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headquarters of General Lung Chan, head of the Counter-Intelligence Service.
    On that particular morning, there were five men seated in the large room on the topmost floor. In the red plush chair beneath the large portrait of Mao Tse Tung, sat General Lung Chan. In spite of the gross hugeness of his body, the yellow khaki tunic hung loosely on him with no hint of neatness. His cap rested on the polished table in front of him, beside the small pile of dossiers, the topmost one of which was open at the front page.
    The four other men were the respective heads of the various sections who worked under Lung Chan. They sat forward in their stiff, hard chairs and watched him impassively, waiting for him to give some sign that the conference was to begin.
    For a long moment, there was a deep silence in the room, then Lung Chan reached out a carefully manicured hand and placed it, palm downward on the open page of the dossier.
    “You have all read the reports concerning the traitor, Chao Lin. Since it was found necessary to bring him here to Canton, there has been the expected activity in the British Intelligence Service. One of their agents was flown to Hong Kong two days ago to look into Chao Lin’s disappearance.” The voice was flat, lacking emotion. “My recommendation was that this agent was to be eliminated before he reached Kowloon. His name and record are in our files and it was not anticipated that there would be any difficulty, particularly since we received the fullest possible information as to his movements from our agent in Hong Kong.
    “However.” He paused significantly. “The attempt was a dismal failure.” The bland features did not change but there was a subtle alteration in the silky voice. “This is the kind of mistake which cannot be tolerated. Those responsible have already been removed.” The narrowed eyes lifted, rested on the face of the man directly opposite him at the far end of the table. Chin Wang, Section Head of the State Security division forced himself to meet the inscrutable gaze without flinching, knowing that the thinly-veiled threat was directed at him and his group.
    “They were two of my most trusted men,” he said defensively. “It was pure chance that this British agent escaped. He must have been warned.”
    “It is not a question of whether or not he was warned. Every enemy agent knows that there will be danger when he is assigned to a mission. It should have been obvious that he would be prepared for an attempt on his life.”
    There was no answer to that from the men around the table. Each of them was glad he was not in Chin Wang’s shoes. There were bound to be certain repercussions because of this unfortunate failure. Men who made mistakes suddenly discovered that they were expendable as far as the state was concerned.
    “It is indeed fortunate that we can get information on every move that he makes. His name is—” Lung Chan consulted the dossier before him, although there was no necessity for him to do so since he knew almost everything about the enemy. “—Carradine. Age twenty-nine. Has been a member of the British Secret Service for almost five years, the last three of them in their specialist espionage branch serving overseas. You will all find his photograph in the folder in front of you. Expert in karate and judo, a crack shot with the Luger, the gun which he seems to prefer. Has a high pain threshold and we can also assume that he knows nothing of the secrets of the British organisation. He will have been given merely the bare facts of this case and it will then be up to him to act accordingly.”
    “Then torture will get nothing from him?” inquired the head of Records.
    Lung Chan bowed his head slightly in the acquiescence. “That is so. We are not interested in anything he may be able to tell us concerning the enemy’s organisation. The directive we have received is that he must be killed. Our latest information is that he intends to enter China to