'I need certain information from you — the name of the man who's to meet our friend at Gonggar, the type of aircraft I must look for, the time of its arrival.'
There were four minutes to go, give or take a bit to allow for mental-clock error, and the nerves were tight now, the adrenaline coming into flow. I took a step toward him, five feet away, slightly less, but still not close enough.
'Oh, for Christ's sake,' I said, 'how on earth do you think you can put him on a plane at Gonggar, get him past the security, the police, the PSB agents, the military?'
'More easily than you. I'm not a wanted man.'
'But they'll recognize him, don't you know that?' Nerves in my voice, it was a shade too loud, a slight slackening in control, and dangerous, I'd have to watch for that. We were getting down to the centre of things now and the rational fear of my getting killed had given way to the overwhelming thought that these people would take Xingyu Baibing to Gonggar and try to get him through and lose him to the police or the military, finis.
'In winter here,' Trotter said reasonably, 'everyone is wrapped up in hats and scarves, as you know.'
'Listen, anyone trying to leave Gonggar is going to be told to take off his hat and his scarves and stand under a bloody floodlight, you're not even thinking, Trotter.'
His eyes flickered again; he didn't like being told off. 'You got him through Hong Kong,' he said, 'and Ghengdu, and Gonggar. If-'
'At that time the whole of the People's Liberation Army wasn't hunting him down.'
And he'd had a mask on. Couldn't tell him that.
Look, there's this to be said: he had a point, I was a risk. If he was really trying to get Xingyu into Beijing I could stop him in his tracks if the police picked me up and I couldn't get to the capsule and they beat everything out of my skull — they'd start hunting for this man too and find Xingyu, capito.
'You can't get him airborne at Gonggar,' I said, 'unless I remain alive.'
I had the mask.
'That is untrue, in my opinion.' Quietly said, but with an edge: he was starting to dislike me. That would be useful to work on, get him riled, off-balance.
'Look, Trotter, what's your motivation? Who's running you?'
'No one is running me. I'm engaged in this enterprise because of my profound love for China and her people and because of what happened to them in Tiananmen Square.' Black eyes smouldering. 'There is my motivation in Tiananmen.'
'Off on your own little crusade. Tell you this, Trotter, you can not get him out of Tibet if you kill me off, because there's a certain element involved that will guarantee his getting through Gonggar and onto the plane, and you haven't got it, and I have.'
He watched me carefully, seemed interested. 'An element. Would you be more specific?'
'As good as a passport, as good as a laissez-passer, the only certain means of getting him through.'
In a moment,' «Element»… "means"… I'm sorry, but I don't believe you. Unless you're prepared to tell me precisely what it is.'
'Not bloody likely.'
He looked offended. There was something frighteningly genuine about this man. He was telling me quite simply that it was regrettably necessary to kill me off and that I was expected to feel consoled to know that at least Xingyu Baibing would reach Beijing, and he seemed surprised that I wasn't totally ecstatic about the idea. I was missing something.
Then I got it.
Tiananmen.
He'd spelled it out for me, after all, but it hadn't connected. His rage at Tiananmen was all-consuming, and the only thing he had in his mind was to turn it into action, put the messiah back in the capital and kick out the geriatric junta there and let the people free, lay the bloodied ghosts of Tiananmen. And compared to that, the life of one solitary spook, already hunted by the police, already on his way to the execution yard, was not to be counted.
'Then I'm afraid we must proceed,' he said.
'Do what you like. Kill me, you lose him, you lose everything.' Needed time to think.
Trade? Time to think about that. Trade my life for the mask, let him take me to Xingyu and fit the mask and let them go on their way, and then get under the ground and tunnel my way out of Tibet like a bloody mole.
We may start to think like that when things get tricky, when it looks as if there's not a single chance left of staying alive, it's natural enough, the grave's got a certain smell to it, can turn your stomach, you can't blame me and I don't give a damn if you do, it's my life on the line, not yours.
'The other information I shall need,' Trotter said, 'concerns Beijing. I want the name of the PLA general who has committed his forces in your support, and the arrangements for having our friend escorted to the Great-'
'Oh for Christ's sake, give him a name, can't you, Xingyu, Dr Xingyu Baibing, this "our friend" thing is so bloody coy, and incidentally I'm surprised to hear you still need so much information, I thought you'd got the whole thing buttoned up.'
I turned away from him and walked for a bit, just a few paces, wanting to think, wanting urgently to think without his face in front of me, the face of my executioner, and when I came back I stopped a bit closer to him, four feet now, call it striking distance if I had to go for it.
'Sojourner died,' Trotter said, 'before we could get everything.'
'What? Oh.' Hadn't got the name of the general, so forth, yes. I hadn't been paying attention because in those few paces I'd done some thinking and it had shaken me quite a bit, because listen, I might have to trade the mask, not for my life but for the mission.
We get vain, you know, the longer we're in this trade, the more we get used to bringing the bacon home time after time with nothing much more than a broken ankle or a shark bite or a bullet lodged somewhere in the organism, we start thinking we can go on like that, start thinking we're invincible, that only we can see it through to the objective, bring it home. I suppose it's the same in most professions, but in this one it's a lot more dangerous if one day we find we're wrong.
The objective for Bamboo was to get Xingyu Baibing back into the Chinese capital, and I was in possession of the mask and the critical information that Trotter wanted from me, but my chances of taking Xingyu even as far as Gonggar airport were appallingly thin — all right, yes, grab him if I could and run the gauntlet with him through the streets and try to keep him buried somewhere in a cellar or a cave until we had to keep the rendezvous with the bomber, hell or high water, so forth, but that could simply be an act of braggadocio, of professional vanity.
The alternative looked better. Give this man the information he needed, give him the mask, let him keep Xingyu here in this temple, a place where the military had already made their search, where he wouldn't be disturbed, and let Trotter take him to the airport, openly, as a man already familiar to the police and to an extent trusted — they're used to me by now, you see, and I help them sometimes — and let the mission run its course without impediment to its objective. Because I was the impediment.
Must be mad.
'All right,' I said, 'tell me what you're going to do.'
Needed more time to think. Not mad, perhaps saner than I knew. But I couldn't go through with a thing like this without London's approval. Trotter would have to let me signal, before we did anything else.
You're suggesting that you hand over the mission?