The little Hindu.
'Yes.'
'He is waiting for you near the steps of the U.S.O.M. in Phet Buri Road. Go there very quickly. Show yourself at that place. If he doesn't appear, telephone me at once.'
'And if he appears?'
'He will tell you.'
He rang off and I knew there was some thinking to be done but I could do it on the way there because there was no question of not going. Pangsapa had said all that was needed and the situation was clear enough: the Hindu was tagging someone and would have to move on if the quarry moved on. That would mean that he wouldn't be able to show up when I reached the spot. He would keep up the tag and telephone Pangsapa the minute he had a chance and report his new position. Pangsapa would give me that position when I phoned in to ask where the Hindu had gone.
We call it Musical Chairs and any number can play. When the quarry stops we all sit down and with any luck there'll be a telephone within reach. If not we go on playing till there is.
It was a ten-minute walk so I walked, because patrols were stopping every car including taxis and the calmness of Pangsapa's voice alone had said hurry.
Two patrols lay north of Lumpini but I saw them first and worked round them wasting two whole minutes but saving five while they checked my papers. It happened again at the crossing of Plern Chit and Raja Damri by the Erawan Hotel and another two minutes got lost but I was nearly home.
He was still behind me and was working well. I had to waste another minute flushing him, using the side road past Telephone House. He was the one with the splayfooted walk and I'd seen him opposite the Pakchong just after she'd driven away: although she had been with me it was his shift and they weren't taking any chances. Good of them, but I wanted to go alone where I was going because Pangsapa had sounded businesslike and we could be in action again.
Flushed him, checked the flush and found it stood up.
Brain singing like a dynamo because the waiting might be over now and the waiting had been very uncomfortable, worse than could be admitted. The mission is still running,' Loman had told me, but all it meant was marking time and listening to the helicopters over the river and watching the patrols checking the fountain pumphouse and stopping cars while the subconscious kept up its rotten little signals. You fell for a decoy and watched them make the snatch and now you've lost him and he might not live. You used to be good. Getting old?
A patrol car turned down the street and I used shadow until it was past. Light was in the sky eastward but the lamps still burned outside the U.S.O.M. building.
I stood on the steps.
There was no traffic yet except for the police cars. The trishaws were late coming onto the streets. The city had faltered in its rhythm and the day was beginning hesitantly.
Somewhere a helicopter throbbed in the low sky.
I was counting automatically and the second minute was up. Give it another, then phone.
Movement caught my eye. On the other side of the road was one of the tiny public gardens that form oases among the streets of Bangkok. The movement was being made by two hands. The head and shoulders of a man were framed by the leaves of the oleanders; he stood facing toward me; his opened hands moved slowly in a gesture that I should go to him.
For some reason he could not come to me and I checked the street with great care before I crossed into the gardens. They were silent. The sun was touching the first blooms and gilding a temple's dome beyond the magnolia trees. Dew was still dark on the leaves where there was shadow. He stood alone in the gardens, waiting for me. It was the Hindu. He spoke very softly.
'I could not move from here,' he told me, 'in case he went.' He was looking through a gap in the leaves and I saw the man beyond them in the street that made a right angle with the one I had just crossed. The distance was some fifty yards and the gap in the leaves was no bigger than a spread hand but I recognized the man immediately.
He was one of the Kuo cell.
20 The Shroud
The new day was fragile. It seemed to have dawned only here in the flowered garden. Beyond the garden the streets were still night-quiet.
Petals opened as the sun touched them; a branch of orchids hung above water where pond lotuses widened their wax-white cups in the warmth. The scent of camellias grew heavy on the honeyed air and small sights, small sounds were colored and sharp, alerting the senses as if they were significant: a bee hummed, a leaf fell, a bead of dew shone among shadows.
He moved again and I at once moved with him to keep him in sight through the gap of leaves. It was half an hour since I had sent the Hindu away. He had been glad to go, nor was I sorry: his fear of Kuo and anything to do with Kuo was distressing to be near and I was happier now that I was alone.
The Chinese moved back and I kept him in sight. He was waiting for someone and they were late and he was nervous because the patrols were everywhere. I could do nothing about that, only pray that a patrol wouldn't decide to question him and pick him up because then I would lose him and lose Kuo and the chance of reaching the Person.
It was the chance that made the new day fragile. I had a thread in my fingers, drawn fine, so fine that it seemed that the drop of a single leaf would break it.
If they picked him up they would take him for questioning and he wouldn't answer them. From somewhere – not from a ruin or a wharf or any place obviously to be searched – this one member of the Kuo cell had come into the open, purposefully.
Theory: Kuo was sending them out one by one to set up an escape route for himself and his prisoner. If they were left alone they would make contacts, extend the route more surely, protect it with strength in numbers. If they were picked up they would protect the route by their secrecy: the death pill is proof against every method of interrogation known to man.
The chance was so fragile. I had to keep him in sight, move when he moved, follow him and find his contacts and follow them through a city where police teemed and where police action against any of these men would snap the thread and smash the whole day down.
Pangsapa knew. Whatever his reasons he was dedicated to tracing the Person and he knew that to put the police onto this man would be to kill the only chance we had.
The heat was coming. Haze was forming above the trees as the sun drew moisture from the green places in the city. Traffic was beginning, a soft rush sounding from the wider streets.
The man moved and I moved with him. He was standing with his head turned away from me and I looked beyond him and saw the car coming.
Contact.
The operation was already planned in my mind. It didn't follow that his contact would arrive on foot simply because he was himself on foot. I could have told the Hindu to bring me a car or send a taxi here to wait for me in case I wanted it, but the situation was so delicate; the Chinese was living these minutes on his nerves and the unexplained appearance of a car might scare him enough to break his rendezvous and get clear.
He wasn't scared by the car that was coming because he knew about it and had been waiting for it and was already moving to the edge of the pavement as it slowed under quiet brakes. I watched it until it stopped, then took ten paces toward the entrance of the gardens and held myself ready.
It was a Lincoln sedan: a seven-seater executive-style transport, flat-sided, massive in black and discreet steel fittings. The chauffeur was alone. He leaned nearer the Chinese and they spoke together and then the Chinese opened the rear door and climbed into the car and I did the only thing possible.
If I lost sight of them the fragile thread would snap and I might never see them again – the Chinese, Kuo, the Person. I had to follow them and the only transport I could use was theirs. The great Lincoln was gathering speed past the entrance of the gardens when I judged correctly and got the rear door open and lurched inside, pulling the door shut behind me as the chauffeur screwed his neck round and called something, slowing.