Quiller's Run

'How many crates are there?'

'Twenty.'

Think. How long would it take to open up twenty crates and go through the whole contents, which was what they'd do before they got on the radio and informed Shoda? An hour. Say an hour. Time bracket, then, of ninety minutes minus an estimated – I looked at Pepperidge – 'From here to the airport, how long?'

'Forty minutes, with the escort.'

Minus an estimated forty minutes and another forty-five minutes for the Shoda jet to start up and taxi and get to the grid. Bracket of five minutes. Five.

Better than zero and I was having to make estimates and I might have longer than that and we still had a chance even if it were shorter below zero. So take the risk, go for it.

'All right,' I said into the phone, 'set it up. Any questions?'

'I don't think so.'

'Then keep in signals.'

'Roger.'

I put the phone down and went into the little lav just off the smoking-room and slurped some handfuls of water into my mouth and splashed my face and towelled it and went back and through into the salon and told Loman and Pepperidge what I wanted to do.

'She kill my father.'

There was a moth circling the lamp. 'I'm sorry,' I said. 'Thank you.'

Thank me… Mother of God, if I hadn't gone there to the radio station she wouldn't have sent the bombers in.

Bitch!

'You know he the?'

'Yes, Sayako-san.'

Moth round the lamp bulb, bumping into it, a powdering of gold dust coming down.

'Kishnar,' she said. 'What happen?'

'We sent him to Shoda, in a coffin.'

I heard her catch her breath. 'You do such a thing?'

'Yes.'

'Will make her afraid.' Silence came in and I waited. Gold dust floating down, are you out of your bloody mind, have you got to go on hitting the bloody thing?

Couldn't stay away, I suppose. Don't take this all the way to the brink.

'I live only now,' the soft voice came, 'till she the.' Meant, for her to the.

'I understand.'

'She very strong. Very hard. But like glass, one day break easily. You make her break, I think, one day.'

'Perhaps.'

I'd been wondering why she'd phoned but now I knew. More than anything in the world she wanted Shoda's death, and she thought I might bring it about for her. She'd wanted to talk to the instrument of her heart's most bitter craving.

'Will be graceful,' she said. I think she meant that to kill Mariko Shoda would bring grace upon me.

'If it happens, Sayako-san, you will know.'

'Yes.' Another silence, but for the soft sounds of her crying. 'When she the, my father be at peace.'

I said something consoling, I don't quite remember what, and then there was a click on the line and it went dead and I suppose she'd just felt she couldn't talk any more.

I went back into the salon and we took up where we'd left off.

'I don't like your extemporising?

Loman.

'It's the only way.'

'But surely the risk is high.'

'

'Not so high as if we just wait around till they locate me and wipe me out.'

Pepperidge was perched on the edge of a chair and hadn't said anything for a long time. I don't think he liked it. Flood was standing near the stained-glass windows with his feet apart and his arms folded, listening hard but not saying anything either. Katie was manning the phone whenever it rang, coming back to sit apart from us, her face strained. I wished she didn't have to be here with us but it was up to Loman.

Loman hadn't answered so I said it again, trying to sell it to him. 'This is the only way.'

I'd told them what I wanted to do and how it would have to be handled technically and I'd told Flood to get me what I needed and he'd done that and all we had to do now was wait for our contacts to ring us when Shoda left the house in Saiboo Street for the airport, and that would be when she got the news from Prey Veng that the consignment had arrived there.

Loman still didn't answer. I think he was simply stonewalling so that I'd have to keep on pushing him, and then if I said something wrong he could pounce on it. That was all right; that was his job. So I went on pushing.

'I know two things. When she moves, I've got to move, or I'll lose her. And we've got to isolate the confrontation, to keep the public out of danger.'

Loman was still silent. He didn't like this, any more than Pepperidge. A bit earlier Pepperidge had said to me quietly, hand on my arm, 'You really are taking this all the way to the brink this time.' Told him there wasn't anywhere else left for me to go.

Then Loman spoke.

'Very well.' He was sitting in the wing-chair with his hands along its arms and his polished shoes together, staring down at them. 'But, of course, I have serious reservations.' He swung his small head up and stared at me instead of his shoes and I knew what was on his mind: he could be looking at someone who'd started dying.

'If you can't give me a decision,' I told him, 'very fast indeed, I'd say we've had it. The Slingshot's out of her hands now but she's still alive and she's the target. You can't hope to go on protecting me even with half the Singapore police force because I've got to move into the open for the end-phase whatever form it takes and they'll simply pick me off with a telescopic rifle if they can't get any closer.'

This situation hadn't happened before: the executive, at present safe and supported by his director in the field and his London control, had a limited life span, and during that span he'd got to complete the mission.

'We are working on assumptions,' Loman said. 'We assume that when Shoda is told that the consignment has been landed she'll leave the house in Saiboo Street for the airport and take off for Prey Veng, confident that you'll be taken care of in her absence by her hit teams.'

'It's logical,' I told him. 'We're not taking wild swipes.'

'I agree. But you've narrowed down the time element to as little as five minutes.'

'The time gap's important but it's not critical. If she gets the news that she's lost the Slingshot before I can break it to her, we've still got a chance.'

He didn't answer.

There was the rustling of paper and I saw Katie clearing away the debris from the sandwiches she'd brought in for us. Flood went across to help her. He looked as if he hadn't been listening to anything but, of course, he had. He needed to know what kind of mess I might be leaving him to straighten out.

'How do you rate your chances, Quiller?'

Loman was still staring at me with his pale glass eyes.

'Look, if I start thinking in terms of life-and-death percentages it's going to sabotage my confidence. The thing is this. We've still got a mission running and the only way I can finish it is to get close to Shoda and this is the last chance we've got.'

Waited again.

I hate waiting.

The air was still like steam in here because they'd let the whole place run down and there wasn't any air-conditioning but there was a chill creeping through me as if winter had come.

They 're right. You shouldn't take the risk.

Now don't you start.

End-phase nerves. Normal, ignore.

You do in fact know what your chances are.

Shuddup and fuck off.

Then Loman said, 'I think this is for Mr Croder to decide.'

'If it doesn't take all day to get him.'

'He is near the signals console at all times.' Loman got up and gave his shoes another scrutiny. 'Will you talk to him or shall I?'

I thought that was nice of him. A top control in the field from London doesn't normally leave it to the ferret to contact the C of C and take part in the decision-making.

'Let me phone him right away,' I told him, and the feeling I had when I made my way round the chairs and tables and into the smoking-room was split right down the middle between total assurance that I could pull off a five-star spectacular and a numbing certainty that this was the day when I was going to the brink for the last time, and right over.