The price is right, but they want guarantees. Can we make them? Get back to me as soon as you can - Blue Zero.

In the evening I phoned Chen in Laos, using the number he'd given me. A woman answered in a tongue I didn't understand, but I kept on repeating his name and she got him for me.

'How's it going?'

'I've got some messages for you. Do you want them now?"

'Sure.'

I read from the notes. 'The rest I didn't understand. There were four.'

'Okay, What else?'

'Nothing by phone. The alarm sounded about midday, but Chu-Chu said it must have been a dog.'

'That thing's too low. I'll fix it when I get back.'

'Is this girl safe with a gun?'

'What's she doing?'

'She went to the stairs with it, when the alarm beeper sounded -'

'Oh, sure, yeah. She's trained.'

'All right. She's also using opium.'

'So what else is new?'

'Different viewpoints.'

'She doesn't have long, Jordan. She's been on coke for two years. Thing is to show her some kindness while she has the time left, okay? That's why I took her in.'

'Understood.'

I could smell cooking. Housekeeper, concubine, gun-handler, drug addict and soon to die. Chu-Chu, fourteen.

'Signing off,' I told Chen.

'Sure. Take care.'

The phone rang again in twenty minutes and I went for the note pad.

This is Katie. Do you know where Martin Jordan is? If he contacts you, let me know, mil you? I'm worried about him. Look after yourself too. Bye.

To avoid it seeming like a coincidence I didn't do anything for an hour, not because I didn't trust her but because this was a safe-house and I didn't want her involved: I didn't want her to get in too deep, where the waters were dangerous. Then I took the parrot cage off its hook and took it into the bathroom and shut the door and came back and phoned her.

'Martin?

'Yes.'

I heard her let out a breath. 'You sound all right.'

'I'm fine.'

'Where are you?' Then she said, 'Sorry. As long as you're all right.'

'Yes. How are you?'

Her fair hair swinging as her shoulders came forward; the fan turning slowly under the ceiling; cushions all over the floor; the taste of zabaglione.

'I'm all right too,' she said. 'And I've been working hard for you. Is it safe to talk?'

'Yes.'

'All right, well listen, darling, there's a man you ought to see if you possibly can, although I'm told it's difficult. But he could be terribly important to you. His name is Colonel Cho.'

I didn't say anything.

'Martin?'

'Listening.'

'I thought you'd gone.'

'I was thinking. The spelling is C-H-O?'

'Yes.'

'Is he in Singapore?'

'No. I don't exactly know where he is, but Johnny Chen does. So will you phone him, and talk about it?"

'Yes.'

'All right. Well that's - all. God, I wish I could see you, darling.'

'Soon.'

'Yes. Please.'

Later I shared the food that Chu-Chu put on the table, rubbing my stomach to tell her it was good, and pointing to things and naming them for her, as if she had time left to learn a new language. Then, when she lit another slug of opium, I found a couple of wooden slats from where the crates were stored, and got some string and made a rough cross, propping it against the wall while she watched me. I bent over the little tin ashtray and made a gesture of inhaling, then went and lay down with the cross above my head, doing it three or four times and pointing to Chu-Chu, knowing she'd seen enough of Western customs to know what a cross meant.

She got it at last, and just nodded, knowing that too; then her eyes opened wide and she pointed at me, saying something quickly, a question, and its meaning came to me - she was asking me if I meant that I were going to the under a wooden cross; and the atmosphere in the room, the vibrations, the malevolent scent of the opium and the eyes of this doomed child that had already seen too much of life brought a sudden tremor and tightened my scalp, and I picked up the cross and broke the string and threw the bloody thing into the corner.

18 MOON DROP.