The 9th Directive Read online

  Loman was perfect casting.

  ‘Let me give you the other nine-tenths,’ he said equably. This is of course a job for Security and a few people have been flown out here quietly to help take care of the threat and its implications. The Thai Home Office is being very cooperative and—‘

  ‘Wait a minute. What sort of threat was it?’

  ‘It was sent by ordinary letter to London, written in English. It said simply that if the Person came to this city he wouldn’t leave it alive. Of course the Yard has taken the letter apart in Forensic and sent a couple of people out here to confer with the Thai CID. They are working on it now.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘As I say, the Home Office is being very helpful and all the routine inquiries and searches are under way. The U.K. is well represented, unofficially.’

  ‘Who roped in the Bureau, then?’

  ‘The Bureau was not roped in,’ he said stuffily. ‘Certain information came in and it was decided that action was indicated. No fewer than eight directives were planned and examined before the decision was formalized. This is the ninth, and it has now become a definite mission. Because the Bureau thinks -1 do hope you feel they are right - that we should do something to ensure that nothing happens on the day. They consider the Person to be - how shall I say? - rather valuable.’

  I mentally blasted him and his ninth directive to hell and got a clean glass and began on the whisky. This approach of Loman’s was deliberate: I was meant to feel frightfully un-British if I didn’t immediately choke with rage at the thought of anything happening to our Valuable Person. The Bureau could have spared a minute in sober thought: I always like a clear field to work in and I work best alone, and if they were sending me into a mission where the U.K. was already ‘well represented’ I could risk fouling up the whole operation by getting in the way.

  The only thing to do was to let him go on giving it to me until I had the complete picture and then say yes or no.

  ‘Of course,’ he said smoothly, ‘you will be working alone. Quite alone.’

  They’d sent the right man, give them that. He knew me to the bone.

  This isn’t a joint operation, you see. How could it be? The Bureau doesn’t exist. It never has. No, the idea is very simple. Unless they’re unlucky, the security branches will make quite certain that nothing happens on the visit. They are planning every conceivable precaution. But there may be a thousand-to-one chance that the adverse party will organize a plan that will come off. A plan so efficient that there is no countermeasure possible. A plan - as I suggested to Control - that only you could devise.’

  He began walking about, talking as if there would be no interruption. Perhaps he was trying to convince himself of the mechanics of this thing before he could successfully sell it to me.

  ‘This isn’t blandishment, you see. Your work in Egypt, Cuba and Berlin has proved that if you’re left on your own when things are sufficiently hot you are capable of pulling off a certain kind of operation at which a dozen better men or a hundred better men would fail, simply because it’s an operation requiring one man working alone and requiring the kind of man who works best alone. That is why you were chosen.’ He stopped in front of the display case and stared at the moonstone until his feet couldn’t keep still any more. He came back to stand in front of me. ‘There is nothing else I can tell you until the information starts coming in from the Foreign Office. You’ll be in on every conference at the Embassy here and we shall—‘

  ‘This isn’t in your field, Loman.’ I was suddenly fed up with him. ‘And it’s not in mine. It’s no go.’ ‘You need time to think.’

  ‘I’ve thought. This is a police job. I’m a penetration agent—‘

  ‘If you want to play with terms—‘ ‘It’s no go. Tell them they’ve made a mistake.’ ‘I don’t think they have. I chose you myself.’ ‘Then it’s your own mistake.’ ‘I don’t think it is.’ ‘Tell them to pull Styles out of Java.’ ‘No, it’s you I want for this one, Quiller. You.’ He wasn’t smiling anymore and all the polish had gone to his eyes. They were very bright.

  ‘Let’s get it over with,’ he said. ‘It would take too long for you to tell me what you think of me and it wouldn’t affect the issue because I’m mud-proof. In my unfortunate experience you’ve proved yourself an agent who is obstinate, undisciplined, illogical and dangerously prone to obsessive vanities and wildcat tactics, very difficult to handle in the field and an embarrassment in London whenever you choose to report there in person. If you accept this mission - and you will accept it - I shall be your director and will be responsible for everything you do, so there’s nothing in this for me but a filthy time of it the whole way through and I settle for that here and now. That is my position. This is yours: you now have information that a man revered in his own country and respected abroad is going to have the guts to expose himself to a threat of death because he won’t refuse his duty. You also know that if the very elaborate machinery for his protection breaks down and if this valuable life is lost because of your own petty feelings against me as your director in the field, it’s going to be your fault - your fault alone. And you won’t be able to live with it.’

  He gazed at me with his eyes shining and I knew I had never hated him more than I did then. In a minute he half turned, fiddling about on the table, saying:

  ‘I see you’ve hogged the last of the ice. That’s typical.’ He banged the bell. ‘So you can’t refuse this mission. I knew that when I left London. You can’t refuse. When that man arrives in Bangkok you’ll be here with him right in the thick of it. So you’d better lay into me and then we’ll have another drink and then I’ll brief you. We haven’t long.’

  Chapter 3

  Kuo

  The English word ‘assassin’ is borrowed from the French but stems originally from the Arabic hash-shashin, meaning ‘hashish-eaters.’

  There were two good reasons why Loman had given me Pangsapa as a possible informant. Modern man will take great risks for money and greater risks for sex; but when he has need of drugs he will hazard himself the most fearfully. Driven beyond all caution he will expose, sell and surrender himself to the despotic sovereignty of men like Pangsapa.

  Pangsapa was a narcotics contrabandist and would therefore know people who were prepared to kill for a fix of snow, or who were prepared to expose the most sacrosanct confidences of friends and inform on them.

  We wanted information and we wanted information about assassins, so Loman had sent me here.

  He knew in addition that the only good contact I had ever had in this city was dead, because that evening on Rama IV Road in the poor light they had mistaken him for me.

  Pangsapa wanted to talk and I let him.

  ‘I remember when your Princess Alexandra made a visit here a few years ago. It went off marvelously. Everyone loved her on sight and we coined a new title for her - the Gentle Ambassadress. She’s having the same success with her current excursions; and last year she went over wonderfully in Tokyo. It’s so intelligent for the British to send interesting people abroad as a change from those dreary diplomats with rumpled waistcoats and Derby winners’ teeth.’

  I hadn’t told him why I had come. Loman must have given him a hint. I had only one question for him: Where were the professionals? But he wanted to go on talking.

  ‘You may think it odd that I hold such an affection for members of the British royalty. After all I was born in poverty. I remember very clearly the time when I was beaten by a merchant for thieving - my choice was to steal or starve in those days. It happened when I was ostensibly watching a state procession on the river, with the Royal Barge and all the trimmings. Have you ever seen that barge, the Sri Supanahongs? It’s quite enormous and covered entirely with pure gold leaf. The bag of rice I was filching at the time from one of the market canals was half soaked in filthy water, but it kept me alive for six days.’ He smiled wistfully. ‘It wasn’t likely to endear me to the monarchy, my own or any other. But events hap
pen so quickly. My father - or the man I believe to be my father -was toying with a certain hazardous operation in cahoots with a ship’s captain not long afterwards, and the wind was fair. Five years later I was at Oxford, of all places.’

  He sat with remarkable stillness and his smile was seraphic. ‘My degree is in economics. But I cherish far more the spiritual experience the life of your country vouchsafed me. It was in those years that I learned to bear a certain love for complete strangers - I’m talking again of the monarchy.’

  He leaned toward me an inch and his lisp became more pronounced. ‘I would be sorry if anything happened in a few weeks’ time on the 29th.’

  ‘You might be able to prevent it.’

  ‘I would welcome the chance.’

  ‘All I want to know is where the professionals are. If any of them are here. In Bangkok.’

  ‘The professionals?’

  I got up from the cushions to walk about. Maybe he hadn’t been briefed fully enough. ‘Did Loman come to see you?’

  ‘I don’t know that name.’

  ‘Who told you I was coming?’

  ‘No one.’

  I stopped and stood looking down at him.

  ‘You didn’t expect me?’

  ‘Not before you telephoned.’ He sat like a small dark effigy, only the light in his yellow eyes showing that he was alive.

  I said: ‘All right, Pangsapa. What was all that about your undying love for the monarchy?’

  Patiently he said: ‘You forget that the whole city is preparing for this important visit on the 29th. The police and security branches are very active, and it is obvious that trouble is expected - specific trouble. What else could you have come about? You seek information.’

  I said: ‘You’ve never seen me before.’

  ‘You have been in Bangkok before.’

  I accepted that. He’d been given to me as a source of information and no source of information was much good if it had never heard about my job here two years ago. I pressed him, though.

  ‘Have you ever been in contact with us before?’

  ‘I know a man called Parkis.’

  ‘All right.’ Parkis was in London Control. ‘Let’s talk about the professionals. I want to know their travel patterns.’

  He looked perplexed. ‘I’m not quite sure what you mean by the “professionals.” ‘

  ‘I mean Vincent, Sorbi, Kuo—‘

  ‘Ah, yes

  ‘Quicky the Greek, Hideo, the Mafia boy, what’s his name?’

  ‘Zotta.’

  ‘That’s it - Zotta.’

  I relaxed again. He hadn’t denied knowing Zotta. The Mafia channelled most of their stuff from Bangkok through Naples to Recife now that the Buenos Aires route was blocked following the death of Primero, and it was Zotta who did the bump. Pangsapa would know about that. It was his business.

  ‘Zotta is in Recife,’ he said. ‘You can forget him.’ He stood up suddenly and without effort, without even taking his hands from the folds of his robe.

  ‘Vincent?’

  ‘He’s in prison in Athens. They’re getting him out, of course, but that will take longer than three weeks because his people are disorganized.’

  ‘Sorbi?’

  His hands appeared, pale against the black robe. Whoever knows where Sorbi is?’

  ‘Kuo? Hideo? The Greek?’

  ‘When I have had a little time,’ he said, ‘I will get in touch with you. I know that the information would be valuable to you.’

  ‘It depends.’ London is precise on this. When you go shopping you have to do a bargain when you can.

  ‘We can arrange it later.’ He shrugged. ‘Where can I find you?’

  Takchong Hotel.’

  As we went toward the door, I noticed the water in the tank was clear again, changed by the filter-flow system. The fish swam alone, a six-inch compact rainbow-colored killer. A professional.

  In two days I was ready to tell Loman the mission was refused. It was a security job and that wasn’t in my field. The place was slopping over with security people anyway and any one of them could handle this thing better than I could: they knew the formula and they were trained to work with it.

  I had gone to see Pangsapa because I might need him one day if a real mission ever brought me back to Bangkok. There’d been no point in not sounding him on the travel patterns of the professionals: I always like to know where people are. But if his sources were as good as Loman believed, he would have contacted me by now even if only to report on their whereabouts. He would know that London would cough up a little even for negative information. But he obviously couldn’t get any.

  It was no go. The thing had no shape. I was drifting about the city without even a decent cover or a cover story, and every time I checked for tags there weren’t any because no one wanted to know where I went or what I was doing.

  I knew why Loman had called me in. It was typical of him. He hadn’t given any real answer when I’d asked him who roped the Bureau in. He’d done it himself: sold this abortive scheme to Parkis and the others and chosen me for the field. He must have talked well. His whole project was based on the spurious premise of a threat. Anyone planning an assassination would never put out a threat before the attempt; all it would do would be to alert the security forces, and that was precisely what it had done. Security was geared to combat any action by a psychopath, reasonably enough: there were always psychopaths in the crowd whenever a VIP did the rounds. The Pope’s visit to New York in 1965 put eighteen thousand city police on special duty, with bomb squads combing the route and riflemen manning the rooftops simply because of a few letters from anonymous religious eccentrics.

  This was routine work. The Bureau never took that kind of thing on: it was set up to promote specific operations. Why the hell had they listened to Loman?

  I tried contacting him through Soi Suek 3 but he hadn’t shown up since the day I flew in so I went to the Embassy and asked for Room 6. He had said it was all right for me to do that.

  The young man looked nervous.

  ‘Room 6?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That will be Miss Maine, won’t it?’

  ‘Will it?’

  ‘If you’ll just take a seat.’

  I watched him making tentative hops toward the next office. He hadn’t even asked for my name.

  If Loman was in Room 6 I would tell him I knew why he’d roped in the Bureau and why he’d roped me in, then watch his face.

  The Harrow type came back and took me along the passage into another room. The door said ‘Cultural Attaché.’ I was alone five minutes and a girl came in, a woman, I never know their ages.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Do you know where I find Room 6?’

  She looked at me a long time. I didn’t mind. The staffs of Embassies always need a few days to put one thought after another. It’s almost relaxing.

  There’s nobody there at the moment. Perhaps I can help you.’

  ‘Are you the Cultural Attaché?’

  ‘His secretary.’

  ‘Well that schoolboy hasn’t got his sums right. I want Room 6. If that doesn’t mean anything I want to see a man named Loman.’

  ‘Mr. Loman isn’t here.’

  ‘Oh for the Lord’s sake. Well if you ever see him just tell him I’ve tried contacting him all the afternoon and now I’m taking the night plane on the London run.’

  Undisciplined behavior. Tell it to the Lowry.

  ‘Just a moment, please.’

  She walked well and had a calm clear voice. I found it mollifying. Maybe that’s what she was here for, to stop people blowing up about the malorganization.

  A man came in next and she wasn’t with him. He shut the door and offered his hand. ‘Have a chair?’

  ‘All right,’ I said, ‘they’re all yours.’ I dropped my papers onto the desk. With the flap on about the 29th they were probably security-checking the Ambassador himself every time he came back from the lavatory.


  Now I knew why no one had asked for my name. Names don’t mean a thing.

  He gave the papers a quick run-through. ‘You’re based in where … exactly?’ He peered at page 2 as if he couldn’t read the writing. I said:

  ‘Whitehall 9. Liaison Group. Lovett sees to me.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Lovett. How is he these days?’ He pushed a cigarette box across. ‘Like to smoke?’

  ‘He’s very well.’ To save time I went through the lot. ‘He was in Rome last week on the Carosio thing and Bill Spencer took over in London. Your boys were Simms and Westlake. They—‘

  “That’s all right, yes. But I thought you were there too.’

  ‘It says Paris on my passport, doesn’t it?’

  He pulled back the cigarette box, took out a cigarette and lit it. ‘Are you going to be in Bangkok long?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘I’m flying out tonight unless Loman turns up.’

  ‘He won’t be here until tomorrow.’

  ‘Then give him my love.’ I stood up and held out my hand for the papers. He said with a wrinkled smile, ‘I’m surprised you’re not staying.’

  ‘You don’t need me here. You’ll do all right.’

  ‘If you don’t mind I’ll ask Miss Maine to show you out.’

  ‘I know my way.’

  It was stinking hot in the street and I took a trishaw back to the Pakchong, trying not to think about Loman. When you’re meant to be directing someone in the field you don’t slide off and subject him to security checks.

  At the hotel twenty minutes later the desk called me and said my visitor would not give a name, so I went down. I don’t like nameless people in my room.

  The lobby of the Pakchong has one of those beautiful trellis arches at the entrance to the fountain court and she was standing framed by it, her lean body sideways on, her throat shadowed by the angle of her head as she looked across to the staircase, her eyes regarding me coolly as they had before. A shantung suit, tan shoes, no jewelry.