Swordfish would arrive in these waters at 01.29 tomorrow and the call of the sea swallow would be heard and go unanswered and the sub would pull out and all Ferris could do then was consider sending in the reserve, but I didn’t think there’d be one available because the Bureau didn’t have anyone stupid enough to take on a shut-ended penetration job with a seaborne access problem except possibly for O’ Malley and for one thing he was in Athens and for another thing he’d get pissed the night before and go in with a sawn-off motor torpedo-boat and they’d see him coming before he’d started the engine and Control knew that: he’d told Ferris to hang a reserve in front of my nose just to make me go into this thing out of sheer stinking pride.

  Well, this time it hadn’t worked. If they wanted George Henry Tewson off that rig they’d have to use a skyhook.

  Aural data becoming significant and demanding analysis.

  Increase in the volume of sound: and the only sound of any consequence was that of the helicopter.

  I dropped into the water and floated towards the cave mouth and saw the thing was perceptibly closer. Two of the boats were also moving in, one of them heading directly this way with its bow wave appropriate to half speed: they weren’t hurrying because they hadn’t seen anything and if there was anyone on this group of islands they could head him off and pin him down without any trouble. It would finally depend on manpower and they had unlimited resources.

  I thought the best thing to do was to start getting some information on the cave system on Heng-kang Chou and with that bloody boat heading this way I thought I had less than a couple of minutes to get clear of here. This cave didn’t offer anything: it was a cul-de-sac.

  Preliminary hyperventilation is dangerous if it’s pushed too far and I spent only thirty seconds on it, emphasizing the exhalation and taking nine or ten pints into the lungs before I slid below the surface and followed the undersea cliff.

  I couldn’t see them.

  This cave was no better than the other one. It had a shut end.

  I couldn’t see them but I could hear them.

  They were checking the other cave: two men in a dinghy.

  When they’d checked that one, they’d come and check this one.

  I waited. There wasn’t anything else I could do.

  The launch was standing off a short distance. The men on board couldn’t see into the cave: they were base and support for the men in the dinghy. There were now two helicopters over the island: I could see one of them banking sharply across the southernmost headland and sloping down from the sky, chop-chop-chop-chop, coming closer.

  I sank under the surface and lay prone in the shallows of the cave because even when you know you’ve finally lost a wheel you go on trying till the very last second: it’s in the nature of the beast.

  It’s always someone else.

  Always.

  Never you.

  Someone like KLJ, Berlin, a long-range rifle shot.

  Or Thornton. Hit a mountain head-on with a Petrov X-7, Or North with his brains all over the bathroom.

  You never think it’s going, one fine day, to be you.

  The bloody thing slammed past the cave mouth, chop-chop-chop, the echo slamming back.

  I waited five seconds and pushed my face into the air and started breathing again. The bats were going frantic, swarming into the sunshine and back, perfectly understandable, imagine what they must have thought, picking up that bloody great super-bat on their little radars.

  It would have been a piece of cake to hyperventilate and go down to fifty feet and come up on the far side of the dinghy and go into the cave after they’d searched it, but they had divers down in the area and I could see their marker buoys on each side of the launch. They were being very thorough.

  I suppose Ferris was hanging around one of the islands in Hong Kong waters, Lamma or the Soko group, and from that distance Swordfish would probably notice the aerial activity. Conceivably he’d put a signal out: a lot of choppers up, looks like a search, could be we’re blown.

  You never think it’s going to be you: they’re looking particularly shut-faced when you go through Clearance and you know it must be Mario because it’s the only one running, or you find you can’t reach Parkis and you know his operation must have come unstuck because he told you to be here and he doesn’t miss an appointment unless the sky’s caved in and this time it’s poor old Talbot, or you see two of the escape-crew couriers going into Debriefing as white as a sheet and that’s either Fitzroy or Crocker and you don’t ask anyone which.

  This time they’ll know it was you.

  The sun was striking into the cave mouth, sending light dappling the rocks. Now that the helicopter had reached the end of its loop a mile away it was quiet in this stretch of water and I could hear voices from the power launch. When I sighted along the surface I saw three of the crew standing in the stern and watching the cave where the dinghy was. The men in the dinghy were armed and carried something heavy and chromed: I’d just seen the shape of it and the flash of the sun when they’d gone in there and it had looked like a portable searchlight taken from the launch.

  There weren’t any ledges in this cave, in this one where I was trapped. There wasn’t a hollow where I could have crouched or a loose rock I could have used as cover. There was nothing.

  And nothing I could do when they came. The divers weren’t just making a random search of the rockface below water: they were keeping precise station, on watch for anyone swimming out of a cave when the search party went in.

  All I could do was wait.

  What’s wrong with Egerton today?

  Who?

  Egerton.

  Oh, his mission got blown.

  Christ. Who was he running?

  Dunno. Quiller, I think.

  You never think it could be you and then one day you find out you’re bloody well wrong and when I heard the splash of their oars I pushed with my feet and floated out of the cave face down so that they could see it wasn’t anything worth shooting at.

  Chapter Sixteen : FUSE

  ‘I’ve got it,’ I said, ‘Redhill Golf Club!’

  ‘It could have been.’

  ‘You were a member there!’

  ‘For a year or two.’

  ‘You used to play at lot with —’ I clicked my fingers, trying to remember the name - ‘Harry Foster! Not Foster, no - ‘ I clicked my fingers again - ‘Chester! That’s it - Chester!’

  ‘That’s right,’ he said.

  ‘Well I’m damned - it really is a small world, isn’t it?’ I looked around, lowering my voice. ‘You know I left there under a bit of a cloud, I suppose?’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Well, chucked out, practically. Pro’s little wife, remember her? Wow.’ I gave a rueful grin. ‘Can’t help it, y’know - I’ve just got an eye for the girls.’

  He laughed quietly, his teeth very white in contrast to his brick-red face. He was one of those Englishmen who never tan: they just get redder and redder. He looked suddenly serious, the laugh dying abruptly as he peered at me through his thick-lensed glasses.

  ‘You know why I left the club?’ he asked.

  ‘No?’ I thought quickly and began laughing. ‘Oh God, not for the same -‘

  ‘No. I got behind with the fees.’

  ‘Is that all? Of course I always paid up right on the dot - the only trouble was the cheques always bounced!’

  We laughed again.

  ‘How are you feeling now?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘not bad.’

  ‘You’ve had a rough time of it.’

  The girl put the needle in and we watched it.

  ‘It was a shock, that’s all. Upset me, I can tell you.’

  ‘I expect it did,’ he said. ‘What happened, exactly?’

  She went on pressing the plunger. I hardly felt it.

  ‘Well,’ I told him, trying to think back, ‘I must have drifted here, pretty well unconscious. Then I saw this chap coming for me with his knife, and - well, I had to do something. Woke me right up, I can tell you. He was a real bastard, came at me —’ I broke off and looked around at the young nurse and the man standing by the door and the other one sitting on a stool near the sterilizing unit. ‘Do these people understand English, old boy?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said.

  ‘Well, I mean I wouldn’t like to upset anybody, but quite frankly, after what that - that chap did to me down there I’m pretty annoyed. Wouldn’t you be?’

  ‘I certainly would.’

  Someone else came in, looking at my hand without touching it, saying something to the nurse in Chinese and then slipping a white gown on and taking some surgical gloves from a sterile packet.

  ‘He’s the doctor,’ Tewson told me.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ I said cheerfully, but the man didn’t seem to hear me. I hoped he was good at his job, that was all: my hand was looking like a not-terribly-well-done steak.

  ‘Go on,’ said Tewson.

  ‘What? Oh. Well I mean there it was. That Chink came at me with his knife out and it woke me right up, as you can imagine. I’m pretty strong, and I know a thing or two about looking after myself, and — well, I suppose I must have been in a flaming temper, or of course I wouldn’t have been so rough with him.’ I looked down for a moment, a bit ashamed of myself. ‘Poor little sod. But I mean he shouldn’t have -‘ I broke off and shrugged with my right shoulder, ‘Well, it’s done now, I suppose.’ .

  The nurse inclined the articulated couch an inch or two lower, so that I was in a half-reclining position. The man in the white gown was working on my hand but I couldn’t see it because they’d put a little screen round it.

  ‘I can’t feel a thing, you know. They’re pretty good, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I looked at him very straight, ‘Listen, old boy, are they very annoyed about that poor little bastard? I mean sod?’

  ‘He was only doing what he thought was right.’

  ‘So was I.’ I gave an ironic laugh. ‘At least, it was right for me!’

  He was watching what they were doing to my hand.

  ‘How did you come to be drifting so near the rig?’

  ‘God knows! It was just the current.’

  He nodded slowly, still watching the operation. ‘Did you fall off a boat, or something?’

  ‘Not exactly. I was in a rubber dinghy, with an outboard, and I’d put the anchor down while I was diving, you see. Then when I tried to pull it up, it wouldn’t budge. So I went down again to free it. Thing was stuck in a whole lot of weed, I was about waist deep in the stuff. Well, I cut the anchor clear, and then had to cut myself clear after that because the stuff was all round my legs. Then I must have lost consciousness, or as good as. I just remember feeling sort of drunk - you know how it feels, do you? D’you do any diving?’

  ‘Not a lot.’

  ‘Kind of narcosis. I’d been down too long-always overdo things, that’s me.’ I shut my eyes and didn’t say any more.

  ‘It doesn’t hurt?’

  I opened my eyes.

  ‘M’m? No. Can’t feel a thing, old boy. No, the fatigue’s just catching up on me, I suppose. Bit whacked.’

  I shut my eyes again.

  ‘I expect you are.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right.’

  He didn’t talk again for a while.

  Situation totally zero in terms of a get-out and I didn’t like the way they’d brought Tewson in to put the questions because the other two men in here were obviously bugs and understood English perfectly and it meant the intelligence cell knew how to think and I don’t like people thinking. They hadn’t had any more than a few minutes to brief Tewson and I didn’t like the way they’d done that either: he clearly wasn’t intelligence but he probably wasn’t a fool either and they’d just told him to talk about himself as much as he wanted to, if it would help him put me at my ease, and that meant they were perfectly confident that whatever he told me I wouldn’t ever be able to pass on.

  The thing that interested me most was his present state of mind. It was so like his wife’s: he was lonely, and he was scared. But I didn’t think they were scared of the Chinese: they’d got into something deeper than it had looked and they hadn’t given themselves a chance to pull out while there was time. In spite of his briefing there’d been no need for him to admit he’d lived in Redhill or that he’d been asked to resign from the golf club because he hadn’t paid his fees: I’d been aware of his strong compulsion to reminisce with a fellow-countryman just for a couple of minutes, until he’d remembered the others were listening and that he was meant to interrogate me.

  That was why they’d taken him on a lead to the Golden Sands at regular intervals for sexual recreation and wifely reassurance: they didn’t want their missiles to get stuck in the tube because their design consultant was spiritually disorientated.

  ‘All over,’ he said.

  ‘What is?’

  I opened my eyes.

  ‘Your little operation.’

  Reaction hit the nerves but stopped short at involuntary muscular stimulation. He wasn’t looking at me as he said it: he was unaware of any double meaning.

  ‘It feels fine.’

  ‘They’re very skilled.’

  The surgeon was peeling off the thin disposable gloves and dropping them into a sani-bin and leaving the nurse to do the final dressing. She looked at me once, not smiling, looking away again, just wanting to know that the capitalist-imperialist dupe was exhibiting the correct clinical reaction following anaesthetized surgical trauma.

  They wanted to keep me in good health and this tied in with the Chinese attitude towards captive political or intelligence officers of foreign extraction: they relied more heavily on indoctrination, mind-bending and intensive exploration of the psyche rather than induced physical pain. It also tied in with the way they’d pulled me out of the sea an hour ago: there’d been a sudden alarm raised and for a few minutes I’d been a floating target for half a dozen guns, but after they’d made sure I couldn’t do anything they’d got me into the launch and given me the appropriate rescue attention while I rolled my eyes and moaned and so forth.

  The only sign of enmity had come from one of the divers when he’d surfaced and seen me lying in the stern: his stream of invective had gone on until one of the officers had cut him short. Possibly he was a close friend of the man I’d killed, perhaps even his brother.

  The nurse activated the very expensive-looking surgical couch and tipped me upright.

  Thank you,’ I said to her. ‘Thank-you,’ nodding and smiling.

  Drew a complete blank so I turned to Tewson.

  ‘This come under the National Health?’

  He laughed pleasantly, rocking back an inch on his heels. I thought he probably hadn’t seen an Englishman to talk to for a long time: ‘National Health’ was a very English institution and the phrase had struck another chord with him. I could believe that if I just said ‘Piccadilly’ or ‘God save the Queen’ he would have broken down and sobbed on my shoulder. Served him bloody well right: he should’ve thought of what he was doing before he sold out to the Reds in such a hurry. At least people like Philby had the decency to go on hating our guts after they’d made the break.

  But of course he hadn’t sold out to the Reds at all.

  He’d sold out to Nora.

  ‘When were you in England last?’

  I was certain he hadn’t meant to ask.

  ‘Me? Oh, couple of months ago. Why?’

  ‘I just wondered how things were over there.’

  I gave a short laugh. ‘Price of bangers is up again, and you can still get into the News of the World if you leave your flies undone on the Tube.’

  We laughed together, real old pals.

  He’d sold out to Nora: the girl with a taste for soixante-neuf and Ming. He couldn’t give her the one so he gave her the other. A man short on libido doesn’t have to be insensitive about it and she wouldn’t have spared him: it had gone on for years and he hadn’t been able to do anything about it because he wasn’t earning enough. Then the chance came and he’d sold two things in the same deal: the design of the missile launcher he was working on, and his conscience. And he’d bought back his pride.

  ‘So I suppose you never saw your dinghy again?’

  ‘My what? Oh-no. Drifted off into the wide blue yonder. Cost me a packet. On my income, anyway.’

  ‘Where were you diving?’ he asked casually, and I felt sorry for him: he was a genuine boffin and all he’d got on his mind was a slide-rule and they’d told him to interrogate me and make it sound natural and he just wasn’t capable. He was a simple-minded genius and this wasn’t his field at all.

  ‘South China Sea,’ I told him with a shut face.

  ‘Just doing a bit of scuba fishing, were you?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Then I put my right hand on his arm and lowered my voice. ‘Fact is, old boy, I can’t tell you what I was doing because I’ve been sworn to secrecy. Be breaking my word to a friend, get it? Awfully sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right’

  He was obviously relieved: he’d put the question they’d told him to put and if I didn’t want to answer it he couldn’t make me.

  The nurse was putting my left arm in a sling and I looked into her blank young face as roguishly as my cover demanded, trying to make her look up at me. No go. She pinned the sling to the white tunic I had on: when they’d brought me on board the rig they’d cut away the remains of the rubber suit and put me into this Mao outfit and together with the sling it made a first class change of image if I’d had any use for one.

  The Chinese near the door pulled it open and beckoned us outside. He looked like the one who’d escorted Tewson to the Golden Sands Hotel. He went out first and we followed and nobody said anything till we were going along the deck towards the living quarters and suddenly I knew I had to make a move and I didn’t know precisely what kind of move and I had to think and I thought fast, strolling beside Tewson near the rails.

  It didn’t have to be a physical move. The last-ditch get-out thing I’d set up wasn’t for now: it was for the dark and for the time when I was driven to do something suicidal. The move I had to make now was psychological and I was beginning to see its shape.