'I cannot remember. Are we going to Beijing?'

'Yes. To meet your wife.' No particular reaction, perhaps a look of cynicism. 'How much warning,' I asked him, 'do you get when you're running low on insulin?'

He turned his head to look at me. 'A little while.'

'What do you mean by a little while? Ten minutes or an hour or what?'

'About half an hour.'

'Then I want you to tell me as soon as you feel you're ready for another shot.' He didn't say anything. 'Do you understand?'

'Yes.'

'Are you hungry?'

'No.'

'Thirsty?'

'No.'

'All right. Let me know if you need anything.'

Chong had dumped a bag of provisions in the back of the truck when he'd kept the rendezvous, and I'd asked him to include a first-aid kit. The mask was still in its cheap cardboard box wedged behind the seat, and I would have liked to use it, but we'd need fresh water, clean hands, and time, up to an hour. The risk of taking this man along a highway in a truck tonight without the mask on was appalling, but the risk of being stopped by the police or the military was worse, if I tried fitting the mask and failed to get it right: they'd detect it and rip it off his face, finito. The risk of pulling up anywhere to look for shelter was the worst of all, and the only chance we had was to get to the foothills and the caves and stay there until Pepperidge could work something out.

The blaze was well behind us when I looked back, a bright ember against the horizon that left a trail of orange fire reflected along the river. Headlights were sweeping the area as the emergency teams moved in, and two vehicles, quite distinct, were behind us on the road out of the town. I noted them, because they could be military.

I picked up the radio and switched it on.

'Calling DIF, DIF, DIF.'

'Hear you.'

'Subject is in my care.'

In a moment: 'Very good.'

Since we'd broken radio contact soon after noon today Pepperidge had been sitting in his hotel room trying to make himself believe that I'd somehow manage to stay alive, because he'd known I meant to get in their way and that's something the directors in the field always hate and always try to keep you from doing: the risk is of course totally calculated but wickedly high. He hadn't expected jam on it: I'd located and secured Xingyu Baibing.

'I'm proceeding according to plan.' It was all he needed:

I'd told Chong to take him a copy of the map and it showed the caves. 'We should be there in an hour.'

'No precise location at this point.'

'No. I'll send that.' I watched the two sets of headlights in the mirror. The distant vehicle had pulled up on the one immediately behind me. 'There's a temple on fire southeast of the town and the emergency crews — and I assume the police and military — are already on the scene. There are several dead. One of them might be Chong.'

In a moment: 'Noted.'

'He did very well. The subject appears physically normal except for stress and extreme fatigue.'

'You have insulin?'

'Yes. But please note: I estimate that we shall be exposed for another half hour on a public highway, and the Koichi artifact is not in place, repeat not in place.'

Hesitation, then, 'Half an hour.'

'Estimated.'

I gave him tune to think. I'd located and secured the subject but the chances of getting him under cover were shockingly thin, with his face undisguised and a major search operation by the military still in progress. There was also an added risk: if any of them had got out of that temple alive they would have tried to follow this truck. One of those people had still managed to pull off a couple of shots after the first bomb had gone in, or it could even have been the two of them, each with a gun. Trotter had been running a first-class cell with highly trained personnel and if he'd been killed in the Buddha room, any surviving hit man would know what he'd got to do. If Trotter couldn't fly Xingyu into Beijing himself, he'd want him dead.

'Obviously you have no alternative.'

Pepperidge. No alternative but to try getting Xingyu to a cave in the hills through a military dragnet.

'No. It's the least risk.'

'So be it. Anything more?'

'Nothing more.'

'What's your condition?'

'Fully active.'

That wasn't inaccurate. If I didn't get some sleep before too long I was going to drop in my tracks and the drug they'd put in my tea had left the motor nerves a degree sluggish and my reflexes were less fast than I was used to and the head wound was still throbbing, but if anything critically active started I'd be all right because the adrenaline would make up the difference: once the survival mechanism is triggered and you're functioning in the zone, the body chemistry shifts into a different equation and the strength-of-ten-men syndrome kicks in.

'You could probably use some support.'

'It's not feasible. The only chance we've got is to keep a strictly low profile.'

Things had changed, in the mirror: the vehicle immediately behind had peeled off, and I saw the red star on the side. The other one was closing on us; I would have said it was a Beijing jeep by the short distance between the headlamps. There was now a bit of traffic starting to come the other way, and I kicked the dip switch.

'If you felt you needed support, would you ask for it?'

'Yes.'

He'd got my thinking straight on that point before: the man slumped behind me in the cab was potentially the most powerful figure in the Asian hemisphere and if I thought that even one support agent could help me protect him then I would say so.

'If the situation changes,' Pepperidge said, 'I can send in a whole cadre.'

He was worried, thought I was digging my heels in; no director in the field's all that happy when the executive's walking a tightrope with the subject of the mission in his arms.

'Noted.'

We were going to have to find a hole, Xingyu and I, find a hole in the night and stay there, sleep there, hibernate until the dawn, and any kind of support would attract attention, flush us out.

'I'll signal Control. Remain in contact.'

'Will do.'

I switched to receive-only and put the radio on the seat. It'd cheer them up a bit at the board in London, Executive has located and secured the subject, so forth.

A truck came past from ahead of us and in the glare of its lights I saw the red star again and a huddle of soldiers swaying in the back. I checked on Xingyu before the light had gone; he was sitting more upright now, staring through the windshield, and he squeezed his eyes shut and jerked backward against the seat as the shot smashed through the rear window and into the windshield and it snowed out and I hit a hole in it and got the truck straight again.

'Keep down.'

Shot hit a tyre and it blew and the truck lurched and I got it back and bits of snowed glass flew inward as Xingyu started hitting at it, shouted at him again, keep down, headlights coming the other way and the glare blinding, wiping everything out, and I felt the truck lurch again and then the tire came off and we were on the rim, took my foot off the throttle, lights again, there was a whole line of stuff coming past, keep down I told him, right in the line of fire for Christ's sake.

The twin lights of the jeep behind us were jazzing around in the mirror and I tilted it and tried to see where the road was, there was no border, it just ran into a waste of flat land with boulders standing black on one side, silvered on the other by the lights, a whole string of them, this was an army convoy, red stars glowing on the sides, shot and the mirror went, the force of the bullet throwing it forward until it caught the windrush and blew back into the cab, Christ's sake keep down I told Xingyu.