ADAM HALL - The Scorpion Signal

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 skull: 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.

'I expect you do,' he said apologetically. 'I'm not responsible for everything that goes on here, you must understand. Otherwise — ' he spread out his hand — your accommodation would be different.'

He waited for me to say something, but I couldn't think of anything. I had to detach myself from him and work out my own game while he worked out his, making contact only when I needed information. I had to start thinking, and if possible, acting. The emotional phase was over: they'd taken me quite a long way into sleep deprivation and produced an initial reaction — childishness, the urge to attack them. They were probably going to take me much deeper: they hadn't started using this particular technique with the intention of stopping halfway. But from now on I would have to work out the necessary defences.

'I'm afraid I rather lost my temper,' Colonel Vader said. 'I do hope you'll forgive me.' He paused but I didn't say anything. 'We people have too lively a sense of the dramatic, perhaps, make a lot of noise — ' with a rueful laugh — 'let off a lot of steam, m'm? Look at our music, look at our grand opera, you see what I mean?'

He stepped rhythmically from wall to wall, declining to sit down, since I wouldn't. He had manners, give him that. I began pacing too, for the exercise and because it would express freedom of movement; but I went from left to right, while he went from right to left: it would look ridiculous if both of us went the same way.

'Prince Igor,' I said. 'Always admired it. Lot of fire.'

'That's exactly what I mean!' he said in relief, and turned to me with a laugh of understanding. 'As a matter of fact I don't remember much about what I said to you, and all I hope is that it was nothing too offensive.' He spread his hand again: 'Put it down to an unseemly outburst of Russian temperament, m'm?'

As if speaking to a non-Russian. Noted.

'Bit hard on the table,' I said and he laughed boyishly, deep from the chest. We went on walking, like two prisoners in an exercise yard, talking to each other across an invisible wall. He walked neatly with his hands folded behind his back and his polished boots clumping down solidly on the parquet floor, heel and toe together.

'It's difficult for you,' he said, and stopped suddenly, swinging the chair on his side halfway round and resting one boot on it, facing me with his intelligent amber eyes. 'And quite frankly, you know, it's difficult for me too.'

I went on walking, but turned to look at him from time to time. He was being quite civilized, and that quiet murderous rage I'd felt in the detention cell had evaporated.

'Why don't you make it easier?' I asked him, not meaning to be funny. A full colonel must carry quite a bit of clout in this place.

'My dear fellow, I only wish I could. I say that quite sincerely.' He'd lowered his voice, and I had to stop walking to listen. I had the strange urge to swing my chair halfway round and rest one foot on it, but that too would be ridiculous, as if there were only one of us here, and a mirror. 'The problem,' he said quietly, 'is that I would need your co-operation. And you're proving — how shall I put it? — rather hesitant.'

I compromised and swung the chair round and sat on it with my arms folded along its back, so that I could face him. His smile was tentative as he waited for me to comment on that, and his expression was perfectly genuine. It occurred to me that if I admitted what he already suspected — that I was in fact from London, he might reciprocate by you're falling asleep, you're not thinking straight, he's not perfectly genuine and he's not being civilized and he doesn't have any manners and if you admit you're from London you're right in the shit so start waking up.