'I'll need some more clothes by the morning.'

'I've brought some. You said you were messy. They're in the car.'

'Thank God; these stink. And you'd better tell London they owe the municipal authorities of East Berlin three of their street-maintenance vehicles.' The Bureau was punctilious about damage compensation during a mission.

'Are they total write-offs?'

'Burnt out.'

'You've had a busy night.'

'Been a long one. Started at lunch-time.'

'What's your condition?'

'Active. But I'll have to look in at a hospital; someone stuck a knife in me, nothing dramatic.'

'They ask too many questions,' he said, 'in the hospitals here. I'll get the doc along from the embassy when we get to the hotel. It'll wait till then?'

'The bleeding's stopped.'

Cone nodded and looked at the man in the chair again and said in German: 'Name?'

No reaction again. The man had come to in the cab but hadn't said anything. He looked fully conscious now but by the way he was holding his head up and staring straight in front of him he was the die-hard type, wouldn't even need a capsule, you'd have to break him and even then you'd get nothing.

Cone went closer to him and stood looking down for a minute; then without taking his hands out of his mac he went into a crouch and stared straight back into the man's eyes.

'What is your name?'

His tone was quiet enough to chill. It reminded me that I didn't know much about Cone; he could have a reputation for strangling mice for kicks, like Ferris.

'Dietrich.'

'I want you to tell me something, Dietrich. Where is Horst Volper?'

Nothing.

'The British government will guarantee your safety, Dietrich. We'll get you out of East Germany with official sanction from the Democratic Republic, and find a job for you. If you've got a family, you can take them with you. Now, where is Horst Volper?'

Nothing.

''Then give me a yes or no. Will you answer any questions?'

'No.'

'All right, here's another "yes or no" for you. Is there anything that would induce you to answer my questions? Money? Information that we wouldn't mind exchanging? Anything at all?'

'No.'

'When I say money, I'm talking about one million pounds sterling.'

'No.'

'I see.' Cone straightened up and took a turn and came back to the man in the chair. 'The East German secret police snatched another of your people tonight. He didn't want to answer questions either. He's in an intensive care unit at the moment, and everything's being done for him, but he's not expected to live.'

I didn't know if it were true, but if Yasolev had ordered that snatch he would have done it through Karl Bruger. It is essential, he'd told me at our meeting in the woods, that the HUA is not informed that my department is operating in East Berlin on this particular case. Bruger alone had his trust.

'We need you to answer questions,' Cone was saying, 'just as we needed the other man to answer questions. If you won't do it for me, I'm not going to hand you over to the HUA. I'm going to put you into an interrogation room with an officer of the KGB.'

Got a flinch. Just a slight one. It's always like that over here: you can threaten a man with an intensive care unit and he won't necessarily break, but mention the KGB and you'll make an impression.

Understandable.

'So will you answer my questions,' Cone said, 'or his?'

He waited.

God it was cold in here.

'Yes or no?' Cone asked him.

'No.'

'I see.'

Cone went over to the phone, then turned to me before he picked it up. 'This might take a little time. Do you want running to the hotel right away?' Squinting steadily; I suppose I looked tired.

'No.' I might be able to help.

He picked up the phone and dialled.

I thought of going out to the car and getting into some clothes that didn't stink of fish but I didn't want to miss anything; I'd been to a lot of trouble getting Dietrich here and Cone might get just one clue out of him that could push Quickstep forward. Time was running out.

'Good evening,' Cone said in German; he didn't give the parole because Dietrich was listening. 'We've got one of Volper's people here and he doesn't want to say anything. I've told him you're ready to interrogate him, so I think you'd better come and pick him up. You know where we are.'

I was watching Dietrich. He must have known a bit of Russian because the blood was leaving his face. Cone wasn't messing about, I knew that. We needed answers.

The Bureau's ruling on interrogation is perfectly clear: no director or executive in the field is to force any opponent to talk, other than by verbal means. With Skidder it had been different, a case of dog eat dog. I've been inside Lubyanka, locked in an interrogation room with a major of the KGB, and it wasn't nice; but as I watched the man in the chair I didn't feel any compassion for him. He'd tried to get me killed tonight, and if you think I was taking things too personally I don't give a damn, it was my life on the line, not yours.

When we heard a car stopping outside, Cone went over to the man in the chair again. 'Before he comes in here, Dietrich, I'm going to tell you that he's a colonel in the KGB, highly experienced and effective as an interrogator, and with a reputation for being completely ruthless when people don't want to talk. I happen to be a different type myself and I'd like to save you a lot of misery, so if you want to answer questions now, I'm listening.'

For a second or two there was nothing but fear in the man's eyes; then they changed, as he got the better of it. 'I appreciate your offer, but this time he will not succeed.'

Cone gave a brief nod. 'It's your life,' he said, and went to unlock the door.

Yasolev came in alone, and took in the scene immediately, staring at the man in the chair for a moment and then giving us a nod. 'He still refuses to speak?'

'Yes.'

'You have searched him?'

'Yes.'

'There was no capsule?'

'Just a knife.'

'Where is the knife?'

Cone gave it to him.

'Thank you.' He looked at me and asked formally, 'Will you place your prisoner in my hands?'

'I will.'

'Then you may leave him with me. Stay if you wish, of course, but — ' he left it.

'I think we'll be off now,' Cone said, and we went out to the car, and as I heard Yasolev locking the door of the garage the shivering began, partly because man's inhumanity to man during the interrogation process always worries me and partly because of delayed shock after the car-park thing: I'd been expecting it.

'Are you all right?' Cone asked me.

'It's so bloody cold.'

'We'll get you into a nice hot bath.'

'There's no need to be personal.' Little joke, to take my mind off the garage.

'It's the fish,' he said, and started the engine. 'You fall in a rubbish dump or something?'

'You must be psychic.' Shivering like a leaf. 'Do you think he'll make that man tell him anything?'

'Cross our fingers.' He turned left towards Spittelmarkt. 'Meanwhile I took a call from Renata.'

Lena Pabst.

'When?'

'Just after three this afternoon. She asked for you and I said you weren't available and gave her the parole. She's been doing some work. There's some kind of operation being set up at Werneuchen Airforce Base with the code-name of Trumpeter. Three of the bomber crews are involved but she hasn't been able to identify them. The best thing she gave me was that the whole operation's on file, if we can only get to it. She — '

'Where?'

'It's in Room 60 in the new Airforce administration building in Bruderstrasse. She thinks the man behind Trumpeter works there as an administrator. Room 60's his office.'

'This is very good.'