"You'll lose your son, don't you understand? You'll —»
"Where is he?"
Waves crashed, but I dodged them — "You'll lose him, you bloody fool, if you go on like this, you want him dead? You want him dead, I'll —»
"Where is he?"
Huge waves beating me back, beating me down under their darkness — "You'll kill him like this! I'm the only one who can save him, and you're trying to —»
"Where is my son?"
Crashed against me and flung me back and I hit the wall and fell down and got up and fell down and got up and started staggering, where is he, behind me, don't let him, I suppose I was a bloody fool to shove that gun in the corner, I should have kicked the fucking door down and shot him right between the fucking eyes, that would have shown him what was — steady, we need time to think, we need to stop waste, stop wasting -
"Time — you're wasting time — "
"Where is my son?"
Great force hurling its waves from wall to wall and I stood swaying in it, a swimmer in black water, strike out, black water booming as my head went under and came up again, strike out or you're going to drown, strike out or he's got you -
"Strike out — "
"What are you saying — "
"Listen to me, damn you, I can't save him if you waste my time like this, you're killing him like this don't you understand? Because I'm not going under, I don't care what you —»
"Where is he?"
Wave crashed and I went under, black water rising, crashing again, but could swim all -
"I can swim — listen to me, I'm not going under," dragging in breath, not frightened now, but very angry, "Tung Kuo-feng," I said and looked down at him, swaying and looking down at him in the middle of the room, "you tried it and it didn't work," head hammering like a brass gong, but I knew now, "it didn't work, you understand," knew I was all right now and even the anger going because he looked so terribly pale, trick of the light perhaps, white as anything, and terribly still, "if you want your son to live you've got to let me go and see to it, now is that clear?"
Not swaying any more, but rather weak, never mind, be better in a minute but by Christ I could have kicked his face in because I'd got an operation to run and time was of the essence, very much of the essence, my watch said 12:29.
"Listen to me. Do you want me to save Tung Chuan?"
I noticed his face was running with sweat, and deathly pale.
"Yes." His voice was perfectly normal.
"I'm not sure I want to. You're giving me a lot of trouble. Are you going to give me any more trouble?"
"No."
"Well that'll be a nice change." I walked round the room a bit, finding my feet again, rotten headache but not surprising, covered in sweat, stinking with it, damn him, what did he want to go and do that for, bloody great brass gong, I wanted to kick it, bring it down off the wall with a bloody great boom, boom, boom, steady for Christ's sake it's over now and we've got to get moving. "Listen," I said to him, "I've come here to do a deal. Tung Chuan's life for exposing the Soviets, and I can't give you long to think it over."
"I will do anything," he said.
I stopped walking about and looked down at him. He'd aged ten years in the last six minutes. I suppose it took an awful lot of effort to throw that much force around, serve him bloody well right.
"It's going to be up to you," I told him. "You make one false move and Tung Chuan won't live. One false move. Just one. For Christ's sake get that into your head." I crouched on my haunches in front of him. "I'm getting out of this place now, or I'm going to try. You've got that submachine gun in the corner there, and there's another one behind the Buddha at the end of the passage where they had me in that cell, you know where that is?"
"Yes."
"If you need them, use them."
"Both?"
"What? One at a time, of course." Wild laughter ringing out, somewhere inside what he'd left of my head; long time since I'd heard a joke. "I don't want either of them, that's why I'm leaving them to you. I'm not going to try shooting my way out of here because you might get killed by a stray bullet, and you're one end of the deal, remember. Besides, you can never do anything really useful with a gun."
I straightened up and tried to think, still a bit wobbly but managing well enough now. "It's your job to stay alive, you understand? That's the deal. They won't connect you with my getting out of here — you've been sitting here praying on your bloody mat all night and you never heard anything happening to the guard. As far as they're concerned you're still in charge of the Triad and your operation's still going and you've got the next assassination set for noon tomorrow, or that's what you told me. All that's going to happen is that I'm going to get away, in order to save my own skin. Nothing to do with you."
What else? Something else. I wish I didn't feel so bloody tired, suppose I lack protein, bean curd's not the answer, you can stick it. Yes, "Listen, if we can get your son away from the KGB unit we'll keep him under guard till you've honoured your part of the deal." Banner headlines, we're interrupting our scheduled programme to bring you this flash, and so forth, Soviets Responsible for Pekin Assassinations. World Shock at Terrorist's Exposure. "Sometime before dawn," I told him, "we'll be sending in paratroopers to pull you out of here, understand? I can't take you with me, there's too much risk. Wait for them to come. Don't antagonise Sinitsin or anyone else. Keep a low profile, but if they try to get you away overland don't let them: hide up somewhere or use the guns on them. Stay alive. That's the deal, understand?"
"Yes." He got up and stood facing me. "How will you escape?"
"None of your bloody business."
I left him, checking the courtyard and using shadow cover, my bare feet silent across the stones.
28: Fireball
I stood in the jungle shadows, with the moon's light dappling the ground through the filligree pattern above my head. Then I went forward, stopping for a few seconds to listen.
12:48.
The luminous digits of my watch cast a faint glow across the hairs on my wrist. In twelve minutes they would relieve the guard on my cell, and see that Yang was gone.
I looked upwards, and the moon's light burst against my eyes from the edge of the big black cross. I listened again, and then looked for a foothold, swinging upwards with one hand on the grip. The fuel-cap was now within reach and I unscrewed it, putting it in my pocket so that it shouldn't fall and make a noise. Then I opened my jacket and took the bookmatches and lit the cigarette.
They were two Russian Mil Mi2s standing side by side under a single camouflage net, with only a few feet of clearance between their rotor radii; I'd seen this much when they'd brought me in from the mountains. This was the biggest area of flat ground anywhere near the monastery, but it wasn't ideaclass="underline" there wasn't room for one of these things to be pushed clear of the other in an emergency, because of the parapet walls.
When I had arranged the cigarette and the bookmatches. I climbed down and made my way towards the second machine, pulling myself up and opening the door quietly. By the time I was sitting in the pilot's seat my watch showed 12:56. I'd left it rather late, because that bastard Tung had decided to fight me for the information inside my head. The twelve minutes had narrowed to four.