"But not death as punishment?"

"Death as atonement."

Then there was a knock on the door again and the night clerk put his long face in the gap. "Kirby wants you, sir." Kirby was the cypher clerk and this was another signal.

00:46 hours, and already morning.

"They're in contact," Ferris said, "with the CIA."

"Because of the American Ambassador?"

He didn't answer that. "I just want you to know there's now an American connection. Are you still prepared to go in there?"

"To the monastery?"

"Yes."

"If it's my way, by a night drop."

Ferris was sitting on the floor again with the maps in front of him. He slotted his long fingers together and didn't look up as he told me: "Control says you can go in, on his terms."

Dead end. Sixteen signals, leading us to a dead end. Because I knew Croder. He wouldn't have made this proviso if they were the kind of terms I could accept. Croder is God: he giveth and he taketh away.

"What terms?"

"That you take someone with you as a guide."

I said no.

01:32.

"I always work solo," I said. "You know that."

"This time it's too critical."

"Only the landing. After I'm down I don't want anyone with me. They'd get in my way."

"You won't even find your way, without a guide."

"Look, I did a night drop into the Sahara and there was no problem. I was alone."

"This isn't the Sahara."

"Croder doesn't trust me, that's all. He never has."

Ferris began whistling quietly, which was like anyone else kicking the door down. "They're putting everything on this one venture. If you take a guide with you it's going to decrease the risk of your getting lost. All the guide has to do is get you to the monastery — to within sight of it. Then you go in alone."

"It's the drop I'm worried about. Two chutes are more visible than one: you're doubling the risk, not decreasing it."

"You're dropping by night."

"By moonlight."

"Over completely unknown territory."

"With a compass."

"And magnetic rocks in the area. You won't know whether you're north or south of the target."

"If they can drop me reasonably close, I'll be able to see the monastery; there can't be too many rectangular mountain peaks."

He began whistling softly again and I waited.

Hear me: if ever I get out of this one alive, I'll never work for Croder again. This is the second time and he hasn't changed.

"Your arguments," Ferris said, stopping his pacing and looking down at me, "have been presented to London. I foresaw most of them; the others won't be transmitted because it won't be worth it. They'll say no."

"They're not doing the drop. I am."

"What you're doing," Ferris said, "is provoking Croder. You hate his guts and you want him to know it. But he knows it already, so you're wasting your time."

"Croder's not doing the drop." I got up and moved about, keeping out of Ferris's way.

"Do you think this is the first one he's ever set up?"

"What are my chances, Ferris? You thought about that? I'd put them at fifty fifty and that's optimistic. That's why you've got Youngquist out here, standing by. Who the hell is Croder to make it tougher for me than it is already?"

"Croder is our Control."

"That doesn't mean he's God."

"Yes, it does. And he's the only one we've got."

It stopped me, but I don't know why. He saw it, and came closer, and lowered his voice. "It's the only way we can ever work, isn't it? With someone in London who knows more than we do, and who can get us out of traps we can't even see because we're too close."

I didn't say anything. I'd used all the arguments I could think of and they hadn't worked.

"You'd do it for any other Control," Ferris said, "wouldn't you?"

In a moment I said: "Yes."

"So you'll do it for this one. Won't you?"

I turned away from him. "Yes."

He moved towards the door. "I'll go and tell them."

"Do that."

Because it was over now, the little show of nerves because the mission was shifting phase and we were all having to make decisions instead of simply trying to stay alive. A minute ago I'd believed Croder was wrong, that he was trying to kill me off in the only way he could, and that he was the enemy, not Tung Kuo-feng. I'd believed it: I hadn't just been shouting the odds. But Ferris knew that if he talked to me long enough the adrenalin would recede and I'd peak out and come down from the high and listen to reason again. That's what your director in the field is for, to understand your own particular kind of neurosis and then pander to it, to bitch you about like a nagging mother till you find your own feet again.

01:40 and to hell with them all. We were going in.

"Okay," Captain Newcomb said, "these are hard copies of some stuff we took from high altitude with vidicon cameras three or four months ago." He pushed the square-format pictures across the briefing table and leaned over them with a pointer. "The scale is 1:944,300, or approximately one inch to 15.6 miles, and the ground resolution is 200 feet/line, so we have a pretty clear image of the monastery. It's right here."

One of the lights on the telephone near the door had begun winking but nobody took any notice.

"Halfway up the mountain," Ferris said.

"Maybe a bit closer to the peak. We lose definition lower down on this picture because of the trees and shadow. We estimate the altitude at 1,000 feet. The —»

"The altitude of the monastery?" I asked him.

"Uh? Right. The monastery, not the peak. The peak's around two thousand, which tallies with local survey maps."

Lieutenant Lewes sat hunched over the table, chewing gum. He was the pilot. After Ferris had told London I was ready to go in on their terms there'd been a long delay, presumably because Croder had had to go through Washington or the Pentagon to set up liaison with the US Air Force and arrange the drop. We'd only arrived here fifteen minutes ago at ten in the morning but Ferris had got me through security with no problem. This was the new Air Force base to the south-west of the city: I'd passed the gates last night on the way to Karibong-ni.

"You'll be dropping an hour before dawn, so that you'll have time to release the chutes and stow them and get yourself set up for the ground approach." Newcomb glanced round as the door opened, but went on speaking. "The Met. tells me that it's likely you'll be going down in virtually still-air conditions."

The girl slipped into the empty chair without saying anything. Ferris gave her a nod and went on listening to Captain Newcomb.

"The estimated mean air temperature at that altitude band is fifty-six degrees at the time you'll be dropping. There's one potential problem, and that's the likelihood of ground mist at this season, especially after the monsoon rains. There just isn't anything we can do to help you with that." He straightened up from the table. "Are there any questions so far?"

"What about — " I began but Ferris stopped me.

"Hold it a moment, would you?" He pushed his chair back and got up. "Gentlemen, this is Miss de Haven of Geological Survey. She'll be going in as the guide."

The rest of us got up, though Lewes looked a bit uncertain; the girl was in green battledress and he'd heard all about women's lib. "This is Captain Bob Newcomb," Ferris told her, "Lieutenant Al Lewes, and Mr Clive West."

"Hi," Al said.

"For God's sake sit down," she told us. "I'm sorry I was late: your security people held me up."

"That's quite okay," Newcomb said and we all sat down again rather awkwardly. "I'll just recap what we've done so far."