One of the hit men was snivelling a bit because of the eye gouge I'd used on him, didn't look pretty, mucus dripping from his nose, couldn't wipe it away, had to keep both his hands on my legs, I tried a last essay, jerking my knees to connect with his face but it was no go, they'd been waiting for me to do something, didn't trust me anymore, bloody shame, my eyes closing against the flickering light of the lamp over there, watch it, yes, God's sake stay with it, yes indeed, one must remain conscious, mustn't one, opened my eyes again and slowed the breathing, deepened it, sought prana, drew it into the lungs, felt better, a little better now, he was stopping at 5cc, pulled the needle out of the phial and tilted the syringe, pressed the air out and got another swab, asking one of them to pull my sleeve higher, wiped my arm and dropped the swab and brought the syringe into position and I said, 'Trotter, you'd better listen to this.'

Chen looked across at him but Trotter shook his head, keep going, I suppose it meant.

'When I got him through Hong Kong and Chengdu and Gonggar,' I said, 'it was because he was wearing a mask. The «element». I couldn't have got him through without it. You won't get him through to Beijing without it either.'

'Zhan zhu.'

Dr Chen was holding the syringe like a dart, ready to stab, but he didn't move now, watched Trotter.

I said, 'Listen, if this stuff is as good as you say it is, I'll tell you where the mask is, but it won't do you any good because you won't know how to put it on his face. It requires skill and experience, takes nearly an hour, and you haven't been trained, and I have. I'm the only one who can put that mask on, Trotter, so you'd better tell the good doctor, hadn't you, to put that bloody thing away.'

I suppose Trotter would have given it some thought but there wasn't time because the doors of the temple blew open and the whole place shuddered and I saw the light of the explosion on his face before the air blast reached the lamps and blew them out and I twisted and rolled and dropped and got onto my feet and began running through the dark toward the patch of moonlight where the doors had been.

'In there,' I told Chong and he lobbed the next one into the Buddha room and the force came in a wave and I went down under the blast and hit something with my shoulder and spun away and got up again, a few seconds of darkness after the flash and then the moonlight came back, filtering through the smoke where the roof had blown out.

Shot, whining close and bouncing against stone, someone had survived in there but the light was too tricky to let him do any more than shoot wild and 1 checked the vestibule on my left and didn't find anything more than rubble, crossed through the line of fire at a run and called for Chong to look after things and he lobbed another one through the doorway and the building bellowed again and I squeezed my eyes shut against the flash and waited for them to accommodate and then took the room on the other side and found him there, Xingyu, another man with him and I went for a certain kill and called out to Chong again, where was the truck?

Xingyu was conscious and on his feet and I found his flight bag and checked it for the insulin by the light of the flames that had broken out in the Buddha room and then got him through the rubble, another shot and I called out to Chong again but he didn't answer, we needed another bomb in there, Xingyu felt heavy against me and I had to half-carry him, smoke in the lungs and the light deceptive, shadows everywhere as the fire took hold and began blazing.

'Chong!'

Crackling of timber and a beam came down with a crash and sparks flew, a billow of smoke rolling through the doorway and clouding gray in the moonlight, the eyes stinging as we reached the open and I saw the truck, 'Chong!' but no answer.

I got Xingyu into the Dongfeng and checked for the radio and the map and started the engine and waited. 'Chong, we're going!'

The whole place was roaring and I thought I saw Trotter, his huge body silhouetted against the flames as I hit the gear in and rolled the thing out of harm's way, still no sign of Chong, but there was a sweep of bright light coming in from the highway and I got into motion again with the headlights off and took a dirt track where the smoke was rolling, used it for cover and kept going as more lights silvered the landscape and I saw a personnel carrier, red star on the cab, it must have been in the area and I suppose you can't blow a temple up in the dark without attracting attention, Chong, where was Chong, we had to keep going before the military picked us up in their headlights, I think the first time I'd called out to him without getting an answer was just after the shot, the second one, so it could be that.

Something bumping against me in the cab, Xingyu, and I pushed him upright.' When did you last get insulin?'

'Who are you?"

He sounded lethargic, slurred, sat there lolling, so I reached over and got his seat belt round him and hit the door lock down, who are you, stressed out of his mind.

The dirt track was coming to an end and I turned the lights on and kicked the dip switch and took the road to the right, away from the blazing temple, throttling up and shifting into top, the main town to the left, to the north, the river on the other side, Gonggar behind us in the west but forget Gonggar, find shelter, it was all we could do now, I'd been with Chong when he'd drawn the map, sitting in the truck while I was watching for Su-May.

'Okay, this is where the foothills begin, so this is where they are, along this line here."

The caves.

'Which one should we make for?'

'Listen, we take our pick, a whole lot of them are going to be big enough to hide the truck, so we can set up our base facing the south, keep a watch on the road, this one here, the only way in and it ain't that hot anyway, mostly rocks, but if they take the search parties that far it's the road they'll use.'

We checked our radios and synchronized watches and he started peeling a fresh stick of gum and I said, 'All right, this is what we'll do if I can get them to pick me up. You'll take over the truck and keep me in sight until you see where they're taking me. If it's in the town or where anyone else can get hurt, report on your radio to my DIP and he'll bring in support. If it's anywhere remote, where you can use your bombs, do it at your own discretion.'

He thought for a moment. 'Okay. Zero?'

Eighteen hundred hours. 'I'll work around that. But you're only a backup, Chong. If I can do anything on my own, I'd rather do it. A bomb is a blanket weapon and if Xingyu's there I don't want him endangered.'

He dropped the Wrigley's wrapper onto the floor. 'Like to kind of modify that,' his tone a little hurt, 'I mean you can pick locks with those babies, you do it right.'

'No offence.'

We talked about where to bring the truck, covering a dozen assumed sites, urban and remote and in between. We talked about signalling if any were possible, access, egress, how to keep Xingyu protected, how to get him clear. And finally we talked about eventualities and their appropriate action. 'If one of us can't get away,' I said, 'he's left behind, and the other one takes Xingyu.'

'Gotcha.'

He'd got out of the cab of the truck and buried himself among the equipment we were carrying back there, and began waiting it out.

'Where are we going?'

Xingyu. I looked across at him in the backwash from the headlights. He was crouched into his coat, his face drawn, his eyes dull, but he sounded interested in who I was, where we were going.

'Dr Xingyu, it's a few minutes past six in the evening. When did you have you last shot of insulin?'