Wamphyri

Brown had taken Dolgikh on Saturday, but only a little more than twenty-four hours later the Russian had managed to turn the tables. Feigning sleep, Dolgikh had waited until Sunday noon when Brown went out for a glass of beer and a sandwich, then had worked frenziedly to free himself from the ropes that bound him. When Brown returned fifty minutes later, Dolgikh had taken him completely by surprise. Later... Brown had come to with a start, mind and flesh simultaneously assaulted by smelling salts squirted into his nostrils and sharp kicks in his sensitive places. He'd found their positions reversed, for now he was tied in the chair while Dolgikh was the one with the smile. Except that the Russian's smile was that of a hyena.

There had been one thing — really only one — that Dolgikh wanted to know: where were Krakovitch, Kyle and co now? It was quite obvious to the Russian that he'd been taken out of the game deliberately, which might possibly mean that it was being played for high stakes. Now it was his intention to get back in.

‘I don't know where they are,' Brown had told him. ‘I'm just a minder. I mind people and I mind my own business.'

Dolgikh, whose English was good however guttural, wasn't having any. If he couldn't find out where the espers were, that was the end of his mission. His next job would likely be in Siberia! ‘How did they get on to me?'

'I got on to you. Recognised your ugly face — details of which I've already passed on to London. As for them recognising you: without me they wouldn't have been able to spot you in a monkey-house at the zoo! Not that that would mean a lot. .

‘If you told them about me, they must have told you why they wanted me stopped. And they probably told you where they were going. Now you'll tell me.'

‘I can't do that.'

At that Dolgikh had come very close, no longer smiling. ‘Mr Secret Agent, minder, or whatever you are, you are in a lot of trouble. The trouble is this: that unless you co-operate I will surely kill you. Krakovitch and his soldier friend are traitors, for they must at least have knowledge of this. You told them I was here; they gave you your orders, or at least went along with those orders. I am a field agent outside my country, working against my country's enemies. I will not hesitate to kill you if you are obstinate, but things will get very unpleasant before you die. Do you understand me?'

Brown had understood well enough. ‘All this talk of killing,' he tut-tutted. ‘I could have killed you many times over, but those weren't my instructions. I was to delay you, that's all. Why blow it up bigger than it is?'

‘Why are the British espers working with Krakovitch?

What are they doing? The trouble with this psychic gang is this: both sides think they're bigger than the rest of us. They think mind should rule the world and not muscle. But you and me and the others like us, we know that's not the way it is. The strongest always wins. The great warrior triumphs while the great thinker is still thinking about it. Like you and me. You do what they tell you and I work from instinct. And I'm the one on top.'

‘Are you? Is that why you use the threat of death?'

‘Last chance, Mr Minder. Where are they?'

Still Brown wasn't saying anything. He merely smiled and gritted his teeth.

Dolgikh had no more time to waste. He was an expert in interrogation, which on this occasion meant torture. Basically, there are two types of torture: mental and physical. Just looking at Brown, Dolgikh guessed that pain alone wouldn't crack him. Not in the short term. Anyway, Dolgikh wasn't carrying the rather special tools he'd require. He could always improvise but... it wouldn't be the same. Also, he didn't wish to mark Brown; not initially, anyway. It must, therefore, be psychological — fear!

And the Russian had discovered Brown's weakness at the very first pass. ‘You'll notice,' he told the British agent conversationally, ‘that while you are securely trussed, a far better job than you did on me, I have not in fact bound you to the chair.' Then ‘he had opened tall louvre doors leading out onto a shallow rear balcony. ‘I assume you've been out here to admire the view?'

Brown had gone pale in a moment.

‘Oh?' Dolgikh was onto him in a flash. ‘Something about heights, my friend?' He had dragged Brown's chair out onto the balcony, then swung it sharply round so that Brown was thrown against the wall. Six inches of brick and mortar and a crumbling plaster finish saved him from space and gravity. And his face told the whole story.

Dolgikh had left him there, hurried through the flat and checked out his suspicion. Sure enough, he found every window and balcony door shuttered, closing off not only the light but the height. Especially the height! Mr Brown suffered from vertigo.

And after that it had been a different game entirely.

The Russian had dragged Brown back inside and positioned him in his chair six feet from the balcony. Then he'd taken a kitchen knife and started to loosen the masonry of the wall, in plain view of the helpless agent. As he'd worked, so he'd explained what he was about.

‘Now we're going to start again and I will ask you certain questions. If you answer correctly — which is to say truthfully and without obstruction — then you stay right where you are. Better still, you stay alive. But every time you fail to answer or tell a lie I shall move you a little closer to the balcony and loosen more of the mortar. Naturally, I'll become frustrated if you don't play the game my way. Indeed, I shall probably lose my temper. In which case I may be tempted to throw you against the wall again. Except that the next time I do that, the wall will be so much weaker. .

And so the game had begun.

That had been about 7.00 P.M. and now it was 9.00 P.M.; the face of the balcony wall, which had become the focus of Brown's entire being, was now thoroughly defaced and many of the bricks were visibly loose. Worse, Brown's chair now stood with its front legs on the balcony itself, no more than three feet from the wall. Beyond that wall the city's silhouette and the mountains behind it were sprinkled with twinkling lights.

Dolgikh stood up from his handiwork, scuffed at the rubble with his feet, sadly shook his head. ‘Well, Mr Minder, you have done quite well — but not quite well enough. Now, as I suspected might be the case, I am tired and a little frustrated. You have told me many things, some important and others unimportant, but you have not yet told me what I most want to know. My patience is at an end.'

He moved to stand behind Brown, and pushed the chair gratingly forward, right up to the wall. Brown's chin came level with the top, which faced him only eighteen inches away. ‘Do you want to live, Mr Minder?' Dolgikh's voice was soft and deadly.

In fact the Russian fully intended to kill Brown, if only to pay him back for yesterday. From Brown's point of view, Dolgikh had no need to kill him; it would be a pointless exercise and could only queer it for Dolgikh with British Intelligence, who would doubtless place him on their ‘long overdue' list. But from the Russian's viewpoint... he was already on several lists. And in any case, murder was something he enjoyed. Brown couldn't he absolutely sure of Dolgikh's intentions, however, and where there's life there's always hope.

The trussed agent looked across the top of the wall at Genoa's myriad lights. ‘London will know who did it if you — ‘ he started to say, then gave a small shriek as Dolgikh jerked the chair violently. Brown opened his eyes, drew breath raggedly, sat gulping, trembling, close to fainting. There was really only one thing in the world that he feared, and here it was right in front of him. The reason he'd become useless to the SAS. He could feel the emptiness underneath him as if he were already falling.