The Chinese Agenda (33 page)

Dmietriev was standing directly in front of him, a pistol held comfortably in his right hand; the dark, cylindrical shape of a silencer mounted on the muzzle. His expression was carved from ice and his dark eyes stared at Gillon unwinkingly. The dead, flat expression told him more eloquently than words that if he so much as twitched, a bullet would issue from the end of the silenced pistol.

'Turn around and let the carbine fall,' Dmietriev said quietly. There was no trace of hesitation or deference in his voice and Gillon turned slowly, letting the weapon slide off his shoulder and clown his arm into the snow.

'Walk to the edge.'

He did so, then turned hack to Dmietriev, who motioned him to start down the slope. The pistol held steadily on the center of his chest.

'Climb down until I tell you to stop. If you do anything else, you will die. Do you understand?'

Gillon nodded. He knew that within a few minutes Dmietriev would shoot him to death anyway, but there was absolutely nothing that he could do about it. His own pistol was inside his parka, inaccessible. His knife he could probably reach, but to use it effectively, he would first have to sidestep the bullet that Dmietriev would fire reflexively and then whip the knife into Dmietriev's eye. He would never avoid the first shot and he knew it. Dmietriev had him; there was no way that he could move fast enough. They went carefully down the steep slope, feeling for footholds. Gillon thought about throwing himself headlong down the slope, depending on the darkness to shield him until he reached the meager cover of the snowdrifts below, but the reflected light was bright enough that Dmietriev would he able to see him for a good twenty feet – ample time to fire.

`Stop.'

Gillon stopped, his back muscles tensing uncontrollaby. He heard Dmietriev coming closer.

`Give me the packet,' Dmietriev said quietly.

Gillon shook his head. 'It's in my pack . . . we'll have to go back ...'

`You're lying,' - Dmietriev said without inflection. 'I have searched your pack and it is not there. Give it to me or I will shoot you and take it from your body.'

Gillon turned carefully, expecting to be told to stop, but Dmietriev said nothing and when Gillon was facing him, he simply motioned for him to raise his hands. Gillon did so and clasped them on top of his head.

`The packet . . .' he repeated, and Gillon knew that he had no other choice. Ìt's inside my parka.'

Ùse your left hand and do not touch the pistol that you have in the shoulder holster nor the knife behind your neck.'

`Very observant,' Gillon muttered, and when Dmietriev did not reply, did not even indicate that he had heard, he lowered his left hand slowly and unzipped the parka, pulling it wide. The wind tugged and flared the fabric out of his hand. Awkardly, he struggled with the zipper on the pocket. Dmietriev watched him, never moving, never blinking. He was like a great cat waiting for his prey to make one move, one wrong move and then he would spring,, snap once and it would be finished. Gillon got the pocket open, pulled the packet out and held it at arm's length.

`No. Throw it to me . . . throw it carefully or I will shoot you before I catch it.'

Gillon had no doubt that he would do just that and he tossed the packet carefully against the wind, so that it landed in Dmietriev's outstretched left hand. The Russian tucked it away inside his own parka, then stepped to his left and slipped his skis off his shoulder.

`Now . . . back up five paces and sit down . . . keep your hands on top of your head.'

Gillon did as he was told and Dmietriev knelt down, still holding the pistol rock steady. He undid the lashings that held the skis and poles together. Getting to his feet again, he thrust the ski poles into the snow beside his skis and paused.

Gillon had curled the fingers of his left hand into the material of his hood. A quick push backward and he could reach his knife and throw in one swift movement, but Dmietriev never gave him a chance.

The Russian walked around behind him and Gillon felt the brief touch of the heavy pistol. He took a deep breath, readying for the final blow. I am sorry this must be done,' Dmietriev said. 'We have been through much together and I had hoped we would finish together. But one of the four of us is a traitor. I know it is not me, but of no one else can I be sure. I cannot take the chance that you are the one, although I am certain that you are not.' He pushed Gillon's hood back and reached a cold hand into the collar and extracted the throwing knife.

'I was betting it was you,' Gillon said wearily. 'I would have put money on your having brought the Chinese down on the caravan.'

'On the caravan?' Dmietriev shot back, clearly surprised.

'Yeah. Someone set off a red smoke marker behind the caravan and you were the last one in line .. . and you were carrying the explosives.'

Dmietriev was silent for a moment. 'I see.'

Dmietriev paused and Gillon heard him fumbling for something. A moment later, there was a sharp bang and he flinched. He spun around in time to see a flare of light blossom for a brief instant near the border before it plummeted into the snow and disappeared. Gillon realized that anyone not looking at that spot at the exact time would never have seen the flare.

'Turn around,' Dmietriev ordered sharply, and Gillon did so.

'They will now be waiting for me,' Dmietriev said quietly. 'If you can, make for the same spot and we will be waiting for you . . . on the other side of the border. But we cannot wait long . . . the Chinese will not let a mere border stop them from attempting to retrieve the information in this packet.'

`Listen, you bastard,' Gillon snarled, but a crushing blow from the pistol butt knocked him face forward into the snow. As his face touched the icy crystals, consciousness fled. The ledge jutted just above his head, brightly outlined in the moonlight, and Gillon reached for it, hooked his fingers over the solid rock and struggled to pull himself up. He was almost finished and he knew it. He had no idea how long he had been unconscious but when he had come to, there had been no sign of the big Russian intelligence agent but for two thin ski tracks leading toward the border. In a daze, Gillon had started back up the slope . . . not really aware of what he was doing, but dimly realizing that he must have his skis to stay alive. When Dmietriev crossed the border, all hell could break loose and there would be no chance of anyone else crossing at that point. Beyond that, his mind refused to function. Who then was the double agent? Unless Dmietriev was lying . .

. If any of them were to survive now, they would be forced to co-operate. Whichever of the other two it was, he should be quick to realize that the reception waiting for him in Peking without that packet was not going to be a hero's welcome. The climb had finished what little strength remained to him and he rested for a moment, his fingers still hooked over the ledge. Strong hands grasped and jerked him upward, dragging him painfully over the rock. For a moment he thought it was Stowe or Leycock but as he struggled to his knees, his arms still gripped tightly, he saw clearly in the moonlight the faces that surrounded him and he knew for certain then that they were all finished this time, for good and all.

'Get up, you son-of-a-bitch.' Gillon looked in the direction of the voice, not wanting to believe. Leycock stood with his carbine cradled in his arms and a sneer on his face.

'Get up,' he repeated.

Gillon got painfully to his feet with the assistance of the two Chinese soldiers who continued to hold his arms. He glanced at Leycock, then at the others. Eight Chinese soldiers, all dressed in white snowsuits, were with him on the ledge. Three held their rifles ready but the rest were standing relaxed, weapons slung over their shoulders. The reason was obvious. Stowe was standing next to a tall Chinese whose captain's insignia gleamed on his fur hat.

`So you two were together all along,' he muttered huskily. Stowe shook his head, still grinning. 'Yep. But until the cavalry showed up, I figured Leycock was on your side. It seems we were both planted on you all in case something happened to the other . . . sort of a fail-safe arrangement, you might call it.'

'And I thought that Dmietriev was the one . .. the flare was missing from his pack ...'

Leycock laughed, thoroughly enjoying himself. 'I thought that would tie it for you. I took the flare that morning while the tents were being packed and dropped it as we came over the ridge. I used one of the time-delay fuses.'

'Made up for breaking the radio too early, then, didn't you?'

Leycock snarled at him. 'All right, so I made one mistake. But I did manage to pull it out and that's all that counts.'

'When you went back down the pass that second day, was it just to count Chinese or to talk with them?'

'What do you think?' Leycock smirked. 'They've been right behind us for quite a while.'

Gillon shook his head. 'Both of you . . . I never even thought of that ...

'Then it was one of you that warned the Chinese that we were coming . . . in fact . . . told them about the Rome meeting and had Phan killed, then led them to protest to the Russians so that we had to go through that little act at Ala Kul.'

Leycock smirked at him. 'Yeah ... that was me.'

Now that it was over, he did not even feel bitter. He was beyond that now. The packet had gone with Dmietriev . . . the Russians had won and everyone else, himself included, had lost.

Gillon smiled at Stowe. 'It's all for nothing, you

know,' he said softly. 'Dmietriev has the packet. He took it from me and by now he should be almost across the border.'

Stowe and Leycock both laughed. The soldiers grinned at one another; even though they did not understand what Gillon had said, they must have been expecting this reply. Stowe spoke in Chinese and the soldiers' grins turned to laughter.

`Not very damned likely,' Leycock said finally. 'They've got two squads of troops strung through the valley by now waiting for anyone to try. They moved in after dark and dug in. Dmietriev will never make the border.'

Gillon stared at him, his brain frozen, unable to think coherently. The scene was a surrealistic painting, white-clad soldiers, the dull splash of white from the windbreak against the black rock, the varied attitudes of the participants and all washed in pale moonlight. He - looked around, unable to focus on any one detail until his stare was suddenly riveted by the sight of Leycock's pack, half in and half out the windbreak. He looked up to see Stowe watching him carefully. Without thinking, Gillon glanced back at the pack, which he knew contained Leycock's share of the explosives which they had divided earlier.

Stowe stepped forward slightly and the muzzle of his pistol wavered toward the pack. Puzzled, Gillon looked up at Stowe, who nodded imperceptibly. The Chinese officer snapped out an order, breaking the intense expression on Stowe's face, and one of the soldiers pushed Gillon toward the rock wall. He stumbled toward Leycock, who suddenly swung his carbine at him in a vicious arc. Gillon saw it but was unable to do more than deflect the blow; it hit him in the ribs and he stumbled forward to his knees, almost going off the ledge.

Before anyone else could move, Stowe shoved the officer out of the way and shouted Leycock's name. Ley-cock, startled, turned toward him as Stowe raised the pistol at arm'

s length and shot him through the neck. Gillon saw the surprise on Leycock's face through his own haze of pain as Leycock swayed forward under the impact of the bullet. Stowe had not waited to see the

effect before he had continued around in the same smooth motion and shot the Chinese officer in the face; three rifles crashed simultaneously and Stowe was slammed back against the rock wall.

'Go!' he gasped. 'Now ! ' And Gillon saw the pistol wobble up to point at the pack. Without an instant's hesitation, he pitched himself over as the pistol roared and the face of the ledge erupted into incandescent gas. The concussion of the exploding gelignite, even though deflected partially by the ledge, slammed him against the snow and rolled him over and over down the ice-hard slope until he slammed against a snow-covered boulder. He lay on his back for an indeterminate amount of time, staring up into the hard, blue-black sky, his mind refusing to work properly while the blaze of flame and smoke died away above him. No sound, no movement of any kind came from the ledge. Beyond, he could see clearly the side of the ridge leading up to the crest of the pass and it shone balefully in the moonlight.

After 'a while, Gillon rolled over onto his stomach and got to his hands and knees. He knelt in the snow, breathing in deep gasps and wondering if he could ever manage to gather enough strength to stand. He took it step by step; first, forcing himself upright, but still on his knees, then he brought one leg up, and finally got onto both feet. The sky spun and he stumbled forward onto the boulder and waited for the vertigo to pass. His ribs grated against each other and he gasped in agony as the muscles cramped down, almost doubling him into immobility. The cramp eased after several minutes and by degrees he forced himself erect once more and, without thinking, began to hobble down the remaining slope.

Bits and pieces of conversation, scraps of scenes came and went without pattern. Dmietriev talking to him earlier, pointing out the place to cross the border . . . the red smoke marker . . . the Chinese soldiers on the ledge . . . Stowe telling him . . . warning him? . . . that more soldiers were waiting for anyone to cross the border. All of it mattered no longer. To stay was to die .

to attempt to cross was only to struggle that much longer against the inevitable, that last bit of effort that kept you alive, because luck was made of anticipation and struggle . . . he laughed out loud and found that it hurt. He went downslope, shuffling one foot in front of the other as if he were an old man. It seemed that he no longer controlled his body and it tended to go where the terrain pushed it. The valley swept away before him and he did not trust the scenes that his eyes displayed for him. The landscape wavered in the watery moonlight; shadows took on the menacing shapes of trolls, then those of soldiers rising up from the drifts to reach restraining claws and he wondered insanely if the people who lived in these mountains told tales of middle-earth creatures as did the Scandinavians. The slope flattened and the valley floor became level. The snow was hard-packed under the wind that whistled endlessly through the wind tunnel of the valley. A thin line came into sight, black against the glimmering white. As he stumbled on, the realization grew in him that this was the border fence.