I watched quietly, wondering if — then the snake struck like a whip and the rat -
'Wake up!'
The rat tried to leap but -
'Wake up! Wake up!'
I swung my head up and opened my eyes and called out, 'All right, I'm awake now, why don't you bugger off?'
Blinding light.
'Are you awake?'
'Yes. Bugger off!'
The light was above the door and angled downwards, a flood bulb in it so that there was nowhere in the cell where I could get away from it. The glare hid the small sliding panel immediately below the light, so that I couldn't see him watching me. It was the third time he'd woken me up. Third, or fourth? It didn't matter, but I'd have to start counting things like that because some of them would be important. Call it the third time and start counting from there.
Bloody snake. I'd dreamed about that before; I suppose it was that long leather belt whipping through the air at the table. Where was Vader now? Sleeping? They'd taken my watch and there wasn't a window, only a ventilation grille near the ceiling, clamped across a square of darkness. That didn't mean it was night, necessarily: this was a close confinement chamber for sleep deprivation and disorientation so they would have fixed the grille accordingly. The metabolic clock pulsing in my system told me it was midnight, give or take an hour; but that wasn't reliable because I'd fallen asleep three times. Three, or four? Three. Yes.
A man screamed suddenly from somewhere close, and I sat listening to him with the sweat springing on my skin.
Ignore. Ignore and do some work.
Of course they'd started with an advantage. Today was Wednes — no, yes, Wednesday, and on Monday I'd still been in England hang-gliding over the cliffs, and from the time when Norton had escorted me to London that bastard Croder had had me on a pinball table — Berlin, Hanover, Leipzig, Moscow — and the only sleep I'd had was a couple of hours on the mountainside after the truck had crashed and a few hours at the safe-house last night — five or six hours in sixty-four, not enough, and if I'd known the rat was going to sit there I would have look out it's going to strike again -
'Wake up!'
'I am awake I Can't you tell when someone's asleep or awake for Christ's sake?'
`You were falling asleep!'
`Go and screw yourself.'
Then the man started screaming again next door and I had to listen to it until it was cut off abruptly, and all I could hear was my own breathing.
Bastards. Do some work.
Oh yes, well, the terribly interesting thing is this: they don't know my name, and they don't know Ignatov's. Unbelievable. I mean, what did he say when he phoned them: there's a man in a Pobeda tagging me, pick him up? That wouldn't have been enough to trigger all that action — a whole fleet of police cars and militia. They'd have asked him who I was, and why it was so important. But Ignatov hadn't known. He didn't know anything about me. So what had he told them? What information had he given them, to persuade them to throw all that action at me? He didn't have any information.
Sweating. I was starting to sweat, because of the cerebration and the heat of the floodlight. All right, that's one thing. Take the other. These people here don't know Ignatov's name either, or anything about him, except that he made a phone call from a public box. What had he shown that militia man, to get a salute? What name had he given, over the phone? He couldn't have given them any name, or Vader would know it: and believe me, he wouldn't have asked me for that man's name unless he'd wanted it: it wasn't part of the technique or a feint question because he was in a rage at the time, piping hot. So there you are: an unknown man rings up the security forces and tells them to pick up another unknown man and that is precisely what they do, in full force and with no questions asked. Unbelievable.
I suppose that was why Vader was so bloody annoyed.
But don't forget one thing, old boy. This isn't so funny. It looks like a Judas operation. A Judas somewhere in Bracken's team. Out to blow me. Successfully.
Not funny.
Bracken ought to be told. Vader, old horse, can I use your phone?
'Turn round!'
'What?'
`Turn round. Face the light.'
`Why don't you buzz off?' You come in here, my son, and I'll go for your throat and you'll never know your eyes popped out before you snuffed. I'm getting cross.
'I'm getting cross!' I yelled at the light.
'Repeat that.'
Watch it. Watch it. Did I use English then?
I am a Russian citizen. I speak only Russian. I will -
'Repeat that.'
'Oh shut up, will you?' Yes, I'd said it in English and the bastard had caught it. He might not recognize English but he'd heard something foreign. This was getting dangerous.
Perhaps it was time to blow the fuse.
I had the whole of London in my head, inside this sweating brightly-illuminated skulclass="underline" names, duties, operations, DI6 liaison, signals, codes, the whole thing. It was time to think about the fuse. But before I did that I ought to tell Bracken he had a Judas in Moscow who'd blown me, just as he'd blown Schrenk, a Judas working through Ignatov.
Footsteps.
Or it could be Ignatov himself. That'd shake them, by God. I need all info on Natalya Fyodorova, senior clerk, Kremlin office, companion of subject before arrest. Also all info on Pyotr Ignatov, Party member, often in subject's company, no other details known. Shake them rigid.
Was Bracken trying to get a signal to me, while I was sitting here in this bloody place? Re info requested: Ignatov is one of our people. State reason for request.
No reason, really, except that I don't like being blasted off the street. Nor did Schrenk. Signal ends.
Query: if Ignatov is a Judas working inside Bracken's operation, why don't the KGB know about him? That's a nasty one. He'd been coming out of the telephone box, not looking around him in the beginning, beginning to snow, with the ice-cream waving about in the air, the air, trying to catch, watch it -
'Wake up! Wake up!'
I got on to my feet and threw a wheel-kick at the door, controlling it enough to make a noise without hurting my foot. 'Does that sound as if I'm asleep?'
'Keep away from the door!'
Voices. They were talking. I'd forgotten about the footsteps. I backed away from the door because this could be interesting, it could be someone else wanting to talk to me and I felt murderous and I might decide to take someone with me, a half-fist into the thyroid with enough force to kill, a matter of.5 seconds and nothing they could do in time to save him.
Watch that too. Emotion was dangerous because they'd got a red lamp over a board marked Scorpion in London and the executive in the field for the operation was holed up in a disorientation cell in Lubyanka prison and he'd have to get out and if he couldn't even control his emotions he'd never make it so start thinking with the brain instead of the gut, this is life or death.
Bolts drawing back.
Two men.
One of them beckoned. 'You will come with us.'
They walked on each side of me along the green-painted corridor, and stopped outside a door halfway along. Assume clowns now.
'Won't you sit down?'
Different room.
'I'd rather stand. I need some exercise.'
Id est: I am not sleepy.
Different room or just a different table, this one with a plain surface with no belt marks on it. Need to observe more efficiently: I ought to know whether this is a different room or only a different table.