'Two women,' Loman said with the field-glasses raised, 'and two army officers.'

Noted.

A mechanic in overalls and with a sound-muffler on his head walked in front of the aircraft and turned and looked up and signalled, and the first engine began moaning.

A feeling of unreality now, of floating towards a frontier of some kind, not an international frontier with check-points and all that, just a quiet, personal boundary, not even physical, perhaps the rather blurred line between doubt and certainty, past and future, life and death. It was quite pleasant, a releasing, I suppose, of the endorphins as I approached the zone where I was going to ask exacting things of myself, and expect to get them.

Then the feeling passed and I pulled myself forward and caught a glimpse of Katie's face as she turned; then I climbed across Pepperidge and snapped the door open and dropped onto the tarmac and went across to the nearest Mazda, got in.

'Jordan.'

'Yes, sir.'

They were in plain clothes, both Chinese, sitting upright in the front of the car. I could see more of what was going on now because the windows of the police car were clear glass, not darkened.

The jet began moving. I looked back through the rear window and saw five other aircraft strung out along the taxiing-lane, the first of them turning onto the runway. The 727 was joining the line, slowing and turning, coming to a stop.

A call came over the radio for the police car and the passenger responded, said they were stationary.

I leaned forward. 'Have you got contact with Mr Loman?'

'Yes, sir. You have a message?'

'No.'

Just wanted to know. It was a lifeline, in a way, the link with my control and my director. Soon I'd have to break it.

The second jet was airborne, and the 727 rolled again, keeping station.

20:38. She was due for take-off in four minutes.

The pervasive burning sensation in the left hand had faded out as the endorphins worked on the nerves. No particular feeling of anxiety: it was too early yet. A sense of suspension, of holding back while the clocks flicked to the next digit, while the big jets rolled again in their orderly line, while life went on.

20:40.

The two Chinese sat stiffly, not talking, not moving, watching the 727. No more calls came through. Another jet turned into line behind the 727, rolling to a halt, Air France.

I could see the High Commission vehicle slotted between the fence and the service truck. Loman silting inside, Pepperidge, Katie. Were they talking? What are you saying, my good friends, my erstwhile lady love with your thin shoulders and your blue-grey eyes?

The last aircraft was airborne, the last one before the 727, and the sound came back, surging across the metal bodywork of the car in a wave, passing beyond, fading.

The 727 got the instructions from the tower and rolled forward, turning onto the runway, its wingtips lifting and falling as the suspension flexed. It stood there, waiting for permission to take off. I could see the main tower with its ruby marker lights. Loman had said the deputy chief of police would be there in the tower itself, and his chief on the tarmac in an unmarked car. The action we'd called for would have been rehearsed during the last hour and we expected it to take place smoothly, especially as the attempted hostage situation of a month ago had brought security bang up to scratch.

The 727 waited, its engines at idling speed.

Saliva came now, a slight onrush, and I began swallowing, waiting for the yawn, letting it happen, normal at this phase, the matador reflex as the bull comes into the arena, fast and enraged.

What we needed was isolation. Just the two of us, isolated, Shoda and me.

Kept swallowing. I would have said that at this stage the organism was probably in the best condition we could expect, the odd injury unimportant, the nerves reacting as they should, the adrenalin beginning to flow, becoming copious as the waiting went on.

The driver started his engine and moved off, turning and stopping, lined up with the slip-road used by the emergency vehicles. He left the engine going.

Sitting and waiting. Not easy, it's not easy, you know.

20:43.

We were a minute overdue but the signal was going through to the flight-deck from the tower and the 727 began gunning up, the scream of the turbines rising to a pitch that cut through the night, then she was rolling, the brakes coming off and the wing tips dipping and lifting as the acceleration-phase went slamming in and the big shape began sliding faster against the line of lamps at a quarter distance along the runway until the emergency order went through from the tower and the green lamps changed to red and the scream of the jets broke and the brakes went on and my driver hit the gear-shift and we started forward, the code lamps sending a flicker of red and blue along the walls of a hangar before we reached the slip-road, travelling fast now, moving for the halfway point along the runway as the 727 went on slowing under brakes, slowing, until I judged the timing looked right and told the driver to pull up here, just here, then I hit the door open and got out and started walking.

32 KISS.

It was very quiet now. The tower had instructed the captain of the 727 to shut down his engines, and he had done that. Since then, the aircraft standing in line along the taxiing path had received the same order, and they too were silent now.

I heard the cry of sea birds beyond the airport, in the waters of the Straits. It was humid; the air clung to the skin, heavy with the reek of kerosene. I stood looking up at the windows of the flight deck. One of them slid open and a face appeared there. A voice came, something in Chinese, I didn't know what. Beyond the smooth shape of the plane the lights of the city stood against the sky, and I could see traffic moving along Changi road, some of the vehicles flashing red and blue; I heard sirens.

The generators of the 727 kept a low singing; its lights, too, went on flashing at the spine of the fuselage and at the tail section. I could smell the rubber of the tyres, heated by the brakes when the emergency stop had been ordered.

I felt rather lonely.

Waited.

Flash, flash, flash. I looked away, didn't want to become mesmerised. The generators sang quietly. Sweat on my face, partly the humidity, partly the organism producing heat as it stabilised its systems at the level of optimum alertness.

Waited.

The cries of the gulls were mournful, a plaint from the souls of dead sailors.

Then a door opened - a sudden heavy metallic sound and it swung open, the cabin door. Someone standing there, army officer, revolver trained on me.

He called something in Thai. I didn't understand, but it could only have been, what do you want.

'I want to talk to Mariko Shoda.'

Fly on my face; I brushed it away; I can't stand these hot wet climates, you might just as well be in a sauna bath.

The gun hadn't moved. In good English, 'Who are you?'

'Martin Jordan.'

He spoke across his shoulder; I could see the blur of a face behind him. He never took his eyes off the target. Bloody things, all they do is make a loud bang, I hate bangs.

She would bring a knife, if she came.

They'd all bring knives, her clutch of athletic young hags. This was one of the assumptions, you understand. The whole operation was designed like a pin-table, a carefully-plotted pattern of assumptions, and if each one rang a bell I'd score the maximum, which would be the destruction of Mariko Shoda. I didn't know what the chances were of my losing -the percentages, as I'd told Croder, of life and death - but I knew that of the series of assumptions I'd worked out, each one would have to be right, would have to ring a bell. And this was the first of them: that she would decide to come and talk to me.

I wasn't guessing, you needn't think that. I was relying on the detailed information I'd been given on her character and what I believed to be her present frame of mind. She had set her feline assassins on me in the limousine and I'd confronted her in the temple and she'd tried to have me killed when she'd heard I was in the village in the jungle and she'd thrown Kishnar onto me twice and been sent his body in a coffin and if she could find one single chance in a thousand of finally killing me she'd want to do it herself, fierce in her pride, hot in her craving for vengeance, triumphant in the savage, decisive termination of our fateful relationship.