Stealth

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.

He came awake with someone kissing him on an ear.

“Wake up, my darling,” Jennifer said. She helped him sit up and get into some clothes. By the time he had dressed he was feeling fairly normal again. “It’s time for dinner,” she said, then walked him downstairs and onto the terrace, where a table had been set again.

Alex was already seated, eating caviar with a spoon and washing it down with iced vodka. “Sit down, Roger, sit down,” he said jovially.

Roger dug into the caviar and blinis, the first food he had eaten all day.

“You did quite well today,” Alex said.

“Did I? How?”

“You made them believe you. Either you told them the truth, or MI-6 trained you very well to withstand interrogation.”

Roger shook his head. “No.”

“No, what?”

“No, they didn’t train me for that. I never attended their training school.”

“I’m sorry I disappeared today,” Alex said, “but your interrogation required that more than one officer question you. Fortunately for you, both of us came to the same conclusion: that you were truthful.”

“I don’t remember much of what they asked me,” Roger said.

“That is the effect of the drugs you were given. A subject can be interrogated, then forget, and, if he is interrogated again, his answers can be compared to the transcript of his earlier session. Good, no?”

“If you say so.” Half a roast chicken was set before him, and he tore into it with his fingers, washing it down with wine.

He did not begin to feel full until he ate ice cream for dessert.

“You are tired,” Alex said. “You should go to bed now. You and I will meet in the morning, then you will be returned to England.”

Roger said good night, then left the table with Jennifer in tow. She got him into bed, serviced him orally, then tucked him in.

The following morning, after a hearty breakfast, he sat down with Alex in the library.

“Should I wish to contact you,” Alex said, “I will call you on this telephone” — he handed Roger an iPhone — “and ask if this is the laundry. You will say, ‘Wrong number’ and hang up. Then you will receive a text telling you the time and place of our meeting. You will take a taxi halfway there, walk for a few blocks, go in and out of buildings by different doors, then take another taxi to within a block of the meeting place, then walk the rest of the way, taking great care that you are not followed. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Roger said. Then he was asked to repeat everything he was told.

“One hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds has been placed in a numbered bank account in the Cayman Islands.” He pushed a slip of paper across the table. “Memorize this account number now, and the telephone number of the bank.”

Roger memorized the numbers and Alex took back the slip of paper and gave him a black credit card with his name on it and the name and branch of his London bank. “You may use this card to pay for purchases or to retrieve money from cash machines anywhere in the world. Twenty-five thousand pounds will be deposited in it on the first day of every month for as long as our relationship lasts. On the second of every January, another one hundred thousand pounds will be deposited, in addition to your regular monthly payments.”

“Thank you,” Roger said, pocketing the card.

“You will be expected to follow completely every order you are given. Do not ask what will happen if you fail.”

Roger nodded.

“Jennifer will move in with you, and you will both move to a better flat. An agent will show you several when you return. Jennifer has her name and number. When you choose a place, Jennifer will pay the monthly rent, so if you are asked how you can afford it you can reply that you have a rich girlfriend. If you, at some point, wish to marry, you may do so. You may travel freely, as long as it does not conflict with your assignments. Jennifer will act as your secretary, pay your monthly bills, make your travel arrangements, et cetera. I hope you two will continue to enjoy each other’s company.” Finally, he gave Roger a zippered case containing a semiautomatic 9mm pistol, a silencer, and a box of ammunition. “The pistol may be used multiple times in succession leaving a different ballistic imprint each time, so that no connection can be made with another usage, a little trick we learned from our CIA opponents.”

Alex escorted them both to the front door, where a driver was putting their luggage into a car. They were driven to an airport and, in a hangar, put aboard an airplane — this one a Citation X, of American manufacture.

They landed at Biggin Hill and were driven to Roger’s flat in London. The place had been thoroughly cleaned, he noted.