The man who had made this uncomfortable journey, and who now sat facing the colonel on the terrace, was physically tough all right. He would have had to be, after sustaining fairly extensive second-degree burns on board the cabin-cruiser, spending an hour in the water and walking five miles in the sun in order to gain the ridge above the house. His left arm was bandaged and in a sling and he had fallen badly twice during his descent as a result of this handicap. Because, as well as being exhausted, he was still suffering from shock, he told his tale ramblingly and with repetitions.
Sun was tolerant about this. Hands on knees, he sat on an olive-wood stool in an upright posture that would have put a crick in any Western back in five minutes, and gazed almost benignly at the unimpressive-looking small-time crook from the Piraeus waterfront who had endured all this for two hundred American dollars. Between them Doni Madan lounged on foam-rubber cushions wearing a black-and-green check bikini, an incongruous get-up for an interpreter. Now and then she sucked noisily at the straws of a tall pale drink.
'Tell Mr Aris I think I have it all clear now,' Sun said to her, 'thank him for his services, and offer him another drink or whatever refreshment he may desire. Then I have some questions. First: how was he able to find me?'
While this was being translated, Sun kept his pewter-coloured eyes fixed on Aris's sallow, pitted face, then watched the mouth show its plentiful gold fillings as it answered. This man had behaved well, no better than any politically-conscious Chinese would, but surprisingly well for a Westerner and a non-Britisher.
Doni had leaned forward to pour more brandy into the glass that was being shakily held out to her. Now she heaved her body back on to the cushions, adjusting a shoulder-strap and revealing light wisps of uncut fine hair in the armpit. She enunciated carefully in her dry voice, 'He said he thinks it's necessary to warn you, and he had received half only of his money before.'
'That's why he made his way here, not how he knew where to come. Again.'
The colonel, sitting just as before, waited with his invariable and unnerving patience.
'He said they all were showed a map, in case that a man was killed.'
'Remarkable forethought and pessimism. Fully justified, as it's turned out. Well, I think I have enough for the moment.'
Aris gulped brandy and said something on his own account. He appeared uneasy. Perhaps he was discomforted by the bland politeness with which his story of abject and spectacular failure had been received. Fear, much more than conscientiousness or the thought of his money, was what had made him walk out of that hospital when his whole being had whimpered for rest. There were tales going round Piraeus.... But he did not dare mention such matters. He talked on, gesturing painfully.
After listening in grave silence to Doni's rendering, Sun turned thoughtful. 'How these people worship words. They have no concept of the relation of words to action. If I had to take a serious view of this fellow's actions, he could not be saved by words in any language. How can he not know such a simple thing? He is divorced from reality.'
Doni waited for this part to be over. A sleepy languor possessed her, compounded of sun, sea air, the hot scents of thyme and fennel from the hillside, the effects of bed and the anticipation of lunch and more bed. She felt dimly, complacently, that nobody was ever going to take a serious view of _her__ actions. Pretending to be rubbing oil into her skin to aid her tan, she stroked her thighs slowly.
The colonel went on in a brisker tone, 'Tell Mr Aris I quite understand the difficulties that had to be faced. Assure him that the escape of the man Bond is not serious. It will be turned to account in the interests of peace. And tell Mr Aris too that his money will be paid in full, plus a bonus of fifty American dollars for devotion to duty. He may receive medical attention now. Take him to Dr Lohmann. And get Evgeny to cook him something. Then you or your colleague may comfort him if he so wishes. But remember that he's in a weak physical state, so be sure not to comfort him too energetically.'
With a smile that cut off abruptly when she woke up to who she was smiling at, Doni pushed herself on to her knees, turned away and began talking earnestly to Aris. Sun got up from his stool, unfolding himself vertically like a puppet on a string.
Still keeping in the shadow, he moved to the corner of the stone balustrade at the outer edge of the terrace. There, perfectly impassive, he waited, his half-shut eyes flickering over the wild and glaring but motionless scene before him. They took in nothing. The rattling chirrup of the cicadas beat at his ears without penetrating them. Even if his mind had been unpreoccupied, he would still have had no attention to spare for this irrelevant alien landscape. What was important was action, not its setting. History was a matter of deeds and their doers. If people had to ask _where__ a thing happened, it was a scientific certainty that the thing itself was not unique. And within a short time, a good deal less than forty-eight hours, he, Sun Liang-tan, was going to have accomplished something unique.
When the conversation behind him had ended and the two had gone back into the house, the colonel's face changed, though his body remained immobile. A dim slow fire seemed to be kindled behind the grey layers of the pupils and the liver-coloured lips stretched and parted. There was a rhythmical hissing like the sound of a distant air-pump. Sun was laughing.
He recollected himself, hurried indoors and bounded actively up the stairs. In excellent spirits he shot the bolts on the door at the end of the corridor and entered.
'Good morning, my dear Admiral. Or rather,' - Sun consulted the black dial of the Longines at his wrist - 'since I know you sailors are meticulous about times of day, good afternoon. How are you? I hope you have everything you want?
M had been looking out of the tiny window. It gave him a view of a thin sliver of sea and, once or twice a day, the blessed, almost unbelievable sight of a yacht or fishing-boat, a reminder and a reassurance, for the dozen seconds it was visible, that the world still went on and was still sane. He could not manage more than a few minutes on end at the window, because standing tired him and the one chair the tiny airless room contained (its other furniture consisted of a single bed) was too low to let him see over the sill. Two things in particular tormented him: the fear that a vessel might be going by unseen while he was resting in the chair, and the knowledge that he was beginning to look forward to Sun's visits as some sort of relief from total vacancy. He was in a position to understand the first stages of that sickening and mysterious intimacy that gradually comes to unite prisoner and interrogator. He turned and faced Sun now, pale and hollow-eyed, the skin drawn tight over his cheek- and jawbones, but the look he gave the Chinese was steady and his voice, though strained, was firm.
'What does it matter to you, you yellow slug,' said M with great distinctness, 'whether or not I have what I want? Talk as you think, for God's sake.'
'No abuse, please, sir. It causes hot blood and obstacles to thinking on both sides. In answer to your question, of course it matters to me whether you have what you want, or at least your fair share of what's available here. Your strength must be kept up for your part in the experiences which lie ahead of us - which, I venture to assure you, will be far in advance of anything we've so far undertaken together. And to keep you short of food, deny you access to the lavatory and so on, is no part of my plan. I will not have you subjected to any petty privations during your last days.'
M's gaze did not alter. 'That's decent of you.'