"With what?"
"Your life."
"I think he'll keep me alive as long as it's in his own interests."
"They are also my interests."
Wrong.
I said: "Then I've got a double chance."
"Your chance of remaining alive for more than a few hours precisely nil." Ice in his eyes.
"I wouldn't say that. I'm your direct access to the opposition. You can funnel enough dope through me to knock them right out of the running."
Dismissed with a shrug. "Where is your safe-house in Seoul?"
"There isn't one."
"Then where will you send your signals, if I permit it?"
"To my director in the field."
"What is his name?"
"Murray."
"Where can he be reached?"
"At the British Embassy."
He swung away from me and paced for a while, probably to show Tung that he was in total control here and still hadn't decided whether to use me or not. Beyond him I saw one of the Koreans standing closer to the archways, looking in at us; when he saw I was watching him he brought up his submachine gun and aimed it at me and I thought yes, Sinitsin was probably right: my chances of remaining alive for more than a few hours were precisely nil.
We listened to the sound of the grey suede shoes across the flagstones, like the ticking of a clock. I was getting no emanations from Tung; when I looked away from the muzzle of the submachine gun I saw he had his eyes closed, perhaps in meditation.
The little interpreter shuffled a few steps away, perhaps needing movement to ease his leg; he wasn't wearing a track suit like the rest of them; I suppose he was just a civilian from one of the Communist liaison groups in Pyongyang or the Demilitarised Zone.
I watched Sinitsin. If he said no, Tung would have to abide by it, and they'd have no further use for me; there'd be the wall and the rattle of shots, and the name of my replacement would go onto the board for Jade One in London.
If he said yes, my voice would vibrate the speaker in the Embassy signals room and Ferris would look up in disbelief, and we could start work again, and use our one chance in hell of saving the mission.
Shoes on the flagstones, like the ticking of a clock. Then Sinitsin stopped pacing. "No," he said.
23: Shoot
It was only a short walk.
Tung Kuo-feng didn't come with us, probably because this was Sinitsin's show and they didn't like each other. Sinitsin himself led the way out of the stone-flagged hall, through one of the arches and along the narrow courtyard between the monastery and the ruined temple nearby. The two track-suited guards came forward and I recognised one them as Yang; apparently he knew Russian, because Sinitsin spoke a few words to him directly, without the interpreter's help, just saying I was to be executed immediately. Yang moved behind me and pushed the muzzle of his submachine gun into my spine; it wasn't necessary, because I couldn't run away; he was just expressing his feelings. They took me to the middle of the long wall between the Monastery and the little pagoda, opposite one of those carved stone Buddhas that were everywhere. Yang left me now, (swinging the gun barrel round and moving back to where the others stood, about thirty feet away.
I don't know what had changed Sinitsin's mind. I'd thought Tung had won his argument in there. Apparently not.
My eyes were getting used to the moonlight after the glare of the butane lamps in the hall where we'd been. The soft indigo haze across the mountains had lightened a little, and the tiles of the pagoda's curving roof had begun shimmering. The air was still, with the scent of woodsmoke in it. You could say it was a fine night.
Those present Colonel Igor Sinitsin, Major Alyev and Captain Samoteykin of the KGB, five North Koreans in Olympic strip, and the crippled interpreter. The three Koreans who had come up were probably members of the helicopter crews, invited to watch the show because they still felt badly about the man I'd killed. Tit for tat, so forth, c'est la vie. You can't have everything.
C'est la mort, also, of course; that you can have.
Moira.
One single rose, for Moira.
Listen, they can't do this. They -
Shuddup. Die like a brave ferret.
Records for Jade One: Executive replaced July 16th following final signal reporting extreme hazard. As far as it can be ascertained, first executive in the field deceased shortly afterwards, remains never discovered.
Sinitsin was coming towards me, his leather heels clicking across the stones.
The last I'd heard from Moira was that she was shooting some retakes near Paris. I suppose it would be some bloody little second assistant director stopping her as she left the set, Miss Sutherland, there're some flowers come for you in a box. Flower, you idiot, one flower, don't you understand, one rose, don't you know the difference? And don't let her think it's just from one of her fans, make her open it now.
No. Never let her open it. Throw it away somewhere.
There weren't any lamps out here in the courtyard; there was just the moonlight, gleaming on the curved tiles of the pagoda and the bell in the archway and Yang's gun.
They didn't need any more light than this. Yang was thirty feet away and he could blast me into Christendom with one sustained burst of fire, even if I tried running for my life. The only logical place to run would be straight into his gun, to get it over with.
What will she do with the rose? Will she clasp it tenderly in her slender hands, closing her amethyst eyes while the first hot tears begin falling? You don't know her, my friend. She'll just look at it and say Christ, he was always so bloody sentimental, I wish he'd sent a case of gin so I could get smashed out of my mind.
Throw it away. Don't let her know.
Executive deceased. Relevant records show -
Listen, there's time to run. You can't let them -
Shuddup, will you. Be brave, little man. You're dying for Queen, country, a stack of piratical death duties and the overweening arrogance that made you think you could run this one solo, so stop snivelling and let that be your epitaph.
Colonel Sinitsin stopped in front of me with his grey suede shoes neatly together. "Tung spoke a certain amount of logic in there. You could have been valuable as a disinformer; but we know your record and we know you can't be trusted to behave intelligently when it's all over. You'd only try something stupid, and I'm not going to have that."
I stared him back but didn't show any reaction. There was no point now in concealing the fact that I understood Russian, but it's the kind of thing we've been trained to do, in whatever circumstances: maintain the cover. Actually it's a bit like running around like a chicken with its head cut off, and I would much rather have told Sinitsin something to annoy him, Lenin was a silly shit, something simple enough for him to understand.
"So you can only blame yourself," he said, and gave a brief energetic nod, as he'd done earlier when I was introduced; then he turned his back on me and walked with his measured stride to where the others were standing, saying a word to Yang as he passed him; Yang was standing alone and slightly forward of the group, and I heard the interpreter catch the word from Sinitsin and translate it for him. Sinitsin had been walking with his back to me when he'd spoken, and I didn't hear what he was actually saying; I suppose it was something like "in your own time".
They say that we go through three phases in the last few moments of our life: we panic, then we get angry, then we accept. I had got through the first phase — Listen, there's time to run, so forth; and my thoughts about Moira must have been part of the acceptance. I didn't feel any anger, because in this branch of the trade you kill or get killed, and there's nothing personal. I was still in the final phase, the acceptance bit, because my mind was clear enough to wonder why Sinitsin had bothered to come up and speak to me. He believed I didn't understand Russian, or he wouldn't have wasted his time with all that palaver in there, with the cripple and Tung translating. Was it conscience, then? Wanting to go through the motions of addressing the condemned man, telling him he'd only got himself to blame? A KGB colonel from Department V with a conscience, yes, that would do all right if I wanted to go out with a funny story.