'A pleasure, Your Highness, and allow me to offer my congratulations.'
The security man steered me deftly away and collared a flunky with a tray of champagne.
'Something soft.'
It took a bit of time and I eased my way to the silk-panelled wall and stood with my back to it, noting five or six more people from the Old Country, mildewed dinner-jackets and pinched-in satin, a shoulder-strap hanging down over a plump powdered arm; a small contingent of Japanese keeping close formation, beautifully-tailored; a couple of Filippinos standing stiffly with set faces, not touching their drinks -Radio Singapore had put out a news flash just before I'd left the hoteclass="underline" a major coup on the part of the military was in full swing in Manila; a group of Chinese, all smiles, and some Frenchmen arguing energetically about cheese – 'Pas possible dans ce climat, pas du tout possible de le garder en bonne condition!' Four or five turbanned Pakistanis and a lone African in uniform and a rather tense-looking girl in a green button-through dress, her face pale under the chandeliers.
'Canada Dry, Mr Jordan.'
'Thank you.'
'This way, please.'
He took me down a long corridor lined with portraits in gilt frames; a potted palm ten feet tall stood at the end under a domed ceiling; then we were in a small ornate ante-room with a circle of brocade chairs and a polished mahogany side-table with a copy of The Times lying on it, and someone's horn-rimmed glasses.
'Please wait here, Mr Jordan.'
'All right.'
Jordan had been the name on the papers I'd got from the safe in my flat in London; they'd offered the nearest cover to the one Pepperidge had suggested. Martin Jordan was an overseas representative for a small arms-manufacturing company in Birmingham: Laker Foundry.
The security man had left the door open and I could still hear the distant murmur of the reception, but it only accentuated the stillness in this small room, which I found encapsulating, unnerving. There was no mission running yet and there might never be, with me in it, if I felt like turning it down; but Pepperidge and Floderus knew the kind of thing I liked doing and they wouldn't have sent me out here to waste my time. At this day's end I could be moving into something dangerous, something terminal.
'Mr Jordan, I appreciate your coming to see me.'
He was a small, bland, hesitant man, his eyes half-hidden behind tinted glasses, his hand outstretched, his body turning sideways a little, limping as he approached. Two other men came into the room with him, aides, not bodyguards, and one of them said quickly, 'His Highness Prince Kityakara, Minister of Defence.'
'How do you do, sir.'
'How do you do. Now let's sit down – there's no one with you, Mr Jordan?'
'I came alone.'
'Excellent.' He looked around quickly. 'Let's shut the door, shall we?' He had a restrained Oxford accent and his speech was jerky, a little breathless. 'This is Captain Krairiksh of Interior Security, and Major-general Vasuratna of Military Intelligence.' He crossed his legs. 'We shall understand perfectly, Mr Jordan, if your knowledge of the political scene in Southeast Asia happens by chance to be slight. It's a small corner of the world, of course.'
'I don't take long to learn.' Pepperidge hadn't put any political briefing in the envelope and there was no point in taking a crash course because even that would need several weeks. Kityakara would have to pick the flesh off and give me the bare bones.
'Excellent.' His hand dipped quickly to a pocket and tugged out a small inhaler, whisking it across his mouth and slipping it back. 'I'll endeavour to give you the essence, then. Do you want to take notes?'
'No.'
'Very well. We'll do what we can to put things into perspective.'
He spoke for more than an hour, asking Krairiksh and Vasuratna to fill in the picture from their points of view and breaking for questions on the way. It didn't seem, I thought, to be much different in Southeast Asia than anywhere else, a scenario of territorial fear at the brain stem level and a general atmosphere of dog eat dog.
'Now let me try to put all that in a nutshell, Mr Jordan.' Kityakara got up and limped across to the black marble fireplace, using sleight of hand again with the inhaler. 'Soviet Russia is at present subsidising the Vietnamese armed forces in Laos and Cambodia to the tune of five billion US dollars a year. In return the Vietnamese permit the use of the naval bases in Da Nang and Cam Ranh Bay by the Soviet Pacific Fleet.' He let a moment go by. 'Those bases are vital to the Soviets. Vital.''
I tilted my chair back until I was balanced comfortably, listening to Kityakara and at the same time wondering about the asthma and the limp and the tinted glasses. A lot of people of his age in this area had been lucky to come out of the Khmer Rouge holocaust alive, even those in power, especially those. He was one of them and he'd come through a nightmare, so how paranoid was he, about the Vietnamese, about the Soviets? I'd need to find out, because paranoia always distorted the facts.
'Now, since the Soviets took over those two former US bases in 1979, they've added five submarine dry docks and installed underground fuel-storage tanks and anti-aircraft batteries, so that in terms of its sophisticated electronic arrays the base at Cam Ranh Bay is one of the most important Soviet communication and intelligence-gathering facilities outside Russian territory. The aircraft carriers Minsk and Novorossiysk have made port calls, and those two bases alone offer the Soviets all the elements of a naval warfare strategy in Southeast Asia – torpedo and cruise missile strikes from aircraft, submarines and surface ships, linked by a land-based communications centre. Would you care for some tea?'
'Yes.'
Vasuratna opened the door and spoke to the guard outside.
'The Soviets, then,' the Prince said when the door was closed, 'are holding a very strong position in Indo-China, bearing in mind the estimated number of "advisers" here -seven thousand in Vietnam, three thousand in Cambodia and two thousand in Laos. But the main concern of my government – given this background – is that by invading Cambodia, Vietnam has moved its borders west, right up to our doorstep.' He whipped the inhaler across his mouth, and it confirmed what I'd noticed since he'd first come in here: that he used it whenever he was saying something that made him anxious. 'That makes us nervous, Mr Jordan. Very nervous. The disastrous failure of the summit conference last month – with its critical heightening of international tension – and the increasing accord between the United States and China, where three US ships of the 7th Fleet actually made port calls last October, together with the first signs of nationalistic restlessness of the Vietnamese as erstwhile hosts to the Soviet fleet, all threaten the Soviet position in the Pacific.'
He broke off as a white-jacketed steward brought in a massive silver tea tray and put it down. Prince Kityakara lifted the lid of the heavily-chased teapot and sniffed. 'Lapsang Souchong – would that suit, gentlemen?'
I tilted my chair back again and watched the ceremony of pouring. A Soviet connection in Indo-China? I hadn't been ready for that.
'Lastly, Mr Jordan, there is this. Thanks to the increasing supply of arms reaching the rebel forces in Laos and Cambodia, those countries are approaching the brink of civil war. This, of course, would normally be seen as advantageous; we would hardly view the overturning of communist power as undesirable. But no one can predict the extent of the bloodshed that would ensue, or the critical increase of Soviet power in Indo-China. Sugar?"
'No.'
'It's not unlikely, you see, that if the Soviets decided to support the Vietnamese in an invasion of Thailand, we might be forced to invoke the terms of the Rusk-Thanat Agreement of 1962, under which America is pledged to support us -militarily. The Agreement is an executive, not a treaty, but it is valid and extant. We have the option of invoking also the Manila Pact, which is a treaty, and extant.' He sipped his tea, and I noted the slight shaking of his hand. 'What we are talking about, Mr Jordan, is a possible military confrontation between Soviet and US forces. The first in history.'