ADAM HALL - The Pekin Target

The Secretary of State had died in the ambulance, they'd told me at the hotel; I'd gone straight there, smothered in blood from his injuries, to change my clothes and wash.

"HE would like to see you," the girl in green was saying, and Ferris got out of the wicker chair as McFadden joined us from the corridor, a compact man, freckled and ginger-haired and shut-faced: Ferris had introduced us in the signals room when we'd got here this evening.

"Sit down, gentlemen," Metcalf told us, "and someone please shut the door."

The room was crowded and the Chief of Police was insistent on standing because there weren't enough chairs. The Embassy interpreter, a young Eurasian girl, began translating for him without any preliminaries.

"The police guard on this building has been substantially reinforced, on instructions from the Minister of the Interior, and I hope this will not be found inconvenient for you; it is for your personal safety." When the girl had stopped speaking he gave a slight bow. "Enquiries are still proceeding at the place of embalmment, and all those who were involved in the construction of the coffin, in the security of the building, and in the preparation of the late Premier Jiang Wenyuan's earthly remains have come under our closest scrutiny." Another bow. He was facing the Ambassador, standing directly in front of his desk, and didn't look at anyone else. "The findings of the five doctors who attended the late British Secretary of State are that the pressure of air and debris from the explosion disrupted the heart and lungs, while at the same time the pressure invaded the cavities of the face and distended the sinuses, damaging the frontal lobes of the brain. As to the —»

He broke off as one of the telephones began ringing, and the girl in green reached over and picked up the receiver.

"No calls, Janet."

The Chief of Police waited punctiliously until she was sitting down again. "As to the explosive device itself, our skilled experts, who are members of the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators, have collected material from the site and used electro-magnets to probe the debris from the whole area. Analysis has been made and a considerable portion of the device reconstructed; we already know that it was of Japanese make, but do not regard this as necessarily significant, since terrorism is international and so are its weapons. We know also that the device was detonated by remote control, via a radio beam."

The Ambassador lifted his head an inch.

"They're absolutely certain of that?"

Ferris hadn't moved.

"Yes, Your Excellency."

Metcalf leaned forward. He was tanned and athletic-looking but must be close on sixty; this could be his last tour, and it hadn't been very pleasant, apart from the physical shock he'd received down there in Tian'anmen Square; he'd caught some of the blast and his left eye was still red from the effects of the flying debris.

"You mean," he asked carefully, "that the timing of the explosion was also controlled?"

"We cannot say that. We can say that the timing of the explosion was technically feasible." When the girl finished translating he made to add something but the Ambassador cut in.

"You mean," he asked with even more care, "that if these — if the perpetrators had wanted to explode the device at a precise and premeditated time, they could have done so. Is that right?"

"That is right, yes."

Ferris was gazing quietly at the wall, where there were yellowing photographs of Princess Anne taking a jump on a thoroughbred and Charles clouting a ball. We were pretty certain of one thing, and had talked about it this afternoon: this hadn't been an act of terrorism, a public and dramatic show to catch world attention; it had been an act of assassination, and at the moment when the Secretary of State had bent forward close to the coffin to place the wreath there'd been someone in the crowd or on a rooftop with binoculars and a transmitter.

We also suspected something else, but hadn't wanted to talk about it. This was the information that Sinclair had brought to London: that the Secretary of State was marked for death. If Sinclair could have talked, we could have prevented it.

Jason too might have known, and might have warned Ferris when he'd flown in last night, before the opposition had got at him. But why hadn't either of them sent a signal?

"Thank you," the Ambassador told the Chief of Police. "I wanted to make sure of the facts, and of the implications."

"The implications we must divine later, when we have all the facts. I shall allow myself the honour of making further reports as the enquiry proceeds." He waited until the interpreter had finished speaking in her soft musical tones, then drew himself straight. "I wish to repeat, Your Excellency, that together with other city and government departments, the Metropolitan Police Department of Pekin is shocked and distressed by the tragedy that has befallen your distinguished countryman, and will devote all its energies to bring those responsible to justice."

A couple of straw mattresses had been brought in and a clerk sent to the Hotel Beijing for our toilet things: the last signal from London had ordered that Ferris and I should remain at the Embassy until further notice. McFadden raked up an alarm clock and a small transistor radio to make us feel at home, which was civil of him.

The Embassy cook knocked together a scratch meal and McFadden came along to share it with us in one of the offices, talking a bit but not about the bombing; he missed England and wanted to know if The Mousetrap was still running and whether you could buy camel feed in Harrods these days. It was nearly midnight before Conyers came, and we moved into the main reception room because it was bigger.

Conyers was an American anti-terrorist agent, but we didn't know his official background and he didn't explain. He was a quiet and slow-moving man with a weathered face and a bright-blue stare and an artificial hand encased in a black leather glove.

"How are the other guys?" he asked no one in particular and lit a cigarette, flicking the match into the pot with the half-dead fern in it near where Ferris was sitting.

"Nothing serious," Ferris said.

Detective-Inspector Stanfield had gone in the ambulance with the Secretary of State but was let out of hospital an hour ago with minor injuries; he'd caught more of the blast than I had, because Bygreave had provided a shield. The three other security men hadn't been touched.

"I'm in Pekin," Conyers said with a glance across the two doors, "because we had wind of something, but it wasn't anything to do with the British team. Your Ambassador here has asked me if I have any ideas as to the motive involved in this thing. Frankly I haven't. Frankly I'm mystified. The Chinese have no motive for antagonising the West, at a time when they're looking for expanding trade and closer military ties. It doesn't escape your attention that I'm talking as if the British Secretary of State has been assassinated. I believe he was. I believe that bomb was intended for him, and for nobody else. Some people are saying that this was an act of terrorism, designed simply to blow a dead body out of its box in front of a captive audience with instant media replay world-wide by courtesy of the international journalists present, a protest against the prevailing political constitution of the People's Republic of China. That's bullshit. There isn't any prevailing political constitution in this place, simply because they haven't had time to clear up the mess that Mao left all over the doorstep."

He took a drag on his cigarette. "This, gentlemen, isn't Lodd Airport and it isn't the Munich Olympics. Nobody has come forward to claim responsibility, even though the PLA and half a hundred other terrorist organisations would be sorely tempted to do just that, simply because this was a Hollywood spectacular and if there'd been any message for anyone it would've gotten an Oscar for Western Union. The only message I can see is that somebody wanted the British Secretary of State to be dead. You boys will know a lot more than I do about that, but you have my deepest sympathies; it's a lousy way to go."