was coming tonight? I could have come tomorrow, or the day after.’
Orlov shook his head. ‘No, Richter. It had to be tonight. You were annoyed about the bomb – so were we, by the way – and in any case, your superior would probably have forbidden you to try, if you’d spoken to him first.’
That was the only glimmer of light so far. They didn’t know Richter had spoken to Simpson, and therefore they didn’t know that Simpson knew as much as he did. Richter knew that if he never got out of the house alive, Simpson would know why, and Simpson was a very, very vindictive man. It was a cold comfort for Richter to take to his grave.
‘This house is an expensive property, Richter,’ Orlov continued, ‘and it has a very sophisticated burglar alarm system. Oh, I’ve no doubt you fumbled around looking for wires and so on, but these days we’re a good deal more subtle than that. There’s a photoelectric cell warning system, working in the infra-red spectrum, which is triggered as soon as anything bigger than a cat comes over the wall or the gate. That system is linked to three night-vision cameras covering the grounds and the approach to the house. As soon as my men realized we had an intruder, they dressed and then we just sat here and waited for you to arrive. If we’d known for certain that you were coming, we would have left the ladder out for you. I don’t think that plank is at all safe, you know.’
Richter grunted. ‘I didn’t think it was either. Why didn’t you open the front door and invite me in?’
Orlov shook an admonishing finger. ‘No, no, that’s not in the game at all. We just waited for you to climb in through a window. All the first-floor rooms have a system of sequenced photoelectric cells. If you go to open the window from inside the room, you break one ray, which switches off the second ray covering the window area. But if you come in from the outside, you break the second ray first, and the alarm goes off. We have a main alarm panel downstairs in the lounge, and three repeaters up here in the main bedrooms.’
Richter didn’t need telling who occupied those three bedrooms. Orlov pointed to the wall above the desk, and there Richter saw a small square grey box, on which one tiny red light was winking. ‘Very clever, Vladimir,’ Richter said. ‘What else did you get for Christmas?’
For the first time a cloud of annoyance crossed the Russian’s face. ‘I would suggest that you refrain from remarks of that sort, Richter. Yuri will shortly be making life very unpleasant for you, but just how unpleasant depends to a large extent upon how you behave in this room. Rule one is you don’t annoy me.’ He paused. ‘What I want to know, Richter, is just how much you and your organization know.’
‘About what?’ Richter asked.
The smile left Orlov’s face. ‘Please don’t be coy. You know perfectly well what I’m talking about.’ He signalled to Yuri, who got up and walked over to Richter. ‘I’ll ask you once again. How much do you know?’
‘I don’t know what you’re—’
Richter saw it coming, but there was nothing he could do about it. Yuri’s fist smashed into the left side of his face. Richter saw stars for a moment, then tasted blood on his lips. His face felt numb – the pain would come later. Yuri changed his position slightly, and applied the same treatment to the right side.
The first rule of interrogation, from the point of view of the subject, is never say anything. That may sound trite, but it is a perfectly valid piece of advice. Once you tell an interrogator anything at all, he can build on it and if he’s any good he can confuse you to the extent that you can’t remember what you told him, how much he knew already, and how much he’s guessing. And if you reach that stage you have no hope at all of recovering the situation.
Orlov knew the rules just as well as Richter did, and as far as Richter could see the best thing he could do, bearing in mind that they were going to kill him anyway, was to try to mislead them as much as he could. Unfortunately for Richter, it was going to be a painful process, because before he could spill the fake beans, to confuse a metaphor, he was going to have to be ‘persuaded’ by Yuri. If Richter had been in Orlov’s position, he would have been very suspicious indeed of a rapid surrender.
‘Once again, Richter. Tell me what you know.’
Richter shook his head. Yuri was smiling again and Richter realized he was just beginning to enjoy himself. Two more blows rocked Richter’s head from side to side, and the stars started getting brighter. Despite what may be seen in films, there is a limit to the number of severe blows to the head that can be tolerated before unconsciousness supervenes. Yuri was very big and very strong, and Richter could feel himself getting near the point where the blackness would envelop him.
He was dimly aware of hands lashing his arms to the side of the chair, and then the work began in earnest. After the fifth or sixth blow Richter stopped counting and concentrated on keeping awake. When Yuri finally stopped, after a sharp command from Orlov, Richter hung his head and played dead. The way he was feeling, it wasn’t any effort at all. Someone grabbed Richter’s hair and pulled his head back. ‘He’s out. You want me to wake him?’
‘Leave him for a few minutes. I doubt,’ Orlov added, chuckling, ‘if a few slaps across the face are going to bring him round. There are some smelling salts in my bathroom cabinet, on the bottom shelf. Get them. Oh, and bring some towels and put them on the carpet. He’s bleeding quite a lot.’ Richter’s face was still too numb for him to feel anything as delicate as a stream of blood running down it, but he could still taste the blood in his mouth. He wondered briefly and inconsequentially what sort of a state his clothes were in.
When the towels had been positioned to Orlov’s liking, Yuri thrust the bottle of smelling salts under Richter’s nose. He snorted, then opened his eyes. Or rather, his eye. His left eye seemed to be struck tightly shut, probably by drying blood. Orlov was still smiling. ‘And again, Richter. What do you know?’
Richter tried to speak, but all he managed was a croak.
‘Water. Get him a glass of water.’
Richter took a couple of sips, and coughed.
‘We’re waiting.’
Richter tried again. ‘Did you hear about the Irish tap dancer? Fell in the sink and—’
Yuri started again, harder this time if anything, and Richter could feel himself slipping away. Orlov stopped him.
‘Well, Richter?’
Richter shook his head. Yuri started again, alternating between Richter’s face and stomach. And the pattern was repeated, time and again. Richter passed out at least twice, possibly three times, and was revived each time with the salts. His whole head throbbed, as if some great pump was inflating and deflating it, and his stomach ached as if he’d been kicked by a donkey. Richter could feel his will to resist slowly ebbing away.
All he wanted, all he wanted in the world, was for them to stop. Silently Richter cursed Yuri, and he cursed Orlov and most of all he cursed Simpson for getting him into this thing in the first place. The one thing Richter couldn’t do was blame himself because he had to keep angry if he was going to have any sort of control left, and he had to have that control because when he finally told them, he had to tell them what he wanted to, not what he knew. So Richter cursed, and he cursed again and again.
Yuri’s fists must have been aching by that time, because Richter was dimly aware that the blows had changed. Instead of the solid thump of flesh and bone, it was a stinging, slicing pain. He opened his eye cautiously and saw that Yuri had a bucket of water and a hand towel. He had moved his chair round so that he was more comfortable, with the bucket in front of him. Two blows, one left, one right, wet the towel, wring it out, two blows, one left, one right, wet the towel. Yuri looked as if he could go on all night. Richter knew, quite certainly, that he couldn’t. He had to stop it, and he had to stop it soon.
And suddenly it did stop. The reeking, penetrating odour of the salts forced Richter’s head up, and he looked at Orlov. ‘That, Richter, was just for starters. Yuri is now going to start breaking your bones, starting with the fingers. Unless, of course, you feel like talking a little?’
Summoning what strength he had, Richter nodded. He couldn’t allow Yuri to do anything to his hands. He couldn’t see any way out of the house, but if Yuri smashed his hands, that would be it. He would definitely die, without being able to do a thing about it. With his hands, there was always a chance.
‘You mean you will talk, Richter?’ Orlov asked and Richter nodded again.
‘Good, good. I thought you’d see things my way, eventually. Wipe his face, Yuri, and then give him another drink of water.’
If Richter had been looking for a ministering angel, Yuri would have been right down at the bottom of his list of likely candidates. Wipe Richter’s face he did. He used the wet towel, but to Richter it felt like he had taken a rough file to it. A file wielded with most of his very considerable strength. The only benefit seemed to be that by
