Alex droned on with his questions, as much to get Roger comfortable with answering him as to glean actual information, since most of it was in Roger’s dossier, anyway. He was impressed with the clarity and accuracy of Roger’s answers.
He took Roger through his early assignments after graduation, then suddenly asked, “Who was Simon Garr?”
Roger blinked and took a moment to answer. “He was a class ahead of me at Dartmouth and we shared some assignments afterward.”
“Did you know Simon to be homosexual?”
“I surmised it. He was the boy whose nose I bloodied my first night at Dartmouth.”
“Did you ever report him to a superior as being queer?”
“No, but I let him know that I could, and if I did, he would be cashiered.”
“Did you use this knowledge to extract favors from him?”
“Only once, when a promotion was at stake. After that he was very helpful to me without being asked, because he knew I could destroy him, if he crossed me.”
“Were there others, like Simon, in this position?”
“Oh, yes. I seemed to have a gift for spotting them, and I always found a way to let them know I knew. They were very helpful throughout my career.”
Alex changed course. “Describe the entryway into the offices of MI-6.”
“There was a front door, but it was infrequently used by officers. On my first visit there I was told to knock at a rear door in an alley off Shaftesbury Avenue.”
“Was there a code pad for entry?”
“No, just a knocker and a small window. The door was opened by a commissionaire — you know what a commissionaire is?”
“Of course. Describe the man.”
“Imposing. Six foot three, sixteen stone, florid complexion, gray hair, quite fit for his age.”
“What was his name?”
“I never asked, and no one ever told me.”
“Describe the route to the director’s office from that rear door.”
“Elevator to six, right turn, thirty feet down the corridor, double doors to the left.”
“And your office?”
“Another thirty feet beyond those doors, facing the corridor.”
“What was on the subbasement floors?”
“A canteen and the armory; that was all I ever saw there.”
“What weapons were you issued?”
“A Colt Government .380 with a silencer, a switchblade knife, and a holster that held all of it.”
“When you left the service were they reclaimed?”
“Yes, on the way out the door.”
“But not your diplomatic passport?”
“No.”
“Did that surprise you?”
“I gave it no thought until I took it out of my pocket and left it in a desk drawer in my flat. I assumed I’d hear from them about it, but I never did.”
“Keep it. It could come in handy,” Alex said. “Describe the director’s office.”
“Big. I should say twenty feet by thirty. A large desk before the windows, with facing armchairs, fireplace at one end, with a seating area; conference table and chairs at the other; naval art on the walls, probably from the National Gallery and the Admiralty; a large, very fine carpet, filled most of the floor; various cupboards and closets behind paneling, probably a lavatory behind a door.”
“What are the electronic defenses of the building?”
“They were not in evidence, but probably rather carefully concealed. I should imagine that the latest in surveillance equipment and recording devices are used.”
“All speech is recorded?”
“That is my assumption. It was never mentioned to me. Rather like this house, I should think.”
The questioning continued until lunch, then resumed and lasted until six o’clock.
But there was more to come.
41
Fife-Simpson was wakened before dawn, told to dress immediately without showering or shaving, and given a one-piece, sleeveless boiler suit to wear. There was no breakfast, not even juice, and Jennifer was nowhere to be seen.
Two large men hustled him to the basement of the building, and he was shut up in a small, brightly lit room containing only a steel table and chair, both bolted to the floor. Two other chairs rested opposite. There was a mirror at one end of the room, which Roger assumed was two-way, with observers on the other side. None of these features engendered confidence, and he was vaguely anxious.
The door opened and slammed, and the two men who had escorted him to the cellar came in with a man Roger had never seen before. They entered the room and slammed the heavy door behind themselves. Bolts could be heard sliding shut on the other side. The two men, one on each side, fastened Roger’s wrists under steel brackets and locked them to the table with a key.
The new man was about six feet tall, slender, had a completely bald head, and wore a brown suit and heavy, black-rimmed eyeglasses. “Now,” he said. “Alex having failed to extract truth from you, we will employ other means.”
“But I have told you the truth!” Roger nearly shouted, but the men ignored him. The two men brought chairs to the table and placed them on either side of Roger. One of them produced a medical bag and opened it to reveal a selection of numbered bottles and a box of syringes. One man removed a blood-pressure kit from the bag, fastened it to Roger’s arm, and pumped it up. Then he wrote the results on a clipboard. He said something in Russian to the other man, who selected a bottle from the bag, uncapped a syringe, and half-filled it with fluid. He wiped the inside of Roger’s elbow with a cotton swab, slapped the vein to bring it up, then slipped the needle into the vein and began pressing the plunger on the syringe.
Roger felt a surge of warmth through his body, so much so that he began to perspire. He slipped into a half-conscious state and felt his heart begin to race.
“State your name,” the interrogator said.
“Roger Terrence Fife-Simpson.”
“Your age?”
“Forty-nine,” Roger mumbled. Someone slapped him smartly across the face. “Speak clearly,” the man said. “You are not unconscious.”
“Forty-nine,” Roger said again, trying to enunciate precisely.
The interrogator began to ask questions about random subjects — his childhood; his first assignment with the Royal Marines; the first, second, and third women he had had sex with; the kind of car he drove; where his suits were made; questions about Station Two and the attendees. They seemed particularly interested in Stone Barrington and would not accept that his presence there was the result of a wager. They demanded every shred of information he had about Barrington and the female doctor he had met at Station Two. They questioned him about the location and style of Barrington’s country house and demanded detailed descriptions of the rooms he had entered.
The questioning continued for what seemed the whole day, and Roger was not permitted to eat, stand, or use a toilet. He urinated in his clothing three or four times, and whenever his head seemed to clear a little, more of the drug was administered through the syringe. He was shouted at and slapped repeatedly to keep him on the edge of full consciousness.
Finally, when he felt that everything had been drained from him, a new syringe was inserted into his vein, and a bucket of water was thrown in his face. He snapped to full consciousness, his heart racing.
“Take him,” his interrogator said.
The two men unlocked his shackles and marched him back upstairs to his bedroom and into the bath. “Clean yourself up,” one of the men said, and he was left alone.
He used the toilet, emptying his bowels, then threw the soiled suit into a laundry hamper, shaved, showered, and flung himself into bed. A half hour passed before his pulse began to return to normal, then he fell asleep.