"Trevor, Elleston as Hall, Adam - Quiller 01 - The 9th Directive 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hall Adam)

2 Pangsapa

The two fish circled, their heads turned towards the center to watch each other.

The smaller was the more beautiful, its colors less diffuse, but both were caparisoned in the flowing splendor of their fins. They moved like rainbows through the pearly water. Faintly reflected in the glass was the face of Pangsapa, an enormous moon.

The strange sweet smell of opium was in the air.

The fish sped suddenly together dart-quick and murderous with the fins drawn close to the body as they met - a torn fin could unbalance them and bring almost immediate death.

The eyes of Pangsapa were unblinking in the great moon on the glass.

The fish circled near the sides of the tank with their colored raiment flowing, reminding of medieval war-horses on the battle field. The next charge was mutual and explosive - they closed, met, held and span in a whirlpool with their razor-teeth working for a kill. Three times they attacked and withdrew, and now the water was tinged with carmine and from the spine of the decent price on them. So far nobody's found out what he will not do for money.'

We had talked for another hour at the safehouse in Soi Suek 3, Loman and I. His bit about my making arrangements for the assassination had caught my interest at last, but I didn't say anything.

'I'm sure you get the point,' Loman said.

'I'm to make the arrangements and then give you the set-up so that you can take countermeasures against any similar plan.'

'That's right.'

'It's bloody silly. You can plan it a dozen ways.'

'We think your way would be the most efficient. We think we are up against somebody very clever. Don't misunderstand me: I am not buttering you up so that you'll cooperate.' His smile was smooth. 'You don't want this mission, or any mission with me as your intelligence director in the field. We don't like each other, do we? But I was asked in London to choose a man who could plan this kind of job - an assassination -so efficiently that it couldn't fail. I think you'll agree that there's more at risk than a few hard words between us if we do this job together. So I chose you.'

I said, 'You'll just have to go on talking. Get me out of the dark. I suppose there's been a threat, has there?'

'Of course.'

Then why don't they just call it off?'

'The visit? For the same reason that they didn't call off the Queen's visit to Canada. Your Anglo-Saxon doesn't panic easily. Also this visit is part, as I told you, of a larger itinerary in Southeast Asia. They can't leave out Bangkok because it's the most important stop. And they can't cancel the whole thing because of one threat in one place. Even if the Government decided to back out I doubt if the Person would let them - he's not quite the type. So we're all in it.' He drank off the rest of the lime in his glass and looked at me again and asked sulkily: 'Or aren't you included?'

'Oh for God's sake, stop mucking about and give me the guts of the thing so I can make up my mind. I don't know a bloody tenth of what's going on, do I?'

But I knew more now than he'd told me. I knew why he'd arrived with his nerves in the upper register: this kind of mission wasn't in his line. He is a specialist in short-range penetration operations with a disciplined cell and planned access and good communications - not such a pushover as it sounds, if the opposition is the best. He is brilliant at it: five adverse agents neutralized in the European area and two on home ground sent down for a fourteen-year stretch (the Kingston net), all in the past eighteen months.

Why had Control sent him out here on a lark like this?

He was still smiling gently. He knew I was angry because I was interested and therefore afraid of being coerced into this mission. Someone had said in that room with the Lowry: 'He won't fall easily for this one unless we can sting him up. Send someone out there he doesn't like, someone who'll get his goat.'

Loman was perfect casting.

'Let me give you the other nine-tenths,' he said equably. This is of course a job for Security and a few people have been flown out here quietly to help take care of the threat and its implications. The Thai Home Office is being very cooperative and--'

'Wait a minute. What sort of threat was it?'

'It was sent by ordinary letter to London, written in English. It said simply that if the Person came to this city he wouldn't leave it alive. Of course the Yard has taken the letter apart in Forensic and sent a couple of people out here to confer with the Thai CID. They are working on it now.'