He was walking about and I stopped watching him. My hand was throbbing and I savored the pain; it was the pain of a living body and I hadn't expected to feel such a thing again.
One more answer to one more question had come in: this thing was on government level, although I had never thought it could be. China had it made. The snatch had been done by 'unidentified parties' – not by the Chinese. It had been done in Thailand – on territory that was not Chinese. It had been done for the simplest of motives: ransom. It was a motive quite unconnected with a Chinese agent under detention. But… as a gesture of amity among nations – and since there was in fact a Chinese agent under detention – why couldn't we all get together and live happily ever after?
Even commercially it was a neat set-up. China would pay Kuo 80,000,000 Hong Kong dollars for the snatch and would get it back from the U.K. Huang Hsiung Lee was being bought for nothing. Thrown in was an item of scientific data that would enable Communist China to build a weapon capable of challenging the whole world East and West.
'A question of time,' said Loman again.
'How long, precisely?'
'We don't know yet. But the moment the Person is known to be on Chinese soil I am assured that the offer will be officially accepted. I am told that Huang Hsiung Lee has already been released from Durham and is on his way to London Airport. That will give you some idea as to how fast things are happening. I have been on the direct Embassy line to the Bureau twice in the last hour and the orders are specific: locate the Person and bring him to safety before the exchange can be made.'
The telephone had begun and he had the receiver to his ear before the second ring.
'Speaking.'
He jerked his head to me and I went over and took the line. Her voice was cool and slow and all she said was: 'I have a call for you.'
Now I would have to face it.
'Were you successful?' He didn't give his name.
'No.'
'What happened?'
'I lost the chance.'
We couldn't say anything much in case the line was bugged. He asked evenly:
'It was not the fault of our contact?' He meant the Hindu.
'No. He was very efficient. It was my own fault.'
Loman was staring at me and I looked away.
'It is difficult for you. They are desperate now. I hope for further information. If I obtain it I shall need to pass it to you without any delay. Can you hold yourself immediately available?'
'Yes. Rely on that.'
'I shall do so.'
Someone was banging at the door and Loman went over to it as I put the receiver down. It was one of the Embassy staff and Loman spoke to him and turned back to me. 'Important?'
'Fishmonger.'
'Will it wait?'
'Yes.'
He nodded and went out. We had given Pangsapa that cover name because of the tank with its blood-red water.
I was alone and wanted to pick up the phone again and ask her was she all right but there was no point. She was all right. All I really wanted was to hear her voice again, just because it was possible, as the pain in my hand was possible.
The police surgeon had put five stitches in and asked some questions, but I told him I'd caught it in the lavatory seat and he'd shut up and got on with the job.
The strangeness had lingered because of the big paper kites and because of the close companionship to death in the final second: imagination had flared up. One of the kites had been directly behind the Chinese as he stood there with the gun held in the killing attitude, and the kite was one of those with a face painted on it, so that I saw their three faces in succession.
The face of the Chinese was impassive in the instant of the gun's firing, then it opened in surprise as he began falling. He fell slowly, and as he fell he revealed the second face, the face of the paper kite, fierce-eyed and cruelly fanged. She moved from the edge of the kite to watch him fall and her face, the third face, was squeezed in a grimace of loathing as she stood looking down. Then it cleared and she closed her eyes, and her face had the calm of a sleeping child.
The Chinese hadn't moved. Blood came from the hole in his neck. She had shot for the third vertebra in the cervical region, smashing it and severing the nerves. It was a surgically accurate shot, consideration having been taken of the limitations of so small a gun.
The fumes rose from the little barrel, gray in the sunshine that fell from the skylights. She opened her eyes and I stepped over the body and took the gun from her. She wouldn't want it any more. This was her one fine day and the legend of Halfmask was ended.
We walked to the Embassy, taking our time. The park was on our way and we walked slowly under the magnolias like lovers. I didn't speak because she had the trauma to deal with but she felt like talking and she talked about ordinary things.
'Lawson phoned me soon after dawn and said you'd flushed him near Telephone House, so we put out the usual alert. He went back to your hotel and Green was sent to cover Soi Suek 3. I took the warehouse. It was just the way things went – it could have been any permutation.'
She reached once for my hand, quickly and suddenly, and I felt the tremor shaking her. She had killed because of what they had done to Richard: I had given her the excuse, that was all. It would take time for her to justify and forget.
Her fingers moved and I let them free. She said:
'I saw the car backing up – the Lincoln – so I went in by another door in case there was something I could do.'
I knew that her group had the keys to the place; she had opened a door there before, the night she had tagged Loman.
'He would' – and she had to get a breath and have another go – 'he would have killed you, wouldn't he? Otherwise?'
'In the next half second.'
Justify and forget.
'I don't mean--'
'I know,' I said.
'I'd have done it anyway, one day, for any reason. I'm glad it was you.'
The magnolias floated their leaves on a sky bluer than I had ever seen it; we walked through gold light. I said, 'I'm not complaining.'
She began laughing softly but it went on and turned strident and I said sharply, 'Cut that out.' She was all right after that and I put her into a cab and told the driver the British Embassy, and walked on to the Police Hospital a few blocks away to get the hand fixed up.
Loman came back in ten minutes and didn't say why he'd been called away: they like playing it big when they're in the field with the agent-- 'I have been on the direct Embassy line to the Bureau twice in the last hour.' That sort of thing.
'What did Fishmonger want?'
'Requests availability.'
'He is a very good man,' Loman said. 'Don't underestimate his resources as an informant.'
'Christ, I know that. He gave me a lead this morning and it could have been good – damned good.'
He stood absolutely still, listening.
'Well?'
'No go. I got myself cornered. One dead.'
He nodded. 'Do you need any smoke out?'
'No.' It was like that with Loman. Just when you wondered how much longer you could stand him he said something nice. He should have stood on my face for losing a good lead when we were desperate for one.
He was halfway to the phone when I stopped him. 'I passed it to local SB from the hospital when I was waiting for them to fix my hand. Black Lincoln, Bangkok registered, number and everything, spring-gun dart lodged in the rear door, inside – if they ever get the chance to look for it.'
He asked me about directions, coming and going, so forth, and I told him the essentials. He didn't ask about the bump: providing I didn't need smoke out he was satisfied.