breathed, and the flight of the Dragonfly would have begun.
Webster smiled and drank some bourbon and branch water.
Chai Po-han had written a long letter to his parents, explaining his decision to leave them like a coward in the middle of the night and seek political asylum at the United States Embassy. It had been a most difficult letter to compose, and he had wept freely as his pen had drawn the characters which spelled out his future. But now it was done, folded and sealed in a red-lined envelope. He put the envelope on the center of the bed and turned away from it before he lost his courage and tore it to shreds.
Taking only one bag of mementos and remembrances, he slipped out of his room and went along the dark hall to the rear door of the house. Outside, he strapped the leather bag to the handlebars of his brother's bicycle.
The United States Embassy was less than two miles away. Even if he took the long way around, used only the back streets and lanes, he would be there in ten or fifteen minutes. He would need another fifteen minutes to slip into the compound without being seen or stopped by a Chinese patrol. In half an hour he would be talking with the United States ambassador, and he would have taken the last irrevocable step into a new lif e.
The embassy's communications room was in the basement. It was a rather uninviting, thirty-foot-square, concrete-wall chamber with no carpet and no windows. It contained a telecommunications computer as large as four refrigerators arranged side by side. There was also a radio-controlled Telex printer, a Telex sender, a traditional wireless machine, a desk, two chairs, a filing cabinet, and a pornographic Chinese calendar made in Hong Kong: semi-abstract but altogether recognizable human figures engaged in coitus, a different position for each month.
The night-duty communications officer was a man named Pover. He smiled and apologized to Lee Ann for the calendar and asked if he could be of assistance.
“I want to send a message to Robert McAlister care of the White House communications center. Can do?” Canning asked.
“Oh, sure,” Pover said. “What's the message?”
Canning handed him a sheet of paper on which he had written:
Three deep-cover agents negative.
Repeat negative. No trigger man.
Send instructions soonest.
“I'll have it out in a minute,” Pover said.
“How long do we have to wait for a reply?” Lee Ann asked.
“Not long these days,” Pover said. “The wireless is really a laser. It sends the message out on light pulses that are bounced through a telecommunications satellite. The message will be at the White House in maybe two minutes. How long will it take them to get it to this McAlister?”
“No more than half an hour,” Canning said.
“Then your reply should be here no more than an hour from now, depending on how fast they are at the other end. You want this put into code?”
“No,” Canning said. “As is. It'll save time.”
Lee Ann said, “Can we wait here for our answer?”
“Oh, sure,” Pover said. He went across the room and took down the pornographic calendar before he sent the message.
Chai Chen-tse watched as General Lin picked up the sealed envelope from Chai Po-han's bed. In answer to the question that the general had just asked, he said. “Yes, open it. By all means.”
Lin Shen-yang used his thumbnail to break open the flap. He withdrew several sheets of paper from the envelope and began to read them. Halfway across the second page, he dropped everything, turned, and left the room.
Following him into the hall, Chai Chen-tse said, “What is wrong?”
General Lin was already at the front door.
“What is it? Where is my son? What has he done?” the elder Chai asked plaintively.
But the general didn't stop to answer him.
The night air was cool.
The streets were for the most part dark and silent.
Chai Po-han abandoned his brother's bicycle in the park across the street from the back of the diplomatic compound. The gate to the embassies was out on the north side, always opened but always watched. He hid for a few minutes behind a sculptured hedge, cloaked in darkness, until the motorized patrol had passed. Then he got up and dashed across the wide street to the seven-foot-high wall. He threw his satchel over to the other side. Then he jumped, managed to catch the top of the wall with his fingers, pulled himself up, found toeholds between the bricks, and climbed.
At three o'clock in the morning, bells rang in the embassy's communications room. The Telex began to chatter and the wireless set clicked and the computer's print-out screens lit up in a soft shade of green. White letters began to roll up on the computer screens' green background: two identical sets of letters on two screens:
xxxxxxxxxx
WASHINGTON
URGENT URGENT
FROM — R MCALISTER
TO — D CANNING
“Hey,” Pover said, “there hasn't been time for them to reply already. We just sent your message out.” He ran over to the Telex and glanced at the lines of print that were clattering out of that machine. “It double-checks,” he said. “This must be something they sent almost simultaneously with our transmission.”
Canning and Lee Ann went over to stand in front of the computer screens.
The screens cleared and more white words rolled up on the electric green background:
SECONDARY TRIGGER MAN
GENERAL LIN SHEN YANG
:::: PRIMARY TRIGGER
MAN AMBASSADOR WEBSTER
::::::::::::::::::::::::::
REPEAT PRIMARY TRIGGER
MAN AMBASSADOR WEBSTER
“Can this be true?” Lee Ann asked.
Canning stood there for three more minutes, reading the rest of the message, then he turned and ran from the communications room.
Lee Ann ran after him.
When he reached the steps he caught sight of her out of the corner of his eyes. “You stay here.”
“Like hell!”
Canning took the steps two at a time all the way up to the fourth floor.
Chai Po-han tore his trousers and skinned his knee coming off the wall. He spat on his hand and rubbed the spit into the wound.
This is not the most auspicious way to begin a new lif e, he thought.
He picked up his satchel and limped past the first four pink-brick houses until he came to that one which displayed the flag of the United States of America. He went to the front door, hesitated only an instant, and rang the bell.
Alexander Webster had the most infuriating smile that David Canning had ever seen. He shook his head and kept smiling and said, “I'm afraid you're too late.”
“Where's the general?”
