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 stand- ing 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 sau- na 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 under- stand. 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 relation- ship. I'd come here to give her that chance. There was movement in the cabin doorway. Another officer in khaki uniform stood looking down at me for a moment; then they both moved back. They'd be the two military officers Loman had seen earlier from the car. She'd got her own little army, Chen had said. Another bumping noise and the steps appeared in the doorway, sliding and angling down, the rail rising on the stays until the bottom of the steps reached the tarmac and the movement stopped. Then one of the of- ficers came down, came down steadily, uniform immaculate, short tropical sleeves, polished belt, the shirt open at the neck, a knife sheathed at the hip on the side opposite from the revolver, a short figure, even slight. Shoda.