Sirens were sounding everywhere now and sending echoes from the buildings and there was a wash of headlights flooding the street. He gave it one more block and hit the brakes and brought the speed down and then used the throttle to swing into a side-street but we were still going much too fast to do it cleanly and he lost the rear end and it hit the kerb and bounced back and hit it again as he tried to correct and then we were skinning the shop windows with a scream of metal against stone and glass that hollowed out the night and left conscious thought blanked off because of the overload. Then we were clear again and I caught a glimpse of a street sign and saw that we hadn't been in Karl Marx Allee before we'd changed direction because this was a side-street off Stralauer and we were turning back in our tracks. We'd lost the Vopo patrols but I could still hear some of their sirens in the distance and it'd only be a matter of time before they picked us up again.
I was having to get my mind off the fatigue in the wrist muscles because they were burning now and unless I could shift forward and get one elbow inside the window I wouldn't have more than a minute, a minute and a half before I had to let go and drop. I waited for him to use the brakes and let the momentum take me forward but he was accelerating the whole time now and the strain on the wrists was intensified and there was another factor coming into play — I was beginning to lose the ability to process the data coming in because I'd been bombarded with a massive input of light and sound and movement for a long time now and the stress was nearing the point where I'd start hallucinating and that would be fatal, finito.
Thing was to hang on. Thing was to focus the sense of reality on this one objective, to forget why it had to be done, to ignore all other considerations and reduce everything to the simple facts: these are my hands and they must keep their hold on the edge of metal here and anchor themselves to it and become one with it, my fingers are made of iron and nothing can bend them, the car swinging wide suddenly and lifting on one side as he tried again to shake me off, my wrists also are made of iron and they cannot tire so I have no fear, the momentum of the swing taking us against a parked car and slamming us sideways into it and bouncing off again with one wing torn half away and caught against a tyre, there is nothing the organism has to do but remain where it is, with its iron fingers hooked over the metal and its iron wrists taking the strain without effort, a sudden burst of acceleration with the rear wheels spinning and then some kind of shout from him, from the man at the wheel, before the front end tilted and a strange quietness came in with only the singing of the torn wing against the still-spinning tyre and the dying note of the engine and the sensation of flight, of weightlessness and then a waste of still water as the car tilted and went on tilting, a waste of still water with distant lights reflected in it as we dropped and hit the surface and I was flung away from the white explosion of the impact and instinctively began treading water.
'I don't know.'
'Volper? Is his name Volper?'
'I don't know.'
I pushed his head down again and he began struggling. It was like drowning a dog.
Cold. Freezing cold.
Sirens in the night, sounding a dirge, their cadences orchestrated, rising and falling and rising, their echoes wailing across the flat still water. I thought I could see the humped roof of the Mercedes in the shallows near the bank of the river, and they'd see it too before long, the Vopos, so I'd have to hurry because once they found us he'd be taken out of my reach.
'What's your name? Your name?' In English. I'd started in German with him but he hadn't understood.
'Skidder.'
Nickname. 'Listen, I want to know who's running you.'
He didn't answer. I pushed his head down again and felt him struggling under my hands. It's not an exact science, half-drowning a man to make him talk, and even a doctor wouldn't have known exactly when to stop, when to let him snatch another breath. He'd been much stronger, before, when I'd found him swimming towards the bank, and he'd thrown an arm round my neck and forced me below the surface — a big man, he was a big man, and frightened because of the sirens — and I'd had to work on his nerves with knuckle strikes to get him docile.
Struggling like a madman under my hands, not frightened by the sirens any more, frightened of drowning, dying. I let his head break surface and waited until the worst of the choking was finished with.
'Skidder, I want information and you want to live. Is it Horst Volper you work for?'
I think he was trying to nod and it sounded like yes but it could have been his breath hissing as he tried to snatch at it. I would ask him again later. 'Skidder. Who is the target?'
Oh Jesus Christ it was cold in the water here, it was cold enough to kill. He didn't answer so I pushed him down again. God damn his eyes he was wasting my time and freezing me to death. Struggle, then, go on, you'll get the message quicker this way. Five seconds, ten… Up.
Blowing out water, half-choking.
'Who is the target? Come on, who is the target?'
He made a sound.
'What?'
'Gor — chev — '
'Gorbachev? Did you say Gorbachev?'
'Ess,' nodding, 'Ess,' choking up water.
He was getting heavier and I was warned. Our feet were grounded in the shallows so I didn't have his full weight on my hands but he was weakening and I'd have to watch it because this half-drowned hulk could give me the access for Quickstep and perhaps save time, later, lives, later.
'What's the operation, Skidder? Listen, you give me some answers and I'll pull you out and get you to a hospital but if you waste any more of my time by God I'm going to push you under and keep you there, now do you understand that?' Heavy on my hands, now, he was heavy. 'What is the operation?'
The sirens were louder now and I could see headlights slanting across the water as one of the police cars swung in this direction.
'What?'
He'd said something.
I waited but he didn't repeat it so I pushed him down and dragged him up again.
'Come on Skidder, I want information.'
But I wouldn't have to push him down again if it came to that, and I didn't think it'd do much good if he told me what I wanted to know and I got him to a hospital; he was a dead weight on my hands now, with his legs jack-knifing under the water. I was losing alertness myself by this time: the water was freezing the blood, numbing the limbs, and all I could think about was getting out while there was time.
I waited but he didn't say anything more.
'Come on, Skidder!'
Didn't say anything more.
Sirens close now, and headlights along the river, a mobile spotlight throwing a beam across the water, passing over the hump of the Mercedes and coming back, fixing on it and then moving again, sweeping, suddenly dazzling, blinding.