They weren't talking much. They stood looking at the sky because it was where they lived and where one of them had just died. A young Oberleutnant was trying to laugh it off:

'We're all right for another hundred days — who's complaining?' The pattern-crash average was one in ten days and there were ten main Striker bases operational. It was the Russian roulette attitude again.

An SK-6 straddled one of the dispersal bays not far off. In full daylight it looked as ugly as it had looked at dawn yesterday.

I asked Rohmhild who it was.

'Paul Dissen. You mat him last night.'

The one with the sea-horse. The one who'd been doing aerobatics with his hands at the bar.

Dr Wagner came up and the atmosphere changed in a subtle way that I only just caught. Under the surface it seemed he was their god. Not quite. Redeemer? No: shepherd. Saviour. I had the impression that if Wagner were actually to fly with them on exercise they would believe they were totally safe.

'It should be the last one.' He addressed Boldt, perhaps because he was their Geschwaderkommodore. I'd wondered what exact line he'd take: he hadn't come across to the flying-crew quarters to pass the time of day. Their nerves showed in the.;r eyes and their bands and their silence, and his job was to do what he could about it. 'This isn't a technical problem, you understand. The answer is available and the authorities may be obstinate but they are not blind.' His head was lifting and he looked at the others, sighting along his strong jutting nose. 'The generals blame the Defence Ministry and the Ministry has its face to save because it was responsible for ordering an aircraft that has proved itself dangerous. But there are pressures even at political level: the Americans inside NATO are urging Bonn to abandon the Striker's nuclear role and of course someone must eventually realize the absolute sense in that. Each time there's an accident these pressures are increased dramatically — that much is obvious, do you understand?' His light eyes surveyed them: he needed their reaction so that he could turn his argument and lead their attention into whatever channel would console them. 'So this could be the last one to happen before these planes are grounded. There has to be a last one and it will be soon.'

Boldt said quietly: 'It's not the plane.' He was looking across at the brutish shape on the tarmac. 'It's the pilot.'

Franz gave one of his short bitten-off laughs and the sound of it, the coldness in it, didn't help the others. He watched Boldt with his eyes flickering. Boldt said:

'I'm not talking about pilot efficiency.' His anger had been sparked off. 'You know that, Franz. You know it perfectly well. I mean pilot condition.'

Wagner was watching them both. He said to Boldt: 'You have a theory, I know. You've mentioned it to me.'

'Several.'

A telephone was ringing somewhere. I happened to be looking at Franz and his shock was physical. The others turned their heads and turned away again.

I knew that Wagner would have tried making Boldt open up about his theories in case they were dangerous to morale: Boldt was their leader and his opinions counted. But no one would be able to speak until someone inside the crew quarters answered that telephone.

Even little Wagner couldn't do anything. The silence was total, of the kind in which background noises made no difference: a traffic-control vehicle was droning round the perimeter road but they didn't hear it. Vision was the only sense with any significance and so they looked at the ground, the sky, the humped shape of the Widowmaker.

The telephone had stopped ringing and after a minute a door was jerked open and someone called to us.

Paul Dissen was sitting in a corner of the reading-room like a trapped animal. He watched us as we cams in.

Dr Wagner had given me the picture on our way here.

The M.O. wanted him hospitalized at first but there's nothing wrong with him physically except for slight traumatic lesions in the face and corneae. I believe he would brood too much in a hospital bed because he is overburdened with guilt-feelings, and nursing attention — sympathy of any sort — would of course aggravate them. It is better he should be free to roam where he likes for today and talk to anyone who will listen. His psychological need is to be hurt a little and we should bear that in mind during the interrogation. Of course you know all this, Herr Martin, but I am just pointing out that his experience seen in the light of his personal background provides a typical case, which makes it easier for us — and for him.'

Dissen got up as we reached him and Wagner motioned him down. His eyes were bloodshot and some of the cheek-area capillaries had burst, leaving red patches like those on a painted doll's face. According to his report he had baled out at forty thousand feet, which would have exposed him to something like two hundred knots in free-fall before the chute slowed him to thirty through the upper layers.

We drew up a couple of chairs and Wagner said cheerfully:

'You've had-an expensive day, Paul my good friend. Six million dollars. Never mind, we're delighted to see you back. I suppose you decided to panic, did you? Well, you're not the first.'

One had to get used to opposite-thinking. Dissen was a man in need but it wasn't the need for comfort. I remembered the faces of the pilots outside the crew quarters this morning when the door was jerked open — 'News of Paul! He's all right, he baled out!' There had been no spontaneous relief. One or two of them had looked deceived: the hundred days' grace had been denied them and it could happen tomorrow, a real one, a pattern-crash.

'No, Herr Doktor, I didn't panic.' He said it very deliberately. Wagner had triggered the reaction he was after: Dissen must be reminded that he had access to self-defence.

'You know Herr Martin, don't you?'

'Yes.'

'He's interested in what happened.'

Wagner had invited me to run the interrogation with himself sitting in. Dissen said to me:

'She began breaking up, that's all.' It was said with hostility. 'Do you know much about planes?'

'By «breaking-up» do you mean structurally? Structural failure?'

'That was what it sounded like.'

'Vibration? Fluttering?'

'Not quite. I'd call it resonance.'

'Nothing visual.'

'No.'

'Resonance. Has that happened before with the Striker?'

'No.'

'Not with your plane — I mean have you heard about it happening?'

'Sometimes.'

'So when it happened in your own plane did you remember having heard about it?'

'I didn't have time. I was too busy checking the display.'

It wasn't exactly a lie. He would have automatically checked his display as soon as the sound had come in. He would certainly have remembered hearing about resonance but fear would have driven the memory straight into his subconscious so that he could rationalize: she's breaking up and I'm getting out.

'Was the display in order?'

'The booster looked a bit unsteady.' He glanced with his suffused eyes from me to Wagner and back. 'You don't necessarily see anything wrong with the instruments when the whole plane's breaking up, surely you know that?'

Three pointers: 'looked a bit' didn't mean 'was'. And his glance to Wagner had been an appeal. And his defence had turned to attack: was I such a damned fool as not to 'know that'?

I didn't like doing this but I had to because Wagner was here and I could blow my cover if I dodged it. That could go a long way: Wagner had official influence and would get ms thrown out of Linsdorf and it was part of the mission to stay here and ferret out all I could.

I tried him on limited channel capacity. 'Have you ever felt overloaded in the Striker? Failure to assimilate?'

'Sometimes. We all feel it sometimes.'