if I knew anyone. Pepperidge: As far as liaison goes, you'll have to pick a few people yourself.

I'd already noticed Mason, DI6, backed up into a corner with a glass of champagne; he'd been doing a little reconnaissance work from time to time, moving in to some Arabs in the thick of the crowd and standing with his back to them, tuning in. He hadn't picked up much, by the look of things. A stringer for the Telegraph was near the staircase and I would have gone over, because the man had done me a good turn a year or so ago in Hong Kong; but he was deep in chat with a stunning young Eurasian girl and I didn't want to spoil his fun. There wasn't, in any case, all that much chance of finding anyone at an embassy party who'd be any use to me in this kind of mission, if I took it on. I'd need people I could trust with my life.

I'd asked Kityakara, 'What decided you to call on London?'

'It was a joint decision.' The Prince had asked the other two men to leave him in private with Mr Jordan. 'Major-general Vasuratna,' he told me, when they'd gone, 'has run some very successful operations in the past, but those three agents are on his conscience. Last week one of his aides found him sitting at his desk with a gun to his head.' He leaned forward on the edge of the brocade chair, his slight body at an angle. 'I have no one else capable of undertaking a task so critical — and so dangerous. To attempt to get anywhere near Mariko Shoda is like walking through a minefield. I want you to understand that.'

I gave it some thought. 'Did you know I was coming here personally?'

'No. We simply asked for someone of the highest capability.'

'How did you contact London, sir?'

'I approached the Foreign Office.'

'Directly?'

'No, through your ambassador in Bangkok.'

'In a personal meeting?'

'Yes.'

'Was there anyone else present?'

'No one.'

'Did he contact DI6?'

'I'm afraid I have no idea. I was told he would find someone if he could.'

I got up and went to the window. The rain had almost stopped, and there was only the sound of dripping from the flooded gutters under the eaves outside. There were things I didn't like about this whole setup. I'd moved into the field across dead bodies before, though I'd always taken a lot of persuasion because they might have messed things up when they were alive – in this case the opposition had been alerted three times already. I was still prepared to go in, if I could find some kind of access, but it worried me that I'd been offered this mission by sheer chance, and by a burnt-out spook with a gutful of worms.