* * *
From then until sunset time was sliced into disconnected images that might be not visual, but internal. Once he was in a corner of two walls bringing back the lunch he had eaten at the reed-thatched inn by the sea, wondering with detached curiosity at the way his stomach had altered the colour of the food. Another time he was leaning over the counter of one of the ubiquitous street-corner kiosks, pretending to argue with the proprietor over prices because there was a police car passing. But there was no sequence in the experiences. There was a fixed, due moment at which he must return to contact with the world, and until then he preferred not to perceive.
Darkness came, and triggered the command he had given himself. Shaking with the weakness that stemmed from terror, revulsion and vomiting, he made his way like a man in a dream to the district where Sugaiguntung had his home.
By half past seven he was within a block of it, and regaining his self-control. Concealed from a prowl car by a little clump of scented bushes, he felt his awareness mesh anew with exterior events. He re-learned how to frame coherent thoughts.
There’s a lot of activity around here. They can’t have dug out Totilung’s body yet, surely? But it wouldn’t take a genius to deduce what I did.
He fingered the gun in his pocket. It still had almost the full charge with which he had left the police-station armoury. He tried to find comfort in telling himself that he had been trained with the most advanced techniques to use such a weapon and win. It was no good. The only escape lay in action.
Action, distraction, fraction—I’m less than a man.
Circumspectly he moved on. A little way, and he had to throw himself flat in the shadow of an ornamental hedge to escape notice by a man on foot carrying a gun.
They’re waiting for me. Has Sugaiguntung repented of the confession he made, changed his mind about wanting out? I won’t let him. I daren’t.
It took him another half-hour to establish exactly how the premises were guarded. Apart from the prowl car, which was moving quietly back and forth along each of the three roads that served the area, there were seven police stationed around Sugaiguntung’s pentagonal garden, one sentry responsible for each side and paired men at the gates. Otherwise, he was relieved to discover, life seemed to be going on as usual. He caught snatches of sound from TV sets and in one of the nearby houses a group of people seemed to be rehearsing a scene from a traditional opera, singing in high forced voices and beating gongs.
At least he ran small risk of having to cope with inquisitive neighbours as well as the guards.
On leaving the hotel this morning, he had brought one trank with him to steady himself in the final emergency. He choked it down, praying that his stomach would not reject it before the capsule dissolved.
When it had taken effect, and his teeth no longer threatened to chatter, he made his way to the ornamentally deformed tree he had noticed this morning, which overhung the wall of Sugaiguntung’s home. The man responsible for guarding this side of the house always seemed to pass directly beneath it.
On his next tour, he did as previously, and Donald’s feet took him at the back of the neck, toes together. His whole weight followed and slammed the man face foremost into the ground, muddy from the rain. He struggled for only a few seconds before fainting, nose and mouth blocked against breath.
Donald shorted out his gun by tossing it into a puddle, where it discharged in a cloud of hissing steam, and clambered back into the tree. Edging along the stoutest of the branches which overhung the wall, he was able to drop on the far side where a flowering bush would break his fall. He was in sight of the main gate from here, where the two guards stood side by side in the glow of a lamp, but they were looking the other way.
On this side, the house’s windows were all in darkness except one, which was screened by wooden slats. He headed for it, avoiding the pool of light cast by a lamp over the front door, and stole a glance inside. He saw Sugaiguntung sitting alone on a low pouffe before a table laden with empty bowls and dishes, just finishing his evening meal. The door of the room opened and the woman he had seen this morning came in, to ask whether she should clear away.
He dodged around the nearest corner of the house and went to the opposite side, hurrying at the expense of silence because it could not be long before the policeman’s absence was noticed by his colleagues. At the back of the house there was a pair of sliding glass doors leading into the garden. He peered in, but saw nothing because the room beyond was so completely dark. He made to move on—and brilliant light leapt up in his face.
He was dazzled for an instant, too startled to move. Then his tortured eyes told him that the man who had put on the light was Sugaiguntung, and Sugaiguntung had recognised him and was coming to open the door.
He fell back, hand hovering by his gun, and hoped desperately that no one was looking in this direction from outside the grounds.
“Mr. Hogan! What are you doing here?” Sugaiguntung exclaimed.
“You invited me to call,” Donald said dryly, his moment of shock obliterated by the swift assistance of the trank he had taken.
“Yes! But the police say they want to arrest you, and—”
“I know. I hit someone with a camera this morning and because Totilung would dearly love to deport me she’s using it as an excuse. What’s more, she’ll have the chance if you don’t put out that light!”
“Come inside,” Sugaiguntung muttered, drawing back. “In the house is nobody but my housekeeper, and she is growing deaf.”
Donald darted past him. Sugaiguntung closed the door and let slatted blinds fall over it, blocking the view from outside.
“Professor, do you still want what you said you wanted yesterday?” Anxious for the answer, Donald kept his hand close to his gun.
Sugaiguntung looked blank.
“Do you want the chance to get away from being used as a political tool?” Donald rapped. “I said I could give you that. I’ve risked my life to make it possible. Well?”
“I have been thinking about it all day,” Sugaiguntung said after a pause. “I think—yes, I think it would be like a dream coming true.”
In the distance there was a shout and the sound of running feet. Donald suddenly felt as limp as a rag.
“Thank God. Then you must do as I tell you. At once. It may be too late even now, but I think not.”
* * *
Down the back pathway to the other gate, at which there were two more guards stationed, Sugaiguntung running on the path itself, Donald parelleling him noiselessly on soft ground. The guards looked behind them and turned a hand-lamp.
“Quickly!” Sugaiguntung panted. “Your sergeant wants you to go to that side of the house!” He pointed to his left. “Someone has knocked out the man who was on guard there!”
The policeman stared in the indicated direction. They saw the swivelling beams of handlamps and heard a voice bark an order. At once they took it for granted that Sugaiguntung was telling the truth and doubled away.
The moment they had rounded the corner of the wall, Donald flung open the gate and herded Sugaiguntung through. The gate gave on to the series of winding paths which he had scouted this morning. To the right and down-slope lay the sea.
If that bleeder Halal has let me down, what shall I do?
But it was too soon to think of such terrible possibilities. He hurried Sugaiguntung along as much as he dared, listening over the sound of his own breathing for any noise of pursuit. None had arisen before they emerged from the end of the path on to a quiet residential street. Now they had to walk without hurrying, occasionally crossing over to escape recognition by an evening stroller.