by Adam Hall
"I'm not convinced."
"You must accept my word. I made a study of these mechanisms during the war. In hospital wards it was noted that night-loss among severely-wounded was always very high, within hours of their being told that operation was successful and that they were going to live. In my own work at the resettlement centres of Dachau and Nazweiler we developed a highly successful technique. We put a man under threat of imminent death for three days, then led him to a gibbet and placed the cord round his neck. An officer arrived to ‘save’ him at the last minute, countermanding the order to execute. We then closeted him with an expert interrogator – a young female of course – who withheld the means of sexual relief until he had talked. We learned more from these subjects than by any other method: and they were men who were quite prepared to go to their death in silence."
"You believe this one would follow the pattern?"
"No. Not this one. But I promise you he'll go to the woman Inga, within hours. In a way he is in love with her. So you will know where to find him, and when you have found him you know what to do."
And my reasoning had been false, because there'd been no tag. A tag hadn't been necessary. They'd known where to find me. But they'd do nothing, now. Nothing to me.
Oktober stood in the middle of the room. There were three men with him. One was backed against the door where they had come in. The second guarded the door to her bedroom. The third now moved behind me and blocked the bathroom. The windows could be left unguarded: the tops of the street lamps were below the level of this room. The three men would be armed but their guns were holstered. Between Oktober and myself it was tacitly accepted that a gun offered no threat, because I knew that my life was to be preserved until I had talked. There was of course no hope of getting out of here. Each guard was my weight and half again.
I watched Inga. She showed her fear in a way precisely in line with her character: there was delight in it. Yet it was fear, for all that. She knew who these people were. They were Phoenix.
I was waiting for her to look at me, and when she did I glanced upwards and down again briefly. It was no go, because even if she could call the wolf-hound it would have to smash the opaque glazing of the door that led into her bedroom from the roof-stairs, and even if it were trained well enough to open the second door from the bedroom into here they'd shoot it dead on sight. But I had reminded her that Jurgen was not far away, to give her courage.
Oktober said to her: "You should not have left us. More important, you should not have consorted with the enemy. How much have you told him?"
I said: "Nothing."
He didn't look at me. He looked all the time at her. He asked: "How much has he told you ?"
"He's not the enemy," she said. The links of her wrist-chain trembled in the glow of the Chinese-moon lamp. "He works with the Red Cross."
He dismissed this without expression and looked at last at me. "You know the situation. We're not going to do anything to you. But you will of course answer my questions when you can no longer stand it. That is inevitable. So it would save time and distress if you accepted the situation immediately."
I felt my left eyelid begin flickering.
"Ask your questions," I told him. "Give me the whole lot, so that I can think about them. We might do a deal."
I was going to interrogate him, in silence, and I knew he knew it. He could give me valuable information: each of his questions would tell me how much he knew of me and how much he didn't. And he and I both knew that he couldn't refuse to do as I asked, because if he refused it would be an admission of his uncertainty that he was master. He must convince me that he was master, and that whatever information he gave me would be useless to me because I could never pass it on to my Control before I died. But it was difficult for him. If he agreed, and put his questions on the table, would I take it as a sign of his complete self-assurance, or as the mere false evidence of a self-assurance that he didn't feel? He could do nothing about my findings.
I watched his eyes and he watched mine. Both he and I had dealt with men of our own kind often enough. This was not new to us. The situation was precisely-defined he couldn't let me out of here alive, and he couldn't kill me before I'd answered all his questions. In the interrogation under narcoanalysis Fabian had asked hardly any questions directly. All his questions had been the result of things I had already spoken about – Las Ramblas, the container, so forth. There had been only one direct question of major concern: Why are you still in Berlin? That was when he saw that I was coming out of the narcosis, and he'd put that question in a kind of desperation, with an edge on his voice for the first time.
Oktober would now put direct questions, and expose the extent of his knowledge of me and the extent of his ignorance.
He said: "You are not in a position to do a deal."
"I'm waiting."
Inga had moved and leaned against the wall, watching me. Did she know what was going to happen? She must know. She was versed in these matters by going to the Neustadthalle.
Oktober was saying suddenly: "What is your present mission? Is it to find more so-called war criminals for the courts? Why have you begun operating without cover? What was the information that Rothstein wanted to give you when he was prevented? What is your precise objective? That is all."
I was disappointed in him. He knew quite well that once the thing began he'd ask more than that. Where was Local Control Berlin? What total sum of information had Kenneth Lindsay Jones passed to Control before he died? What were the names of – oh, there'd be many questions like those.
"Don't fool about," I said.
His flint-grey eyes registered nothing. "Those are the questions."
There was nothing I could do about it. He'd offered a token bargain. If those weren't his only questions I couldn't prove it. I was now obliged to do a deal: but he was right. I was in no position.
I said: "Here are the answers." No reaction. He didn't believe me.
"One. My present mission is to get all possible information about Phoenix and pass it to my Control."
He already knew that.
"Two. If I find more war criminals for the courts it'll be as a means to an end, to expedite the main mission. "Inga had moved, and a man moved, and she was still again.
"Three. I've begun operating without cover because I prefer to. Cover can become dangerous. I told my Control to leave me a clear field and they did that."
Now I had to talk about something I didn't even want to think about, ever again.
"I don't know what information Dr. Solomon Rothstein would have passed to me if you hadn't prevented him. I think you have some idea about it, because you took immediate steps."
And may God rot your soul.
"Lastly, my precise objective is to flush the prime mover of the Phoenix organisation and deal with him as I think fit."
He kept his eyes on me. I gazed at their glass.
"How did you first hear the name Phoenix?"
"It's a big organisation and you can't hope to keep it under cover -"
"Did she tell you?"
"Who?" It was just that I disliked his manners.
"This woman."
"Fraulein Lindt would hardly be so unwise as to talk to strangers and that's all I am to her."
"Who is the ‘prime mover’ of this alleged organisation?"
"I don't know. The only name I know is yours."
"Where is your Control in Berlin?"
"The deal was that I answered those questions you first put to me."
He said to the man nearest Inga: "Take her into the next room and leave the door wide open." So that was it and I knew the deal was lost, as I'd known it must be.
She moved before the man could touch her, and looked into my face as she passed me. I said, "Don't worry. "The door to her bedroom was opened by the guard there.
The sweat began.
I told Oktober: "You'll lose."
He spoke through the doorway. "Unclothe her."
I knew that he wouldn't have started the thing in this way if Fabian hadn't convinced him on the subject of my libido. They didn't have to undress her to do what they were going to do, but I was to be put under a double strain: the pity for a fellow-human who suffered pain, and the outrage of the male animal whose mate is its possession.
She made a sound, something like anger. She had moved into the bedroom before the guard could touch her; therefore she would probably elect to undress without his help. I could hear the fabric against her skin, as I had heard it a few hours ago, now with different feelings.
I said: "The position is this." I waited until he looked at me. "If I can't stand it, and talk, there can't be any half-measures. I'd have to talk totally. That's obvious. If I talk, it'll mean putting my Control right into your hands: the local base, names of operators, communication system, the whole lot. Do you for a moment imagine I'd do that?" The sweat was on my face now and he was watching it gather. The body was giving away the mind, and the mind would have to compensate for its own exposure, and say what it had to say with utter conviction. "There's not much pity in people like us. We're like doctors. We can't do the job if we let pity into it. You know that. So you're going to lose. I'm not talking. Not one word. Not one word. Do what you like to her, kill her off slowly, let me listen to her dying in there, and take your time, make it last and watch me sweat it out. You won't get a word. Not one word. And when that's failed, you can start on me and do the same with me, the fingernails, the thumbs, the urethra, the eyeballs, give me the full treatment, give me the lot. But you won't get a word. Not a word."
He said to the man in there: "Switch on the other lights. All of them."
Faint shadows came against the wall. In here, only the Chinese-moon lamp was burning, a glow. The lights in the bedroom were brighter. I saw the shadow of the man stoop over the bed.
"Begin," Oktober said.
I thought: she's arrived in a death-camp at last. It doesn't have to be second-hand any more. Now she'll know.
The shadow was moving. I folded my arms and stood with my head turned to watch the shadow, so that Oktober could see I was watching it. He knew also that I was listening. He watched my face.
I hadn't convinced him. Even if I had, I knew he'd go on with this thing, for the pleasure of it. He was on the borderline between reason and the lusts of the psyche, the line that is crossed sometimes by the schoolmaster who begins caning a boy to discipline him and ends by drawing blood.
I should say something to her, but there was nothing to be said.
The shadows moved suddenly and the man gave a grunt and his arm came up and she cried out and he stood still again. There would be blood on his face from her nails. In there, in the room with the silk sheets and the pile rug and the decorative lamps, was the jungle.
I watched the shadows because Oktober wanted me to. On the Dutch frontier there had been a selection camp that I remembered too well. Those who waited in line had been made to watch those who went before them; but there had been a rough screen made from a tablecloth (I remember the half-circular stain on it, made by a wine-glass) and rigged up on a broomstick so that those who waited could see only the jerk of the rope above the screen and the jerk of the feet below it. Because the imagination, once let loose, can be more searing than the shape of the thing witnessed; and this was known and exploited.
There is a typicality to this breed of men that stamps them: the way they will stand with their hands behind their backs to speak death into the faces of the weak, the way they will take quick offence, like schoolgirls, and announce a slight as ‘unforgivable’, the way they will show you only half of horror so that your imagination can run riot and bring you to self-made madness. Thus I was to watch only shadows.
"No, don't!" And of course, to listen.
I could feel the blood draining from my face. It was a moment before I could place a new sound. The click of a closing manacle. She was no longer free.
She began wailing softly.
Oktober watched me.
We are not gentlemen. We are trained, though, to respect the rights of the citizen in whatever country. If we need transport urgently we are trained to get it in whatever way we can that doesn't encroach on the rights of the citizen: we don't simply steal a parked car even knowing that we shall return it after use. London is very finicky on this kind of thing. Nor do we intentionally involve members of the public in our affairs.
I had transgressed. I had involved Inga. Not intentionally, but London would decree that it had been intentional by negligence: I had known she was a defector from Phoenix and therefore connected with the subject of my mission, however negatively, and should have kept away from her. I was directly responsible for this. I must therefore do what I could about it.
I must not stand by and let her suffer pain that would send her mad before she died. I must not give my Control and its purpose and its lives into enemy hands.
Normal resources were unavailable to me. There was no hope of getting out of here and running for it, so. That they would leave her alone. There was no hope of reaching her without being restrained by their weight of numbers. I could say nothing to Oktober that would save her, without costing the lives of Control operators and defeating the Bureau's purpose, which was to safeguard human life on a larger scale against the risks of a resurgence of Nazi militarism and its war potential.
Of a dozen possible actions, two alone were worth the consideration, and one of those was denied me. It was the first time I had ever regretted my insistence on travelling light, unencumbered by the bric-a-brac for which some agents have a fondness – guns, code-books, death-pills, so forth. It would be the complete answer to this situation a death-pill. Five seconds, and there'd be proof at Oktober's feet that nothing they could do to her would make me talk. I carried no pill.
The shadows moved and I watched them and heard the sound in her throat and knew it was something like the word please and that it was said to me and not to them because they couldn't help her and she thought that I might.
Oktober watched me. He called through the doorway:
"Increase treatment."
She made another sound and I did the one thing that held out any hope.
15: BLACKOUT
I fainted.
The last conscious memory was of Oktober reaching out to save my hitting the floor. It was probably instinctive. I was able, before blacking-out, to note that he must be ignorant of the processes of syncope, or he wouldn't try to keep me upright. The longer I remained upright the longer I would remain blacked-out.
Psychological and physical factors were all to my advantage. Although he was ignorant of the actual mechanism of syncope he would know that I was psychologically conditioned to it, because this was a crisis: I was helpless in a situation of rapidly increasing strain, and however much the ego and superego tried to rationalise and seek comfort or simply acceptance, the id knew I was in bad trouble and was ready to throw the switch and relieve the strain by blacking me out.
There was also a psychological lever working in Oktober himself: fainting is considered a sign of weakness, though wrongly (the guards trooping the Colours are far from weak specimens, however often they fall over. Long and motionless standing is a classic physical cause of syncope), and I was Oktober's enemy. In a given case we always tend to believe what pleases us, even when evidence to the contrary is stronger. In this case there were two kinds of evidence presented to him. One: the blackout was shown to be produced falsely, at a time when I was obviously desperate for a way out. Two: it was shown to be produced because I was weak. The former evidence was the stronger, because intelligence agents don't pass out so easily in a crisis: crisis is their raison d'etre and it is what they live and sometimes die for; otherwise they'd take up dairy-farming. But Oktober would accept the evidence that pleased him personally: that the blackout was caused by weakness in his enemy.
The physical factors were to my advantage because they too helped to give credence to
the genuineness of the faint. The room was very stuffy due to airlessness and the rise of temperature. The central heating was on, and during the last fifteen minutes the temperature had been boosted by the presence of four extra people, each of whose bodies was running at 98.4 degrees F. and throwing off excess heat. My face was bright with sweat and my breathing heavy: two symptoms precursive to a faint.
I was thus psychologically and physically conditioned for the occurrence, and Oktober was furthermore ready to believe the evidence of weakness in an enemy. It was vital that the blackout should look genuine in its inception. It was certainly genuine in its performance.
The same factors that presented evidence of truth were to my advantage in another way: they helped me to induce unconsciousness. Lack of oxygen, mental strain, so forth. To induce syncope at will in a normal environment is not so easy. The instinctive fear of achieving the desired result – unconsciousness – works against the determination to do it. An advanced student of Yoga can induce a form of syncope by one of several asanas, mostly simply by Savasana; but the resulting unconsciousness is salutary, and both body and mind realise it: there is no distortion of any function. I knew that in this crisis a blackout would be salutary indirectly (it would save another's pain), but the body is selfish and will look after only its own direct needs. It was therefore necessary to simulate functional disbalance.
I wasn't worried that my enemy was watching me. The trappings of the trick would look genuine, simply because they were genuine. I filled my lungs, blocked the throat and tried to force air out against the block. The face would gradually suffuse as the blood was driven to the surface. Then I emptied the lungs totally, showing gradual and comparative pallor. The intrathoracic pressure was rising fast and reaching well beyond the 100mm Hg produced by a normal cough, and the pressure was being transmitted to the internal jugular vein and cerebrospinal fluid. In the final seconds of consciousness I tracked the process mentally, to encourage the will. Peripheral filling was now setting up and I could feel the increase of the forearm volume. Cardiac input and output was being reduced, and I held breathing as long as possible to keep the process going.