The Scorpion Signal

9: RAINBOWS

The rat sat preening its whiskers.

I watched it.

It sat with its rear paws spread on the ground, their tips visible at the edge of the grey fur body. The front paws worked rhythmically, pulling each fine whisker through the toes from the root to the tip.

It hadn't seen the snake.

I watched the snake. It was rock-still, coiled in a perfect ring with the angular head slightly lifted and pointing in the direction of the rat. The distance between them was about three feet. The snake was large, and I could see that its length was quite sufficient to carry the jaws that far when it struck.

The rat was facing at right-angles to the snake. Its round black eyes reflected the environment in miniature. I think it saw the snake, in terms of light reception by the retinae, but didn't know what it was: the brain interpreted it as a rock formation, or just a pattern of light and shade. Otherwise it wouldn't be sitting there.

I detected movement now in the snake, though it was so slow that it was almost an illusion: the pointed head was drawing back, millimetre by millimetre, across the coils, the neck flexing to keep the head pointing directly at the rat. At the same time the coils were tensing, as the muscular energy gathered and flowed, preparing for the whiplash speed of the strike.

The rat was oblivious of this movement. Once, it turned its head for an instant, but away from the snake, catching some small sound that escaped me. Then it went on preening.

I watched quietly, wondering if — then the snake struck like a whip and the rat -

'Wake up!'

The rat tried to leap but -

'Wake up! Wake up!'

I swung my head up and opened my eyes and called out, 'All right, I'm awake now, why don't you bugger off?'

Blinding light.

'Are you awake?'

'Yes. Bugger off!'

The light was above the door and angled downwards, a flood bulb in it so that there was nowhere in the cell where I could get away from it. The glare hid the small sliding panel immediately below the light, so that I couldn't see him watching me. It was the third time he'd woken me up. Third, or fourth? It didn't matter, but I'd have to start counting things like that because some of them would be important. Call it the third time and start counting from there.

Bloody snake. I'd dreamed about that before; I suppose it was that long leather belt whipping through the air at the table. Where was Vader now? Sleeping? They'd taken my watch and there wasn't a window, only a ventilation grille near the ceiling, clamped across a square of darkness. That didn't mean it was night, necessarily: this was a close confinement chamber for sleep deprivation and disorientation so they would have fixed the grille accordingly. The metabolic clock pulsing in my system told me it was midnight, give or take an hour; but that wasn't reliable because I'd fallen asleep three times. Three, or four? Three. Yes.

A man screamed suddenly from somewhere close, and I sat listening to him with the sweat springing on my skin.

Ignore. Ignore and do some work.

Of course they'd started with an advantage. Today was Wednes — no, yes, Wednesday, and on Monday I'd still been in England hang-gliding over the cliffs, and from the time when Norton had escorted me to London that bastard Croder had had me on a pinball table — Berlin, Hanover, Leipzig, Moscow — and the only sleep I'd had was a couple of hours on the mountainside after the truck had crashed and a few hours at the safe-house last night — five or six hours in sixty-four, not enough, and if I'd known the rat was going to sit there I would have look out it's going to strike again -

'Wake up!'

'I am awake I Can't you tell when someone's asleep or awake for Christ's sake?'

`You were falling asleep!'

`Go and screw yourself.'

Then the man started screaming again next door and I had to listen to it until it was cut off abruptly, and all I could hear was my own breathing.

Bastards. Do some work.

Oh yes, well, the terribly interesting thing is this: they don't know my name, and they don't know Ignatov's. Unbelievable. I mean, what did he say when he phoned them: there's a man in a Pobeda tagging me, pick him up? That wouldn't have been enough to trigger all that action — a whole fleet of police cars and militia. They'd have asked him who I was, and why it was so important. But Ignatov hadn't known. He didn't know anything about me. So what had he told them? What information had he given them, to persuade them to throw all that action at me? He didn't have any information.

Sweating. I was starting to sweat, because of the cerebration and the heat of the floodlight. All right, that's one thing. Take the other. These people here don't know Ignatov's name either, or anything about him, except that he made a phone call from a public box. What had he shown that militia man, to get a salute? What name had he given, over the phone? He couldn't have given them any name, or Vader would know it: and believe me, he wouldn't have asked me for that man's name unless he'd wanted it: it wasn't part of the technique or a feint question because he was in a rage at the time, piping hot. So there you are: an unknown man rings up the security forces and tells them to pick up another unknown man and that is precisely what they do, in full force and with no questions asked. Unbelievable.

I suppose that was why Vader was so bloody annoyed.

But don't forget one thing, old boy. This isn't so funny. It looks like a Judas operation. A Judas somewhere in Bracken's team. Out to blow me. Successfully.

Not funny.

Bracken ought to be told. Vader, old horse, can I use your phone?

'Turn round!'

'What?'

`Turn round. Face the light.'

`Why don't you buzz off?' You come in here, my son, and I'll go for your throat and you'll never know your eyes popped out before you snuffed. I'm getting cross.

'I'm getting cross!' I yelled at the light.

'Repeat that.'

Watch it. Watch it. Did I use English then?

I am a Russian citizen. I speak only Russian. I will -

'Repeat that.'

'Oh shut up, will you?' Yes, I'd said it in English and the bastard had caught it. He might not recognize English but he'd heard something foreign. This was getting dangerous.

Perhaps it was time to blow the fuse.

I had the whole of London in my head, inside this sweating brightly-illuminated skull: names, duties, operations, DI6 liaison, signals, codes, the whole thing. It was time to think about the fuse. But before I did that I ought to tell Bracken he had a Judas in Moscow who'd blown me, just as he'd blown Schrenk, a Judas working through Ignatov.

Footsteps.

Or it could be Ignatov himself. That'd shake them, by God. I need all info on Natalya Fyodorova, senior clerk, Kremlin office, companion of subject before arrest. Also all info on Pyotr Ignatov, Party member, often in subject's company, no other details known. Shake them rigid.

Was Bracken trying to get a signal to me, while I was sitting here in this bloody place? Re info requested: Ignatov is one of our people. State reason for request.

No reason, really, except that I don't like being blasted off the street. Nor did Schrenk. Signal ends.

Query: if Ignatov is a Judas working inside Bracken's operation, why don't the KGB know about him? That's a nasty one. He'd been coming out of the telephone box, not looking around him in the beginning, beginning to snow, with the ice-cream waving about in the air, the air, trying to catch, watch it -

'Wake up! Wake up!'

I got on to my feet and threw a wheel-kick at the door, controlling it enough to make a noise without hurting my foot. 'Does that sound as if I'm asleep?'

'Keep away from the door!'

Voices. They were talking. I'd forgotten about the footsteps. I backed away from the door because this could be interesting, it could be someone else wanting to talk to me and I felt murderous and I might decide to take someone with me, a half-fist into the thyroid with enough force to kill, a matter of.5 seconds and nothing they could do in time to save him.

Watch that too. Emotion was dangerous because they'd got a red lamp over a board marked Scorpion in London and the executive in the field for the operation was holed up in a disorientation cell in Lubyanka prison and he'd have to get out and if he couldn't even control his emotions he'd never make it so start thinking with the brain instead of the gut, this is life or death.

Bolts drawing back.

Two men.

One of them beckoned. 'You will come with us.'

They walked on each side of me along the green-painted corridor, and stopped outside a door halfway along. Assume clowns now.

'Won't you sit down?'

Different room.

'I'd rather stand. I need some exercise.'

Id est: I am not sleepy.

Different room or just a different table, this one with a plain surface with no belt marks on it. Need to observe more efficiently: I ought to know whether this is a different room or only a different table.

'I expect you do,' he said apologetically. 'I'm not responsible for everything that goes on here, you must understand. Otherwise — ' he spread out his hand — your accommodation would be different.'

He waited for me to say something, but I couldn't think of anything. I had to detach myself from him and work out my own game while he worked out his, making contact only when I needed information. I had to start thinking, and if possible, acting. The emotional phase was over: they'd taken me quite a long way into sleep deprivation and produced an initial reaction — childishness, the urge to attack them. They were probably going to take me much deeper: they hadn't started using this particular technique with the intention of stopping halfway. But from now on I would have to work out the necessary defences.

'I'm afraid I rather lost my temper,' Colonel Vader said. 'I do hope you'll forgive me.' He paused but I didn't say anything. 'We people have too lively a sense of the dramatic, perhaps, make a lot of noise — ' with a rueful laugh — 'let off a lot of steam, m'm? Look at our music, look at our grand opera, you see what I mean?'

He stepped rhythmically from wall to wall, declining to sit down, since I wouldn't. He had manners, give him that. I began pacing too, for the exercise and because it would express freedom of movement; but I went from left to right, while he went from right to left: it would look ridiculous if both of us went the same way.

'Prince Igor,' I said. 'Always admired it. Lot of fire.'

'That's exactly what I mean!' he said in relief, and turned to me with a laugh of understanding. 'As a matter of fact I don't remember much about what I said to you, and all I hope is that it was nothing too offensive.' He spread his hand again: 'Put it down to an unseemly outburst of Russian temperament, m'm?'

As if speaking to a non-Russian. Noted.

'Bit hard on the table,' I said and he laughed boyishly, deep from the chest. We went on walking, like two prisoners in an exercise yard, talking to each other across an invisible wall. He walked neatly with his hands folded behind his back and his polished boots clumping down solidly on the parquet floor, heel and toe together.

'It's difficult for you,' he said, and stopped suddenly, swinging the chair on his side halfway round and resting one boot on it, facing me with his intelligent amber eyes. 'And quite frankly, you know, it's difficult for me too.'

I went on walking, but turned to look at him from time to time. He was being quite civilized, and that quiet murderous rage I'd felt in the detention cell had evaporated.

'Why don't you make it easier?' I asked him, not meaning to be funny. A full colonel must carry quite a bit of clout in this place.

'My dear fellow, I only wish I could. I say that quite sincerely.' He'd lowered his voice, and I had to stop walking to listen. I had the strange urge to swing my chair halfway round and rest one foot on it, but that too would be ridiculous, as if there were only one of us here, and a mirror. 'The problem,' he said quietly, 'is that I would need your co-operation. And you're proving — how shall I put it? — rather hesitant.'

I compromised and swung the chair round and sat on it with my arms folded along its back, so that I could face him. His smile was tentative as he waited for me to comment on that, and his expression was perfectly genuine. It occurred to me that if I admitted what he already suspected — that I was in fact from London, he might reciprocate by you're falling asleep, you're not thinking straight, he's not perfectly genuine and he's not being civilized and he doesn't have any manners and if you admit you're from London you're right in the shit so start waking up.

He'd begun to blur in front of me, swaying back and then forward. I got into focus again and he stopped. This was one of the classic techniques: interrogation sessions alternating between friendliness and hostility to get you so confused you started blurting things out. And you always believe it'll never work because you're too bloody smart.

'That,' he said with quiet charm, 'is the problem.'

'Problem?'

'We would require your co-operation, if we were to make things easier for you.' He stood away from the chair and took a pace or two, deliberating, coming back. 'If you could overcome your hesitation, you see, we might arrange something to our mutual advantage.' Another rueful laugh: 'I'm sorry to have to beat about the bush like this, but I can't trust you until you trust me.' He sat on the chair backwards, just as I was sitting, as if in sympathy.

Not in sympathy.

'Arrangement?' I asked him.

Kept having to refocus.

'Yes.' His honey-coloured eyes played directly on to my own for a moment as he deliberated again. 'You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take a risk, to show we can be just as sincere as I know you would really like to be. I'm going to trust you.' He sat back a little, regarding me with open candour. 'Now how does that sound?'

I allowed an appropriate period of hesitation before I spoke.

'Generous.'

He sat back and slapped his big square hands together, pleased as a boy. 'I'm delighted you think so, I really am delighted. Yes, I'm being generous, I freely admit it.' With his head tilted slightly, as if he'd suddenly seen me in a new light: 'You know, I was certain we'd find a way of putting our heads together, if we tried. Now this arrangement…' he hesitated a fraction, then went on, 'I'm going to put it to you quite frankly. There's someone we want to find, very badly, and if you were able to tell us where he is, we'd bring him in and exchange him for you. We'd let you go.' He leaned forward confidentially. 'His name is Schrenk.'

I tilted my chair back, watching him. He was waiting for me to say something, but I didn't want to commit myself without thinking it over, and he got impatient and stood up and whirled his saber — 'Slovo o polku Igoreve! You said you always admired it, remember?' He threw out his chest and began singing, his voice -

'Wake up! Wake up!'

I jerked my head back.

'Sorry.'

Blinding light.

'You must stay awake. '

'Yes. I'll do that.'

I sat straighter on the stool and let my head go back against the wall. He knew what I was doing, but it was all right because I had to keep my eyes open, so he'd know if I dozed off again. With my head back, the light was fierce, a burning disc that wavered at the rim, as if I were staring into the sun; but at the same time I could slip into a kind of half-sleep, somewhere between the alpha and theta waves, without losing too much awareness. They'd let me take off my jacket, and I was sitting with my arms resting on my thighs, with the sweat trickling down to the elbows: I was soaked with it, because of the lamp's heat and the stress going on in the organism. My head was a ball floating in the sea of light, drifting and bobbing, with the images going on inside it.

His name is Schrenk. That threw me, yes. Threw me completely. So they hadn't got him. So where was he? I think it was okay, the way I reacted, I mean by not reacting. Shook my head, don't know him. But threw me, really. Bracken ought to know. Vader, old boy, mind if I use your blower?

No idea of what time now, day, night, anything. Maybe night now, it seemed worse, diurnal rhythms very slow, cortical vigilance down, way down, down -

'Wake up! Wake up!'

Shouting in the glare.

`Sorry. Wake now.'

Reticular formation lagging, yes, the process thoroughly understood, tell you everything you need to know at Norfolk, bloody place, wish I, was wish I, was there. Dogs barking somewhere, hate those bloody things. I'd begun hearing them same time when I'd seen the fish swimming in the light, all colours of rainbow, swimming round and round and round and -

'Wake up! Wake up!'

Oh shit.

I straightened up again and felt for the wall with the back of my head and then took it off again because I had to do some thinking. I was leaving it late now. I knew they'd got me. They were going to trot me along to Vader again and I wouldn't be able to take any more, I'd just go to sleep and they'd keep on waking me up and finally they'd bring on the clowns and I'd start talking without even knowing what I was doing, blow London, no go.

Capsule.

But that was down the drain so I'd have to do it the other way, bite through the median cubital artery and wait sixty seconds, finis, Lorenz had done it in Chile when the terror squads had strung him upside down from a swing in a children's playground, he didn't want to play any more, messy but then he wasn't going to have to clear it up, finito. One little problem though: they never left me alone. Even when I asked for the lav they stood there with the door open in case I shoved my head in. Never left me alone. Watching me now, man up there with his eyes in the hole behind the hot bright light, bastards, lea' me alone, lea' me alone you bastards, all I want is sixty seconds, bite and then spurt, spurt, spurt and London safe.

Man screaming next door. Me screaming? No. Other man.

Shuddup screaming, can't stand it.

Sweet Jesus I want to sleep.

Wake up and think. Think about London, it's the last chance. But they won't lea' me alone, watching me all the time, I could do it in sixty seconds but they keep going round and round and rainbows round and -

'Wake up! Wake up!'

'Yes. Yes. Wake now.'

Sleep. Softly go… sleep

London

What? Yes, all right, do it in the room with the table. Only the two of us. Vader and me. Energy of rage and finish him off and then bite the artery, bite, bite before anyone comes, can do that, yes, can do that.

`Wake up!'

'Yes. Wake up, yes.'

Remember London.