She turned, Shoda, and began walking back towards us, and the other women held for a moment where they were and then closed in a little, following, their steps in unison with hers, Shoda's. Their eyes were soft, in the way that can be seen when karatekas are joined in kumite, in contest, or when Olympic athletes are performing 'in the zone'. The eyes are not focused, but simply allow vision to come in from the entire field, so that you look at nothing but see everything.

I saw only her face.

It was long, noble, the cheekbones rising to wide, luminous eyes, her brow clear, ivorine under her night-black hair; but that's just a description and there is no way of telling you how the face of Shoda appeared to me in the temple on that evening, because it was more than the face of a woman - it was also the face of death, fashioned in beauty. My own death, of course, no question of that.

So easily?

I know what you mean, but when there's no question you don't question it, do you, surely that's reasonable?

You haven't got very long now. What are you going to do?

The cold draught came again and this time my skin crawled and I went straight into left brain and the shock went through to the bone because it was true: I'd been insane to come here even though I'd believed there was a chance of getting away with it and accelerating the mission and somehow surviving.

Sheer bloody pride - I hadn't got a chance in hell.

You're just going to let it happen?

Oh, I wouldn't quite say that, no. When it comes, I'll go down fighting, never say the, lads, so forth, nerves like ice while I whistled in the dark because it wouldn't be very long now. This time they'd make certain.

There were some other things done, though I'm not sure I can remember exactly what; I think they took the wooden coffin out of the catafalque and carried it into the ornamented hearth where the flames were to be lit. People came and went, and some kind of reed instrument began playing.

You could leave now, while there's time.

I looked upwards again, but the faces along the gallery weren't any clearer, even when I centred and relaxed to stimulate the retinae and the optic nerve, though I detected a slight movement by one of them and this told me at least that they were, yes, faces, watching. Well, of course they'd be there: they'd be everywhere. She not only has a whole bunch of bodyguards around her - Chen - but she has a whole lot more waiting around in the area.

I turned and looked towards the big entrance doors; they were wide open still, and people came and went bringing candles and wickerwork posies, some of them crying as they left the temple, one of them a boy of six or seven - 'C'est pas vrai, maman, c'est pas vrai.. .' The woman with him, then, was the widow, leaving before the anguish of the condolences could begin.

The bodyguards on each side of the doorway didn't move; a dozen of them, women in black silk robes because track-suits, of course, wouldn't be appropriate. Have to watch the proprieties, but there wouldn't be one of them without a blade on them, sheathed under the silk.

So there we are.

Make your run. Make it now.

Don't be so bloody silly.

Sweat on my sides; I could smell it, the raw emanation of fear, and that familiar bitter taste in the mouth as the adrenalin began flowing into the blood. C'est pas vrai... Mais out, c'est vrai: la man m 'attend, m 'attend.

Flamelight strengthened against the walls as the fire beneath the coffin burned brighter. Mourners were gathered there in a circle, and the voices of the monks rose more strongly from behind their fans; the piper's notes became infinitely sad.

She hadn't moved, Shoda. She was in her own space, isolated by her women, standing with a stillness that hypnotised, the stillness of a reptile, of a creature totally in command of its environment.

Just turn and walk through the doors. They can't do anything here.

No, not here. They'll wait till I'm outside - they'll need the dark for this.

The flamelight grew, fanning across the coloured walls, deepening the scarlets and turning the greens to ochre. It was all rather beautiful, as it was meant to be, and I suppose you could say there were worse preludes to the act of extinction; what I mean is, we don't often get this kind of luck, the shadow executives, the busy little ferrets in the field, we usually finish up spreadeagled in the dust at a checkpoint with the guns suddenly silent, or smeared under a truck or shoved in an unmarked grave because otherwise we'd stink and there are the local health laws, so forth; I mean, we don't expect this kind of thing, a temple indeed, with candles and prayers and everything, the impressive trappings of ritual -because that's what she's doing now, you know, she's said her prayers for Dominic Edouard Lafarge and now she's praying for you, hasn't that occurred to you, for Christ's sake: she prays before she kills, didn't you hear what Chen said - sweat running, stinking the place out, the mouth like a husk, so come on, let's get it over with, let's make Shoda moved. Moved with that extraordinary suddenness that brought a shock to the senses, because now it seemed she'd never been still. She was turning and walking this way as her women fell aside a little and then closed in, beautifully done, absolutely first-class choreography - a part of my mind was standing off from the reality of what was going to happen very soon now and indulging itself in an appreciation of the fine arts while the brain stem was producing a stream of desperate last-ditch schemes for snatching some kind of survival from the obvious certainty of death.

She was close to me now, Shoda, and her head turned on its slender neck and she looked at me, stopping and standing there a few yards away, and I was staring into the eyes of the angel of death, the luminous night-deep eyes of the woman who was to be my executioner; and I knew now without any doubt that she'd been praying for me, because I felt, in these last moments of my life, raised to a state of grace.

You mean you won't even Oh, I'm not hanging around, don't worry, I'm going out there now and let them get it over with, too many of them this time, but fight like a tiger, yes, of course, as a gesture at least, to let everyone know I was capable of doing more than just stand there and bare my chest for butchery.

So I turned and went out of the temple, dodging between people but not running, not even hurrying, one has to be seemly in a sacred place, just making my way out, knowing she was following me now, Shoda, knowing also that as I went through the enormous doorway the others were following too, the women I'd seen standing there guarding the doors, and when I reached the temple gardens I crossed the grass towards the black columns of the cypresses so that we could play out the matter in privacy, and with the cool night air on my face and my shadow moving ahead of me in the moonlight I heard them coming for me with a rushing of silk and I turned to face them and saw the shimmer of drawn blades.

12 SLINGSHOT.

'Don't come any closer.' No one moved.

I could hear the plane levelling flight now.

'When you're ready, Lee.'

The soldier hefted the launcher and set up the aim on the drone.

'Don't inhale the smoke. It's hydrogen chloride gas.'

'I'm ready,' the soldier said, and pressed the trigger.

I was watching the plane towing the drone. 'What altitude's that thing?'

'Three thousand feet.'

The missile left the canister and lifted fast but was slowing; then it accelerated again.

'That's the main booster coming in,' Hickson told us. 'It's to protect the firer - there's too much noise and fumes going on when she cuts in, so we made it two-stage. The Yanks have done the same thing with their Stinger.'

The missile reached the drone and there was a bright orange flash and then bits of debris started flowering from the centre of the explosion.

'Thanks, Lee.'

Hickson shoved his hands in his pockets. We knew each other's names but that was all. Instructions from Pepperidge had been to that effect: Hickson wasn't to know any more than that I was a civilian guest of the Thai government. This was an exercise to strengthen my cover, not to blow it.

'I asked for that altitude because with a towline as short as that one there'd be a very definite risk of hitting the plane instead of the drone.' Thin, terrier-faced, earnest, he swept a look around us. 'That isn't because we can't aim the Slingshot accurately even at thirty thousand feet; it's just the nature of the beast - she seeks the most heat she can find, and, after all, you're not going to be towing drones around in a war.'

I'd phoned Pepperidge earlier today and asked him to set up a demonstration for me. My cover was that of a rep for Laker Foundry and to maintain it I needed to know as much about the Slingshot as possible.

I hadn't told him about the temple thing.

'How much does it cost?' I asked Hickson.

'Six thousand pounds per missile. Considering you can take down a twenty million pound aircraft with it, I wouldn't say it's all that expensive, would you?'

I didn't know whether he was being defensive because of the price or because he was uneasy having me here, an unknown. This was his toy and he liked to know who watched him play with it. Or he could simply be worried because of the leak in Birmingham.

Prince Kityakara came over to me. 'Would you like to see another firing, Mr Jordan?'

'Not unless you would, sir.'