The 9th Directive

I straightened up and tried to stop the onset of giddiness. 'I'm going on to Nontaburi. The roadblock. Stop them getting him through.'

'It is too late,' Pangsapa said.

'No. There's a chance.' As I began moving toward the Honda the first sounds came into the night from the north. Rifle fire, then machine-gun. Distance was a few miles, about where the roadblock was.

'It is too late, Mr Quiller. I'll take you back to the city. You need medical attention.'

I stood staring northward. There were flashes in the sky. Grenades.

Over my shoulder I said dully: 'Too late? Why?'

'Didn't you see the green light, ten minutes ago? The parachute flare?'

'Yes. I saw it.'

'It meant that the attack on the roadblock was about to begin. Sixty assault troops of the Vietcong were flown in earlier today from the Laos battle area. In a few minutes resistance will have been overcome, and the Rolls-Royce will pass through. The airplane is waiting at a private field three miles beyond.'

There were no more flashes. A single machine gun puckered the silence for a little time and then it stopped.

Vaguely I heard Pangsapa telling his men to take the Chinese into the car and guard him. Then he came up to me. 'You need to rest, Mr Quiller. There is nothing you can do now. The exchange will take place as arranged.'

26 The Ride

The guards arranged matters expertly and without troubling Pangsapa for orders. One drove, with Kuo beside him. The other sat on the tip-up behind the front seat, the muzzle of his gun just brushing Kuo's neck.

Pangsapa and I sat in the back. The tendency to drift off mentally had to be checked. It was not only fatigue and loss of blood: the roadblock was down and the prisoner was through and that was that. The 9th Directive was wiped out.

But suddenly I was leaning forward and shouting at Kuo – it may have been only a croak but it felt like a shout, inside my skull – because I wanted to know why the mission was wiped out.

'Kuo – how did you know my set-up? How did you know?'

He was groggy and took a minute to answer.

'I ordered a microphone to be placed inside the rosewood Buddha.'

I sat back, numbed. So they'd heard the lot. Got on to me from the moment I began searching the town for him, tagged me to Varaphan's, picked the lock and rigged the mike and heard the lot. And the two missions, had begun merging, his and mine. One had succeeded. His.

I must have drifted off again, my brain shying from reflections on my gross stupidity. Pangsapa's voice was fading in and out--

'. . . but they said you had gone…'

My head lifted heavily. 'What?' I asked him.

He turned to look at me. 'You are fatigued, Mr Quiller: I will leave you in peace so that you can sleep.'

I hitched myself up on the seat. 'I'm not too bloody tired to talk. I was thinking of something else, that's all.'

He smiled in the pale backwash of the headlights. 'The English hate losing, don't they? It makes them so cross. I was just saying that the moment I had news that our friend here was making a run for it I called your Embassy in the hope of finding you. They said you had just been on the line to them, but that you had gone. Knowing your predilection for working alone I said nothing to them, but drove out myself along Route 5 in case there was something to be done. We were about to overtake the Honda when the shooting began, so we pulled back and awaited events.'

The big Chrysler flew smoothly along the deserted highway, the air conditioner providing us with coolness to breathe. I found the switch and got a window open; I am not a goldfish. Sweet air rushed in.

'When did you know,' I asked Pangsapa, 'about the assault troops?'

'Two days ago. But you know how it is with random information; I was told merely that a local commander of the Pathet Lao in the Communist-held area round Tha Khek had released sixty combat troops and ordered their transit into Thailand, under cover. I failed to connect it with your operation until I saw the green signal light just now. I had wondered what plan Kuo had made for leaving the country, and it was suddenly obvious. It's galling, isn't it, when one is faced with an event one should have anticipated long before?'

'Listen,' I said, 'what kind of plane have they got waiting?' I suddenly realized that we could get information direct. 'Kuo – what kind of plane?' He didn't answer and rage flared up in me faster than I have ever known it. 'Kuo\' I was leaning forward and my hand had the shape of a claw.

The driver turned his head an inch. 'He is only just conscious. Does Mr Pangsapa wish that we should stop and revive him?'

'No,' Pangsapa said, and touched my arm. 'You should control your disappointment, Mr Quiller. I have already dismissed my own, and it was as painful as yours.'

I let my hand fall and sat back. The adrenalin had nothing to do and it ran without purpose through my system and my pulse throbbed, flashing behind the eyes. I shut them, and heard Pangsapa lisping on.

'There is nothing more that we can do, you see. I am informed that the exchange is officially arranged to take place at the Laos frontier, on the Kemaraj Bridge across the Maekong River. The territory on the other side is in the hands of the Pathet Lao, which takes orders from Peking. Kemaraj is throe hours' flight from here, so that the personage in the Rolls-Royce will reach there at ten o'clock tonight. He will then be placed under military guard until dawn tomorrow when the exchange will take place. You see how absurd it is to fret, Mr Quiller.'

'I'm human,' I said through my teeth.

'You are an Occidental. They are not philosophical. My chagrin is quite as sharp as yours. When you first came to me for information I saw reward in it. We settled for fifty thousand baht, if you remember. But when I began tapping my resources and learned that an abduction was planned, and not a simple assassination, I saw the opportunity of earning a reward of really immense proportion. You surely thought me impudent when I asked you to estimate your importance as an international agent. I wanted to know, you see, what your value was to the Republic of China. You gave me your estimate in the most appropriate terms when you named Abel and Lonsdale as a measure of your status. Both were agents, but they had more in common than that. They were agents who had been exchanged.' He had turned his head and was watching me. 'I thought you had divined my intentions, Mr Quiller. when you named them. But it was just a felicitous accident, wasn't it?'

So this was the measure of Pangsapa's fury at losing: he was taking it out on me. Well, I wasn't going to show any bloody interest. I shut my eyes again.

'My intentions were from that moment clear in my mind, Mr Quiller. I would assist you with all my power to prevent the abduction and the exchange, without financial consideration. Unfortunately we were opposed by a specialist of high talent, and we lost.'

It was said with sudden impatience and I knew he had no stomach for more. He couldn't take it out on me and remain detached. I felt a little better and opened my eyes and looked at his profile; it had the aspect of a sulky child.

I said, 'Did you have contacts? An agreement?'

'Oh yes. Through an intermediary at the Chinese Embassy. Kuo's price for the Person was five million pounds. For you I asked half, and it was agreed. They were very confident that the deal would never be concluded; they were certain that the Person would be made available at the exchange point – as indeed he has now been made. But it was an insurance for them: if Kuo could not offer them the Person, I would offer them you.'

That was why he'd brought the bodyguards along. If I had got the Person out of Kuo's hands tonight, I would have walked straight into Pangsapa's. How much had the Mil. 6 group known? Vinia had said: If they can't get him to the frontier, they'll get you.