Havelock Road, crossing New Bridge. Loman leaned forward and spoke to Katie. 'What kind of escort has she got?'

Katie undipped the radio-phone, one hand on the wheel.

'C3. Can you tell me what kind of escort she has?'

Smoked glass windows, we couldn't see much from inside but I was getting glimpses through the side mirrors.

'Is anyone looking after our tail?'

'Oh yes,' Loman said. 'Our own escort comprises five unmarked cars, two ahead of us.'

I saw a street sign, St Andrews. We were moving north.

C1, please.

'Come in.'

She has a car in front and behind.

'Thank you,' Katie said.

She half-turned her head and Loman nodded. Pepperidge was on the other side of me. He hadn't spoken since we'd left the night-club; I didn't know what was on his mind but I suppose he wasn't feeling dissatisfied with his performance: he'd successfully entrapped me into a Bureau operation and had monitored my action in Singapore from Cheltenham, reporting to London and taking his own briefing from them. He'd successfully run me as a director in the field until Loman had flown out here to liaise with Chief of Control and he was now going through the end-phase with me and his job was to watch me like a hawk for any signs of cold feet or bravado that will often send an executive right into a trap of his own making, his fear driving him to doing things he wouldn't normally take on.

What I was feeling at this moment was a sense of betrayal, because I valued this man and as the spook he was personally running I should have told him the whole of my plan for bringing Shoda down, and I hadn't. I daren't, because he'd have pulled me right away.

Now entering Nicoll Highway, going North.

Shoda.

Sitting in her limousine among her lethal bodyguards with their black track-suits and their kitten faces and their knives, ready to do anything for her, to give or take lives. What was in her mind, as she drove North along Nicoll Highway?

Let me tell you something. Pepperidge. Shoda is afraid of you.

She very strong, very hard. Sayako. But like glass, one day break easily. You make her break, I think, one day.

Everything depended on that. On her fear of me. It was the only weapon I could take to her. Voodoo.

Katie had swung the wheel again and I saw another sign: Ophir Road.

I asked her, 'Where is she now?'

'Ahead of us, on the East Coast Parkway.'

'Heading for the airport.'

'It looks like it.'

There was nothing else in this direction, except for resorts and tennis clubs.

Take stock and report. The thigh bruise wasn't any real problem - I could run close to the limit if I had to. The laceration to the rib had stopped limiting the lung-capacity two days ago, or I couldn't have worked as I did with Kishnar. The right hand was useless but the arm was perfectly fit, without any degree of paralysis: I could block with it. The sutured artery in the left wrist must have healed to the point -of handling very high systolic pressure, or - again -1 couldn't have got through the Kishnar thing. Everything else normal.

Hand on my arm. 'How-'

Top line.'

Not necessarily telepathy; he'd been waiting for my assessment and report at this stage, within minutes of the action.

He nodded and took his arm away.

C1, please.

'Come in.'

Flood's voice. He'd stayed behind at the night-club to liaise.

Can you give a status report for the board?

Signals board. That was to say Croder.

Loman leaned forward. 'Tell him that we're proceeding to the rendezvous as planned, and anticipate effective action.'

Took some saying. The man had guts, admit it. He was reporting to C of C and there were other ways he could have put it: estimations are sanguine, complications not foreseen at this stage, a nice cosy phrase that would mean that we were all sitting here with our fingers crossed and our sphincter muscles tight and our minds turned away from the unthinkable. The control and the director were, after all, escorting the executive in the field to a deliberate confrontation with the objective, who had put a small army into the streets of Singapore to wipe me out.

C1... C1...

Katie took the phone.

'Come in.'

The 727 is being readied for flight. Chinese voice, American accented English. Fuelling has commenced and the systems are being checked.

'Thank you. Please keep me informed.' She turned her head. 'Did you get that, Mr Loman?'

'Yes.'

He didn't speak again until we passed the first of the Changi International Airport signs. Two more calls came in, giving us the present position of the Shoda convoy, and Flood signalled with a request for updated information, obviously for London.

We hadn't stopped at an intersection since we'd left the night-club; when the lights had been at amber or red there'd been a marked police car standing there with its lights flashing and we'd gone straight through. This was why Pepperidge had said it was a forty-minute run to the airport with escort.

I looked out of the windows, trying to get the thought out of my mind that I was sitting in a Black Mariah on my way to the execution block. I wasn't having any second thoughts:

if this thing finally didn't work then that would have been written in the stars. There was no other end-phase operation we could hope to pull off and we knew that. The nerves were tightening, that was all, normal at this stage, ignore.

The Loman spoke.

'It's my opinion,' carefully, 'that your estimate of the time factor is on the pessimistic side. I'd say you have more than a five-minute period to work in. There will be quite a little panic when the crates are opened, and they won't signal Shoda's aeroplane immediately. Do you want further briefing on this?'