Quiller Bamboo Read online

  He looked down into the courtyard again. Someone had called a policeman, but the man in the rumpled white suit was still protesting, pointing up at the two-story hotel. I had thoughts again about security. I was also having new thoughts, of course, about Sojourner. He was a great deal more than just a coordinator.

  ‘What’s happening?” I asked him.

  ‘The man says his wife is in the hotel, and he wants her to come home. Presumably he means with the money, though he doesn’t understand that she has to finish what she’s doing before she can be paid. When I say to “buy up” the People’s Republic of China,’ turning his masked face to watch me again, ‘I mean of course to pay for the ousting of the doddering octogenarian clique at present in power and for the installation of a young and enlightened intellectual administration eager to embrace the capitalist way of life.’ He was leaning toward me a little now, I believed, though in the shifting shadows it could have been an illusion. But what I was quite certain about, as I went on listening, was that he wasn’t talking so freely to me in order to give me information, but in order to celebrate his own ingenuity. ‘In ten years from now,’ he said softly, ‘Beijing will still be the capital of China, and Hong Kong will be its flourishing commercial center, closely comparable, if you will, with Washington and New York.’

  He waited until the server had taken away the plates. ‘Some fruit? Some preserves?’

  ‘Not for me,’ I said.

  ‘Main kuche phal pasen karta hoo,’ he told the man, ‘shaaid ek a-am.’

  A bell had begun tolling from a temple some way off, its bright-edged sound cutting through the softness of the voices in the street beyond the archway, and the scuffing of sandals and shoes.

  ‘It amuses me,’ Sojourner said, ‘to think that the remarkable changes about to take place in China - if you’ll forgive the understatement - will have been initiated by the aforementioned doddering clique of octogenarians at present in power. It was they, after all, who announced m the People’s Daily in 1989 that not engaging in activities to overthrow the Chinese government was a precondition for allowing Hong Kong to retain its capitalist system following its adoption. Warning enough, don’t you think? Mr. Szeto Wah put it rather well when he said, “The force of the wind tests the strength of the grass.” That was when it happened. That was when Hong Kong realized that in a few years from now it could become either an impoverished little island with the rubble of abandoned commerce littering the streets, or the economic hub of a new world power. You must have realized this yourself; you saw the papers like everyone else, and read between the lines. It was there for all to see, but no one did anything. Now we are to do something, and within a few days. You must surely feel … excited to be playing a part in all this.’

  ‘I do my job,’ I said.

  He dipped a glance across the courtyard. ‘You do your job. Well, that’s all we ask of you.’ Then he was watching me again in the gloom. ‘And what have you been told, specifically, to do?”

  ‘I’ve been told, specifically, to do what you require of me.’

  He let it go, but it worried me. If he’d had any experience in intelligence he would have known he shouldn’t ask me questions like that. The only confidence I had in this man was based on Hyde’s telling me I could trust him. It wasn’t enough.

  In a moment Sojourner said, ‘When the time is right, you will be put into contact with a certain general of the People’s Liberation Army, through his aides. This general was one of those who refused to have his troops fire on the civilian population - one of the few, in fact, who recognize that they are members of the People’s Army. Others of like mind were shot for refusing to attack the students in 1989, and three, to my certain knowledge, preempted retribution by taking their own lives when they refused orders to use arms against unarmed civilians. It was my good fortune,’ he said carefully, ‘to have been in personal touch with our particular general a little time before the uprising of last week. Sensing the color of his inclinations, I made one or two trips to Hong Kong, where some of my friends have access to the top executive officers of the big American, Japanese, and Hong Kong corporations. Then I went back to the general. Have you ever played chess, by any chance?’

  ‘Do it all the time.’

  ‘Then you’ll understand my gratification that I was fortuitously in the right place on the board, at the right time, with the right people.’

  ‘And were offered the right money.’

  The light flashed across his glasses as he looked down quickly, interlacing his fingers and putting his hands palm down onto the tablecloth. It had sounded rude, I suppose, but I wanted to know where this man’s loyalties lay. It was important, because if money were his only incentive it could be dangerous, and I’d have to signal London and tell them I was dropping the mission if they couldn’t find another coordinator. I didn’t expect Sojourner to be an altruist, but he’d have to show at least a degree of personal commitment to the Bureau, and to me. Mercenaries can change sides at the drop of a doubloon.

  In a moment he raised his head. ‘Are you looking for a cut?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘You don’t imagine I’m sticking my neck out for the sake of a few million Chinese peasants, I hope.’

  I noticed he’d forgotten his studied manner of speech, and knew it was his guard coming down. This too was worrying: I hadn’t said much to provoke him. How would he stand up to Chinese intelligence, if they asked any questions?

  ‘The price you put on your services,’ I told him, ‘doesn’t concern me, though I imagine it’s in the region of ten or twenty million U.S. dollars, which is very nice. What concerns me is whether you might at some time sell yourself to the opposite camp for a higher figure and leave me swinging in the wind.’

  ‘They couldn’t possibly afford it,’ he said. I think it was meant to be a joke. ‘But surely your desk officer told you I could be trusted?’

  ‘He may have.’

  He turned his head, and I saw that the boy Patil had come back into the courtyard. He was leaning against the wall under a lamp, watching the veranda.

  ‘So what are you going to do about it?’ Sojourner asked me.

  ‘Take a few precautions.’

  In a moment, ‘Precautions.’

  ‘Don’t worry, you won’t notice them.’

  ‘I’ve often considered,’ leaning back now, needing more distance, ‘that you people think rather - oh, I don’t know - rather boyishly. Cloaks and daggers and so on.’

  ‘Have you now.’

  ‘But I’d expected you to be like this. It doesn’t disturb me.’

  ‘Jolly good show. But it disturbs me a bit that you might have been followed here tonight, and sitting in your company I might be at risk, and that Patil down there might be working as an informer. Boyish, I know, but it happens. I can show you the scars.’

  He didn’t answer for a while, and as I sat there among the restless shadows and the oil lamps flickered to the movement of the moist night air I felt a sense of foreboding. Beyond the courtyard the night pressed down across the city, the few visible stars half lost in the haze. Voices out there in the street sounded hushed now, and I thought I heard the fluting of a snake charmer near the marketplace. The smell of incense came from the dining room through the doors behind us, sweet and heavy and oppressive. It wasn’t a case of nerves, this: I was out of London and halfway to the field, and the jitters had gone. I was reacting on a level of the psyche infinitely more sophisticated than the nerves, to vibrations in the moist and perfumed night, a trembling of the spirit’s gossamer web.

  ‘I think,’ Sojourner said at last, ‘that you exaggerate the circumstances. For someone as experienced as I’m told you are, this isn’t a very dangerous operation.’ Clasping his hands, spreading the fingers, ‘No one is likely to get killed.’

  ‘Ambassador Qiao probably thought the same.’

  He looked down again, not knowing he didn’t have to, not knowing I couldn’t see his eyes behind
the glasses. ‘In all probability,’ he said, ‘the poor chap was marked down by Beijing.’ Looking up at me suddenly, ‘He had a brother, you know, mixed up in the event of last week, and they arrested him. Talked too much, wouldn’t you say, about Qiao?’

  Instant chill.

  The poor chap had been totally false, totally out of character, and he’d looked up like that so suddenly, almost jerking his head as he realized he’d have to face me if it were to ring true, this thing about Qiao; and when he threw in the placatory wouldn’t you say! I didn’t have any doubts left, none at all. I’ve lied myself so often in the field, lied to save my life, and I know how difficult it is to do well.

  And there was the other thing, when we’d first met this evening - How is London? … I miss London … Not everything happens, of course, in London. One has to peregrinate …

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ I said.

  Signal to Control: I believe Sojourner was in London and either killed Ambassador Qiao or arranged it.

  ‘And after all,’ he was saying, ‘it suits our purpose rather well, don’t you feel? One grieves, of course, but what if Qiao had been got at by the people on his staff at the embassy, and grilled? We wouldn’t have had any operation left.’

  I said, ‘That’s true.’

  He seemed satisfied, and looked away again, down into the courtyard, and gave a slight nod. The boy in the white robe came away from the wall and into the hotel.

  ‘The purpose of our meeting,’ Sojourner said in a moment, ‘was to become acquainted.’ He was back to his mannered speech patterns, feeling relieved, reassured that his lies about Qiao’s death had appeared to stand up. ‘And I think we’ve accomplished that.’ He pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and straightened it out. ‘You’ve had your instructions from your desk officer and I’ve told you that you’ll be in contact eventually with “our” general through his aides. They’ll tell you precisely when we need Dr. Xingyu flown back into Beijing, and that will be your responsibility. It might help you to know that we don’t anticipate any major problem, once the general’s task force has moved into the Great Hall of the People and placed the Chinese leader under restraint. That will be arranged to take place at a time when he is due to appear on nationwide television in order to vilify the intellectuals for their insurrection last week. Instead of doing that, he will be obliged to make the following brief announcement, at gunpoint - though the viewers will not of course see the gun.’ He tilted the sheet of paper to catch the light.’ “A military detachment has this evening moved into Tiananmen Square to establish control there while certain negotiations proceed between my government and a spokesman for those intellectuals seeking reform. I ask the people to remain calm. There must be no demonstrations and no disorder in the streets that might cause bloodshed. You will be informed as the situation becomes clarified. Meanwhile I will repeat: there must be no provocation offered the security forces. Calm must prevail.”’

  He folded the paper and put it away. ‘Do you have any questions?’

  ‘It’s going to need careful timing.’

  ‘Very careful timing, yes. We need senior leader Deng Xiaoping, Premier Li Peng, and Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin together in the Great Hall of the People at the same time as our general moves his tanks into the square and Dr. Xingyu Baibing is brought forward under close protective escort to take over from Deng Xiaoping in front of the TV cameras. But I envision no difficulty. It’s a matter of efficient coordination.’

  ‘Do I fly Xingyu into Beijing?’ I’d been briefed on this but I wanted Sojourner to think I didn’t know. I wanted him to think I knew as little as possible.

  ‘No. You’ll hand him over to a special military escort that will land at whatever location you designate to pick him up. He’ll be met at Beijing by a stronger contingent, which will escort him to the Great Hall of the People.’

  ‘Understood.’

  I asked him a few more questions and then he put some notes on the bill the server had left and we got up and went through the main dining room to the hall.

  ‘Just a word,’ Sojourner said, and lowered his voice. ‘You’ll only make things difficult for yourself if you don’t decide to trust me. Your people have checked me out quite thoroughly, as you must know. I wish you a pleasant night.’

  It was not quite eleven and I took a turn in the courtyard for a while and then went upstairs to my room. I had the key in the door when the screams came and I took the passage at a run and heard where they were coming from and found the door locked and broke it open and saw Sojourner writhing on the floor half erect and the naked and terrified boy flattened against the wall and on the bed the cobra with its black hood spread.

  Chapter 5

  Messiah

  The rain was hitting the deck in a deluge as I dropped onto the flooded boards from the jetty and went below and saw Pepperidge sitting there watching me.

  Traffic?’

  ‘Solid.’

  ‘Hong Kong for you.’

  I shook water off my raincoat. ‘It took forty minutes, so I’ll want an hour and a half when I leave here.’ Xingyu was landing at 9:12 tonight from Beijing and it was now 6:31. ‘Has anything changed?’

  ‘No.’ Pepperidge got up and helped me off with my coat. There’s no rush.’

  He said it to relax me, part of his job.

  ‘How’s Gladys?’

  ‘Fine. Spot of tea?’

  I said no. I wanted an empty bladder by the time I was back at the airport to meet the objective. ‘Are they lined up?’

  ‘Yes.’

  That was one of the things I liked about him as a director in the field. Others - Cone, Fane, that bastard Loman - would have said ‘Of course,’ meaning that I shouldn’t have asked, should have trusted them to line up the people, get everything ready. But I didn’t trust anyone. It can be fatal, if anything goes wrong or the mission starts running hot. You can— ‘Have a pew.’ He touched my arm. ‘It’s a piece of cake.’

  Showing my nerves. The thing was, I’d spent the time on the flight from Bombay going over the whole thing and I’d worked it out that when the action started at Kaitak airport I was going to take exactly nine seconds to do what I had to do. Nine seconds.

  ‘I had to go through Rangoon,’ I told Pepperidge. ‘Nothing but bloody delays.’

  ‘Thought you were cutting it fine, but here you are and you’ve lots of time. Bit of shuteye?’

  ‘No. I had seven hours, slept in.’ I hadn’t planned to sleep on the plane: you don’t hit the same delta waves.

  ‘Food?’

  ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘Calcium?’

  ‘I forgot.’ He got a glass of milk from the fridge while I opened my flight bag and found the stuff.

  ‘Feel like debriefing?’

  ‘Go ahead. Did you get my cable?’

  ‘Yes.’ He went to the end of the cabin and sat down by the phone and I joined him there. All I’d put in the cable from Bombay was Contact down. It couldn’t mean anything else. I suppose it must have shaken him. Sojourner had been pivotal to the mission and if we couldn’t find another coordinator the mission was dead in the water.

  I watched him at the telephone, his yellow eyes shadowed by the cowl of the lamp, its light etching the mass of fine lines on his face, making it look like crumpled tissue paper. The scrambler was as big as the telephone itself, and he’d switched that on first and then dialed. I didn’t know how he was sending this stuff but there were plenty of ways: he could go through Government House in Hong Kong to the Secret Services communications mast in Cheltenham and on to London, or direct to the mast or direct to London - it would depend on the degree of urgency. When he’d got my cable today he would have hit London direct.

  ‘He’s in very good shape,’ he was saying, ‘and we’ll debrief on Bombay before he leaves for the rendezvous. Everything is in order.’ He filled in the weather conditions and the state of the roads locally and put the phone down. It hadn’t been a co
nversation, just a one-way report for the signals room in London, and Holmes or someone else would pick up a piece of chalk from the ledge at the bottom of the board for Bamboo and fill in the spaces: Exec. arr. base 18:31 HK. Rdv. DIP. Action ready.

  Pepperidge got his pad and looked across the little teakwood table at me and I told him what had happened at the hotel. He used the fastest shorthand I’d seen, not noting everything, just the main points. Most DIF’s use tapes but there’s always a risk of their getting wiped out by interference in transit, and Pepperidge doesn’t like that.

  ‘The boy didn’t put the snake into the bed?’

  ‘No. He was terrified.’

  ‘Was he a trap?’

  ‘He could have been.’

  ‘How long did you stay there?’

  ‘I got out straightaway, because I was obviously at risk. Other people came along - they’d heard the screaming too. I got my bag and kept clear and then followed the ambulance to the hospital, then peeled off and phoned the emergency room. I think it was a king cobra. The bloody thing was huge.’

  ‘No tags anywhere.’

  ‘I checked, believe me.’ I’d spent the evening with a man who’d been already targeted and I’d watched him dying.

  ‘Sojourner didn’t seem worried, anxious, beforehand?’

  ‘No. Perfectly confident. But I wasn’t certain I was ready to stay in the mission unless London would agree to replace him.’ I was picking my words carefully: this would go down on record at the Bureau. ‘I wasn’t with him very long, but he came across to me as a mercenary, and therefore unreliable, possibly dangerous.” I gave him the details of the conversation. ‘In fact, I think he might have either killed Ambassador Qiao outside the tube station, or had him killed.’