We may start to think like that when things get tricky, when it looks as if there's not a single chance left of staying alive, it's natural enough, the grave's got a certain smell to it, can turn your stomach, you can't blame me and I don't give a damn if you do, it's my life on the line, not yours.

'The other information I shall need,' Trotter said, 'concerns Beijing. I want the name of the PLA general who has committed his forces in your support, and the arrangements for having our friend escorted to the Great-'

'Oh for Christ's sake, give him a name, can't you, Xingyu, Dr Xingyu Baibing, this "our friend" thing is so bloody coy, and incidentally I'm surprised to hear you still need so much information, I thought you'd got the whole thing buttoned up.'

I turned away from him and walked for a bit, just a few paces, wanting to think, wanting urgently to think without his face in front of me, the face of my executioner, and when I came back I stopped a bit closer to him, four feet now, call it striking distance if I had to go for it.

'Sojourner died,' Trotter said, 'before we could get everything.'

'What? Oh.' Hadn't got the name of the general, so forth, yes. I hadn't been paying attention because in those few paces I'd done some thinking and it had shaken me quite a bit, because listen, I might have to trade the mask, not for my life but for the mission.

We get vain, you know, the longer we're in this trade, the more we get used to bringing the bacon home time after time with nothing much more than a broken ankle or a shark bite or a bullet lodged somewhere in the organism, we start thinking we can go on like that, start thinking we're invincible, that only we can see it through to the objective, bring it home. I suppose it's the same in most professions, but in this one it's a lot more dangerous if one day we find we're wrong.

The objective for Bamboo was to get Xingyu Baibing back into the Chinese capital, and I was in possession of the mask and the critical information that Trotter wanted from me, but my chances of taking Xingyu even as far as Gonggar airport were appallingly thin — all right, yes, grab him if I could and run the gauntlet with him through the streets and try to keep him buried somewhere in a cellar or a cave until we had to keep the rendezvous with the bomber, hell or high water, so forth, but that could simply be an act of braggadocio, of professional vanity.

The alternative looked better. Give this man the information he needed, give him the mask, let him keep Xingyu here in this temple, a place where the military had already made their search, where he wouldn't be disturbed, and let Trotter take him to the airport, openly, as a man already familiar to the police and to an extent trusted — they're used to me by now, you see, and I help them sometimes — and let the mission run its course without impediment to its objective. Because I was the impediment.

Must be mad.

'All right,' I said, 'tell me what you're going to do.'

Needed more time to think. Not mad, perhaps saner than I knew. But I couldn't go through with a thing like this without London's approval. Trotter would have to let me signal, before we did anything else.

You're suggesting that you hand over the mission?

London. Croder or Hyde or Bureau One.

Yes.

To a stranger, running a private cell?

Look, I know it sounds-

Have you conferred with your director in the field?

He can't make a decision this big. It's got to come from you.

Please confer with your DIF immediately and ask him to signal his report.

Look, there isn't time, and you don't know the facts.

Confer with your DIF.

Let me give you the facts-

Your instructions are to report immediately to your DIF.

They'd think I was mad. The instant I put the phone down they'd pick up theirs and get Pepperidge on the hotline through Cheltenham, tell him to pull me in and take me off the mission, send me home.

Head was throbbing again, I was pushing things, hadn't slept since the night before last, hadn't eaten, needed a break, wouldn't get one, but don't let go, for Christ's sake don't let go, there's got to be a decision made and not in London but here, where I was standing now with the lamps on the walls sending shadows beating in silence like great wings across the airy spaces, their bone-white beaks — watch it — the airy spaces of the burial ground — God's sake watch it you're — yes, straighten up a little, losing things, drugged my bloody tea and that hadn't helped, not just the lack of sleep-

'Would you like to sit down?'

'What? No.'

Watching me carefully, the man with the big black beard.

Four feet away, less, an inch or two less by my reckoning, go for it now, not the carotid-nerve thing, a heel-palm, drive the nosebone into the brain and take the other man as he came for me, not as difficult, then stay by the door and wait till they came in here and go for them in whatever way I had to, go for the kill to make it certain, done it before, do it again, but there's no future in that scenario, no future in it now, because he'd have more chance than I would, Trotter, getting Xingyu through to Beijing.

'I think we should sit down,' he was saying.

'What?' I made an effort to get him in focus.

'You look a little done-in,' Trotter said. 'Don't make things hard for yourself. Here,' he pulled the stool over for me.

Didn't sit down. 'How many people have you got?'

'People?'

'Men.'

'Oh, enough. But-'

'What sort of training have they had?'

'I'm sorry, but we've got to get on now. Dr Chen?'

The Chinese went over to the plinth and opened a black leather case, took out a few things and laid them near one end of the blankets where I'd been lying: hypodermic syringe, roll of needles, box with a picture on it — alcohol swabs, I suppose — small plastic tray with three glass phials.

Trotter turned back to me. 'What I would really like is for you to give me the information I need of your own free will, including the nature of what you call the «element». Are you willing to do that?'

Hate syringes, they're so bloody sinister, ritualistic, I'd been having a bad enough time with the insulin thing.

'I've got to telephone London,' I said.

He looked a bit sideways. 'I'm afraid you can't do that. I need-'

'Thing is, Trotter, you could have a point. You might get him through Gonggar better than I could. But not without the information and the «element». I think on the face of it I'm prepared to let you have them, give you a much greater chance. But it's a decision I can't make for myself; it means handing you the mission. But they might let me do it, if I spell things out for them, in London.'

He watched me, surprised. 'Why would you want to hand me your mission?'

'I've told you. I think you've got a better chance of flying him out.'

In a moment, 'It sounds a little altruistic.'

'Dirty word, I know. But I want that man in Beijing, and I don't care how I do it. Completes the mission for me, and you don't know what that means. It's the Holy Grail syndrome, completing the mission, risk our lives for it all the time, so I'm not-'

'Oh, I see,' he said. 'You're ready to make a deal for your life.'

'Not really. That's less important. I mean he's such a bloody good man, isn't he, and he could work miracles for all those people you love so much, if we could only get him to Beijing. I mean imagine the headlines — China Free — spectacular. I want to make it happen, you see.'

It wasn't absolutely certain they'd say no in London, not absolutely, you come up against the most bizarre situations in this trade.

'That's very touching.' Edge of sarcasm, but only an edge; I think he was a charitable man at heart, had a certain amount of compassion. 'But your life is surely one half of the deal.'