Michael flew to Sinkiang for the funeral. He took a black wreath. He even made a sad little speech honoring an old comrade who had found peace at last.
He did it very well, very convincingly.
His next mission took him to West Germany, with a license to kill, under instructions to test a possible double agent in Hamburg. He resolved the matter in two days, making a friend of the relieved suspect. But he stole the rest of the month.
His report never mentioned the three-week love vacation in Czechoslovakia.
Ilse's feelings hadn't cooled either. Between them, those few days, they concocted enough wild schemes for a dozen spy novels. But when the moment of decision came, both still couldn't help trudging right on down those roads already programmed.
Michael returned to Peking determined to enlist Huang's aid. But he stalled, and stalled, and the days rolled into weeks, which rolled into months.
He felt secure the day the director summoned him. So secure that he was sure Huang had a positive response to the request he had finally gotten around to making. It had to be good news. Huang sent some hard-eyed flunky around with a handwritten note when he turned you down.
The director had grown fond of him, he knew. He was walking, talking, irrefutable evidence of the soundness, of the value, of the man's work. In private Huang treated him like a favorite son.
Sung, who outside the inner circle wore another name, was there too. Michael was surprised. There was no love lost between Sung and his mentor. Sung's presence made the Spartan little office seem overcrowded.
'An operation?' Michael guessed. 'Something important this time?'
'The most critical we've ever faced,' Huang replied coolly. 'A termination.'
Michael trembled. 'Me?' His guts cramped. 'I've never handled anything like that.'
Sung stared like a cobra about to strike.
'You've had the training,' Huang countered. 'It should be simple. In, do it, and get out before the police know what's happened.'
'Out of the country?'
'England.'
Who, in Britain, could possibly need killing? 'You lost me. There isn't anybody there.' Could the target be a renegade agent? The trip to Hamburg had been a police mission. 'Anybody important would be buried in security.'
'Not this man. Not the kind we're used to-or who are used to us. The British don't know he's important yet. But his life or death could mean the life or death of everything we've been trying to accomplish. We think you're the man to handle it.'
Michael's guts tightened more.
'You'd better tell me the whole thing.'
Huang pushed a file folder toward him.
Michael need read but the first of the fascist editorials. Sweat beaded on his face. They knew it all. Had known for some time.
So much for Huang's backing in the Ilse matter.
He was so terrified that he just read on, delaying the inevitable confrontation. Finally, he could stall no more. He met Huang's eye.
'So, 'said Huang.
Michael didn't respond. He couldn't.
'You have your choice. Rectify your error of egoism. Or don't. You remain sufficiently valuable, though compromised, that, if the plan survives, we will consider the trauma of the corrective action ample discipline.'
The director's voice was hard now. He was angry and dismayed. He had been betrayed by his master work. His words came carefully measured, set alone, as though a period belonged after each.
Sung smiled wickedly. He was enjoying this. He enjoyed anything that discomfited Huang.
Michael was, as he remembered his father saying, between a rock and a hard place. This was one hell of a choice. His life or Snake's.
What could he do?
Snake would be terminated no matter what. The director would go to any length to salvage what he could.
'How do I do it?'
Huang thawed a degree. To the temperature of liquid helium.
This would be hard to survive.
But he would manage. And he would make these men pay.
Time and success had been working changes. Michael was more confident now, more daring… Snake would be mourned. And avenged.
'Tuesday you leave for Prague. Interpreter with a cultural mission. The embassy will put you into Austria with good German papers. You'll go to the man you met in Hamburg. He's already working on it. He'll have new papers for you. He'll relay last-minute instructions and provide the information you'll need to locate your target. You'll be
