The Mandarin Cypher

This time they'll know it was you.

The sun was striking into the cave mouth, sending light dappling the rocks. Now that the helicopter had reached the end of its loop a mile away it was quiet in this stretch of water and I could hear voices from the power launch. When I sighted along the surface I saw three of the crew standing in the stern and watching the cave where the dinghy was. The men in the dinghy were armed and carried something heavy and chromed: I'd just seen the shape of it and the flash of the sun when they'd gone in there and it had looked like a portable searchlight taken from the launch.

There weren't any ledges in this cave, in this one where I was trapped. There wasn't a hollow where I could have crouched or a loose rock I could have used as cover. There was nothing.

And nothing I could do when they came. The divers weren't just making a random search of the rockface below water: they were keeping precise station, on watch for anyone swimming out of a cave when the search party went in.

All I could do was wait.

What's wrong with Egerton today?

Who?

Egerton.

Oh, his mission got blown.

Christ. Who was he running?

Dunno. Quiller, I think.

You never think it could be you and then one day you find out you're bloody well wrong and when I heard the splash of their oars I pushed with my feet and floated out of the cave face down so that they could see it wasn't anything worth shooting at.

Chapter Sixteen: FUSE

'I've got it,' I said, 'Redhill Golf Club!'

'It could have been.'

'You were a member there!'

'For a year or two.'

'You used to play at lot with — ' I clicked my fingers, trying to remember the name — 'Harry Foster! Not Foster, no — ' I clicked my fingers again — 'Chester! That's it — Chester!'

'That's right,' he said.

'Well I'm damned — it really is a small world, isn't it?' I looked around, lowering my voice. 'You know I left there under a bit of a cloud, I suppose?'

'Did you?'

'Well, chucked out, practically. Pro's little wife, remember her? Wow.' I gave a rueful grin. 'Can't help it, y'know — I've just got an eye for the girls.'

He laughed quietly, his teeth very white in contrast to his brick-red face. He was one of those Englishmen who never tan: they just get redder and redder. He looked suddenly serious, the laugh dying abruptly as he peered at me through his thick-lensed glasses.

'You know why I left the club?' he asked.

'No?' I thought quickly and began laughing. 'Oh God, not for the same — '

'No. I got behind with the fees.'

'Is that all? Of course I always paid up right on the dot — the only trouble was the cheques always bounced!'

We laughed again.

'How are you feeling now?'

'Oh,' I said, 'not bad.'

'You've had a rough time of it.'

The girl put the needle in and we watched it.

'It was a shock, that's all. Upset me, I can tell you.'

'I expect it did,' he said. 'What happened, exactly?'

She went on pressing the plunger. I hardly felt it.

'Well,' I told him, trying to think back, 'I must have drifted here, pretty well unconscious. Then I saw this chap coming for me with his knife, and — well, I had to do something. Woke me right up, I can tell you. He was a real bastard, came at me — ' I broke off and looked around at the young nurse and the man standing by the door and the other one sitting on a stool near the sterilizing unit. 'Do these people understand English, old boy?'

'It doesn't matter,' he said.

'Well, I mean I wouldn't like to upset anybody, but quite frankly, after what that — that chap did to me down there I'm pretty annoyed. Wouldn't you be?'

'I certainly would.'

Someone else came in, looking at my hand without touching it, saying something to the nurse in Chinese and then slipping a white gown on and taking some surgical gloves from a sterile packet.

'He's the doctor,' Tewson told me.

'Good afternoon,' I said cheerfully, but the man didn't seem to hear me. I hoped he was good at his job, that was alclass="underline" my hand was looking like a not-terribly-well-done steak.

'Go on,' said Tewson.

'What? Oh. Well I mean there it was. That Chink came at me with his knife out and it woke me right up, as you can imagine. I'm pretty strong, and I know a thing or two about looking after myself, and — well, I suppose I must have been in a flaming temper, or of course I wouldn't have been so rough with him.' I looked down for a moment, a bit ashamed of myself. 'Poor little sod. But I mean he shouldn't have — ' I broke off and shrugged with my right shoulder, 'Well, it's done now, I suppose.'.

The nurse inclined the articulated couch an inch or two lower, so that I was in a half-reclining position. The man in the white gown was working on my hand but I couldn't see it because they'd put a little screen round it.

'I can't feel a thing, you know. They're pretty good, aren't they?'

'Yes.'

I looked at him very straight, 'Listen, old boy, are they very annoyed about that poor little bastard? I mean sod?'

'He was only doing what he thought was right.'

'So was I.' I gave an ironic laugh. 'At least, it was right for me!'

He was watching what they were doing to my hand.

'How did you come to be drifting so near the rig?'

'God knows! It was just the current.'

He nodded slowly, still watching the operation. 'Did you fall off a boat, or something?'

'Not exactly. I was in a rubber dinghy, with an outboard, and I'd put the anchor down while I was diving, you see. Then when I tried to pull it up, it wouldn't budge. So I went down again to free it. Thing was stuck in a whole lot of weed, I was about waist deep in the stuff. Well, I cut the anchor clear, and then had to cut myself clear after that because the stuff was all round my legs. Then I must have lost consciousness, or as good as. I just remember feeling sort of drunk — you know how it feels, do you? D'you do any diving?'

'Not a lot.'

'Kind of narcosis. I'd been down too long-always overdo things, that's me.' I shut my eyes and didn't say any more.

'It doesn't hurt?'

I opened my eyes.

'M'm? No. Can't feel a thing, old boy. No, the fatigue's just catching up on me, I suppose. Bit whacked.'

I shut my eyes again.

'I expect you are.'

'Sorry.'

'That's all right.'

He didn't talk again for a while.

Situation totally zero in terms of a get-out and I didn't like the way they'd brought Tewson in to put the questions because the other two men in here were obviously bugs and understood English perfectly and it meant the intelligence cell knew how to think and I don't like people thinking. They hadn't had any more than a few minutes to brief Tewson and I didn't like the way they'd done that either: he clearly wasn't intelligence but he probably wasn't a fool either and they'd just told him to talk about himself as much as he wanted to, if it would help him put me at my ease, and that meant they were perfectly confident that whatever he told me I wouldn't ever be able to pass on.

The thing that interested me most was his present state of mind. It was so like his wife's: he was lonely, and he was scared. But I didn't think they were scared of the Chinese: they'd got into something deeper than it had looked and they hadn't given themselves a chance to pull out while there was time. In spite of his briefing there'd been no need for him to admit he'd lived in Redhill or that he'd been asked to resign from the golf club because he hadn't paid his fees: I'd been aware of his strong compulsion to reminisce with a fellow-countryman just for a couple of minutes, until he'd remembered the others were listening and that he was meant to interrogate me.