15- Quiller Bamboo by Adam Hall

Author:Adam Hall [Hall, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780688096960
Publisher: Avon Books
Published: 1991-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

'But I can't do anything for you,' I said, 'if you take risks, if you put us both in danger by talking.

Some of the monks in this place don't even know that you're here: the abbot assured me of that.

Only a few know. So don't talk to anyone. Don't trust anyone, whoever he is.'

'I understand.'

The great bell booming in my bones.

Page 163

I wonder if he does, if he does.

In my bones.

15 Drunk.

'We couldn't do anything,' Pepperidge said. 'The police were already there.'

My skin crawled.

'What time was that?'

'My chap got there just before noon.' He took another spoonful of soup.

'He was fast,' I said.

'Adequate.'

'New to the field?'

'Oh, no. Been here a year.'

'English?'

Page 164

'Chinese. How are you feeling?'

'Bit skewed, still. Listen, when you debriefed him, did he say how long he thought the police had been there when he turned up?'

'He said not long. They hadn't brought the body out.'

'How long did he stay?'

'A good hour. He was in a Jeifang, made out—'

'What's that?'

'Sorry - truck, big as a dinosaur, always breaking down, so it was good enough cover, he had the bonnet up, got some spanners out.'

'He's Bureau?'

'Yes. Reports to Hong Kong.' His yellow eyes were on me suddenly. 'You're active, are you?'

'Call it eighty percent.' He hadn't been satisfied when I'd told him I was a bit skewed. I shouldn't have done that, got to play by the book, and the book says the shadow executive has to give his director in the field his exact condition when asked for. All right, say eighty percent. Fully active would mean I was fit enough to do anything at all, nothing barred, run a mile flat out or swim submerged or deal with any sort of attack and defeat it and get clear. I couldn't do that, not as I felt now: the head was still a degree dizzy and I could feel the effect of the altitude in the lungs.

'Look,' I said, 'they couldn't have got onto it that fast, I mean from their end.' They couldn't in Page 165

other words have put down that agent as missing and started a search for him and found him at the temple: there hadn't been time. 'Someone must have heard the shots and reported it.'

Pepperidge was quiet for a moment. The inference was there all right and it gave me the creeps: if anyone had heard those shots they could have seen me leaving the temple soon afterward, and given the police my description.

'Possible,' Pepperidge said at last.

Two people came in, peasants, slamming the door, and it reached my nerves. 'It's not very good,' I said, 'is it?'

'Not very.' Spooned some soup. 'Nil desperandum.'

Easy to say. The KCCPC had suspected that Xingyu Baibing was here in Lhasa because he'd blown it at the embassy in Beijing, and now they'd found that body it wouldn't be long before they identified it even though I'd made a gesture and changed coats and taken his papers, and they'd check their assignment roster and find that the agent posted on watch at the apothecary's wasn't there anymore and that'd be all they'd need.

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