ADAM HALL - The Pekin Target

"You're prepared to send disinformation to your group?"

The interpreter took it and passed it to Tung while I stood waiting, watching Sinitsin. Sinitsin had said «signal» and «cell», but this was normal: Tung was a terrorist, not an intelligence officer.

"Yes," I said.

"Yau."

"Ya."

"You're obviously not worried about your reputation."

Bounce.

Bounce, like a ball.

"I've got a reputation for surviving."

"You're ready to sell your country?"

The interpreter moved back a little, so that we formed a ring to make things easier: he didn't have to keep on turning his head now from Sinitsin to Tung and back.

"If the price is right," I said.

"Even if the price is only your neck?"

Going faster now, getting into our stride.

"All right, I'll have to live with my conscience, but that's more than a dead man can do."

"Are you all like that over there in the capitalist states, ready to sell your comrades?"

Sinitsin put a lot of contempt into his tone for my imcdiate benefit, knowing it would be lost in Tung's flat metallic voice.

"I've told you, I value my neck."

"I could never betray my comrades."

"Then you should get a more valuable neck."

He dismissed this with a raised eyebrow, and changed the subject. I don't think he'd been trying to trap me into saying something that would call the whole thing off; I think he was just showing his contempt for the decadent West and its perfidious agents, in front of Tung Kuo-feng. That was all right; it meant he wasn't thinking about anything else.

I wanted to get at that radio. It was the only chance.

"Do you trust Tung Kuo-feng?"

"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.

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.