The blackout was total for a few seconds, then lifted and returned in decreasing waves as the body tried to surface and the mind forced it down again. Various impressions dark and light, constriction beneath the arms as my jacket was drawn upwards by his suspension (he had grabbed it at the front) singing in the ears, muted voice of a man, urgent desire for air, so forth. And all the time the thought: it's this or nothing, it's got to work. The mind had been pre-set to work against the body's recovery, reversing the norm.
Voices again. Inga called something. Water running somewhere. A flash of light as Oktober brought the back of his hand across my face. I was moaning. The shock of the water as they flung it against my eyes. Full consciousness came back and I had to feign continuance of the syncope, letting my dead weight hang on their hands as they tried to wake me, letting my lids droop and the eyes turn upwards. My heart was pumping to restore the lost pressure.
They tried a trick and let me fall and I didn't try to save myself but dropped in a heap and got to my knees and hung on all fours shaking my head to clear it, opening my eyes and saying softly and monotonously "Carry on treatment… burn her alive… you won't get a word, not one word… not one word…"
Someone closed a door and nobody spoke. I swung my head and tried to focus, blanking the eyes of full intelligence: a man's legs still against the entrance door, Oktober gone, where had he gone? A man behind me, could see his shoe. "Not one word," I said to his shoe. The remains of the water dripped from my face.
Nobody did anything. No one spoke. I got upright and stood swaying, trying to find my pocket, missing, trying again and getting out my handkerchief, wiping my face – the guard by the door had pulled his gun as fast as a snake's tongue and was ready with it, but he knew I wasn't armed; it was his instinct.
A door opened and I heard her sobbing. A shadow loomed on the wall and I saw the arm lifting. It was a low-powered rabbit-chop and I dropped like a sandbag, out before I hit the floor.
The time-sense was groggy but I couldn't have been out for long. The pile of the carpet formed an expanse of high terrain in front of my eyes because the side of my face was lying on it. There were no shoes anywhere. Everything was quiet except for her sobbing. I got on to hands and knees and stood up when I could. The room swung and I put out a hand to stop it. The big Chinese-moon lamp went on and off to my pulse.
When I could turn round I saw there was no one here. The ache of the rabbit-chop throbbed but I reached the bedroom still on my feet. She was crouched naked on the end of the bed and there was blood on her legs so I went back and used the phone, dialling from the list she kept. He said he would come.
In the bedroom I put out the main lamps and knelt and took her face between my hands, and began worrying, nothing to do with her but to do with them, because they shouldn't have gone. Then I knew why they had gone. I said:
"There's a doctor on his way."
She nodded between my hands. She wouldn't let me touch her. She crouched with her legs tight together, rocking slowly.
"I have to leave you, Inga. If they come back it'll start again." She didn't say anything and I worried the thing out, and understood why she didn't ask me to stay. Later I would think clearly about this and set up the perspective. For the moment all I could do was to get the hang of the way things were going and act on impromptu understanding.
I wrote a number on a Kleenex from the dressing-table and left it on the bed. "If you want to, after this, you can always get a message to me by phoning this number." I put a bathrobe round her shoulders and sat and held her until the doctor came.
He asked me what had happened to me and I realised my face would be showing the after effects of the induced syncope and the rabbit-blow: film of sweat, bloodshot eyes, so forth. I told him it wasn't me, and showed him the bedroom before I left.
The street was bright. The innocent afternoon was ended, and it was night.
I was in time to fade-in on Portuguese Canning.
Quota Freight was 132, plus 3¼. NO REPORT FROM YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND REASSURE. IF CORNERED SYSTEM RT.
Clucking like hens. I didn't like it. Through Hengel or Brand or some unemployed scout loafing in my field they'd got wind of my clash with Phoenix and wanted to know the score. They weren't worried about me. They were worried about my being caught and grilled successfully because I was now a hot operator and could blow the Bureau sky-high if I were made to talk.
So now I was given homework to do. It filled three pages of paper with the name of the hotel cut off. Items included:
I don't think Rothstein was operating in liaison with anybody or working to any joint purpose. His own purpose was always, ultimately, to avenge his wife. The canister probably contains microfilm with a bang-destruction unit.
If Solly hadn't died in the way he did I would have asked the Z Commission to open that canister because I was fairly certain the contents could have led me straight to Zossen. As things were, I didn't want anything to do with it.
Phoenix are going to a lot of trouble with me and it seems reasonable to think that they have a great deal to keep in hush, and are very keen to find out how much I know. So far I know nothing.
This was just to needle them and I knew it but decided to let it stand. It was only five days since Pol had contacted me and I had given myself a month for the mission. They had a nerve, anyway, signalling me to report.
Don't quite understand your request for ‘reassurance’ at this early stage. Have you been getting in the way of off-centre info?
This was to tell them they could keep Hengel and Brand and anyone else out of my territory. Obviously somebody had reported my red sectors; it was even possible that the Bureau had a man doubling on the fringe and trying to find his way in, as I was myself; and he could have passed a report saying that I was in a corner. Well they could all bloody well shut up.
No justification for using RT.
RT didn't stand for radio-telephone but for Rabinda-Tanath, meaning the emergency system for phoning Local Berlin in that language. Had they clean forgotten what kind of thing a corner could be? There's never a telephone there.
I still hadn't got it off my chest so I ended: Would respectfully suggest that unless there is definite info on my being in trouble, no unnecessary ‘reassurance’ requests should be sent. If I am cornered I shall report accordingly. Q
Time was now 9.07 and the depression was setting in because of the blood on her legs and the way Oktober had simply left the arena. It wasn't going to work and he didn't yet know that, so it would take him a short time to understand and alter his tactics – unless the doubling were perfect.
I am never happy when the adverse party gets confused because there's the interim period of correction and he is for this period like a mad bull that won't run straight, and you're closer to a high cornada than you'd ever be with an honest five-year-old Miura running on rails.
It took something like an hour to collate all the findings that stemmed from the events of the innocent afternoon, and to edit them and form detailed conclusions. General inference: starting out to hunt Zossen I'd been forced on the defensive twice within the first five days and hadn't learned more than half a dozen names that weren't already logged in the memorandum. The offensive would have to be taken as soon as possible because once Oktober decided that I knew nothing except what his and Fabian's questions had implied, he would have me wiped out before I started getting solid facts and feeding them into Control.
One vital check had to be made before I chose my offensive position, and it had to be made now.