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Biggles was a light sleeper, but he tended to sleep more deeply in his own flat, after this many years of being able to trust in the four walls around him and the three friends who shared his living space. Still, he came awake instantly at the feeling of something cold pressed against the side of his neck.
He stayed very still after that first startled instant. He was in his own bed, in his own flat: this much he knew. There was something cold and round digging into his neck, and a strong hand pressing on his shoulder. Not a friendly hand. He was lying on his side, so he had no idea who was at his back. There was a gun within easy reach beneath the mattress—but he could not reach for it.
He lay still and gazed at the dim yellow light of the street lamps outside, striping the wall between the drapes. His hands flexed a little and then relaxed. With the muzzle of a gun pressed to his neck, there was no move he dared to make.
A voice spoke behind him, low and cold. "You are awake."
Biggles kept his voice quiet. "If you've hurt my friends, you will regret it."
"My business is not with them."
The voice was familiar somehow. There was an accent, something Slavic, perhaps Russian. Then Biggles abruptly realized where he had heard it before, the years rolling back.
"Zorotov," he murmured. "I thought you died. Von Stalhein shot you."
There was no immediate answer. Biggles cast his mind back to the confusion and chaos of the jungle compound. He had never seen Zorotov's body except from a distance, and there had been a lot of distractions. He could imagine the man having survived; stranger things had certainly happened.
"So you're back to renew our quarrel?" Biggles asked quietly. "I wouldn't mind discussing it over a cup of something hot, if you'd care to."
"Quarrel? You are nothing to me," Zorotov said coolly. "You are only a means to an end."
He rose swiftly, the bed dipping under him as he bent over Biggles. Aware that the situation had changed, Biggles started to roll over despite the danger of the gun, but was met by something damp and smothering that was slapped over his mouth. A sharp, dizzying smell filled his nostrils. Biggles bucked his body in a single convulsive jerk, attempting to throw off his assailant. But that was all he had the opportunity for. The feeling that came over him was like blacking out in a high-stress maneuver in an aeroplane. Darkness telescoped in on his vision from the sides; his body grew cold and weak.
He woke with a sharp jerk. His first impressions were of movement and a splitting headache. After that he became aware that he was cold and he could not see. Nothing else penetrated his queasy misery for a short while, but gradual awareness of his surroundings crept in. From the smell and the jolting motion, he was in the boot of a car. His hands were bound behind him, and he was still wearing nothing but his pyjamas. His head hurt horribly.
The dizzying, nauseating ride seemed to go on forever before the car bounced to a stop. A car door opened and closed. Biggles tensed, attempting despite the awkward angle to twist his hands in their bonds. He had made no progress on loosening them—all he had managed to do was hurt his wrists and wrench one of his shoulders—by the time the boot opened, flooding the small space with grey morning light and chill, damp air.
Biggles was sharply aware of the vulnerability of his condition, sick and weak from the drug, barefoot in his pyjamas, shivering in the sharp morning chill.
And he was angry. For Biggles, anger on his own behalf was relatively rare, but the sheer audacity of Zorotov to invade his home and capture him in this uncivilized manner brought a cold clarity to his thoughts.
He decided to assume for the moment that his friends were all right. There was no reason to think otherwise, thus far at least. And he could not afford to split his attention between his own situation and theirs.
"Get up," Zorotov said, and hauled him unceremoniously out of the boot, dropping him to the ground. A brutal spike of pain went through his head, and he stumbled a little, reeling as he got his balance. Zorotov had withdrawn his grip, so there was no help to be offered, and it was difficult to steady himself with his hands tied behind his back. Getting his footing under him at last, bare feet recoiling from cold, cracked asphalt, Biggles looked around.
In the early grey light of a drizzling, dreary morning, all he could really tell about their location was that it seemed to be some sort of construction site. He couldn't tell exactly what type of building was going up; London in its manic postwar building boom was filled with places like this, the framework of a building half-constructed and perhaps abandoned for the winter season. There was a head-high concrete barrier that blocked his view of whatever might be on the other side; Zorotov had drawn the car close to it. On the other side of the construction site, there was a tall fence; beyond it, a rubble-strewn field, train tracks, and the back of a row of terraces.
It was a dismal and dreary scene. There was no sign of movement anywhere in the dull early-morning light; they might have been alone in the world, although Biggles could hear traffic on a motorway not too far away.
Zorotov pressed a gun into Biggles's back, then grasped his arm in a painful grip and propelled him forward. Biggles stumbled on the rough ground, trying to step around broken glass and other hazards. They stopped when they reached the base of the half-constructed building, really not much more than a skeleton draped in canvas and tarpaulins. Peering in, Biggles noted a few signs of a rudimentary campsite beneath a tarpaulin roof, a sleeping bag and some scattered, empty tins and packets. It was evident that Zorotov had been sleeping rough here, and also that he had made no attempt to keep his rude campsite clean.
"What an agreeable place. I see that you're doing well for yourself."
"Shut up," Zorotov said shortly.
He retrieved a rope from his campsite, keeping his gun trained on Biggles. Biggles considered making an attempt to run, but he had little hope of success with his feet bare and his hands tied. More useful by far to try to talk this through.
He had not lost his icy anger. It steadied him at his core, keeping his back straight and his face cool as he watched Zorotov as carefully as he would have examined the sky for incoming storm clouds approaching his aeroplane's wings.
It was clear that both Zorotov's fortunes and his standards had taken a downturn, even aside from the evidence provided by his rough campsite. He wore an open jacket with no tie; the limp-brimmed hat shoved down over his head looked more suited to hiding his face than anything to do with style. The car's number plates were splashed with mud, intentionally obscured. Biggles guessed that it was stolen.
"You've been kicked out, haven't you?" he guessed as Zorotov returned with the rope. "Or you're on the run. The Soviet service hasn't much of a pension plan, from what I hear."
Zorotov's only answer was a curse. Without getting too close, he made a loop of the rope and then tossed it over Biggles's head. Biggles, alarmed, jerked away, but the noose settled against his neck. Now really alarmed, he tried to shrug out of it by rolling his shoulders and then pulling back. Zorotov gave the rope a sharp, businesslike yank, and it jerked tight around Biggles's neck, making him cough.
Biggles felt a cold shock like ice water race down his spine. It was beginning to dawn on him that he was in a great deal of danger. In all his previous encounters with Zorotov, he had come out ahead, and on some level he had expected this one to end likewise. Now the cold reality of his situation was starting to hit, and hit hard.
Zorotov threw the end of the rope over a steel beam some ten feet off the ground. Biggles pulled away, but that did nothing except tighten the noose around his neck. Zorotov pulled it tighter, forcing him up onto his toes, and then tied it off. Biggles's other discomforts—the cold and the damp, his headache, a growing thirst—showed rapid signs of losing ground to the pain in his calves and neck as he tried to keep himself from losing his balance and garotting himself.
"I should have you know," Biggles said hoarsely, struggling to keep his balance, "that I was once nearly lynched in Canada. You've nothing on an angry mob armed with hunting rifles, I'm sorry to say."
Zorotov didn't answer. He was now searching through the construction debris, the gun held at his side. Biggles eyed it, considering the contortions that might be necessary to take it from him. Regrettably, it didn't seem likely that he would be able to get close enough unless Zorotov was very careless. Also, he still hadn't managed to loosen his hands yet.
"My friends will be missing me soon, if they haven't already," he said.
"They may miss you all they like. They will never find you — at least not in time."
This seemed unfortunately likely. He was on his own. "What do you want?" Biggles asked, wishing his head didn't pound so badly; it made it hard to think.
"What do you think? What business could I possibly have with you?" Zorotov straightened up with a large, rusty hammer in his hand. He tucked the gun into the waistband of his trousers. "I want the location of the traitor von Stalhein."
"Ah," Biggles said, mostly to himself.
"I know he went over to your side, the weak-minded fool," Zorotov said sharply. Under the circumstances and given his disregard for Zorotov's opinion, there was no reason why Biggles should have tensed resentfully at the insult to von Stalhein, but he still felt himself react. "He is somewhere about, likely in London, but I no longer have the resources I could have used to find him."
"So you have been fired," Biggles said.
"Be quiet. I will ask the questions." Zorotov slapped the hammer into the palm of his hand, causing bits of rust and dirt to flake down. "Finding him is difficult. You were much easier. Now you will tell me where he is."
"No, I will not," Biggles said quietly.
"You have no choice. No one will find you here. I am confident no other vehicles followed mine here, and there is no way anyone can connect this place with me or with you. It's just you and me, Bigglesworth—and we will be here until you tell me where he is."
"No," Biggles snapped.
With no warm-up or warning, Zorotov swung the hammer.
It struck a glancing blow to Biggles's ribs, and worse, knocked him off balance, jerking the rope tight around his neck. He experienced a moment of blinding panic as the noose cut off his air. He was able to get enough slack to breathe again once he got his balance, standing on his toes as before. His side throbbed brutally, and there were involuntary tears in his eyes from the pain and strangulation.
Biggles was frightened, furious, and hurting. He twisted his hands behind him frantically, heedless of the ropes tearing at his wrists. All he needed was enough slack to twist one hand free. Now that Zorotov had put his gun away, Biggles was confident that he could slip the rope off his neck before the former Soviet agent could draw on him. He just needed a brief moment's opportunity.
Zorotov, meanwhile, paced back and forth in front of him in a half-circle like a restless tiger, swinging the hammer loosely from his hand. His eyes glittered eagerly, and Biggles's dislike of him reached a feverish intensity. Men who enjoyed inflicting pain were the lowest sort.
"It's just the two of us here," Zorotov said. "And it will be just the two of us until I find out what I need to know. By the end, you will be pleading to tell me everything."
"Oh, I don't know about that," Biggles said, between shallow gasps for air. He twisting his hands again, feeling his wrists grow slick with a mix of rainwater and blood. "I'm notoriously stubborn."
Zorotov swung the hammer again, this time at his face. Alarmed, Biggles dived backward. The noose wrenched his neck agonizing, but rather than connecting solidly with his forehead, the hammer glanced off the side of his temple. He could feel it tear the skin, and then he was in a wild struggle to get back on his feet with his entire body galvanized by the panic of suffocation. He managed to recover his feet with his ears ringing and sparks dancing in his vision. He could feel blood trickling down the side of his face.
"Don't you understand?" Zorotov asked, his voice taking on an almost singsong quality. He stepped back again, out of striking distance. The hammer hung down by his side, and this time there was a bloody stain on the rust-dark head, which Biggles found distracting. His blood. "I am very good at getting information out of people. This will only get worse. What do you wish least to lose? Your teeth? Your face? Your dignity?"
"What do you wish to lose?" said a cool, familiar voice. In Biggles's dazed state, it took him a moment to realize that the voice had actually spoken in reality, not just in his imagination—and from where.
Von Stalhein was crouching on top of the concrete barricade. He had one knee down and the other cocked up and used as a prop for the gun that was aimed steadily at Zorotov. A long overcoat draped around him. In spite of the desperation of his own situation, Biggles couldn't help being impressed by what was, no doubt about it, a strikingly dramatic entrance.
Now that he had been seen, von Stalhein planted a hand on the concrete beside his leg and swung himself down gracefully, wobbling only a little on landing when he caught himself on his bad leg. He straightened and kept his gun trained on Zorotov, who eyed him with mingled anger and wariness.
Von Stalhein's gaze flicked to Biggles only briefly. There was a flicker of something in the cold steel-colored eyes, a quick flash of fury before he returned his level gaze to Zorotov.
"How did you find me?" Zorotov demanded. "Where did you come from? I was watching for a tail all the way here. There was none."
"Yes, that's because I've been observing you for days, so I was already here." Von Stalhein sounded mildly weary, like a teacher having to lecture a slow pupil. "I did make a couple of mistakes — and for that I'm sorry, Bigglesworth," he added, speaking directly to Biggles, as if Zorotov hardly warranted the attention. "I should have told you he was sniffing around. It never occurred to me that he might bother you. I assumed his only concern was me."
"I would still like to have known," Biggles said. His voice was hoarse; he cleared his throat. "You needn't deal with these things entirely on your own."
Von Stalhein nearly smiled; Biggles saw the quick tightening at the corners of his mouth. "I see he hasn't damaged you too much, if you're still capable of giving speeches."
"Stop ignoring me," Zorotov snarled. He drew his gun and aimed it at von Stalhein, who appeared coolly unimpressed.
"I apologize, Boris," von Stalhein said with impeccable precision. "What did you want again?"
Zorotov took a few quick steps back, and Biggles saw von Stalhein's face change—a slight paling, a tightening around the eyes. Zorotov rammed the head of the hammer into Biggles's back, making him wince.
"You have always sneered at me and looked down on me," Zorotov snarled. "You think you're better than me."
"I think you have always misread me, but let's go somewhere more congenial to discuss it," von Stalhein said, his voice perfectly level. "Your car is right there. You can take me to a place of your choosing; I will go willingly."
"No," Zorotov said. "You aren't in charge. You never were in charge, not of me, but you always acted like you were." He was all but spitting the words, punctuating each statement by jabbing Biggles in the kidneys with the hammer. Biggles gritted his teeth and tried not to react. "Now you're helpless. Powerless. And I'm going to show you exactly how much."
Biggles was aware of a swift movement behind him, and twisted his body to try to avoid the worst of it, but he took a blow from the hammer in the back. He made a pained sound—partly strangulation—and von Stalhein made a sound as well, a kind of choked-off cry.
As Biggles recovered, gasping, he saw von Stalhein's stricken face and realized that von Stalhein had made exactly the same mistake Biggles himself had made, that of underestimating Zorotov and presuming upon past victories. Now they were both caught in the same trap.
It was both of us, he thought, wishing he could say it aloud, but when he tried, all that emerged was a wheezing sound. Not just you.
Zorotov remained at Biggles's back, using him as a human shield. "How does it feel now? You always acted better than me, yet now we can both see how weak and foolish you are. You could have waited until I was done with him and perhaps defeated me then. Instead you reveal yourself and place yourself in my hands."
Von Stalhein took a slightly shaky breath, although his voice was steady when he spoke. "What point is there in causing unnecessary problems for ourselves by killing a policeman? You came here to find me, and now you have. Let's leave this place. By the time he frees himself, we'll be long gone."
"Oh, I don't think so," Zorotov said. His voice was soft and dangerous. "Not yet. You've stopped me from having the pleasure of interrogating him, but I think some use can be had from him yet. Throw your gun away or the next blow will break his spine."
There was no hesitation, none at all. Von Stalhein tossed his gun aside without a word. It clattered on the ground and skidded into a pile of bricks.
"Now beg me for his life."
"Excuse me?" von Stalhein said. He looked genuinely startled.
"Beg me. I know you, Erich; I know that your pride means more to you than anything. To lose it is the thing that would destroy you most thoroughly." There was a cruel pleasure in Zorotov's voice. "I would enjoy seeing you grovel. How weak are you, exactly? How far will you go? Let me hear you beg."
Zorotov reached up. Biggles realized what he was doing, but couldn't react; bound as he was, there was nothing he could do except try to lean back and take it more easily.
Zorotov grasped the rope and jerked down on it. Biggles's air was cut off completely. The noose tightened around his neck, and he choked painfully.
Through the ringing in his ears, he heard von Stalhein say sharply, "Stop!" There was a desperate note to his voice that Biggles had never heard there before. "Please—that's what you want to hear, isn't it? Very well then. Please. I am asking you not to hurt him."
Biggles struggled to get his balance again, taking rasping breaths as he regained enough slack on the rope to do so. "Giving a bully what they want," he began, and had to gasp for air. His throat felt bruised and swollen; his voice was a pained rasp. "Only makes them do it again."
"Bigglesworth," von Stalhein said, with a slight catch in his throat of something that sounded like it was trying not to become laughter. "I would ask you not to lecture me at this exact moment."
"It's not lecturing," Biggles said. He coughed painfully. "It's the truth, and you know it."
"Shut up." Zorotov still had his hand on the rope. He gave it a sharp twitch, and Biggles coughed again.
"Stop!" von Stalhein protested. "This is between you and me; he has nothing to do with it. Cut him down, and I will go with you without quarrel."
Von Stalhein spoke calmly, but he looked pale and stricken. Zorotov kept a hand on the rope, and Biggles was acutely aware of it. His muscles tensed involuntarily in anticipation of further pain, which tweaked his bruised side. There might be cracked ribs, he thought distantly.
"Beg for it, then." Zorotov's voice was low and filled with a horridly gleeful anticipation. He dragged down on the rope, just enough to tighten it against Biggles's already abused throat. "Get down on your knees so you can beg properly. You crawled to these British dogs, so you can crawl for me now."
Von Stalhein went to his knees without protesting.
"There's no need for this," Biggles got out. His breath was reduced to cracked wheezing, the words forced out painfully between gasps. "It isn't going to do anything, Erich."
"I might have known you'd do it," Zorotov sneered. "You have no pride to lose any more, do you? Go on, hands and knees. Abase yourself."
Von Stalhein obediently put his hands on the ground. But there was a quiet dignity to him in spite of it all. Biggles, despite the growing desperation of his situation—he was struggling for each gasp of air through his bruised, constricted throat—found himself fascinated. There was nothing reduced about von Stalhein like this. Instead there was a sort of calmness to him, the inner calm of a man who was sure of his own decision.
Zorotov evidently sensed it and didn't like it. A jerk on the rope brought involuntary tears of pain to Biggles's eyes. "Beg," Zorotov snapped.
"Please," von Stalhein said quietly. He looked up, and though it was Zorotov he spoke to, it was Biggles's eyes he met. Von Stalhein's blue-steel gaze was calm but intent. "I will give you anything you like if you don't hurt him."
"Down on your face," Zorotov said harshly.
Von Stalhein did so, once again without protest, abasing himself on the muddy ground.
"Now," Zorotov began, but he had no chance to finish, because tyres crunched on the gravel and asphalt. A large car—a very familiar car—pulled up behind Zorotov's smaller sedan, effectively blocking it in.
It was the Bentley.
There was only one person in the Bentley — it looked like Bertie from here — but just then Ginger appeared at the top of the concrete barricade, and Algy stepped out from the far side of the building's steel frame, gun in hand. "Don't think about moving," he said grimly.
Von Stalhein rose from his flattened position. There was a look of fierce triumph on his face.
"Oh yes, I'm afraid I neglected to mention something." He wiped mud off his face with the back of his hand, and the corner of his austere mouth turned up in a slight smile. "I took the liberty of ringing Bigglesworth's friends as soon as I saw you here with him. You see, Zorotov, there is a key difference between men like Bigglesworth and men like us. We work alone. They do not. That's why we could never defeat them, and never will."
Zorotov snarled like a furious animal and clenched his hand on the rope. Biggles opened his mouth to give warning but he couldn't; the sudden jerk on the noose blotted out his vision in black and red whorls.
He was dimly aware of a lot of people moving very quickly all at once, faintly heard a pained grunt, and Zorotov was wrenched away from him.
Then someone was holding him up, and he blinked his eyes clear of the involuntary tears from the pain and strangulation. It was Ginger who had hold of him, while von Stalhein, supporting him with a hand under one shoulder, very gently unwound the rope from around his bruised neck.
Biggles staggered as he was suddenly relieved of its support, and he found himself leaning heavily on both of them. Nearby, Zorotov was flat on his stomach in the mud with an enraged Algy kneeling on him, gun pressed to the back of his head. Bertie arrived on the double, bringing a rope.
"That bastard," von Stalhein said softly, looking into Biggles's face. He touched his thumb to the corner of Biggles's eye, and Biggles only realized that he was swiping away blood when a tickle he had barely noticed was suddenly relieved.
"It's all right," Biggles got out. He drew a shuddering breath. His voice was a cracked rasp, and his throat ached abominably. "I wouldn't mind ... having my hands free, if you've a knife on you."
"Right, sorry, I've got it," Ginger said.
There was a tug on the bonds around Biggles's wrists, and then the rope parted. He flexed his hands. The wrists were sore, the fingers swollen and painful. Although he had completely stopped noticing the cold in the last few minutes' standoff, now he became aware that he was shivering, and his feet were almost numb.
Von Stalhein shrugged out of his overcoat and wrapped it around Biggles. Between the two of them, Ginger and von Stalhein guided him over to the Bentley. Von Stalhein sat him down on the backseat with the door open, while Ginger got a canteen and wet down a clean handkerchief.
Biggles felt as if he was floating in a haze through all of this, but when Ginger started dabbing at his forehead with the handkerchief, it stung enough to him somewhat back to himself. "There's no need for that," he said.
"You're absolutely covered in blood," Ginger protested.
"Here, give me that, please," von Stalhein said. Ginger looked mildly mutinous but then yielded the handkerchief, and von Stalhein used it to poke painfully at Biggles's scalp.
Biggles murmured protest and tried to pull his head away, but all that happened was that von Stalhein wrapped his other hand around the back of Biggles's head to hold him still while he finished doing whatever he was doing and then pressed the wadded-up handkerchief flat to Biggles's forehead with his palm.
"There's a flap of your scalp torn loose," he said matter-of-factly. "This will help, but you're going to need stitches."
His palm was warm and steady against Biggles's aching head; his other hand still rested lightly at the back of Biggles's neck.
Ginger, meanwhile, was rummaging around in the floor of the car and came up with a flask. "Tea," he explained. "While the rest of us were running about looking for weapons, Bertie was making a pot of tea, for reasons known only to him. It might be good for your throat."
Biggles gave a little nod and accepted the flask. He took a couple of sips, swallowing with difficulty. It did help a bit, but his throat hurt abominably.
There was some cursing and scuffling from the direction of whatever was going on with Zorotov, and Algy called, "Ginger, do we have handcuffs in the car?"
"I don't think so!" Ginger shouted back, and went to see what was going on, leaving Biggles and von Stalhein alone for a moment.
Biggles sipped a little more tea. Von Stalhein was on eye level with him, as he had gone down to one knee on the muddy ground to tend Biggles's head wound, but he was looking up at Biggles's forehead and not looking him in the eyes. There was a smear of Biggles's blood on his cheek.
"You know, everything you told Zorotov was on the money except one thing," Biggles said quietly.
Von Stalhein shifted his gaze to meet Biggles's eyes. There was an odd look in his eyes, concern mixed with wariness. "And what might that be?"
"You told him that men like you work alone. You're wrong, Erich." Biggles had to pause to cough, but he went on stubbornly. "That was true once, but not any more. You proved it today by relying on our friends for backup and buying time until they got here. What you should have said is that men like him work alone, but men like us don't — and that is why we will always defeat men like him."
Von Stalhein gazed at him for a moment, his face absolutely blank. Then he smiled ever so slightly, and the smile brought warmth to his eyes, enough so that Biggles wondered that he had ever thought them cold. "You need to stop talking. You sound like you've swallowed a handful of gravel. Save your throat, and drink some tea."
He followed this up by taking Biggles's bare, muddy feet and placing them on his thigh, off the cold ground.
Biggles tried to object to this cosseting, but he started coughing instead, which hurt his ribs, and sipped from the flask to make it stop. Von Stalhein's hand was warm and firm against his forehead, and inside the borrowed coat, he was starting to warm up.