Chapter 16 Summary

Answering the no-names phone call, Webb/Bourne is told to be at the border at 2100 hours. Once inside China, he is on his own and is not to say he has entered via Macau. Getting out is easier than getting in. False-Bourne can be gotten out by airplane by drugging him and claiming he is drunk. China's air schedules are terrible. The cost is HK$400 plus a new watch to bribe the border guard. In foothills ten miles north of Gongbei, the guide explains that if they see a campfire, the conference is on. Crouching and alert, they run between fields of high grass; the guide cannot say if patrols are out because he senses "there is no harmony." Passing through two tangled forests, they reach a hill from which a campfire is visible. Vague memories of such a situation come to Webb...