I'd only seen the side of the van when I'd got in but it had the look of a small military transport with five bench seats and a rack for cases or kit bags along each side. None of these men were in uniform but that didn't mean anything. I didn't think the man who'd ushered me in was the one I'd spoken to on the phone, but he could be; he'd only said two words just now, good evening. He could have been the man who'd shot Lena Pabst.

I had to raise both hands when I tried to ease the neck of the cloth bag they'd pulled down over my head, but I didn't get far before the man on my right dug the muzzle of his gun into my side, bruising a rib.

'Keep still. Keep your hands on your knees.'

'I can't breathe.'

He just dug the gun in again and said nothing.

I could in fact breathe adequately but I wanted very much to take in more oxygen for the muscles. I didn't think there'd be a chance of doing anything until they got me out of the van but I didn't know what they were going to do after that and I wanted to be ready to make a break if I could, because this was a strictly shut-ended situation and if I left it too late they'd do the Lena Pabst thing, finis.

Executive reported to be in opposition hands awaiting probable terminal incident.

Shepley wouldn't be pleased. I chose him because to date he's proved himself capable of dealing with very unfavourable conditions in the field, and if he survives I shall expect an explanation as to why he allowed himself to be compromised, together with the entire mission.

The explanation, sir, is that I took a calculated risk, and there's an odd misconception going around that a calculated risk isn't in fact a risk at all, but you of all people, your eminence, should know better than that. You should also know that the executive must sometimes stick his neck out and invite flak because there's simply no other way to get close to the opposition, and if you think I was overdoing it in this particular instance it just means, with respect, that you're not thinking straight.

Very nervous indeed and getting worse. He'd understand, Shepley, he'd been there himself and he'd taken the same kind of risk plenty of times, if he'd been in the SAS.

Hot under the bag, very little oxygen, they could asphyxiate me like this. But then they wouldn't be terribly concerned because when they finally put the bullet in the brain it wouldn't make any difference whether there was a condition of oxygen deprivation at the time: the skull would be blown open like a coconut just the same.

Flying-boots.

We turned left again and then right, waiting at the lights and botching the gears in; either the driver wasn't all that conversant with the box or there was wear on the shafts, it was getting on my nerves, I tell you, it was getting on my nerves.

Fur-lined flying-boots: it was about all I could see below the neck of the bag. Pilot. Pilot or bombardier, air-crew. They probably both were.

Slowing.

'Close as you can get.'

'Sir.'

Slowing and turning, bumping over rough ground, turning tightly now, the vehicle heeling on the springs, then pulling up, the sound of the engine louder, confined on one side by a wall.

'Raus! Raus!'

One of them hit the door open and dropped to the ground and the other one pushed his gun into my back and I clambered down, the handcuffs a real handicap because we were in the open and if I couldn't do anything now the last chance would be gone; but I couldn't see anything except the split tarmac under my feet and a cigarette end. One of them had a grip on my arm and pushed me forward and I heard a door opening.

Steps, down, and I lost my footing because I didn't know they were there, hit my shoulder on a wall or a doorpost and someone caught me and pulled me straight, smell of cooking from somewhere and a car starting up outside, not the van we'd come in, dampness, a smell of dampness now, still going down with a gun bruising my spine, I suppose they thought I wasn't getting the message; I would have liked, I would very much have liked to swing round fast and make at least one strike and use the handcuffs as a weapon, but it was just a feeling of spite, I didn't like these bastards, they weren't professionals, all this bloody prodding, I knew they had guns out, for Christ's sake.

'Put him there.'

Chair, seat of a chair behind my legs and I let them buckle, sat down, very bright light as they dragged the bag off my head.

'Can I have some water?'

Simply to make them talk, do something, show some kind of reaction so that I could learn what they were like, get to know them, get to know useful things that might help me find a way out. But they didn't take any notice.

'Go and fetch him.'

The taller one nodded and went back up the steps; the thick-bodied one stayed behind with me, standing with his legs astride and the revolver aimed at the diaphragm, not terribly good at his anatomy, the heart is where you aim a gun if you're serious; for a professional it's a learned habit. They weren't professionals and that could give me an edge: one has, you see, to clutch at straws, lacking a boat.

This place was quite well furnished, compared with the standard Interrogation cell: telephone, three or four antique chairs with the veneer chipped and the brocade worn thin, an art deco chest of drawers and a lamp with a chrome post and a red plush shade — they'd raided a junk shop and taken the first things they could lay hands on, I suppose, not that I'm fussy as a guest when I've got a gun aimed at my guts.

''This is just for your information,' I said. 'I'm an officer of the HUA with captain's rank, and it will go better for you if you and your colleague agree to release me at this stage with no harm done. I'm sure you'll see the logic of that.'

There was no point in telling him that my department knew I was making the rendezvous and would be initiating an immediate search, because if the HUA had known about the rendezvous they would have filled the streets with patrol cars before we'd even got as far as Spandauerstrasse.

I think he'd understood what I'd said, though he didn't take any immediate interest; he was still looking at nothing in particular, his eyes blank, his entire presence impersonal, very like a customs officer who spends his day chewing people and spitting them out again without really enjoying the taste.

But now he was taking an interest; he'd been turning things over in his mind.

'Give me your wallet.'

I reached for my hip pocket, both hands together, and got the wallet and held it out for him so that he could look at my papers to see if I were telling the truth, but he wasn't a professional and his mood was perfectly calm because he'd got a gun on me and I was in handcuffs and there was nothing I could do and in this he was in error because my survival was threatened and the system was full of adrenalin and the nerves were singing with tension and the muscles taut as bowstrings and I raked the edge of my shoe down his shin with force enough to strip the flesh off the bone and bring a scream of agony as my foot impacted on the angle of his flying-boot with the whole weight of my body bearing down and the hips spinning and the hands driving against his gun-wrist and the links between the handcuffs snapping bone as the gun fired and I heard the bullet hit the wall behind me.

I think he was already unconscious before he hit the ground; with most people the degree of pain I'd induced will be enough to cross the threshold and demand relief and the only relief available is the cessation of awareness and the brain will look after things.

He shattered the leg of an antique chair as he went down with his face white and his neck twisting as his head rolled against the concrete floor and I left him there and crouched and picked up the gun and had it in my right hand with my left forearm across the small of my back to give me an adequate position for the aim as the door opened at the top of the steps and Pollock came down, no bright smile.