5051 kHz.

Tung was on one side of me, Sinitsin on the other. Somewhere behind me were the two track-suited guards, one of them Yang. It hadn't been my intention to kill him, though I could have done that: I had been fast enough and there had been more than enough rage behind the half-fist strike to the larynx; but discipline hadn't been undermined even after what they'd done to me, and I had known that if I killed Yang there wouldn't be another mock execution: they would gun me down on the spot.

So he was behind me now, with a bruised throat and the submachine gun in his hands again, in case I tried to smash up the radio or said anything wrong. I hadn't increased my chances, of course, by going for him like that: he'd want even less of an excuse now to shoot me out of hand; but without having to think about it I'd realised we had to do something about the fear they'd induced in me, about the wish to obey; we had to minimise the effects that were the object of the whole charade, and the rage and then the release of rage which going for Yang had done. It had been a calculated reaction on the part of the psyche, bringing in the risk-benefit factor: the risk of death at the hands of Yang was now increased, but I would benefit from the fact that my fear of these people and my wish to obey them was much less than it would have been, and if a chance came of destroying them I was more ready to take it.

But everything is relative. As I sat in front of the illuminated console the nerves in my spine were crawling, because the smell of cordite was still on the air and I knew they were standing behind me with loaded guns, in case I tried to smash the radio or use my bare hands on Tung or Sinitsin.

5051 kHz.

Eagle to Jade One. Eagle to Jade One.

I'd been trying for ten minutes or so, without getting anything more than a faint voice speaking what sounded like Korean; the interpreter said he couldn't understand what was being said. I was rather sorry for the interpreter: I was certain now that he wasn't military, even in a non-combatant capacity; he'd really thought they were going to shoot me out there, and when we were all coming back into the operations room he'd stayed outside and we'd heard him vomiting.

Eagle to Jade One.

The Korean voice came again and this time the interpreter said we were being received.

"Ask for Murray," Sinitsin told him, and the interpreter leaned over my shoulder while I held down the transmit lever.

They would know who Murray was in the Embassy signals room: it was the give-away name for Ferris, the one I'd given away to Sinitsin earlier tonight.

I was worried about the bad reception we'd been getting it wasn't the mountains between here and Seoul: this was a Hammarlund HQ-105-TRS with a multiplier and BFO and an auto-response circuit: they could raise Moscow with this. Maybe there was something wrong with the antenna rig, or we weren't getting the full 105 volts from the generator.

"He will find Murray," the interpreter told Sinitsin.

I felt a sudden surge of confidence. Physically I was less than a hundred per cent after the march through the mountains, and the bullet-wound in my cheek had swollen half my face in the healing process, bringing a fever and leaving a tenderness that kept the nerves bared; but the physical is infinitely less important than the psychological when the stress comes on, and I'd needed an antidote to the lingering fright induced by standing against that wall out there and staring at the muzzle of the gun. Sinitsin had compromised: he'd decided to accept Tung's logic and let me use the transceiver, but had first put me through page 97 to reduce the risk of my breaking out. To a certain degree he'd done that, but the thought that Jade One was still running and that I was resuming contact with the director in the field was almost heady.

The Korean voice sounded again but almost immediately faded, and the interpreter told Sinitsin he hadn't caught anything intelligible. We went on waiting.

The idea of smashing the radio kept recurring, but I hadn't got enough data to work on. If this were the only radio at the monastery I might do quite a bit of good by knocking it out and cutting their communications with Moscow, but it wouldn't cut off Tung from his action group: he could raise them with one of the helicopter sets, and they might well have a short-wave transceiver that could reach Moscow. I couldn't destroy their operation; I could only cause temporary confusion.

Jade One to Eagle.

Something like a spark went through my nerves. It was the voice of Ferris, loud and clear: a voice I thought I'd never hear again.

Eagle receiving.

I sensed Sinitsin closing in from my right side.

"You are in danger," he said, "but you have obtained information and may be able to obtain more."

I sat doing nothing while the interpreter put the Russian into Chinese for Tung Kuo-feng, then as Tung began speaking in English I hit the transmit lever.

"There is a Russian connection," he said. "The operation is being run from Moscow."

I gave it straight to Ferris, but had to use speech-code because even among people who speak only their own language there are many who pick up foreign words: most English people know niet, parachik, so forth. This applies particularly to the names of people and cities, and a KGB Colonel would know the English for «Russian» and «Moscow», and if I hadn't used «bearish» and "Place Rouge" Sinitsin would have dragged me away from the radio and told Yang to wipe me out, this time for real.

It was like moving slowly through a minefield, and there was a lot to think about. Tung had opened up with a hot signal, and I'd had to control my reaction. The last thing the KGB wanted anyone to know was that there was a Russian connection, and as I sat here waiting for Sinitsin to give me the next item of dezinformatsiya I knew that I'd just dropped an intelligence bomb in the signals room of the British Embassy; depending on the turnaround facilities there, it could be known in London within minutes from now that Moscow was behind the assassinations in Pekin.

I wiped the sweat off my face as I waited.

Sinitsin spoke. "The Pekin assassinations were designed to divert both world and intelligence attention from the actual operation Tung Kuo-feng is running."

I sat listening to the interpreter.

We'd passed the first hump in the minefield but there would be so many others. Whenever Sinitsin spoke, I must remember not to react, but to wait for the translation. Whenever Tung spoke to me in English I had to assess what he wanted Ferris to know, and if I didn't like it I would have to try inserting an «ignore» keyword by careful rephrasing, and that would be dangerous because he might realise what I was doing. I had to use speech-code for any words Tung gave me that Sinitsin might understand, like «Russian» or «Moscow», and I must hope that Tung would know why I was doing it. I had to listen for any internationally known names or words — «Pekin», "airport", so forth — spoken by Sinitsin and put them faithfully into the final signal so that he would hear them: because he'd be listening for them; and Tung would have to do the same. At the same time I had to insert an «ignore» key to cover them, because they'd stand out oddly in the message. If Tung didn't understand what I was doing, he couldn't ask me, because Sinitsin would want to know what we were talking about.

While I waited for the interpreter to finish I thought over what Sinitsin had just told me to send. The Pekin assassinations were designed to divert world and intelligence attention from the actual operation Tung Kuo-feng is running. "Pekin" and "Tung Kuo-feng" would have to go in.