Not altogether. It went on, but only under my eyelids now, not right through my head.

'Release him,' Geissler said.

People moved about, and someone came close, smell of tobacco. The handcuffs came off. Working, he was working on the strap now, the strap on my head. I couldn't hear too well, there was quite a degree of tinnitus, these bastards had been wearing ear-protectors, must have been.

'What is the Miniver like?'

Geissler.

'I've told you, I'm not -'

'Just a brief description, nothing specific.'

I opened my eyes, got out a handkerchief. The bodyguards who'd brought me here had gone, but there were two other people, both men this time, both with guns hanging from their hands. Inge was leaning against the redbrick wall, one foot against it behind her, arms folded, I couldn't see the expression in her eyes, things were still floating a bit. Geissler was quite tall, not your usual mobster, quite intelligent-looking, but then his questions had been like that, quite intelligent; I could see him holding a violin, or a baton, except for his eyes, which had as much soul in them as a steel trap.

He was waiting.

'It's a tactical nuclear missile,' I said, 'capable of being launched by a designated officer of high rank in the field at his personal discretion – or by anyone in his command, presumably, under his supervision, I'm not sure of the niceties. The Miniver can knock out an entire division, or as I told Inge, a sports stadium or the Houses of Parliament in London, what you will. That's all I can tell you.'

I got out of the chair, and no one stopped me. They still looked like figures in some kind of netherworld, and I wasn't too steady on my feet, but that was to be expected. Presumably my cover had stood up, or the Stoph girl would be out there playing with my giblets by now.

'My name is Geissler,' the thin man said, 'Ignaz Geissler.' He offered me his hand. 'I'll take you to see Dieter Klaus.'

There was no one in the room.

'I'll tell him you've arrived,' Geissler said, and left me. He didn't lock the door: I would have heard it, even though there was still some lingering tinnitus ringing in my head from that awful piezo thing.

The heavy silk curtains were drawn across the windows and I didn't part them to look out; on principle I don't like to offer a blatant target, though I didn't think anyone here was likely to shoot at me. They could have done that in the garage if they'd wanted to.

Geissler had ordered one of the men there to blindfold me again, and had apologised in his dry way, calling it an 'inconvenient measure of security.' Then they'd put me into a car and Geissler and another man had sat in the back with me, and I'd smelled gun oil. The garage had been somewhere south of Tegel Airport, because we hadn't gone far from the Eissporthalle, and on our way here I'd monitored the sound of the planes along their flight paths and the hooting of the tugs and barges on the Tegeler See, and I would have said the house was north-west of the airport but not far away, eight or nine kilometres, perhaps in Kreis Oranienburg.

The room was spacious, elegant: white-enamelled fluted mouldings, shot-silk wall covering, a twelve-foot ceiling, the furniture mostly reproduction Edwardian, the carpeting heavy, brocaded at the fringe. The magazines neatly arranged on the low polished table near the hearth were mostly German – Stern, Quick, Brigitte – and American – Life, Time, Newsweek – with some newspapers lying on the chair nearby, one of them Arabic, the Farsi-language Jomhuri Islami, with a picture of the president of Iran on the front page, which I thought was interesting.

There were no flowers in the room, and no bowls of potpourri anywhere that I could see, but there was a faint perfume on the air, as if a woman had been here recently, or came often.

I assumed they'd brought me to the headquarters of Nemesis.

It would please London, give them something for the board, pick up the bit of chalk, then – Executive has maintained cover, infiltrated opposition headquarters, three cheers for the poor bloody ferret in the field, that'd teach them to give me a clown like Thrower for my DIF, but we're getting petty, aren't we, a touch spiteful, that's the way it goes, though, in this trade – they've got so much raw naked power over us, those bastards in London, because the only way anyone can turn himself into a professional spook and work for an outfit as sacrosanct as the Bureau is to sell them his soul and submit to a degree of discipline that would put a regimental sergeant major straight into shock. We're expected to -

'So!'

Klaus.

I hadn't heard the door open. Perhaps he hadn't meant me to.

'We must shake hands, mustn't we, Herr Mittag, now that I know who you are. Sit down, please, sit down.'

He wasn't wearing the smoked glasses now. His eyes were very dark, would look black in some lights: I thought he might be using coloured contact lenses, because his hair was so blond in contrast. He sat on the edge of the settee, leaving me one of the silk-brocade chairs; he sat facing me directly, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. 'We must have dinner later, and you'll stay the night, of course. Hans Mittag… I'm surprised I haven't heard your name before, if you're important enough to deal in the kind of armament Inge mentioned – we can speak freely here, of course.'

Not really.

I said, 'I use several names.'

'That explains it, of course, I expected it to be the case, yes. Now tell me about the Miniver NK-9.'

'Are you in the market for it?'

I didn't lean forward to face him; it was a wing chair, and comfortable, and I felt like taking it easy after that garage thing.

'I am in the market for it, yes,' Klaus said, 'otherwise I wouldn't have had you brought here. But I need details.'

His face was open, attentive, but the bright obsidian eyes had an intensity that reminded me that although I'd come out of that garage with a whole skin my cover was still my only protection. For as long as I stayed here at the centre of Nemesis I was a fly on a web, and one wrong word could send it trembling.

'I'll give you the most important detail first,' I told him. 'My price for one fully-primed Miniver NK-9 complete with electronic detonator is one million US dollars, cash.'

He lifted his square heavy-looking hands from his knees and dropped them again. I think it was a gesture of impatience.

'You must know,' he said, 'that the details I'm asking for concern the missile and its capability. 'We'll discuss the price later.'

'Surely I don't need to tell you, Herr Klaus, what a missile with a nuclear warhead will do. I've already given Stoph and your man Geissler an adequate idea. You could reduce the Eissporthalle, for instance, where you were sitting tonight, to radioactive ash, if you wanted to, and turn the entire district of Charlottenburg into a wasteground for a century to come, if not the whole of Berlin. The funds must be placed to a Swiss account, by the way, within twenty-four hours of your decision to buy the Miniver, if that's the decision you're going to make.'

He said nothing, went on staring at me. That was all right: I wasn't in any hurry. It was quiet in the room; there were logs burning in the hearth but the flames were soundless, at least to my ears. I hoped the effects of the piezo siren weren't going to last too long: I needed the full use of my senses.

Klaus said in a moment, 'I should tell you that I don't actually require the complete missile. I require only the warhead.'

'The price is the same.'

His hands lifted again, dropped. 'I assume the warhead can be used by itself? It would become, in effect, a bomb?'

'Oh yes. It could be detonated electronically in just the same way, or by a conventional explosive charge or by remote control. Yes, we'd be talking about a.1-megaton nuclear bomb.'