Quiller Salamander

In a moment I said, 'Is he still dangerous?'

Tucker thought about that, tapping out a tattoo on the control column. Then he said, 'Ask me, he's planning a final strike. Look at it this way, he's out there somewhere in the jungle with one fucking dream in his head — bring Communism back to Cambodia before he dies — and he's pushing, what, sixty-five now, seventy? But he'll never do it politically, so what are his options? There's only one.' He moved his head an inch to watch an aircraft below us on the starboard side, its strobes flashing as it neared. 'He's done it before and he knows he can do it again, because the UN won't come back into Cambodia if things blow up, any more than it went into Bosnia.'

'Do you see anything,' I asked him, 'of Pol Pot's troops?'

'Oh, sure. They come and go, mostly on wheels, camouflaged transports and battledress. But we steer clear of them, be stupid not to, I mean we're not fuckin' kamikaze, you go near those bastards and that's your lot, even the government troops leave 'em alone.'

'Have they got a base in Pouthisat?'

'Sure.'

'Where is it?'

He turned to look at me. 'If I told you that, and it got out to them I told you, I'm dead meat.'

'They've got an intelligence cell in Pouthisat?'

'You could call it that. Nothing organized, maybe, it's just that wherever you are you've got to be bloody careful who you talk to. People have disappeared, you know what I'm saying?'

I watched our shadow slipping ahead of us across the savanna grass, rippling as it met groves of sugar palm and then steadying again across the plains.

'Pol Pot's main base,' I said, 'in the jungle. Is that still in the north-west?'

'I don't know. We get rumours every bloody day — he's moved his army here, he's moved it there. Ask me, he's putting out the rumours himself to keep everyone confused. He could be anywhere.'

'You think he's planning an armed coup? At this moment?'

He gave it thought again. 'I can't see him fading out gracefully in his old age, which is the only alternative. I'll tell you what one bloke says — and he knows what he's talking about because he runs dope out of Thailand, got his own air service, keeps his eyes open, has to. He says Pol is in the queue for the missiles coming out of Russia illegally and as soon as he gets enough of them he'll put Phnom Penh in his sights and give 'em the good news — either they let him walk in and take over the capital without a shot fired or he'll take it over anyway, what's left of it.'

'You think he'd do that?'

'It's like what Mao said, remember? The ultimate power is in the muzzle of a gun, something like that. And Christ knows it's even truer today, with a missile leak in Russia as big as a main drain, not to mention the nukes. Certainly I think Pol Pot would do that, you bet your arse, and it wouldn't be anything new — he used a missile a couple of weeks ago, shot down a plane right after it took off from Phnom Penh one night, wheels weren't even up, blew it out of the sky, Piper Seneca, government owned, kerboom.'

'Is that why there's no more night flying?'

'Right on. It's not been officially banned, it's just that you won't find any pilots daft enough to take off. It's less easy to set up a missile shot in broad daylight.'

'Why was the Seneca shot down?'

Tucker turned his head to look at me. 'The one I hear most often is that it had a government intelligence agent on board, famous for putting his nose in Pol Pot's business.'

'It sounds as if he was careless.'

'Right on. You've only got to make one little mistake with Pol Pot, and that's your lot.'

'Have you heard,' I asked in a moment, 'of a General Kheng?'

' Kheng? Can't say I have. But I mean this place is full of bloody generals. Why?'

'Just trying to catch up, my first day here for a while.' 'Right, go ahead. I don't know too much but I hear plenty of rumours.'

'Does the nineteenth mean anything to you?'

'That's a date?'

'Yes. I don't know which month, but probably this one.'

'Search me, then. It's not a feast day or anything — Chaul Chhnam's next month, Cambodian New Year, that's the nearest.'

'Okay. How many British nationals are there in Pouthisat at the moment, as a rough estimate?'

'Not all that many, now the UN's pulled out. But I run across them in the Food Services and the church missions and the Red Cross, places like that, all volunteers, of course.'

'Would you imagine,' I asked carefully, 'that any of them could be undercover intelligence people?'

'Brits?'

'Yes.'

Specifically, DI6. If they were operating out here they wouldn't be likely to tell the Bureau.

'Search me,' Tucker said. 'I mean, how would I know, if they're undercover?'

'Some people aren't too careful. Like the man in the Piper Seneca.'

'Right, but there's nobody,' he said, giving himself time to think, 'who comes across as a shadow, to my mind.'

I watched the patches of sugar-palm jungle slipping below us, wondering where Tucker had picked up that particular word. Not many people outside the intelligence services use it — no one I've ever met.

'You talk to a lot of Brits?' I asked him.

'We've got one or two in Mine Action, of course. Volunteers again, along with some French and Italians, Germans, Aussies, Yanks, you name it, people left over from the UN forces. I dropped out of the Royal Engineers myself, thought I'd put my training to a bit of good use out here where it's wanted. Never thought I'd make Cambodia my field, but life's full of surprises, isn't it?'

'How very true.' Because that was another word — 'field'.

Standing on its own it didn't amount to much — scientists had fields, doctors, lawyers. But coupled with 'shadow' it was more interesting. The problem with another intelligence service working the same field is that we can sometimes trip over each other's courier lines; it's not even unknown for an agent to find himself on another's terrain, especially at night, when a lot of the work is done — and that can be dangerous. Feldrake was operating a photo-reconnaissance assignment in Iraq at the end of the Gulf War and crossed paths with a DI6 agent in a night action, and they surprised the hell out of each other and Feldrake took the DI6 man for an Iraqi shadow and put him down, and there are still representations going on with the prime minister aimed at liaison between the two services. But it couldn't ever work: the Bureau doesn't officially exist, and it's got to stay that way. All we can do is check out the field as we go in, to see if there's anyone else in the shadows.

'When do we land?' I asked Tucker.

'Half an hour.' He looked at me deadpan. 'But if you want to get into signals, you can use the radio.'

'You bastard,' I said and he exploded into a laugh. 'Get into signals' was strictly Bureau-speak.

'Think I was DI6 or something?' Deadpan again, the tone indignant.

'Are you still active, Tucker?'

'No. I played it too wild, got sacked, went into the REs for a bit, worked on bomb disposal, more fun, less bullshit. But I can still spot a shadow when I see one. After Pol Pot, are we?'

'I'm after information.'

'On that bastard? You must be off your fuckin' rocker — you like life short and sweet, is that it?' He reached for his headset and put it on, calling up the tower in Pouthisat.