The Factory by Brian Freemantle

avoiding the lift, whose noise might have alerted the Russian. At the door Fowler stood to one side, gently inserting the key, with an officer on the other side with bolt-cutters ready to sever instantly any security chain. The door was chained but Fowler opened it so gently that it made no jarring sound and the chain parted with the smallest of clicks.
    They were actually entering the bedroom before Shidak awoke, driving his hand beneath the pillow. Before he could grasp the Colt automatic Fowler’s pistol was at the base of his skull, pressing the Russian’s head further into the bedding.
    â€˜If you move to get that gun out, I’ll Art,’ said Fowler calmly. ‘You could never get it free in time. Your head will be blown right off.’
    Shidak remained motionless.
    Fowler said: ‘You’re a bloody awful assassin, you know.’
    It took a lot of persuasion before the Director General agreed to the interrogation being dealt with as Fowler suggested, and Bell ordered conditions even then, insisting that before Fowler made his announcements the questioning had to concentrate upon there being a Russian spy actually within British intelligence. Bell made that part of the inquiry vague, because he was trying to contain the suggestion getting out that he feared the source actually to be within his own department.
    â€˜What if he confirms it? Identifies somebody?’
    â€˜Then we don’t handle it your way at all,’ said Bell. ‘We keep him. Use him.’
    â€˜Do I tell him that?’
    â€˜No. He’ll just lie. Stall for time. He either knows or he doesn’t.’
    Shidak didn’t. He was bewildered by Fowler’s questions and said he didn’t know what the man was talking about. Fowler persisted under the restraints imposed upon him for three days before the Director General finally accepted that yet again he was not going to get the lead he was so desperately seeking.
    â€˜So I tell him?’ said Fowler.
    â€˜Tell him,’ agreed Bell.
    The interrogation was not conducted in a police cell or prison because they did not want any information whatsoever of Shidak’s arrest to become public. The Russian was held in a heavily guarded safe house owned by the department in Surrey, about fifteen miles from London. During the days since his arrest and the pointless questioning about a Soviet spy deep within British intelligence, Shidak’s confidence had returned and he greeted Fowler on the fourth day with an attitude verging upon conceit.
    â€˜More about unknown spies today?’ he said as soon as Fowler entered the room.
    â€˜No, not any more,’ agreed Fowler easily. ‘Let’s talk about you today.’
    â€˜I don’t choose to talk about anything,’ said Shidak. He’d refused to give any explanation for leaving Alice Irving or for his being in Kensington with the automatic and rifle or for having a map marked with the route the Russian delegation were going to take for two official functions during their visit to London, which began the following day.
    Fowler picked up the map now, holding it in front of the man, and said: ‘Why are those routes marked?’
    â€˜I’ve never seen that map before.’
    â€˜It’s covered with your fingerprints.’
    â€˜Planted.’
    â€˜What about the M-16 and the Colt automatic?’
    â€˜I know nothing about any M-16 and a Colt automatic’
    â€˜They’ve got your fingerprints all over them as well.’
    â€˜Planted again.’
    Fowler smiled, unperturbed. ‘Those guns are illegal. You know that, don’t you?’
    â€˜I’ve told you I know nothing about any guns.’
    â€˜We could prosecute you for their possession, of course. But that’s all we could do: the only provable crime you’ve committed. And that’s not much, considering you intended assassinating a visiting Soviet politician, is it?’
    Shidak snorted