Total silence. I went on waiting. I thought I was close to him now, perhaps very close. In the far distance I could see the rectangular patch of light made by the street lamps above ground, but there was no light here. If I could move to one side and work round him in a half circle I could bring his silhouette in line between me and the entrance; but he might be trying to do that himself, and might be succeeding: at any time now the shot would come, if he were going to shoot.
My scalp was drawn tight and I could feel the slight lifting of the hair on my head. Ignatov could be within an inch of me now, and might detect me first. I didn't know what kind of training he had, whether he knew how to strike lethally, working by touch alone.
It was difficult to move now with any safety: the dark itself felt hazardous. A degree of sensory deprivation was setting in, and my nerves heard movement where there was none. A few seconds ago I had heard the faintest rustling to my left, and I had moved one hand out in the hope of making contact and identifying his attitude and striking before he could. But he wasn't there. It wasn't any good listening for his breathing: he'd be controlling it, as I was controlling mine.
I moved again, with the underwater slowness of tai-chi, and took two paces before I felt something touching my elbow.
It was to my left. If it was Ignatov standing beside me he would make his move at once so I threw up a guard and used a very short controlled knife-edge with the left foot and struck solid, bruising it. Flat of my left hand — yes, a concrete column. I hit the floor immediately, doubling in silence, in case he was close enough to use the sounds I'd made as a bearing.
I began thinking he must have gone. He wore rubber-soled shoes: there'd been no footsteps just before he'd switched on the flashlight. He could have gone far enough, during the passage of the vehicle in the street, to move out of earshot. But that was dangerous thinking. I got up slowly, watching the rectangle of light in the distance in case he moved across it.
Silence.
I took two paces, slowly, undulating, and stopped. Then I heard him draw breath suddenly beside me because of the shock of proximity — I'd come up on him in the total darkness and a grunt sounded as he stifled a shout and I clawed with my left hand to find the shape of the target and felt softness, the curled wool of his coat, all I needed. He struck out with the flashlight and it grazed my head before I brought him down with a crescent sweep and caught him before he hit the ground. He didn't learn anything from this: he thought there was still a chance and tried to unbalance me and I stopped him with a low-power sword-hand against the carotid.
'Don't do anything,' I told him. 'We need to talk.'
He didn't say anything. I found the flashlight and switched it on, lighting his face. He was still in shock and his head was lolling, so I helped him upright and he stood swaying a little, dazzled by the light. I moved it down, out of his eyes, but he still didn't seem to understand the position because he jerked suddenly and hooked for my face with his stubby fingers, putting a lot of force into it and getting close before I blocked with a jodan and centre-knuckled the medial nerve with enough depth to paralyse.
'Ignatov,' I said, 'don't do that.'
He was quiet again, sagging against me for a time with the local paralysis affecting his system through the nervous meridians. When I was sure he understood the position I raised the flashlight to shine full on his face and looked round.
'Well?' I asked.
'No,' Bracken said from the shadows. 'I've never seen him before. He's not in my cell. He's not the Judas.'
13: SHADOW
Then who was?
He was very difficult to work with: he kept trying to get away and I had to trip him and catch him before he could hit the ground or the concrete column that was somewhere near us. If I didn't catch him each time he was going to hurt himself because he had absolutely no idea how to fall.
'What did you tell them?' I asked him again.
He wouldn't answer, and that was another thing that made it difficult. I had to ask him everything two or three times and then work on a nerve until he got the message. But even then I didn't know when he was lying. I've never met anybody so difficult.
'What did you tell them, when you went into that phone box?'
'It was to tell my wife I would be late.'
'Not that time. I mean two days ago, on Wednesday. You phoned the police and they tried to pick me up. What did you tell them?'
'I didn't tell them anything. I — '
'Oh come on, Ignatov!' Used a centre-knuckle on the mediaclass="underline" he hated that. 'What did you tell them?'
I was getting annoyed because someone might come in here and make things awkward. Bracken had gone, five minutes ago: all he'd needed was a close look at Ignatov, and it was too dangerous for him to stay where the action was because he was ostensibly a member of the British Embassy staff and they could throw him out of the country if he came under any kind of suspicion.
Ignatov wasn't answering.
'You'd never seen me before in your life and you went into a phone box and called the police and they came right away so what did you tell them?'
'It was not me.'
'What do you mean it wasn't you? Come on !'
'I did what I was ordered.' He crouched over, hugging his arm because it had needed another jab to get that much out of him. But it sounded interesting. Who had ordered him? The Judas?
'Ignatov,' I said, 'I want you to understand the position. I can do a lot of things to you that would make you give me the answers I want, but it could cripple you for life and I don't see any point, do you?' He was still bent over, trying to get some of the feeling back into his left arm. I'd been leaving his right arm alone for the moment in case I wanted him to drive me anywhere: I didn't know what was going to happen yet. 'I'm going to get the answers out of you in any case, so why damage yourself?' He was breathing much too hard for a man of maybe thirty-five or forty, though he was a bit overweight and of course he was nervous. It's harder to make them understand when they haven't had any training because they've never learned what you can do to them. 'Have you any children, Ignatov?'
'Three, yes, three children.' He said it quickly because this was where his heart was, in his family.
'All right, do you want them to have to push you about in a wheelchair? You want them to help feed you? Listen to what I'm saying. Use your imagination. A wheelchair.'
Something went past along the street and a faint rhomboid of light swept across the columns and faded out. I didn't want anyone to come in here until I'd got what I needed from him.
'So we'll start again. Who ordered you to get me picked up in the street?'
I gave him five seconds and then covered him in fast light blows with a lot of control and the focus on the nerve centres so that he didn't even know what was happening. Then I had to wait until he could stand upright again.
'That was nothing, Ignatov. I didn't touch your face and I didn't touch your groin. I'm going to work on those next. Who ordered you?'
He whispered a name but I didn't catch it because his system was in shock.