One.
He was in the doorway almost directly opposite, his back flat against the wall and his head turned to watch the street; from there he could see the main entrance of the hospital and the windows along the whole of its length. He was in the loose blue cotton uniform of a factory worker, but in the low light I couldn't see his shoes. In terminal confrontation, shoes can be important; the hard edge of a heel can be lethal.
I crawled to the east parapet, straightening up in the cover of the elevator tower and feeling a tug of pain as the ribs opened out, a reminder that they hadn't yet healed. Body awareness was increasing, helping me to prepare for survival. I crouched low again, the sharpness of the loose flint burning against my palms as I dropped onto my hands and toes, reaching the parapet.
Two.
It took me five minutes to make him out, because he was deep in shadow and standing absolutely still; it was the blinking of his eyes that signalled his presence, covering and exposing the faint glow of the cornea. I couldn't see what he was wearing, but the colouring of his clothes was neutral, midway between dark and light. From his position he would be able to see the narrow flank of the building and the emergency entrance where the ambulance was parked.
I moved on, crossing the corners of the roof and once kicking a flattened tin can and dropping immediately into a crouch clear of the rooflines. Sometimes I heard voices from below, the light fluting tones of women; the nurses had left many of the windows open along the north side above the park. It took me half an hour to locate the three other men: one at the end of a narrow street leading towards the Embassy; one in the shadow of a bus shelter on the west side, one almost lost in the darkness of an alley where the lamp on the wall had gone out.
Total of five. At least five, possibly more.
I looked at my watch, its blue-green figures glowing among the stars reflected in the black glass panel. The time was 5:14 and I could wait until dawn or even later and go down through the building and walk into the sunlit street and stay in the open where there were people; but they might not hold off; they might have instructions to make certain of a killing before I could reach the safety of the Embassy; and that would bring the police, shouldering their way through the crowd of white faces watching the awkward-looking object spreadeagled on the pavement with the blood beginning to make a rivulet in the dust; and that would mean questions, enquiries, a full-scale investigation that would lead to the Ambassador's office, and Ferris, and finally to London.
We must make no sign, and leave no shadow. Thus sayeth those omnipotent despots over there, planning their operations in the civilised comfort of their offices, unaware that this beleagured little ferret would very much like to wait for daylight and try for the safety of the open street rather than crouch here with the sweat gathering and the knowledge that he must go down there now and in the half-dark make an end of it one way or the other.
Take no notice: this is only fear. They're right. The things we've pulled off, the really big operations that have blown the opposition networks or averted war or forced Moscow to re-think in the naked light of intelligence exposure, have been pulled off because the executives who got back home alive with the objective achieved were able to do it under total cover, picking their way through the shadows of their own anonymity, faceless and unseen. It works. It has always worked. But it doesn't alter the fact that we're sometimes required to lay down our lives for it.
At 5:15 I moved away from the north parapet, straightening up and keeping close to the elevator tower and stepping over the low radio aerial that criss-crossed the roof, going down through the trap-door and shutting it quietly.
There was no point in any case in waiting for the safety of daylight. They would trail me wherever I went, so that I'd have to keep away from the Embassy, and Ferris; they'd trail me all day long through the city if they had to, waiting for a chance, then finishing me off on the street or forcing me to hole up somewhere like an animal and wait for them to come. Whatever I must do I must do it now, because things would only get worse. They'd seen my photograph in the papers and they'd seen me with Jason and I was blown and must go to ground wherever I could. I didn't just have to get out of this building: I had to get out of Pekin.
On my way down to the ground floor I passed three nurses and a boy mopping the floor; one of the girls asked me something and I made a gesture that could mean anything, going down the next flight of stairs before she could try to stop me. On the ground floor I turned left, because it was on the west side of the building that I might stand a chance. From the roof I'd seen that one man was posted on each side, with a fifth placed so that he could cover the main doors and the emergency entrance together. On the north side there was the small park, an open space with almost no cover; on the west there was only one man posted, and he was at the end of the alley where the lamp had gone out. He was the man I would have to go for, and try to put down; but he must be so sure of me that he wouldn't signal the others first. If he alerted them I was finished; I might prevail over one man, possibly two, but not five.
At the end of the passage there was a narrow door, half-blocked by a pile of linen, and I stopped in front of it to loosen my tie and pull my shoelaces tight; then I opened it and went into the street.
The figure in the alley straightened up as he heard me, and faced this way. He was in silhouette now: from the roof I hadn't been able to see beyond him along the alley, but now there were three lamps visible and beyond them an open square in the dim light of the distance; it wasn't a cul-de-sac, and the way was open to me. If I turned to the left or right along the street I would move closer to a second man, with this one at my back; I must cross the street here and make straight for the one in the alley, and he must see me coming, and feel confident, with the knowledge that time and strength and expertise were all on his side, together with the element of surprise — because I wouldn't look at him as I neared. Then he wouldn't call or whistle to the others; he'd want to take me alone, for his pride's sake. These would be trained men, trained in the dojo and the street to kill with finesse and with dispassion; they would be panther-quick with hands like knives, and they would enjoy executing the weaponless techniques they'd used a thousand times, a hundred thousand times against each other with full control; now the control could come off and they would experience the hot blood of a kill.
He mustn't signal them, this one in the alley. That was my only chance.
I walked across the street towards him, looking to the left and the right and then lowering my head a little as I picked my way through the light debris near the gutter, stepping onto the pavement, glancing to one side again as if distracted, moving straight towards him with no indication that I knew he was there, ten feet away from me, six feet, three.
Then he signalled the others with a quick call like a bird and came at me with a rising half-fist to the throat for an immediate kill, a strike that would have worked if I hadn't been ready for whatever he decided to do. I dropped and went inside and felt his fist rake along my shoulder as I struck for the siliac plexus and heard his breath catch before he swung clear and broke the power that was building up. Data was coming in as everything started to slow down in the way it does when the organism meets with crisis; I knew already that he was young and tiger-strong, a high dan in the arts with access to force sufficient to open my skull with a bare hand if I let him get in. If I tried to fight on his terms it would be lethal.