Dropping through the dark. 'He's half crazy,' Chen had said. 'Have you met him?'

We were talking about Colonel Cho.

Pepperidge: He could be very important. What we need to find is her exposed flank. I mean Shoda's. And Cho might tell us.

'I haven't met him,' Johnny Chen told me, 'no.' He'd got back late on Tuesday night. 'Nobody ever meets that guy. He's holed up in a burnt-out rebel radio station in the jungle in Laos and, like I say, he's half-crazy. There were two guys who tried to get near the place earlier this year, and the dogs got them. He has killer-dogs around.'

Let's have a snort!

Dropping through the dark.

Chen was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall and one thin leg drawn up, his arm hooked across his knee; he looked tired, drained, the fine lines in his face deepend by the light and shadow, his almond eyes strained, looking beyond their focus, seeing, I thought, his dead friend.

'So I'd forget it,' he said, and swung his head to watch Chu-Chu, a spark of light coming into his eyes now. She was kneeling in front of a garishly-costumed Xieng doll that he'd brought back for her; she seemed to be greeting it, formally, according to some kind of custom, giving it hardly perceptible bows, her hands - not much bigger than the doll's - placed together, steepled.

I didn't like disturbing the silence, their thoughts.

'It's necessary,' as quietly as I could, 'for me to see him.'

In a moment Chen swung his head in my direction. 'Then you're half-crazy too.'

'How was your trip?'

'My trip? Okay, I guess.' He seemed to be coming back to some kind of present. 'She look after you?'

'Yes, very well. She's an accomplished lady.'

'Cooks good. Thai Suki. I taught her that. She give you Thai Suki?

'Yes.' I didn't know what it was called.

He lit a black cigarette, squinting through the smoke. 'She likes you. Said you think you're going to die, is that right, made some kind of a crucifix?'

'I was just doing some mime for her. Trying to tell her she's going to die if she keeps on with that stuff.'

'She knows that.' He shrugged. 'We all know where death is, out here. It's all in the same place, in the poppy fields. Why's it so goddamned necessary for you to see this goon?'

'I've been told he might have some information I need.'

'You have any connection? Some kind of introduction?'

'No.'

He blew out a stream of smoke with a whistling sound. 'Jesus, have you ever seen the front end of a war-trained Doberman that never gets anything to eat?'

'There are ways of handling dogs.'

'Oh, sure. You shoot their ass off and the next thing you know is your own's gone up in smoke. Cho is real mean, but you don't seem to be getting the message.'

Dropping through the dark, the lines hissing.

'What else do you know about him, Johnny?'

'Not much.' He was watching the child again. 'You look cute, sweetheart. Cute.'

She looked up, knowing the word sweetheart. It wasn't quite a smile that came into her eyes, but a lessening of melancholy, the most, I knew now, that she'd ever be able to give him.

'He was chief of intelligence' - to me now - 'of an insurgent group affiliated with Shoda's organisation., He was clever, but he wanted to handle things his way, and she didn't like that. She had him arrested and slated for execution, but he got away with it somehow, with a head wound you'd never believe.'

A current of air drew the smoke beneath the dragon lamp and upwards through the shade, quickening as it reached the heat of the bulb, making me think of ectoplasm, of ghosts, hers, mine, his.

'Who's with him there?' I asked Chen in a moment.

'At the radio station? He's on his own. Been there a couple of years, maybe more, I doubt anyone really knows - he's become a kind of legend, I guess. But if you want cold facts, the cold facts are that he doesn't like anyone going near him, which is why, understandably, he's holed up in a remote place like that in the jungle, thirty or forty kilometres from the nearest village, which is a narcotics centre anyway, buried out of sight. I've made a few runs in there; otherwise I wouldn't have picked anything up on the guy. Ask me to guess, I'd say there's damn few people in the whole of Indo-China who know about him, just the villagers and fliers like me who go there.'

'Does Shoda know where he is?'

'I doubt that too. She'd have the place dive-bombed if she did. 'Well' - he tilted his emaciated hand, rotating it in the French manner - 'maybe that's not true. He can't do her any harm, for Christ's sake, the way he is now. That's how he knew about the place himself - he ordered it dive-bombed for his group, to wipe out some rival operations.'

'Does he use the transmitter?'

'There'd be nothing left of it, and nobody's ever picked up his signals, or they'd have said.' He plucked some tobacco from his lip, studying it. 'Who the hell told you he has any kind of information for anybody?1 'I got it on the grapevine.'

He shrugged. 'D'you trust it?'

'Yes.'

'Well, okay. But, I mean, if you want to go see the guy, I guess it's as good a death as any. But what am I saying? You'd have to shoot every goddamned dog first, to get yourself your own bullet. There's better ways.

In the poppy-fields.

'Would you drop me there, Johnny?"

Impatiently, 'He watches the track, see. There's a track from the village, where they ran the stuff to build the station with. You can still get a vehicle through, but weren't you listening? You try -'

'I mean by night. A moon drop.'

'By parachute?'

'Yes.'

He shifted his position, letting his long thin legs rest on the floor, his flying-boots angled. 'Fuck, I just don't know why you won't listen.'

It was dark inside the van, almost dark. Chen had hired it for the day and bought some gear for me, a backpack with things I might need: sleeping-bag, torches, flares, first-aid, insect-repellent, snake-bite kit, a machete.

'Look,' he'd said, 'you're going to have to walk up to the goddamned place even if I drop you from the air, so why not walk up to it by the track? He can't see in the dark.'

'He won't expect anyone to approach from the other side. Nor will the dogs.'