Lie down with lions - Ken Follett [152]
After the trial Ellis would be interrogated by the KGB. He would make an initial show of resisting the torture, then pretend to break down and tell them everything; but what he told them would be all lies. They were prepared for that, of course, and they would torture him further; and this time he would act a more convincing breakdown, and tell them a mixture of fact and fiction that would be difficult for them to check out. That way he hoped to survive. If he did, he would be sent to Siberia. After a few years, he might hope to be exchanged for a Soviet spy captured in the States. If not, he would die in the camps.
What would grieve him most would be to be parted from Jane. He had found her, and lost her, and found her again—a piece of luck that still made him reel when he thought of it. To lose her a second time would be unbearable, unbearable. He lay staring at her for a long time trying not to go to sleep for fear she might not be there when he woke up.
Jane dreamed she was in the George V Hotel in Peshawar, Pakistan. The George V was in Paris, of course, but in her dream she did not notice this oddity. She called room service and ordered a fillet steak, medium rare, with mashed potatoes, and a bottle of Château Ausone 1971. She was terribly hungry, but she could not remember why she had waited so long before ordering. She decided to take a bath while they were preparing her dinner. The bathroom was warm and carpeted. She turned on the water and poured in some bath salts, and the room filled with scented steam. She could not understand how she had let herself get this dirty: it was a miracle they had admitted her into the hotel! She was about to step into the hot water when she heard someone calling her name. It must be room service, she thought, how annoying—now she would have to eat while she was still dirty, or let the food get cold. She was tempted to lie down in the hot water and ignore the voice—it was rude of them to call her “Jane” anyway; they should call her “Madame”—but it was a very persistent voice, and somehow familiar. In fact it was not room service, but Ellis, and he was shaking her shoulder, and with the most tragic sense of disappointment, she realized that the George V was a dream, and in reality she was in a cold stone hut in Nuristan, a million miles from a hot bath.
She opened her eyes and saw Ellis’s face.
“You have to wake up,” he was saying.
Jane felt almost paralyzed by lethargy. “Is it morning already?”
“No, it’s the middle of the night.”
“What time?”
“One thirty.”
“Fuck.” She felt angry with him for disturbing her sleep. “Why have you woken me?” she said irritably.
“Halam has gone.”
“Gone?” She was still sleepy and confused. “Where? Why? Is he coming back?”
“He didn’t tell me. I woke up to find he had gone.”
“You think he’s abandoned us?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, God. How will we find our way without a guide?” Jane had a nightmare dread of getting lost in the snow with Chantal in her arms.
“I’m afraid it could be worse than that,” said Ellis.
“What do you mean?”
“You said he would make us suffer for humiliating him in front of that mullah. Perhaps abandoning us is sufficient revenge. I hope so. But I assume he’s headed back the way we came. He may run into the Russians. I don’t think it will take them long to persuade him to tell them exactly where he left us.”
“It’s too much,” said Jane, and a feeling almost like grief gripped her. It seemed as if some malign deity were conspiring against them. “I’m too tired,” she said. “I’m going to lie here and sleep until the Russians come and take me prisoner.”
Chantal had been stirring quietly, moving her head from side to side and making sucking noises, and now she started to cry. Jane sat up and picked her up.
“If we leave now we can still escape,” Ellis said. “I’ll load the horse while you feed her.”
“All right,” said Jane. She put Chantal to her breast. Ellis watched her for a second, smiling faintly, then went out