Wrong. Never mind. He was watching my eyes for reaction so that he could get a clue to the truth or untruth of his information. Most of it was correct. I kept my eyes blank. Tense… relax.

"You thought we didn't know who was supplying the court with so-called ‘war-criminals’ at Hanover in the past six months. We knew who it was. You were seen in different areas and we built up a portrait parle of you. We recognised you when you went to the Neustadthalle. It was reported that your cover had been called off, so we knew that you were embarked on some more special undertaking. There is very little we don't know about you."

Breathe deep. The window was nearer than the doors but that way out was no go. The heavy curtains were drawn but there was a gap and there was lamplight outside, shining on the bare boughs of a plantain. Its height made a fair reference: this room was three floors up, maybe four. I wouldn't be given time to hunt about for balconies or drainpipes. It would have to be the doors. Tense… relax.

"But we lack certain information about your bureau. We have observed its affairs closely for some time, and we wish to fill in our picture of M.I.6."

Not subtle. The repetition was clumsy and it was now clear that he was feeding me doctored corn, trying to provoke me into retorting – for pride's sake – that he was wrong, that I wasn't with M.I.6. Eyes blank. Breathe deep.

Oktober riveted me with his soulless eyes. "We must thus oblige you to talk." He was too intelligent to make any threats, because he knew I had seen men interrogated by his kind. There was simply no option but to talk. He said: " Begin."

Tense… relax. I must bear in mind that this meeting with this man in this house was the goal of my mission. Certainly the ball had bust the net: I'd hoped to arrive in this house in possession of my senses and with a chance of getting clear before it was too late. The inoculation trick had been elaborate, yet it had involved no more than a phone-call to Captain Stettner purporting to come from the Medical Office of Health, a private ambulance, a doctor and a nurse. Phoenix would possess such facilities; one of the accused at Hanover held a chair at the medical faculty of Moenberg; the hierarchies of more than one ministry were riddled with Nazi executives. The effort of ensuring that I should be brought here insensible had been worth making. But I must bear in mind that my mission had been to expose myself in open ground, draw the enemy fire, and thus locate his base. I had done that. The advantage was mine. This thought must be repeated, to give psychological help to the physical necessity of somehow staying alive and sane.

Breathe deep. Tense, relax. The advantage is mine.

Oktober said: "Will you talk?"

I said: "No."

The scene changed a little. At the movement of his hand the two guards came away from the doors and halted within three yards of my chair, each pulling a Munslich eight-millimetre flat-butt and flicking the catch. Oktober looked at something behind my chair and I realised there was a fifth man here. He came into my range of view. He was the doctor who had used the needle on us at the Z-Bureau. His surgeon's gown was spotless and his hands moved deftly among the equipment in the kit that was carefully set down on a little japan-laquered table by my side. It would be the same hypodermic, I supposed.

The pattern emerged. He was the anaesthetist. The older man, finely groomed and noble of face, was the psychoanalyst. No crude torture, then. Just the direct clinical invasion of the psyche.

I had to alter, by a little, the move that must be made. The guards had closed in, making things more difficult but leaving a clear run to the doors once immediate opposition was dealt with. The threat of the guns was minimal: I was fairly confident they wouldn't fire. I was wanted alive. A leg-shot to stop me running would be pretty useless if they didn't actually strike a main nerve and paralyse the limb; a man can go on running with a leg-wound if he has the will.

I have never carried a gun in peace-time. It is an impediment, physically and psychologically. Some operators clutter themselves up with guns, code-books, flashlights and death-pills. I travel light. A gun is as clumsy as a woman's handbag. It is utterly useless in defence at a distance because you haven't time to draw even if you see the adverse party with his rifle levelled, which you won't. In Solly Rothstein's case I wasn't the target, and I was expecting the shot, and saw the rifle at the window; but I couldn't have picked off the sniper with a revolver at that range except by luck. Psychologically you have the advantage, unarmed, providing the adverse party knows that you are. (These people knew. They would have frisked me on the way here.) Knowing you have no gun they're not afraid of you, and fear is a natural spur to alertness: unarmed, you disarm them. Any demand at gun-point always carries the risk of failure because they mostly demand that you do something useful to them and you can't do much when you're dead. A gun is psychologically a penis-substitute and a symbol of power: the age-range of toy-shop clientele begins at about six or seven, rises sharply just before puberty and declines soon after the discovery of the phallus and its promise of power. From then on, guns are for kids and for the effete freaks and misfits who must seek psycho-orgasmic relief by shooting pheasants.

There are a few special situations when a gun is useful. This wasn't one of them. A gun would have been useless to me now.

Oktober spoke.

"Take off your coat."

The anaesthetist was filling the syringe. The fluid was colourless. There looked to be about two ounces.

Stand up. Breathe deep. Slip the coat off. Squeeze the toes, relax them. Remember: The advantage is mine. And now the final requisite: rage. The blood needed a shock-dose of adrenalin to anoint sudden intense physical action.

They're after my guts, this arrogant pack of Hitlerite Belsen bastards! A noble death-smeared underfoot by a clique of schizo shits!

The very action of taking off a jacket sets it up as a weapon because for an instant it is held both-handed like a matador's cape. I let Oktober have it across the face in a blinding shroud and kneed for his groin once and again and found the rim of the little japan-lacquered table and sent it pitching head-high to a man at the guard on the left, hearing the gun clatter down as the other guard swung a razor-chop left-handed that missed the neck and burned a shoulder-blade before I could get a sight of his leg and work on it. The placing was perfect because momentum was taking the weight of my body forward hard and at a low angle so that as my shoulder hit his knee my left hand hooked him behind the ankle so that the foot couldn't shift and he screamed as the knee-joint broke.

Someone fired but fired to miss and I knew it and kept up the pressure, thrown off balance now by the collapsing of the guard's leg but getting some of it back with one hand hitting the thick carpet and pivoting me half-round to face the line of run: the doors. The situation seemed comfortable so far: Oktober had staggered back because of the coat but my knee had found his groin second time and I'd heard the grunt in his throat and his face would be white by now. One guard out of action with a smashed leg. The anaesthetist would be psychologically worried by the wrecking of his equipment and didn't look unarmed-combat-trained anyway. The psychoanalyst wouldn't weigh in, wasn't his field.

I began the run. A foot beside me the pile was raised by the spit of a wide slug-shooting to miss again because at this range they could have split the spine if they'd wanted to. A word of command from Oktober. My right foot in trouble as fingers locked round the ankle and I hit ground half-way to the doors, jacknifing and swinging a buncher at the hands: no go. The table came and I twisted and caught it against the shoulder as the hands bettered their purchase and I had to engage with the guard, using my other foot against his neck and pressing back and back as he yielded, one hand coming away but the other holding on. Switch tactics: let the foot give way and bring his head closer with a jerk. No go again – he'd rolled and put the grip on and I had to kick for the side of the head, getting it once but not hard enough.