ADAM HALL - The Pekin Target

"Message understood."

Ferris.

We waited. In a moment Sinitsin said: "In addition to the assistance of the Japanese Red Army team, there will be — " Then he broke off as the other radio opened up with a signal, and our heads turned to watch the illuminated panel. The sender was speaking in Russian.

"Zero-one-nine. Zero-one-nine to Action 5."

Major Alyev moved quickly to the transceiver and switched to transmit. "Action 5 to Zero-one-nine, receiving you." Sinitsin took three precise paces and stood next to his aide. There were now only Captain Samoteykin and Yang behind me, but they were both armed and I knew that Yang had his finger inside the trigger-guard of the machine gun, and I was already feeling that sinister vibration in the air as Tung Kuo-feng sensed my thoughts.

"Zero-one-nine to Action 5. Further to our transmission of 14:16 hours, the developing opposition activities in the vicinity of Sinch'on-ni necessitate the removal of Tung Chuan to a more secure environment. Acknowledge."

I looked away from the transceiver but went on listening.

This was Moscow.

Alyev touched the transmit lever. "Action 5 acknowledging.

This is a tough one, Ferris had said a few minutes ago on the other radio; but London had launched a massive intelligence search in response to my signal of last night, and local agents had been sensitised to the area where Tung Chuan was being held, and the KGB unit had felt the trembling of the web. At some time while I was in my cell playing with bricks there had been earlier transmissions, alerting Sinitsin, who in turn had reported to Moscow.

"Zero-one-nine to Action 5. Tung Chuan and our party will board Cathay Pacific Flight 584 departing Kimpo Airport, Seoul, 02:18 tomorrow, destination Pyongyang, North Korea. Our party will signal you on arrival. Acknowledge and repeat."

Major Alyev responded.

I sat picking at the grime that had got under my nails since I'd dropped out of the sky two nights ago. I was listening to the death knell of Jade One and there was nothing I could do about it. When Alyev completed the exchange and switched to automatic receive he was going to put the light out over the board in London.

Croder had been getting warm: too warm. They had all lent their weight to the concerted effort to find Tung Chuan: the sleepers and the agents-in-place throughout South-east Asia, the Asian Signals Coordinate, the Soviet Department V Operations Monitor Section, Dossier File (Asia), Intelligence Support Stations (South Korea) and Active Signals Search. The mobile direction-finding units had deployed their equipment into the areas indicated by reports and information coming in from the departments and support stations in London and Asian theatre, and had gradually closed in on the region of Sinch'on-ni. In another few hours they would have made a hit, and signalled Ferris; London would have ordered a para-military operation to release Tung Chuan, and soon afterwards we would have heard the thunder of a fighter aircraft passing through the night sky low above the monastery here, and Tung Kuo-feng would have turned to Colonel Sinitsin and said: I shall do no more for you.

Mission completed, objective achieved, so forth.

But not now.

"Zero-one-nine to Action 5. You will remain open to receive."

The KGB major acknowledged and left the receiver circuit open.

I had enough time. It would only need ten seconds to hit my own transmit lever and tell Ferris: Tung Chuan is being flown from Seoul to Pyongyang at 02:18 tomorrow, Cathay Pacific Flight 584. Get him. But I hadn't been told to start transmitting again and the moment Sinitsin heard me he'd be auspicious and if he didn't stop me before I'd finished the signal he'd pick up "Tung Chuan", «Seoul», "Pyongyang" and "Cathay Pacific" and would realise I understood Russian and was passing on the message from Moscow. He would then do two things: he would have me taken outside and shot and he would signal Moscow and tell them the plans would have to be changed. And Ferris could send in a whole battalion of NATO troops to pick up Tung Chuan at the airport tomorrow morning, and draw blank.

There was tension in the room again.

"If they move him to Pyongyang," Captain Samoteykin began, but Sinitsin cut him short.

"Say nothing now."

Professional caution: he wasn't trusting the Korean interpreter, the only non-Russian here — as far as he knew — who could speak the language.

Tension from Tung Kuo-feng, too. He must have picked up the same names from the Russian, expecially "Tung Chuan", and probably realised his son was being taken from Seoul to Pyongyang; he didn't know the flight number or the time of departure, but the move was probably imminent and he'd heard the name of the airline; if he signalled his Triad they would move in on Kimpo Airport and wait for Tung Chuan to arrive and try to get him out of the hands of his KGB guards.

But he couldn't transmit without instructions, any more than I could; if he made an attempt, the interpreter would read his Chinese and warn Sinitsin before he'd finished transmitting.

Some of the tension in the room was my own. While Tung was learning that his son was to be moved out of our reach and into North Korea, I was learning the most bitter lesson of the executive in the field: that he can come critically close to bringing off a mission and still have to see it snatched away from him without a chance in hell of holding on.

I wanted only ten seconds with my director on this radio, but I couldn't have it, and the only signal I could send that would make any sense would be: Ferris, we're finished.

Tung Kuo-feng sat perfectly still.

"My son is precious to me," he said in his toneless English. "Our line stems from the Ch'ing dynasty, and he is my eldest."

The thing moved closer to him.

I said nothing.

"They knew that," he said with his night-dark eyes brooding on mine. "That is why they abducted him."

The thing had reached him now, or one end of it had. The rest of it lay across the flagstones like a heavy rope. I tried to warn him but there was no sound.

"That is why it is so important for you to find my son. If I die it is not important to me. If my son dies, the line will be finished. I will do anything you wish, if you can save him."

The narrow mottled head slipped gracefully between the arm and the body of Tung Kuo-feng, appearing on his other side and curving across the golden dragons on the front of his robe, curving again and winding, compressing the dark silk.

Tung Kuo-feng began smiling, as if he knew a secret. I had never seen him smile before.

"They must have put something in the rat. Inside the frozen rat. Kori, perhaps. Or something synthetic, like flarismine." His body was almost hidden now by the squeezing coils. "Something to send it into a frenzy."

Then it constricted in one powerful spasm of nerve and muscle, and Tung's face turned dark with blood; it constricted again and again like a tensed coil-spring retracting until Tung Kuo-feng was a bloodied effigy in the shape of a man, with the dragons writhing across the wet silk of his robe as the boa went on squeezing, squeezing, until it blocked my breath and I woke shivering with the taste of his blood in my mouth, sour and primitive.

I opened my eyes. The oblong gap of light was still there in the door, with shadows moving across the arched ceiling as the flames of the lanterns moved in a draught of air. Under me I could feel the soft resilience of the straw-filled hessian mattress.

The sound came again.

I often dream about snakes.

Figures on my watch-face: 11:36.

That bloody thing in Seoul had upset me; I was going to dream about it for a long time, if there was a long time left to me. Highly unlikely.