"You mean terrorists?"
"I suppose so." What worried me most was that the opposition was already hitting us without leaving a trace.
"I don't think they're terrorists, exactly. They're not trying to terrorise anyone. So far their action's been focussed on the Sinclair information: they killed him to silence him; they tried to kill you because they realised you were connected with him; and they got at Jason because he too was a connection. There could be something they've got to protect, without counting the cost. Some sort of — " he waved a vague hand, "some sort of project."
"A big one."
"Certainly on an international scale. Otherwise Croder wouldn't have come in as Control."
It was getting more difficult to make our way through the crowd; at the hotel I'd been told that an estimated half-million people would gather in Tian'anmen Square.
"How long," I asked Ferris, "were you and this man Jason together at the hotel?"
In a moment he said: "The name's Ferris. Remember me?" He'd decided to make a joke of it but I heard an edge to his tone.
"Sorry," I said.
"Don't mention it."
He was my director in the field and responsible for my safety and in the next few days or the next few weeks he was going to steer me through the mission and try to get me out alive, and he was telling me now that he hadn't been so careless as to make contact in public with Jason, who was the known source of the information that had led to Sinclair's death and nearly to mine.
The military band was now assembled opposite the Palace Museum and playing "The East is Red", the Chinese Communist anthem.
Ferris pitched his voice above the noise. "I made the rendezvous with Jason over the phone when he landed at the airport. I've never met either Sinclair or Jason, so that at the moment I'm clean, and so are you; but we're only one step ahead of the action and I want to make high-security rendezvous and use contacts; there are quite a lot of Occidentals here for the funeral but in a few days' time we'll be standing out in a crowd." He looked at his watch.