right the early streaks of dawn, the start of another glorious day. He sipped his coffee.
'Litov doesn't have to break,' he said.
'He doesn't? Then what the hell is all this about?'
'Chief's right,' Henderson said.
'Litov doesn't have to get the thumbscrew treatment, although we may have to drop him down a few flights of stairs so he doesn't catch on. He just has to be tricked.'
The helicopter spent three hours in the air as far as Litov could reckon it, though he could no longer see his watch. He had no way of telling the direction the chopper was taking. All the windows had been blacked out so he hadn't even the moon or the dawn light to go by. At one point Beaurain and the man he took to be his chief of staff came to look at him and to talk briefly with the doctor and the guards.
Fatigue was taking its toll of his powers of endurance and he was having trouble staying awake, when he felt the chopper lose altitude. Three hours. They could be in England, Italy, Spain, anywhere. The doctor left his chair and came over to Litov.
'I'm going to blindfold you,' he said.
'Don't feel too helpless I'll take this off as soon as we have arrived.'
Litov kept his eyes closed as he felt the band of cloth tied round his head. The chopper was descending at speed, dropping vertically. The doctor inserted ear-plugs so he heard nothing except the faint roar of the rotors. With a bump the machine landed. Within minutes he was being lifted and carried and he knew he was in the open.
They had not, however, deprived Litov of his sense of smell, and the first thing he noticed on leaving the helicopter was the acrid stench of a bonfire. An English bonfire. How could he forget it? He had once been attached to the Soviet Embassy in London. There were, of course, bonfires in other parts of Europe, but… The men carrying the stretcher paused and the doctor removed the ear-plugs. He assumed it was the doctor. The men transporting him began walking again. Complete silence for several minutes. They had switched off the engines of the helicopter. No sound of traffic anywhere. Then the silence was broken by the roar in the sky of a large jet lumbering upwards. Litov made a mental note. Only a crumb of information, but Berlin gathered in every crumb available.
'Careful up the steps,' a voice said, in German.
Germany? Yes, or even Austria. Telescope's base could be in either of these countries. Feet scrunched on gravel, the first time he had heard their feet since leaving the chopper. The smell of the bonfire had disappeared. Litov strained every faculty to gather clues.
The stretcher tilted; his head was lower than his feet. He thought there were six steps and then the stretcher levelled out. Footsteps on stone, another slight lift, the footsteps became a padding sound — presumably they were now inside a house moving over carpet. A door being unlocked, the stretcher set down on a hard surface, a heavy door closing, a key in a lock. His blindfold was removed.
The same precise routine had continued for a week. So precise, Litov was now almost convinced he was somewhere in Germany, that Telescope was mainly controlled by Germans something no-one had even guessed at so far as he knew. There was the bus, for example. The room he was imprisoned inside m easured sixteen feet by twelve, the walls were stone as was the floor, and the window facing his single bed was high in the wall and made of armoured glass, he suspected. But it was louvred and kept open.
It was through this high window that he heard the sound of the bus stopping each day, always precisely at 3.50 p.m. He could hear passengers alighting and getting aboard; at least he assumed that was what was happening, but he could never catch the language they spoke in. Then there was something else which he couldn't work out.
At 3.55 p.m. each day another vehicle stopped, smaller, it seemed from the engine sound. There would be a pause of about twenty-five seconds followed by the slam of a metal door. Then the vehicle would drive off.
The daily incident puzzled Litov. His frustration was all the greater because he stood five feet six tall and the window was six feet above floor level. Without something to stand on he was never going to see through the window. And there was nothing to stand on. The only furniture in the cell-like room was his single bed against the opposite wall whose leg-irons were screwed into the stonework. An d there was nothing he could use in the small, spotless toilet leading off the cell.
One thing Litov felt sure of: the building where he was imprisoned must be in the country and the window must overlook a country road. A bus only once a day suggested a remote spot. Nor was there any chance of his taking the risk and shouting while the bus was stopped his interrogator infuriatingly always chose this time of day to visit him and he had with him an armed guard. Each day he arrived sharp on 3.30, bringing his own chair which he later took away.
Beaurain himself introduced the interrogator on the day he arrived at nowhere.
'This is Dr. Carder. We need the answers to certain questions he will ask. Until we get those answers your diet will be restricted.'
This was a blow to Litov, predictable but still a blow. A non-smoker and a man who never touched alcohol, he did like his food and generally ate three cooked meals a day. Perched on the edge of his bed, he regarded the men Beaurain had left with him. One was a guard and, because he now always wore the Balaclava, Litov would not recognise Stig Palme, the man who had attacked him in the rue des Bouchers. The other, the doctor, puzzled him.
'I believe you smoke?'
The Englishman, who had used his own language, extended a packet of Silk Cut cigarettes. Litov shook his head, secretly a little triumphant. They had no idea who he was, no dossier on him otherwise his non-smoking habits would have been recorded.
Dr. Carder wore no mask. He sat on his wooden chair with his legs crossed and began to light an ancient pipe. Litov guessed he was in his early sixties. He wore a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows, grey trousers, a pale check shirt and a dark green tie. His thick hair and moustache were brown, his weatherbeaten face lined, his grey eyes mild and slow-moving.
'Shall we begin with your real name?' Carder enquired.
'James Lacey.'
'That's what your passport says. We can come back to that and try again, if you'd rather. Where were you born?'
'I've forgotten…'
The guard standing by and holding a machine-pistol made a menacing gesture but Carder restrained him.
'Our guest has every right to make any reply he wishes after all, we are in no hurry. All the time in the world, if need be.'
Carder reminded him of a man who spins out his job to fill the day, not caring whether he completes a task or not. It was all so different from what he had expected. No threats, not a sign that they would resort to torture. Carder went on asking his questions, relighting his pipe every few minutes, showing no reaction to Litov's answers or when he gave no reply at all. At the end of half an hour Carder stood up, yawned and stared down at Litov.
'It's going to take time, I can see that. You know something, Mr. Lacey? I once had a man in this room for two years before he came to his senses. I'll see you tomorrow. Same time.'
Then the door had opened and closed, the key turned in the lock on the outside, and Litov was alone with his thoughts. Two years! To stop himself thinking about it he concentrated on working out how to get a sight of the bus which stopped outside.
Carder's wooden chair. After several days of the afternoon interrogation routine Litov decided he needed the chair to stand on if he was ever to see out of the louvred window. That posed two problems. Carder had to forget to take the chair away after one of his visits, and he had to leave the cell soon after he arrived. He came at 3.30; the bus stopped at 3.50 p.m.
There was also the spy-hole above his bed, a small glass brick in the stone work. Litov had stood on his bed and examined the small square, but he could see nothing. Presumably they stationed guards there on a roster basis and he would be seen if he ever did get the chance to see out of the louvred window. But after one week, when the opportunity presented itself, he grabbed it.
