'Who sent you?' said Glaushof.
Wilt considered the question. As far as he could tell it didn't have much bearing on what was happening to him except that it had nothing whatsoever to do with reality. 'Sent me?' he said. 'Is that what you said?'
'That's what I said.'
'I thought it was,' said Wilt and relapsed into a meditative silence.
'So?' said Glaushof.
'So what?' asked Wilt, in an attempt to restore his morale slightly by combining insult with enquiry.
'So who sent you?'
Wilt sought inspiration in a portrait of President Eisenhower behind Glaushof's head and found a void. 'Sent me?' he said, and regretted it. Glaushof's expression contrasted unpleasantly with that of the late President. 'Nobody sent me.'
'Listen,' said Glaushof, 'this far you've had it easy. Doesn't mean it's going to stay that way. It could get very nasty. Now, are you going to talk or not?'
'I'm perfectly prepared to talk,' said Wilt, 'though I must say your definition of easy isn't mine. I mean being gassed and'
'You want to hear my definition of nasty?' asked Glaushof.
'No,' said Wilt hastily, 'certainly not.'
'So talk.'
Wilt swallowed. 'Any particular subject you're interested in?' he enquired.
'Like who your contacts are' said Glaushof.
'Contacts?' said Wilt.
'Who you're working for. And I don't want to hear any crap about teaching at the Fenland College Of Arts and Technology. I want to know who set this operation up.'
'Yes,' said Wilt, once more entering a mental maze and losing himself. 'Now when you say 'this operation' I wonder if you'd mind...' He stopped. Glaushof was staring at him even more awfully than before. 'I mean I don't know what you're talking about.'
'You don't, huh?'
'I'm afraid not. I mean if I did'
Glaushof shook a finger under Wilt's nose. 'A guy could die in here and nobody would know,' he said. 'If you want to go that way you've only to say so.'
'I don't,' said Wilt, trying to focus on the finger as a means of avoiding the prospect of his going any way. 'If you'd just ask me some questions I could answer...'
Glaushof backed off. 'Let's start with where you got the transmitters,' he said.
'Transmitters?' said Wilt. 'Did you say transmitters? What transmitters?'
'The ones in your car.'
'The ones in my car?' said Wilt. 'Are you sure?'
Glaushof gripped the edge of the desk behind him and thought wistfully about killing people. 'You think you can come in here, into United States territory and'
'England,' said Wilt stolidly. 'To be precise the United Kingdom of England, Scotland'
'Jesus,' said Glaushof, 'You little commie bastard, you have the nerve to talk about the Royal Family'
'My own country,' said Wilt, finding strength in the assuredness that he was British. It was something he had never really thought much about before. 'And for your information, I am not a communist. Possibly a bastard, though I like to think otherwise. You have to ask my mother about that and she's been dead ten years. But definitely not a communist.'
'So what's with the radio transmitters in your car?'
'You said that before and I've no idea what you're talking about. Are you sure you're not mistaking me for someone else.'
