Cardinal sat in the open hut near the helipad for four hours and felt like a patient waiting for major surgery. Every time there was movement from any of the large huts about them, or on the steps leading down the mountains to catacombs in the valley below, he stood up and used binoculars. He had yet to see one non-Khmer face, and as the sun reached its peak and started its drift beyond the peaks of the Cardomon range, his faith and hope slipped with it.
He received little comfort from Webb whose anxieties appeared rooted in other concerns. Occasionally Dunong would sidle over to him, and they would huddle away from Cardinal, but he cared less and less about their possible subterfuge. He preferred to scan the faces, even those of the worker bees building other huts. He counted one hundred and thirty-two of them before his attention was caught by two armed men marching up the mountain steps in unison. Webb stopped talking to Dunong as the men advanced. Their heads flapped in harmony in the breeze that stirred around the valley.
Webb shuffled over to Cardinal. ‘This may be it. Remember, nothing but French. Don’t react to anything. Let me do the talking.’
Orders were bellowed in Khmer. Dunong signalled that they should follow him and the men down the mountain face.
Cardinal noticed a clearing on a plateau that had not been in view from the air or the arrival hut. There was a tall woman at his level about fifty metres from him. Her hair was long and black. She was too fair-skinned to be a Khmer. Cardinal stopped and whistled. The woman looked around and then hurried out of view into trees close to the mountain face. Cardinal started in shock. He thought it was Hartina. His whistle stopped the descending party, and Dunong gave him a nervous shake of the head.
At least she is here! Cardinal thought as he continued on down the three hundred carved steps until they reached the caves.
The steady whir of a generator could be heard as Cardinal and Webb were ushered into a hut by the two armed men. The hut led to a labyrinth of caves stretching deep below the mountains. The security was tight as they were taken to the caves, which had been converted into a makeshift laboratory crowded with unpacked crates and boxes of equipment. They were given protective face shields as they entered the chilly, airconditioned caves sealed by steel doors.
Webb was annoyed when Cardinal asked how many lasers they were operating, and Dunong seemed unsure if he should answer. He told them there were three.
‘Where do you store the U235?’ Cardinal asked.
‘There are specially cooled containers in some of the rooms,’ Dunong replied. Cardinal noticed that perhaps a dozen of the forty or so staff they had encountered were Europeans.
At the end of the tour they returned to the hut, and Dunong indicated that Cardinal should follow him up another set of steps to the plateau at which he thought he had seen Hartina. Webb turned to join him, but was blocked by the armed Khmers. He glared at Dunong.
‘You must wait here,’ Dunong said. Cardinal was led to the plateau and taken to the edge of a forest. Hartina, tall and long-limbed like her mother, was standing near a recess in the mountain. She walked over to Cardinal and shook hands.
‘It’s a surprise to see you,’ she said, brushing her raven hair from her wide brown eyes. ‘When you stepped out of the helicopter we couldn’t believe it.’
‘We?’ Cardinal said. He could feel himself going numb.
‘So you did not know?!’ she said. ‘Harry was not sure. That was why I was sent to speak to you first.’
Cardinal put a hand to his face. ‘He’s alive!’ he half whispered. ‘You are telling me he’s alive?!’
She nodded, and Cardinal fought the lump in his throat. ‘Please, try not to show emotion. It is dangerous to show any emotion.’ Hartina led him into the recess, her armed linked in his.
‘Where is he?’ Cardinal demanded. ‘I want to see him.’ He heard someone behind him.
‘Dad!’ a voice said.
Cardinal turned and ran to embrace his son.
Father and son walked alone in the forest and up a path in the mountain. After half an hour they came across Khmer soldiers sitting cross-legged with rifles slung over their legs. They jumped to attention when they saw Harry. He spoke harshly to them. Cardinal was confused but said nothing as they strolled on. They came to a clearing.
‘It will be dark in an hour,’ Harry said wiping his brow. ‘We should head back in about twenty minutes. Stray Vietnamese patrols have been this far before.’
‘Can we talk here?’ Cardinal asked.
Harry nodded. ‘But let’s not raise our voices,’ he said with a smile.
‘You seem to have some freedom?’
‘There’s really no choice,’ Harry smiled, relaxed.
‘There is nowhere to run.’ He laughed. ‘I remember Reagan once said about terrorists, “You can run, but you can’t hide”.’
‘At least they’ve looked after you,’ Cardinal said eyeing his son. ‘You’re in great shape. You seem happy.’ He thought Harry appeared more mature, somehow stronger in the face in the two years since he had seen him.
‘We’re happy enough,’ he said.
‘How the hell are we going to get you out of here?’ Cardinal said tensely.
‘You don’t understand, do you?’ Harry said. He broke a twig from a tree and sat on the ground. ‘Of course, there would be no way of knowing.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Cardinal said. He bent down beside him, took out some cigars and offered Harry one. He shook his head and pulled a long bamboo pipe from his hip pocket. He lit a paste-like substance in the pipe’s bowl and began to knead it with the twig that he had fashioned into a crude fork. Cardinal could smell the opium as Harry used a pin to release it. Cardinal was close enough to see the small tears of opium bubble as his son inhaled.
Harry looked at his father. ‘This stuff is fresh from Thailand. The best in the world. I get a steady supply. It’s gratis. A perk.’
Cardinal said nothing. It would be hypocritical to chastise Harry.
‘You recall I wrote and asked you how to set up a company and create patents?’ Harry began. ‘That was because I wanted to capitalise on the work I had put in.’
‘I endorsed that.’
‘Right. And that’s exactly what I’m doing now.’
Cardinal was baffled.
‘I’m here under my own volition. You’ve got to understand that for a start!’
Cardinal inclined his head as if he wasn’t hearing properly.
‘I’m sorry about the body business,’ Harry said. ‘I really am. I only learned what had been done afterwards. They told me you would be told, but you never were. They considered it too risky. I desperately wanted to call you or write, but it was impossible.’
Harry fired the paste, plunged the pin in, and inhaled once more.
‘Dad, I have to stay here a while longer. I’ve set up a Swiss company and shares are being sold to several countries. We expect corporations to start lining up soon. In return they get the fruits of all this.’ Harry made an expansive gesture at the valley, where dusk was falling. ‘The French, as you know, want in. So do the South Africans, the Argentinians, the Israelis. I’m already a multi-millionaire on paper!’
‘But what the hell are you selling?! The bomb!’
‘It’s not just the bomb! The technology can be used for peaceful means. Reactors! Energy! We’re making breakthroughs that will make nuclear energy a million times cheaper, and safer!’
‘What are you doing here with these crazy Khmer Rouge killers? Why help them?’
‘Dad, that’s the way it happened! They . . . ‘
‘They? Who are they!?’
‘The CIA! Blundell! They originally wanted to use the Killing Fields to experiment with our bomb development. When the new Australian government scrapped the developments at Lucas Heights, Blundell got the Indonesians to provide the facilities. The Khmer Rouge were going to be used to experiment with the weapons in the war against the Vietnamese. Then the Indonesians tried to take control and gave us trouble. It was then that Chan, a Khmer Rouge leader, decided to break away. Everyone underestimated his strength and connections.’
‘And you went along with him?’
‘Blundell was harassing me! He wouldn’t allow me to set up the company. He wanted to have control of whatever I developed.’
Cardinal puffed furiously on his cigar.
‘Unfortunately someone tried to assassinate Chan,’ Harry said standing up. ‘That threw our plans. But I was able to carry on when he became incapacitated.’ He looked around at the mountains. ‘We better get back.’
Cardinal stood up. He pointed aggressively towards the Khmer base.
‘Are Chan’s people here?’ he asked. They passed three Khmer soldiers. He was wary of meeting the men who had accompanied Chan to Buru.
‘They arrive tomorrow,’ he said, gripping the pipe. ‘He died two days ago. In a strange way, his death has given me a big opportunity. The Khmer Rouge accept that I am in charge of the project now.’
‘You’re telling me you are endorsing the use of the laser bomb you’re developing here?’ he asked.
‘I don’t care what the Khmer Rouge do with it,’ Harry replied.
‘Even if they use it against the Vietnamese?’
‘Frankly, I don’t give a damn about them.’ Their step quickened as they both fought to control their tempers.
‘I can’t believe you!’ Cardinal hissed.
‘Someone has to stop those animals! Otherwise they take the whole of this country, then Thailand!’
‘With nuclear weapons?!’
‘They would use them against the Khmers, if they had them!’
Harry glanced at his father.
‘Anyway, maybe the Khmers will only use them to warn the Vietnamese. It’s up to Pol Pot and the others.’
‘You realise that Blundell wants to stop you?’
Harry grunted.
‘How do you feel about being a traitor? You, the great jingoist!’
‘That’s ridiculous! The CIA is not the government! I told you corporations will be trying to buy this technology. They’ll include some based in America. Rexacon, for instance. They have been working in this field, but I’m further into it. Then there is our own government. Once they realise this is on the market, they’ll probably want to buy it too!’
Cardinal was speechless. They stood at the top of the steps that led down to the catacombs.
‘Is Webb from the agency?’ Harry asked in a whisper.
‘He is in ASIO.’
Harry shook his head. ‘How did you replace the Frenchmen?’
Cardinal tossed away the stub of his cigar.
‘You killed them?’ Harry asked.
‘Not me.’
‘Webb?’
Cardinal didn’t reply.
‘He must be with Blundell,’ Harry said. ‘Only he knew about the French wanting a piece of the action.’
‘Webb came to help me get you out!’
‘Bullshit!’ Harry said, his expression darkening as he stood close. ‘He came to try to kill me. Has he got a weapon?’
‘A revolver.’
‘Who searched you when you came in?’
‘Dunong, the guy who flew us here.’
Harry’s eyes narrowed. ‘They’ll take you back in the morning.’
‘You’re a stranger to me,’ Cardinal said sadly.
Just before midnight, all heads in the Superstar Disco bar at Tiger’s turned to watch Rhonda come in and sit at the bar. The atmosphere made her apprehensive. It was dark but for the gaudy red and white lights flashing from the ceiling of the circular room as about twenty dancers wobbled their middle-age spread. A score of hookers sat at the circular bar or in the cubicles on one wall, and they, as much as the men, were watching the new arrival. The older pros looked sharply at her while a couple of the drinkers a few seats away nudged each other and whispered lurid remarks. Two barmen moved around to get a better look. Rhonda ordered a Scotch and ice from the winner.
‘You a tourist?’ the barman, a well-muscled young Australian asked. This elicited a few guffaws from the two men ogling her.
She leaned over the bar. ‘I’m here to meet Denis Bonner.’
The barman shrugged as he cleaned a glass. ‘Never heard of him.’
Her words wiped the smile off the faces of both the nearby drinkers. One of them slipped off his stool and sidled up to Rhonda.
‘Why do you want to meet Den?’ He was an unpretty American of about fifty with a crewcut and long sideboards.
‘He told me he might be in tonight.’
The man looked at his watch. ‘You’re about two hours late. Would I do instead?’
‘I don’t think Denis would like that,’ Rhonda said, sensing that ‘Den’ might be someone they might not wish to tangle with.
The man’s eyes showed a momentary flash of concern. ‘No offence, ma’am.’
‘None taken,’ Rhonda said. ‘Do you know which hotel he is at?’
The man smiled revealing three ugly gold fillings.
‘You’ll find him at the Marriott,’ he said, ‘room 303,’ the man whispered. ‘Sure you wouldn’t like me to show you there, ma’am?’
‘I wouldn’t,’ she said.
A noise woke Webb in the middle of the night. He scrambled for his revolver. It wasn’t there. He jumped from the mat bed to face the shadowy figure near the open doorway, but dropped his hands when he saw Cardinal’s face illuminated as he lit a cigar.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ he shrieked, forgetting his French.
‘Couldn’t sleep,’ Cardinal said.
‘The bastards stole my revolver,’ Webb complained as he slapped at a mosquito. ‘You didn’t tell your son, did you?’
Cardinal shook his head. He stepped out into the night air which was cool and looked up at a huge moon cradled between two mountains. He had struggled to wake from the dream of the body in the shallow grave, which had haunted him again. He thought of Judy’s interpretation, which now seemed apt. No amount of cajoling, arguing or pleading could change his son’s mind about his present disastrous course.
‘I wish he was dead,’ he muttered to himself.
Rhonda was startled awake by the groan of the pipes in the hotel room. It flooded back memories of the night with Cardinal in Jakarta when they had been terrorised by the military chopper. She fretted for him, and ended up barricading her door with a sofa and chairs.
Rhonda got up at dawn and packed her one suitcase in anticipation of leaving. If nothing happens today, she thought, I’ll get a plane home in the late afternoon or evening.
At seven, she called the Marriott, and was told ‘Denis E. Bonner’ was having breakfast. Rhonda caught a taxi to the hotel and hurried to the dining room. She was just asking the manager who Bonner was when she noticed Bill Hewson. He was sitting at a corner table with the American who had spoken to her at Tiger’s.
Rhonda moved to their table. She embraced Hewson.
‘This is Denis Bonner,’ Hewson said, turning to the American.
‘What was that charade about last night?’ Rhonda said.
‘Apologies, ma’am,’ Bonner said. ‘I was meeting somebody else who knows me by another name.’ Rhonda tried to gather her wits as Hewson pulled out a chair for her. ‘And what are you doing here?’
‘Thought you might need some help,’ he said with a strange smile. ‘We have some good news. We’ve located your friend.’
‘Ken! Where? Is he all right?’
‘Everything’s fine. He’s at a little town on the Thai -Kampuchean border. We’re going to drive there today.’
‘Can I come?’
‘Sure. There shouldn’t be any trouble.’
‘Should I check out of my hotel? I have one suitcase.’
‘We’ll be busy this morning,’ Hewson said, glancing at Bonner. ‘Could you bring your case here and put it in our car. It’s a Ford stationwagon in the basement.’ He scribbled the registration number on a piece of paper and handed it to her. ‘Meet us here at noon, sharp.’
They woke to the sound of a Ghetto Blaster playing rock music. Khmer Rouge soldiers were doing exercises up on the plateau.
‘Bit dangerous, isn’t it?’ Cardinal said. ‘Couldn’t that be heard a long way?’
‘Dunong says if you are a kilometre away it’s impossible to locate the sound,’ Webb said. He began to put his pack together. Cardinal noticed him turning his back to slide on the black glove.
A soldier was at the door. He told them that they were to join Harry and Hartina for breakfast before the Huey would take them back to site 8.
‘Have you seen Dunong?’ he asked the man. He shook his head.
They were ushered into a mess hut guarded by six soldiers. Cardinal noted a jumpiness in Webb that had not been apparent before as they sat in front of Harry and Hartina at a wooden table. Soldiers and several Khmers in non-military gear sauntered in and out taking breakfast from staff. Harry asked for coffee, toast and fresh fruit to be brought to their table. Cardinal found it difficult to look his son in the eye, such was his contempt, but he could not help thinking what a most attractive couple Harry and Hartina were. He was more than a hundred and ninety centimetres and strongly built. He had blond, male model looks, and pea green, intense eyes. She was dark, with high, flat cheekbones. Her body was sensual and slim. She carried herself with a haughty look at times, and he wondered if it was a cover for shyness. Intellectually, they were also impressive. But Cardinal was depressed by their lack of humanity. They were indifferent to the consequences of their activities. Cardinal was ashamed. Yet he had made this clear and the time for recrimination was over. Nothing more was needed to be said. At that moment he didn’t care if this was the last time he saw his son.
‘Thank you for delivering the money,’ Harry said, raising his glass of juice to both men. ‘No real harm done apart from the death of the Frenchmen. Will be a bit difficult to explain. But I suspect the French will accept our explanation that bandits struck them. After all, they will get their technology. 1 will see to that.’
Dunong walked in. He was edgy.
‘Everything all right with the chopper?’ Harry asked. The Khmer nodded and went to another table. Harry beckoned him over.
‘Join us, comrade,’ Harry said. ‘Coffee?’
Cardinal noticed that Dunong’s hand was quivering, that he would not look up at him or Webb.
Hartina stood up and excused herself. She shook hands with Cardinal.
‘Some day,’ she said, ‘I hope you will understand.’
Cardinal heard the Huey being warmed up. Dunong wanted toast. Before Harry could signal staff, he stood up.
‘I’ll get it,’ he said.
Cardinal watched Webb. The gloved left hand was lying on his lap out of sight of Harry. From Cardinal’s angle it seemed in an unnatural position. He could see it touching his belt. Cardinal glanced at his son whose eyes were wide as he watched Webb.
Suddenly Webb began to whip a razor sharp garrotte free from his belt.
‘Dunong! Now!’ he shouted as he looped the belt out with the gloved hand. He went as if to swing it over Harry. But the younger man was quicker. He kicked up the table and fired two bullets from an unseen hand-gun into Webb’s chest. The garrotte looped over the gun that was wrenched from Harry’s hand as he fell over Webb.
Cardinal picked up the gun, and aimed the gun at Webb’s head, but a spreading pool of blood around his shirt above the heart made another shot superfluous. Cardinal stood over his son and levelled the gun at him as he lay clutching his bleeding hand. He seemed about to fire when he glanced about him. Soldiers had entered the hut. Their weapons were trained on Cardinal and Dunong, who cowered by a food counter.
Cardinal helped Harry to his feet and examined the cut that had split the webbing on his hand to the bone between thumb and forefinger.
‘Webb wanted to kill you too,’ Harry said, putting an arm around his father. ‘We wrung that out of Dunong last night. Blundell wanted no witnesses to his schemes, which he now wants to abort. So be careful of him. And there’s somebody else. Dunong says Blundell was using another agent to help Webb in clearing up the problem the Khmers had caused the CIA.’
‘Who is it?’
‘I don’t know.’ Harry handed him a small canvas bag. ‘There’s some food and things in there you might need on the trip.’
Webb’s hand gun was in the bag.
Cardinal saw the thumbs up sign from the pilot, and he hurried to join the chopper carrying six Khmer soldiers. Even when the chopper was high above the valley and winging out of the mountains, he could not bring himself to look back.
Cardinal reached the border at noon, and was met by Ank Adum, who was under orders to escort Cardinal on the return truck ride to Bangkok. He sat up front this time, and Adum drove.
They stopped at a roadside village, and Cardinal managed to phone the Palace to make sure he had a room for the night.
The receptionist at the Palace, under instructions from Rhonda should Cardinal ring, gave him the message: ‘Coming to meet you at border. With two friends. Blue Ford Stationwagon. Reg. HEW 717. Leaving Noon.’
How did she know where he was? Cardinal wondered.
They drove through the heat and humidity past the intermittent lines of refugees, which thinned as they distanced themselves from the Kampuchean border.
‘Why don’t you rest, man,’ Adum said with a broad grin.
‘I want to sit here,’ Cardinal said, the canvas bag on his lap.
‘Anything wrong, man?’
Cardinal looked at his watch. It was just two. He reached for a road map and opened it.
‘If a car travelling at about seventy-five kilometres an hour left Bangkok at noon,’ he said, ‘where would it be now?’
Adum took one hand off the wheel and ran his forefinger along the line representing the route they were then on. ‘Maybe there, at the village, Lai-Fa. Do you expect anyone?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Trouble?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘If you want to stop somebody, maybe I can arrange it.’
Cardinal lit a cigar. ‘You want to get somebody, like you did the French?’
Cardinal looked across at Adum. ‘I wasn’t responsible for that!’
‘It was Spider?’
‘Yes.’
‘What happened to Spider?’
‘He joined the Frenchmen.’
Adum didn’t show any animation. ‘I liked Spider. He was tough – cruel maybe — but he paid well.’
Cardinal puffed as he thought. Adum kept glancing at him. Several minutes later they approached a small village.
‘How would you stop a car?’ Cardinal asked.
‘At about three-thirty, they come to a big village -Maipey. Are they foreigners?’
‘Yes.’
‘All foreigners stop there. Food, drink, gas. I could arrange to have tyres let down. Dirt in gas tank.’
‘When do we get to . . .?
‘Maipey? At four-thirty, four if we are lucky.’
Cardinal handed him a piece of paper with Rhonda’s car registration and description. ‘Try to have this stopped, could you?’
At the village, Adum spoke to a local vegetable dealer.
‘The army has a post up the road. We can use a phone to Maipey from there . . . ‘
Rhonda began to feel uncomfortable two hours into the drive. Hewson seemed nervous. He couldn’t answer all her questions about Cardinal and his whereabouts. The ASIO man had got away with evasiveness at all their other meetings; now it was worrying.
Rhonda was more conscious than ever of how little she knew about him. It was more than a little disconcerting to hear Bonner refer to Hewson as ‘Bob’. ‘Why does he call you Bob?’ she said.
‘The Americans have always called me that,’ he said. ‘It started as a mistake and stuck. It can in our business.’
‘What’s in a name, anyway?’ Rhonda said. ‘But I guess it’s better than being called Sue!’
Hewson was following a map, and both men seemed concerned with getting off the main road. Rhonda experienced the first twinge of concern.
The Kampuchean border was hours away, and that was where Hewson had first said Cardinal was. Why would they want to divert from the quickest way there so early she wondered? Bonner compounded the doubt. He was indifferent. Why won’t you look me in the eye, you bastard, Rhonda thought. She noted that when he and Hewson discussed a route, Bonner had the final word.
By the time they reached busy Maipey, Rhonda’s hesitation had hardened to suspicion. ‘I’m really looking forward to seeing Ken,’ she said. ‘Yeah,’ Bonner said, ‘aren’t we all.’
Bonner thought they should get food and drink because of uncertainty of food supplies at the border. He asked Rhonda to wait in the car.
‘I’d like to go to the toilet,’ she said. This was her chance, she thought.
‘Do you have to go?’ Bonner asked.
‘A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do!’
Bonner waited until she moved off to the toilet before he walked to the restaurant.
Rhonda made a snap decision. I’ve got my money and passport, she thought, I’ve got to get away. The toilet had a back stairs, which she stepped down. Rhonda broke into a trot to a warren of stalls and barrows in the local market. Beyond that was a rice paddy field at the end of a track. Run, you fat bitch! Run! she thought.
After five minutes, Bonner and Hewson hurried to the toilet. Bonner’s eyes darted from the market to the fields beyond, and he spotted her half a kilometre away. He cursed and dashed to the stationwagon. He started it up and skidded it in the direction of the track, only to lose control and crash into a stall of crated chickens. Both tyres on the passenger side were flat. Bonner scrambled out, ignoring the chaos around him as the birds fluttered free. He dragged a golf bag from the trunk, and pulled a rifle from it. Then he ran to the track to give chase.
Cardinal saw the stationwagon the moment they entered the village. He ordered Akum to drive the truck to it. Hewson was pulling a suitcase from it. He looked startled.
Cardinal called him. ‘Where is she? Where’s Rhonda?’
Hewson pointed into the field. Cardinal caught a glimpse of Bonner jogging through the market, rifle at his side.
‘Go that way!’ Cardinal ordered Akum, pointing at the track.
The truck lumbered towards the rice field. Bonner was struggling up and down the furrows. Cardinal squinted at the horizon and caught sight of a figure bobbing towards a hut. It was Rhonda.
Cardinal jumped from the truck as it slid to a halt at the end of the track.
Bonner stopped and looked around.
‘Hey!’ Cardinal yelled. ‘You!’
Bonner propped and fired. Cardinal dived forward. The bullet missed and cannoned into the truck’s grill. Cardinal removed the gun from the canvas bag he was still holding.
Bonner’s attention turned to Rhonda. He took careful aim through a telescopic sight. Cardinal fired and shouted but was too far to hit. A rifle shot rang out, and Cardinal looked in horror at Rhonda in the distance. She had dropped out of sight. Then Bonner fell to his knees. He was struggling to find his feet. Another rifle shot was heard, and Bonner sprawled into a ditch. Cardinal turned to see Hewson, leaning against the side of the truck, a rifle still at his shoulder. Cardinal ran and stumbled towards the spot where Rhonda had fallen. He called her name. No reply. He yelled again. Nothing. He broke into a sprint, and stopped on the edge of a ditch. She was there lying face down breathing heavily. She struggled to her feet. He rushed to her.
‘I checked on Bonner after I told you to contact him,’ Hewson said on the return to Bangkok in Adum’s truck. ‘That’s when I learnt he was working for Blundell. I flew here straight away.’ He turned to Cardinal. ‘Bonner claimed to know where you were. On the ride I realised he was lying. I suspected he might try to kill Rhonda and me. His manner at Maipey gave him away.’
They reached the Marriott after dark. Rhonda and Hewson entered the lobby. Cardinal noticed a limousine parked in the shadows about fifty metres from the hotel entrance. Two men got out as the truck revved away. They stood there for several seconds as Cardinal reached the entrance’s revolving door. The men returned to the front of the limousine, which began to crawl towards the hotel. Cardinal hesitated. The vehicle picked up speed. As it cruised under a street light opposite the entrance Cardinal recognised a figure in the back seat. It was Blundell.