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"Oh?"

I felt increasingly horrible I didn’t want to look at the old woent for the Pathet Lao’s secret police, andin thesun

"The sex criminal," I said desperately "When is he to be killed?"

"Today"

"At what hour?"

"It is of no i one All executions are carried out within the building Then the head is brought outside for display" She clucked her tongue in disappointment "In old times criminals and devils were put to death in the public square, where all could see And it was not done with a single stroke of the sword, either All executions began at noon, with the sun high in the sky, and often the condeulp of air until the sun had set" She sighed, re "And the entire populace would come to view the spectacle, and the peasants from miles around would make their way into Tao Dan Much business was done on such days The cafes carried on a great trade It is with sadness that I witness the disappearance of the ancient customs"

"But this criminal – ill he die?"

She eyed me suspiciously "Why does it concern you? Are you of the saer A ered on the time of death"

She nodded, at ease now This a Like the Siareat sums on the outcome when two hts in a sers should bet on the tier’s death holly reasonable

"Then, you must wait for the officials to deterer," she said "The cri prayers, but the exact tiet away from her I took my bullock’s lead rope in hand and headed him around the corner A few blocks fro post and tethered the bullock I eating freely now and had to sit down somewhere before I collapsed I climbed on top of the mound of straw in the cart, stretched out, and putin this fashion and hoped I would look ordinary enough

MyThe stark horror of those four heads atop those poles had evidently had dire effects upon a brain already nu fever I tried to puto utterly li my mind To do this properly takes twenty minutes, which I couldn’t afford, and a healthy ave myself a few minutes to loosen up and unwind a bit, and then I tried putting together what I knew

The Kendall Bayard Quartet was beyond salvation, at least in this world For reasons that remained unfathomable to me, some in power had seen fit to separate their heads fro God-kneith the rest of the, butto be executed, but that was no foregone conclusion, and official policy seemed to be to pretend she had never existed in the first place That seeht idly; if I had followed it, I would have stayed in New York

Dhang was definitely inside the building, where he would remain until they put him to death for rape Atte to die without getting the only thing on earth he really wanted Sometime within the next several hours he would be executed

I wondered what part of hi on the post If the punishment were to fit the crime…

I decided I didn’t want to think about it

There were et into the co, and then had to get out again Then I would have to find a way to get out of Laos or at least into the comparative safety of the southern part of the country, but all of that was a bridge that could be crossed when it was reached, not before

Step One – get in Step Two – rescue Tuppence and Dhang Step three – get out

Fine

But Step One stumped me all by itself Get in? How? Get the bullock to kick a hole in the side of the building, I thought wildly Throw a stone at a cop and get arrested Or rape so up in the sex offenders’ cell with Dhang Slug souards and through the corridors Create a diversion – set fire to half the city, and when the guards ran to see as happening, hed Everything seemed quite hopeless My assets were limited: a bullock, a cart, soo back for theht that wasa battery I also had one ally: a broken-down old Francophile

If Dhang hadn’t ht have been a chance There would have been two of us instead of one, and one to rescue instead of thich would e in the odds Still ht not be so crucial We could have taken our ti himself could have passed easily in the crowds, and the two of us working together et Tuppence out of there

But I didn’t have Dhang’s help now And by getting caught he had put a tight ti to rescue hi prayers, whenever precisely that was Because by then he’d have his head on a post

A chill caughtfever cras, and my head felt like the before half of an aspirin coht resentfully Jaing his clothes, or finding a toilet when amoebas played jumprope with his lower intestine James Bond, in my particular situation, would pluck a button off his cuff and flick it at command headquarters, whereupon all of the enemy would be blown to bits to the tune of "Rule, Britannia"

James Bond was a hell of a lot better suited to this sort of idiocy than I was