He was in quarantine, being kept under observation to see if he collapsed dead of whatever had afflicted Torben Roth and the other guy at the safe house in Lausanne. He supposed the same was being done with Silvie. Maybe she was just next door, in an identical room the other side of the tiled wall.But knowing what was happening didn’t make it easier to bear. Hours dragged torturously by. The lights stayed on brightly the entire time, making it impossible to tell day from night, and before too long it became hard to preserve his outwardly cool attitude. Ben was no Zen master. And this place lacked the serenity of Chartreuse de la Sainte Vierge de Pelvoux that had taught him to quieten his thoughts. Frustration and anger began to gnaw increasingly at him. Anxiety about Silvie. Impatience at being cooped up helplessly in here while Streicher was still out there somewhere, getting harder to find by the minute and the hour.He slept, tossing and turning a while, then sat a while, then paced and banged on the window and demanded a response, then got none and went back to pacing and doing press-ups and sit-ups, until he was tired out and sweaty and had a wash and went back to bed with his back defiantly turned to the two-way mirror.He was sleeping when the doctors came into his room.
