The Bear's Tears

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: No Country for Old Men

Hyde emerged from the low wooden hut, closing the cover of his Austrian passport on the weekend visa which allowed him entry into Czechoslovakia. Immediately, his eyes sought, and found, the hired Ford and the fur-coated woman standing beside it. He tapped his cold cheek with his passport, then descended the steps towards a dirty, grey Volkswagen Beetle, its roof-rack displaying skis and ski-sticks. Manfred Richer, Hyde's cover-name, was going ski-ing at one of the resorts in the Little Carpathians, north of Bratislava. There were at least a dozen other cars displaying skis in the queue to cross the border at Petrzalka, on the main autobahn between Vienna and Bratislava.

And yet he fought to calm his breathing — sending up little grey, cold puffs of air like distress signals — as he watched Margaret Massinger climb into the Ford, reverse, turn, and head back towards Vienna. He had no sense of her danger, only of his own. He glared at the retreating Ford, then turned his head to stare balefully at the red and white pole and the grey, urgent river beyond.

And the city beyond the river and the bridge. Inside Czechoslovakia.

You've crossed borders before, he told himself as he massaged his gloved hands slowly together. The healing skin was still tender. The palms and backs of his hands were still lightly bandaged. It was a reminder of fragility and, strangely, of isolation. He turned his head, watching the plume of the Ford's exhaust disappearing into the hazy grey morning. When he returned his gaze to Bratislava, it seemed in the snow-threatening air that the castle had crept closer to the river, like a guard anticipating his attempt to cross the border.

Hyde shivered, opened the door, kicked the slush from his boots against the car, then climbed into the driving seat. He started the engine. The pole began to swing up. An armed guard waved the queuing cars forward. He rubbed the clouded rear mirror. There was no longer any sign of the Ford. Briefly, he was aware of Margaret Massinger as another person, real like himself, at risk like himself with her instructions and the camera and film they had bought — then she retreated in his mind. He gripped the driving wheel, pressing his palms down upon it to pain them. He shuddered. He could not shake off the sense of impending failure or ignore the hurried desperation that had impelled him to this border crossing.

The arrangements had been easy. A call to Zimmermann, an address in a quiet old Viennese street, Margaret Massinger watching him intently while the lights glared in his eyes and his passport photographs were taken, the hours of work, the fake stamps — the resulting Austrian passport and the new identity. The skis and sticks, the goggles, the winter clothing, the boots…

The clockwork, hectic rush for a surprise holiday or business trip.

To end here, he thought, putting the Volkswagen into gear and letting off the handbrake. Bratislava looked as cold and inhospitable as the Danube beneath the cloudy, snow-filled sky. He revved the engine and shuffled the car forward in the queue. To end here — nerves frayed, confidence ebbed like a tide. Dry like a riverbed, he told himself. He was in poor shape. Everything depended upon him. The weight of that dependence pressed down on him.

The back wheels of the Beetle slithered in the rutted slush at the end of the sliproad, then he was passing beneath the raised pole. He glanced up at it, then down to look through the windscreen. Steeples had joined the castle on the lumpy, indistinct horizon. They appeared like up thrust rifles or spears. Hyde felt there was no comfort to be derived from his papers, from the ease of his passage, from the car awaiting him in Bratislava, a gun taped to the underside of its chassis in a waterproof bag. No comfort. The thing was hopeless from the beginning…

The river slid beneath the bridge, its surface like dirty glass, yet suggesting movement as quick and dangerous as the body of some great snake.

They had beaten Massinger savagely about the head with the barrels of their pistols, and when he did not slump immediately to the floor but still clung to them, struggling desperately, they, had shot him in the leg. Perhaps the gun had discharged accidentally — certainly Wilkes had been enraged by the noise and the blood — but they seemed determined to punish Massinger. Heaping on him, Aubrey thought, all blame for the frustration of their schemes.

Thirty-six and more hours later, it was easy to believe that Paul Massinger was dying, even dead. It was hard to recall the semiconscious man thrust beside him in the rear of the large Mercedes without imagining that the mask of blood he wore and the red-stained scarf tightened around his thigh were exact prophecies of the American's death. He had not been allowed to see Massinger since their arrival at the safe house. Aubrey, during the entire time, had found his thoughts obsessed by what Massinger had been murmuring in pain and semi-delirium in the back of the car. That, too, suggested an approaching death — the American's desperate attempts to whisper his suspicions to Aubrey before it was too late.

Stop it, stop it, he instructed himself. Massinger isn't dying, Massinger won't die—

Not from those wounds, he began to assure himself, but the phrase became imprecise in his thoughts; became not yet — won't die yet.

Because Massinger certainly would die. They would both die. To make the books balance, to keep matters neat and tidy, they would be disposed of.

Aubrey, hunched over the hands he clasped in his lap, nodded agreement with his conclusions as he sat on the edge of the hard bed, the curtains at the barred window still drawn, the light of the lamp a sickly yellow that fell upon his head and shoulders; upon his crumpled, collarless shirt and unshaven cheeks and ruffled, tufted remains of hair. He shivered, though the room was warm. His thoughts had conspired with the efficient but noisy radiators to keep him awake during most of the night; continually lurching him back to semi-consciousness, back to images of the gun barrels descending on Massinger, back to the deafening noise of the gun detonating in the high-ceilinged room. Back, too, to the doors bursting open, the immediate sense of attack and capture; then the struggle, then the stairs, the cold dusk, the back seat of the car, Massinger's moans and pain interrupting his whispered suspicions, and the name—

The one name, which did not surprise him because it matched the cleverness of the whole Teardrop scenario. It was Teardrop's final justification.

Babbington.

Massinger did not know. The real suspicions belonged to Wolfgang Zimmermann, but Aubrey believed them. He knew those suspicions were correct. He rubbed his arm, noticing a tiny red spot in the crease of his bent elbow. Only then did he associate the dry, ugly taste in his mouth with the administration of a sedative; only then, perhaps two hours after rising from the bed, did he remember the needle and Wilkes's smirking features. They had drugged him to keep him quiet.

Then had he dreamed all those half-waking moments during the night? Had he dreamed the clunking of the radiators, the heat of the narrow room? He rubbed his unshaven cheeks warily and with apprehension. It unnerved and frightened him, that sudden and new sense of vulnerability. His hands shook and he could not still them. He felt saliva dribble down his chin and wiped at it viciously. His hands shook as he studied them. Babbington, Wilkes, others, may have watched him sleeping, may have been there…

One of the radiators clunked. The noise made him stand up stiffly and walk to the corner of the room and a wash-basin fitted to the wall. He avoided the mirror's image of himself, bending his head, swallowing tepid water from his cupped hand, then bathing his eyes and cheeks and forehead as the water ran colder. Icy.

He looked round for a towel. Thin, striped, much-used. He dried his face gratefully.

The door opened. Wilkes held it ajar. Babbington stepped into the room, shaven, his cologne preceding him, his dark suit uncreased. His lips smiled. Aubrey was unsurprised. He had known the man would come.

I was not asleep, he told himself. I did keep waking. The sedative did not work — not effectively. I was almost awake. Yet he knew that Babbington had stood over the bed at some time during the evening or night. The man's smile betrayed it.

"Kenneth," he said softly, silkily.

"How is Massinger?" Aubrey snapped, deliberately folding and hanging the towel.

"Alive."

"Recovering, I trust?"

"Yes, I think we can say he is recovering very well…"

"Every blow — every blow was delivered by you — your malice was in all of it!" Aubrey raged, surprised by his own outburst. His body quivered. "Because he tried to help me—!"

"I'm sorry you feel that, Kenneth," Babbington murmured. "Please sit down — my dear Kenneth, do sit down." He indicated one of the two narrow armchairs, and the bed. "Please," he soothed.

Aubrey watched the man's eyes. Did he know—? Was he here to learn—?

Babbington sat in one of the chairs. Wilkes tugged aside the curtains. The daylight was grey and snowy. "Bring Sir Kenneth his breakfast, Wilkes," Babbington instructed. Before Aubrey could say anything, Wilkes had left the room. Aubrey sank into the depression in the bedclothes he had previously made. Babbington leaned forward in the chair, hands touching as if at the commencement of prayer. "Believe me, Kenneth, I am sorry about Massinger — but, he brought the whole thing upon himself. You realise that, surely—?"

"They clubbed him down and enjoyed doing so."

Babbington flicked one hand impatiently, then it returned to accompany its twin in further prayer. "I have said I'm sorry, Kenneth. Zeal — and anger. Yes, justified anger, perhaps. Your American friend has caused us a great deal of inconvenience—"

"I see."

"Good."

"I take it he is already in hospital?" Aubrey asked with calculated innocence.

Babbington hesitated, and Aubrey knew that the crucial moment had arrived. Babbington would never return him to England. Babbington must know about Zimmermann, must know how close suspicion was to him—! Aubrey understood his hesitation, the vague shadow of a desire to solve the problem without further violence. Perhaps he, too, had been shocked by the bruised, broken face and the gunshot wound?

"He will be," Babbington replied eventually, and by his tone Aubrey knew that Babbington had relinquished any hope of their ignorance; of their survival. His glance apologised for his decision. Then he added, sighing: "There really isn't anything to say, is there?"

"Perhaps not—"

"In the car — Wilkes heard, you see…" Babbington explained heavily, guiltily.

Aubrey turned and switched off the bedside lamp, whose light was more sickly than ever. With his face averted, he murmured: "I understand."

"You couldn't have hoped—" Babbington began in a tone of protest.

"No," Aubrey snapped, turning to face him. "What will you do about Zimmermann? No doubt you realise how much he knows?"

Babbington bared his teeth, but could not summon the confident smile he desired. "Yes," he said in an ugly voice.

Aubrey held up one hand, fingers spread. He counted off the names he recited. "Shelley, Hyde, Zimmermann — what has begun can't be stopped, Andrew. You must see that…" Aubrey's voice tailed off. Babbington was shaking his head in disagreement, and his smile had become more confident.

"Your own fate will settle matters nicely, Kenneth," he announced. There was still something of bluff, of self-deceit in the voice, but it was evident that Babbington's confidence was growing. Soon, he would command the conversation.

"My fate?" Aubrey enquired.

"Your fate. And that of the American, naturally."

"Naturally." Aubrey's face twisted at the mockery in Babbington's voice. He snapped: "I cannot — simply cannot comprehend your treachery!"

Babbington blushed. His lips tautened, as if his face had been struck. His eyes were chilly. "Don't be so ridiculously naïve, Kenneth."

"Naïve?"

"Patriotism — with your experience of the world? With your knowledge of the skeletons in the closets? Patriotism?" There was a stinging contempt in the tone. Babbington had mastered his voice now. "You're as naïve as that American in the next room, Kenneth. I thought we could safely have left the flag and the anthem to our colonial cousins — this late in the day. I'm surprised at you."

"I'm a little surprised at myself." Aubrey was slowly shaking his head. His lips were formed in a smile.

"Which is why I could never have released you, or allowed you to go free," Babbington announced. "You are even more dangerous than I thought."

"Why, Andrew?" Aubrey asked immediately, unbalancing Babbington, whose cheeks flushed. He smoothed them with his hands, removing evidence.

"Why?"

"Why treachery? You have — everything. You gained the high ground by your own abilities. What can you possibly have gained from them?"

"Unlike yourself, the secret life has never been all in all to me." Babbington smiled, catlike.

"I repeat — what on earth did they have to offer you?" He paused, and continued with biting irony: "For someone with your advantages — your background, education, influential relatives, intellectual promise? What was it? A taste for the same kind of danger that makes a figure prominent in public life — who simply happens to prefer men to women — take to haunting public lavatories?" He smiled. "Is that it? The danger in the deceit — the risk of the policeman's footsteps and voice outside a grimy, odorous cubicle in a public urinal?"

Babbington's cheeks reddened. Then he waved the insults aside. "Perhaps," he admitted. "More to do, I think, with the public lavatory to which you offer up your naïve patriotism." His face darkened, and he leaned forward. "This country, Kenneth. This country since the war. Look for the answer there — in the piddling little American aircraft carrier we have become over the years. The whining, useless voice wailing in the corridors of the UN!" Babbington's rage was sudden, surprising, and genuine. Aubrey was shocked by it. Shocked, too, by the contempt at the core of the man; the lonely peak his ego had climbed. Babbington's clenched fist banged his thigh. "You remain loyal to it? To our masters? How can you? How can you?"

"As you said — naïvety."

"It was not sufficient for me — I couldn't be naïve."

"No. You never could. And what did they offer?"

"Eminence. No, not your sort of secret eminence, unregarded even by yourself—" He broke off. "You never really sought the Director-Generalship after Cunningham, did you?" Aubrey shook his head in agreement. "Eminence," Babbington repeated. "Eminence with the most powerful secret organisation in the world. Do you understand?"

"I think so. A monkey requiring a larger audience for its tricks."

"You foolish old man," Babbington hissed.

"What can you do to me? More than you intend?"

Babbington shook his head. "No — not more than I intend already." He smiled. "You don't display much curiosity in that direction, Kenneth?"

"Should I?"

"I think perhaps you should."

"My appearance in Moscow would clear the field for you. I also think the idea would have a certain — appeal for you? As for poor Massinger, I presume quick disposal will suffice for him." Aubrey was studying his hands as they lay inertly in his lap. He would not give Babbington the satisfaction of looking into his face and showing him his fears.

"You have no country now, Kenneth," Babbington announced. "No country whatsoever. Not much to show for forty years of loyal service."

Aubrey's head snapped up. His pale eyes were hard. "I have the small satisfaction of knowing that for forty years I have occupied the time and space that might otherwise have been filled by someone like you," he delivered in a waspish, superior tone. He was satisfied with the flinch of reaction in Babbington's eyes.

"It is now occupied by me," Babbington replied after a moment. "And consequently your forty years has been an entire waste of your life. Your whole life has been meaningless." He stood up.

Aubrey said, "Why now?"

"What?"

"Teardrop. Why now, at this precise moment?"

"The time seemed right. The scenario was available. Once you took the bait from Kapustin, the whole thing gained an inertia of its own. It rolled downhill like a great smooth stone. You were so greedy for Kapustin's defection, Kenneth!"

"I know it."

Babbington crossed the room. "I'll leave you for the moment—" he began.

Aubrey interrupted him. "When, Andrew — when did they get hold of you? Tell me that."

Babbington paused for a moment, then shrugged. "Very well. After Suez. I'd begun in security by then. Yes — Suez seemed to clinch matters for me. That — farce!"

"I see."

"I could see nothing ahead — humiliation…decline, bankruptcy in the world's court… and we have it."

"Thus go all Fascists," Aubrey murmured with withering contempt, "down the aisle of that broad church, worshipping order. Was that it, Andrew? Order. The attractions of nothing more than efficiency?"

"You do not even begin to understand," Babbington replied, shrugging.

"Much like Castleford, then — you admired brute force. He chose Hungary rather than Suez."

"Perhaps." It was evident Babbington disliked any comparison with another. "Mm, Castleford…" he murmured. "Poor Castleford. I'm quite sure he deserved to die — however, we pay for our sins, Kenneth. At least, you will."

Babbington smirked, and opened the door quickly. He went out, but the door did not close. Instead, Wilkes appeared, carrying a tray. Aubrey smelt tempting bacon, toast, marmalade, almost as if his sense of smell was artificially heightened. He glared at Wilkes.

"Take that away and get out!" he cried. Wilkes grinned, shrugged, and left the room, hooking the door shut with his foot. Someone else must have locked it, for Aubrey heard the key turn almost at once.

He listened to the retreating footsteps, then to other noises. A distant car buzzed like an insect. A dog barked. He remained sitting on the bed, head slumped on his chest, utterly weary. He was too drained by defeat to feel anger, or resentment at Babbington for his present captivity and his brief and violent future. Nor was there any professional regret regarding the fate of British Intelligence headed and controlled by Moscow's man.

The first face that came at him out of the darkness behind his closed eyelids was that of Castleford, as he knew it would be. The man was smiling in his habitually, infernally superior way. Aubrey shuddered at what he had come to, absorbed with self while Babbington trampled upon his service and his country. Yet he could not consider that. There was only Castleford's face from forty years ago, grinning at the prospect of his rival's demise.

Hyde had watched the brown Skoda for almost an hour. It was parked in the Zidovska, almost at the Danube end of the street, loomed over by the Gothic tower of St Martin's Cathedral. Through the steamed-up window of the small, cramped bar, he had an uninterrupted view of both sides of the street and of the cathedral square. Snow fell desultorily into the Bratislava street. People trudged through rutted brown slush on the pavements. Passing cars splashed the dirty flank of the Skoda with grey-brown, half-melted snow.

He had parked the Volkswagen, skis hidden beneath the car, in an underground car-park. It would reside there, dirty and anonymous, until he returned from Prague. It was his escape route. He would simply be returning from his ski-ing trip when he left Czechoslovakia.

In a strange, almost hallucinatory way, he was certain that Kenneth Aubrey was slouched, legs wrapped in a tartan blanket, in the rear seat of the Skoda, waiting for him to climb into the driving seat. The clarity and insistence of his imagination unsettled Hyde. The pressures of his task were mounting. He was unable to close his mind to the background, to the necessity of a successful outcome. Aubrey had assumed an almost physical presence, and he was nervous of crossing the street to the Skoda. He knew by now that it was not being watched, that the STB were not waiting for him. Yet he clung to the safety of the fuggy, murmurous bar.

If I stay here, if I don't get into the car… don't get into the car…

He was was warm, hunched into the padded anorak, his chin still half-hidden by his scarf. The dark Czech beer was numbing. The brown Skoda, anonymous and drab, was like a parcel which might — did — contain a bomb.

Don't get into the car…

Aubrey was there. It was as if the old man might open the passenger door and beckon him at any moment. The detonator. The wires and explosives were the travel visas, the false identity papers, car licence and the other documents that waited beneath the driver's seat. And the pistol taped to the underside of the chassis. He would have to stop on the outskirts of the city and untape the gun — safer. With the gun in the glove compartment — much safer, just in case—

Don't get into the car—!

The dark beer slopped near the rim of the glass. He gingerly put it down on the shelf beneath the window. He studied his hands. They were quivering. He glanced helplessly at his gloves beside the beer glass, as if they might assist him. He thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his anorak.

He knew the car was clean. No tail, no watchers. Whatever they had gleaned from his flat, and from anything Shelley had left lying around, they had no idea where, or why. He was ahead of them — they simply would not think of his scenario—!

Don't—

Go, he told himself. Go now.

He glanced around the bar. Cigarette smoke, grey as the sky beyond the fuggy windows. Pale, lined faces. Laughter and sombre, striking loneliness. The barmaid looked tired — washed-out fair hair and deep stains beneath her eyes. For yourself, he told his clenched hands, still pocketed. Told his legs, which seemed watery and a long way below his mind. For yourself.

Or run forever.

He did not wish to dramatise, would have despised it in others; in himself had he thought or uttered the words in other circumstances. But it was true. Nowhere would be safe, ever.

Unless—

He snatched up his gloves, sending an ashtray spinning with a clatter to the floor. It startled him into a hasty exit from the bar almost before people glanced up at the noise. He saw that the pipe-smoking dominoes players near the door remained oblivious to him, then he was in the street, the door creaking shut behind him, his feet suddenly betrayed into uncertainty by the pavement's slush. He stepped warily to the kerb. A bulky, almost shapeless woman in an old check coat bumped into him, then moved on without glancing at him. Hyde shivered. He glanced up and down the Zidovska, judging the traffic. The cathedral's black steeple against the heavy, smoky grey sky intruded itself behind the overhead traffic lights as they changed from red to green.

He hurried to the car. The back seat was empty. He urged his hand to the driver's door handle, opened the door, bent his head and shoulders, aware of the space between his shoulder-blades, almost anticipating the heavy descent of someone's hand.

The home-knitted cardigan, reindeer on the pockets. As Shelley had promised. He'd seen it first, on the front passenger seat, an hour ago; identifying the car. Now—?

The Beano Annual, on top of the wardrobe in its thin, cheap wrapping paper. Biffo the Bear on the stiff, shiny cover, together with the old, fat, red-garbed gentleman sitting in his sleigh, a cartoon reindeer in the traces, its antlers decked with Christmas baubles. The first time he had really noticed an image of snow, an image of reindeer, of winter…

Hyde grinned. Aubrey's spectre was banished from the car. He felt warmer now, safer. The memory signalled a returning self-awareness. He was the priority, his life was at stake. On those terms, he could cope.

He climbed into the driving seat, felt underneath it for the wrapped package of papers — yes. Was aware of the gun taped beneath the car, protected by polythene from the slush. He knew it would be there, just as he knew Godwin would be waiting at a bus stop on the outskirts of Prague.

He had two hundred and fifty miles to cover. He started the engine.

He described himself as the Deputy Rezident, temporarily fulfilling the office of the dead Bayev, shot while being interrogated by Hyde and Massinger. Yet to Babbington he had about him something akin to prison pallor, the sense of having newly emerged from Moscow Centre. He was evidently Kapustin's man, and Babbington despised himself as he hastened to reassure, moved and spoke briskly from bluff rather than authority. The young man's eyes were chilly, intent, clever, and he said very little, forcing Babbington to fill the cold silences with ever more exaggerated expressions of confidence.

The gardens of the Belvedere — had this man, on Kapustin's orders, deliberately chosen the meeting place? Aubrey had been arrested here. Was this a reminder of that and a call to duty? Or a demand for payment, for results? The paths were slippery, glazed with the hard frost. The hedges were stiff and thick with rime and the lawns — whenever they emerged from one of the hedge-lined avenues — smooth white carpets. The statuary seemed lighter than stone against the grey sky.

The young man, whose name was Voronin, kept pace with Babbington, while Wilkes and the young man's principal bodyguard walked a few paces behind them. Voronin looked curiously old-fashioned in his brown trilby and heavy dark overcoat; but not innocuous. Babbington was aware of the dampness of his scarf as it lay upon his chin and throat. His smoky breath had condensed like cold perspiration. Other watchers moved to the right and left of them, also ahead and behind them. Babbington, however, felt the open nakedness of the Belvedere gardens. Was he intended to? Anyone might see him here… Yet the young man had insisted on this outdoor meeting.

"It still does not answer the question of the woman, and of Hyde," Voronin pointed out, without rancour or impatience. The voice of a not unkindly pedagogue. Babbington heard Kapustin's tones, even those of Nikitin, through the lips of the young man. He controlled a slight shiver, and looked at Voronin. He was taller than the Russian — whole inches taller; bulkier. He tried to believe his own significance.

"That is simply a matter of time — both are simply a matter of time," he asserted.

"Yes, yes," Voronin snapped, and now there was impatience. "This man is not important, I agree. Somewhere, at some time, he will show his head above ground and will be taken. But — the woman. She is another matter…" He paused in his step, facing Babbington. "She has connections, she is familiar with powerful people. She cannot be allowed to remain at liberty."

"Then agree to my request," Babbington replied angrily. "Agree to my proposals for the disposal of the bodies."

Voronin shrugged and, almost as if ignoring Babbington, began walking ahead. Babbington uttered what might have been a growl of protest, and then hurried to his side. The Russian said at once: "Your solution does not, at the moment, include the woman. Where is she?"

"I've told you, Voronin, I don't know! She has only one ally in this city… she must be with Hyde—"

"If Hyde is here."

"I have no doubt he is. Why else would Shelley be concerned with Czechoslovakia?"

"Why is Shelley concerned with Czechoslovakia?"

"Heaven alone knows! Perhaps Hyde wants to hide out — where better, mm, than under your noses?"

"Had you bugged the telephones in the house, you would have discovered exactly why Shelley was so interested in Czechoslovakia."

It was a patent rebuke. Babbington flushed angrily and snapped, "Unlike your own dear country, Voronin, security operations require records, permissions, signatures, authorisations, I decided it was better to keep a low profile. It was extremely unlikely that Hyde would ring his own flat — the woman upstairs was merely his landlady, according to our information." He recognised apology in his tone and said with steely indifference, "Forget it, Voronin. It's unimportant."

"The Massinger woman—?" Voronin insisted.

"Vienna Station is looking — your people are looking… will you be patient and give your attention instead to my proposal?"

"What can I do?"

"Signal Moscow Centre — Kapustin. Tell him what I have told you. Aubrey is to be taken to Moscow. Massinger is to be disposed of. I don't care how — the woman, too. Perhaps they should all be taken to Moscow? It would prevent the slightest possibility of their remains being discovered…" Babbington broke off for a moment. A vivid image of Castleford's body being discovered, years after his death, had forced itself upon his awareness. He thrust it aside. "Yes. That would be best. Take them to Moscow and dispose of them at once. In any event, Aubrey must appear in Moscow. It will silence all doubts. Surely you see that?"

They came to the end of the avenue, and the lawns stretched away from them, up towards the Belvedere. Babbington saw the windows not as dull, lightless panes, but as he had seen them on the last occasion he had walked in the gardens — lit by the last of the sun, glowing deep orange in colour. He saw Kapustin leaving the gardens, and saw Aubrey's overcoated figure. He shook his head as if to clear it of alcohol.

"To me it seems a very risky thing to do," Voronin remarked, gazing towards the Belvedere.

"Risky?" Babbington snapped. "What risk is there for you?"

"Risky for you, I mean."

"It was risky for me that First Secretary Nikitin and Deputy Chairman Kapustin let Petrunin live a single day after they initiated Teardrop. Don't you realise that?" Anger, and its undercurrent of fear, gave him the authority he sought.

Voronin's eyes now displayed uncertainty and loss of confidence. "Perhaps," the Russian offered in reply.

"It's the only satisfactory solution," Babbington pressed.

Voronin shrugged. "If you had the woman—" he began.

"With or without the woman!" Babbington turned to Voronin, his face mobile with rage. "I must be back in London tomorrow, without fail the following day. I must have, before tomorrow, your agreement to my proposal. I want Kapustin's agreement. You will organise and execute a rescue of your agent Aubrey, who will be spirited to Moscow by Aeroflot and then subsequently appear at some kind of staged interview with selected members of the Soviet and Western press — my God, man, you have the drugs to make him do handstands and sing soprano for the cameras if you care to use them!" One hand had emerged from his pocket, clenched into a fist. He appeared to threaten Voronin with physical violence. "Now — will I have Kapustin's agreement? Time is pressing."

"The raid," Voronin murmured, shaking his head. "I don't know—"

"How else will you explain my losing Aubrey?" Babbington taunted. He was inwardly satisfied. Voronin was unsettled, out of his depth. And half-persuaded—

The fear returned, churning at his stomach, tightening his chest. He breathed in slowly, exhaled the warmer, smoky air carefully; calming himself.

"Well?" he prompted.

Voronin hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. He sighed audibly. "Very well," he said. "I will signal Comrade Deputy Chairman Kapustin at once, informing him of your proposal. Perhaps he will agree—"

"He has to agree. There's no other way. I want Aubrey out of Vienna and on his way to Moscow within forty-eight hours at the outside. I want it to be seen and understood as a desperate KGB rescue operation on behalf of their blown agent."

"For the sake of realism, some of your people will have to suffer?"

Without glancing behind or around him, Babbington nodded. "Naturally. Some of the Vienna Station personnel who will be guarding Aubrey must inevitably be killed in action. Very regrettable."

"Very well." Voronin seemed pleased at the display of ruthlessness. It was as if Babbington had correctly answered the final question of a long and searching interview. "Very well. Shall we go, Sir Andrew Babbington?" For once, Voronin's grasp of English usage was at fault.

Babbington smiled. "Yes, Comrade Voronin — let's go."

Babbington turned, nodded to Wilkes, who seemed relieved, and began to stride confidently down the avenue towards the Lower Belvedere, the gates, and his car. Voronin hurried after him and the screen of watchers seemed trawled in their wake; a small shoal of overcoats and trenchcoats being hauled in.

Margaret Massinger watched the leading man, the one closest to her, turn as at an invisible signal and move away. She felt immediately cramped, cold, and weak. She watched the man's retreating trenchcoat, less white than the snow covering the lawns, as it passed one of the ornate fountains. When it emerged once more, it was distant and small. The eyepiece of the camera seemed cloudy, her eyes wet. The telephoto lens scraped on the stone of the balcony. She looked up, away from the camera, at the features of Maria Theresa worn by one of the stone sphinxes. She felt lightheaded. The sphinx threatened to topple on her as she crouched behind the balcony of the terrace in front of the palace.

Her imagination was filled with photographic stills, as if she were watching some clever, tricky sequence in a film. People moved in her mind, stopped, were photographed, moved again. Stop, move, stop, snap, move, stop, snap, move—

She rubbed her frozen cheeks with her woolen-gloved hands. She was utterly cold inside her fur jacket. She rubbed her aching, chilled thighs. Her feet were numb. She felt too weak to stand.

For wildlife photography, Hyde had said, and grinned at her. The smile had been transparent, and she had seen the uncertainty behind it. The assistant in the camera shop had nodded, displaying a range of telephoto lenses to accompany the Nikkormat camera. She had tried to attend. The sleepless night in the anonymous hotel had not helped. Hyde's presence was that of a stern examiner. Yet she had eventually understood, simply by reading the literature that accompanied the camera and the lenses.

Babbington clenching his fist into the unidentified man's face — the faces clear in the eyepiece, everything else blurred and unrecognisable behind them because of the small depth of field of the 1000mm lens. She had used the largest of the lenses because she was afraid. She wanted the greatest distance between herself and—

And him. Babbington. Not so much the watchers in the white trenchcoats and the dark overcoats — the small fish — rather the one man. She was afraid of him, even in the artificial close-up of the telephoto lens; as if he might turn in her direction at any moment and be in reality as close to her as he seemed through the eyepiece. And recognise and apprehend her. But, she had protected herself behind the shelter of the balcony.

Slavic cheekbones and lips beneath the trilby hat — picture, picture, picture, the motor whirring the film forward. Babbington and the Russian, their nearest bodyguards no more than blurred outlines beyond them. Adjusting the focus, taking shot after shot, fumbling to change the film with cold, frightened fingers. More shots, more, more, more—

Proof, proof, proof, the motor recited as it whirred on. More, more, more, proof, proof, proof, more proof, more proof…

When they turned, the second roll of film was finished and she was spent. Babbington's heavy, handsome features filled her mind.

She raised her body slightly and looked through the eyepiece of the camera. Nothing. Babbington, the Russian, their guards, had all disappeared from the gardens. The light seemed diminished. She looked at her watch. Three-ten. Immediately she began to worry about the aperture setting, the quality of the pictures she had taken—

Out of focus, too dark? Would they be able to identify Babbington? The other man, the Russian? Jerkily, she stood up, slapping her body to warm it. She stared at the camera. There had been too much haste, too little time to think, to plan. After watching Hyde cross the border she had returned to observe the house where Paul was kept prisoner. Little more than twenty minutes later, Babbington had climbed into his car and had headed for Vienna, unescorted. She had kept well back. The camera and lenses had lain on the passenger seat like a challenge. She had waited, daring no more than a sandwich, while Babbington had lunched at the Hotel Sacher. Finally, he had been driven to the Belvedere, part of a small convoy of cars. She had parked in the Prinz Eugen strasse, scrabbled up the camera and lenses, and hurried into the palace gardens.

Exposed, clearly visible—

She had sought the terrace and the balcony in a terror at her own fears and her amateurishness. Even now, as she walked up and down and warmth and feeling returned to her legs and feet, she hardly dared believe it had worked. Her camera lay like an abandoned weapon on the balustrade. She had succeeded. Two rolls of film with Babbington's face in almost every frame. Once his companion was identified, the process of saving Paul would begin—

She could not believe the ease of it, could not avoid a sense of triumph. Hyde need not have crossed the border, put himself in danger—

Danger. Paul. The blood in the apartment. Paul.

She ran to the camera and snatched it up. The gardens were deserted except for a black, overcoated speck seated on a wooden bench, surrounded by hungry pigeons. An arm moved periodically in a scattering gesture. The tiny spots of grey bobbed and moved, as if conducted by the arm. She ran. She had to talk to her godfather, to Sir William. He had to listen to her.

Hyde sensed the weight of Godwin's body resting on the two crutches the moment he saw him at the surburban bus stop. The man was wearing a heavy overcoat and a fur hat, and his face was wreathed in a bright tartan scarf. Otherwise, there was no sense of colour or even life about him. He expressed endless patience in his stillness and his slump of weight; a sense of defeat. Hyde steered the car reluctantly towards the lay-by and its small, glassed-in bus shelter. Godwin had, for some reason — perhaps only to be seen more easily by Hyde — chosen to stand in the falling snow. His shoulders in their frozen shrug of acceptance were thickly white. His fur hat, too, was mottled from its normal black to a badger's fur. He stared through the passenger window at Hyde, who tugged on the handbrake and opened the door.

Godwin, seeing him emerge and sensing his purpose, growled: "I don't need help. Is this door unlocked?" His hand was on the passenger door handle. Hyde, already at the bonnet and rounding the Skoda, merely nodded. Godwin's features scowled with rancour, and a hatred of pity and of his disability. Hyde retreated to the driver's side, as if from a wounded animal.

Godwin leaned heavily against the door-frame. He heaved the two crutches — old and heavy, with metal clasps and stout rubber grips — into the rear of the car, then almost fell into the passenger seat. Hyde shuddered, for Godwin and for himself. Godwin lifted his legs into the car and immediately adopted another frozen posture, staring through the windscreen, his fur hat on his lap, leaking snow onto the skirts of his coat and the corduroy trousers that covered his despised legs. On his shoulders, the snow glistened as it began to melt. Hyde slipped into the driving seat with unobtrusive and very conscious leg movements.

As a placatory gesture, Hyde said: "Petrunin's dead." It was crass, but the silence in the car pressed against his temples.

"Did you kill him?" Godwin replied after a short silence. The windscreen in front of his face was already misting, as if the man exuded some violent heat.

"No. His own lot did that for him."

After another and longer silence, Godwin merely said, "My legs don't feel any better."

"Look, Godwin—" Hyde began, but Godwin turned to him. His face was wan, chilly with rage. It was as if he had been waiting at the bus stop for days, perhaps ever since he had been shot, just for Hyde's arrival.

"Christ, Hyde — why does it have to be you?" he spat out. He looked years older. He had lost weight — wasted rather than dieted, it seemed to Hyde. His eyes were darkly stained beneath the small, hard pupils. His hair was thinner, and lank. Hyde avoided glancing at the man's legs. "You and the old man? Why the two of you, of all people?" His lower lip quivered as he finished speaking. Hyde saw the self-pity and could not despise it. "I was burying myself here, nice and quietly. I wasn't forgetting, I was quietly and satisfactorily dying. Turning into a vegetable. Then you—!" His eyes glared at Hyde as he looked up from the wet fur hat in his lap. It looked like some drowned beloved pet, the cause of Godwin's rage and grief.

"Fuck off, Godwin," Hyde said quietly, forcefully. "Take your bloody self-pity and stuff it." Godwin stared at him, his mouth working silently, his eyes angry slits in his white face. "You're alive. I don't have the time or the range of sympathy to care in what condition… because if you don't help me and I can't do the necessary, neither I nor the old man will be anything but dead. Now, if you'd like to change places, give me your fucking crutches and I'll learn to use them."

Godwin's jaw dropped. His mouth was a round black hole from which eventually emerged in a shocked, small, defeated voice: "Oh, you bastard — Christ, you bastard," Hyde did not reply, and Godwin turned his face away. Slowly, his head subsided onto his chest. Hyde listened to his stertorious breathing, as if the man was labouring up an endless flight of stairs or a steep hill; surmounting his own self-pity, Hyde hoped. Eventually, Godwin sniffed loudly.

It was almost dark in the car. The snow lay thickly on the windscreen and the rear window, and the daylight was fading outside. There was no one at the bus stop. Traffic had begun to pass them, leaving Prague for the suburbs. In the headlights of one oncoming vehicle, Hyde saw bright wetness on Godwin's cheeks.

"OK," Godwin said heavily, nodding. "OK. I'm sorry."

Again, Hyde did not reply. Already, his interest in Godwin's reaction was diminishing. His words had had the desired effect. It was difficult to concern himself with anything larger than Aubrey's survival…

Rare moment of absolute honesty. His own survival. It was that which absorbed his attention. Unless that was the case, Aubrey, Godwin, Massinger and all the others would not survive. The priority of self might just keep others alive — on this occasion.

"It's not you," Godwin eventually continued. Hyde had to force himself to attend. Godwin was emerging slowly, like a dragonfly, from the chrysalis of his disability.

"Yes?" he demanded, almost impatiently.

Godwin's head twitched, then he said: "It's not you I blame — God knows, not the old man…"

"No," Hyde said carefully. Traffic passed, flowing more strongly now.

Godwin looked at Hyde for a moment, as if reminding himself of his companion's identity. Then he said: "I don't know and I don't care whether you understand this…" Hyde winced, wanting to stem the flow of what he sensed was a confession, but he said nothing. "… but I want to say it." He swallowed, then Hyde heard a dry, chuckling, ironic noise in Godwin's throat. "You brought back a world I'd had to leave behind. Fuck you for that."

Hyde turned, surprised. Godwin was looking at him. His cheeks were still pale, but dry. His mouth was open in a small, cynical smile.

Hyde nodded. "OK," he said. "Now — where to?"

"What—? Oh, my flat."

"Secure?"

"They leave me alone." His hands slapped his thighs. "Walking wounded. They accept my cover for the real thing. How could I be SIS, on crutches?"

"No one else knows I'm here — that I'm expected?"

"No one. Shelley's signal was very specific. What's going on, Hyde?"

"Babbington — he's Moscow's man. The proofs in the computer."

"Babbington? Bloody hell—"

"He framed the old man… and it was Petrunin's scenario from the beginning."

"Petrunin told you all this? You trust that bastard?"

"He was dying — and trying to pull the house down around him. He wasn't lying."

"Who's on our side?"

"Us — just the two of us." Hyde did not mention Margaret Massinger. There was little or no point. She wouldn't be able to cope. He knew it would have been better for her had he ordered her to lie low, merely keep out of sight. She wouldn't last five minutes trying to tail Babbington and keep that wooden house in Perchtoldsdorf under surveillance. He had doubted her ability to survive even as he briefed her, even as they bought the camera and lenses. Thus, he had been deliberately vague in explaining his own task to her. What she did not know she could not reveal when they caught and questioned her. "That's the whole army," he added. "Shelley's already in the bag."

"Christ—" Godwin breathed.

"Are you in?" Hyde asked impatiently. His hands stroked the steering wheel. He was tempted to grip it fiercely, to still the tremor he sensed beginning.

Then Godwin said: "I'm in — it's bloody hopeless, but I'm in."

Hyde looked at him. Just for a moment, a younger man glanced from behind the bitter, older mask that Godwin wore.

"OK. Which way?"

"Straight on. My flat's in the Old Town. I'll direct you."

"My dear friend, I'm so sorry, so sorry…"

Aubrey patted Massinger's hand as he spoke. It lay like a limp white fish on the coverlet, then it enclosed Aubrey's hand slowly. Massinger's eyes were bright, but empty of fever. His face was puffy and misshapen with dark, livid bruises that were the colour and texture of raw offal.

"It's — OK," he murmured, his lips working loosely like those of someone whose jaw has been deadened in preparation for dental work. His lips were swollen and split. He shook his head gently. "OK," he repeated.

"How is the leg?"

"Someone patched it up. There's no bullet in the wound. Hurts like hell, Kenneth." He tried to sit more upright in the narrow bed, and groaned as he moved his injured leg. No doubt, Aubrey thought, the dressing on his thigh was temporary. A temporary dressing for a temporary circumstance.

He realised that Babbington had reached a decision, otherwise he would not have allowed Aubrey and Massinger to meet. There was no longer any need to keep them apart. What they knew would die with them. Thus, when Aubrey had surrendered to his hunger and eaten lunch, and then had asked after Massinger's health, Wilkes had merely grinned and taken him to the wounded man's room.

One of Massinger's eyes was almost closed with a puffy, raw swelling. His various cuts had, however, been bathed and disinfected and covered with plaster.

"I want you to understand, my dear Paul, how — how grateful I am for your efforts on my behalf."

Massinger shook his head and tried to grin. "Even though all it got me was here and now, uh?" he said. "Don't take it to heart — " He winced with pain again as he moved, then added: "I couldn't help myself. Thank God they didn't get Margaret — thank God for that!" Massinger was almost blithe.

"Yes, thank goodness," Aubrey breathed, inwardly grateful. He hoped the woman would keep her head down, keep out of things — until they were resolved. Whether she might be able to influence the course of events in any way… police, William Guest, the press…? No, he thought decisively, no. She is out of the game. She can do nothing. He cleared his throat, watching Massinger as he did so. "You — Paul, you realise what Babbington intends…?" His voice failed him.

Massinger gripped his hand more tightly as he nodded. Then he said urgently, "They don't have her, do they? They don't know where she is?"

Aubrey shook his head. Massinger lay back on the pillows as if exhausted. He murmured something which might have been, "Thank God for that," once more. Aubrey realised that the man's relief at his wife's safety anaesthetised him to his own situation.

After a long silence, he said, "You've talked with Babbington?"

"Yes."

"Why — why did he? When?" Then the American opened his eyes. "It doesn't matter. None of that matters. What's he going to do with us?"

"Moscow, I think." Aubrey nodded. "Yes, Moscow. I'm certain of it. I–I'm sorry—"

"Sure. You'll survive, for a little while maybe — but not me. He has to bury the bodies, our friend Babbington. Does he have to bury the bodies!" His eyes studied Aubrey, then slowly became unfocused once more. He stared at the ceiling, and Aubrey knew the man was staring at an image of his wife. He murmured again. Again, Aubrey did not catch the words.

"I'm sorry…"he repeated. Massinger did not appear to hear him;

Thank you — sorry. There was nothing else to say. Their knowledge of each other and of their situation was complete.

Aubrey's past began to press upon him once more. It would mean little or nothing to Massinger. The gallery of images parading before him formed his private collection. And each of the scenes angered him. Every voice, moment, room, person, operation, mission, committee. Angered him—

His past had been utterly refashioned by Babbington. Everything — everything! Completely, utterly changed — made ugly and twisted. That was why he hated Babbington. Not for the man's own treachery — that feeling had passed away. No — but because the man had robbed him of, of reputation—! Of probity. Othello's occupation's gone he remembered bitterly.

The door opened.

It was Wilkes, who immediately said, "He says you've had long enough." Aubrey glared at him. "Come on, Sir Kenneth — back to your own room, if you please." He used the voice of some psychiatric nurse, mocking him with orders.

Aubrey stood up and released Massinger's hand. It returned to the coverlet; returned, too, to its former, limp-fish state, white and unmoving. Massinger's one open eye winked at him. Aubrey tried to smile.

"Do you need anything?" he asked. Massinger shook his head.

"Hardly worth it, is it?" Wilkes enquired.

"Isn't it?" Aubrey snapped.

"It isn't."

"When?"

"Less than forty-eight hours," Wilkes said. "He has to be back in London within the next two days… look funny otherwise, wouldn't it?"

"God, Wilkes—!" Aubrey hesitated, his mouth open. He had no idea what he had intended to say.

"Come on," Wilkes ordered.

Aubrey passed through the door without glancing back at Massinger. In the corridor, as Wilkes closed the door, it was as if someone had switched on a powerful light and shone it directly into his eyes. He was dazzled by his illuminated past. Each separate memory stung and hurt. He swayed with the shock of their impact.

Zimmermann and he, face to face — his first captured German officer… those first interviews in the small, bare upstairs flat somewhere off the Strand, only months after he had come down from Oxford… the diplomatic service, he had thought, and had then felt a deep and abiding delight when they had indicated the secret world, intelligence work—

Berlin, after the war — Castleford's face intruded, still alive, smiling… come back like a ghost, to gloat. Aubrey dismissed him in the rush of images. Reams of paper and files passing across a desk beneath hands which he recognised as his own. The hands aged as he watched, as if his whole adult life were passing in moments — the speeded-up film of some flower's life-cycle… the files became more important, more secret—

"You all right?" Wilkes asked. Aubrey hardly heard him, as memory shifted like ballast in his head and he staggered. Wilkes held his arm to keep him upright.

A man of probity. There were moments of ruthlessness, of utter disregard for the lives in his hands. But he had attempted to be a man of probity in the secret world. Othello's occupation's gone—

Hands upon a desk. Faces across a table. Men with secrets to yield, men to be dismantled or repaired. A dozen languages, a thousand small rooms for the breaking of will, resolve, courage—

Aubrey shook his head, shook off Wilkes's supporting hand, and walked as quickly as he could the length of the corridor. He entered his room and Wilkes locked the door behind him. When the man's footsteps had faded, Aubrey began rubbing at his damp eyes with the creased sleeve of his soiled shirt.

There was no telephone in her room at the pension. She had to use the pay phone near the cramped reception desk. The foyer was empty except for the night porter, who sat reading the evening paper, his head framed by pigeon-holes and hanging keys. His uniform collar was open at the neck. A half-drunk glass of beer and a sandwich of smoked sausage on a paper plate rested on the desk. Margaret turned her head into the hair-dryer globe of clear plastic that enclosed the telephone.

She dialled the international code for London, then Sir William Guest's home number. Hyde had told her William was in Washington… it was stupid to try his number. Yet his answering machine might disclose the means of reaching him in the States. How else could she reach him? She tugged anxiously at the looped cord of the telephone as she waited for the connection, envisaging the comfortable, panelled study in which the number was ringing. Sir William maintained a flat in Albany, just as his father had once done. As a child, she had been overawed by the dark, heavy panelling, the grimy, looming paintings. Whenever her father had taken her there, she remembered Sir William had acted the part of a jolly, generous relative. Yet he expected good manners, long silences, then adult replies to his questions. Sir William had awed her.

"Come on, come on," she breathed. She glanced round at the night porter. He refolded the newspaper and continued to read. "Come on — oh, please, come on—!"

The tone stopped abruptly. No one answered the telephone, but she sensed a listener.

"William?" she asked hesitantly.

"Who is that, please?" a polite, assured, unfamiliar voice enquired.

"Who is speaking?" she asked, surprised. "Where is Mrs Carson?" Then, more insistently: "Who are you?"

"Mrs Carson — oh, Sir William's housekeeper. I'm sorry, she's away for a few days. As is Sir William."

"Then who are you? How do you come to be in William's flat?"

"Lucky to have caught me here, really…" The voice was light, cultivated, almost a drawl. She could picture a bright young Whitehall type. One of William's staff — but why?

"This is Margaret Massinger," she announced with mustered authority and ease, "It's urgent I speak to Sir William at once—"

"Ah, Mrs Massinger. My apologies. My name is Renfrew, a member of Sir William's Cabinet Office staff… he asked me to collect some papers from his flat — needs to consult them, through me, while he's in Washington. As a matter of fact, I was just about to leave. But you said it was urgent, Mrs Massinger. Can I take a message…?" The question lay helpfully, easily on the air.

She hesitated. Then: "Can you give me his number in Washington? Where can I reach him?"

"I'm afraid not. His movements are rather fluid — time-table's very crowded, I'm afraid. Look, I tell you what — why not give me your number? Sir William is bound to contact the Cabinet Office either tonight or tomorrow — I can ensure that he calls you. What do you say?"

The voice was calm, almost offhand. Helpful.

"Yes," she began. "I'm in Vienna—"

"Vienna? Good heavens! A holiday, Mrs Massinger?"

"Vienna — the number is…"

She paused to study the number printed on the telephone's dial.

"Yes?" the voice said, eagerly. "Yes? Your number in Vienna is…?" She was puzzled by the voice. Her further hesitation caused it to speak again. "Mrs Massinger — please give me your number in Vienna!" It was an order. Unmistakably so.

"Who are you?" she snapped.

"I told you, Mrs Massinger—" The voice was more angry now.

"Who?"

"One of Sir William's staff—"

"One of — you're one of Babbington's people, aren't you? I know you are!"

"Mrs Massinger — please give me your Vienna telephone number—" The voice was unpleasant with imminent failure and threat.

"No—!"

She clattered the reciever onto its rest. Her hand was shaking. She dropped the earring she had been holding in her right hand, and scrabbled for it on the worn, dimly-patterned strip of foyer carpet. When she straightened, the night porter glanced incuriously at her, then bent his gaze to the newspaper once more. He looked sinister, dangerous.

She had almost told them—! She could not believe it of herself, could not believe that Andrew Babbington had someone in Sir William's flat.

She breathed deeply, raggedly, trying to calm herself. At once, her overriding priority returned. It had been growing through dinner, through the three whiskies she had drunk to occupy the time before she had thought of reaching Guest via his answering machine.

Paul—

Now she had evidence, and there was no one to see it, she was like a machine that had run down. Out of fuel and motive power. Now, she could only worry, with an increasingly frantic urgency, whether Paul was still alive.

She had to know. She had to go out again, she had to drive to Perchtoldsdorf — she had to see him! Whatever the cost, she had to know!

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Rites of Entry

Babbington watched his fingers, remote, detached objects drumming on the desk top beside the two oblong black boxes of the audio-encryption unit and line adaptor connected to the telephone receiver. Kapustin's voice, despite the complex rearrangements of his words by his own encryption unit, was only slightly mechanical in sound, only slightly hazy in enunciation. His tone of reluctance was not robbed of its anger and command. Babbington, with the utmost clarity, comprehended the Russian's mood.

He was alone in the room. It was warm, from radiators and the blazing log fire. A whisky glass, half-filled, rested on the desk near the high-security encryption unit. To an observer, he might have seemed at his ease. Yet he was not.

"I am not in favour of accidents," the Deputy Chairman announced. "Especially to the woman. Should you be fortunate enough to capture her. She has connections — Voronin, I believe, warned you of this. Her death would cause — a fuss?"

"I understand that, Kapustin." The room was hot rather than warm. His fingers were not remote. They drummed more quickly now, reflecting his rising anger. "Of course, there is a risk. Everything is a risk. You should have rid yourselves of Petrunin the day this business appeared on the operations board! As it is — people know, people suspect… but only a handful of people. They must be removed. It is the only logical course of action."

"There is the German, too."

"I realise that—"

Snow pattered softly against the window. Babbington turned his head to stare at the square of darkness streaked with wriggles of melted snow, then returned his gaze to the fire. The large Afghan rug in front of it offered up a tiny, thin trail of smoke where some spark from the fire had landed. The ascending wisp looked like incense burning.

"What do you suggest in his case?" There was mockery in Kapustin's tone. The wisp of smoke faded. Babbington could not see the tiny hole the spark must have burned in the rug, but for a moment he imagined his wife clucking over the damage.

"There is nothing that can be done. At the moment. Except that the single bold stroke which I propose will silence him, as it will everyone else. Aubrey's appearance in Moscow will forestall any further questions. Surely you understand that much?" His tone was one of exasperation. Almost helplessly, he continued as if some dam within him had been breached: "For twenty-eight years you have had my loyalty. You and the rest of Moscow Centre have waited twenty-eight years for the present moment! It was your impatience — Nikitin's impatience— that would not allow Aubrey to remain in his post until he retired and I succeeded by right. He is an old man, you know—! But no, it must be now, while Guest has the PM's ear and confidence and while he supports the idea of SAID and myself as its head. Very well—! You dictated the timing of Teardrop — you see it through! Don't quibble about disposing of one American and his well-connected wife!"

Babbington looked at his fingers on the desk. They had ceased to accompany his rage, and now merely quivered. He touched his fingertips against the whisky glass, against the smooth black case of the encryption unit. He felt perspiration prickle his forehead. It was foolish, but he had been helpless against the outburst. Didn't they realise what was at stake, for God's sake—? He clenched his free hand into a fist and waited for Kapustin to speak.

Eventually, the Russian said, "Your anger is understandable. I agree, with hindsight, that we should have disposed of Petrunin."

"Then make up for it now."

Kapustin was silent again for some time, then he said; "I cannot decide at once — just to put your mind at rest. This must be discussed."

"Who with? Nikitin? Remind the President of the investment, and the dividend, won't you?" His hand now toyed with the whisky glass. The crystal caught the warmth of the lamps in the room, held the flames of the fire, miniaturising and fragmenting them.

"There is the problem of the woman. Where is she now?"

Babbington did not hesitate. "I promise you her confinement within twenty-four hours. That means you could mount the operation tomorrow night."

Kapustin seemed only to have been waiting for the moment of bluff, for he said at once: "Then you can have your raid, your dramatic rescue of Aubrey — tomorrow night, providing you have the woman in your hands before then!"

Babbington's fingers quivered the moment he put down the heavy crystal glass.

"You mean—?"

"A bargain. Your rescue attempt in exchange for the woman."

"You'll take her and the American to Moscow and dispose of them there?" His words sounded almost breathless with excitement.

"Providing I can persuade the President of the wisdom of such a course— persuade him it is necessary to your survival… then yes." Babbington held back his sigh of relief. "We will dispose of the Massingers — and parade Aubrey before the cameras."

The sleety snow blew against the window like a handful of gravel thrown in warning against the pane. Babbington was startled, then very consciously looked back at the fire, considering what Kapustin had said; considering, too, his boast concerning the capture of Margaret Massinger.

Margaret Massinger pressed her body against the bole of the fir tree. The light from Babbington's window spilled towards her hiding place like a torch-beam searching for her. She had been able to see his head turn at the sound of the gust of snow. She ducked aside at once. He couldn't have seen her, couldn't have…

She could hear her breathing above the nose of the wind. The snow blew against her collar, against her woolen beret. Now, she had seen two of them — Aubrey and Babbington. One behind a desk, using the telephone, and the other one — the one she could no longer hate — sitting in an armchair behind barred windows, staring down at his feet; as immobile as if he had died. She shivered with the cold. Next to Aubrey's room were more barred windows. The curtains were drawn across them, the room in darkness. She knew that Paul must be confined there, and she could not rid herself of the idea that the drawn curtains indicated death. Her mother had never signalled her mourning because she would not believe that Robert Castleford was dead — but Margaret had used that semaphore when her mother died. They had done the same thing here, because Paul was dead…

She felt childlike, locked out of some loved place, alone in the windblown, snowy dark. Her eyes were wet, her cheeks numb with cold. She wanted to be, had to be, inside—

She had to know. Nothing else mattered. She had fulfilled her obligations to Aubrey, to Hyde. Now, she could choose. Everything else, all other considerations, had dropped from her as she had placed the two rolls of film, in their padded bag, in the postbox in the foyer of the pension. Her aunt in Bath would receive the undeveloped film with precise and definite instructions to deliver them by hand to William in London. The old lady would go up by train, the whole journey spent horrified at the prospect of spending time in William's company; in the company of the man and his awful cigars.

Nevertheless, Sir William would receive the films. And he would act. He would read her note, see the film, and act. Babbington would be stopped. She had done her duty.

She had to believe that now, shivering with cold and desperate to be discovered in the grounds of the lodge. Just as she had to believe that Paul was not dead and that she could somehow be reunited with him simply by an act of surrender.

Curtains drawn across the windows. Paul was dead — alive—!

She would convince Babbington that she still hated Aubrey, that she still believed he was a Soviet agent and was guilty of her father's murder. Murderer, traitor, villain, abomination — anything that would persuade Babbington that Paul and she were not dangerous to him, that Paul could be allowed to live…

She would know nothing. Hyde — who was Hyde? She could tell him nothing, she knew nothing… anything that Paul may have said would be no more than delirium, the wildest imaginings, hysteria — anything…

Caused by loss of blood, by his wounds—

Aubrey was unhurt. It had been Paul's blood— But Paul wasn't dead, he was alive and hurt, alive and hurt… He could be saved, if she could play her part to perfection. She could keep him alive for long enough — she had told William where they could be found, where she would be.

If Aubrey had to die, so be it. She must save Paul.

She eased her body from behind the tree. She could see Babbington's grey hair as he sat behind the desk, still making his telephone call. She waited. The patrol would return in a few minutes, the two men preceded by the flickering torch-beam. She need only step out in front of them and pray they did not fire without flicking the torch towards her face. She waited, her teeth chattering, her legs and body weak with anticipation. Yet she felt no renewed desire for concealment. All that was behind her now. She stood just where the spillage of warm light from the window reached her boots, as if waiting for a tide to advance.

Should she even have met Hyde—? Should she even know his name? Perhaps from Paul—? Would Babbington believe her, believe even one word of it—?

He must…

She listened. Footsteps on the gravel; light on the gravel. They were coming—

She mustn't look as if she were waiting for them, she must be caught—!

Cautiously, bent almost double, she crept to Babbington's window. If Paul was dead, she was meekly surrendering… She crushed the rebellious thought. She reached the window, touched the sill with her fingertips and raised her head to look into the room.

Light on her face, light on the gravel around her, footsteps on the gravel—

Snarl of a dog!

Dog — light — gravel — voice. She was frozen with terror. Footsteps running. She listened in horror for the dog's paws beating on the gravel. She heard it growl — footsteps, the noise of heavy boots, running. She waited, frozen, for the dog's attack.

Then she turned her face into the torch's beam. The man who held it laughed with surprise and pleasure. The dog, still restrained by the second man, growled then barked viciously. She glanced away from the torch. Babbington's head had turned. His face seemed white and somehow broken open, as if he were confronted by an accusing ghost. Snow blew against Margaret's cheek, against the window. Babbington appeared shaken from a deep trance by the noise it made, perhaps by the dog's continued barking. Then, slowly and with growing pleasure, he smiled.

And spoke into the telephone, quickly and urgently and with evident triumph on his features. He had seen her held by the man with the torch, his hand gripping her arm.

Her captor spoke: "Good evening, Mrs Massinger. So nice of you to drop in."

She turned her head to stare at the dog's open mouth, its white teeth and pink tongue kept away from her by the strained-tight choke-chain and leash. She sagged with relief and weakness against the man who held her arm.

"Margaret — Massinger's wife, she's here!" Babbington blurted into the telephone, unable to consider disguising his relief and surprised delight. "We've got her! Now, you keep your side of the bargain, Kapustin—!"

"Very well," Kapustin replied at once. "Very well. Ignoring your remarkable good fortune — I shall try to persuade both the President and my Chairman to adopt your plan."

"Excellent—!"

"The scheme will not be popular, but I expect it will be adopted. Yes, I expect so. Have everything ready for tomorrow night. Aubrey and the Massingers. We will dispose of them for you."

Godwin watched the neighbour's thin black cat as he might have watched an enemy. Then, he collected his crutches from either side of his chair and struggled upright, finally shuffling away from the dining-table to the corner of the kitchen. Someone must have brought the brand-name cat food back with them after a London leave, Hyde thought. It wouldn't be on sale in Prague. Godwin unwrapped the tin from a polythene bag that contained its odours and knived chunks of it onto a yellow saucer. Then he placed it on the floor for the cat which had, during his careful preparations, rubbed with a sense of the frantic against the legs that could not sense its body. Occasionally, Godwin looked down at its protestations. And smiled.

Hyde wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The cat, stroked by Godwin — how much pain in that bending to the cat's arched back and erect tail? — had begun to eat. Gulping delicately. Hyde pushed back his own chair with a mounting reluctance. He had to bully Godwin, again. And disliked the work. Godwin had almost solved the problem — but communicating it had a price of anger.

He turned on Hyde with a white face and snapped: "I've worked like a black since I got here — from the moment I got here—!"

He had been preparing the outburst throughout the well-cooked meal, perhaps ever since he had admitted Hyde to his cloistered, lonely rooms. Up thinly-carpeted stairs, the walls pregnant with age and damp, to a loosely-fitting door with English security locks. And the smell of heated, packaged meals and East European vegetables stubbornly cooked, the scent of the neighbour's cat, and the ozone of often used electrical equipment — the in-fi and the desk-top computer. Godwin's thin, eked-out life. Hyde understood, far too well, that only a pair of functioning, fit limbs separated himself from Godwin and his environment.

But Godwin had it, had the answer — part of it, even almost all of it—

"— like a black," Godwin repeated almost apologetically.

"Sure," Hyde replied.

Godwin had been restraining himself for hours; controlling himself, as he taught Hyde familiarity with the Cyrillic keyboard he would eventually encounter; taught him the jargon; educated him in the small-talk of computers and security and the Hradcany. Hyde's knowledge of computer terminals and keyboards was minimal. Godwin seemed determined to make him not only skilled, but educated. Hour upon hour, time after time, until he stopped making mistakes, avoided errors, understood what he was doing. And all that time, Godwin had been building to his over-riding, urgent purpose; this outburst. Hyde prepared himself.

"Yes, like a black!" he stormed, as he plugged in the coffee percolator with the wifely nonchalance of an enforced bachelor. "Do you realise what you and Shelley want from me? Do you?" He ushered Hyde back into the small lounge. The electrical smell was still strong from the keyboard and VDU resting on the old dining-table that Godwin used as a desk. The crutches thumped behind Hyde, the legs shuffled behind them.

Hyde sat down quickly, reducing his own importance. In the kitchen, the percolator plopped. The cat audibly slid food into its gullet. Then began to lap the milk that Godwin had also put down.

"The biggest laugh is, Shelley wants everything for Aubrey — for the old man!" Godwin glared. "For the old, blind, stupid bugger who wanted nothing to do with the thing I offered him!" Godwin's frame leaned towards Hyde. The small keyboard and screen peeped like a hint of revelations to come from behind his crooked elbow. "He put it to one side — do you know what he told me? Do you?" Godwin's body echoed in miniature the movements of a fit body in an easy chair, bobbing forward. "It can't possibly work, Godwin — once we tap in, we've given the game away. That was it. His judgment and the opinion of the tame experts he consulted. He consigned Open Weave to the dustbin without a second thought! And now he wants me to resurrect it to save his skin! What a laugh. What an absolute fucking hoot!"

"What's Open Weave?" Hyde dropped into the charged silence; almost expecting the breath expelled with his words to spark in the heavy atmosphere.

Godwin's grey face narrowed. "Don't pretend you don't know."

Hyde shook his head. "I don't."

"Don't give me that! Shelley's briefed you!" Hyde rejected interruption. "Do you even begin to understand, either of you, what Petrunin did when he fixed the computer in Moscow Centre? Do you have even an inkling of what he had to do to make Teardrop available to you?" Godwin's body slumped on the crutches, almost as if he had fallen backwards into a comfortable chair. The cat appeared, indifferent, licking its mouth in the kitchen doorway. The percolator reached a breathless climax behind the cat.

Godwin dropped his body into the chair opposite Hyde. Breath emerged, strangled and painful. Godwin plunged on, undeterred by the massive interruption of seating himself.

"First," he offered, marking the point on the index finger of his right hand, "he had to subvert an expert of near-genius — a programmer who was exceptionally smart. Before that, he had to see the possibility! He had to be really far-sighted when he served on that committee… to see the chance and take it. Clever…" Godwin was wistful for opportunity for a moment, then continued: "Petrunin had to alter the original database, when the central records computer was first fully programmed — back when they started computerising their entire records system. Even then he was watching his back — and aware of the best, most up-to-date way of doing it…"

Godwin's face was flushed with insight, more than with the thin wine they had drunk with their pork. His eyes were inward-looking, staring after a figure following a road he could not take. Hyde realised how thwarted Godwin was by his crippled legs. Perhaps Aubrey had done him no good turn, keeping him inside the service—? A big computer firm might have satisfied his ambitions much more completely.

Godwin cleared his throat, and said, "Teleprocessing showed him the ease with which he could store information under Moscow Centre's inquisitive long nose and be perfectly safe. And the method of computer access — through landlines — suggested how easy it would be to recover the information he'd stored, from any terminal in any Soviet embassy or consulate or mission, in any emergency. He'd need no more than a few minutes with a remote terminal keyboard and his special passwords. He could go straight to the stuff he'd stored, just like that—" Godwin clicked his fingers. His eyes studied the ceiling. The cat hunched its back towards the one radiator. Hyde got up and passed Godwin's chair towards the kitchen. Godwin seemed almost relieved. Immediately, in a raised voice, he began talking over the noises of coffee cups and pouring liquid.

"He must have altered the schema of the database — just in case someone stumbled onto his material by the purest fluke… when you dial up his doctored file, you get almost the same thing, except that the normal channels to the personnel records have been bypassed and you're really getting the prologue to all the dirt he's stored away."

"Sugar?" Hyde asked.

"No. But, when they sent him to Afghanistan as persona non grata, he must have added a low-level patch to the compiler…" Hyde handed him his cup. "Thanks." Godwin appeared relaxed. He had adopted the momentum and the confidence of his monologue. Here, he was the expert, the fit man.

Hyde regained his seat. "He must have killed the poor bastard who assisted him straight afterwards — or could he have added this — this patch?" Godwin nodded. "After he'd killed the programmer?"

"He might have been able to. He'd have had to study manuals and dumps of the application programmes to find a way of bypassing the computer's security… what I think he's done, from your description, is to add a patch to the compiler which translates the password routine in the database management system. This would have the effect of adding an extra line to the normal password routine in the machine code version. I'll show you later. It would have been easier for him, since he wouldn't have had much time after they decided to send him to Kabul, if the programmer was still alive."

"Perhaps he anticipated disgrace, along with everything else?"

"He was that clever?"

"He was."

Godwin shifted painfully in his chair.

Hyde stood up and went into the kitchen and placed his cup in the crowded sink. Then said, "You have to teach me, Godwin. Everything I need to know."

Godwin called, "How much do you know about Open Weave?"

"Nothing."

"Shelley told you nothing?"

"No."

Godwin's anger was quashed. Hyde raised his face to the kitchen ceiling and held back the sigh of relief that threatened to escape from his chest. Godwin was hooked. When he walked into the lounge, Godwin's face greeted him eagerly, almost wanton with excitement.

"Tell me about it," Hyde said.

"Later. It's just a way of tapping into the landline that links the computer room here to Moscow Centre."

"What—?" Hyde began, hardly needing to act surprise.

"Later," Godwin repeated with affected modesty. "It'll help get you into the computer room in the Hradcany as a system tester. We'll set up a fault on the landline… later. I'll keep you in suspense for a bit." He grinned. Godwin's face was animated with something akin to triumph; the face of an eminent actor, assured of the applause that would greet his entry from the wings.

Hyde smiled. "OK. Keep me in suspense, then."

"You sure you wouldn't like a little lie-down before we begin?" Godwin asked jokingly. "This is going to take the rest of the night. Are you sure you're ready?"

"When you are. My cover's as a system tester. Who or what gets me inside the Hradcany?"

Godwin waved the question aside. "That's taken care of. You'll be helped in — and concealed."

"OK. I'm inside."

"They'll be expecting you. That's the beauty of it. They'll want a system tester. Not a technician, you understand, just someone with a high security clearance. From the Soviet Embassy. Your clearance will be higher than that of most of the people you'll run into. They'll be wary of you."

"Why do they want this — system tester?"

"The fault on the landline. It'll be such that they'll have to check that their data-files taken from remote terminals aren't at fault — been corrupted or damaged. They'll be worried — they'll need you to check responses from Moscow to requests you make in sensitive areas… OK?"

"OK."

"So — you're in the main computer room. With guaranteed use of one of the remote terminals — keyboard, printer, back-up peripherals… everything."

"You're pretty sure of this—"

"I am sure, mate — bloody sure! You're using the best stuff I've got — people, ideas, cover. I'm giving you everything."

"OK."

"The computer terminals in the Hradcany are standard stuff — they use a pirated version of IBM's CICS system — Customer Information Control Systems, that means. The terminal is permanently linked to Moscow Centre and the computer is continually asking for its services to be used. It's called polling. All you'll need — apart from enough time to yourself — is Petrunin's passwords when the computer asks you for them."

"Why do I need to be a system tester?"

"Because that way—" The cat had moved, and was rubbing against Godwin's legs. As if his excitement had animated his senseless shins, Godwin looked down, smiled, and lifted the cat onto his lap. It padded as if shaping his lap like a pillow, and then settled itself. Godwin's large hand stroked methodically, firmly along the cat's back. " — that way you can get into the personnel records. Education, military, criminal, anything you like, while checking that the landline, the modems and scramblers have not affected the data or the data transfer. If that's happened, they'd need to use back-up to restore the files. You can be there for — perhaps three or four hours, all night if the job takes that long… and no one, no one at all, will be asking you to leave or asking you what you think you're up to! Can't you see what a gift it is?"

Three hours—

Hyde nodded. Godwin's scenario was daring and brilliant, and too dangerous.

But unavoidable, Hyde concluded, suppressing his rising fears. Too late. But, Christ—

"Good." Godwin said. "I'm glad you approve. Your Russian will hold up, I suppose?"

"Probably. But not my Czech."

"You're Russian, not Czech."

"OK, I'm Russian."

"You're afraid, Hyde."

"No—"

"You don't like it — you don't think it'll work."

"It's not that—"

"It is, Hyde. Just sit and listen. I've thought of everything. I promise you — everything."

"OK. Tell me."

"Because they'll be expecting you. Their tame post office engineer will call the embassy for a system tester when he's finished checking the landline — when the temporary fault's disappeared."

"So, I turn up and the real one's right behind me."

"You're already on the premises… appear in the computer room before he finishes work and calls the embassy. The embassy will already know all about the fault on the landline, but they'll wait until the engineer reports before sending the system tester. You forestall that, and just take over when he finishes."

"And the fault — it just disappears?"

"It will — believe me. We set that up tomorrow morning. You go in during the afternoon. The fault actually occurs about eight or nine. The engineer won't finish before eleven — you should be out of there by twelve. And on your way home."

"Who's the post office engineer?"

"He's genuine. Has to be. But he expects you, remember. A Russian system tester. Only you will make you suspicious — if you can't act the part well enough."

"I need written proof."

"No cameras. Too risky, snapping away at the screen. The hard copy coming out of the printer will be too bulky. You'll use the recorder that's already wired in. They call it a streamer tape drive. Think of it as a cassette recorder. You switch on and it's just like recording a movie on TV!" He grinned. Almost boyish, for the first time that evening. Godwin as Hyde had previously encountered him. A man of promise and good nature. "Guest can play it back in the comfort of the Cabinet Office with no trouble at all. Most of the Czech equipment was made by ICL, or IBM under another label, anyway! Government contract some years ago."

"OK. And when I've finished, I just walk out again the way I came in?"

"Yes. Just walk out. You'll pronounce your tests complete, sign a few forms, and pack your bag and go."

"And if I blow it?"

"You'll shoot your way out, I should imagine, with your usual subtlety."

"It's as easy as that?"

Godwin nodded. "Computer security needs a genius to set up — and a crooked moron in possession of one or two vital passwords to break down. Even you can do it, Hyde." He rubbed his chin. "You'll need luck. What Petrunin was about to tell you — the moment he passed on to the great Centre in the sky — was a shortcut to Teardrop. We don't know what that was. You'll have to sit through everything that comes out of his secret file until you hit the right stuff."

"How long?"

"Can't be too long. Petrunin would have thought of that — he might have needed the stuff himself in something of a hurry. He might have been like you — somewhere he shouldn't have been, accessing a security computer's records." Again, Godwin grinned.

Hyde nodded. "I don't have any choice, anyway." He stood up. "All right — show me what to expect on the screen, then tell me what a system tester does and how he does it." He held out his hand to Godwin, who moved his own hand forward. Disturbed by the movement, the cat leapt lightly from his lap. Hyde gripped Godwin's hand and felt the hard skin on the palm; a badge of long service with his crutch. He pulled Godwin from the armchair and handed him the crutches. Godwin stumped heavily towards the table and the computer that rested on it.

"Come here," he said. "Come on. I've got it ready for you." Hyde followed him. "Sit down, sit down—" He was impatiently instructed. "Now, on the screen you've got the—" He tapped at the keyboard. A list unrolled on the small screen in luminous green letters. " — the usual Menu. That's what you'll see on the terminal in the Hradcany — on all of them. Waiting for you to request something… That's where you use the first password."

Godwin leaned over Hyde's shoulder, his thick finger pointing almost with accusation at the screen. His breathing was stetorious. Hot against Hyde's cheek. "See here — from everything we know about the way the Central Records computer works, this Menu is accurate. Everything's stored in a database, and material is accessed by choosing one of these items from the Menu — Personal Records, Military, Education, Criminal, Career Details, and so on."

"Criminal?"

"Every scrap of information on everyone, anyone and everyone who's ever had anything to do with the KGB — or the MVD and the NKVD, even as far back as OGPU, if they had the records — is in the database. Millions and millions of items of information… all there, waiting to be accessed even by an idiot like you. Dissidents, psychopaths, thieves and murderers — and that's just the enlisted personnel—" Godwin chuckled.

"OK — how do I find what I want?"

Godwin tapped at the keyboard. The screen requested more information from him. He typed once more. The screen cleared and then a graphic display appeared. What was it like? A family tree, Hyde decided.

"There," Godwin said with studied nonchalance, straightening up on his crutches. "That's something like the schema they'd have. See, this is the driver, as it were, that controls the database represented by this top box here." It was labelled System. Lines connected it with other boxes below. More lines connected the second, third and fourth rows of boxes, to the System and to each other. The box below System was marked Name Identification, below that three boxes labelled Assignment History, Education History and Personal Background. Near the bottom of the screen, below perhaps another half-dozen boxes, all labelled, were two which remained blank. "Clear?"

"Yes. What about these?"

"I can label these now, from what you've told me. Let's call them—" He tapped in his instructions. "Teardrop and — oh, Dirt, mm?" The words appeared in their boxes after a few moments. "This is a simplified model — there are hundreds, thousands of these boxes of information in the schema for Personnel Files."

"What do the connections mean — they're numbered, why?"

"They mark the sets, the pathways whereby you retrieve the information. These two boxes, the ones Petrunin added secretly, are linked only to each other and to his Assignment History — see? That's how I imagine he did it. Once you've requested information on Tamas Petrunin and given the correct code to access the information, you'll have to provide the legitimate password, just to prove you're kosher. Then you ask for his assignment history, and so on… if you are kosher. But, since it's you, when you access his assignments you'll use his password, those postings in reverse order — and this calls up a completely different access programme, and your request will follow this route…" His forefinger traced the line from the System box to Name Indentification, then to Assignment History, then to the box he had labelled Teardrop. "Except," he said heavily, "you'll have the password to Dirt, which you'll have to run all the way through before you can get to Teardrop. From what Petrunin was about to tell you, I'm sure he had shortcut passwords to each part of his secret files, but you'll have to access the lot to make sure you find Teardrop. OK?"

Hyde nodded. "OK." He felt a tremor in his hands, and pressed them between his thighs, thrusting them out of sight. "How long could it take?"

"Depends. On how much he had stored and whether he's been adding to it over the past few years. Minutes, perhaps."

"All displayed on the screen or coming out of the printer?"

"Yes."

"I might have to be alone for—"

"Ten minutes. You don't know how to go to Teardrop direct — only through all the other dirt he stored away."

"A real Chance card — go directly to jail, do not pass Go," Hyde murmured.

"It's the safest way."

"I think," Hyde began, looking up at Godwin, "that bastard Petrunin might have the last laugh — don't you? He could kill me yet. And the bugger's been dead for days already!"

Godwin said nothing except: "Let's do a test run on accessing the computer, shall we? I've set it up for that."

Hyde looked down at the keyboard of the small computer. Godwin had patiently stuck small pieces of address label on each of the letter and function keys. On each, the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet had been inscribed. Russian words now indicated the functions of the computer. He had made Hyde practice over and over, before their meal and while he noisily prepared it, in order to become familiar with the Cyrillic keyboard he would meet in the Hradcany. Now, Hyde stared at it in profound mistrust as Godwin cancelled his graphic and reinstated the Menu on the screen. Thanks to Godwin, he could cope with the jargon, with the tasks he would be set to access the information he sought. But he did not think he could cope with the situation, its danger and isolation.

He would be too alone, too exposed for too long… passing time was a series of tripwires. It was going to take too long, too long—"Ready?" Godwin asked. "Then begin."

The moment she saw him, still seated at his desk, the telephone now replaced on its rest, Margaret quailed at the prospect of deceiving Babbington. The room was warm against her cheeks, flushing them with the colour of confession and guilt. The guards still held her arms, and the dog scrabbled on the wooden floor of the corridor behind her. Restrained by its choke-chain, its breathing was loud and threatening. Babbington was smiling broadly.

Her lies were pale and unsubstantial now. Babbington knew everything and would not be persuaded of her innocence.

"Margaret — my dear Margaret!" he said, rising. One of his hands signalled her release. Her arms fell numbly to her sides. Was there hope—? No. The tone was mocking, confident. Babbington came towards her, hands held out. Her body flinched from his embrace. "Margaret—?" His eyes hardened as he studied her face. Then he turned from her and said, "You've caused me a lot of concern, Margaret — a great deal of pointless worry." The mockery of a stern parent's voice.

"Andrew—!" she blurted, her body trembling as if the hot room was cold.

He turned on his heel. "Yes?"

He made another gesture with his right hand, and she heard the door close behind her. Even through the wood, she could hear the reluctant slither of the dog's heavy paws as it was tugged away down the corridor. It barked once as if to remind her of her danger.

"I—" she began. Then: "Where's Paul — Paul's alive, isn't he? You've got Paul here, haven't you?"

Babbington looked grave. He gestured her to a seat and she, moved nearer the fire to avoid his touch. The armchair invited;! insisted. Her legs seemed without strength. Babbington sat I opposite her.

"I'm afraid—" he began.

"No—!" she wailed immediately, then thrust the knuckles of her right hand into her mouth. Her eyes misted. Babbington's gaze glinted. "Oh, no…" she breathed. "No, no, no…"

"I'm sorry—"

"He didn't know anything — he couldn't have been any harm to you!" she protested, finding the deception she had planned now available as something to fend off reality. "We didn't know anything! We didn't, I swear we didn't, I swear we didn't know anything, we didn't know…" Her voice subsided into sobbing.

It was as if she wrenched at the hands of a great clock. Heaving time backwards. If she went on protesting, on and on, Paul would be alive. "We didn't… nothing… nothing…"

It was difficult to see Babbington's expression when she looked up. She wiped her eyes, and saw that his face was moved only to a clever smile of satisfaction.

"I'm sorry, Margaret — it won't do." He sighed. "I toyed with the idea. I didn't believe you couldn't know. I hoped it, at first. Believe me. Then I hoped I might delude myself into such a belief… but, all to no avail. I can't escape the truth — you know everything. About Aubrey. About myself."

She wanted to protest, to stop him. He'd gone too far, too swiftly. There were moves to be made, gambits to deploy. Not this, this nakedness, beyond which Paul's death was utterly real.

"No," was all she said, dropping the hand she had extended to try to silence him.

"I'm afraid it has to be, Margaret." His voice was soft, almost a caress. She saw his bulk move from the chair towards her. Slowly, she looked up. Again, it was difficult to see his expression clearly. He cupped her chin in one large hand. "Paul's alive, my dear. Wounded, but alive—"

"What—?"

He struck her, then. Her head twisted, her jaw was shot through with pain, her neck burned with the jolt from his closed fist. She heard him walk away, heard the fire grumble and spit like an old man. She touched her jaw, tasted blood in her mouth; spat.

"He's alive, and will stay alive if you tell me why you're here. Tell me where you've been, what you know, who's with you — and he lives. Understand me?" He turned to her and shouted: "Do you understand me?"

"Yes, yes—!" She caught the blood that spilled from her open mouth in the palm of her hand. Blood and saliva. She stared at it, horrified, then returned her gaze to his face. He did not seem to regret the violence, or shrink from it.

"Good. Where's Hyde?"

"Who?"

He moved swiftly towards her, and she flinched. "Hyde!" he barked. "Where is Hyde?"

"I don't know."

He hit her again. The gobbet of blood in her palm flew into the grate and sizzled on the logs. She cried out with renewed pain.

"Where is he?"

"Czech — Czechoslovakia…" she sobbed.

"Why?"

"I don't know!" she screamed at-him. "He didn't tell me anything — just in case this happened!"

Babbington lowered his clenched fist. He seemed satisfied. "What did he instruct you to do in his absence?" he asked in a thick voice. "What?"

Margaret watched him. She must not tell Babbington anything more—! She had already told him too much, far too much while the blows and the shouting were in control of her. She glanced guiltily at her handbag, at her hands, her feet. She hunched into herself, retreating from Babbington. He would kill Paul and her once he knew everything—

"What did he instruct you to do? Follow me? Watch me?"

She was prepared for the questions to continue, yet they still acted with the naked shock of icy water, so that she flinched, appeared guilty, seemed to choke off confession by putting her shaking hand to her lips.

Babbington snatched at her handbag and tipped the contents onto the bright rug in front of the fire. He stirred the compact, the keys, the hairbrush, the paper handkerchiefs, the purse, with the toe of one shoe. Then his shoe touched the instruction booklet on how to fit and use the telephoto lens, and finally the small plastic tub in which the second roll of film had been contained before she loaded it.

Like a delicate footballer, he kicked the small tub across the rug with a flick of his toe, then separated the instruction booklet from the litter of other objects. He bent and picked them up, his face gleaming from triumph, suspicion and the firelight. His eyes were hard when he looked at her after opening and reading the booklet. His big hand clenched upon the plastic tub, squeezing it.

"What?" he breathed softly. "My, but you have been an industrious little thing, haven't you." Then his voice hardened once more. "What was the purpose of your photography, Margaret? Where are your holiday snaps?"

She remained silent, quivering like a sapling at the first wind of an approaching storm. She would not prevent her head from shaking, as if to defy him.

"What did you photograph?" he roared at her. She huddled into the chair. He grabbed her arms, bruising them, and dragged her face close to his. She was terrified of the hard chips of light in his eyes, of the mouth that appeared hungry. "Tell me, Margaret — or he dies now. Do you understand me? He dies now!" He flung her dramatically back into the chair, even as she cried out:

"No—!"

"I give you my word — now!" He snapped his fingers, moved towards the door.

"No—!" He did not stop. "I followed you — to a meeting — in the Belvedere!"

He turned on his heel. She heard his breath sigh out like sexual release. It was hot, heady in the room; a place for exotic plants, foetid.

"You have evidence of that meeting?"

She nodded. "Two rolls of film… telephoto lens…"

He moved heavily towards her. "Where are those rolls of film?"

She flinched from his raised hand.

"Posted them—"

He grabbed her chin and jerked her face upwards. His thumb and forefinger pressed her jaw painfully. "Where are they? When did you post them?" He shook her face between his fingers like something utterly fragile and breakable. "Tell me, Margaret. Tell me!"

She blurted out the name of the pension and the time she had posted them. He released her chin at once and glanced at his watch. Then he moved quickly to his desk, snapping on the intercom. He barked orders into it, ending with: "They won't have been collected yet. Yes, of course police IDs for you and whoever you take—! And hurry!"

He flicked the switch and turned to her. She felt something loosen and slide within her; will, resolve, she could not tell. Perhaps even hope. She had made a final move in the game. Left herself open to checkmate. Her hands flitted at her bruised jaw, at her quivering lips. She'd lost everything, everything—

It had been ridiculous to assume she could alter events. Ridiculous from the first. All that mattered, really mattered, had been Paul's life. And he was alive. Babbington had given him back. She looked up as Babbington addressed her.

"Now, you must see your husband, Margaret." He rubbed his hands lightly together, dusting them. "I'm sorry for — well, that's in the past. I had to trick you, even hit you, to save time. I do not have that much to spare. However—" He was buoyant with triumph now, and his cold munificence chilled her more than the streak of sadism and vengeful rage he had earlier shown. " — perhaps now there is a little more time…" He took her arm and helped her from the chair. She felt unreal, a sacklike object being moved. "A pity you know nothing of Hyde's exact whereabouts or his motives — , but I believe you don't know. He's clever enough not to have trusted you." Babbington smiled. They were at the door. She flinched as if anticipating that the dog lurked beyond it. Babbington opened the door. The corridor was empty. "Come," he said. "I'll take you to Paul."

She clung to that statement, blotting out the scene that preceded it. The voice had been almost warm, the hand that held her arm supported rather than imprisoned her. She moved into the fragile fiction with each step on the polished floorboards. She felt her body lean against Babbington for support.

He lied to you then hit you to disorientate you, something announced in her head. You went straight to pieces, to little pieces…

She bit her tongue, as if she had voiced the words aloud. Her father's face, Aubrey's face, Babbington's face — twisted in cruel satisfaction — Paul's face…

Grainy picture. The skull separated from its skeleton by a workman's spade. The skull blown open by Aubrey's accidental bullet. She shuddered and pulled away from Babbington.

"No—" she murmured.

"But here we are," Babbington announced with mocking breeziness. There was someone else there, an armed guard. "This is Paul's room — open the door." The guard turned a key and threw the door ajar. "A pleasant reunion, Margaret, my dear," Babbington said and thrust her forward. The door closed loudly behind her.

Massinger looked up distractedly, as if a stranger had burst in upon some scene of ordinary domesticity. The paperback remained in his hand. The small transistor radio they had provided continued to play. It wasn't food, not the right time for supper, or for the one large Scotch they served him late in the evening.

What, then—?

He felt the shock of recognition. Beneath it, a further shock of his imprisonment was made real to him again. He saw the bruises in the same moment that he observed the open mouth and wild eyes.

Margaret stood by the door, trembling. Pain stabbed in his thigh and hip as he tried to move his injured leg and climb awkwardly from the low bed. He dropped the novel he was reading and heaved himself to his feet, tottering erect.

She moved towards him then. The Handel on the radio changed inappropriately from andante to allegro. Sliding into something that might have been gay. He was disconcerted. She was murmuring, one word over and over again, even as he pressed her against him and felt her whole frame shaking.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry…"

He did not understand the need for apology—

And then did, as he brushed her hair, as his hand moved gently to her cheek and she winced at the thought of further inflicted pain. She, too, was a prisoner. She had — yes, she had come to find him. Reckless, narrow-minded, single-minded…

He knew, with a sick certainty, that she had told Babbington everything she knew.

He lifted her face and kissed her very carefully and softly. Resenting the stubble that might pain her bruised jaw. She was looking at him with the face of a child. He sensed her body through the material of his shirt as his arms enclosed her. The fur jacket was wet with melted snow. For a moment, he almost wanted to thrust her away. To make her stand apart from him while he told her what a fool, what a mistake, what a fatal error…

But, she knew it. All.

She had ceased murmuring her apology and simply clung to him, her face against his chest. He looked over her blonde hair at the closed, locked door of the small room. It was as if he could quite clearly see the armed guard posted outside. He brushed absently at her hair, even at the shoulder of the fur coat. Stroking a small animal that could not be blamed.

"It's all right now, it's all right now, my darling," he began softly, gripping her more tightly in the circle of his arms. "It's all right… you're safe. I've been out of my mind with worry about you. It's all right, it's all right…" What she had done, she had done out of love. Killing herself as well as he. He swallowed. "It's all right now, everything's OK…" She was sobbing softly, and swallowed continually. He had to ease her guilt away. "Don't worry. It just got messed up, but — everything you've done, everything you've said or felt, has been honest. Don't blame yourself… it's all right now, all right…"

He continued to murmur into her hair, stroking her face and shoulder and upper arm gently. "I shouldn't have — my fault, getting you into this mess…" Did he believe that—? Yes, yes. "My, my — stupid, ridiculous shining armour, my — blindness, my stupidity…" He ground the words slowly out. "I had to try and help and I didn't think about you — forgive me for that. I didn't think about you…"

He continued to stare at the locked door, even as he sensed the desperation of her need for comfort. Her hands eventually opened and stilled against his back, pressing harder and harder, returning his close embrace. She swallowed. He could hear her breathing become more regular, quieter. He continued to stroke her hair and face.

Hyde distracted himself from Godwin's slow, noisy progress onto the escalator by glancing once more at the small picture in his hand. He stepped onto the escalator behind the hoarsely-breathing Godwin, hefting the haversack of tools on his shoulder. The snapshot was small, monochrome — a flashlight picture. Wiring flared behind an opened panel surrounded by darkness. Someone other than Godwin had scribbled with a ballpoint on the surface of the snap. The words in Czech near the bottom and an arrow pointing at one of the cables exposed to the camera.

The landline which linked the remote stations of the Hradcany's computer room with Moscow Centre.

He slipped the snapshot into the breast pocket of the oily overalls he was wearing over corduroy jeans and a check shirt. He had not shaved. Rubbing the stubble on his chin and cheeks, he reminded himself of his almost sleepless night. Like rubbing some legendary lamp, he evoked smoky fragments of the night's information — and quashed them by concentrating fiercely on his feet as he reached the bottom of the escalator and stepped off. Godwin readjusted his crutches and leaned his weight more assuredly on them. There was no time now to consider the coming afternoon and night…

People brushed past them, moving crowdedly into the warmly-lit underground concourse of the Mustek metro station. Snow shone wetly on their shoulders and hats and headscarves as it melted. The mosaics were stained with muddy footprints as the morning rush-hour crowds moved through the shop-lined concourse.

"All right?" Hyde muttered in Czech, leaning towards Godwin. Godwin merely grimaced and nodded.

Hyde adjusted the haversack on the shoulder of his dark-blue donkey jacket. Another manual worker on his way to his job. He joined the orderly procession to the platform, Godwin following him. Hyde felt the tension rising in him like sap; sensed the lack of reserves in himself — the lack of sleep that now prevented him from using his intelligence as if it were some separate part of him. His nerves affected his ability to think.

Godwin rested on his crutches beside him as they waited for the metro. One station down the line; Muzeum. At the other end of Wenceslas Square. Then a walk down a long tunnel to a sealed inspection hatch set in the wall. The distances came to him as measured paces as he stared at the track, at three rails, one of them live. A measured distance alongside a live rail. He could think of it in no other way. He glanced involuntarily towards the tunnel, where the lights disappeared and the live rail vanished into ambush. And shuddered.

"You all right?" Godwin hissed.

Hyde nodded violently. "Shut up," he snapped.

Timetables, distances, tools, the snapshot, the imagined noises of the tunnel tumbled together in his thoughts. He clenched one hand in his pocket, the other gripped the strap of the haversack tightly, so that his knuckles were white. He felt sick, despite the croissants and rolls and coffee Godwin had made him eat. Self-confidence was a wafer-thin, puncturable envelope around him, threatened by his surroundings.

The Russian-built train sighed into the platform on rubber wheels, its lights and crowded faces slowing after the moment in which they had made his head jolt and spin. The crowd moved him forward into the carriage like a reluctant representative of some complaint they wished to voice. Godwin lumbered behind him.

The doors closed, the train jerked away from the platform. The walls of the tunnel were suddenly close — much too close — behind the row of faces opposite him. Faces with too little sleep, fed by basic, unvarying diets, older than they should have been; little make-up on any but the youngest of the women.

The light again, and the train slowing, coming to rest. Doors opening, Muzeum emblazoned on the hoardingless walls. Clean cream tiles, the face of Dvorak and other bearded Czechs from pre-history. The crowd moved him out of the carriage, Godwin behind him. Now, he resented their pressure against his back.

The platform emptied. The train rushed away. Hyde followed it with his eyes. He envisaged his body flattened against the tunnel wall, curving with the shape of its huge tube as a train rushed towards him, too close to the wall—

"What is it?" Godwin whispered hoarsely. The platform was almost empty. Two uniformed railwaymen, a cleaner with mop and bucket, perhaps a dozen passengers filtering along the platform.

"All right," he said thickly. Nodding. "All right."

Beginning to be all right, he told himself as Godwin studied his pale, unshaven face. Beginning to be… Noticing people, eyes, distances—

"OK," Godwin said at last, as if telepathically aware of Hyde's returning resolution. "Let's go…" He began to stump away along the platform — now more crowded, where were the two uniforms? One there, the other vanished. Hyde followed and caught up with Godwin, absorbing the scene. The tunnel slowly-enlarged as they approached it. "Distance?"

"Four hundred yards."

"Cable?"

"Third from top."

"Sequence?"

"Panel off — drill out lock… say three or four minutes… induction coil — next train — flip-flop transistor and battery, clock… before the next train."

"OK. That's it. Set the timer for eight." Hyde nodded. They had reached the end of the platform. Hyde glanced at the clock. A minute to the next train. The platform had filled. He could see no one in uniform. No one was looking in their direction. In his imagination, he saw his feet treading carefully in the pools of light from his torch, saw the hatch, the working of the drill, the rigging of the induction coil — then nodded again.

Godwin's face was tight and calm. A case officer's noncommittal expression. Then he grinned, nervously and boyishly. Hyde backed away from him. Could he hear the approach of the train? He reached the edge of the platform, hard against the wall. He stared for a moment at the live rail, and at a cigarette packet, crumpled into a ball, between it and the outer rail. He glanced up the platform. Faces turned to the far end. A quiet, distant rumble—?

Godwin had moved to the edge to mask him. He slipped his body off the edge of the platform. Aware of the sleepers and of his trouser-leg inches from the live rail. Then he strode swiftly but carefully into the tunnel. He heard no cry, no murmur of detection behind him. He flicked on his torch. The sleepers quivered beneath his feet and he heard the train enter the platform, come to a halt. He felt impelled to hurry, even to run. He flicked the torch-beam along the wall of the tunnel, back to the sleepers and his feet stepping into the pools of light, to the walls, counting the seconds. Torch on the wall, on his feet, aware of the fragility of ankles and the price of stumbling — seconds, wall, feet, breathing — noise, noise. The jerky sigh of acceleration, the quiver returning to the sleepers, the hiss of rubber wheels, the hum of current—

The fireplace, the fireplace and the chimney—!

He stepped over the live rail and pressed himself into the inspection arch set in the tunnel wall. The train cried and bellowed past him, his lips quivered almost to the rhythm of the carriage lights splashing over him. He pressed his cheek to the rough brickwork. Silver blur of the flanks of the carriages, a solid rushing wall, a metal blizzard passing the shallow niche of the inspection shelter and the ventilation shaft that rose from it like a chimney above a fireplace.

Then silence, except that his ears rang with the noises of the train. A deafness into which the hum of the live rail insisted after a few moments. Seconds going. He pushed himself away from the wall, stepped over the live rail — five minutes now — and began to walk on weak, trembling limbs down the curving tunnel.

Second inspection shelter, third. Three hundred and fifty yards into the tunnel. He counted his measured paces, his legs marking distance and the passage of time. Each step a yard, each step a second—

He washed the thin light of the torch over the tunnel wall. Instructions, conduits, fuse boxes. A metal plate, unmarked. He walked on. Six paces. There, just on the edge of the beam. Metal plate, like the door of a first-aid box, but unmarked. He hurried to it, stepping over the live rail. Shone the torch. Drew out the snapshot, checked the dimensions scribbled on the back together with the distance from the platform. Yes, yes

A heavy security lock.

The landlines that linked the terminals in the Hradcany with Moscow Centre had been buried in the tunnel walls of the metro system when it was constructed. Under KGB supervision. Just as the rock outcrop on which the Hradcany stood was bomb-proofing for the cellars of the computer room, so the deep tunnels of the metro afforded similar protection to the secure communications channels.

Hyde touched the lock, then removed a drill from his haversack. He waggled the torch beam until he located the heavy-duty power points and plugged in the drill. He switched on — and sensed the whine of the drill funnel along the darkness to reach the platform and alert—

He pressed the drill-tip against the door of the terminal box, felt it jump aside, pressed it with both hands and began to drill into the lock.

The torch nestled under his chin, jammed against his hunched shoulder. Its weak beam wavered, jumped, seemed tenuous. Hyde was aware of the darkness around him, around the metal box he was attacking. Aware of the hum of the live rail behind him. It was thirty yards along the tunnel to the next inspection shelter. He had to listen above the whine of the drill for the next train—

He stopped and dropped into a crouch, unstrapping his watch quickly from his wrist. Then he fished in the haversack at his side, withdrew a roll of black insulating tape, and straightened up. He held the door in the torch-beam and taped his watch to it. Its face hung there in the pale light. Two minutes forty-seven since he had stepped out onto the tracks behind the last train. Two minutes — two-nine before the next train. The second hand jerked across the face of the watch. He wedged the torch beneath his chin once more and placed the drill-tip against the lock. One hole, two, three — one minute-twenty left, one minute and ten — three, four holes. He punctured the metal, withdrawing the drill with a jerk before its tip could contact any of the cables inside the hatch. Then again — forty-five seconds. Five holes. Two more, three—?

Thirty seconds. Sweat was running down his cheeks and into his eyes, even though his breath clouded around him in the torch-light and damply misted the face of his watch. Clouded the metal of the door. He was wet with perspiration. Twenty-five seconds. He listened after the drill's noise had tailed away. The bend in the tunnel obscured the platform. He began to drill again.

Twenty, fifteen, ten.

Six holes, beginning the seventh. On schedule. Five seconds.

Train should be drawing into the station, time to begin to move—

He lowered the drill.

The sigh preceded the train, a rushing wind. He dropped the drill nervelessly. Light on the opposite wall, and a quiver in the sleepers. Hyde ran.

The train bellowed its way around the curve of the tunnel, pursuing him. He flicked the torch ahead of his feet, then to the tunnel wall, then his feet—

The shallow arch was caught in the torchlight. He threw himself into it, his back to the train as it yelled past him and the metal blizzard of its flanks roared inches away from him. Then it was gone, and he slumped against the brickwork. The train had been perhaps thirty seconds early.

Slowly, his breathing stetorious, he returned to the junction box and the drill. Flicking the torch with intense nervousness until he discovered it, lying at the side of the track. Outside the track. It had not been damaged or its wires snapped or crushed. He picked it up, tested it. His breath was noisy, visible around him like a fog. He wedged the torch, checked the watch, and drilled out the last two holes with frantic, careful haste.

Then he drew a thin, long screwdriver from the haversack and levered at the lock. Heaved against it, tearing the tiny patches of metal between each of the holes — snapping out the useless lock. It clattered on the nearest rail, bounced — a flare of sparks, illuminating him briefly, robbed him of his night-vision. The live rail glared on his retinae as he returned his gaze to the door, which now hung open. He waited until the hands of the watch diminished into clear focus, then studied the terminals and cables in front of him.

Third from the top. One, two — he grinned. The red one. The big red one. He bent once more to the haversack. Straightened, replaced the watch on his wrist, then touched his fingertips around the red cable. Enough room. He began to feed the length of coil around the cable, encircling it six or seven times.

How do you know?

Unofficials—

Who? Who told you about this?

He snapped off the length of coiled wire with a pair of pliers, then raised the flip-flop transistor into the beam of the torch. An intermittent noise on the line, interrupting the flow of data from Moscow Centre. Scrambling and altering, disrupting. But not a consistent noise which could be rectified quickly. One difficult to trace because it occurred at imprecise, lengthy intervals.

He began to attach the transistor.

Chartists, people with a grudge, the greedy and the needy, Godwin had replied with a slight smile over the rim of his coffee cup. They sell it, offer it, give it. There's a whole black market in anti-Soviet information out there, if you bother to look…

But, this stuff?

Engineers, designers, surveyors — a lot of them signed the Charter in '77, lost jobs, need to eat or hate the Russians… a lot of clever people were students in '68… the trauma froze most of them their feelings come up brand-new every time …

And you trust them?

I trust their hatred.

Hyde checked that the contacts were good, then drew the battery from the haversack and connected it. Watch, watch—

Three minutes ten already gone. Careful this time—

He stretched out a length of insulating tape and fixed the short-life battery to the hanging door, making certain that it was solidly held. Then he eased the door closed. When he released it, the door swung open once more. Hyde fumbled in the depleted haversack for the timer and set its hands in the beam of the torch.

Three minutes fifty gone—

He glanced involuntarily down the tunnel towards the hidden platform of the Muzeum station. Silence. The air was cold on his heated face. He shivered, aware of the temperature around him. Straightening up once more, he swiftly wired the timer to the circuit. At eight o'clock that evening, the timer would trip the completion of the circuit and the transistor would begin to disrupt the impulses passing through the landline, garbling the flow of information between the Hradcany and Moscow Centre. The intermittent fault would be difficult to trace and cure. The post office engineer would be on the point of giving up when Hyde arrived to test the system. Soon after that, the short-life battery would fail and the fault would disappear.

And he'd be left alone with a computer terminal — screen, keyboard, printer, recorder, all the equipment — and Teardrop—

Four minutes twenty…

He checked the coil, the transistor, the wiring, the battery, then closed the door and taped it shut. Four minutes forty—

He shone the pale light of the torch over the junction box. At a glance — yes? Yes — at a glance it appeared closed and locked—

Lock, where was the lock?

He flicked the torch over the track but could not locate the lock that had bounced on the live rail. Satisfied it was not visible to any workmen or repair team who might walk through this section of tunnel before midnight — when his work would be finished or he would be finished—

Stop that—

Four minutes fifty-eight, nine — five minutes…

He hurried along the track, torchlight pools at his feet, his hearing alert for the noise of the next train.

In this country, they almost queue up to pass you information, he heard Godwin saying, The trouble is, hardly anyone bothers to listen. He reached the inspection shelter and pressed his body into it. The track had begun to tremble once more beneath his shoes. He waited, switching off the torch. At once, the darkness was icy, thick-frozen around him. He heard the metro train approaching.

Collect the drill and the haversack on your way back, he reminded himself. And shivered. The metal storm of the train rushed past him.

"You're not eating your Châteaubriand, Voronin."

"I prefer my meat to be more cooked, thank you."

"Wilkes, give our friend more claret — it might help his palate to accept rare beef. It can't be the suggestion of blood, can it?"

"You seem in a very comfortable frame of mind, Sir Andrew Babbington."

"I am. Tell him, Wilkes, how industrious you have been this morning."

"It's all arranged. Parrish, Head of Station, takes official custody of our friends this evening. Eight on the dot. They'll be taken to the safe house — and the rest is up to you. Only five or six men on duty. I'll be around. You'll get updates during the course of the evening and a disposition of forces just before you go in — OK? I'll leave by the back door…"

"I would prefer that you did not."

"What? Not on your—"

"Please listen. The safe house has monitors and surveillance cameras both inside and out?"

"Yes, but—"

"And a security room?"

"Yes—"

"Then, Sir Andrew Babbington, I propose that Wilkes remains in the safe house — in the security room itself — and he can observe our progress… you speak some Russian, Wilkes?"

"He does."

"Then over the R/T, he can inform us of the movements of his unfortunate colleagues."

"Wait a minute, chum—"

"A good idea, Voronin. That's settled, Wilkes… drink your wine and don't sulk."

"Vienna Station was not curious as to how and where you captured these desperate criminals?"

"Of course. Wilkes bluffed it out with them, in my name. Because of Aubrey's treachery, no one can be trusted. I have had to use local unofficial and people I've drafted in — and a top-secret location. Parrish swallowed it more or less whole, didn't he, Wilkes?"

"Like a greedy trout — silly old fart."

"And — for your part, my dear Voronin?"

"Everything is arranged. We will go in at eleven-thirty. A strong force of men. Aubrey and the others will be transferred to the embassy, then to the airport. An Aeroflot diplomatic flight will take them to Moscow — leaving at… but that is not your concern. They will be safely in Moscow and no longer a threat to you before daylight tomorrow."

"Good. I'm glad that Kapustin has had the sense to accept my scenario."

"Now, I would like to see a scale-drawing of the safe house, please."

"You still haven't finished your Châteaubriand."

"I still prefer my meat to be more cooked — what do you say? Well done?"

"Yes. Quite correct. Well done it is."

"Well, there it is — Castle Dracula. You all right?"

"Stakes and garlic — check."

"Just walk straight in through the gates, past the guards. Just like that bus-load of schoolkids."

"Bit late, isn't it — getting dark?"

"Never too late for a bit of Party history."

"Christ — they're forming up in a crocodile, and I can't hear any noise! Something to be said for the Party after all."

"Make sure you buy the official guide book to the Hradcany. From the Cedok office in the First Courtyard. Then you can wander through the Second and Third Courtyards to the cathedral. Across the courtyard from the cathedral is the President's Chancellery. Down below the building and the courtyard are, among other things, the computer rooms. Wander over for a closer look at the architecture — you'll be looked for and spotted."

"The supervising cleaner?"

"That's him. He'll use your name — no, he knows nothing else about you, only the name. Then he'll conceal you until tonight."

"You're certain he'll know—?"

"When the post office engineer arrives — yes. When an hour has passed, he'll come and tip you off. Then you're on — the big finale, all singing, all dancing."

"Why is he doing it?"

"Oh, he wants to be bit better off financially… well, he's bitter as well. He used to be an electrical engineer until he signed the Charter one night when he was pissed out of his mind. Now, he supervises the Mrs Mops in the Hradcany. Someone's idea of a joke. But, he wouldn't do it without the money — it's also true you can trust him…"

"And I get out this way?"

"Your Soviet ID's OK — I double-checked. And the guards will change at about ten. When you come out, they won't expect to have checked you in — they'll be new."

"OK — I'm off."

"Good luck, Hyde. I mean it."

"Don't go cold on your brilliant planning now, Godwin — that's all I need!"

"I'm not cold on it — it'll work, if you keep your head."

"I intend to."

"And remember — Moscow Centre will expect to hear from you before you start testing — and maybe during. If they ring you — at any time — you've got to be able to bluff it out. You have to convince them that you're doing nothing wrong, that you need to access the information you've requested to check the system thoroughly. If you don't, they could isolate your terminal at any time they choose, just like that—! Your screen will go blank, the terminal will shut down, and you'll never get hold of Teardrop."

"Sure. Here's another bus-load of kids for the funfair. I'm off."

"I'll be here, waiting for you. You'll be finished before midnight and on your way to Bratislava, with any luck. You could be back across the border before daylight."

"Let's hope it's soon enough."

"Good luck."

"Sure."

Babbington's bruise-dyed knuckles as he thrust his right hand into the black glove; Margaret Massinger's swollen lips and crooked, reluctant smile; Massinger's limp and his own weariness; all confirmed his growing realisation of the complete, successful power of an implacable opponent. Margaret's hurt mouth and jaw were like badges of ownership placed on them all by Babbington.

Then they were outside — Massinger shivered immediately in the thin raincoat he wore over his shirt. Margaret hunched into her fur jacket. Aubrey felt the wind whip at his sparse hair, blow coldly around his collar. The sky was bright with stars where racing clouds did not obscure them. Gravel crunched beneath their feet — dragged in the case of the limping Massinger. Margaret supported his weight as well as she was able. Their guards walked beside them, unworried. Aubrey felt his attention drawn towards the moving, changing, unreal clouds. His thoughts drifted.

He ducked into the rear of the black BMW, and a guard followed him. In the headlights, he saw haloes of breath like signals of distress around Massinger's head as the others were put into a Mercedes for the drive to the safe house. Then the driver slipped into his seat, and Babbington settled heavily into the front passenger seat, obscuring Aubrey's view of the other car.

Babbington ordered the driver to move off. The BMW bucked down the narrow track towards the road through the village, headlights swaying and jolting; illuminating the Massingers' heads in silhouette pressed almost together in the leading car. Reconciled, accepting.

Aubrey was envious, and angry. Babbington's head obscured his view of the other car when he sat back in his seat. The guard was silent at his side, hardly watchful, already assured of the old man's harmlessness.

Yes, the Massingers — he'd known it the moment he had first seen them together, seen it through the shock of her presence at the lodge — had achieved acceptance; had settled for the consolation of their reunion. It was to be envied, for he, after all, would die alone.

The lights glared as the BMW hit the final, slush-filled rut in the track and dirty, half-frozen water splashed the windscreen. Then, out of the lights and the action of the wipers, knowledge emerged.

From what Babbington had said, his scheme had the attractions of simplicity and effectiveness. Everyone would see the KGB recapture their supposed agent. The Massingers would go with him to Moscow…

A fault there—

Aubrey swallowed drily. No fault, only ruthlessness. Whoever was detailed to guard them at the Vienna Station safe house when they were handed over was to die. The Massingers would not be accounted for. The dead bodies would be irrefutable proof that the KGB took back their own. As for the Massingers, there were no witnesses to the fact that they had ever been in Aubrey's company.

And even if someone were to survive, no doubt Babbington's explanation to Parrish as Head of Station — and to Guest and anyone and everyone else — would be that the KGB took away the Massingers to silence them. Innocents — victims of circumstance.

It did not even have to be tidy, loose ends could remain. No one would regard them as significant once the bodies were counted and Aubrey had vanished in company with his friends from the KGB—!

He clenched his hands into useless fists and swallowed the hard lump of bilious anger with difficulty, as he might have done a lodged chicken-bone.

He closed his eyes. They were out of the village now, and the oncoming evening headlights hurt his eyes. An image of Elsenreith smiled in the flaring darkness, as if his face were outlined by the explosions of an artillery barrage. Clara appeared more faintly behind him, her face thin, undernourished waif-like, as he had first seen her. And, because of Clara — love? Yes, perhaps. Certainly regard, friendship unlike with any other woman…

Because Clara, Castleford.

He glimpsed the flicker of constant oncoming lights through his pressed shut lids. They had turned onto the autobahn. He opened his eyes, confirming his guess. Glimpsed then the two silhouetted heads in the leading car, leaning together like dummies or the heads of two dead bodies—

He shrugged, almost expecting their heads to loll away from one another in death and disappear from the rear window of the Mercedes. He closed his eyes once more.

Elsenreith, Clara, Castleford.

He had never felt as defeated, as alone and without hope while in East Berlin — the Russian Zone as it was then called, he pedantically announced to himself. The Russian Zone. Not as helpless as now, not as bereft of expectation. Hopeless—

His people had got him out — dragging him from the back of the car after they'd crashed a small truck into it as he was being transferred from one prison to another — moving up the ladder of interrogation and torture…

He had not expected them to rescue him, but even so he had hoped. Now, he did not, could not.

Castleford's face. His whining, pleading, ashamed face— then his slow-cunning, wary, treacherous, dangerous face. Then his dead face, lying in a spreading pool of blood on the floor of his apartment.

His face in the bombed cellar — no, first his face lolling slackly and abruptly out of the back seat of the car — then his face in the weak torchlight in the bombed-out, ruined cellar as Aubrey obscured it with shovelfuls of rubble. Aubrey remembered the effort, the strain, of levering the fragment of wall so that it fell into the hole of the cellar, burying Castleford's stiff, white, staring face.

They were traveling north-east through the Landstrasse district of Vienna, towards the Danube. Clara had been in Vienna, they had met once more, he'd helped establish her there in business and—

Memory disallowed success. Instead, he heard Castleford's broken voice, confessing. Voicing the trap that had closed about him when one of the bright, scintillating, glamorous young men, now with broken fingernails and a starved look about him, had pleaded to be saved from the authorities. Then another of the group Castleford had know at Cliveden and other great houses during the thirties had come, and then a third

And then Elsenreith had come and announced the conditions of Castleford's new employment. And he had done the work because there was no alternative; helping war criminals escape, evade justice and revenge.

The trap had closed on Aubrey now just as certainly as it had shut upon Castleford.

The Massingers — he glimpsed their shadowy heads once more as the cars crossed the river by the Praterbrücke — had achieved their calm, all passion spent, and for that, too, he envied them. It would be better to lie down and wait quietly for the inevitable — would be better…

In a matter of hours, a few hours at most, they would come for him. Killing those left, duped, to guard them at the safe house. Or leaving one survivor, like Ishmael, to tell the tale. And he and the Massingers would board the flight to Moscow before dawn.

The river gleamed with lights and then the BMW left the bridge and turned north. He began to watch the passing buildings, the oncoming lights. Numbing his mind with fleeting sensations.

In the darkness, Hyde held the luminous dial of his watch close to his face; it clouded with his breath. He wiped the glass to read the passage of time. Suk, the supervising cleaner, had been gone too long — far too long. The sour smell of drying mops, of half-closed old polish tins, of dust and cold, was the room's only reality.

The odour of detergent was strong and acrid. His stomach was watery. He had been waiting too long for a report from Suk, waiting too long to be taken down to the lower levels of the building… the penetration operation was on the point of being aborted…

However often he tried to dismiss that idea, it returned insidiously, always with greater strength. He was nothing more than a child hiding in an old dark house, playing sardines. But the game was long over, no one had come to find him and the darkness was growing more and more intense—

He shook his head, almost vehemently, clearing it. Around him lay the now unseen shipwreck of a hardware shop. Old vacuum cleaners, mops, brooms, buckets, tea-chests, shelving. The pistol lay near his thigh as he sat with his back against the wall.

He looked again at his watch. Time was running away. Suk had been gone three-quarters of an hour now on his scouting job… it should have been fifteen minutes maximum before he came back to report. The engineer would have been in the Hradcany computer room for more than half an hour by now, perhaps more than an hour… Where was Suk?

The corridor outside was silent, empty.

Suk had buggered it up, got himself suspected, caught… even chickened out. Delaying until it was too late, anyway.

It isn't going to happen, he heard his mind announce with solemn clarity. It isn't going to work.

It isn't going to work — and you're trapped…

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: In the Labyrinth

Light switched on—

Hyde, startled into movement, slid upright against the wall, the gun coming up immediately, the barrel quivering slightly from reaction until he stilled it, aiming it at—

— at Suk's stomach. Suk's stomach—!

His legs felt weak. Suk's face mirrored his own shock and relief.

"For Christ's sake—!" Hyde hissed venomously. "Where the fucking hell have you been?"

"Come, come quickly," Suk urged, pressing his thin, stooping form against the door he had closed furtively behind him. "Please—"

"It's over an hour since you — Christ, man, where were you?"

"You must come at once, please, you must come now—!" the supervising cleaner pleaded.

Hyde moved on stiff legs.

"Why? What's gone wrong?"

Suk shook his head vehemently. "No, nothing is wrong… I—"

"What?"

"It — it was difficult for me to approach, to know… eventually, I–I did not tell you this, but when I came last, the engineer…"

"Yes?"

"He had already arrived — I did not know how long before — I had to find out, I could not come sooner—"

"And?"

Suk seemed to stoop to Hyde's height, as if to diminish himself as a target for blame or blows. He was sweating. Hyde smelt him, too, intruding upon the smells that had filled his nostrils for the past hours.

"Only ten minutes before — I swear it, only ten—!" Suk cowered.

Hyde nodded, then looked at his watch.

"One hour and twenty — OK, take me down." He stared at Suk, but a threat seemed superfluous, even wrong. And his own tension threatened to interfere with his articulation, and he merely added: "Come on, Suk — take me down."

Hyde climbed into the white lab coat Suk had provided, clipping the ID card with his name, photograph and details enclosed in clear plastic, to the breast pocket. He pocketed the pistol, and tested the weight of his briefcase filled with files and forms in his left hand. Then his right hand fiddled for the other documents in his pocket. The cover seemed as thin and unprotective as the white coat. Joke scientist — did they really expect him in that guise? Godwin nodded, smiling sardonically in his mind. Suk opened the door with exaggerated caution, almost comically. Then slipped through the crack into the corridor. Hyde followed.

Suk's whisper enticed him like the tune of a snake-charmer along the corridors, down the flights of stairs to the cellars of the Chancellery building where the KGB had installed their high-security computer room, protected by the rock of the high Hradcany ridge.

Now, the man wanted to talk, to babble away tension, letting it leak out in words.

"The engineer was delayed by a job outside Prague — a military installation, I think… complained much, but I did not think he was coming, sorry, but I missed him… I have glimpsed the room only once since his arrival… it seems he is still occupied…"

Hyde wanted to order him to keep quiet, but was afraid of a crack in his voice. Suk's words were like a strong light, making the weave of the operation transparent and fragile. Shut up, man, shut up—

Then, the last flight of steps. The shoulder of a uniformed guard at the bottom, jutting beyond a turn in the corridor. Hyde dodged back out of sight, feeling Suk's shallow, quick breathing on his neck and cheek. He shivered, turning to face the supervising cleaner.

Then looked at his watch.

"He was delayed?" Suk nodded. Already, the beads of perspiration on his pale forehead were drying. He had completed his role. In a moment, he would be able to retreat from this location, this tension. Count the money—

"Then the fault on the computer should have disappeared by now," Hyde said. He remembered turning the hands and setting the clock in the darkness of the metro tunnel.

He saw the shoulder of the guard, the first obstacle of his course. Even if he passed him, there would be others; beyond them, he might only find that the engineer had already left, the fault had vanished, his presence unnecessary and immediately suspicious. The guard's shoulder twitched like an organ of sense detecting something amiss. Hyde gripped the material of Suk's suit above the breastbone.

"I'm walking into a trap because you couldn't do your fucking job properly!" he hissed, leaning his lips to the man's ear. He heard Suk's ragged breathing, loud as an alarm signal, and immediately released the thin, coarse material of the jacket. Suk was vigorously shaking his head, and sweating once more.

"No…"he protested.

"Get lost."

He shrugged Suk aside. The man backed away like some cowed, theatrical servant, then muttered in a whisper: "I — will wait…"

Way out, exit, his mind warned, and he placated Suk with a nod. Then dismissed him from his thoughts. He heard the hesitant footsteps vaguely; something that did not concern him.

Down the green wall to the next basement level, parallel with the handrail of the stairs, was painted a red stripe. It signified an area of maximum security. They had passed stripes along every wall, down every set of steps. They had gone from green to yellow to blue and now to red. Indications of growing security, of greater and greater restrictions to access. Increased warnings to Hyde of his danger, of the distance back from the computer room to the castle above.

Red stripe. Absolutely no unauthorised personnel. Strictly no admittance without the correct papers and identification. He looked again at the guard's shoulder. The red stripe down the wall was at the level of the marksman's badge on his upper sleeve. The tip of his rifle barrel jutted beyond his shoulder, as if searching for him; waiting.

Twelve steps — then he had only the ID clipped to his breast pocket and the other papers with which to confront this first guard. And, if he passed him, he would be between the rifle-tip he could see and the Kalashnikov of the next guard further along the corridor. In a crossfire if they so much as suspected…

Twelve steps.

He took the first step, body steady, temperature endurable, legs OK, breathing controlled.

His left foot fumbled at the third step. Already, the guard's shoulder-flashes and arm-badges were more significant, larger in his vision. It was as if he were on the point of tripping, of stumbling the short distance to a collision with the uniform. He hesitated, felt the perspiration beneath his shirt, then almost at once he was two-thirds of the way down the striped wall towards the guard's shoulder. He felt light-headed, as if with fresh, chill air. Better. Under control. Better.

His foot touched the bottom step and the guard, startled, turned to him. Hyde stared into the young, freckled, open features, knowing that if anything went wrong, if he were suspected or even exposed, he would have to kill this guard in order to get out. The narrow corridor and the flight of stairs were the only exit he knew from the cellars of the Chancellery.

Marksman's flashes, KGB stripe. "Good evening, Comrade," Hyde said casually, presenting his breast-pocket ID for inspection, airily waving his other documents in his right hand, as if beginning the theatrical hypnosis of the young guard.

He waited on the edge of the precipitous moment. The guard took his papers, read them carefully, compared face with picture with face with picture clipped on his pocket…

And nodded. Hyde's hand — fingers, at least — had touched the small of his back where the pistol was now concealed in his waistband. The guard looked down, incongruously, at the faded denims and the three-striped training shoes he was wearing. And seemed more than ever convinced. Hyde's right hand regained his side, then touched the square briefcase, flicking the catch. The guard peered. His ear was close to Hyde's face, as if expecting a whispered confession. His fingers — bitten nails, but clean — riffled the folded sheets of continuous paper, the pamphlets and reference books, the ring-bound notebooks, the manuals.

"Thank you, Comrade," the guard announced at last with a slight, familiar deference. Members of the same side, the same club. Russians in Czechoslovakia — KGB Russians. Godwin had said the papers would stand up to inspection. They had.

Hyde said, "I hope this doesn't take all night."

"I'm off at twelve," the guard replied with complacency and a grin.

"Lucky sod. I won't be out before then—" He almost wanted to cross his fingers as he said that.

He ambled with studied indifference down the red-striped corridor towards the guard at the end of it, a man relaxed by his observation of the first guard's inspection of his papers. Already, there was the smell of ozone and air-conditioning. There were staircases running down further into the cellar complex. The corridor ended, opening out into a glass-panelled area with chairs and a vending machine. An incongruous rubber plant and magazines on a glass-topped table. The reception area of a new company out to impress visitors. Beyond more glass panelling, which reached to the high ceiling, lay the computer rooms. Men in white coats and foot-coverings, No Smoking signs, security warnings — the guard.

A flick of the papers, a glance at the breast-pocket ID, and the guard stood aside from the door. Hyde felt breath and heartbeat hesitate, even though he hardly paused in his stride as he pushed the first door open and passed through. Ten fifty-three, he saw, glancing at his watch as he pushed open the second door then let it close behind him. Constant temperature, high level of noise — chatter rather than hum of the machinery. Perhaps three people mincing and sliding between the metal cabinets — one carrying a clear plastic disc pack, loading it onto one of the computers. The shift manager and an operator were watching the job stream unfold on a console. The night shift.

High ceiling, a long room retreating beneath bright white lighting. Rows of VDUs and terminals. Controlled air came up near his legs through one of the hundred grilles set in the suspended floor. Thick bouquets of cable and wiring emerged from the floor directly into the boxes which stood like ranks of filing cabinets, most of them orange and bearing the legend ICL. Just as Godwin had said. British computers.

"Where's the post office engineer, Comrade?" he called out. A bearded young man looked up from a sheaf of print-outs, pencil held daggerlike in his teeth. He merely nodded in acknowledgement of what he guessed to be Hyde's role and business and waved an arm vaguely. Hyde followed the direction, moving more quickly now. If the fault had disappeared because the short-life battery had run down, if the engineer had called the Soviet embassy and requested a system test and the genuine tester was on his way, if, if, if—

Someone glanced at him without interest, assuming his business there. The noise of the room was almost unnerving. The temperature was dry, dead like the air. Carpet, wiring, air-ducts and grilles, glass walls, racks of tapes and discs, printers, VDUs. Hyde moved through an alien, mechanical landscape towards the highest security area. He saw guards, relaxed though in uniform, armed only with holstered pistols, an officer, and one man in overalls, incongruous as a plumber might have been in those aseptic surroundings.

A guard moved, glanced at his ID, and nodded. "Still giving trouble?" Hyde asked the post office engineer's back as he bent over an oscilloscope-like sophometric measuring set, toolbox open beside his swivel-chair. The man waved him to silence. Hyde shrugged, someone grinned and indicated the importance of the telephone call in which the engineer was engaged.

The highest security areas was glassed off from the rest of the computer room. Unnecessarily, but with habitual, obsessive KGB thoroughness. Status, too, played its part. KGB officers who could operate a remote terminal but who did not understand, and therefore despised, computers and their programmers and operators, would enjoy this sense of separation, of distance from the people in white coats. Civilians.

The engineer was talking over the telephone landline to Moscow Centre's Records Directorate. In his hand, flapping like a fan, was a transistor-board he must have just changed. In a similar room another trusted, security-cleared engineer would be checking the line at his end. From terminal to scrambler to modem to telephone line — the two men hurrying the miles towards each other. Feeding signals of known frequency down the line and through the system and checking the read-out at each end.

The fault was less than a mile of telephone line from the Hradcany, Hyde thought. He should have found it… Intermittent — calm down, it's not staying around to be found. Should already have disappeared, he reminded himself. Ten fifty-six.

The engineer put down the telephone and turned to Hyde. His round face was red and he was perspiring. His lips formed an obscenity in silence before he realised that he, rather than Hyde, remained the outsider of the group around the remote terminal.

Yet he persisted in his anger, saying, "Not as much fucking trouble as that lot!" He pointed to the telephone. On the screen, green symbols — a simple piece of information, perhaps—? Yes, football scores from Moscow. Hopelessly scrambled. A jumble of Cyrillic letters, gaps, half-lines.

Then, as if by magic, resolved. At the engineer's nod, the KGB Officer cancelled then re-summoned the scores, and they unrolled obediently. Dynamo Tblisi 2, Dynamo Kiev 1.

"See?" the engineer said demandingly. "See? What a bloody cock-up, Comrade system tester! It's too intermittent to trace. They keep telling me the fault's here, not in Moscow — not even in the Russian section of the line — but here in Prague! I ask you, how can they know that? Just bullshit!"

"Calm down, Jan," one of the guards told him. "Want another coffee?"

It was obvious they knew the man well. His freedom of expression and abuse appeared to be tolerated; even amusing to the KGB personnel. The officer appeared a little disapproving, but wished not to appear prudish or petty.

"My insides are silting up with that muck out of the machine!" the engineer grumbled.

"I'm making some real stuff now — won't be long," the guard bribed.

"Bless you, Georgi!"

Hyde saw a Moulinex coffee-maker on a desk-top in a glass cubicle. "For you, too, Comrade?" Georgi asked Hyde, startling him. His expression melted into a grin.

"Thanks." Hyde yawned theatrically. "How long, mate?"

"I've been here an hour — dragged off a military job for this, and even then the buggers wouldn't let me leave until I'd spun them ten miles of bullshit… nothing so far. Comes and goes."

"What's it doing?"

"You saw — can't reproduce anything properly one minute — then the next, perfect."

"I came over," Hyde began, tasting his cover-story like the bitter stickiness of envelope gum on his tongue, "because we got your report…?" He looked at the officer, who nodded. "About eight, was it?"

"Eight-five." The officer was punctilious but not unlikeable. His men evidently kept him human. "I got one of our senior managers to look at what was coming out, and he suggested it was a fault on the landline. So, we let you know at the embassy, and sent for the reluctant Comrade Zitek here." He smiled. Hyde returned the expression, and waited. "We haven't met before," the officer observed lightly, with mild, polite curiosity.

Hyde shook his head, sucking his cheeks in to moisten his dry throat. "Just got here — duty-roster's got my name on it and I'm here — all night by the look of things."

"Bad luck. I'm Lieutenant Stepanov."

"Radchenko," Hyde murmured in reply, shaking the lieutenant's hand. The familiarity folded itself about him like a drying leather shroud. It would suffocate him if he wasn't careful. "Yuri Radchenko." Tread carefully, he warned himself. Acquaintance is as dangerous as lack of sleep or the shit-and-sugar interrogators working in harness. Watch what you say, what you think.

"Zitak?"

"Yes?"

"Any time factor — any regularity…?"

"Don't waste time asking. I haven't learnt a bloody thing since I've been here — an hour and a half! Didn't even get the bloody dinner they promised at the barracks! Typical of your fucking army, Lieutenant!"

Stepanov smiled thinly, genuinely trying to be amused and aloof. "I'll get some sandwiches made up for you, if—"

"Ballocks to sandwiches, Lieutenant," the engineer muttered, checking the reading on the measuring instrument. Shaking his head, muttering, raising his hands in dramatic gestures.

Georgi had moved into his glass booth and was smoking slyly. His hand waved the blue smoke periodically towards the air-vent set high in one wall — the one plastered wall of his booth— while he watched his coffee percolate. Hyde was mesmerised by his watch.

Eleven — eleven-two, eleven-three, four, five… Priceless minutes vanished as he listened to Stepanov.

Finally, Stepanov broke off from a description of his last leave on the Black Sea coast, just before the summer ended, and smiled at Zitek. The engineer checked his watch once more, then picked up the telephone. He dialled the Moscow number, consulted briefly with his Russian counterpart, nodding vigorously as he spoke, then turned to them as he replaced the receiver and announced: "That's it! Good luck to you, but that's it! Eight minutes without a single problem. That's twice as long as any other remission. I am announcing that the bug in the system has gone away."

"You hope," Hyde remarked, grinning, holding his hands firmly together to prevent an outburst of nerves. To listen to Stepanov, to sip at the coffee, to watch Zitek's broad, overalled back — to wait, wait, wait—! Had been close to intolerable. Worse than the storeroom, this public control of nerves and imagination.

"I hope? My word as an employee of our wonderful post office service. It's gone."

"I suggest—" Stepanov began, but Hyde interrupted him.

"Give it another five minutes — OK? I'll run the first test in five minutes."

"OK," Zitek replied in a grumbling tone.

The telephone rang, making the engineer's hand jump with surprise. Dampness was chill in Hyde's upper arms and sides.

"Bloody Moscow," Zitek growled, making faces at the receiver as he lifted it to his ear. "Yes, it's Zitek — what?" He held the receiver towards Stepanov. "It's for you."

Stepanov's face was thinned, prepared as if to confront a superior officer in person. His back was straight. He adjusted his uniform tie.

"Yes? Yes, Comrade Colonel-yes, yes…"His ear, in profile to Hyde, had reddened. Hyde carefully rubbed his hands down his cheeks, easing away the tension of facial muscles. "It — it appears that the fault may have — may have rectified itself. Yes, I understand — of course I realise the importance of speed… yes, he's here—" Stepanov had turned with evident relief towards Hyde, who expressed nothing more than reluctance in his features. His hand jumped in the pocket of his lab coat. Stepanov offered him the receiver like a poisoned drink.

"Y — yes," Hyde said, clearing his throat. "Radchenko, Colonel — yes, system tester." He waited. The voice from Moscow Centre was brusque, authoritative. Radchenko was indeed on the complement at the Soviet embassy, a recent posting. There's a lot ofto-ing andfro-ing in security computer circles throughout the Eastern bloc embassies… Godwin's reassurances seemed transparent now. Hyde felt more thoroughly scrutinised by the voice of the KGB colonel than when he entered the computer room.

"System test — I want Prague back on-line tonight. In the next hour. Understand?"

"Comrade Colonel — a full test will take more than three or four hours — "

"Don't give me that! Do the test in stages. Then we can get terminals back into use quickly. Begin with — Education Records. You have such a test?"

"Yes, Comrade Colonel. The embassy staff roll-call—"

"Very well. Try that. I want to know how much work we're going to be involved in, and I want to know within an hour. Understand?"

"Yes, Comrade Colonel."

"An hour to be back on-line. Say midnight. No, I'll be generous. Five minutes after midnight. And keep in constant touch. Understand, Radchenko?"

"Sir."

The telephone in Moscow clicked down onto its rest. The secure line crackled then purred. Hyde replaced his receiver.

"You heard the man," he said, smiling and shrugging.

Zitek stared at the VDU. Its screen registered a column of football scores with unerring accuracy. "Good luck to you, son," he murmured. He looked ostentatiously at his watch. "That's fourteen minutes since the last noise on the line. I told you — the fault's buggered off somewhere else."

"But, what was it?" Stepanov asked.

"Who knows?" Zitek shrugged. He stood up and stretched. "Anyway, I'm off. They've got my number if you need me— don't ring unless it's an emergency, mate!"

"I'll try," Hyde murmured. Eleven-twelve. He slid the cuff of his lab coat over his watch. "I'll try." The football scores remained unaltered, unaffected. The short-life battery in the metro tunnel had at last died. The operation was still running.

He watched Zitek pack his equipment, kneeling by his toolbox. It was old, even ornately carved and beautifully jointed. His father's? Grandfather's? It was incongruous on the carpeted floor near an air-inlet grille and a bouquet of wires. Scraps of Stepanov's irritating, half-heard account of his Black Sea leave floated in Hyde's mind, but there was nothing else there. Only Godwin's voice, the terminal keyboard and screen, and the small group of people around him. Begin—

Zitek stood up, nodded to his companions, winked at Hyde, and left. Stepanov turned expectantly to Hyde. Godwin said in his head: 'The chances are you'll be expected to start with Education Records, Something low-security, innocuous. That's why you've got the roll-call of Prague embassy personnel. It's one of their standard system tests—'

Eleven-thirteen.

Hyde lifted his briefcase onto the table and opened it. He removed a thick sheaf of print-out paper and a metal ruler. Stepanov said: "More coffee?" and Hyde shook his head. "I think I will," the Russian murmured, staring into his empty mug. "And perhaps make use of the smoking-room." He smiled disarmingly. Hyde was again suddenly alert to the danger he presented. Urbane, intelligent, pressured by his superiors in Moscow. He would remain in the vicinity, watching. Hyde felt the hair rise on the backs of his arms, on his wrists and neck. Education Records. Neutral area. Innocent. "The password," Godwin had added with a broad grin, "is easy. Everyone knows it. Dominusilluminatio mea — Latin. The motto of Oxford's coat of arms. They used to use Cambridge's motto, but now, since Blunt dropped dead, they've updated it. For the next generation of recruits. Not without a sense of humour at Moscow Centre, are they? Every defector we've had for the past couple of years has told us that joke."

Hyde placed the ruler across the top sheet of print-out. Checked that the tape streamer and the printer for hard copy were both on-line. Then the screen. He cancelled the unchanged, unchanging football scores. The screen became empty; pale green. Georgi was seated in a chair beside him. The other guard had joined Stepanov and they were smoking in the glass booth, behind the No Smoking sign in Cyrillic. The red circle of the sign hid part of Stepanov's face like a birthmark.

Begin — Log on using the embassy code.

The guard, Georgi, was unwrapping sandwiches — some thick Czech sausage that smelt of garlic and was pressed in slices between doorsteps of white bread. And unfolding a copy of the evening newspaper. He was comfortable, in a satisfied mood. Easy work. Hyde glanced back down the long room. Two figures moving distantly beyond the glass of the highest security area. Inside the glass, only figures in uniforms. One, Stepanov, alert and intelligent.

He used the password to gain access to the Main Menu, then summoned the Education Records from the Menu presented to him on the screen. As Godwin had said, these remote terminals were permanently on-line to Moscow Centre for ease and speed of access to the records. After all, no one expected an illegal, someone unauthorised like himself, to tap at this keyboard. Access was permitted to permitted staff and only permitted staff knew the passwords.

The room stretched away on his right, towards the corridor and stairs. To his left, perhaps fifty feet away, Stepanov was smoking and drinking coffee. Georgi bit into a thick wedge of bread. Hyde smelt garlic sausage once more, until the air-conditioning whisked the odour away.

Hyde typed the first of the names on his list, Abalakin, I.P. A moment, then the screen spilled his education record and qualifications. Hyde checked them against his print-out — Godwin's own compilation supplemented by the official SIS roll-call for the Soviet embassy in Prague. Correct. He typed the next name, Aladko, I.A. Waterfall of facts. Correct. Antipin, V.V. Correct. Baranov, I.K. Correct.

Georgi munched, rustled the newpaper. Hyde studied his watch as Boyko's mediocre education achievements appeared on the screen. Eleven twenty-one. He selected the hard copy option, and the printer startled Georgi in mid-bite. Hyde stood up, leaned over the printer and checked the information against that on the screen. Boyko was dim, but his record was flawlessly presented. Chobotov, Dedov, Didenko, Fatayev, A.G. Correct, correct, correct.

Georgi folded his sandwich-bag with fastidious care. Hyde turned to him. Grim Party faces stared up at him from the newspaper.

"Sorry, Georgi," he said. "You're not allowed to see this. Not cleared, mate. I'll even have to shred it myself." Hyde shrugged. "I have to check up on their assignment histories now. Sorry."

Georgi glanced at his officer, still smoking, enjoying some kind of joke behind the birthmark of the No Smoking sign. Smoking Absolutely Forbidden, it read. The smoke did not escape into the computer rooms, thus they ignored the sign. Absolutely Forbidden. His hands hesitated over the keyboard. He had to make the transfer before Stepanov returned; he was cleared to supervise.

Before Stepanov, before Moscow discovered, before the telephone rang — go on, go on—!

Georgi got up slowly, wiping his mouth with a grey handkerchief. He nodded, cleaning his teeth with his tongue, bulging his right cheek into an abcess. "I'll get the lieutenant," he muttered thickly and walked away casually. As slowly as some ruminant animal.

Fifty feet.

Godwin had warned him to be prepared to snatch at any chance that offered itself. But not to make a mistake—

Now?

Now. He stared at the Cyrillic keyboard, momentarily baffled by the strange alphabet. Then it was as if he had refocused his gaze; the keys swam into clear meaning. Last three assignments, in reverse order, without break. He could almost hear Petrunin, feel his blood-wet lips against his cheek and ear. He shivered.

He cancelled the Education Records. The Menu presented itself, requesting usage of the Centre's records computer. For Assignment History, he needed the passwords that Petrunin had given him; his thread into the labyrinth. Forbidden, Absolutely Forbidden. He requested Assignment History, and the screen requested the passwords that would indicate his security clearance. What—?

He typed: WHITENIGHTS WHITEBEAR WHITE-RUSSIAN.

ERROR, the screen replied, and requested he submit the correct password. Three times, Godwin had said — you get only three chances. He heard Petrunin's voice, dammit—! That awful, empty whispered growl. Hatred, delight in destruction, fear of his imminent death. The bastard had lied—!

He glanced towards the glass cubicle which was misty with blue cigarette smoke. Georgi was pointing at him and Stepanov was nodding. Then the lieutenant studied the amount of coffee left in his mug and the length of cigarette yet to be smoked. Hyde, sweating freely, waved in a casual, delaying manner in their direction.

Cancel it — back away…

He wasn't lying.

He typed: WHITENIGHTSWHITEBEARWHITERUSSIAN — without breaks, just like the final secret password to what Petrunin had stored in the computer. Without breaks—!

ERROR, the screen offered implacably. Hyde felt his temperature rise, his body quiver. Critical, the reactor out of control, the organism terrified. Georgi, Stepanov — the telephone… Moscow couldn't cut him off now, they had to let it run—

He concentrated, screwing up his eyes and face as if in pain. Bending his head over the keys, as if about to begin some intense recital. Petrunin's voice whispered hollowly, as if echoing in the abandoned cave of his own body. What—?

Hyde listened, then, as if he had communicated with some lost spirit rather than his own memory, he typed trancelike on the keyboard.

WHITENIGHTSWHITERUSSIANWHITEBEAR

The screen cleared. He opened his eyes. PASSWORD CORRECT. The screen asked him what he wished to know, how he wished to be helped, what he required.

He typed in Petrunin's name, then rank, then given names. Then KGB number. He glanced at the glass booth. Stepanov showed no sign of movement, other than the lifting of his mug to his lips. To his right, the outer room stretched away into vagueness — his distance to run. Petrunin's assignments appeared on the screen, in summary. Hyde did not even glance at them. He knew the last three. London, Moscow First Directorate HQ, Kabul. Yes, Petrunin would have used Kabul, savouring and hating the irony. Or would he? Would he? When had he corrupted the computer?

In response to another password request, and in place of the valid password, Hyde typed: KABULMOSCOWLONDON.

Blank. Blank screen—!

He knew, almost by telepathy or spiritualism, that Petrunin had used Kabul as his final assignment. He would have changed the password sequence to include it, if necessary. Oh, yes, he would have—

Come on, come on, come on—

Behind the blank screen, Hyde sensed the bypass occurring, felt the computer seek for the tumour that Petrunin had lodged within it. Seek, seek, seek — find!

A poem. Not information. A poem in Russian. Petrunin's record continued to unfold, and then it broke off. Became these fourteen lines of verse rolling down the screen like gentle green water. Malfunction, of course. Petrunin had warned him. Even so, his hand hovered over the keyboard. He wanted to depress the Break key and return to the Menu, as anyone stumbling across Petrunin's secret by accident would now have done. This was the disarmer. Tears, was that? A sad parting. Something about career and love, and the conflict thereof. Petrunin in maudlin, self-indulgent mood. Hyde had no doubt of the poem's authorship. A younger Petrunin. Much younger. A single tear, the scenery about the lovers, a swan gliding into the distance. Hyde wrinkled his nose.

Stepanov's hand upon the door. Fourteen lines. To Lara. His finger still hovered over the Break key. Yet Stepanov appeared to be in no hurry. The poem vanished. Hyde pressed the button on the streamer, to begin recording. Don't use the printer, no hard copy, Godwin warned him in his head. He drew his hand away from the printer as if from a flame. Closing of the glass door behind Stepanov, footfalls on the carpet.

Cancel—

No! Not yet…

Lettering. The words began to flow on the screen, as if hurried by Petrunin rather than himself. Politburo dirt. Family scandals, nepotism, immorality, jewellery, dachas, furs, everything…

Stepanov was smiling and unsuspicious. Hyde waited to press the Break key, his eyes hurrying from the lieutenant to the telephone to the screen.

… houses, mistresses, bank accounts abroad, boyfriends, money, money, money, paedophilia…

There was no short-cut. Teardrop was in there, but Petrunin had died before he could supply the individual passwords for the separate sections of his secret file. The dirt continued to spill down the screen like the front pages of cheap newspapers. Dirt on the Politburo, dirt on the Secretariat, details of current First Directorate foreign operations, agents-in-place… all of it useful, much priceless — but Hyde wanted one name, one man's name connected with one operation.

Teardrop.

Come on, come on — the name, the name…

Please—

The telephone rang. Hyde's hand jumped, as if electrocuted.

Paul Massinger slumped onto the edge of the vast iron bath with its ball-and-claw feet, staring at his reopened leg wound. His breathing was ragged. Margaret, who had helped him along the corridors, appeared exhausted. Her pale hair flopped over her drained, bruised face. Paul's leg ached deeply. His hands clutched the edge of the bath to steady his shaking body. Beach, standing near the door, appeared genuinely distressed. His gun was drawn, he appeared alert — but he was concerned. He did consider Massinger's pain unfortunate, even unnecessary. Aubrey, too, had been surprised that the wound had suddenly reopened. But the old man was sunk in a profound despair. He seemed incapable of volition, regret, or even fear. As if lightly hypnotised by desperation.

"Can you — Margaret, help me get my pants off…" he whispered hoarsely. There was no necessity for pretence. His leg hurt like hell. He glanced at his watch. Eleven-twenty. Couldn't be long now, have to hurry—

Margaret moved to his side. "Can you raise yourself, Paul? Take your weight on your hands and arms…" She undid his belt, kneeled to help his trousers down around his ankles so that the wound could be washed and repatched — Massinger felt the pain of the table-edge against which he had thrust his wound, to open it again. And winced.

"I–Christ, I'll try…"

Come on, Beach—! The man moved, involuntarily, as if the mental command had reached him. Come on—

Massinger groaned. Margaret cried his name in fear. Beach moved closer, reaching out a supporting hand, gun hanging at his side—

Massinger struck Beach with his fist, high on the side of the head. Margaret heaved at the man, tilting his body over the bath. Massinger's left hand grabbed for the gun, touched, gripped, held. Beach's face distorted with rage. He struggled, lashing out with his fist at Massinger, then at Margaret, who stumbled away from the struggle, colliding with the wall behind her. Her hair fell across her eyes and she wiped it feverishly aside. Beach had twisted against Paul and was bending him back over the bath. Paul's face was white with effort and weakness. Beach had the upper hand, was stronger — it wouldn't work, wouldn't—

What could she do? She was aware of her own weakness, her lack of height and bulk measured against Beach's trained muscles and reactions. He hit Paul again, his fist striking her husband's chin. Paul's whole face seemed to sag.

Jug. Patterns of shepherds or a hunt. Horses, eighteenth-century costumes on the men and women.

The jug and basin stood on a bathroom stool, dusty, unused. She touched the handle. Paul groaned—

— grabbed the handle, moved forward with a sob, swung the jug which seemed suddenly lighter, not heavy enough—

It cracked, split on Beach's head, near the right ear. Beach groaned with what might have been surprise, released Paul's shirt, his body, then subsided into the empty bath. Immediately staining the white porcelain with a thin bright smear of blood from his bleeding head. His breathing was like a groan of protest and surprise.

Margaret leaned heavily over the bath, as if to vomit. She was gasping for breath. Massinger heaved the gun from Beach's grasp and slipped off the safety catch.

"Go!" he said urgently. "Quickly, love — quickly!" She straightened, flicking back her hair. Her face was ashen around the bruises, older. "Can you?" he asked, and she nodded at once. "Good girl — be careful. If they — if they… just don't do anything, please. Put down the telephone and go quietly. Don't fight—" Again, Margaret nodded. And smiled, shakily. Like someone leaving an intensive care unit, knowing there was no hope for a relative but trying to evade the inevitable or remember some better time.

She bent and kissed his cheek, glanced at Beach who was almost snoring in the bath, then left the room. Massinger heard her footsteps patter away like someone fleeing. He stared at the gun, held loosely in his hands, object rather than weapon, and then at Beach.

The Massingers' last stand. He grinned, and then winced at the pain in his leg. And at his fear for Margaret. Stupid move, he told himself. Stupid, dangerous move—

An act of desperation. He was terribly afraid for her safety. The gun quivered in nerveless fingers. Beach snored. Others moved about the house. All of them threatened Margaret.

Margaret hurried down the corridors, wincing inwardly at each creak of a floorboard, her breathing light and shallow, her arms and hands trembling, fingertips damp so that she sensed the betrayals of smudged fingerprints left on the wall. Her heart raced.

Another long corridor. She had noted, counted, each of the closed doors as she struggled to help Paul towards the bathroom, her mind reaching forward like a reluctant hand to the violence and danger to come. She opened the first door carefully, just a crack, fumbled for the light switch, listening to the room's emptiness—

No telephone.

Next door, next room, light, no telephone, just packing-cases and floorboards and an empty table. Down the corridor another room, then another, her temperature rising at each pause, each eased opening of a door, each switching on of a light. Five rooms now, then a staircase leading down to the first floor of the tall house near the Wiener Gaswerk-Leopoldau, stranded in a scrubby industrial suburb. She hurried down the stairs to a landing, peered over the banister into an empty hallway with chequered tiles half-hidden by dusty, faded carpet, then tried the nearest room.

Door, switch, light, and the moment of caught breath as she anticipated a challenge. Carpet, chairs, desk — telephone on the desk! She closed the door silently behind her. The curtains were drawn across the windows, there were cigarette butts in an ashtray and still wet rings on a low table near an empty glass. Beer-froth coated the sides of the glass. The room had been recently occupied — abandoned for only a few moments? She hurried behind the desk so that she could face the door. There had been no key in the lock. She fumbled the telephone to her cheek. It purred with an outside line. She dialled quickly, noisily. Watching the ashtray and the wet rings on the table. Watching the door.

Ringing. Guest's flat in Albany. Their only slim chance, that Sir William had returned from Washington. Ringing out. No answer. The room still smelt of cigarette smoke, as if she had entered only a moment after it became unoccupied. Then the ringing tone stopped.

"Sir William Guest's residence," a voice announced as if in the role of a stage butler from a period play. It was the voice, the same voice—

"No—!" she could not help exclaiming: a protest that became a moan of disappointment.

"Mrs Massinger — Mrs Massinger, it's you, isn't it?" the voice replied. "How the hell—?"

"Oh God, no—!" she cried. "You're — where are you?"

She had lifted her head. She did not hear the question because her glance had been caught and held. All her attention became concentrated upon a box with a short tube attached that was incongruously bolted to the wall, high-up near the ceiling. In shadow at the far corner of the room. A television camera. For surveillance. Shops and supermarkets. A security camera.

"Oh, no…" she murmured. Failure oppressed her. The voice insisted, demanded, threatened in her ear, but she hardly heard it. She stared, hypnotised and unnerved, at the camera.

She put the telephone receiver down quite calmly, almost nonchalantly, as Wilkes entered the room, his face angry yet confident. He crossed the room swiftly, as if hurrying to obey some summons, and struck her across the mouth with his open hand. She winced, cried out, staggered. He hit her again, slapping her face, opening her bruised lip, making her eyes water, her nose ache. Then he grabbed her against him like some violent lover, pressing his lips against her ear.

"Who did you talk to? Who? Who?"

He was shaking her. She was limp in his grip. "Guest," she murmured.

"What—?" He held her away from him, shook her again. There was fear in his eyes now.

"Guest!" she shouted at him. "Guest, Guest, Guest, Guest!" She felt the hysteria rising in her like adrenalin, helping her. "I spoke to Guest!"

He hit her then, harder than before. She fell away, against the unresisting curtains, twisting against them, gripping them as she fell to the floor. Her jaw ached; pain-lights flickered on a dark screen at the back of her head. She moaned.

She heard him dial, wait, check, then laugh and reassure. Then she was dragged to her feet. Wilkes was grinning.

"Come on, lady — back to your room in the East Wing! Where they always lock the loony wife!" He thrust her in front of him across the room, through the door, along the landing to the stairs. "Where is he?"

"The bathroom," she announced without hesitation, breathless from the way he had banged her body against the wall before he spoke.

"Come on. We'll go and surprise him!"

He dragged her up the stairs, along the corridor, pushed her round a corner, propelled her down another corridor. "This bathroom — on this floor?" She merely nodded, and he pressed her more feverishly ahead of him, as if his timetable were making its own irresistible demands. He was beyond malice now. Merely urgent.

He knocked on the door. "Massinger, don't waste my time, mate — I've got your wife here and I'll kill her unless you come out quietly. I haven't got time to waste." He paused, then said, "What's the matter — don't you believe me?" He squeezed her shoulder with iron fingers. She cried out. "Hear that? Shorthand form of negotiation, I admit — but it is her."

The door opened. Paul's ashen features appeared. Seeing her, absorbing the sight, he stepped back, leaving the door wide. Beach was sitting on the bath, a handkerchief, dyed red, held to his head.

"You stupid cunt!" Wilkes snapped, entering the doorway. "Get off your arse and get them back to their room." Wilkes glanced at his watch while Massinger meekly surrendered the gun to Beach. "Quick—!" Wilkes ordered.

Breaking glass. A door smashed from its hinges by a heavy blow. Other noises. Glass again. Wilkes appeared unsurprised, but said, "What the hell was that? Beach, get down there and find out — go on, man! I'll take care of our friends. Quickly, man!"

Beach hurried past him and down the corridor. A shot—? Wilkes grinned.

"It's begun?" Massinger asked, holding Margaret tightly against him.

"Oh, yes, mate — it's begun. Come on, back to your room. They'll be expecting to find you there. Come on — move!"

Hyde depressed the break key. The screen cleared. The Menu requested he make use of it. Stepanov's shadow fell across the keyboard as Hyde picked up the telephone. He again sucked moisture from his cheeks to dampen his parched, tight throat. Stepanov hovered, as if indulging a child in a brief telephone conversation with a friend. The lieutenant flicked at the sheaf of print-out, lazily interested. Comfortable.

"Yes?" Hyde asked. No—! Bluff it out — be stronger, impatient. You've been interrupted. "Yes? What is it now?"

"I — why have you been accessing Assignment History, Comrade?" the voice asked. "How have you been accessing Assignment History? Which files are you accessing?"

"Why? What's the matter, Comrade?" Hyde asked with evident sarcasm. The tone of a superior — whether rank, class or security clearance remained unrevealed.

"You were accessing Education Records, then you switched—"

"And you decided to interfere! Listen, Comrade — I'm trying to find out whether the fault that just went away has damaged the data files in any way. You expect me to do that tooling through a list of embassy staff names, without cross-referencing, without shifting from section to section of the files? Just do me a favour, will you? Keep your long nose out until I've finished — otherwise your colonel is going to have both our heads! Understood?"

Stepanov was openly grinning as Hyde glanced up at him. The Australian threw in a theatrical toss of his head, rounding out his portrait.

"But, system tests don't usually—"

"Listen! Don't usually what? Dig so deep? Just skate along the surface of security? I'm cleared. Are you? I'm testing the system, not you. You're just the operator. Tomorrow, you can have the system back to play with. Tonight, it's mine. Now, go away and don't bother me any more!"

"I—" A pause, then: "I'm sorry, Comrade. Please continue." The telephone clicked then hummed. The operator from Moscow Centre was gone — and with a flea in his ear, as Hyde's mother might have said. Usually when sending away the rent collector…

Hyde sighed with impatience. His tension had been expelled in the execution of his bluff. It had worked. A slight delay. But, the operator would think, talk, perhaps ask the colonel—

Stepanov. Why didn't he go away?

"Found something wrong?" Stepanov asked lightly, com-panionably. "Anything I can do?"

Hyde shook his head. "Since your engineer couldn't tie down the fault, if there is one, I'm doing a much wider and deeper test than they might have expected. Bloody little bureaucrats in lab coats!"

"And everything's in order, so far?"

"It is." Hyde glanced at his watch. Eleven twenty-six. Too long, it was taking too long… Bugger off, Stepanov! For Christ's sake, bugger off…

"Carry on, Radchecko — I'll not interfere. I promise!" There was laughter in Stepanov's voice. He had attached himself like a lonely schoolboy — a new and unwanted friend, clinging like a limpet. Bugger off—!

In Moscow Centre, they knew when he accessed the computer exactly what area of the records he was summoning. They would not know who or what was under scrutiny. But, they could find out… Trace his enquiry like a telephone call might be traced. And if they did that — more likely, when they did that — the telephone would ring and the screen would go blank as they isolated his remote terminal, amputated it from the computer's memory banks.

He had perhaps minutes, probably less. Seconds. And he had to work through all Petrunin's information until he found Babbington's name and it was recorded on the data cassette and he could run…

"OK. You needn't hang about if you don't want to… makes me nervous anyway, someone hovering behind me."

"Sorry about that. I'm not getting caught not doing my job, Radchenko, even if you are a nice bloke."

Hyde turned to face the lieutenant, feeling the passing seconds pumping in his arm like a drip-feed; measuring his danger.

"How much are you cleared for?"

"You won't be going that deep."

"Why not?"

"Because I can't — so you certainly can't." Stepanov pushed his cap a little further back on his head. He was still smiling.

"Anyone for more coffee — you, sir? You?" Georgi called out, adding: "Comrade Radchenko — coffee?"

Hyde began to quiver uncontrollably, as if he had received an unexpected shock. He'd blown it — already, he'd—

"You all right?" Stepanov asked. "Not for me, Georgi!" To Hyde, he added, "You look as if you need a coffee — or something stronger. Are you feeling OK?"

"Yes! Look, just let me get on with my job, will you?"

"I'm not stopping you—"

"You're not cleared—!"

"Then neither are you — not for more than a system test!" Stepanov's features had darkened, his gaze was squinted and intent. "What are you doing, Radchenko?"

Damn — oh, damn it!

"Look don't get bloody stupid, Stepanov—"

"I'm not. Let's see this great, ocean-deep clearance of yours, shall we? Just for a giggle…"

Damn—

As if with a gesture of failure rather than aggression, Hyde slipped the pistol from his belt and presented the barrel to Stepanov, keeping the gun below the level of the keyboard. He heard the door close behind Georgi — the silly old bugger would bring coffee as soon as it was ready, whether asked or not. Hyde was trapped by kindness, unnerved and exposed by companionship. Stepanov's eyes widened, his face folded into creases of understanding and capture.

"Just sit down, Lieutenant. Please sit down next to me." The pistol waggled, just a little; a small innocent wave from a toy. Stepanov removed his cap, as if attending an interview, and sat stiffly on the chair next to Hyde. "Try to relax, Lieutenant. You're making it look obvious."

"Who are you? What are you?"

Hyde smiled. "Don't be silly."

"What do you want?"

"Something you won't want to see… in fact, I'll do you a favour…" His voice became strained as he twisted his body to request Assignment History once more. The demand for the passwords. He typed them in, his fingers touching across the keyboard as if seeking braille, his eyes flickering from keys to Stepanov to keys to… "A real favour," he continued. "You just avert your eyes. If you see what's about to come up…" The poem. A tear for Lara, whoever Lara had ever been, if anyone outside Petrunin's imagination. "… you won't be very popular at home or abroad. In fact, your future won't be worth a cork-fringed hat… understand? You're a dead man if you peek!"

The gun waggled Stepanov's gaze aside. He selected the tape drive, his eyes flickering to the screen. First Directorate operations in progress in Europe… a goldmine from which Hyde desired only the one nugget. As the information appeared, it was recorded on the data cassette.

"You seem very afraid," Stepanov said with a level, controlled voice.

"I am."

"What is it?" the Russian hissed.

"Look and you'll get turned to stone — or fertiliser. Just as soon as they know you know."

"You won't get away with this—"

"I hope to."

"You're not sure, then—"

"I'm not sure. No, don't turn around—!"

Hyde glanced towards the glass booth. Patchy steam on part of the glass. The coffee-maker was ready. Georgi had made his coffee. Hyde could see him bent over the table, arranging mugs, spooning sugar.

Come on—

The telephone rang. Stepanov's body twitched, and his lips parted in a smile. He half-turned.

"Don't move. Just let it ring — let it ring!"

He glanced at the screen. First Directorate operations — Libya and Chad. Names of illegals, guerilla unit commanders, Soviet advisers.

Come on—

The bloody short-cut — what the hell was the password? Dominus illuminatio mea, for Christ's sake—!

The telephone insisted. Hyde stared at it helplessly.

"I left my heart — in San Franciscooo…"

Wilkes sat down before the bank of twelve monitors — two rows of six. He continued humming the tune he had begun to sing, failing to recollect the succeeding lines of the lyric. His eyes flickered from screen to screen; a patient, absorbed, satisfied spectator of the scenes presented to him by the remote cameras located throughout the old house. For years, it had been variously used for training, interrogation, courses in interrogation counter-measures. The district around had been levelled and made late twentieth century and the house had become too noticeable, too easily observed to fulfil many of its former functions.

"… little cable cars climb halfway to the stars—!" Wilkes burst out, remembering a detached, floating line of the song.

Vienna had meant bigger business, way back when the house had been fully utilised — then it was always crowded with people. Front-line, like Berlin in the 'sixties. Wilkes whistled the tune of the song through his closed teeth. Watching the screens. The old house, stranded between the freight-yards and the gas works, began to fulfil some of its old functions.

"I left my heart — in San Franciscooooo—!"

Voronin and Babbington had agreed, decided, concluded. No margin for error or misunderstanding. The three of them — alarmed and on their feet now — were on their way to Moscow. The Massingers would never be seen leaving the aircraft — go out probably dressed in overalls and carrying plastic bags full of rubbish from the galley — but Aubrey would get the pop star treatment. And they'd all be dead within a week; the Massingers the same day they arrived, Aubrey as soon as the masquerade had worked. Heart attack. Easier than risking TV appearances, press conferences and the like. Heart attack.

Wilkes grinned. "I left my heart — in the Lubyanka—!" he bawled at the top of his voice, then added: "Your last TV appearance, old boy, old chap." He leaned towards the screen which displayed the three prisoners. They'd roused Aubrey, he didn't look so thunderstruck now, so much in a daze. Wilkes could see the cogs grinding in the old bugger's brain. Too bloody clever by half—

On another screen, Beach organising checks and barriers and cross-fire. On the first floor. The cameras strained to pierce the darkness that Beach had ordered, the screens glowing grey-blue with the effort to register faces, movement, patches of light skin.

There — ground floor, rear passage. Someone wrapped in dark wool. Face dyed with polish. They meant business. The camera watched the crouching Russian move past and down the corridor towards the kitchen and the hallway beyond it.

Wilkes leaned over and pulled an R/T towards him. Its thick short aerial quivered as he picked it up and tuned it to the frequency he had been told the Russians would be using. Whispers in Russian immediately leaked from it. One of the screens — he imagined he could lip-read and match voice to face — showed the KGB man in command issuing orders, crouched in the well of the main staircase to the first floor.

Wilkes continued to hum. The prisoners huddled at the door, as if eager for their fate. Beach moved — he was registered on a screen showing the back stairs. He'd anticipated, then…

Wilkes was drawn into the tension of the twelve screens. The secure room of the house, in the attic, was silent and aseptic around him, filled with the ozone smells of electricity and static and charged or burnt dust. A screen crackled as he ran his finger across it, cancelling Beach.

For a moment, before the rattle of gunfire and the fall of a body away into the darkness of a staircase, his imagination seemed to throw onto the screen newsreel shots of Vietnam. Protest marches with the Capitol building behind the queue of idiots melted in and out of staring-eyed pictures of fatigued, beaten, hashed-out American faces. Then he blinked away the images as his attention was drawn to another screen.

"I left my heart…" he murmured. And continued: "Oh, my love, my darling, I've hungered for your touch…" Jimmy Young's voice in his head for a moment, to be replaced by the voices of his grammar school's 1st XV, aboard a coach, on tour in Wales. They were singing 'Unchained Melody' for him and his girl-friend. Now his dull, suburbanised wife, a dull lover and duller mother. The song had been for her and himself, much younger. She'd been pretty then. Enough to have been put in the club…

"I left my heart…" he ground out through his clenched teeth.

The body finished falling, came to rest and silence, in a patch of darkness that the cameras could not penetrate. Then a woolen-jerseyed Russian with a blacked-up face climbed the staircase warily, towards the camera.

"S-waneee, S-waneee, how I lub yuh, how I lub yuh—!" Wilkes burst out, almost giggling. Who was that who'd been killed? He didn't know the name. One down, and the Russians had already moved to the first floor back. Another blacked-up minstrel followed the first up the stairs, teeth gleaming as he whispered urgently into the R/T clamped to his cheek. Wilkes heard his voice like static hissing behind a broadcast.

Wilkes hummed. Beach moved quickly on one screen, two more Vienna Station staffers on another, crouching together, looking scared in the darkness. Russians moved in the main hallway, on the back landing, pressing down the first of the corridors—

To be met. Wilkes jumped to attention in his swivel-chair, startled and surprised; the involved, vicariously-thrilled observer of the drama. Shots, ducking bodies, one cry over the R/T near his hand, that of a wounded Russian. Shots in singles, doubles. Two screens revealed the log-jam, the crouching bodies at either end of the corridor — a single flight of stairs and a corridor away from the prisoners' room.

Come on, come on — don't get stuck now, Wilkes pleaded. He glanced at his watch. Three minutes, a little more. His call would be logged exactly at the embassy. He had to call Parrish now and tell him what was happening. It was his reason — his excuse — for being in the secure room.

And to switch on the alarms—!

He reached over and threw the switch, hearing the bells begin to ring in muffled and distant parts of the house. Then he picked up the telephone. They'd been ordered not to cut the wires, even though they knew the location of the terminal box for the landline. The convincing lie, the final mounting of Aubrey in his gilt frame, began with this telephone call.

He dialled. Shots through the R/T, a body slumping too quickly back out of sight. Two down. A fusilade, then a rush at the stairs by the black-jerseyed group that had gathered in the stairwell, in shadow. Someone at the top of the stairs, outnumbered and running to save himself or to get help.

It was Parrish's direct number. Wilkes blurted the emergency code, screamed for assistance, acknowledged futile orders from the Head of Station, looked at his watch, put down the telephone. He reassumed his passive role before the bank of screens. They held the whole first floor now. Beach and his group were retreating towards the prisoners and the secure room.

Come on, come on—

He had given the operation its time-limit — too soon? Had to. Look suspicious otherwise—

Who was that — Davies? Moving away from the prisoners' door towards the turn in the corridor and the staircase up which Beach and another man were retreating. One, two, three left — and himself, Wilkes; the full complement.

All the screens were empty now, except for those revealing the staircase, the corridor, and the prisoners' room. Davies appeared to be calling out. Above the noise of the alarm on the wall near his head. Then another screen and another revealed the hurried, crouched, run of two men in black. Down that corridor — which? — that corridor, yes, Davies beginning to turn, but they had him and then they had the door-handle to the prisoners' room, then Beach and the other man — who? Liske, was it? Liske. Surrounded. Angry, frightened, letting guns drop, hands and feet spread as they were searched, leaning towards the wall. Beach's face looked up at one camera and stared at Wilkes from the screen. His expression was puzzled, confused. He was wondering where Wilkes had got to, why he hadn't come down… Beach's head shook, then hung defeatedly against the wall as the prisoners were hurried past him. Pleasure, congratulation, delight came in a chorus from the R/T. The bluff was evident, overplayed, easy to interpret. He watched Aubrey and the Massingers moving across the various screens as he measured their progress towards the door, towards the gravel drive and the cars now pulling up to await them.

Aubrey tired and ill and white. Massinger angry, wincing with rage and with the pain in his leg. The woman bruised and weak. For a moment, on every screen, he thought an after-image lingered. His imagination lit each of the screens with flickering memories. Tanks rolling into Prague's Old Town Square and across the Charles Bridge; napalm in Vietnam; Russian MiL-24s in Afghanistan. Black arms raising aloft Kalashnikovs in a sugarcane setting. Red Square parades. The weak, compromising faces of Presidents and PMs. The row of implacable faces and stances along the top of the Lenin Mausoleum, the tanks and missiles passing beneath their gaze.

Then the hard-lit night, the faint whirl of snow in the wind. Aubrey and the other two huddled and bundled into the black cars. The black-garbed team hurrying now, the exhausts smoking in the spotlights. Burgeoning smoke, roaring engines over the still-open R/T—

The movement, then the message.

"OK, Wilkes," the R/T said, then clicked into an ether-whispering silence.

Finished. Wilkes gazed at the bank of screens. At Beach and Davies and Liske beginning to move, to clatter down the staircase. Almost time to join them. He quite clearly saw images of El Salvador on one screen, on another a retinal image of Sadat's funeral. That inevitable motorcade and the blood on a fashionable pink suit — mini-skirted — on a third screen. The cradled, ruined head in Jackie's lap.

"I left my heart—" he began, but the song faltered. Joke over. The cars had vanished out of the gates of the house. On the screen Wilkes could see the gasworks in the distance.

The West was finished, he had decided. Decided long, long ago. Finished, washed up, a waste of everyone's time. Losers.

He'd stuck by that insight, and the decisions which followed it; and been satisfied. No complaints. He flicked off the screens, one by one. No retinal images now. Only Beach and Davies and Liske running around like chickens with their heads cut off — Liske wounded.

The only thing he'd ever disliked was the KGB's total knowledge of him. They'd understood him, utterly and completely understood him, from the moment he'd first approached them with — with the offer of his services. As if they'd always expected him to turn up—

Working for winners. For those who were ruthless, not half-baked. The winners.

He walked to the door of the secure room, shaking his head slightly. They'd understood him too easily, he was too much like them. He dismissed the idea.

"I left my he-aaart in San Fran-ciscooo…" he whispered intensely, then composed his features to concern and worry as he locked the secure room's door behind him.

The ringing stopped. Stepanov's body, erect and stiff, seemed to shudder with the impact of the silence. Hyde's temperature jumped. He felt beads of sweat along his hairline and a cold sheen across the small of his back and beneath his arms. The pistol quivered in his left hand. The screen continued to unfold the contents of Petrunin's insurance policy; the streamer stuttered, recording each piece of data then pausing for the next buffer full of information. Already, Hyde had enough to guarantee his own safety. A coup—

Get out—

Without destroying Babbington, he had nothing. Wasted, used computer recording tape. His eyes flickered to the screen — still First Directorate current operations, still within the sphere of 9th Department — Africa. There was so bloody much of it—! And a short-cut password to each and every section and no way to short-circuit the parade of secret information. He looked down at the pistol, glanced at Georgi, who was looking up wondering why the phone hadn't been answered, glanced back at the screen, at Stepanov, who had now absorbed the shock of silence. He was beginning to smile at Hyde's failure. Glanced then at the vz.75 pistol in his hand. Fifteen rounds between himself and Hradcany Square.

Silence. Short-cut, bloody short-cut—!

The operator in Moscow would be reporting to his superior, perhaps at once to the colonel. If they became alarmed, they could ring anywhere — everywhere in the Chancellery or the whole of the Hradcany complex. Hyde was two floors beneath the Third Courtyard, like a rat in a sewer…

They could block every exit without his being aware of what they had done until he ran into the gunfire.

Stepanov made to turn to him, a remark forming itself silently on his full lips.

"Don't—!" Hyde warned in a shaky voice, and Stepanov sat staring ahead of him. The weakness of Hyde's voice seemed a sufficient and satisfactory answer to the enquiry Stepanov had intended.

Then he glanced at Georgi, who was emerging through the glass door, fifty feet from them, carrying two steaming mugs of coffee. Hyde stared at the screen. Nothing yet. Forty feet away — as soon as Georgi reached them he would see the gun and, and, and…

He could not even complete the thought, the certainty that he could not control two men and the screen as time ran out. Couldn't control himself—

Georgi stopped, half-turned, half the distance to them. The telephone was ringing in the glass cubicle. Above the hum and mutter and conversation of the machines, Hyde could hear it dimly calling for attention. It seemed whispered, but urgent. Demanding. Georgi glanced very slowly at the mugs in his hands, at Hyde and Stepanov, then shrugged and turned on his heel. Stepanov's tense smile faded, then reappeared as he realised the nature of the call, the probable identity of the caller. Moscow Centre—

First Directorate — damn, damn, damn—

Georgi had reached the glass cubicle, opened the door, gone in, picked up the telephone.

"Not long now," Stepanov murmured with exaggerated confidence.

"Shut up—!"

He watched Georgi, the pistol pressed against Stepanov's side to prevent a sudden move. The guard was almost at attention, one hand fiddling with his unbuttoned collar. Moscow Centre. Then Georgi glanced towards them, speaking as he did so — describing the two men he could see, explaining, painting a picture. Nodding. Face suspicious, puzzled. Soon the orders—

Short-cut, short-cut, short-cut — Dominus illuminatio—!

And then—

He did not even pause to consider the idea because, at the back of his mind, he could see Petrunin smiling, his lips painted with blood, but smiling…

Break.

MENU.

He typed in ASSIGNMENT HISTORY, praying that the screen would not go grey and blank, listening intently to Georgi's door, waiting for the noise of its being opened, of the first question the guard would ask of Stepanov—

Watching Stepanov, feeling his rigid, unmoving and confident frame against the hole at the end of the vz.75's short barrel.

WHITENIGHTSWHITERUSSIANWHITEBEAR, he typed furiously.

The screen cleared. He typed in Petrunin's name and rank and KGB number. Then, almost at once, with drops of sweat falling on the keys, making them treacherous, slippery—

KABULMOSCOWLONDON.

Georgi had a pistol in his hands! Stepanov was watching Georgi, willing him to move. Telephone clattered down. Door opened, banging back against the glass wall. Georgi hurrying—

Poem to Lara. Tear for Lara.

He typed LARA.

A tear for Lara. A bear's tears.

TEARDROP, he read in Cyrillic. Teardrop.

He drew in a deep breath, sobbing almost, nearly choking on the aseptic, dust-free air. Georgi was hurrying, hurrying — phone left off the hook, please report at once, discover what is happening, bring your officer to the telephone—

Hyde raised the pistol and shouted. Georgi halted, his hands feebly gripping the air level with his shoulders, fingers fumbling into surrender. His gun barrel was raised to the ceiling.

"Throw the gun away, sit on the floor-do it!" Hyde yelled at the top of his voice.

Georgi almost tumbled into a cross-legged position on the carpet, the gun yards away from him, sliding harmlessly to rest. The telephone began to ring next to the VDU. Hyde glanced at the screen.

… implemented when conditions favourable to place him in unassailable position within hierarchy…

The name, Christ the name—!

… operational order given. Proposed merger of two services, security and intelligence, suggests optimum chance of success for operation within ensuing twelve months…

The name—!

… Cabinet opinion favours new combined service…Chairman of JIC will provide favourable conditions for promotion of our agent… Deputy Chairman Kapustin to begin overtures… documents in preparation for eventual defection of agent Smokescreen…

Stepanov, Georgi, the telephone. Noise, urgency, fear. He felt himself out of control, weak and trapped.

Babbington.

Blank screen.

Illusion? He touched the grey surface of the screen, smoothing out its charge of static. Illusion?

Babbington. He'd seen the name in the instant that the screen was isolated and Moscow Centre cut off his terminal from the main computer. The telephone continued to ring. Babbington.

He had it. Had Babbington and Wilkes and the others. Had Babbington—

Then Stepanov moved. The gun had strayed from his side and when the pressure of numbness had diminished he had realised the fact — and grabbed for it, twisting the barrel upwards. For a moment, Hyde was reduced to utter, feeble panic. Stepanov's breathing was hot on his face, the man's lips were twisted with effort — Georgi had begun to move into a crouch from his cross-legged squat and the movement distracted Hyde further — alarm bells began to sound very distantly, as if along deserted concrete tunnels and corridors. Hyde's arms were weak, unable to struggle.

Then he leant towards the Russian officer and butted his head into the man's growing-triumphal face. Heard the groan, sensed the resistance of bone. Then struck with his right hand, at the point where blood was seeping from Stepanov's nose. The officer slumped from his seat, knelt as if in prayer for a moment before falling sideways, then lay curled on the carpet as if sleeping. Georgi's boots had reached him before he lay still, but the guard halted as he saw the gun reasserting its freedom of aim. Hyde wiped his nose on his sleeve and grinned shakily.

"Forget it, Georgi," he muttered. "Just forget it."

He motioned with the gun and Georgi backed away and resumed his sitting position. Its yoga-like posture was reinforced as he placed both hands behind his head. Some compressed Buddhist statue or penitent.

Hyde flicked open the streamer's drive door and snatched out the data cassette. He gripped its clear plastic tightly in his hand like an award for effort, for winning. He turned, then, and looked down the long, bright tunnel of the outer room. Two or three individuals in white lab coats, immobilised and confused by the alarm. No figures in uniform — not yet. Time…

Time was looping out ahead of him, too thin to become a lifeline, but something to cling to — or to follow out of the labyrinth. He stood up, and his legs did not feel weak, only cramped by tension. He stamped his feet, as at the beginning of a race.

Then, uniforms. At the far end of the long room.

He thrust the cassette into the pocket of his lab coat. Fished in the briefcase and, after unclipping the plastic cover of a narrow compartment, withdrew what might have been an aluminium rod shaped like a small, thin truncheon. He jammed the pistol into his belt in the small of his back, patted the cassette, and walked to the door of the inner security room. Georgi remained silent and unmoving behind him. He opened the door, passed through, and the alarms assaulted him as he closed the door behind him. The noise of the computers in the main room was louder.

The guards, three of them, had halted. Seeing him in his lab coat, they appeared, even at the distance of half the length of the huge room, disarmed, unconcerned. One of them was already questioning one of the operators, who was pointing towards Hyde and the highest security area. Hyde glanced behind him. There was no sign of Georgi. Playing safe—

Hyde began walking slowly down the room, glancing from side to side — not too casually, the alarms are ringing, there is something wrong — looking for a wheeled wastebin filled with print-out that had not yet been sent to the shredder; looking for the fuse-boxes high on the walls. One of the guards began to hurry towards him, still uncertain, not yet suspicious. Hyde fingered the aluminium truncheon in his pocket as if it were a weapon of close-quarter assault.

Bin — yes. Full — almost. Fuse-box — no, no… yes… He gripped the tube in his pocket more tightly, levering open the small, hinged handgrip with his fingers. The guard was twenty feet away and already demanding his ID. Hyde smiled disarmingly and stroked the barrel of the Flammpatrone, Hand DM 34. Touched the handgrip, touched the now-freed trigger. Apart from the Czech pistol, it was the only weapon Godwin had given him, with precise instructions on its use — in emergency only, Hyde.

Hyde reached carefully into his pocket and withdrew his papers. Georgi opened the door and shouted a warning. The two distant guards turned to him, absorbing the information that he was their target. The guard in front of him moved the vz.61 Skorpion machine-pistol towards Hyde's stomach. Hyde drew and fired the flame-cartridge launcher over the guard's head, towards the fuse- box on the wall.

The guard's surprised expression became a small round hole through which his breath was punched as Hyde bulled into him, heaving him aside and down. Then he ducked behind one of the orange ICL cabinets as the incendiary charge struck the fuse-box.

Dark — light — light glaring from the walls, the hissing of a shower of fragments at 1300 degrees Centigrade, cries of shock and temporary blindness. Hyde scuttled through the ranks of cabinets towards the scarred wall where the burning, molten remains of the fuse-box, a damaged computer cabinet with sparks leaping and crying, and the burning droplets of cartridge formed an untidy, brilliant bonfire almost obscured by the smoke generated by the charge.

He crouched, face averted, behind a wheeled waste-bin, then heaved it ahead of him. It gathered speed as he ran. Shots flicked off the wall after murdering his growing-diminishing-leaping shadow, until he twisted and heaved the bin over. Its contents, great bundles and sheafs of print-out paper, spilled towards the burning fragments — then scorched, curled, ignited. Bullets from a Skorpion chipped a ragged contour across the wall above his head. Plaster dusted his hair. The print-out sheafs were well alight. Within the smoke, gouts of orange flame were rearing towards the ceiling, sinuous as snakes. He doubled back the way he had come, moving in a swift, aching crouch, using his hands often as if four-legged to speed his progress and keep his balance. He weaved through the cabinets and the ranks of computer equipment. A printer chattered as he passed it like some look-out bird alerting the guards. The whole of the room was full of long, glaring, melting and reforming shadows. The lights had fused. Sparks protested from some of the cabinets. The guards shouted.

He glanced across the room and saw the billow of CO2 from an extinguisher, the thin spurt of inert foam from another. The whole of the waste-bin's contents were fully alight. The fuse-box dripped molten fragments down the charred wall. The smoke was rolling, dense and clinging. Guards moved near it, through it. He had less than thirty seconds before the steel shutters locked all of them in the room. Already, the air-conditioning system would have automatically shut down. In — nineteen seconds — no, sixteen now, no more… the room would be pumped full of an inert gas which would stifle the fire. And kill him and the guards as it forced every particle of oxygen from the computer room. In seconds, the guards themselves would hurry out…

Hyde regained his bearings and moved swiftly towards the doors and the corridor—

And the guards, and reinforcements and fire-fighters and civilian staff and security men. Stepanov and Georgi would be running by now, desperate to get out before the steel shutters slammed down, locking them in—

He straightened up. The smoke persisted, seemed even thicker. He felt it in his throat now, unnoticed before. He heard coughing, and an order to get out, leave the fire — shutters, he heard in a high voice, a panicky warning. Gas—

Go now—! He had only seconds before they would block his escape, or be no more than a pace behind him. Flame spurted and coiled, CO2 puffed and hissed, smoke rolled thick and heavy.

He brushed at his lab coat — smeared with greasy dirt, scorched in one or two places — and touched the cassette in his pocket. Then he burst through the glass doors, adopting a wild, frightened look, his arm extended to indicate the chaos behind him.

No one — no one…

In disbelief, he hurried through the reception area. Incongruously, a small green watering-can stood beside the pot in which the rubber plant was growing. He pushed open the outer door. The corridor was empty—

No. A guard at the corner, at the bottom of the stairs. His guard. The alarms beat their noise down at his head, shrilled away like startled, fleeing birds down the corridor. Take the stairs to his left, downwards—?

No, not deeper—

He hurried towards the guard, already shouting in panic at the top of his voice: "For God's sake, man, isn't there any organised response to a fire in this place—?"

The young guard's mouth opened. His rifle was held slackly across his chest. The stairs were empty. Hyde hit him in the stomach, then across the chin, then on the side of the neck as the man fell away from him. He kicked the guard's legs after him, thrusting them out of sight from the stairs. The rifle had slid away down the corridor, but he did not want it anyway. It declared his violence, obviated bluff of any kind. The adrenalin coursed. He dashed up the stairs, taking them two at a time—

To be confronted by uniforms, white coats, suits, extinguishers, rifles, a fireman's helmet. Slow, slow—

"It's chaos in there!" he screamed. "Absolute chaos! For Christ's sake — hurry!"

He leaned against the wall to let the group pass. One man snapped at him, "What about the security breach? The security alarm sounded first!"

Hyde shrugged. "I don't know — all I know is — the fuse-box blew — fire everywhere…" He coughed, for effect, hanging his head in weariness, his eyes fixed on the man's groin as he awaited the necessity for violence.

"How many still inside? Quickly, man! How many?"

"God knows — two, three… security personnel, not computer—"

"Warn security control of casualties. I want a manual override on the shutters and the gas until everyone's out! Quickly!"

Hyde heard a bellowed reference to a security telephone, and then they had passed him on their way towards the computer room.

He turned and ran, before they discovered the unconscious, obviously beaten guard at the bottom of the stairs.

Moment of reorientation, a turn, short run, then turn right, then more stairs, up, up…

Suk's hand grabbed him and regretted the act as Hyde turned on him, fist raised. They were in a wide corridor, just as the memorised diagram that Suk had supplied had shown. Hyde knew where he was and how far from the clean air in the Third Courtyard—

"You're in the wrong damn place!" he snarled in a whisper. People hurried past them. Now, he could hear the noise of fire-appliances moving into the courtyard. Through a window, their headlights bounced and glared. Like hunting searchlights.

"I came — I was worried when the alarms—"

"Where now?"

"Come — this way."

They were on the ground floor of the Chancellery. Already, people were being moved out of the building — cleaners, clerks, security guards, KGB and STB officers. Men in white lab coats similar to the one he wore. Suk guided him towards a tall narrow door. A guard perfunctorily inspected their breast-pocket ID cards, and they were out into a windy night which snatched at Hyde's breath and lowered his temperature immediately so that his teeth began to chatter and his body shivered uncontrollably; fevered.

"Are you—?"

"Just bloody cold!" he snapped.

Firemen in yellow waterproof leggings and dark uniform coats hurried across the scene in front of them. Men with guns ran, directed by other men in uniform greatcoats or leather topcoats. Panic. The organism had been wounded in some vital part. The antibodies were in flight, hurrying to the scene. Rather, he thought, the wasps' nest, stirred with a stick. Someone had damaged the secret stuff, the valuable stuff—

He patted his pocket.

"Here," Suk offered, and handed him his short, dark coat. "Give me the white one."

Hyde removed the dustproofing coat and donned his own overcoat, placing the cassette in his pocket. The gun still nestled in the small of his back.

"Across this courtyard," Suk began, whispering close to Hyde's ear, pausing until the man nodded, "around the east end of the cathedral, into Vikarska — yes? I showed you on the map."—

"I remember," Hyde snapped impatiently.

"Good," Suk replied, his face pinched by cold and offence. "You will find the workmen's ladders where I showed you. With them you can climb the main wall into the garden there — and the other wall…"

"I know. I can climb that with my hands and feet. I only hope you're right, mate."

Hyde looked at the man, looked through the open door into a scene which had suddenly become more ordered, drilled, slower moving. More brown uniforms, many leather and mohair topcoats. A man with black smears on his face, as if he had been close to a fire…

They were searching now. They knew he had got out of the cellars. Time was diminishing, being coiled in by the pursuit. He glanced into Suk's face.

"Thanks," he murmured, and then turned his back. Suk watched him until he disappeared into the shadows near the statue of St George, making for the cathedral. He simply disappeared into the deeper shadow behind a spilling pool of blue, revolving light from a fire-appliance. By that time, he was already running.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: A Consignment for Moscow

Voronin watched each of them, arranged like exhibits on the three upright chairs on the other side of the Rezident's desk. He had requisitioned Bayev's office at the Soviet embassy with a casual authority, confident of his own role at the hub of the drama. He was alone with his three prisoners; alone, except for the frowning Party portraits that stared down from the walls, unchanging, rather forbidding. He noticed them, perhaps for the first time in a number of years — since they were no more than the normal furniture of a KGB Rezident's office — with the eye of the three foreigners in the room. Lenin, Brezhnev, Nikitin and the others — a small number for the years since 1917, he observed to himself — sternly indicated to Aubrey and the Massingers that they were already seated in the ante-room of an alien way of life. Voronin watched them, eager for signs of stress, of defeat, and confident that they would appear as tangibly as the spots associated with chicken-pox or measles.

Aubrey had tidied his remaining hair and buttoned his shirt. He had tightened his narrow, striped tie. His jacket had been flung at him by one of Voronin's men as he was forced into the limousine outside the safe house. Voronin remembered it with satisfaction as a dismissive, final gesture. Aubrey wasn't wearing it now.

Massinger sat stiffly upright, his injured leg thrust out in front of him — the too-small trousers they had supplied at the lodge before he was transferred were strained over the bandage; stained on the thigh with drying blood. His wife looked dowdy and middle-aged with her hair dishevelled and make-up smudged. Defeated by her bruises and swollen, split lips. She seemed little more than a mirror of her husband's dejected and weakened condition, and it was difficult for Voronin to reconcile the woman he saw with the well-connected, troublesome image that Babbington and Kapustin had feared.

Voronin was satisfied that the Massingers were disorientated, frightened, clearly aware of the brevity of the future. They knew they would die quite soon. Aubrey; however, the third member of the consignment for Moscow, disappointed him.

He was tired, unshaven, old. But he had the appearance of a pensioner suddenly roused from sleep rather than that of a captured intelligence officer. Voronin felt cheated. Aubrey's appearance should have mirrored that captivity. On the contrary, it belied what he must surely be feeling. It was an unreasonably lame conclusion to the days, weeks, months, years of effort of which Voronin had been an important part. Hidden cameras, microphones, doctored film and tape, lighting, scripts, actors. A complete, elaborate, marvellous forgery, all to entrap Aubrey. Entrap this one old man who seemed incapable of understanding what was happening to him. Voronin remembered the smoky rooms, the endless whirring tapes, the hiss of film sliding through projectors. He remembered Aubrey in front — in front of the monkey cages at Helsinki Zoo—

That day, perhaps of all days, they knew — the whole team had sensed it — they had Aubrey. That was the film they'd released to the French, that had been shown all over the world. They'd all known they had him then, that he couldn't escape them…

And yet now he seemed to have done so. He looked drugged, weary, indifferent.

Voronin dismissed his disappointment and picked up the telephone. It was the reason he had had them brought to this room, rather than spend the intervening hours before their transfer to Schwechat airport in tiny, separate cells below ground. As he waited after dialling Kapustin's number at Moscow Centre, he checked the dials and lights on the encryption unit's face. Was Aubrey glancing slyly at him? Perhaps not. It was a superfluous call, merely confirming their success. But, he wanted these people to hear it. It was a call for the benefit of his prisoners.

He glanced at his watch. Twelve-five. They'd be transferred at four to the airport. Aubrey with false diplomatic papers — he must be seen by witnesses who would later recall that he went willingly, not under arrest — and the other two as diplomatic passengers. Their departure would remain secret— forever. Like their later executions in Moscow.

He heard the connection being made and leaned forward to switch on the desk speaker, clamping the receiver to it. Aubrey's eyes wandered vaguely, hardly aware. The Massingers were distracted by his movements from their intent perusal of the monochrome faces looking down at them from the white office walls.

Aubrey and his companions would disappear. SIS in Vienna was in total disarray, and controlled by Babbington. There would be no effective search, no possibility of counter-measures. The Austrians would want nothing to do with it except, at a safe distance in time, to make the appropriate empty diplomatic noises. There was this room, then a limousine to Schwechat, then the cabin of the Tupolev, then another car, then another room. That was all that lay in front of the Massingers: Aubrey had little more to look forward to.

"Comrade Deputy Chairman—!" Voronin announced, to attract Aubrey's attention. Their eyes seemed to focus. The Massingers appeared unmoved, their attention having wandered as easily as that of children. Aubrey twitched once like a small animal receiving a shock from a buried electrode. Then his attention, too, seemed to cloud.

"Is it done?" Kapustin asked.

"Of course, Comrade—"

"Casualties?"

"One on our side…"

"Only one? Good."

"What are your orders, Comrade Deputy Chairman?" Was Aubrey even paying attention—? Damn the old man… damn him. He could not rid himself of the sense that Aubrey had somehow reversed their positions, become the superior by his inattentive silence.

When Kapustin replied, Voronin realised that the Deputy Chairman sensed Aubrey could hear the exchange. There was a silky pleasure unusual in the Deputy Chairman's gruff voice as he said, "Do I need to repeat them, Voronin?" Momentarily, Aubrey's face narrowed to an expression of hatred. "Very well. I shall repeat your instructions. The aircraft will depart at four-thirty. Before dawn, your guests will be in Moscow. Tell them the weather promises to be fine. Arrangements here are in order. All matters will be dealt with speedily. Please assure them — but perhaps they can hear my voice, Voronin?" The young man did not reply, merely smiled into the room. Aubrey refused to attend—! "In which case," Kapustin's voice continued, "I can assure them personally that no time will be lost in dealing with their — problem. No time will be lost." The repeated words were purred out. "Is there anything else, Voronin?"

"No, Comrade Deputy Chairman — there is nothing else."

"Then goodbye…" And then, because Kapustin could not resist the temptation, he added: "Goodbye, Sir Kenneth," in a mocking, triumphant tone. Aubrey's eyes were hooded, but bright with attention. Good, good — at last!

Voronin switched off the speaker and replaced the receiver. Then he sat back in his chair, studying the faces arranged before him once more. Looked down on by those other faces towards which the Massingers' attention had returned. He adopted a relaxed and confident air. They'd got to Aubrey. He knew, he understood. His inattention was no more than an act, a pretence. He was suffering — oh, yes, he was suffering. Knowing that, Voronin cared little or nothing for the others. They had retreated further from him, but that did not matter. Their hands were linked on the woman's lap, but clearly not for the purpose of mutual comfort. Rather, in a union that suggested that the present moment satisfied them.

Satisfy—?

Did Aubrey's suffering satisfy him, Voronin? Did he possess all the feelings, the strength of feeling, appropriate to this moment?

He could not say that he did.

Why not?

He knew why not. Babbington. He disliked the man intensely — always had done, the past two days more than ever. Arrogant — feudally arrogant, the sort you wanted to frighten with a gun or a club, shake out of his complacent arrogance…

Babbington was the hero of the hour. Hero of the Soviet Union. They'd keep the medals for the day he finally came home. Sickening. Voronin felt himself to be a child, excluded from some adult celebration party. It was Babbington's moment; all the satisfaction, the sense of success, belonged to Babbington. He and all the others had been no more than servants, scurrying to do what Babbington ordered. Saving Babbington's precious skin.

Aubrey watched Voronin. He saw the man's pleasure pall and understood the reason. He was no more than a cog, a part of Babbington's machine. Aubrey saw a discontented young man of pale complexion and sharp bright eyes. Not fashionably dressed but dowdy and clerk-like, his suit old-fashioned, a piece with the overcoat and trilby hat he had now discarded. The shirt and tie were drab. Voronin's hair was limp and straight; a dirty blond in colour.

A catalogue of mediocrity. Yet— and Aubrey could not avoid or escape the impression — this mediocrity held their lives in his hands. And would dispose of them all when the time came for him to do so.

This dangerous drab young man represented a lank-haired Nemesis in a clerk's grey suit.

Aubrey's attention retreated. What use were the pretences, the masks? He was beaten and knew it. The Massingers were as good as dead. He, too, after a short, shameful interval, would cease to exist—

Fear came then. He knew why he had hidden his attentiveness from Voronin. The effort had occupied him sufficiently to keep the fear at bay. But now, the fear clutched at his stomach and heart and lungs, almost stopping his breath.

Voronin smiled greedily. He saw. He knew, and appeared satisfied.

The empty street, cobbled and steep, sloped away from him, pooled by shadows which filled the spaces between the lamplight. The sgraffito-work facade of the Schwarzenberg Palace seemed ghostly, luminescent. The other buildings massed silently and lightless in the square; the palaces and the town hall and the Swiss embassy. The carved saints leaned over their madonna directly ahead of him. He felt as jolted as if he had collided with the statuary or with the wall of a building; winded and disorientated. Godwin wasn't there.

A cripple, unable to run, but he wasn't there, wasn't there…

His lungs and heart pumped out the refrain. Godwin wasn't there…

He listened for the sounds of pursuit, watching the square's pools and bays of shadow for the movement of waiting men. As the strain of his efforts faded, another stronger chorus emerged. Stop it stop it, stop it—

Routine questioning, slipped on an icy pavement and lying in hospital, too cold for him to come out at all… Hyde hadn't wanted him there, and perhaps Godwin had done no more than change his mind.

The alarms were ringing, distantly and continuously, in the castle. The guards at the closed gates of the First Courtyard were almost invisible to his left, but he sensed their increased alertness like a scent on the cold air. He pressed back against the wall, feeling chilly carved stone against his cheek. He tried to control the little puffed signals his breath made in the icy night. He began to feel cold as the sweat dried. Lights sprang on in the castle's nearest building; neon lighting, flickering on like burning torches hurried from room to room by the men searching for him. The group of stone giants in combat above the gates loomed over the square, black backs and arms muscled and dangerous in the light thrown down from the windows.

The guards had turned their backs to him as they looked back through the gates; already puzzled, becoming dangerous. Headlights flickered across the walls surrounding the Second Courtyard, illuminating the frozen beard of the fountain.

Now—

Lights above him in the government offices of the old Archbishop's Palace. More alarms, louder as if someone had opened a window to let the sound escape. Lights coming on in the Swiss Embassy, reducing the shadows in which he hid. A car starting further up the cobbled hill. More headlights in the inner courtyards, more lights in the room surrounding the square. By now, the fire in the computer room would have been extinguished, and be understood as no more than a diversion. They would be single-minded now, their attention entirely focused on himself. They did not know what he had — but, if they had him, Godwin would tell them, and soon—

Running feet, heavy and booted—

Now—!

He touched the chilly stone with both hands, as if about to hurl himself away from it, studied the pavement and the cobbles — and ran.

The gates were swinging open, the guards were moving towards the leading car. He saw this as he knelt by one of the parked black limousines in front of the Archbishop's Palace, his heavy breathing clouding the car's polished flank. Booted feet, voices, the alarm shrill, joined by others as if nesting birds had been roused. He got off his haunches and ran, crouching and wary, across the cobbles to the group of figures carved around the madonna. He pressed against the base of the statue and watched the leading car roar out of the gates into the square — wheels spinning, rear of the car sliding sideways, then the drift corrected — and away up the hill towards the Strahov. Only seconds left now. An officer was instructing the guards at the gates; someone yelled down from a high window. A mechanical voice through a public address system began to rouse the whole castle. Only seconds—

He scuttled across the last pool of light, last bay of shadow. A truck with a searchlight mounted on the back trundled into the square, its brakes protesting as it stopped. Immediately, the beam began bouncing and sliding in the square like a great golden ball striking the walls of the buildings.

He doubled up in shadow, gasping for breath. Skidded slightly, dragging his cheek against cold stone. The shadow opened up in front of him like a cliffs edge. The Castle Steps. Voices, public address, the bouncing ball of light, heels clicking on frost, the roar of engines.

Godwin—?

His car was near Godwin's flat, damn.

He looked at the steps for a moment, clutching the stone of the wall as if affected by vertigo. Light bounced over him and he hunched his shoulders as if under a weight. The light moved on, someone shouted; it bounced back towards him, slithering along the wall and pavement. Orders were bellowed. He ran.

In tens. His gloved hand skated down the frosty, dead-cold railing. Steps were in tens. He skipped down them, reached the level, then the next ten steps before the next level. Old street-lamps threw a muted, dusty light, making his shadow enlarge to monstrous size then quickly diminish. Blaring his shape against the walls.

He paused to look back. Torches, noise — they'd seen him, damn. He ran on, hearing the first pairs of boots clattering in pursuit. The noise of a rifle dropped—? The glow of a television set through open curtains as he passed the window of a tall, narrow house. A door opening—

He cannoned into someone, the body soft and yielding, perhaps that of a woman. He heard breath escape like an explosion, smelt a strong, cheap perfume, then hurried past, hearing the breathing begin again and the abuse commence. The steps zig-zagged, and he lost the sounds of the woman's voice and the footsteps of the pursuit.

Another ten steps, then the level, then another ten steps. Level, steps, level. Street-light, looming shadow, shrunken dwarf on the peeling stucco of the wall, darkness, steps, level, shadow, giant, dwarf, shadow, steps, level—

Crumbling stucco, treacherous, icy steps. His breath was laboured, legs almost gone. He was slowing and was aware of it. A pool of light seemed to open fuzzily ahead of him, like the opening of a door into a brightly lit room. He hesitated, afraid of what might be a searchlight. Then he plunged on, hearing once more the clatter of boots and the scraping of metal funnelled down the Castle Steps after him.

He staggered as he reached the bottom of the steps, clinging to the railing as a bout of coughing seized him. A narrow street, more light at the end of it. He forced himself to run, his feet noisy on the cobbles. Then he turned the corner into Little Quarter Square. The church of St Nicholas rose in front of him. A rank of black cars stood outside the palace that had become the Regional Party School. The headquarters and the church outfaced one another across the cobbles. Hyde crossed the square into the deep shadows beneath the church—

Shadows?

Lights, suddenly, as if they had waited in ambush for him. He gazed around him wildly, clutching the gun in his pocket, clutching the tape cassette. The doors of St Nicholas swung open. Noises, footsteps and tali. An audience emerged. A notice-board near his head advertised a recital that evening. He shook with relief as he began pushing into and through the audience as it descended the steps, dispersing into the square. He crossed the facade, the west door, bumped and hidden by people talking in loud, delighted voices. The recital had been a success.

He eased ahead of the small crowd and his shadow began to jog with him along the southern wall of the church as he turned into Mostecka ulice. He loped easily, almost with a lightness of mood. A car passed him innocently, its colour a drab fawn. People were behind him, others ahead, emerging from what might have been a club — yes, raw music, a saxophone and drums behind a wall of chatter as he passed the closing, door. He slowed, then. Looked back. People. Overcoated, hatted, scarved. Cover. A few cars moved at a sedate pace along the narrow street, the cobbles jolting their axles. Sirens in the distance, but no uniformed men in the Mostecka. They'd been caught up by the crowd from the church. They'd have to block the exits from Little Quarter Square as a first priority. The pursuit was diluting with each second that passed. Hyde walked on, not too quickly, hands thrust into the pockets of his overcoat, scarf wound round his face, partly to mask his hard, strained breathing. The bridge stretched away ahead of him across the Vltava. One gloved hand gripped the cassette in his pocket. Teardrop—

He'd done it. He had Babbington, clutched in his gloved hand. Everything; the whole scenario; and Babbington's name. The frame, the predicted consequences which perfectly matched the reality, the double agent who was Moscow's man. He'd done it. The knowledge made him catch his breath, bare his teeth in a triumphant grin.

He hurried beneath the dark tower at the end of the Charles Bridge. The wind from the river was icy and he hunched against it. The lamps on the bridge glowed, sleet flying through the haloes of chilly light. The black statues lining either side of the bridge leaned over him, hurrying his pace as if they whispered his lack of time to him. His hand gripped the cassette more fiercely. Now that he possessed the proof he realised, with a growing, gnawing urgency as palpable as extreme hunger, that Babbington would waste no time. Margaret Massinger he no longer considered or cared about. She could well have gone into the bag with Aubrey and her husband. There was only himself, blown across the bridge like a black scrap of paper beneath the gloomy, magnificent crucifixion figure, the gold of its crown and of the inscription gleaming in the sleety lamplight. There was only himself now. The bridge tower loomed over him and he passed through its arch into the Old Town. The wind disappeared. He walked through rutted slush on the pavement, unpursued but hurrying more than before. There was only himself.

Within minutes, he had reached Old Town Square, had passed the astronomical clock and reached the shadows of the Tyn Church. Then he paused, studying the Celetna ulice. Neon lights, hard. Traffic thin, pedestrians few. He could see the bulk of the Powder Tower at the other end of the street. Where was Godwin? He could pick out the darkened windows of his flat. At the back, in the kitchen—?

Hyde knew the flat was empty. Hunching his shoulders, he began to drift along the street, looking for surveillance; ready to run and feeling the Celetna close in on him and the weight of the streets through which he had come press like a net trawling him in. He was alone. He could go to no embassy. He had a tape, nothing more. They wouldn't believe—

Stop it—

He drew level with the Skoda and passed it. The doors and windows did not look as if they had been forced, but he could not check those on the driver's side. He glanced up at the dark windows of Godwin's flat, almost bumping into a young man, who apologised to him at once. Hyde, shivering, mumbled something to the young man's retreating back. Then he continued walking.

He crossed the street a hundred yards beyond the flat and two hundred from the Skoda, then retraced his steps back towards the square. Then once more towards the Powder Tower — the driver's side doors and windows had looked intact — then back towards the flat. There were no parked cars containing waiting men, there were no open windows, no drawn-back curtains. One hand clutched the tape, the other Godwin's spare key. He reached the doorway, almost passed it, then ducked into its shadow. He fumbled for the lock and turned the key. The door creaked slightly as he touched it open. He glanced back at the street, then passed quickly into the narrow hall and mounted the stairs. He listened ahead of him as he reached the first floor. There, he paused. Nothing; no noises from the street, either. Where was Godwin?

He paused again at the front door of the flat, then reached the key tentatively towards the lock, inserted it, held his breath, turned the key — kicking open the door the moment he did so, bundling himself inside the flat and pressing himself against the wall, the gun in his hands. The vz.75 pistol was close to his face, barrel pointed at the ceiling. His thumb moved the safety catch. Fifteen rounds. He listened, holding his breath.

Nothing. He reached out and silently closed the door. Then he moved the few paces to the flat's main room. He banged open the door, gun extended, his weight supported by the door frame. The room was lightless, empty. He flicked on the lights. Neat, orderly — unsearched, no signs of a struggle. Where was Godwin? Swiftly, he checked the other empty rooms. No crutches, no overcoat hanging in the hall. Bed undisturbed, empty coffee mug in the kitchen sink. Godwin had left the flat of his own volition — to keep his appointment at the Hradcany. Where was he?

And who was asking him questions, and what was he saying…? His mind continued with nervous inevitability, completing the scenario. Someone had Godwin under the lights by now—

And he had only the time it took for one mistake, one contradiction — or a confession because they had become impatient with evasion and lies and used force.

He went back into the kitchen. The rear of the building was two storeys lower than the part which contained Godwin's flat. Its roof stretched back on a level with Godwin's kitchen window. He slid the window up and checked the sill and the slope of the roof and the width of the gap between this roof and its neighbour. Then he went back into the lounge and picked up the telephone. He tensed immediately, but there was no betraying double click. Godwin kept his telephone swept clean of bugs. It was as secure as the apartment. He placed the pistol carefully near the telephone and slumped onto the edge of an armchair; immediately feeling the last strength in his legs drain away and his calves begin to tremble with weariness. He dialled the long series of digits with a quivering forefinger. The flat was already growing cold from the open kitchen window.

London. Should he move the car now, while there was time—? London. He dialled the final digit of Sir William Guest's number in Albany that Margaret Massinger had given him, and wondered again about the car. The connection was made, the number began to ring. Three, four — come on… the car? He listened to the noises from the street. A vehicle passed, he held his breath, but it did not stop or turn. Five, six, seven… come on — go and move the car—! He felt trapped now, as if bound to the chair and the telephone, unable to free himself. Then—

"Sir William—!" he blurted before his caution stopped him. Relief flooded him, making him weak and shaky, even as he warned himself to say nothing more until the recipient of the call identified himself.

"Who is that?"

The voice is too young—.

"Get me Sir William."

"Who is that?"

Did he recognise the voice? Did he, or was it just the tone, the accent? Who—?

"Is Sir William there?" he insisted.

"You sound as if you've been rushing, old man," the voice drawled. "I'm afraid Sir William's not yet returned… we're expecting him sometime today. Can I help you?"

"Who are you?" His free hand clutched the cassette in his pocket, as if to crush it. Useless now—

"One of his staff. He asked me to call, collect some papers… lucky to have caught me, really. Who is speaking? Where are you calling

from…?" The words were affectedly indifferent, no more than a polite enquiry, yet Hyde sensed the tension beneath the facade.

"Fuck you," he whispered and slammed down the receiver. It didn't matter who it was, Babbington's man or Sir William's flunkey. It wasn't Sir William…

Useless. He bit his knuckles, enacting his rage as he stared at the telephone. Useless—

Before Sir William returned, the old man would be in Moscow, ready to go on show, maybe even dead.

"Oh, fuck it!" He slumped back in the armchair, his eyes pressed tightly shut and damp in the corners, his face raised to the ceiling. He was deeply, utterly weary. He had the evidence — and now they knew it, or they would know it soon… Babbington would be told before morning. Then he'd waste no time in getting rid of Aubrey and the Massingers. The consignment for Moscow would be on its way east. Babbington would know it was him and Aubrey would disappear, just as if he, Hyde, had given them a warning, time to act. Babbington would want to be on Guest's doormat to explain Aubrey's disappearance the moment Sir William returned. He'd speeded them up, hurried them to a final course of action—

He sat for whole minutes, still and silent, face raised and eyes pressed shut. His hands gripped the arms of the chair, his body slumped into its sagging container.

And he'd done for himself, too. They knew he was here, they knew what he'd done, and he wouldn't be able to get out the way he came in. He'd not get as far as Bratislava, in all probability. They'd shut the country up to keep him in.

He continued to sit in silence, unmoving. There seemed no point to activity, movement, decision. Part of his awareness listened beyond the flat to the noises from the street, the noises above and below him in the house. Normal. All normal. Someone playing a radio upstairs, walking from lounge to kitchen and then returning to the lounge. His heartbeat settled, his breathing calmed.

He sat bolt upright in the chair.

Zimmermann. Hyde stared at the telephone, then at his watch. Fifteen minutes since he had entered the flat. Fifteen—! He cursed himself. He had to get out. Survival. Continued living and breathing. They'd kill him, not just put him in the bag. They'd kill him for certain—

Zimmermann. Call me if anything goes wrong — very wrong. The German had volunteered his services as emergency case officer. if it's too much to handle, and you can't get out…

He listened. Normal. He dialled feverishly. Godwin could be talking now, could have talked already—! The last three digits, what were they? What—? What, damn you—? His finger quivered over the dial, then he remembered. Four, two, seven.

He waited. Was Zimmermann in the bag, too, by now? Would a younger voice answer the call, smooth and dangerous? He waited. The receiver at the other end was picked up.

"Yes? Zimmermann," he heard. The voice checked with his memory.

"It's me — Hyde."

"What is it?" Zimmermann asked immediately and in English. "You are in trouble?"

"Listen — I may not have much time. Godwin's disappeared — he must have been picked up. They can't be far behind me now."

"I understand. But, you have—?"

"I've got everything. The computer threw up the whole meal. Everything… Babbington's name, even. Even his name. I've got the whole elaborate frame…"

"Can you get the information to me in any way?"

"No. It's on a tape. And I can't rely on the post, can I? Listen, Zimmermann — I can't go out the way I came in. They'll be waiting for me everywhere. Any suggestion's?"

Hyde felt the hand that held the receiver begin to pain him. He studied his other hand. Raw new skin, still healing. It seemed a badge of his fragility, his uselessness. He waited, willing Zimmermann to provide an escape route.

Eventually, Zimmermann said, "Yes. You have to get out. Do they know what you have done?"

"Yes. I was almost caught."

"And Godwin, of course… mm." Zimmermann paused for a moment. "There is precious little time, if any. I can do nothing, we can do nothing without the physical evidence. I am suspended. An enquiry is to begin soon. I am to speak to no one. However, I can help you. There is a plumber, a German, living in the small border town of Mytina, south of Cheb. Less than three hours from Prague. You have a map?"

"Yes."

"Mytina. You will find him at this address… do you wish to write it down?"

"No. Go ahead… OK, I've got that."

"He has acted unofficially for us on a few occasions. There are others like him, but not so close to the border or Prague. But, he needs money. His name is Langdorf, and he does nothing without money. Also, you will need to explain that you have his name from me. You have money?"

"Godwin must have standard issue Krugerrands in the flat somewhere, or there's a cache of Swiss francs here. I'll find them. I can pay."

"Then go at once. You must cross tonight — before dawn. I will be waiting for you…" There was a pause. Zimmermann was evidently studying his watch, making his calculations. "Yes, I can be there before dawn. Very few people know of my suspension at the moment… I will be waiting. Try very hard to be there, Mr Hyde. For all our sakes."

"I'll try. Thanks."

"Before dawn, remember. We do not have tomorrow."

"Yes."

Hyde put down the receiver and gently rubbed the hand that had held it. He listened to the street outside, then crossed to the window, lifting the curtain gently to one side. Traffic thin, pedestrians few, as if midnight had hurried them home. Man loitering in the dark doorway… no, girl there, too. No one suspicious. No curtains wide for surveillance, no muted lights. Hyde breathed deeply, clouding the cold window-pane, expelling the air like a decision made.

He turned from the window to face the room, his mind flicking through the rooms of the flat like a sequence of still pictures projected upon a screen.

Urgency returned like the onset of a renewed bout of fever. Now, he was aware of the flat, of the street, of the roof that might have to serve as his escape route…

And of Godwin, under a bright light, fending off the anticipated moment when he would let something slip or would have to tell what he knew.

The rooms were illuminated in his mind as starkly as if he shone a torch rapidly over the contours and contents of each of them. Where? Godwin would have concealed his Krugerrands or Swiss francs like every other agent posted abroad. The Sinking Fund, they called it in London. A lifeline; a way out. To be used when not waving but drowning. In this case, where?

Begin — come on, begin, he ordered his body. His hand flicked the curtain aside once more. The Skoda, a hundred yards away on the opposite side of the Celetna, was passed, light thrown upon it for a moment, by a late bus. At the far end of the street, beneath the Powder Tower, blue sparks flashed from an overhead cable as a tram rattled its way towards the river. Nothing else — there was still time, Godwin was holding out or remained unsuspected. There was time, time—

Little or no time, little or no time, no time…

He got onto all fours and scrabbled around the circumference of the room, his hands feeling the carpet like those of a blind man searching for something dropped. Nothing. He glanced under the dining table. He touched the undersides of the chairs, tilted the armchairs and the sofa… Godwin would, might need the money quickly, so it would have to be easy for a cripple. No bending or lifting or crawling or climbing…

Hyde smoothed the curtains, but there were no lumps, no rustlings. No weights that might have been coins. The old sideboard — his fingers touched and caressed the backs and undersides of drawers, lifted the clock and the tray on which Godwin's bottles of whisky and gin stood. He began, perhaps prompted by the clock, to glance at his watch after handling or moving or touching each object; punctuating his search.

Bathroom. Cistern dirty but otherwise empty. No waterproof package. Shower offering no place of concealment. Back of the wash-basin — twelve-twenty — edges of the thin, weary carpet on the bathroom floor. Nothing.

Kitchen. Undersides of the wall cupboards, just the right height for Godwin the cripple — twelve twenty-one — the stove, the pedal bin, dust and dead flies and a mummified spider on top of the wall cupboards. Buckets and mops in a cupboard, tins of food, including those for the neighbour's thin black cat. Behind the fridge — twelve twenty-two, no three — freezer compartment of the fridge, only ice-cubes and a slim package that contained some cold meat left from a meal.

Hallway. Cupboard. Hands slipping between folded sheets, shirts, smoothing down the ironing board as if searching a spreadeagled suspect. Suitcases in the bedroom, on top of the wardrobe. Bedroom. Twelve twenty-five. He was missing things, he couldn't afford to be really thorough, but he was still taking too long…

Gambling on Godwin holding out because he knew, with utter certainty, that they had him and by now they would have become suspicious. Some STB man would make the connection, bring the questioning round to—

Twelve twenty-six. Nothing in the suitcases or their linings. Nothing on the underside of the narrow bed that looked like a cot from some institution. Nothing in the dressing-table or at the backs of the drawers. Carpet — nothing. Twelve twenty-seven. Hyde's forehead was damp and prickly despite the cold of the flat. He felt his body heating up inside his clothes. He could smell the dust from beneath the bed and in the carpet. Curtains — nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing—!

Twelve twenty-eight. He had been in the flat for two minutes over half-an-hour. There could be no more than a few minutes now. Godwin would have had to supply his address — they'd know it anyway, from his file — and a police or STB patrol would be dispatched; routine in a workers' paradise. They'd be here for certain, and soon. They were already overdue. He was sweating freely now, and he could hear his own panting breaths. The exertion of tension, of frustration, was as great as that of his flight down the Castle Steps.

It had to be within easy reach, easy reach — twelve twenty-nine. Easy reach. Godwin couldn't even kneel easily, couldn't climb onto chairs to reach up, couldn't overturn or move heavy furniture without a huge, time-devouring effort. It had to be within easy reach—!

A car drew up in the Celetna. He heard the sound through the drawn curtains. He had heard it subliminally as it moved down the street, coming from Old Town Square, but had fought to ignore it. Now, he couldn't. He heard one of its doors close quietly and moved to the window, lifting the curtain very gently. Two men. Uniforms. Police car. Looking around, then beginning to lift their heads to look up — he dropped the curtain. Routine patrol, diverted to check out Godwin's address — twelve-twenty… no, twelve-thirty. Where? He heard, or imagined, boots on the pavement's rutted slush, and the murmur of voices. He listened. No other cars. A tram clanged over points in the distance.

Where — easy — where, easy for Godwin — where?

And then he knew, as he heard the doorbell ring in the flat below. The flats were too few and cramped to have a concierge. Tenants answered their own bells. But they'd rung the ground floor to confuse and mislead anyone in Godwin's flat.

Godwin had given up. Hyde saw him as he had seen him at that bus-stop in the suburbs. Waiting out the remainder of his crippled existence. He'd never have expected or tried to escape. He would have sat waiting for them whenever they came. No run for the border for Godwin — he'd given up.

Hyde flung the old sofa over on its back as if wrestling with an intruder. He ran his hands along the edges of the sacking covering its base. Blood. A prick of blood on one finger. He heard the street door open, and quiet voices. He sucked his finger, knowing that Godwin had broken a needle that had been too light to perform the task of resewing the sacking to the material of the sofa. Its broken-off end had remained embedded in the frame. And the stitching was less neat, newer. Godwin had really hidden the money — buried it. He ripped the sacking away and the noise hid for a second the sound of boots ascending the stairs. His hand fumbled with horsehair and springs, then withdrew the expected package. He tore the brown paper. Swiss francs, high denomination.

The doorbell rang. A voice immediately called out Godwin's name, using the English prefix Mister. They'd seen lights, they expected someone — perhaps even him. He stood up, shaking with relief, and thrust the package into the inside pocket of the overcoat. He snatched up the pistol from the table, and hurried into the kitchen. Heavy knocking, then the short, ominous silence before forced entry. He climbed into the sink and over the sill, hearing the lock tear free of the door-frame as they entered the flat. His hands gripped the window-frame, and his arms quivered. He tested the frosty tiles with one foot, then stepped out onto the roof. Voices called behind him, but not yet to him, at him.

He scuttled, bent almost double, along the sloping roof, concealing himself in a crouch behind a bulky chimney. Sleet whisked round him, the clouds glowed from the lights of the city. Voices at the window, issuing orders, then the crackle of an R/T as assistance was summoned. Boots clattered on the sill, on the roof. He peered between the chimney-pots.

There were only two of them — until help arrived. He withdrew the pistol from his pocket, feeling its barrel brush against his thigh and side. He shuffled on his knees away from the chimney, saw the policeman's face in light from the kitchen as the man's mouth opened. Hyde fired. The Czech policeman buckled, fell onto his back, scrabbled with dying hands, and then slid down the roof and off, disappearing. Hyde heard the dull concussion as his body landed in drifted snow in the alley at the side of the building. He fired twice more, and the second policeman ducked out of sight.

Hyde, hunched over, scampered cautiously down the roof. When he reached the gutter, he paused to look down. The snow was ghostly, heaped in the alley. He could see a dark shape spreadeagled on a mound some yards away. He crouched, then jumped. Air rushed, his feet sank in, his body was chilled instantly, then he was rolling down a drift. He was winded, still struggling to breathe, as he got to his feet, his teeth chattering, his dark coat patched with lumpy snow.

Ankles? Yes, OK. Breath coming back — he gulped in air, his lungs burned, he exhaled. The second policeman's R/T crackled somewhere out of sight above him, uttering indecipherable orders. Hyde looked up. Nothing. Twelve thirty-three. He possessed the lapping athlete's sense of passing time. Three minutes since he had ripped open the sofa. He ran past the dead policeman towards the end of the alley. A car passed, making him huddle in sudden terror against the wall. It moved away down the street. He listened. A distant siren. He peered round the corner at the door of the house. No one emerged.

He hurried down the street, past the Skoda, observing the empty Celetna ulice. Even the lovers had gone. His breath smoked like signals of desperation. He crossed the street, unlocked the Skoda's door and climbed into the driving seat. The curtains in Godwin's lounge remained undisturbed. The second policeman was playing it safe until help arrived.

Twelve thirty-four. He started the engine. It caught at the second attempt. Driving mirror empty, nothing coming towards him from the Powder Tower. He turned the wheel. Pain back in his hands as the icy cold of the drifted snow faded and allowed feeling to return. He grimaced, watching the mirror and the windscreen, and drove past the police car outside the flat, then immediately turned off the Celetna into a narrow sidestreet. Moments later, a wailing siren sounded behind him, but the mirror remained empty. The windscreen was clouding with the heat and tension he exuded. He turned left, then left once more. A wide boulevard, tall streetlights at regular intervals. Wenceslas Square. People, traffic. He was becoming anonymous.

As he headed for the motorway to Kladno, Karlovy Vary and Cheb — his route to Mytina — he began to think about Aubrey. Once out of immediate danger, self receded. Twelve-fifty. Into a scrubby industrial suburb with few lights and no traffic and an abiding sense of grey, dirty stone and uncleared slush. He could not fend off the growing fear that he was already too late. Babbington must know by now; Babbington wouldn't waste a moment, not a single moment, in disposing of the evidence against himself. He would be too late to save Aubrey's life. His journey to the border was meaningless. Hopeless.

Twelve fifty-nine. Aubrey would be gone before daylight. On his way east, perhaps even dead along with the Massingers. One o'clock. It was too late to save them.

"Where are they, Voronin?"

The question was involuntary. The Russian's features were burned-out in the centre by the retinal image of the light bulb above the narrow cot, into which Aubrey had been staring. Aubrey moved his head. The glowing filament, haloed in yellow-white, moved aside from Voronin's face. The man's sallow complexion was pinked with pleasure. He stood near the door of the tiny cell, watching Aubrey. Aubrey rubbed his eyes. How long had he been staring at the bulb? The retinal image was still as fierce as an eclipse.

"They are being made ready for transit to the airport," Voronin replied.

"How?" Aubrey's voice croaked. His throat was dry and constricted. He cleared it. "How will you smuggle them aboard?"

Voronin shook his head. "That has been taken care of — diplomatic luggage. No one will see them. Absolutely no one."

"But then, no one can be allowed to see them, can they? They are—"

"Never to be seen alive again — yes."

"You've killed them—!" something made him cry; terror or grief he did not know.

Voronin shook his head slowly. "As yet, they are alive."

Aubrey felt the rising guilt choke him. "How — how do they travel?" he asked, fending off other, darker thoughts.

"As part of the luggage of a returning trade mission. It is not a problem. No one searches the transport we use." Voronin smiled, moving forward to stand at the side of the bed. Aubrey was made to feel vulnerable in his shirtsleeves; prone and old. "I remember some scandal in your own country, some years ago. When the American President Carter visited — oh, where was it?"

— "ah, Newcastle-upon-Tyne… the Secret Service and the CIA tried to drive a container lorry full of — souvenirs? — directly onto the tarmac and into a transport aircraft. Our people are known to do the same. No one cares."

"I remember the incident," Aubrey replied softly. "Unfortunately, someone forgot to inform the local constabulary and Customs that that sort of thing always happens." He nodded sagely, with fierce concentration. "Of course it will work…" He looked up at Voronin and blurted out: "Do you have to have them killed once they're in Moscow? Do you have to do it?" Immediately, he recognised the utterance as merely another bandage for his conscience. He was going to have to live with the guilt, and knew he was trying to erect sandbags against an expected flood. It would be terrible, terrible, to face himself after they had been disposed of. He shook his head.

"You see," Voronin said. "You realise quite clearly that nothing else can be done. They know everything. It will be — quick and painless."

"Oh, jolly good!" Aubrey snarled, surprising the Russian. "And me? What about me?"

"You have an important job to do — in Moscow." Voronin grinned. His face was still tinged with colour. The retinal image had faded now, and Aubrey could see the narrow, confident features clearly.

"You're sure of that?" It was blurted out, and it was nakedly fearful.

The Russian nodded. "Of course."

"What Babbington said — his threats. You're going to use me to protect him, yes?" Again, Voronin nodded. Aubrey loathed himself, but it was like pentathol. He could not control the rush of his words. "You need me? You do need me, don't you?"

His lips were trembling. He wiped at them.

Voronin looked unconcernedly at his watch as he said; "Of course, Sir Kenneth Aubrey. You are very necessary." The meeting was over. For whatever reason the man had come, that reason had been satisfied.

"Kapustin—" he began, but did not continue. The drug of fear had lost its overpowering effect. He sat more upright on the bed, leaning on one elbow. "What time do we leave?" he asked with forced lightness.

"It is now three-fifteen. We leave for the airport in thirty minutes. Do you wish shaving materials, hot water?"

Aubrey nodded. "Yes," he said breathily. Thirty minutes—! "Yes," he repeated, more strongly.

"Good. I will have them sent to you." Voronin nodded, almost clicked his heels together, and left the cell. Aubrey heard the key turn in the lock. He felt perspiration spring out on his forehead, despite the temperature of the cell. Felt his hands begin to tremble. Felt nauseous — sick as a dog. He fought it. Fought the nausea. Fought his own cowardice, and faced the fact of his death. He had been terribly afraid, seated before Voronin, so afraid he had been on the point, several times, of pleading to be told that, unlike the Massingers, he at least was safe, would be allowed to live. Thank God he had not fallen quite that low—! Thank God…

He wiped the already chilly sweat from his forehead. Rubbed his bald head.

And resolved.

He squeezed his eyes very tightly shut. In the darkness, some ghost of the light-bulb's filament still glowed. It had been a bad moment. His worst moment. Perhaps worst ever. But, a moment. Only a moment—

Yes. He would try. If they were to keep him alive for a short time for their benefit, he would try to resist…

Try, in front of a sea of strangers' faces and in the flash and wink of lights, to dredge up the truth. Try to struggle through the chemical bonds with which he would be tied, and say something — create some tiny suspicion, some sense of the truth, some sense, semblance, fragment, sliver, atom of the truth—! Try to regain, if only for a moment, one fragment of himself.

He would owe the Massingers more than that, but it would be the only coinage in which he could make any repayment.

He heard footsteps outside and the key turn in the lock. His hands gripped one another and became still. Stronger, even as the door opened. Steam. A bowl of hot water. A towel.

A beginning.

Hyde watched the policeman get out of the patrol car and saunter across to the empty Skoda. He had been in the process of dialling Sir William Guest's flat when he had seen the car turn onto the forecourt of the all-night garage outside Karlovy Vary. His free hand touched his overcoat, smoothing across his chest to reassure him. Package of Swiss francs. Pistol. Pockets — spare clips of ammunition, cassette tape. Teardrop. The map was still in the car…

Useless to assume he could run. He was still thirty-five miles from Mytina.

Kill them if you have to. The policeman had reached the Skoda. He rubbed at the driver's widow and peered into the car. Inside the patrol car, the flash of a cigarette lighter. Hyde remained inside the telephone booth, half-turned to watch the Skoda.

The patrolman straightened and walked back towards his car. Wait, wait—

His companion got out, stretched away stiffness, offered his packet of cigarettes. Then the two of them walked towards the dimly-lit office where Hyde had paid for his petrol. He forced himself to continue dialling. The moment the number began to ring, he returned his gaze to the two policemen. The receiver rang in his ear, an empty sound. He glanced at his watch. Three-fifty. There was no cover between the telephone booth and the office. They would walk towards him, clearly exposed but able to see his every movement inside the glass box. He must wait, and when they moved, he must walk slowly, slowly and unconcernedly towards the Skoda. Then turn and kill them. Two shots, perhaps three before fire was returned. His free hand twitched, as if it had already entered the future. He drummed on the coin box. Mirror—

Yes, leaning on the coin box casually, he could see the office in the mirror. The telephone continued to ring. The two policemen were talking. An arm pointed towards the Skoda, the garage manager pointed in Hyde's direction. One of the policemen turned lazily, then looked away again. Towards a cup he was raising to his lips.

Hyde sighed, clouding the mirror. Furiously, he rubbed it clear. No, they hadn't moved, both drinking with the manager. A regular nightly call. There was a little time left—

Go. The telephone rang unanswered. Go.

Little time—

He knew it was close. Almost over. They didn't need to monitor Guest's telephone any longer. They'd almost finished whatever they had in mind for Aubrey. Babbington was sure of himself.

Policemen smoking, drinking coffee or tea. The manager leaning on his counter. Go now—

He cancelled the number and began to dial at once. He had to know. Two men might have to be killed, he might have to run. He had to know. He finished dialling SIS's Vienna Station. The number began ringing. Three statues in a close group under the dim bulb in the manager's office. Still time.

"Yes?" Hyde did not recognise the voice.

"Listen to me," he blurted out. "It's Hyde — who the bloody hell are you?"

"Beach," came the surprised reply. Then: "What the hell do you want—? You've got a fucking nerve calling—"

"Shut up and listen, you stupid bugger!" Hyde snapped. "I haven't got time for the niceties. Just tell me what's happened to Aubrey."

"My God — his Russian pals have got him, that's what!"

"What—?"

"Two good men died tonight, you bastard! Two good men! All because the fucking KGB wanted their ball back! Do you understand, Hyde? His pals came and took him back! And they killed two of my mates doing it!"

Christ—

Too close. Already too late—

"Listen to me, you moron! It's not Aubrey — it's Babbington! Don't you understand, Babbington is Moscow's man!"

"What? You're crazy, Hyde… Babbington caught Aubrey. Handed him over for us to guard — and we buggered it up. Lost him. Understand? He's going back to Mother Russia, and good fucking riddance to him!"

"What's happening to the old man?" Hyde yelled into the telephone.

Rub the mirror clear. Smoking, drinking in the office. Heads lifted in laughter.

"He's already left for the airport — just had the report." Beach was calmer now, almost pleased.

"Then stop him!"

"Babbington's letting him go, Hyde. Your mate's not to be touched. Better for everyone. Even you—"

"Christ — don't you listen?" Mirror. Small, tight, relaxed group in the office. New cigarettes being lit. The sense at the other end of the line that someone else had taken — snatched? — the receiver.

A pause, then: "Hyde?" He recognised Wilkes's voice. "It's Wilkes, Patrick." Then: "OK, Beach, I'll deal with this. Get some coffee up here, will you?"

"Wilkes — where's the old man?"

"Where are you, Hyde?" Wilkes's tone was amused, certain.

"Never mind. I've got it all, Wilkes. Everything. Even his name. Of course, no one mentioned anyone as small-time as you."

"Everything, eh? Still in Czecho, are you? You won't get out, old son. That's certain."

Mirror—!

Group breaking up, one of the two policemen nearer the office's glass door, turning back to speak, hand outstretched to the ear-shaped handle of the door. Time—

No time. All over. Hyde ground his teeth audibly as he struggled to contain his rage.

"You know what I've got," he said, certain that Babbington already knew of his interference with the computer. They'd have tracked down and run Petrunin's programme themselves by now.

"You don't matter, Hyde. You're a dead man. You won't get out."

"And your boss is running for London already, is he? Wiping his shoes on Guest's doormat, full of the news that he's lost the old man to his Russian friends?"

"First businessman's flight this morning to Heathrow. Your pal Aubrey's just about to leave. He'll be in Moscow before it gets light." Wilkes chuckled.

One policeman through the door, the second replacing his cap and following. The manager's hand raised in farewell. Too late to move now. Wait until they get close—

"And then—?"

"He goes on show, old son. Press call — the whole shocking story. Terrible ordeal for the poor old sod. Can't say the same for the Yank and his wife, of course. They'll just disappear on arrival."

"I'll have Babbington, Wilkes. I swear it. And you. I don't care how long, or when and where. I'll have you both."

Both policemen near their car. One, hands on hips, staring towards the telephone booth. Cap pushed on the back of his head. Glance towards the Skoda, then back to Hyde—

"If you hurry, Hyde, you'll catch him before he boards the seven o'clock to Heathrow. First-class lounge, of course. I'll give him a call, shall I, tell him to be expecting you?" Wilkes laughed.

Seven o'clock. Heathrow arrival time, nine-thirty. He glanced at his watch as he cut off the call with his free hand. Retaining his grip on the receiver to allay suspicion. Policemen unmoving. Aubrey would be in Moscow even before Babbington's flight reached London.

Three fifty-five. Five and a half hours. Guest must be arriving from Washington on the early morning flight.

Mirror—

The patrol car's engine started, the car moved, rounding the pumps in a wide arc, heading towards him. His free hand moved to the lapel of his coat. The policeman in the passenger seat stared at him. The patrol car did not stop. Hyde felt the coin box hard against his side as he slumped in relief. The rear lights of the car moved off towards Karlovy Vary, climbed windingly up the hill, then dropped over the brow and disappeared.

Hyde slammed down the damp receiver and opened the fogged glass door. He hurried towards the Skoda. He fumbled in his pocket for the car keys. Dropped them, then scooped them out of a pool of petrol-rainbowed water on the point of freezing.

He wanted Babbington arrested as he got off the flight from Vienna. He wanted it. If he could talk to Guest, persuade him—

Before the old man disappered. Why should they put him on display at a press conference like an old bear at the zoo? That could backfire. Everyone knew the old man had been taken to Moscow. A few snaps of him getting off the plane would be enough.

He wrenched open the door, climbed into the driver's seat, started the engine. The windscreen clouded immediately. He rubbed it clear, turned the wheel, pulled away from the garage.

Aubrey wouldn't live. He knew that with a sick, inescapable certainty. Whatever Wilkes said or believed, the KGB wouldn't risk it. It could go wrong. The photographs of him getting off the aircraft, looking old and tired and ill, and then—

Heart attack. Eulogies in the papers, on Soviet TV and radio. Medal awarded posthumously. Much safer.

Aubrey was a dead man the moment he left the aircraft in Moscow.

Hyde accelerated. The lights of Karlovy Vary were spread out below him as he descended the hill towards the spa town. Four o'clock. He had five and a half hours. After that, Aubrey was lost; irrecoverable.

He had been surprisingly grateful when he saw the guard carrying his small suitcase containing the clothes Mrs Grey had purchased for him immediately before his flight from London. To dress in something that fitted, something uncreased and clean, delighted him. Strengthened his resolve. It wasn't until he reached Schwechat airport that he realised the image was part of Babbington's purpose.

The black limousine, accompanied by two similar cars, and the van containing the luggage, turned off the main road from Vienna, skirted the passenger terminal, and drew up at the gates leading to the cargo and airline hangars. It was evident they were expected. Politeness from the officers at the gates, some joviality. Aubrey watched Voronin casually hand over a bundle of diplomatic passports and visas. And felt himself watched by the man beside him. Sensed the unnecessary gun jutting near his own ribcage.

The Austrian officer passed down the queue formed by the three cars and the van. Aubrey tried to shrink back into the upholstery, but the man beside him, abandoning the gun he held, gripped his arm and forced his features into the hard light shining down from above the gates. A moment of hesitation without recognition, a glance at the appropriate false papers supplied by Voronin, and then he moved away. The grip on Aubrey's arm relaxed. The gun's barrel touched his side almost at once.

The officer would remember him. Yes, Kenneth Aubrey or a man answering his description was seen arriving at Schwechat, traveling under a Soviet diplomatic passport. Yes, yes, yes—

He glanced down at his suit, his modest tie, his dark overcoat. He would be remembered, as they intended. A man goes willingly in a well-pressed suit and a clean shirt. With false papers. He would step out of the aircraft at Cheremetievo — or at Domodedovo or Vnukovo, whichever airport the flight used — and he would be photographed in that same pressed suit and clean shirt and overcoat and hat, surrounded by smiling men who could be later identified as those who carried out his rescue and who were officers in the KGB. Evidence of his perfidy.

The gates opened, the cars moved forward. One of the officers touched the peak of his cap in a half-salute, as if conniving at his kidnap.

The cars followed the road towards a row of huge hangars. A tail-fin jutted from one of them, its symbol familiar, coincident with the Cyrillic lettering blazoned above the hangar. Aeroflot.

They turned alongside the Tupolev Tu-134 airliner. Aubrey glanced back at the night outside the glaring hangar almost with longing. It had been so easy—!

Doors closing behind him. He heard them in his head. Retreat cut off. The car drew to a halt. The van passed it and drew up at the far end of the hangar. There were perhaps a dozen people visible to Aubrey, mostly overalled, one in Aeroflot uniform. So easy — he was helpless. He glanced up at the airliner. One or two faces looking down in curiosity from the windows in the fuselage. Dummy passengers—? Genuine diplomats? It did not matter.

The door was opened by the driver and Aubrey was motioned out. He climbed out slowly, blinking in the hard overhead lights that seemed to shine through a haze of dust. He glanced at the watch they had returned to him. Four-twenty. What had Kapustin said—?

Four-thirty. What was the matter, why was the aircraft still in its hangar? Engine cowling lying beneath the wing, men on a dolly working on the port engine. Something wrong with the aircraft—!

Voronin was talking urgently to the uniformed man. Paul Massinger and his wife were being led from the back of the van, blinking, half-dazed, frightened. He traced their reactions as they saw the airliner, understood the proximity of take-off, of Moscow, of… He did not continue, but looked away from them. His hands quivered in the pockets of his overcoat. Clunk of a heavy spanner against metal, a curse in Russian. He glanced up at the mechanics working on the port engine.

Why? What rescue was possible?

Voronin had turned away from the Aeroflot officer — presumably the pilot — and was heading towards him. His face expressed irritation. "A fault in that engine — a delay of perhaps one hour, maybe more," he announced in a clipped tone.

"I see," Aubrey replied. "It makes little difference — wouldn't you say?"

"Little difference. That is true. Sir Andrew Babbington is unlikely to come to your rescue, I think." Voronin's irritation had vanished. "You will please get aboard the aircraft," he said.

"In a moment."

Voronin's features darkened. Then he said, "As you wish."

Aubrey walked away from him towards the Massingers. The Russian fell in behind him. The Massingers had seated themselves on a trunk — perhaps one of the trunks in which they had been transported to Schwechat? — dazed and silent, their hands linked on the woman's lap. The image persisted. It seemed to be a pose they had adopted for some portrait. This is how they would like to be remembered, Aubrey thought, feeling his throat constrict with guilt.

He paused and turned to Voronin. "Is there no way?" he asked.

Voronin shook his head. His eyes appeared bleak. Yet he rubbed briefly at his chin, as if pondering some statement. Then his eyes were alight with amused malice. "No way," he said. "But, you will not have long, Sir Kenneth Aubrey, in which to be — sorry for them?"

Aubrey was aware, beyond Voronin's shoulder, that the Massingers were both watching him. There was something like pleasure, comfort on their faces. He felt very cold. He wished for a walking-stick upon which to lean. The Massingers' faces displayed common cause with him; companionship. And he loathed it.

Voronin nodded stiffly and quickly. "I must now attend to other matters. You may join your friends."

He walked away towards the aircraft. The man who had sat beside Aubrey in the limousine hovered alertly. Aubrey felt the hard-lit scene lurch, as if he were fainting. He could not become warm.

Every time there was a scandal in the service, every time an intelligence matter became the concern of the Western media, they would use the clip of film. Himself, descending the passenger ladder alongside this aircraft.

Coming home to Moscow.

He knew the fear would begin soon, and not leave him. For the moment, however, a seething rage possessed him. Always, for fifty or even a hundred years, he would be wheeled out into the lights like Burgess, Maclean, Philby and the others. Photographs, details, comment — and the clip of grainy film of his arrival in Moscow. Flashing bulbs, the dying noise of aircraft engines, and his white, startled face.

Coming home to Moscow. His immortality!

Massinger raised his arm in a tentative invitation. Aubrey hurried towards them with the eagerness of a fugitive seeking shelter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Place of Execution

When the child brought him a bowl of steaming, spicy stew, its dumplings like small boulders amid the meat and vegetables, he felt defeated; drained of all remaining energy and will. He felt he no longer possessed the strength to persuade Langdorf. The man's small, flaxen-haired, narrow-faced, well-mannered daughter had disarmed him. She was perhaps eleven or twelve. Her name was Marthe — after her mother, Langdorf had informed him. His almost-in-focus watch showed five. No — that was the second hand at twelve. It was already five-thirty. He had been in the plumber's flat for half an hour; to no purpose. Langdorf continued to refuse his help, even though his eyes were drawn again and again to the small, neat paper brick of Swiss francs lying between them on the check tablecloth.

Langdorf was wary of his own safety. Perhaps because of his child. "It is too late today," he kept repeating. "Already it is too late. It would be almost dawn before we reached the border. I cannot take you now." He had added, after the second or third refusal: "You can stay here until it is dark again. Then, I will get you across." Marthe had stood at the table's edge, watching Hyde intently. When Langdorf had made his offer, her head had moved slightly, indicating agreement. Now, she stood in the same spot, waiting for him to lift his spoon, taste the stew. He did so.

It scalded his throat and made his eyes water. Langdorf's face, seen through Hyde's tears, wore an amused expression. Marthe seemed to take the matter much more seriously, and he felt compelled to nod approval, and to say: "Thank you — yes, great. Lovely." His stomach resented the heat of the food, but its hunger was evident, and he ate — accelerating with each mouthful, blowing on the meat and vegetables in the spoon.

Eventually, his stomach seemed satisfied. Immediately, he said, "You have to take me — now. Whatever the risks, I must get across before first light." He tapped the little brick of high-denomination notes, knowing it was probably more than Langdorf had ever been offered before for such a crossing. "You have to." Half of Godwin's money lay on the table, the other half in Hyde's overcoat pocket; with the pistol, which might become necessary.

Except that it would probably be fatal to threaten his lifeline. His guide. Stupid— a last resort. He groaned inwardly at the prospect that it might come to such a desperate solution. Take the money, you stupid bugger—!

"What's the matter?" Hyde sneered deliberately. "Isn't the money your motivation? Zimmermann told me it was."

Marthe lifted the empty bowl from between Hyde's planted elbows. Her narrow, pale face was filled with reproach, and Hyde realised that she spoke good English. Either that, or she was alive to every nuance of negotiations such as the present one. Practice. She'd seen it all so many times before.

"She speaks English," Langdorf explained, lighting his pipe, streaming blue smoke towards the flat's low ceiling. "I pay for the lessons. It is part of her education." Marthe smiled at her father; in gratitude, it appeared to Hyde's unpractised eye. He felt moved by the exchange of looks; a conspiracy of affection where he might not have looked for it. "Yes," the plumber continued, still dressed in his shabby woolen dressing-gown and slippers. Thick, striped pajama-bottoms protruded from below the hem of the long dressing-gown. "Yes — money is my only motivation, as you say." Blue smoke rose in puffs; signaling contentment, even superiority. Langdorfs features and his relaxed posture at the table suggested that he could not be surprised, taken aback. He knew himself; he could not be insulted or goaded.

Hyde heard the child washing up in the tiny kitchen. She was singing softly to herself. Unlike her father, she had dressed — even brushed and plaited her hair — before appearing before their visitor. Probably, she was standing on something in order to reach into the sink. He heard cups and a plate rattle in the hot water, and looked at his half-finished glass of black Czech beer. Just one, he had announced to himself. Even so, it had further tired him. The child had glanced at the glass, perhaps hoping he would finish quickly so that it might be washed up with the other things. The clink of a spoon on a metal drying-board—

Hyde was tired. Drunk-tired, bone-tired. Utterly weary. Five-thirty. Four hours, and he was on the wrong side of an enemy border. Perhaps the old man had already taken off for Moscow—?

Langdorf's face was still, complacent. Hyde knew that his weariness was about to become acceptance. In a few minutes, a bed for the rest of the night and most of the day would become irresistible…

Schliemann, he thought, rousing himself, his fuddled mind trying to embrace the trigger-word, just as his training had intended. Schliemann. That was what they called it on those occasions when they trained you to the point of exhaustion and beyond. Some classical scholar's choice of a trigger-word. Schliemann, the discoverer of the ruins of Troy. When you were bone-weary, ready to give up, wanting nothing but sleep, ached for rest… Sleep is the last escape, they said. The last thing you want is to sleep. Be like Schliemann. Dig down into yourself, down through level after level until you find your reserves.

How many levels were there of the ruins of Troy, city piled on city for thousands of years? Seventeen, eighteen, thirty — infinite…

Use the Schliemann principle. Never give up. He didn't. There's something down there you can find and use. Schliemann. Trigger something, anything in yourself — don't go to sleep!

He groaned aloud, and looked up from the nest he had made of his folded arms. Langdorf was watching him through a billow of blue smoke. The clink of something picked up, banged against another utensil in the process of being wiped. Marthe practicing to be the perfect housekeeper—

He had dozed. Almost fallen asleep. Schliemann. Dig. Dig. Wake up, use anything — other people, anger, insults — anything. Bend events to your pattern.

"What are you grooming her for?" Hyde asked, nodding towards the kitchen. "Miss World?"

He leaned on his arms, studying Langdorf. The plumber had taken the pipe from his mouth. His full lips were now twisted with anger. His eyes had narrowed. His pale brow shone below the receding, greying hair.

"What do you say?" he asked, his eyes flickering nervously towards the kitchen door. The room, like the rest of the flat that Hyde had seen, conformed to the grey, weather-stained concrete block which contained it. Tiled fireplace with an inadequate gas fire, thin carpet, poor furniture. Yet, Langdorf was probably the wealthiest man in the tower block. All for the child—

"I said — what's the money for?"

Use anything, they said. Schliemann. Dig for victory.

Hyde felt tense, strained, but alert. The adrenalin, unexpectedly, began to flow. A high. What it would cost him, he did not pause to consider. He needed Langdorf's assistance. He had to cross the border.

Schliemann.

"For her," Langdorf admitted after a silence. The smoke of his pipe was now a screen, masking his expressions.

"What do you want for her?" Hyde pursued.

The child had entered the room. As if aware she was being discussed, she hovered in the doorway. She wore a small pinafore, and rubbed her hands in the material. Langdorf was aware of her. Hyde sensed an advantage. He leaned forward and whispered: "What do you want for her? What's the money for, Langdorf?"

Langdorf hissed, "She goes to the West. Eventually. I have distant relatives there, in the Federal Republic. When she has enough money, she goes. Money, education, cleverness — she goes."

"Is that your weakness, Langdorf? How much does it take? How much do you have? What do you want?' Hyde grinned at the plumber's confusion. His features were mobile, disturbed. Dig for victory. Hyde said, "I want something, you want even more than that. How much? How much?

Langdorf's eyes expressed hatred. Hyde's cynicism had caught him unawares. Neither of them cared much for anything, anything at all. Langdorf had assumed that when he had opened the door to a tired man who was evidently a professional. But, this man cared for nothing—

Hyde saw the almost-fear and said, "Come on, German plumber with dreams above his station. Give me a clue. Tell me how much you want." He glanced at Marthe, whose head still turned as she looked from face to face. "I won't tell you what I've been through, Langdorf. You wouldn't be interested. You're only interested in money. Everyone believes that about you. So, how much money? Not for freedom, or for the future, or for anything except yourself."

Langdorf had no chance. Hyde said, "What will she need in the West, Langdorf? How much will she need? A lot. How will she turn out, Langdorf? You don't want Marthe—" The girl's eyes gleamed at the sound of her name. Her face was twisted in concentration as she tried to follow his rapid English. " — to end up working in a poky office, typing. Do you? How will she turn out? Will she need her teeth fixing? What about her tits, when they arrive? Will she need them fixed, too? Clothes? Clothes cost a packet in the West, Langdorf, even if you shop at Marks and Sparks!" Hyde stood up, leaning on the table, knuckles white, his face glaring down towards the plumber. The unregarded pipe had almost gone out. "She's going to need so much if she's going to have a head-start, Langdorf. Don't you realise that?" He leaned closer. He felt the sweat prickle on his forehead — dig!

He had him. He had Langdorf. One more rung on the ladder to Babbington.

He had him.

"Don't you realise?" he hissed. "She's going to need everything you can give her, and more. More. You want more? Is that what you want? Then take it out of my coat — go on, dip in the inside pocket and pull out your daughter's future!"

Langdorf's dislike, even hatred of Hyde was evident. Yet he looked older, too; once more like a man roused from sleep. Hair ruffled, eyes slow to focus and darkly stained beneath. Stubble, grey skin. Hyde glanced at the man's small, plain daughter, hands buried in the folds of the pinafore. There was a picture on the tiled mantelpiece of a woman who must have been her mother. Thin-faced, her hair blonde and parted in the middle, tied back. Squinting into the sun as she smiled at the camera. Hyde felt he had blundered into a situation; damaging it. Only he was truly cynical here. He shook his head and the moment passed.

He had four hours to get to Babbington before it was too late for the old man—

Old man? It might already be too late.

Langdorf laid down his pipe and stood up. Immediately, Marthe went to his side and took his rough hand, which gripped the child's thin fingers. The dirt beneath his fingernails was highlighted against her white skin. Then he reached for Hyde's coat.

"The gun's in there, too," Hyde remarked, sitting down.

Langdorf appeared not to hear, yet Hyde saw his hand twitch as it brushed against the butt of the pistol. Then the hand withdrew the torn paper packet and a thumb stained from the pipe riffled the edges of the banknotes. Marthe hovered uncertainly.

Langdorf looked at Hyde, then said, "This is someone's emergency money, I think? Not yours."

"He won't be needing it."

"Marthe — put the money away," Langdorf announced, sweeping up the little brick of notes on the table and tucking them into the elastic band around the packet. He handed them to the child and she took the bundle without word or expression and left the room. Langdorf followed her. A light went on across the narrow hall. Surprised by his own curiosity, Hyde got up and went into the hall.

In her bedroom, Marthe was locking the money into a tin strongbox which lay in the bottom drawer of a chest. The room had pink walls, pink lamp-shades. It appeared at odds with the rest of the flat. The small bed was covered with a brightly coloured duvet. There were a number of small soft toys lying on either side of a depression in the pillows. Waiting for Marthe. A cassette-playing radio, Japanese — a small television set, West German. Langdorf looked round and saw Hyde. His face was angry, as if he had surprised an intruder or a peeping-tom. Then he looked around his daughter's room, and his features relaxed. Something in him wanted Hyde to see, to approve and admire. Hyde nodded and attempted a smile. He had seen Langdorf's dream. The child was being spoiled; or prepared for life in the West. He saw a new, large, expensive doll's pram, a shelf of souvenir dolls from different countries. A hamster in a cage; goldfish in a tank, lit and heated. Marthe closed the drawer and smiled nervously up at her father. She looked, momentarily, like an unwilling accomplice.

"Go to bed now, Marthe. Ask Mrs Janovice downstairs to take you to school with her boys — understand? Tell her I had to go out on an emergency job." Marthe nodded. "Don't be rude, remember to say thank you. Don't be late—"

He kissed his daughter. Hyde saw her thin arms around the man's neck, and then he returned to the sitting-room. He felt an intruder, yet tension once more gripped him. He was becoming angry with the delay.

He looked up as Langdorf came back into the room. He appeared calm, satisfied, his face younger and less tired. He picked up his pipe, struck a match, and puffed smoke across the table. Hyde was relieved. The man was now businesslike, no longer reluctant.

He took his pipe from his lips, and announced, "When she finishes in school, she goes to the West. I have maybe five or six years more. She will be wealthy when I take her across."

"And that's it, is it?"

Langdorf nodded. "That's it. That is why. You had enough for me to be unable to refuse. That is all."

"You could go any time. You could find work."

Langdorf shook his head. Blew smoke. "Not for me," he murmured. Even though his head did not move, the hushed intensity of his voice drew Hyde's attention towards the framed photograph on the mantelpiece. Between two cheap statuettes that stood stiffly erect like candles beside a votive picture. "I will not go."

"Christ, you can't like it here—!"

Langdorf shrugged. He began to unfold the map he had brought back with him from Marthe's bedroom. He smoothed it like a new cloth over the table.

"It doesn't matter. I give no trouble, I am not troubled. They do not know what I do. Agreed, for that I would be shot. But, otherwise…" He looked up, pipe clenched in his teeth; competent, intelligent, almost amusedly in control of the situation. "Communism, capitalism, freedom— who cares? The system does not matter if the price is right — mm? You see, I am a cynic." He looked at his watch.

"Not quite," Hyde replied.

"I would have gone, if the three of us could have gone. But now — ach, I would not fit in over there. My family has been here for generations — longer than the Party! Marthe goes alone. A wealthy young woman. Then I stop this business, and no one will be able, by any means, to persuade me to continue." His pipe-stem tapped at the map. A border line wriggled from north to south through shaded land, indicating mountain and forest. "It could have been cigarettes, or electrical goods, or the best sort of sanitary towels. But people like you — professional people — pay better."

"You don't help dissidents — the Charter 77 people?"

"Only if they can pay — then, with reluctance. They talk too freely. Many of them are good Marxists, you see. They object to — private enterprise is what you call it, mm? They would be queuing outside the door if I helped them regularly. All with sob-stories and insufficient money. No, not them, unless your sort of business is very slack!" Again, he tapped the map with his pipe-stem. "Now, pay attention, please. We have perhaps less than two hours if we are to act in safety. Here is Mytina. We drive up into the hills here, to the point where this track ends — near the border. There is wire — not too many towers, but dogs, and occasionally the helicopter. The wire runs beside this river here… you see?" Hyde nodded. "A fast-running stream. It is not much used as a crossing-point, except by those who know the area well. Your poor dissidents on the run from Prague or Brno or Plzen wouldn't come here. They can't get maps or pictures of this area to help them!" Langdorf chuckled. "Herr Professor Zimmermann knows of this crossing-point. He will be here, near the road to Waldsassen." Langdorf stood up. "Study that map — and these photographs…" He fanned out a sheaf of colour prints towards Hyde. "I took them with the Japanese camera I bought for my daughter. Learn the terrain. I will dress now. We must leave immediately, otherwise it will be light."

The Tupolev-134 moved onto the taxi-way preparatory to takeoff. Babbington dispensed with the binoculars and handed them to Wilkes, who stood beside him in the upstairs lounge at Schwechat. Two more SIS staff from Vienna Station stood on either side of them at a few yards distance. Viennese police officers hovered at a short distance, also awaiting the Tupolev's departure.

Babbington glanced at his watch. Six-ten. The Tupolev's engine had been repaired. Babbington recalled the cold sense of shock he had experienced on arriving at Schwechat, to witness from this very window the tail-unit of the Soviet airliner still jutting from the Aeroflot hangar. And the police cars, lights turning and washing over the aircraft's tail and the open hangar doors. And the remonstrations between the Viennese police and airport authorities and the identifiable figure of Voronin on the gleaming tarmac. Eventually, the police had given up. The airliner had diplomatic status; it was Soviet territory. The police had retired, having satisfactorily displayed their helplessness. A senior officer reported to Babbington that Aubrey had been identified as having arrived in a limousine from the Soviet embassy, traveling under false papers. He was definitely on the aircraft. Babbington had demonstrated anger, then acceptance.

But, the shock of seeing the aircraft still grounded, in that first moment…

Now, the scene around him possessed all the necessary ingredients. A group of men posed, as if for some painter, expressing a communal mood of disappointment and relief.

The wingtip and belly lights flickered on the Tupolev. The aircraft passed along the wall of glass enclosing the upstairs passenger lounge. Drawn up on the tarmac below, the British Airways flight to Heathrow waited for its cargo of businessmen. As soon as the Tupolev had taken off, Babbington would board the Trident.

Only the persistent thought of Hyde marred his satisfaction at his own nerve and daring. Hyde—

He'd received a long report of events in Prague, from the Soviet embassy. Hyde had rifled the Moscow Centre computers, gaining access to some secret database that Petrunin had hidden in the computer — evidence concerning Teardrop, hidden like incriminating documents or photographs for future use. Hyde had the whole thing; even his name. He must be stopped. How, where—? He'd been identified as having entered the country through Bratislava on a tourist visa. They were waiting for him now — though Hyde was too clever to come out by the same route. He had to be stopped. It was the one loose end—

The Tupolev turned tail-on to the windows, moving away from him towards the single main runway. Its lights winked in farewell. Babbington's satisfaction was marred. This, this very moment, should have been some kind of fulfillment; a climax, a conclusion. The Tupolev turned again, side-on to his view, pausing at the end of the runway. Kenneth Aubrey was about to fly east; a talisman to protect him. A guarantee of Babbington's future.

"Wilkes," he snapped.

"Yes?" Babbington glared at him. "Yes, sir?" Wilkes added in a less casual voice.

"Come with me." Babbington led Wilkes perhaps ten yards or more before he turned to him and said: "You have to lay hands on Hyde — eliminate him. He won't return here — not now that he knows Aubrey is on his way to Moscow. But he will try to get out with what he possesses. You're certain Godwin knows no more than he's told?"

Wilkes nodded. They would not be overheard, he realised, but spoke nevertheless in little more than a whisper. "They know their business. He's told them everything he can. He doesn't know Hyde's plans, unless they're for Bratislava. He doesn't know anything except that Hyde's pinning his hopes on Guest."

"Guest is the only one with the authority to do anything — except create doubt. Anyone could create doubt — even Hyde, if he can get some rag or TV station to listen to him. Anywhere in the world. He has to be stopped. And," he added almost casually, "ask your friends in Prague to get rid of Godwin. He mustn't appear in public again."

"That's easy. Hyde — a little more difficult. Sir."

The Tupolev appeared like a dog held back on its leash. Then the brakes were released and the aircraft jerked forward across the first yards of concrete, swiftly gathering speed. Aeroflot. Aubrey was safe. Babbington breathed more easily.

"What about Zimmermann?" he asked. "You've checked on him?"

"We're still checking. He doesn't appear to be in Bonn. Don't worry, we'll find him."

"Hyde might go to him — yes, he might well go to him. As soon as you locate Zimmermann, put on full surveillance. Hyde could show up."

"Agreed."

The Tupolev had reached take-off speed. Babbington studied it intently. The pool of colour from the belly light was spreading and diluting as the fuselage lifted away from the concrete. Nose up, further up, stretching—

The Tupolev heaved itself towards the sky. The muffled noise of the engines grew fainter. Aubrey was gone.

Immediately Babbington's tone was threatening.

"It's up to you, Wilkes. I'm relying on you to co-ordinate with our friends. Find Zimmermann — above all, find Hyde. Meanwhile, I'll deal with Guest. He'll be entirely satisfied by the time I've finished." He grinned suddenly, staring down at the British Airways Trident. Passengers were straggling out of the terminal towards the aircraft. Luggage on a tractor-towed trailer had arrived alongside its cargo doors. He could smell coffee brewing behind the bar of the passenger lounge. A few more small, careful steps… the end of the tightrope, and safety, beckoned him. "Yes," he sighed. "The immediate disposal of Aubrey along with the Massingers is the safest step." He shrugged his shoulders. "As long as we can put our hands on Hyde." He turned once more to Wilkes. "Purchase Hyde's eternal silence, Wilkes. Today!"

"From here, we walk," Langdorf announced, turning round in the driver's seat.

Hyde stretched his legs, which were too stiff and weary to be supple. The journey in the back of the plumber's dirty, oil-smelling, tool-laden van had been uncomfortable. The suspension and the climbing tracks they had taken had conspired to jolt him continually from the sleep which threatened.

Hyde grunted.

"You are all right?"

"Great." He pushed open the rear doors and dropped to the ground. He could smell the pines on the cold, damp air as the misty cloud almost settled on his head and face. It was lightless beneath the crowding trees. Langdorf closed and locked the doors of the van. It was parked deep under the trees. The thick carpet of pine debris and the thin layer of snow registered little trace of its passage. And the van was parked too far down the mountain to immediately arouse suspicion.

Langdorf flicked a torch-beam onto Hyde's face, then switched it off. He breathed deeply.

"Good. Now, we go."

He turned and headed into the trees, immediately climbing upwards. Certain and unhesitating; on a familiar journey. Hyde hunched into his overcoat against the raw, chill damp that had folded around him, already pearling his shoulders and hair, and followed. Twigs crunched or cracked dully beneath the snow. He trod warily in the plumber's wake, his eyes gritty, his head heavy. His own movement was now keeping him from the sleep he craved. Thirty hours — more — since he had slept properly.

He shivered almost awake, and stumbled, sprawling full-length on the ground. Ankles, ankles—! he warned himself, jarring his elbows to save his hands and wrists from sprain.

"What—?" he heard Langdorf whisper before moving back. The torch flicked on, off. In the new, deeper darkness, he heard Langdorf say, "You must stay awake. You must try to stay awake."

Hyde got to his knees. Langdorf lifted him by his elbow until he was steady on his feet.

"Sorry."

"Come. We have a long climb ahead. Perhaps thirty minutes. Soon it will be getting light. Very soon."

"Yes, I know!" Hyde snapped. "I'm all right now. Get moving."

His night vision had returned. He saw Langdorf shrug, then turn and move off. Hyde plodded carefully in his wake. The trees above him were like low white clouds, heavy with snow.

Time clamped down like a fog. He measured his steps, but continually lost count. With Petrunin, he had registered each step, remembered the total, even with the dying man on his back. But not here. His hand went numb around the shape of the cassette in his pocket, the knuckles of his other hand ceased to register the presence of the pistol against them. His breathing was laboured. Occasionally, he bumped into Langdorf, colliding with him as the man halted to check his hand-drawn sketch or to listen intently for suspected sounds. Langdorf seemed impatient with him, yet not afraid. Having accepted the commission and agreed the price, he was more professional than Hyde.

Hyde remembered the man's reports as they drove through the small town and out into the countryside. More patrol cars… at one time, a helicopter overhead… a road-block which recognised his van and almost hurried him through. Time closing in.a More activity than usual, much more… They didn't stop the plumber, except at the one road-block. Motorcycle police recognised the legend on the van, so did the car patrols.

The advantage of working for Party members, Langdorf had told him almost gaily as another car speeded up and passed them on a narrow country road.! When they want their German bathrooms and Swiss double-sinks fitted, they want it done quickly and they want it to work! They don't use the approved plumbers — all the other poor bastards get their services. They need someone like me… I go all over — Marienbad, Karlovy Vary, Cheb… They allow me to be a capitalist. Work for myself- private enterprise, yes?

Hyde stumbled awake, steadied himself on the bole of a pine, and watched Langdorf's retreating back a little way ahead. He could see the man's outline, now possessing more depth and solidity than mere shadow. He looked at the luminous dial of his watch. Seven-twenty. Time closing in — running out…

He plodded on.

… even work for the STB, police, Party officials, their mistresses and wives, army, athletes — all the cream. They think I'm one sort of crook, but really I'm a different kind altogether. I can be out all hours of the day and—

"Quiet!" Langdorf hissed. For an instant, Hyde believed the plumber was speaking in his memory, then the man's hand gripped his arm, forcing Hyde to his knees at the base of a pine trunk.

"What is it?"

"I heard something — listen!"

Hyde shook off the effort of memory that had kept him awake. He crouched beside Langdorf. The man's hand still held his forearm, and the quiver in it was transmitted to Hyde. The plumber's face was a white patch beginning to acquire features, his shape in the overalls almost possessing colour.

"How far—?" Hyde began.

"Shhh!" Langdorf hissed.

Crack—? Shuffle through pine debris—? Hyde's senses seemed dull, approximate. Sight was unfocused, hearing muddy as if under water. Shadow? Noise?

The crack of a twig muffled by fallen, brown needles and snow. The tiny clink of metal against metal. Then the muted gleam of a torch-beam. Hyde shivered with cold and the effort to remain still. Langdorf seemed as tensely contracted as a wound spring.

A four-man patrol. Armed with rifles, each man carrying a small pack on his shoulders. The patrol moved in a single-file, crossing the path they were using. As they came closer, he could make out their uniforms. Border guard. They passed within ten yards and moved slowly off, routinely alert, waiting for daylight to assist them.

When they had gone, Hyde said: "Will they find the van?"

Langdorf shook his head. "No. It is unlikely — if we hurry."

"Why are they — they know, don't they?"

"I do not know—" the plumber began.

"But you suspect?"

Langdorf nodded. "For some reason, they are very protective of this part of the border, tonight. It is not usual." Langdorf shook his head. It was still too dark to see any emotion displayed by his features. "Not usual," he repeated. Then he stood up. "Come," he whispered. "We must hurry."

Hyde climbed to his feet. Weariness had dropped away like a blanket he had left on the ground. His eyes ached, but his body was alive with the myriad small shocks and prickles of tension. He hurried after Langdorf. The ground climbed more steeply, rock jutted through the snow and pine debris, the trunks were thinner, farther apart. The damp low cloud seemed to have lifted. Perhaps it had been no more than a mist.

Ten minutes later, Langdorf again motioned him to stop. They were at the edge of the trees. Their twisting route had always seemed to be ascending, yet now they were on the edge of a sloping stretch of grassland. An alpine meadow. Trees bordered it on all sides, except where a swathe had been cut to make a forest ride. A watch-tower that was not intended for ornithology loomed at the far end of the meadow. Beyond it, a mountain climbed out of the trees, its face masked with snow. The meadow was white, ghostly.

Huts and barns huddled in the snowbound meadow. An animal snorted audibly across the white silence. In the further distance, an engine coughed into life. There were lights on the watch-tower, but no sweeping searchlight.

"The border wire runs alongside a stream," Langdorf explained, "on the other side of this meadow. We must follow the trees. The stream is in a narrow bed. The wire is on this bank. Soon, the stream turns west and then it is in the Federal Republic. The wire no longer follows it. Come."

They skirted the meadow warily and swiftly. In another six or seven minutes, without the aid of his sketch, Langdorf located a narrow track that might originally have been made by deer. He hurried Hyde along it, the meadow now behind them, the slope of the land dropping away, becoming rocky. Langdorf's nailed boots scuttled and scraped ahead of Hyde.

The trees opened as Hyde heard the rush of water. Pebble and rock stretched down to a foaming, narrow stream that pushed and grumbled through its channel. Langdorf's hand restrained him. The pebbles were light, betraying. The top of the watch-tower could be seen. The wire was visible on the Czech side of the stream.

"Is it deep?" he asked.

"Here, no. You can wade across. The current is strong, however. You must be careful. Strong."

The watch-tower rose like a pit's winding-gear against the slowly lightening sky. Patches of snow grew among the rocks and large pebbles. Snow sheathed the rolls of wire.

"Do I have to cut the wire?"

"No. You can wriggle beneath it. Directly ahead of you, the wire is in poor condition."

"Electrified? Mines?"

"Neither. This is a cheap border." Langdorf chuckled, but the nervousness was mounting in his voice and breathing. He wanted to leave. "They rely on patrols with dogs, and on the tower."

There was no wind. No movement in the trees or along the stretch of rocks. Only the noise of the stream. Above that, the growing beat of a helicopter's rotors. Hyde waited.

The helicopter slid into sight, a black insect no more than a couple of hundred feet up. It followed the course of the stream, heading north, passing over the watch-tower, which signaled to it with a flashing lamp. Then its noise faded beyond the trees as it crossed the meadow.

"Now you must go," Langdorf urged. "Cross here, then follow the course of the stream. To this road here, which climbs into the hills." He flashed his torch on his sketch-map. "Here, there is a stone bridge. Herr Professor Zimmermann will be waiting at this point. If he has come."

Hyde nodded. Silence except for the stream. Thirty yards to the wire, wriggle under and through, ford the stream, then run. Getting colder and colder. But run.

He looked at his watch. Seven-forty. In less than two hours, Babbington's flight would touch down at Heathrow. Babbington would be back at the centre of the web, issuing orders, covering up, persuading— tidying-up. He thrust the cassette into the breast-pocket of his coat. At Langdorf's insistence it had been wrapped securely in a polythene bag, like the pistol. He looked at Langdorf—

Noises. Boot-studs on rock, the flash of torches. Langdorf was startled, and immediately stood up.

"Good luck!" he snapped, and pushed at Hyde as he squatted on his haunches.

The heave was a strong one. Hyde rolled out of the trees, tumbling over and over, disorientated. Langdorf had known exactly what he was doing. Hyde would distract the patrol from himself. As he sat up, he saw Langdorf disappear into the trees, moving swiftly and certainly. Unobserved.

A dog barked. Hyde could almost hear safety-catches being released, the inhalation of surprised breaths. The dog barked again, then growled. Straining at the leash. Then barking more frantically.

They were fifty yards away, coming out of the trees. Two of them and one dog. As he turned his head to the watch-tower, he saw forms pass in front of the lights, then a searchlight flared and began stepping and jumping along the rocks towards him. He got to his feet as they called on him to stop.

He danced across the rocks and pebbles, arms akimbo for balance, awareness rooted in his calves and ankles, prickling across his shoulders. A shot. He winced. The one warning shot. Ten yards to the wire. Now, now the dog—

He skidded onto his belly, skinning his palms. The raw skin beneath his thin gloves protested, crying out. His knees were bruised. The roll of wire was buckled upwards. The snow was shaken off as he wriggled, revealing the barbs. He crawled on his stomach. Two more shots, plucking away off the pebbles. The dog, the dog—

Get into the wire, get under the wire—!

The dog howled at its release. He heard it coming. His pained right hand fumbled at his side, fumbled for the pocket of his coat. Snow fell on him from the dancing curls of wire tugging over his back. The dog was close—

He touched the gun in its polythene bag. The dog's growl was almost on top of him, he heard it begin to slither expertly on its belly. Boots, running. Calls to halt, to remain still, not to move. The dog's breath on his exposed ankle, he was certain of it—!

The gun twisted in his grip. He tried to turn onto his back, but a strand of wire caught in his coat and he could not move. The dog raised its head, pulling at the cloth of his coat-tail. Heaving against his body-weight and the restraint of the wire. Holding him. The men were twenty yards from him, still running. He half-twisted, craning his neck, lying on his left side, tearing the coat open across his shoulders, feeling the barbed wire rip his skin. Felt the trigger awkwardly through the thin polythene. Moved the safety-catch. Held then squeezed the trigger's vague outline. Fired, deafening himself. As one of the two shots passed through the dog's shoulder, it howled, releasing the coat-tail.

Hyde heaved forward regardless of the wire. The searchlight bounced onto his prone form, passed, returned. Held him. Almost immediately, a machine-gun opened fire. The dog, screaming because it had become trapped in the wire in its pain, fell silent after a single long whimper. The two border guards were flat on their stomachs, out of the line of fire. Stone chips flew, bullets ricocheted. Hyde wriggled out from beneath the wire and flung himself forward into the water. Immediately, the cold stunned him, numbing his legs and trunk to the waist. The current flung him off his feet because he was too cold to move forward. He cried out at the shock. Floated, was pushed then dragged by the current. Machine-gun fire swept back and forth across the stream behind him, but the searchlight had lost him. It bounced forlornly from bank to bank, picked out the two border guards on their knees, both trying to draw a bead on his bobbing head. He swallowed icy water, moved his arms in protest, but the stream thrust him on. His feet dragged on the rocky bed, his leg banged numbly against a hidden rock, then he was out of his depth.

And the searchlight was gone. The guards, running along the shore, also vanished. The wire was just visible. He collided with a midstream rock and was too winded and weak to grasp its gleaming surface. He was hurried on by the current. The banks of the stream narrowed, rose on each side. His whole body was numb, too numb, dangerously—

A rock ahead. He tried to steer for it, tried to reach it, able only to push feebly against it with his feet as he passed. He saw foggily. Drew in one breath with enormous effort. Hands, feet, legs, trunk numb. He tried to stand, touched rocks, was swept onwards, touched rocks again, tried to stand, drew in a huge breath and ducked beneath the surface. Gripping rocks with numb hands, dragging the rocks towards him as his legs and torso were swept sideways. The water's current stretched him out, refloated him. Dragged him at another rock, slimy and hard. Another, then another—

He crouched against the current as it swept to both sides of a jutting rock. Knees on the pebbly bed, hardly registering the painful, hard lumps — his head was above water! He waited, then heaved himself at the bank.

He crawled out of the icy water, heart pumping, breath absent, strength gone. Rolled onto his back, coughing weakly, waiting for the effort to subside and allow him to find the strength to draw in air.

And saw Zimmermann's face. Framed by two other faces. They might have been those of the border guards. His hand flapped on his chest. Could he feel the wrapped cassette—? Could he? He patted weakly. Zimmermann understood and bent down beside him. He withdrew the cassette and held it for Hyde to see. Hyde nodded. Which started him coughing again. He had begun breathing shallowly and quickly. Torchlight danced around his body. Men spoke in German. He realised with difficulty that he had crossed the border.

"Wrap him up well," he heard Zimmermann say. "Get him on his feet as soon as you can." He patted Hyde's shoulder softly. Hyde could hardly feel the gesture. "Well done, Mr Hyde… we came upsteam from the bridge because of the activity in the area. Particularly the helicopter. But, it was a good thing you got ashore by yourself. We would not have seen you in the water."

Blankets laid on him, one after the other, heavy as earth. Someone rubbing his legs, his thighs roughly. Arms, too. A hand raised his head. Brandy. He coughed, losing most of it down his chin and collar.

"Listen—" he began.

"Say nothing at the moment," Zimmermann instructed. Behind his head the sky was beginning to gain colour. West German Frontier Guard — Grenzschütz — uniforms moved around him. Hyde wanted to vomit. His heart would not slow down. They continued to rub at his limbs and body. More brandy. This time he swallowed.

He coughed and said, "Not much time — have to talk to London. Have to, Zimmermann!" He was pulling at the German's sleeve.

The helicopter was away to the left, across the stream. Tree-top height, watching them. Heads turned to observe it. Hyde's head ached with cold, but ideas flashed and bloomed in his mind, as if he had drunk much more of the brandy. And then, for certainty's sake, the helicopter's small searchlight flicked across the river and spotlighted them for perhaps five seconds. Then it blinked out and the small helicopter rose and slipped over the trees. Hyde lost sight of it.

They knew.

Already, Zimmermann was saying: "… suspected they were following from Nuremberg. Someone must have seen me when I landed… they knew from my whereabouts that you—"

Hyde shook Zimmermann's sleeve, and spluttered: "Get me to a phone — if they warn London, then Babbington — disappears as soon — soon as he lands. Understand? We have to have him — have to have Babbington to save Aubrey. No swap, no — no Aubrey. Understand?"

Zimmermann's face darkened. Hie glanced at the sky, as if to pick out the now hidden helicopter.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, of course — of course!" He stood up. "They will carry you down to the car." Then in German, quickly and with authority: "Pick him up. Quickly — we must return to Waldsassen at once. Quickly!"

Aubrey glanced at his watch. Nine-seven. The unbroken snow lay like a frozen white sea lapping up to the hills of Moscow. The city was revealed like cast-up wreckage; spars and towers, broad avenues, blocks of apartments, ornate, miniature churches and palaces. Railway lines, ring roads and motorways spread in all directions from the city; once noticed, the scene became transformed into a vast spider's web heavy with snow and with Moscow at its heart.

The three of them — Margaret Massinger kneeling on her seat like a child, her head above the back of it — stared out of the windows of the Tupolev as it lazily circled the city, awaiting landing instructions. A small delay, the pilot had informed them over the intercom. Volume of air traffic for the southern international airport of Domodedovo. Aubrey glanced up. Margaret was looking at him intently. He tried to smile and she nodded, as if she understood his intention and his difficulty.

Now, near the end of it all, he was unable to speak to her. Or to Paul Massinger. The three of them had exchanged scrappy, broken phrases, single words, the occasional platitude but nothing more throughout the flight. Guests at a party, the earliest to arrive and strangers to one another. The dozen or so Russians aboard the aircraft ignored them. The hostesses served them with breakfast and with drinks in bland silence. Their guards relaxed. Each of the three seemed grateful for silence, and for the proximity of the others. Aubrey was pleased that their relationship did not exclude him.

The city slid beneath the wing. Traffic on the huge motorway ring, tinier than miniatures. Two trains visible, rushing into the city. The river, the Kremlin.

Aubrey had not been in Moscow since before the war. Yet it had formed the enemy fortress for so long that it was familiar. Any map of the city he had ever seen immediately became an architect's three-dimensional model or a series of aerial photographs. He knew the modern city, but until now it had belonged in his imagination. Moscow had been like Rome and Carthage, made unreal by distance and history. Sites of ancient battles. Now, below him, he saw the enemy camp. And it was also the enchanted castle, the home of the wicked…

He smiled to himself. Moscow, for the past forty-six years, had been both as real and as imaginary as a child's dream. Fairy-tale. Ogre's castle.

Now, the place of execution. All three of them knew that. Already, the Massingers had been forced to dress in mechanics' overalls so that they could be smuggled unrecognised from the aircraft long after he had left it in a gleam of publicity and identification. They had perhaps a couple of hours remaining to them.

The river glinted, frozen and silver in the morning sunlight. Gold glowed on roofs and onion towers. Apartment blocks remained unwarmed, stubbornly grey and drab beneath the clear sky.

The aircraft began to drop slowly southwards towards the airport. Its nose angled more steeply. Aubrey glanced at Margaret Massinger. She patted his gnarled, liver-spotted hand as it rested on the back of her seat. The Tupolev continued to slip through the clear air towards the ground. Moscow, drifting away behind them was still a huge, intricate child's model of a fortress. And Aubrey was grateful for the unreal images of Moscow his imagination provided like a sedative. Miniature. Map. Unreal.

"There's thirty minutes, and they know!" Hyde all but wailed.

He was huddled in a striped blanket, his hands grasping a mug of coffee as if to still the constant shuddering of his arms and shoulders. His hair was once more wet where ice had melted in his matted curls. The only noise in the small room was the constant sound of his chattering teeth.

Zimmermann stood near the door of the office that had been put at their disposal by the commanding officer of the Grenzschutz HQ at Waldsassen. Sir William Guest's flat in Albany was still unoccupied. The clock on the wall displayed nine for another moment, then its minute hand jerked forward. Babbington was due to land at Heathrow in thirty minutes. Zimmermann entirely agreed with Hyde. Once he disembarked, he would be warned off; taken swiftly into hiding and smuggled out of the country. No exchange, no return of Aubrey.

"Is there no one else?" he asked softly.

Hyde shook his head violently. The green blotting-pad on the desk was sprinkled with damp spots as the melted ice flicked from his hair. He swallowed his coffee greedily, then wiped his mouth.

"No, there's no one else."

"Not even the very top?"

Hyde looked up in disbelief. "Me ring the Prime Minister, or something?" he asked scornfully. Then shook his head more reflectively. "I'd be sidetracked. One of Babbington's people — I'd never get to anyone who could act. There's only Guest."

"You are certain they will dispose of Aubrey at once — without delay?"

"Aren't you?"

Zimmermann rubbed his chin, then sighed. "Yes. In their place, I would not allow him to be seen again, by anyone, once he left the aircraft. Anything else would be a risk, a finesse." He nodded, as if some inner self had finally become convinced of the argument's inevitable logic, then raised his arms in a gesture of helplessness. Hyde merely continued to stare at the telephone clamped to the desk amplifier, his hands kneading the pottery of his mug as if to reshape it.

Nine-three.

"Are you trying that number?" Hyde snapped in English at the intercom.

Zimmermann walked swiftly to the desk and issued instructions in clipped, precise phrases. The Grenzschütz switchboard operator offered assurances of his best efforts. Zimmermann looked up at Hyde.

"I have instructed them that the number is to be left ringing. Continuously."

Hyde was about to reply when the door opened. The features of the Grenzschütz Kapitan were clouded with doubt, even embarrassment. His eyes displayed a sense of having been deceived and there was a stiff, ominous rectitude about his lips. He closed the door behind him.

"Herr Professor Zimmermann," he began formally. "I must ask you to accompany me, please."

"What is the matter?" Zimmermann snapped back, his eyes angry and affronted. Hyde sensed that he had already-weighed the situation, completely understood it. "I do not understand, Kapitan."

Immediately, the Frontier Guard officer was at a disadvantage. But he persisted: "You have deceived me and my men, Herr Professor. This is not a matter of Federal security. You are at present—" He hesitated, as if once more embarrassed, then added: "You are not officially recognised, Herr Professor. You do not have official status."

Hyde, turning his head from face to face, realised that someone had acted without hesitation to inform Bonn of Zimmerrnann's whereabouts and intentions. The ramifications did not bear consideration. The immediate was dangerous enough. This captain could stop them simply by denying them access to a telephone. The thread was that fine, that fragile. Hyde forced himself to say nothing, closing his eyes like a child against something frightening or dangerous.

"Please, Herr Professor," the captain pleaded. "This is a very embarrassing moment. Please, you will accompany me now—"

Immediately, Zimmermann replied in a raised, authoritative voice: "No! Captain, I will not leave your office. I will not do as you ask."

The captain's dark, rounded features scowled, and his eyes glanced momentarily down as if seeking a reminder of his rank and authority. "Herr Professor—" he warned.

"Captain — you are responsible for a stretch of border perhaps fifty miles long — yes?"

Puzzled, the officer nodded. "Yes—"

"Good. You have light and heavy armoured cars at your disposal. You conduct patrols. You are one of twenty thousand." Zimmermann hesitated, then pounced with biting sarcasm. "I could get ten, fifty, a hundred officers to do your job — this moment — from the ranks of the Bundeswehr or the Grenzschütz or even the Territorialheer reservists!" The captain's face opened in surprise, his jaw dropping beneath cheeks growing pink and eyes that signaled his sense of outrage. Zimmermann hurried his words, his tone studiedly angry and dismissive. Hyde appreciated the performance, even as his eyes glanced at the clock. "Do you understand my meaning, Captain? Do you understand what I am saying? On my side, there is myself and this Englishman — no one else. I cannot be replaced, neither can he. Nor will we be. What could you expect to understand about security? About our world!" He gestured in Hyde's direction. "You receive a telephone call from someone in Bonn you have never heard of, and you jump to do as he says? Do you think we dragged this man out of the river for humanitarian reasons? Do you? I suggest you spend some time — perhaps thirty minutes, checking your instructions. Meanwhile, you will leave us here, in the safety of your office where the door and the windows can be guarded, with the use of the telephone and the services of your switchboard operator, and we shall promise not to attempt to escape!" The climax of the sentence was mocking, superior.

Zimmermann, to emphasis his assumed, false control of the situation, immediately placed himself behind the captain's desk, apparently relaxed and comfortable in the officer's own chair. Rights of occupation, Hyde thought. Nine-six. Twenty-four minutes. Hyde once more squeezed his eyes shut. His teeth had ceased to chatter. The electric fire near his legs now gave out an appreciable warmth. He felt the last of the coffee warm in his stomach.

"I — " the captain began, his face flushed, his eyes now calculating behind the anger.

"Well, captain? Well?" Zimmermann persisted. "If we are a danger to the state, you have us well controlled — in custody already. Haven't you?"

The captain's hands were bunched at his sides. His dislike of Zimmermann became masked and hidden. His eyes moved rapidly as if he were dreaming where he stood. What if—? What chance—? Hyde saw the questions dart and flicker. Could he avoid offending Zimmermann and Bonn at the same time? Zimmermann was a powerful man, his authority only suspect, not ended. Eventually, he nodded.

"Very well. This room will be placed under guard, Herr Professor — in twenty minutes, I shall return. You will then be placed in proper custody until I receive further orders. Any use you make of the telephone will, of course, be monitored." Zimmermann shrugged as if indifferent, and the captain, hiding his anger at the further insult, turned on his heel and left the office. They heard him barking orders in the outer room.

Nine-eight.

"Jesus—!" Hyde began.

Zimmermann waved him to silence. "It was nothing," he observed with assumed modesty and a smile. "But, they are moving very quickly. They have excellent communications. They will definitely attempt to save Babbington when he lands in — in twenty-one minutes." His fingers drummed on the desk. Through the window a high pale sky retreated beyond hills dark with pine. A guard ostentatiously took up position in full view outside the window. Zimmermann laughed. "Ridiculous."

"Anything yet?" Hyde asked the intercom, flicking the switch up for the switchboard operator's reply.

"Nothing, sir."

"Sir," Hyde remarked ironically.

"He is playing even safer than his officer."

"And, in twenty minutes' time?"

"That could be — awkward? I do not know what will happen. I will be in trouble with my ministry, of course. Whether any — more permanent measures might be taken, I cannot say. It depends on what power they can wield. And who could be certain about that?"

Nine-eleven. Nineteen minutes. The KGB might even meet Babbington on the tarmac. Come on, come on—

"Christ—!" Hyde exploded, hurling the empty mug at the clock on the wall. It struck below it and shattered. Hyde had begun shaking once more, and tugged the blanket more tightly around him. His feet shifted, his teeth ground with rage rather than cold. "Come on, damn you!"

"Sir?"

Zimmermann immediately reached for the intercom switch and flicked it.

"Yes?"

"Sir, I have your call. I gave your name, sir — was that…?"

"Yes, yes — put the call through, man!"

Hyde's head came up. His whole frame was quivering. "Is it—?" he began.

Zimmermann clipped the receiver to a desk speaker/amplifier so that both he and Hyde could hear Guest and speak to him without having to transfer the receiver to and fro.

"Sir William Guest? Am I addressing Sir William Guest?" Zimmermann asked breathlessly, his voice light and strange.

"Who is this? My telephone has been ringing ever since—" With a silent movement of his lips, Zimmermann queried the voice with Hyde. He had slumped in the chair, the blanket falling open, disregarded. He nodded. His clenched fists beat at his thighs. His head bobbed. It was Guest, was Guest — impossibly, it was—!

Zimmermann identified himself to Guest in a formal, polite manner. Then he said, "I have someone here, Sir William, who must speak with you — only with you. It is of the utmost urgency. You must listen to him—" Zimmermann's tone had changed to one of pleading. He was no longer able to control his voice.

Nine-twelve.

"Yes? What is all this, Herr Zimmermann? Of course, I understand you, but not the mystery you seem intent on creating. I have just arrived after a very unsatisfactory aeroplane journey, I am very tired—"

"Shut up and listen!" Hyde shouted into the telephone, leaning forward on his chair, his face bent towards the receiver. "It's Hyde — Patrick Hyde. And I want to talk about Aubrey. Now, listen—"

"Hyde!" Sir William's voice blared from the receiver. "Hyde — how dare you…" Hyde grinned at Zimmermann. His teeth had begun to chatter once more, and his shaking seemed well beyond control. Zimmermann realised that the Australian was without reserves. He was forcing himself not to subside completely. Zimmermann prepared to take command of the situation. Hyde pulled the blanket back around his shoulders and hunched his body. Somehow, diminishing the physical space he occupied seemed to assist him; as if he were squeezing some sponge within him which still held a few last drops of energy. "This conversation must end at once, Hyde," Sir William continued, his habitual tone of authority fully recaptured. "There are channels — and you are persona non grata, as you are only too well aware."

"For Christ's sake—!"

"Sir William," Zimmermann interjected, waving Hyde to silence. The Australian glared at him. And obeyed. "Sir William — time is very short, as you will understand once you have heard what we have to tell you. I beg you to listen." Zimmermann's tone was edged with obsequiousness, which Hyde loathed. The German adopted the role of a subordinate, but one with his own degree of rank and authority. "I really must insist—" he continued.

"What is it, Herr Zimmermann? Really, what is the cause of this unexpected, uninvited conversation?"

"Proof!" Hyde exclaimed. "Proof that Aubrey's innocent and your pal Babbington's been a very naughty boy behind your back! And from the same fucking school, too—!"

"Hyde! Be silent!" Zimmermann barked. He pressed his finger to his lips, then pointed to himself. "I'm sorry, Sir William. Mr Hyde's loyalty is not in question, as you can—"

"But it is, Herr Zimmermann — I don't know what tale he has told you, but I'm afraid you are in the company of a renegade. One of our rotten apples, I'm sorry to say…"

"Forgive me, but I don't think so."

"Really. With the kind of accusation he appears to be making? You surely don't believe him?"

Nine-fourteen. Both of them glanced in the same moment at the clock on the wall, the coffee from Hyde's mug an elongated, drying splash beneath it on the cream paint.

"I am afraid that I am forced to do so," Zimmermann replied with studied deference and conviction.

"Herr Zimmermann — I really am very tired…"

"Please, Sir William—! You have been in Washington for a matter of days now…"

"Yes?"

"You are then not familiar with what has happened — that Sir Kenneth Aubrey is in the Soviet Union at this moment?"

There was a silence, then Guest said, "The news does not surprise me. I will, no doubt, be receiving a report in due course. From Andrew Babbington."

"He'll be on your doorstep within the hour, mate, with his version of events. You can bloody count on it!"

"Sir Andrew has been in Vienna. Aubrey was captured by your intelligence service there—"

"Ah."

"But, they lost him. He was allowed to fall into the hands of the KGB. They spirited him at once to Moscow. His flight will have landed by now."

Nine-fifteen. Yes, Hyde admitted, banging his thighs with clenched fists. Landed by now. Zimmermann had checked with Vienna before leaving Waldsassen for the border. The Aeroflot flight had left Vienna at six-fifteen. Three hours to Moscow. It was down by now. Red carpet, the boys in the band, the forced handshakes and back-pattings, the black car — finis. Gone. Tomorrow, all you have to look forward to is a heart-attack and the obituary in Pravda.

"And?"

"Sir William, I am convinced that Sir Kenneth is in the gravest danger—"

"From his own people?" Guest remarked with studied irony.

"No — from the Soviets. He is not one of them."

"But Andrew Babbington is? Preposterous!"

"Hyde has evidence, Sir William. The man is named specifically. The whole — scenario, shall we call it, whereby Sir Kenneth was made to appear a Soviet agent… Mr Hyde has this on a computer tape. He has obtained definitive evidence of Sir Andrew Babbington's treachery and the Soviet attempt to disgrace Sir Kenneth and replace him with their own agent."

"I promoted Andrew Babbington," Guest replied. The tiny click of the clock's minute hand moving was audible in the room. Zimmermann's words had fallen emptily, with a dull, hollow noise. The cassette lay, still wrapped in polythene, on the captain's desk. It was mute; might have been blank for all the use it appeared to be.

Zimmermann shrugged, lacing his fingers, unlacing them. He appeared at a loss.

Guest said, "Preposterous. Quite preposterous. What kind of twisted mind invented this rubbish? Hyde? Aubrey? The Russians? It really is ridiculous, you know, Herr Zimmermann."

Nine-sixteen.

"Christ, I'm cold," Hyde murmured.

Zimmermann looked up from his fingers quickly. Hyde's face was pale; the skin quivered on his cheeks, his lips echoed the constant movement of his clenched teeth. His hands, gripping the edges of the blanket and folded on his chest, were bloodless and shaking.

"It is not preposterous!" Zimmermann snapped.

"I beg—"

"Listen to me, Sir William. Please listen—" He lowered his voice. Nine-seventeen. "That was obviously the factor that dictated their timing… your support of Sir Andrew. The new service you have conjured into existence…"

"You suggest I have played into Soviet hands?"

"No, no — believe me, no. Merely that Babbington and his masters took advantage of the circumstances you helped to create. The scenario had lain idle for some years—"

"And how, precisely, did you learn of it?"

Hyde moaned softly, but whether with cold or something akin to despair Zimmermann could not tell. The man's head was hanging. Wrapped in his blanket, he looked like a refugee or a prisoner who had been beaten.

"I — the evidence is here, Sir William, with us. Please believe that we have the evidence."

"From a computer?"

"From Moscow Centre itself. Everything…" Zimmermann sighed. He could not grasp the next word or phrase. There seemed no more he could usefully say. Guest did not believe him. Nine-eighteen. Twelve minutes. Guest could not act now, even if he believed—!

"This — I think I should begin by making reference to your ministry in Bonn, Herr Zimmermann. And perhaps I should listen to Andrew Babbington's account of the affair. Frankly, I don't believe a word of it. Not one word—"

"For Christ's sake, shut up!" Hyde's eyes were wide, bright as if feverish. He was shaking inside the blanket. "If you wait another bloody minute, sport, you'll kill Aubrey!"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"And you'll kill your precious god-daughter, mate. Aubrey, Massinger, and Massinger's wife. They're all on the flight."

"What—?"

"Don't you ever fucking listen to anything anyone says?" Hyde almost screamed, stretching forward towards the receiver, the muscles and veins standing out in his neck. "I said Massinger and his wife are on that bloody plane to Moscow! Babbington's making sure there's no one left to testify! He's cleaning house, mate. Tidying-up! Understand? You're making sure he kills her — kills Margaret Massinger along with Aubrey!"

He slumped back into his chair, almost tumbling it and himself to the floor. Zimmermann started from his seat, but Hyde waved him to sit down. There was a gleam of calculation replacing the wild look in his eyes. His teeth chattered as he tried to grin. Then he said: "It's up to that pompous old fart, now." His voice was loud enough for Guest to hear. "It depends if he gives a monkey's or not."

In the silence, the minute-hand of the clock moved audibly. Nine-twenty.

Eleven seconds later — they had both counted them off — Guest said, "Assuming, perhaps only assuming…" He cleared his throat. "I must assume…" Again, he dried up. They heard him cough. "If — what do you suggest, Hyde? Zimmermann — what do you suggest?"

Hyde dragged his chair to the desk. The blanket fell away once more. "Heathrow — Special Branch must grab Babbington and hold him. Just hold him — and warn them to watch out for interference."

"Yes—"

"Use all your emergency authority and make Euston Tower and Cheltenham transmit Priority Black signals to the embassy in Moscow, and Moscow Centre. They have to do that now. You have to try to stop them taking Aubrey off the plane. If you've got Babbington and they've got Aubrey, there's only one thing to do. Tell them you'll do a swap — exchange their man for ours. Understand?"

"But—"

"Look, if they agree, you've already got the proof you need! They wouldn't agree to hold the operation if Babbington wasn't their man — would they? Once they go on hold, it doesn't matter how long the tidying up takes!" Hyde growled. "Just make sure they know you've got Babbington. They'll have to have him back — too bad for morale if they let him go to the wall. It'll work. It happens with small fry — and big fish. Get them to agree to a trade."

"Euston Tower can—?" Guest began.

"Don't ask — they can talk to Moscow Centre any time they choose. Priority Black, remember. Just tell them to do it. Inform the Chairman you've got his favourite toy. He should choke on the news!"

Nine twenty-one.

"Very well — this is all provisional, of course. But, under the circumstances surrounding… surrounding the other people involved, I am prepared to go along with your suggestions to the extent—"

"Do it! And, while you're at it, get Godwin free in Prague. If the poor sod's still alive. Do it."

Zimmermann said quickly, efficiently, "We will ensure that the computer tape, the irrefutable proof, will be flown by helicopter to our computer centre in Munich at once. Our computer will talk to yours at Century House — an hour after Sir Andrew reaches London, you will have confirmation of everything we have told you." As soon as he had finished speaking, he cut the connection with a brisk, decisive movement of his right hand. Hyde slumped his head on his folded arms and lay still, his damp hair staining the green blotter. Zimmermann watched him for a few moments, then said softly:

"Is there time, I wonder?"

"There'd better be," Hyde mumbled into his sleeve. He was wearing a Grenzschutz uniform shirt that was too large for him. "I don't even want to think about it." He did not look up as he added: "There's nothing we can do about it now, anyway. Nothing."

Zimmermann glanced at the clock. Nine twenty-two. "No," he agreed. "Nothing."

As he descended the passenger steps, Babbington experienced a sensation that might have originated in some television news item. Speed, movement, action; the viewer relying upon the camera's point of view, that camera held by a running man. Vigorous panning — left, right, left, right — a desperate attempt to define the real, crucial focus of the scene.

He was three steps from the bottom of the passenger ladder. There was the expected black Mercedes and the uniformed civil service driver; this one with small-arms expertise and a myriad emergency driving skills. Eldon was there in his military fawn overcoat, present as one of the new influential deputies of SAID. He was standing erectly by the black car, and had not yet begun to react to the new arrivals.

Two other cars. Almost a traffic-jam. One of the cars — another Mercedes — was slightly nearer, and had arrived in more of a hurry. The second new car was — Special Branch. He did not even need to think about it. Two mackintoshes, two trilbies. Caricatures. The morning sunlight glanced off the windows of the terminal, highlighted the arrogant tailplanes of perhaps a dozen airliners. Gleamed on the windows of the three cars. Left, right, left, right — point of focus? Babbington was unsettled.

It would be the act of the next few moments. After that, events would be beyond his shaping. The two Special Branch men began their ponderous progress towards him across thirty yards of tarmac. Eldon began to absorb the scene, his left hand already gesturing to the security driver, who began reaching for his shoulder-holster. Yet Eldon was confused, made compliant by his recognition of the Special Branch officers.

And the Russians… He recognised his contact, Oleg, inside the car. A hand beckoning him down the last few steps towards the opened door of their Mercedes. One young man in a well-cut suit displayed by his opened overcoat — a gun there, too—

And he believed, for an instant, that they would kill him rather than allow Special Branch near him.

Babbington shivered. Passengers from first class pressed behind him on the steps, their respectful stillness because of the array of cars already evaporating. The air was chilly in his nostrils, scented with aviation fuel. His chest seemed to pound. Left, right, left, right — the mad panning continued.

Eldon raised his hand in a confused, troubled gesture of welcome that might have been a signal to bar his admission to some club.

Hyde—

He had time to think that. It couldn't have been Aubrey. He was already dead; prepared for death at the very least. Poor Margaret and her stupid, persistent husband were, without doubt, no longer living. But, Hyde—

His hands clenched into useless fists. The Russians gestured more frantically. He saw the sweep of the young man's arm, his readiness to risk even gunfire to salvage the focus of the scene, the focus of Teardrop …

A car chase, the embassy in Kensington or some hidden safe-house, a light aircraft to the Continent, then — Moscow…

The things with which he had mocked Aubrey. The Special Branch men were fifteen yards away now. The medals, the Pravda eulogy — and the bitter, never-forgotten taste of failure. The daily reminders that his rank, his rank, was little more than a joke, albeit a respectful joke, while their uniforms demonstrated the real power and authority—

Everything was clear to him. Eldon had started forward now, confused but with some intuition that he should be acting against Babbington. Both he and the driver closed upon the Russian Mercedes — closing that exit, unless he ran—

Ran, ran, run, run —

Special Branch were five yards from him. And he was already at the last step, as if to greet them with his surrender—!

"Sir Andrew Babbington?" one of them began, questioning and polite and final. His hands gripped the sides of the passenger steps. "Sir Andrew, would you please accompany us…"

He heard no more. It had begun. The young Russian diplomat was already climbing into his Mercedes. Eldon was at the door, speeding a departing guest, his face beginning to turn towards Babbington, confusion lessening in his eyes, being replaced by shock. The two Special Branch officers — senior officers by their age — blocked the gangway, and the passengers behind him pushed at his back, insisting he move forward.

The security driver had turned against him. His hand lay snugly inside his jacket, awaiting events. Special Branch, Eldon, the driver — blue exhaust smoke from the Russian Mercedes as it prepared to leave — and, and, and…

Hyde.

He choked. One of the Special Branch officers gripped his arm like a stern nurse.

He staggered forward, and the other policeman was on his left side. He was walking towards their black Granada, unresisting. Eldon — he turned away from the look of disillusioned contempt on Eldon's face.

That Moscow flat—

He had promised himself newer, never that — even in '56, when he put his foot to this road, he had promised himself it would never be that.

Now, it was the best he could hope for. His only hope. That flat, those false, powerless ranks, the bench in Gorky Park, feeding the pigeons and watching the men in uniform strut where he shuffled—

Hyde, Hyde, Hyde—

At least Aubrey was dead. At least that.

He ducked his head as he climbed into the rear seat of the Ford Granada.

There would be no words. Looks, gestures, impressions, visual images of lurid clarity — but no words. Nothing spoken.

Kapustin had hurried aboard the Tupolev as soon as it came to a halt near the principal terminal building of Domodedovo airport. He was large and brisk in the seemingly, cramped first-class cabin of the airliner. And delighted. There was barely concealed pleasure on his square, broad features. The face he had shown Aubrey when he had lied about meeting a woman, the moment before Aubrey's arrest in the gardens of the Belvedere in Vienna. Now, Aubrey understood the source of the secret, satisfied smile. The man had been anticipating the arrest, as now he anticipated the final humiliation of Aubrey and his subsequent demise. No hatred; that was impermissible, unprofessional. But certainly the satisfaction of a web woven and an insect trapped.

He had uttered a few words of ironic welcome. The Russian diplomats had disembarked. Through his window, Aubrey saw the herded, arranged cameramen and journalists; the audience for his farewell appearance. Once they were alone on the aircraft, Kapustin fell to inspecting the Massingers as if checking luggage, murmuring inaudibly to already briefed guards, checking through the windows for cars and cameras. Then he paused before Aubrey.

Overcoat swelling over his stomach, gloves held before his paunch in a military gesture. Fur hat tucked beneath one arm. Woolen scarf at his throat. He was monolithic and irresistible as he gestured Aubrey from his seat.

A KGB officer held Aubrey's coat, helped him into it. He glanced down the cabin at the Massingers. Paul raised his hand in a tired, slow wave of farewell. His face was pale and drawn, and his other arm was around Margaret's shoulders. Aubrey could bear to look at them for only a moment. The sense was of — betrayal? No, not quite that. Guilt certainly. Pity, too. He had not been responsible for the deaths of very many amateurs — outsiders — in more than forty years. Hardly ever for the death of a friend. Now, he was. It was to be part of his epitaph, like the photographs and television shots those outside were waiting to capture.

He turned away from the painful image of the Massingers, unable to cope with the unfamiliar emotions that gripped him. He cauterised them by staring instead at the hostess standing at the door of the aircraft. And with the knowledge of the lessening distance between himself and the cameras. Cold bright air crossed the threshold of the aircraft like an intruder.

Kapustin was behind him — did he speak, whisper? No — but propelled him gently, firmly towards the door. Sunlight, a stiff, ambushing little breeze, the expanse of grey concrete with heaped snow beyond it; the glitter and dazzle of huge glass windows. Faces in and behind the dazzle, watching him. The air he drew in choked him with its coldness. He coughed, as if to clear his throat before addressing—

Addressing the broad scimitar of cameramen and journalists at the foot of the passenger steps. Roped back, the perched, portable TV and film cameras bobbing behind them. Guards, rope — the distance of deception. He could not call to them, they would not hear. They would see him, see what Kapustin wished them to see and record and believe, and then he would be hurried into one of the waiting black cars; to disappear.

He could not have addressed them. The cough had left his throat dry, inoperative. Kapustin crowded onto the top step of the passenger ladder behind him. A murmur like wind through tall dry grass, then the stutter of lenses and the whirr of automatic winders. The dry, awful chorus of crickets in a burned landscape. Aubrey hated it. The cameras went on and on pointing, on and on exposing yards of negative and video tape and film stock.

Kapustin's satisfaction enveloped Aubrey like a heavy, suffocating blanket. Kapustin held his arm, keeping him to the pose.

Then nudged him. He began to descend the steps. The chorus of the cameras loudened, became almost frenzied. Preying on his treachery, devouring the deception. They did not expect him to smile — Kapustin would, no doubt, prefer the scowl he gave the lenses. It would later be taken to be a sign of illness and strain. A harbinger of his death. At the least, the opening of millions of newspapers the following day would lead to the conclusion that he still possessed perhaps a modicum of shame and therefore could not summon a smile.

The day after that, they would read of his death and consider, all in all, that the world was well rid of him.

Someone moving, elbowing through the edge of the semi-circle of the press, from the line of black cars. Guards opening a way for a man in uniform. KGB. A major. Hurrying. For one terrible moment, Aubrey lurched sideways, as if the hurrying figure had blundered into him, or intended to do so. It was the hurry of his assassin, just for the moment.

The major did not pause at the bottom of the steps. The guards were herding the cameras and pressmen away from the cars, so that no one might speak to Aubrey or be within hearing distance of anything he might blurt out. The crickets continued their dry chorus.

"What—?" in Russian from Kapustin. It was the first spoken word since he had donned his overcoat. The major gabbled. Aubrey turned almost lazily, like a very old and frail man, to this new epicentre of the scene. The crickets retreated, to become the noise of a log-fire crackling in a distant room. The major's words were difficult — it was as if Aubrey had forgotten his Russian.

He concentrated instead upon Kapustin's face. The chorus of shutters and winders further diminished, more hesitant now as if suspecting some kind of pretense or swindle. He did not listen to the major's words, or to Kapustin's denials, or his growing impatience and anger. He saw the major's hands — one flapping glove held loosely by the other gloved hand, making repeated, emphatic little slaps on the rail of the passenger steps. He saw Kapustin's face. He glanced along the airliner's windows but did not see the Massingers—

He registered the other aides near the cars; a desultory, motiveless, chattering group. He heard the shutters falter, almost die. As he turned, he glimpsed the hostess's smile die at the top of the steps, and two KGB men bulk behind her.

Turned again, and saw glass dazzle, snow stretch away across the airport, whiteness bordered by dirty slush. Saw an aircraft taxi, then begin its rush down the main runway. A Western airline's symbol blazoned on the flank and tail. It lifted, blue and white, into the sky. Air France—

Saw Kapustin, watching him. And knew.

Something, something, something…

His head spun. He gripped the rail of the steps, tottering slightly. Instinctively, the major's ungloved hand held his elbow, supporting him. The gesture seemed to enrage Kapustin.

"Inside with you!" he snapped in English. "Inside — back inside!"

Aubrey did not hear the words, but acted upon them, with the major's not-unkind help. Whatever, whatever had gone wrong— No— gone right, gone right! — it must be over. Before long he would be calm enough to guess at it, even to listen to any explanation they offered. But for the moment it was enough to know that it was over. Finally over.

He ducked his head unnecessarily as he re-entered the door of the Tupolev. His eyes immediately, mistily sought the Massingers. Their faces, above the backs of their seats, had turned to him, afraid.

He smiled. Kapustin was raging behind him. Babbington—? Hyde—?

He did not understand. There were no real words being spoken there behind his back. He understood only that it was over. Margaret returned his smile, hesitantly, her swollen, discoloured lips finding the expression difficult. Paul's face opened into a grin. Perhaps he understood — he spoke Russian. It did not matter. He sat down carefully, weakly, in one of the seats. The Massingers were coming towards him. He had to sit still, just for a moment.

Time had become unimportant. It no longer mattered how long the delay, how long they simply sat aboard the aircraft, for eventually it would be refueled, and they would be cleared to take off on their return journey to… to Vienna. Yes, they would return them to Vienna, not London. He would wait for that, just wait for the aircraft to take off…

Massinger's hand fell again and again on the sleeve of his coat. A comforting, relieved gesture. It lulled Aubrey. He felt very tired. Margaret sat opposite him, across the narrow aisle; smiling at him, the tears beginning, her throat bobbing almost continuously as she attempted to swallow her welling feelings.

Aubrey nodded, in rhythm with the pats of Massinger's hand. Yes. It was over.