Quiller's Run

'How much discretion are you giving me, Pepperidge?'

He looked down, then away. In a moment, 'Let me put it like this. The Shoda bug and the other data we've got on her is in fact all we have to work with, and that could be compromised if someone finds the bug. And there's Kishnar.

But for the moment we'll have to let these things take their course, however long it needs.' Now his eyes came back to mine. 'Unless you can think of a quicker way.'

I could. But I didn't tell him that. He knew.

'Keep in touch, old boy,'

When I was back in my room I tried Sayako's number twice in the next thirty minutes and got no answer, but she was there the third time at 20:35 and among other things she told me that Mariko Shoda had just landed unexpectedly in Singapore.

24 The Birdbath

He is my father.' Cho. The recorder was running.

'I see.'

Silence for a while. I think she took a quick breath to say something, then stopped herself. Then decided.

'He speak of me?'

In a way, though he'd said nothing, he'd spoken volumes, spoken of love.

'When I mentioned your name, Sayako-san, he was very moved.'

'Move?'

'He showed that he has great love for you.'

Silence again, for longer this time. I waited. She'd heard me talking to Johnny Chen on the bug, making our plans to see her father.

'He say he has love for me?'

'Yes.'

If his love for her had not been in that single bright tear, what else had it meant?

'I want to ask,' she said, as I knew she would, and with painful hesitation, 'how is he now?'

That last word told me a lot. She hadn't see him since that vicious blade had struck and left him… how he was now. She had only heard.

'He can only ever be,' I said, 'as you remember him.'

'People say -' and then quietness again, not quite silence.

'He is very strong, Sayako. He trains every day in Shotokan.

And he listens to the voices coming to him by radio. He is not alone.'

After a long time, 'So.' And she was over the worst. 'You ask him for wavelength of Shoda bug?'

'Yes, and he gave it to me.'

'I am very glad. I could not give it to you, because I did not place it. My brother place it. But after, he -' three seconds, four, 'she find him and execute.'

Dear God, what star had she been born under?

I said nothing.

'He give wavelength to my father. He listen to Shoda?'

'Yes.'

'He hate her.'

'Yes.'

'I hate her also.'

'Of course.'

It was then that she said that Shoda had landed in Singapore.

'What is she here for, Sayako-san?'

'Is extremely angry because of you. Angry with Kishnar. So you must be very careful, Mr Jordan. If possible, you must leave Singapore.'

'Perhaps. But I would like to meet you, first.'

'Not possible. Too much danger.'

I didn't press it because if she agreed to a rendezvous it'd have to be arranged with so much security that it'd hardly be worth it. I didn't know if the hit team were aware that she'd been in contact with me, and if they tagged her to this clinic it'd blow the safe-house and leave me exposed, finis.

'How did you learn to use bugs, Sayako-san?'

'I work in factor}1, assembly line. Sanyo.'

'I see. And why did you place a bug on Johnny Chen?'

Hesitation, then, 'Somebody say he fly to village, often. Village near my father. I hope to learn about my father perhaps.'

'Chen would have flown you there, if you'd asked.'

'Yes, but friends of my father tell me he not wish to see me again, ever, and I might meet with him in village, without meaning. He -'

'You mean your father didn't want you to see Aim,'

She thought about that. 'Yes.'

I wondered which would break her heart the more effectively: for her not to see him, ever, or to see him, as he was now.

'Sayako-san, do you know where Mariko Shoda is staying, in the city?'

'Yes. She has house in Saiboo Street.'

I asked for the number and noted it. 'We will keep in touch,' I said.

'Touch?'

'We will talk again on the telephone.'

'Yes. But you must leave Singapore now, Mr Jordan. Kishnar not play games.'

'Thank you for your warning. I will phone you again, Sayako-san.'

Tick of the tin clock.

Sweat running on me; midnight and the sweat running as the ceiling fan stirred the warm air.

I could put the clock outside the door or throw it out of the window; I didn't necessarily have to listen to the bloody thing, but what would that prove, it'd only prove my nerves wouldn't stand it any more and they were going to have to stand a lot more than a clock in the next twenty-four hours.

You have exactly twenty-four hours. I want his head, do you understand that?

Shoda.

Bitch!

Do you know what she's come here for, to Singapore? For my bloody head, you know that?

.The impudence of the bitch!

I think that was what had made up my mind. But the nerves were rioting in this small quiet room at midnight because I couldn't be sure whether I was going to do what I was doing to do on the impetus of sheer rage or the dictates of a sound mind. Pepperidge would have said no, if I'd put it to him; he'd have finished with me, walked out of the mission, I knew that. It is not secure behaviour on the part of a shadow executive in a red sector to break out of his briefing and commit himself to an act that his own director in the field would forbid. But that was what I was going to do and the thought of it was firing the nerves and costing me the sleep I needed, costing me the strength.

Did she know what my contacts were, Shoda, what my communications were, did she know that as soon as she landed in Singapore I'd be informed? Probably. And that was probably why she'd come, to visit me in the dark of night, to creep under my skin with the stealth of a succubus and there spread her venom in the veins as I lay with a dry mouth and my hands cold, freezing in the heat of the room, my breath quickened and urgent as if each were to be the last as she came close to me now, her head turned on her slender neck as she looked at me, stopping a few yards away in the cavernous silence of the temple, until I was staring into the eyes of the angel of death, the luminous night-deep eyes of the creature that was to be my executioner, cup of tea, yes, would you like a nice cup of tea?

'What?'

'I've brought you some tea.'

Thanked her, yes, bright morning light, they looked after you well in this place, cleared up the mess when you cut your wrists, so forth, brought you a nice cup of tea.

And a different view of things, of course, much more confident, not a mistake, no, it hadn't been a mistake to make up my mind to do it, because the thing was, it would have to be done before we could move on to the objective. Needed a shower, stank like a polecat, shave, a slow and careful shave with only one bright bead of blood from the right cheek because I'd held the blade a degree or two from a right-angle, drawing blood before the day's had a chance to get into gear, now don't start that.

At 08:17 I left my room and talked to the girl at the nurses' station on B Block, Jasmine, Jasmine Yee, with quick eyes and the knack that most of them had of looking into your head and deciding what condition you were in while they were saying yes, but it'll rain before the afternoon, smiling, having to be observant because they might be asked later to report precisely how this patient appeared to them, had he shown any signs of depression, so forth.

Pepperidge would worry if he phoned here for me during the next hour and they told him I couldn't be located, but Jasmine would at least assure him that I'd been in B Block at 08:17 and had looked perfectly normal.

The doors weren't locked during daylight hours, only at curfew, and I used the one at the end of the corridor near the kitchens and walked into the street and blew the safe-house from under me.