Notes

apan
It was early autumn, the fourth autumn ITel had passed
in his cell in Sugamo Prison. He knelt on the floor be
foro his deak/bed, lost in an elusive problem of Basque
grammar, when he felt a tingling at the roots of the hair
on the nape of his neck. Ho lifted his head and con-
centrated on the projections he was intercepting, This
person's approaching aura was alien to him. There were
sounds at the door, and it swung open. A smiling guard
with a triangular ncar on his forehead entered, one
Nicholai had never seen or felt before.
The guard cleared his throat. "Come with me,
please."
Hel frowned. The O。.. nasal form? Respect lan-
age from a guard to a prisoner? He carefully arranged
is notes and closed the book before rising. He in
structed himself to be calm and careful. There could be
hope in this unprecedented rupture of routino
danger. He roso and preceded the guard out of the
"Mr. Hel? Delighted to make your acquaintance."
The polished young man rose to shake Hel's hand as he
entered the visitors' room. The contrast between his
close-fitting Ivy League suit and narrow tie and Hel's
crumpled gray prison uniform was no greater than that
between their physiques and temperaments. The hearty
CIA agent was robust and athlotic, capable of the first-
naming and knee-jerk congeniality that marks the
rved
American salesman. Hel, slim and wiry, was rese
and distant. The agent, who was noted for winning im-
mediate confidences, was a creature of words and rea
son. Hel was a creature of meaning and undertone. It
was the battering man and the rapier.
The agent nodded permission for the guard to leave
Hel sat on the edge of his chair, having had nothing but
his steel cot to sit on for three years, and having lost
200

the facility for sitting back and relaxing. After all that
time of not hearing himself addressed in. social speech,
he found the urbane chat of the agent not so much dis-
turbing as irrelevant.
"I've asked them to bring up a little tea," the agent
said, smiling with a gruff shagginess of personality that
he had always found so effective in public relations.
"One thing you've got to hand to these Japanese, they
make a good cup of tea-what my limey friends call
nice cuppa," He laughed at his failure to produce a
recognizable cockhey accent.
Hel watched him without speaking, taking some plea-
sure in the fact that the American was caught off bal-
ance by the battered appearance of his face, at first
glancing away uneasily, and subsequently forcing him-
self to look at it without any show of disgust.
"You're looking pretty fit, Mr. Hel. I had expected
that you would show the effects of physical inactivity.
Of course, you have one advantage. You don't overeat.
Most people overeat, if you want my opinion. The old
human body would do better with a lot less food than
we give it. We sort of clog up the tubes with chow
don't you agree? Ah, here we are! Here's the tea."
The guard entered with a tray on which there was a
thick pot and two handleless Japanese cups. The
agent poured clumsily, like a friendly bear, as though
gracelessness were proof of virility. Hel accepted the
cup, but he did not drink
Cheers," the agent said, taking his first sip. He shook
his head and laughed. "I guess you don't say 'cheers'
when you're drinking tea. What do you say?"
Hel set his cup on the table beside him. "What do
you want with me?"
Trained in courses on one-to-one persuasion and
small-group management, the agent believed he could
sense a cool tone in Hel's attitude, so he followed the
rules of his training and flowed with the ambience of
the feedback. "I guess you're right. It would be best to
get right to the point. Look, Mr. Hel, I've been review-
ing your case, and if you ask me, you got a raw dea
That's my opinion anyway."
Hel let his eyes settle on the young man's open
frank face. Controlling impulses to reach out and break