I said no. When I told Flockhart about General Kheng tomorrow he'd want to know where he was: it could be crucial.

Gabrielle drove the jeep three or four blocks, passing the hotel where Slavsky was staying and turning south, rolling to a halt in the cover of a barn and cutting the engine. I could sense the tension rising in her again as she took her short-barrelled Remington from the rear seat and checked it. Whether or not I got the information I wanted, she would make the kill: that had been agreed on.

'We'll give it an hour,' she said softly. 'Yes?'

'Whatever you decide.'

She'd told me how she operated, and what she'd learned. 'They always arrive in some sort of vehicle, and switch off their lights when they near the area they've chosen, slowing down. That's why they like moonlit nights, unless there are street lamps not far away.'

I remembered what she'd also said, earlier, about her childhood: I knew I'd never want to do anything else but paint flowers, all my life long.

'Sometimes there are two of them, but they usually work alone, perhaps to conserve manpower and place more mines. It only takes one man, after all. He is always armed, of course, and takes care not to be seen or heard: there are police patrols, and sometimes military as well if a curfew is ordered. But that applies more to Phnom Penh.'

We left the jeep, walking together as far as the narrow street; then the waiting began, in the cover of bamboo, and I heard rats among the fallen leaves, disturbed by our arrival. Water was running somewhere, a cistern overflowing after the rain; its sound brought the illusion of peace to the night.

'It won't always be like this,' Gabrielle said softly. 'There won't always be killing.'

'No. Everything will change.' And come full circle, as it always did; the trick was to be somewhere else when it happened. 'You should go to Paris,' I said.

'When?'

'Tomorrow. Paris or anywhere. Get out of here.'

'You still think something will happen on the nineteenth?'

'I think it's very likely.'

Unless there was an air strike. That would be the last chance.

'I have to stay,' Gabrielle said.

'And take photographs?'

'Of course. It's my job, and whatever happens will have to be recorded. But it's more than that.'

I didn't answer, didn't want to think about it. If there were to be another million dead in the Killing Fields she would be one of them this time.

The rats rustled in the leaves of the bamboo.

'Will you be here,' Gabrielle asked, 'for a while?'

'In Cambodia?'

'Yes.'

'I work under instruction. I don't know where I'll be at any given time.'

There was some kind of vehicle on the move in the distance, beyond the airfield. We stood listening to it.

I was working under instruction, yes, but if I was ordered out of Cambodia before the nineteenth the reason would have to be fully urgent: I'd want to stay on to help Gabrielle, keep her from getting caught if the Khmer Rouge launched the second holocaust.

'It's going farther away,' she said. The vehicle.

'Yes.'

But the next one, minutes later, sounded less distant, and we stood listening again.

The moon was below the tops of the sugar palms now, throwing them into stark relief against a skein of cloud nearer the horizon. There was no other sound louder than the droning of the vehicle, still distant but nearing by degrees.

'Perhaps this one,' Gabrielle said quietly. I thought it might simply be a police patrol or a merchant bringing in goods for the market, but in a moment she hitched the Remington higher and said, 'Yes. This one.' By now she was experienced in this kind of work, would have acquired specific instincts.

Light flowed suddenly across the wall of a building as the vehicle turned in the distance, its sound loudening; then within seconds the light went out and the engine note decreased.

We had rehearsed things already, but for the sake of security Gabrielle said again, 'If there are two of them I will shoot one immediately and go for a kill. The second one I will drop without killing if I can, before he returns my fire. If I succeed, he's yours. Don't leave cover until you're sure there's only one of them still alive, because I might have to fire twice. If only one man gets out of the vehicle, he's yours until you signal me.'

'Understood.'

I left her and moved along the street, keeping to the cover of a dry-stone wall until I reached the school. There was an arched gateway and I went through into the playground, dropping out of sight from the road.

I could now identify the vehicle by its sound: I'd heard these things before. It was a Chinese-built jeep, bouncing over the potholes on stiff springs, the slack timing-chain sending out a distinctive clatter from the engine. It was still running blacked-out, and the only light in the street was from the moon.

I could have operated alone tonight, moving from one potential hot zone to another, but I knew only a few words of Cambodian and unless the target spoke French or English I would have drawn blank.

The jeep neared, moaning in low gear. I couldn't see it from where I was, had only its sound to go by.

Carbon monoxide drifted on the air; tyres crackled over stones; and now the canvas top of the jeep was visible, sliding beyond the dry-stone wall. Then it stopped, and the engine idled for a moment, was switched off.

There were no voices.

Smell of tobacco smoke.

Then movement, and I went on waiting. The ring of a spade as he unstrapped it from the rear of the jeep: I could see the top of his head. Only one man, then.

If only one man gets out of the vehicle, he's yours until you signal me.

The gate swung open.

He was carrying the spade and a small wooden crate. He was carrying the crate carefully.

I expected him to start digging a hollow below the archway, but perhaps people were used to that now and either put the main entrances to schools out of bounds or had them swept every morning by one of the mine-detection services, because the man was coming into the playground without stopping, and when he was four or five feet away from me I moved and closed the distance and took him down with a knee sweep and a sword-hand to the carotid artery, a medium strike to stun while I looked after the crate. The spade clattered onto the ground and I left it there and checked his belt for a weapon, found none: these people were more comfortable with submachine guns and assault rifles, and he'd left his in the jeep, hadn't expected to find anyone here.

He was young, strong, snapped out of the syncope within seconds.

'Parles-toi francais?'

He didn't answer, didn't want to stand here talking, swung a routine kindergarten-level fist and I blocked it and paralyzed his arm with a centre-knuckle strike and followed with a pulled hammer-blow to the temple to get his attention. 'Parles-toi francais?' I asked him again.

Some Cambodian came out, sounded ungracious.

'Do you speak English?'

Worked on his arm, the median nerve.

More Cambodian, so I whistled twice and Gabrielle came trotting across the road with her gun and began talking to him instead.

'He's just cursing,' she said.

'Then make him afraid.'

She raised the Remington and held the muzzle against the middle of the man's forehead and spoke to him again, getting something out of him this time.

'He's just asking me not to shoot him.'

'Then start a count-down. What does he know about Pol Pot?'

I waited. The man stank worse than the pig in the mine-detection place — garlic, tobacco smoke and now sweat.

'He knows nothing,' Gabrielle told me.

At least it was an answer, of sorts. 'How far did you come down to?'

'Six.'

That was quite good: he was breaking early.