“Correct,” said the Minister of Justice. “Now as you know, the civil war in Mandalasia has stalemated. In spite of considerable American and Communist bloc backing, neither the government forces nor the Communist rebels are getting anywhere. We have reason to believe that each side would like to tip the balance and sway international sentiment in its favor by producing Macpherson’s dead body and accusing the other side of having done the dirty deed.” He paused. “Speaking of dirty deed, your man—”
“Bullock, sir,” said Baines.
“Bullock really did a job on the Prime Minister. I heard the bones go crunch twenty yards away.” The Minister of Justice shuddered. “But back to Macpherson. It seems the Americans have an additional reason for wanting Macpherson dead. They’ve discovered he doesn’t charge his patients for his services.” Seeing Baines’s puzzlement the Minister of Justice explained. “To the Americans that’s socialized medicine. And you and I know what Americans think of socialized medicine. The situation is further complicated by Macpherson’s steadfast refusal to play at Peking’s International Festival of Young Communist Accordion Artists. Chairman Mao, deciding to take this as a personal affront, has recently placed the whole matter in the hands of his crack assassin group, the What-do-you-call-thems.”
“Not the Sly Dragons, sir?” asked a horrified Baines.
The Minister of Justice nodded. “But the worst is yet to come,” he said. “It seems our friends in the Opposition have gotten wind of the situation. Any day now the Prime Minister can expect a question in the House: What is the government doing to guarantee Macpherson’s safety? The thing has the potential of a red-hot election issue.
“Well, late last night the Prime Minister — the pain from his hand kept him up until the wee hours — hit upon another of those wonderful, no-nonsense plans of his: we drop one of your men into the jungle. He finds Macpherson and leads him across the border to safety in Bengalia.”
“But, sir,” protested Baines, “there’s hundreds of square miles of jungle. There’s no way my man could find Macpherson.”
“Commissioner,” explained the Minister of Justice, slowly and patiently, “in a situation like this it isn’t necessary that we succeed, only that we try. So the Prime Minister can assure the House that steps are being taken on Macpherson’s behalf.”
Glancing to the right and to the left, Baines leaned forward and whispered, “Sir, we’d be sending my man to certain death.”
“Then I’d advise you to send someone you can spare. I assume you have a man in mind, Commissioner.”
“Yes, sir,” said Baines weakly.
“Good,” beamed the Minister of Justice. “Good. Then tell your man that Canada is counting on him, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. In fact,” he smiled, “as a measure of the importance of this mission the Prime Minister’s only regret is that a severe disability in one hand prevents him from packing your man’s parachute personally.”
Halfway through “A Carnival of Venice” Dr. Angus Macpherson’s fingers stalled on the keyboard of his mother-of-pearl accordion. Resting the instrument on the veranda railing he scowled from beneath bushy eyebrows at the ragged mark the jungle made against the sky. For several days now the clearing and the buildings of the modest hospital complex, once a source of quiet satisfaction, had been closing in about him like a noose.
First had come the rumors of armies converging on the spot, and overnight what few old men were left had vanished into the jungle. Then Tang, the little Chinese, had arrived, standing in the bow of the small sampan, wearing an inscrutable smile which had not faltered until the shifting current carried him past the boat landing and around the bend toward the white-water rapids. Macpherson’s sigh of relief had proved premature. The next day some down-river villagers had trundled the battered and unconscious Tang back to the hospital.
That same evening a bearded, hawk-nosed man in a tom safari jacket and pith helmet with a leopard-skin sweatband had crashed out of the jungle raving theatrically (until he fell, with a cry of genuine surprise, into the excavation for the new root cellar). He was Michael Patrick Finn, a field engineer for Shamrock Diamond Mines, an Irish company. Or so his papers said.
Macpherson nodded decisively. Yes, it was time to move on. Somewhere out there in the darkness he would start another hospital, another footstep in his flight from civilization.
There was a commotion of voices at the edge of the clearing. Four old women came into the moonlight. They were carrying someone on a litter. When they reached him Macpherson saw the broad-brimmed hat, the trim mustache, and the scarlet tunic beneath the tom jump suit. As he felt the man’s pulse, eyelids fluttered. Acting Sergeant Maynard Bullock struggled up on one elbow. His mouth moved.
“Dr. Macpherson, I presume,” he said in a weak but triumphant voice, then fell back unconscious.
Oh, lordy, lordy, thought Macpherson, wishing for the thousandth time that week that he had become a lighthouse keeper like his father before him.
Bullock awoke with a roaring ache in his jaw and a monumental stiff neck. During the first tree-top hour hanging upside down in a tangle of parachute his small change and car keys had trickled away into the darkness, followed in short order by his wallet and pistol and the lanyard from around his neck.
But fear-real fear — had not seized him until the survival kit started its inching creep down his body. Without its carefully chosen contents — the sum of his 20 years on the Force — Bullock was just another man against the wilderness. Snapping desperately, he had caught the last strap between his teeth. How long had he remained like that until the old women found him? One day? Two? No matter. Here he was. And there, hanging at the foot of the bed was the survival kit. His luck had seen him through again.
Someone giggled. Bullock’s eyes became cautious slits. A small Chinese was sitting up in the bed next to his. His right arm was in a shoulder cast that curved out in front as though he was dancing with an invisible partner. He was reading from a little red book. As Bullock watched he giggled again and underlined a passage with a pencil stub.
“My name is Tang, in case you’re wondering, Mountie,” he said. Bullock stiffened and squeezed his eyes shut. “Relax,” coaxed Tang. “I’m Nationalist Chinese, a loyal lackey of the bourgeois imperialists just like you.”
Sensing the jig was up, Bullock opened his eyes. “A bit far from home, aren’t you, Mr. Tang?” he asked suspiciously.
“I have the honor of being a troubleshooter for the Taiwan Tract and Gospel Society, a group not unlike your Gideons,” Tang explained, holding up his little red book. “Our aim is to place our tracts in every hotel room in Southeast Asia. I mistook the good doctor’s hospital for a resort hotel.”
Their voices woke the big-nosed man in the bed on Bullock’s other side. He wore a shoulder cast identical to Tang’s except that it was on the left arm (his invisible partner seemed to have the lead). “Faith and begorra, Michael Patrick Finn’s the name,” he insisted, shaking Bullock’s hand. “Sure, ’tis out like a light you’ve been for two whole days, me boyo.”
Bullock narrowed his eyes. “I’ll bet you’re Irish, Mr. Finn,” he said.
Finn agreed. “Wasn’t it lost in the jungle I was and looking for diamonds and didn’t I wander into this clearing by accident now?”
An extraordinarily beautiful woman in a crisp white smock strode briskly into the room. Her jet-black hair framed delicate ivory features. Her eyes suggested the Orient. “Begorra!” shouted Finn. “I’ll take me shillelagh to any blatherskite that won’t admit that Dr. Lotus Lane is the prettiest colleen in the whole wide world. Look, I’ve made the beauty blush.” But Lotus Lane wasn’t blushing. She thrust a thermometer into Finn’s mouth.