'If fossil fuel suddenly dried up overnight, the United States of America would have an efficient electric automobile industry within two years, otherwise trillions of dollars would be lost. Industry is very inventive, the lure of gold being its mainspring. In the People's Republic we can be equally inventive, otherwise life itself will be lost.'

I leaned against the rockface, feeling its chill through my coat, feeling its reality. I needed life, too, and even more than that I needed to vouchsafe the life of this man here, because the mission is the Holy Grail and held to be above the survival of the executive, and the mission tonight was to protect Dr Xingyu Baibing, the messiah, the little robot sitting here regurgitating a romantic's manifesto. I found myself sitting very still, my back to the freezing rockface and my eyes — on the moonlit sky and my mind suddenly close to the Englishman's, to Trotter's, as if a mental zoom had closed the distance between us.

He had lied very little, that man, and then only by omission. His objective had been precisely the same as mine: to get Xingyu Baibing to Beijing and in front of the cameras. He had wanted the geriatric tyrants there to be thrown out of power, as we did. He had protected my operation all along the line, just as he'd said, because he didn't have the dissident commander's tanks readied to defend the people, as we did, in Tiananmen Square, didn't have the contacts, the coordination, the military escort that would lead Xingyu to the cameras after Premier Li Peng had been seized and put under military arrest.

So Trotter had used the Bureau.

Had used me.

Our aims are the same, my dear fellow, I do hope you understand.

The same, up to a point. Not just as far as getting Xingyu out of Tibet, not just as far as getting him into Beijing and through the streets and into the Great Hall of the People, but to the very point when the lights would come on and the cameras start rolling and he would appear on the television screens right across the nation.

And speak not for democracy but for the new Communism under Xu Yun as its leader.

Sat very still, shutting my eyes, absorbing the light of revelation.

I do hope you understand, my dear fellow.

Yes, I think so.

He'd wanted, as we had, to put this man on the television screens — but with a robot's brain.

'When they came for you at the monastery, Baibing, was Mr Trotter there?'

'Yes.'

'And what did he say to you?'

'That I would not be hurt.'

'I see.'

The object had not of course been to hurt Xingyu Baibing but to keep him sequestered in the temple and subjected to intensive brainwashing, probably under the influence of a hypnogenic drug from Dr Chen's little black bag.

'Did they give you an injection? I don't mean insulin.'

'I don't remember.'

It wasn't important; it would simply have been useful to know what kind of change I was dealing with: psychochemical or hypnotic.

'Did Mr Trotter tell you that he'd be letting you go free?'

Hesitation again, quite pronounced this time. 'He said I would be returned to your protection.'

'Yes, I see.'

He was, then, to have been released in such a way that I would 'discover' him and take him somewhere to safety and finally to Beijing, the same man but not with the same mission.

And then I'd mucked everything up for Mr Trotter by deciding to get in his way and find Xingyu for myself.

I do hope you understand, my dear fellow.

Actually yes.

'Were you given posthypnotic instructions, Baibing?'

I don't know what he would have said because the radio crackled and Pepperidge came on and I acknowledged and began listening.

Chapter 26: Shadow

'What is your situation?'

'They're closer,' I told him.

I watched the ragged line of light in the valley below.

'By how much?'

'Half a mile, a mile, it's difficult to tell.'

'Are they looking for you, or Xingyu Baibing? Or both?'

I thought about that. 'The military were alerted by two things, the fire in the temple and someone shooting at us from a Beijing jeep behind us. I think Trotter could have been hi the jeep, alone or with one of his hit men. Or it could have been just a hit man, or two of them. I think Trotter was probably injured by the bombs, could be dead by now.'

The line of light seemed to be breaking up in one or two places. Either one or two of the soldiers were moving up faster than the rest because of easier ground, or the officer in command had ordered probes to move directly into the hills to search the caves.

I didn't report this. I wasn't certain yet.

'What might have happened,' I said into the radio, 'is that the military caught whoever was firing at me from the jeep, and put him straight under interrogation.'

'And he told them you were somewhere in the area?'

'Yes, with Xingyu. They wouldn't have mounted a search on this scale for me alone. The police and the PSB agents are looking for me, but not the army.'

I waited.

My position was not good; it was probably lethal; but I preferred it to what Pepperidge was going through. He'd been pleased to take this one on, had been courteous enough to say he'd be honoured to direct me in the field, and we'd done well together, got the Chinese Communist government's most dangerous political opponent through the trap in Hong Kong and the trap in Chengdu and got him into hiding. Then Trotter and his private cell had moved in and the objective for Bamboo had changed totally. It wasn't that we could no longer hope to fly Xingyu into the Chinese capital: we no longer wanted to. It was the last thing we must do. All that was left of the mission was a static rearguard action outnumbered by something like ISO to one, and my final instructions from London would simply be to save this man's life if I could.

I did not envy my director in the field. He was talking to, me from this lonely room in that shabby hotel, the link between London Control and his beleaguered executive trapped in a mountain cave in Tibet, with no further objective except to survive.

His voice, of course, was perfectly steady, and that helped.

'They haven't brought helicopters in?'

'God forbid.'

'Quite so. But if they do, please report at once.'

'Understood.'

'Have you explored the cave?'

'Yes. There's no hiding place.'

'Will you decide to leave there, do you think, since the search is closing on you?'

'Yes, unless there's something you can do.'

Better to be overtaken in the open and on the run than raked out of a hole like a couple of bloody badgers.

In a moment: 'I signalled you to tell you that London has been very active indeed since I reported our predicament. Through the embassy in Beijing and our courier line they have contacted General Yang.'

'Yang?'

'He is the commander who would have supported Xingyu Baibing's television appearance with a tank corps in Tiananmen Square. He was told of Dr Xingyu's critical situation and agreed to send one of his colonels immediately to Gonggar airport to see if anything can be done.' There was a crackle of static suddenly and then his voice came in again. 'Was… course… originally hoped that he might be able to help us get the subject to Beijing, until you reported that he has been compromised.' Read brainwashed. 'If the colonel can do anything now — his name his Zhou — it will be to attempt to rescue both of you from the cave. London reports that he has already left Beijing in a MiG 23 fighter-bomber and should arrive Gonggar in a little less than two hours. I have no information on what he will do then, but I assume he'll use his rank and try to halt the search that is now in progress. But that is conjecture.'