By the time he'd seen me and made his way through the crowd my mood had swung in the opposite direction to something like anger; it happens like that when things are chancy: you suddenly wonder where your nerves have gone, and there they are all the time on the roller coaster.
"Did he know about this?" I asked Ferris the moment he sat down. I meant Croder and he knew that.
"About what?"
"Those assassinations. Did he know the targets?"
"Not till it happened."
"For Christ's sake, he knew it was something big. Why —»
"How's everything?" he asked me cheerfully and I shut up and just sat there while he ordered a beer and watched me for a minute with his narrow head tilted, his pale eyes hidden by the reflection on his glasses. "Been rough, has it?"
I didn't like the way he was having to play it so very cool, to cover his own gooseflesh.
"Does London want me called in?" I asked him.
He made me wait, simply because it was good for discipline. He had to get me back to where I'd started out, with lots of reserve control.
"Not so far," he said. I felt myself slacken off a little; it had been one of the fears that had run with me through the dark of the last four days: that when they saw that the opposition was closing in on me and certain to kill, London would call me in.
"Then who's Youngquist?" I asked him. It was a name Spur had dropped, and failed to cover convincingly.
The boy brought the beer for Ferris, and he sat for a moment with his thin sensitive hand round the glass, moving it in small precise circles on the teakwood table.
"He's your replacement," he told me.
Ice along the spine.
I didn't forgive him for a long time, for using both barrels at point blank range.
"When's he replacing me?"
He looked surprised. "As soon as you're ready."
I tried to think back to the signal I'd sent to the Embassy. Something was wrong. I said: "I'm not ready."
"Part of your signal read: Where is Youngquist? I assumed you wanted him to take over."
This time I made him wait, and when I was ready I leaned over the table and spoke very quietly. "In the six missions we've done together, have I ever asked for a replacement?"
He didn't have to think. "No."
"What makes you think I'm asking for one now?"
He moved his head and the reflection left his glasses and I could see his eyes, and they were surprised. "You're staying in?"
"Yes. I always have."
"I must say I'm rather glad." He drank some beer.
I sat back again. "I think this is a good time to get one thing straight. If you ever get a signal from me asking for a replacement, discount it. Okay?"
"That's what I did this time," he said. "Then I began thinking."
"You want girl?"
"Fuck off," I said.
Ferris gave his soft sinister laugh. "Of course I didn't tell London. I wanted to see you first."
"I should bloody well hope so. What did you begin thinking?"
"Well, they tried to smash you up in London, and you flew out here full of dope; then there was that thing in Pekin, which left you a bit washed out; and according to your signal they tried again twice. I don't know the details, but it struck me that you might not be physically operational any more. Sorry."
"I would have said so."
"Point taken."
"I asked who Youngquist was, not where."
He thought that over. "We'll have to do better, won't we?"
"I don't want any cutouts or contacts, Ferris. The police are looking for me, as well as the opposition. They can pick up my trail at any time. Any kind of contact could be fatal."
"Agreed. I'll try setting up a radio."
"Do that. And one other thing: when was Youngquist sent out here?"
He'd been hoping I wouldn't ask him.
"After they tried to finish you off, in Pekin. I told Croder you were still operational, but he makes his own rules."
I was going to have to work on him. "What else has he done?"
Reluctantly Ferris said, "There's now quite a bit of support in the field."
"Oh really."
"I told him you prefer working solo."
"Good of you."
He said: "There's no point in your going through the roof. This is Croder, and we'll both have to live with it."
"Just keep the support away from me," I said slowly. "Tell Croder that's what I want. Tell him that if he's not prepared to let me have it, then he can have Youngquist. Tell him he's decided to send this particular executive into the field, and if he wants me to do the job then I'm going to do it my way. Tell him that, Ferris, or by Christ I'm leaving the mission."
In the oblique light from the coloured lanterns I could see the slight movement of his jaw muscle, and noted it.
"It really would be rather nice," he said in his thinnest tone, "if one day some kind soul would give me a mission to field-direct where Control and the executive aren't mortal enemies."
He was in a rage, but I couldn't help that. I said:
"It's my life on the line, not his."
I didn't have to spell anything out for him. Contacts and cutouts can be a lot of help in an operation when signals have broken down or we have to pass papers or a code or documents back to base; but when the executive is on the run and trying to stay alive until he can find access to the opposition then a contact with less than executive-level training and experience can trip him or expose him and bring him down.
"I'll do what I can," Ferris said.
"Tell him those are my terms. No contacts, cutouts, shields or supports. No one else in the field with me. Unless I ask."
He sipped at his beer and put the glass down without a sound. "Understood. Now I need a report."
It took me ten minutes: Soong Li-fei, the man on the staircase, and the information I'd got from Spur.
"We've heard of Tung," Ferris nodded.
"Oh really." I waited.
"You'd better finish your report first."
"Fair enough. There's a leak somewhere."
His head moved slightly. "Oh?"
"You put me on that flight to Seoul with total security, but when I checked into the Chonju Hotel there was this woman Soong Li-fei waiting for me."
"But you said she told you she'd made a mistake — you were the wrong man."
"They told her I was the right one. They told her I'd killed her brother, and she went there to square the account."
"Do you think she's in the opposition?"
I thought about it, aware of the dangers of the halo effect: the exquisite features and the cinnamon eyes, the delicate poise of her head, the soft lilting accents, the grace of her walk. Discount all that and remember there'd been a gun in her hand and a bullet ready to rip through the rib cage and bury in the heart.
"I gave her the chance of using the gun on me again, and she didn't take it; it didn't even occur to her. She said she had a brother, Yongshen, who was murdered in Pekin; and that was true. And I think if she'd been putting on an act while I was with her, she'd have made a name by now on the stage, and a big one. I don't think she's in the opposition, but I think they tried to use her to kill me. So there was in fact a leak."
"At the Embassy," Ferris said at once.
"The cypher clerk?"
"No. He's Bureau. But he must have been overheard when I signalled him to tell him where you'd be in Seoul. Or there's a bug."
"For God's sake," I said quietly, "get it out."
"Yes indeed."
I finished my report, telling him about Sadie.
"Is she safe?"
"No one," I told him, "is safe. All she's got to do is make a slip of the tongue in the wrong quarter. That whole area is a red sector now: the Chonju Hotel, Li-fei's house and Sadie's place are all in the same network of streets and alleyways, and Spur's wine shop isn't far off."