ADAM HALL - Quiller Salamander

'What did I tell you?'

'My pain end, if I care, take care.'

I think there's just enough consciousness, just enough memory, to have made it worth while, worth coming here, worth talking with my brother pig.

'How will you take care?'

'Take care, yes.'

'You will take care by answering my questions truthfully. I shall know if you are lying.'

Blind suddenly, my eyes closing. I open them again. I must take care too. 'Shall I know if you lie to me?'

'Lie.'

'Listen to the question. Shall I know if you lie to me?'

'Yes.'

'Then we'll begin. But the pain will only end if you take care not to lie. Do you understand what I'm saying?'

'Yes.'

Harken ye then to the cricket's song.

'How long will General Kheng remain at Headquarters?'

I turned into the side street where I'd been parked before in the Mine Action van, watching the white two-storey building. I could see the jeep in the distance. Symes hadn't moved.

He got out of his vehicle when I flicked my lights a couple of times, but walked slowly, warily, because in the moonlight he could see only a Chinese jeep with two people in it. When he was near enough to hear my voice I called out the code-name for the mission, and he quickened his step.

'He's still in there,' he said when he recognized me. He meant General Kheng.

'I know. He'll be there until morning. There's no need for you to stay.'

He looked at my passenger. 'People been talking?'

'Yes. I want you to take him over, look after him somewhere. He's a bit switched off at the moment but put him under restraint in case he wakes up to things.'

'Roger.'

He went back to his jeep and brought it alongside, and I helped him with the prisoner. Then I drove to the little bullet-scarred post office and used the telephone outside.

Pringle picked up on the second ring, hadn't gone to bed: Control was in the field and the executive had made contact with the target and the mission was running hot.

'I brought in a prisoner,' I said. 'Symes is looking after him.'

'Is he for interrogation?'

'No. But I need to debrief.'

'To Control?'

'Yes.'

'I'll make him aware.'

'I was hoping you'd make contact,' Flockhart said.

He'd put a coat over his bush shirt, though the night was still warm. We were in the dugout room, in the house of Sophan Sann. Pringle was here too, looked underslept.

I waited.

'We have received a reply,' Flockhart went on heavily, 'from London.' He hadn't slept much either; the blanket on the settee was still smooth, and there was steam clinging to the glass of the coffee percolator.

'When?' I asked him.

'Nearly three hours ago. And the decision of those concerned is that there is to be no air strike against the forces of the Khmer Rouge.'

In a moment I said, 'Did that surprise you?'

He looked at me, his smile acid. 'No.'

Pringle cleared his throat; he didn't easily handle tension.

'You mind if I sit down?' I asked Flockhart.

'What? Oh, my dear fellow, please.'

Still his dear fellow: beware. I dropped into one of the bamboo chairs. I'd been on my feet half the bloody night with that gallant young captain in front of me, hero of the new holocaust that no one in London or Washington or anywhere else could think how to stop. Or wanted to.

'What were your expectations?' I asked Flockhart. 'From the bureaucrats?'

He didn't want to sit down, watched me with something shadowing his eyes, pain, I could believe. 'Extremely low,' he said. 'But you knew that, didn't you?'

'It was such a long shot, and so late in the day.' I didn't look at him, didn't want to watch his suffering. 'At one time, I thought you were simply playing me along for some reason, not signalling London at all.'

'Did you now.'

I gave it a beat. 'Were you?'

He looked at me in surprise, and then remembered. 'Of course, you don't trust me, do you? But no, I was in fact conducting a rather desperate bid for military intervention, and I did indeed hold out some slight hope of success. The prime minister was not entirely unsanguine.'

'My condolences.'

I wasn't being sarcastic. He'd just lost something he loved: Cambodia. Nor was I myself unaffected: Gabrielle had come immediately into my mind again when he told me the news. Whatever happened I wouldn't be leaving here without her, or without making sure she'd be safe.

'Thank you,' Flockhart said.

Pringle sat down and pulled the pad out of his briefcase and got a ball-point ready. 'Is it urgent?' he asked me.

My need to debrief. 'I don't really know. It's probably academic at this stage.' I looked at Flockhart. 'For what it's worth, I've got the schedule of events planned by the Khmer Rouge.'

He looked suddenly alert, which surprised me: he'd led me to believe that to his mind all was lost. 'Have you indeed?'

I'd forgotten that neither he nor Pringle had known I'd mounted any kind of operation during the night. My last signal had been to the effect that I was simply keeping surveillance on General Kheng.

'There's a new deadline,' I told them. 'It's for sundown tomorrow, and this is the schedule: General Kheng is to fly at first light to the base camp in the jungle, where he'll complete preparations for the missile attack on the capital at six this evening. Armoured troop transports and six medium tanks will start rolling soon afterwards, at nightfall, heading for the city. They should arrive before midnight. At the same time, the troops based here in the foothills will also be moved into the capital to assist in taking over the government, seizing King Sihanouk and rounding up the civilian population for immediate transport to labour camps.'

Pringle was making notes, and I had the chilling sense that reason had slipped away, that since there was to be no air strike we were like actors still walking the stage with the play over and the curtain down and the audience long gone home.

'There's to be no ultimatum?'

'No ultimatum.'

Control still wouldn't sit down, paced steadily as I filled in the few details I'd managed to get from my source.

'How certain are you,' Flockhart asked me at last, 'that these facts are correct?'

'My informant was beyond knowing how to lie.'

End pain, he'd kept saying when I pushed him for more answers, more facts, pushed him to the brink, no more pain, but it had been his own bloody fault, for Christ's sake, I'd told him that.

'Is he still alive?' This from Pringle.

'Technically. Symes is looking after him.'

Flockhart had been giving me his whole attention up to this point, but now he looked away. I don't think it was anything to do with the fate of my 'informant' — Control was familiar enough with interrogation techniques and would have been quite happy to hear I'd used thumb screws on any member of the Khmer Rouge.

'You did rather well,' he told me at last.

I didn't say anything.

I wanted sleep now, to get the face of that bloody thing out of my mind, the nothing thing, you gotta do whatcha gotta do, right, but you also gotta live with it until it's had time to silt over like the rest of the rotten by-products of this bloody trade.

Pringle asked me some things he needed to know, would have to take action on: where could the van be picked up and had I got the ignition key, had I told Symes to get medical attention for my informant and had there been significant loss of blood, things like that. Then Control put some questions, did I know the troop strengths of the Khmer Rouge base and the camp in the foothills near Pouthisat, how many missiles were to be fired on the capital, would General Kheng lead the ground assault or fly ahead of his forces to confront Sihanouk and demand his surrender?