The Bear's Tears (31 page)

No, not sex, nor money, nor power…

"You seem thoughtful, Sir Kenneth?"

Damn —

"Not at all. More claret?" Eldon demurred, covering his glass
with
his palm. "Then I'll ring for Mrs Grey. We'll have the dessert."

I must save myself. Only I can save myself, Aubrey's mind
recited to
the tinkling of the silver bell in his hand. I have to get to Vienna. I
have to destroy that stupid, stupid journal, before…

He looked calmly into Eldon's face.

Before he sees it!

"Come on, Mike - you can tell me how you got onto this chap
Murdoch
- surely?" Shelley's voice was strained with bluff jollity.

"Look, Pete — I told you. The man came to us. You know it
happens
all the time."

"And you believed him?" Shelley, sitting on his sofa, the
receiver
pressed to his cheek, watched his daughter patiently rolling a growing
snowball around the garden. Alison, as if she felt the child required
close personal protection, was standing in her fur coat, arms folded
tightly across her breasts, intently watching their daughter.

"You don't think we didn't check, old boy?" the jocular,
superior,
knowing voice came down the line. It was as if the voice mocked not
simply Shelley's naïvety but also the innocence of the scene through
the bay window. The new patio doors seemed suddenly very insecure; too
much glass. "No—" 

"Well, we talked long and hard to him. We even cleared it with
your
people. Not that we had any need to, but we did. They gave us a couple
of other names. Common knowledge, old boy. Aubrey and Castleford at it
like hammer-and-tongs for months, both trying to crack this Nazi widow.
We couldn't trace her, more's the pity. I can't imagine your guv'nor
having that much of a yen for a bit of the other, can you?" Mike
laughed.

"No," Shelley replied ruefully. He trusted Mike. He was a
journalist
SIS had used before, fed or pumped as the need arose. He could be
trusted. And he would probably pass on the fact of Shelley's enquiry.
And his acceptance of the answers he was given. With luck, Shelley was
beginning his professional rehabilitation. I just made a few
enquiries for Massinger's sake, he thought with disgust. "You
believe it, then?" he added. "I do. Don't you?"

"I suppose so. God, it takes some swallowing, though."

"The most unlikely people can get steamed up over sex, old boy.
Your
old boss is human after all - I think." Mike roared with laughter
again. He was beginning to irritate Shelley; as if the amusement was
directed at his evident disloyalty. "I suppose so."

"Any chance of the first hint when they charge him?"

"I - yes, of course." Shelley felt sweat break out along his
hairline. He hadn't even thought of it — Charges. They'd be
charging the old man any day now. "Yes, yes - I'll be in touch," he
added. "See you."

He put down the telephone hurriedly. It was growing dark in the
garden. Suddenly, he did not want his wife and daughter outside any
longer. He crossed swiftly to the patio doors beside the bay window.
The Labrador arranged on the rug in front of the fire opened one
hopeful eye. Shelley slid back the glass doors. "Come on, you two," he
called with false jollity. Alison immediately studied him.

"Just a moment, Daddy," his daughter called, intent upon the
snowball, almost as tall and heavy as herself. She heaved at it and it
moved towards the rosebed.

"Careful," he cautioned. Oh, come in, his thoughts pleaded.
"Close
the doors," Alison instructed. "You'll let all that expensive heat out."

He slid the doors closed. "Oh, shit!" he bellowed.
He'd
established his alibi. Murdoch in Guernsey had reluctantly answered the
telephone, spoken to him, confirmed his claims in the paper. Mike,
author of the Insight article, had apparently satisfied his
curiosity. To all intents and purposes, Shelley was satisfied with the
motive for Castleford's death and the evidence for Aubrey's guilt. He
had surrendered, made himself harmless; defused himself as a threat to
whoever —

He was miserable in his shame. He had abandoned Aubrey for good.

The main highway between Kabul and Jalalabad lay below them,
twisted
like rope between tumbled, snow-clad cliffs. It seemed to writhe like a
living thing. A snow-plough had passed along it since the most recent
fall. On the other side of the road, between its embankment and the
grey skein of the river which looked as tarred and gravelled as the
road itself, the snow-cloaked remains of a burnt-out personnel carrier
had returned to innocence. Dawn slid softly down the face of the
opposite cliffs.

The patrol had spent the night in a bombed, deserted village
rather
than risk an ambush in the dark on the highway. Scouts had reported,
almost gleefully, the restlessness and the inability to sleep as well
as the numbers, vehicles and arms of the patrol. Mohammed Jan had
decided to wait until dawn, until the patrol returned to the highway to
make its way back to Kabul. The Pathans were now hidden on both sides
of the narrow highway, high up in the cliffs. From his vantage point,
Hyde was aware of no more than half a dozen of them, and he felt they
were competitors in a race. He did not trust any of them to leave a
Russian soldier alive for long enough to be questioned. He needed an
officer, preferably. But, anyone —

If he was quick enough. Even then, all he could offer the man in
exchange for information was a quick bullet rather than execution by
mutilation. Thus his tension as he crouched in the rocks. Miandad
beside him was, apparently, more diffident and relaxed. Below them,
almost directly below, rocks and larger boulders had spilled across the
highway, effectively blocking it to traffic. A similar small landslide
had been prepared further back down the highway, to block any retreat.

The dark air was bitterly cold. Hyde felt as if he had never
been
warm since he had boarded the old military transport in Karachi. The
cold sunlight slid further down the cliffs. A mirrored light flashed a
signal towards their position. Mohammed
Jan
stood up and waved in reply.

"Less than half a mile away now," Miandad murmured. Hyde merely
nodded. Miandad studied the lightening sky above them. "I wonder
whether they will send a helicopter from Kabul?"

"Do they usually?"

"A year ago, every patrol had a helicopter escort. But now - who
can
say? This part of the country has been quiet for most of the winter.
The Russians assume they control this highway. Perhaps there will be no
helicopter - until we have finished our business, anyway." Miandad
smiled, then unconsciously flicked at his moustache, parodying a
British officer.

Hyde returned his attention to the road. Less than three minutes
later, a green-painted BTR-40 scout car rounded the nearest bend,
moving with what appeared to be exaggerated caution. Its small turret
and finger-pointing machine gun swivelled from side to side. The
vehicle seemed to possess a jumpy tension of its own. Then two
caterpillar-tracked BMP infantry carriers, squat and green and heavily
armoured, appeared behind the scout car. Each of them was armed with a
missile launcher and a 73mm gun. There would be eight men in each, all
capable of firing with the aid of periscopes while the vehicle kept
moving. The red stars on the flanks of the vehicles were hardly visible
in the slow dawn. A second scout car brought up the rear of the small
column.

Hyde shivered with cold and tension. Yet, however much he
reminded
himself of the armour and armaments of the men and the vehicles that
contained them, he could not avoid the impression that this slow-moving
patrol was afraid and vulnerable. Four armoured vehicles - two missile
launchers and two heavy cannon mounted on the BMPs, two machine guns on
the scout cars, sixteen to twenty Kalashnikov AKMs inside the four
vehicles, perhaps four or five handguns, grenades, perhaps one or two
machine guns like the PK or the RPK…

The catalogue meant nothing. It could not prevent those Russian
conscripts from being afraid every moment they crouched behind their
armour, jogging and bucking back to Kabul. Thirty Pathans with old
rifles and stolen Russian arms and American or British or Czech or
Russian grenades posed a far more potent threat. The terrain and the
fanaticism both belonged to them.

The leading scout car began to slow, well down the road from the
small, deliberate landslide. At that moment, the officer in command of
the scout car would be operating on assumptions. In that situation, and
with his nerves, he would assume that the landslide was deliberate and
that it was intended as part of an ambush. Perhaps less than a minute
to decide, to report over the radio —?

The scout car turned awkwardly on the highway and headed back
towards the two BMPs. The trailing scout car also turned, making for
the bend in the road. Hyde imagined that the patrol had already
summoned a helicopter from Kabul, less than thirty miles west of their
position; perhaps ten or fifteen minutes flying time for a MiL-24
gunship.

The two BMPs began to turn very slowly, shunting back and forth
on
their caterpillar tracks, the stationary scout car near them like a
sheepdog. Nothing else appeared to move on or near the highway. Hyde
heard a distant rumble that might have been thunder or the echoes of a
shot. Presumably, the second landslide. His hand involuntarily jumped
with nerves as it rested on the chilly plastic stock of his stolen
Kalashnikov. The remains of a sticker - he hadn't noticed it before,
but it was lighter now - was still affixed to the gun. It was yellow,
had been round, and displayed the torn remains of a smiling cartoon
face. The Cyrillic command to smile had been partially torn away. The
image disturbed Hyde, adding to the spurious but intense nerves he
experienced as a spectator of the almost innocent scene below.

A figure moving, crawling in the roadside ditch —? He could not
be
certain. The second scout car, the one that had headed back down the
highway, now seemed to flee back into sight, a spray of slush rising at
the side of the road as it cornered at speed. Hyde's hand covered the
torn, smiling sticker and he leaned slightly forward, drawn to the
opening scene of the drama which was as inevitable as a previously
witnessed tragedy. He saw from the corner of his eye that Miandad's
body had adopted the same posture. He had no doubts. He's been told the
ending of this play.

A figure, yes —

A brown-robed Pathan slipped on all fours onto the grey ribbon
of
the road, rolled something, then ducked back into the drainage ditch.
Hyde held his breath. He was captive and captivated. Four seconds, then
the grenade exploded beneath the scout car. Flame billowed around its
flanks and wheels, but died almost at once. The scout car appeared
undamaged, apart from scorch-marks on its olive-drab paintwork. Hyde
lowered his binoculars in disappointment. Miandad nudged him, and
pointed.

Dandelion clocks. He focused his glasses. Dandelion clocks. They
floated, orderly, delicate, innocent, down from the lowest rocks
towards the vehicles on the road. One BMP had turned, the other
straddled the highway while undoubted and furious radio contact
continued between all four vehicles. The trap was dawning upon them.
The grenade had been some kind of signal —? Perhaps just a piece of
bravado.

The dandelion clocks —

Suddenly, he knew what they were. Soviet RKG anti-tank grenades,
hand-thrown and capable of penetrating five inches of armour. The BMP
armour was 14mm thick, that of the scout cars 10mm. The white patches
which had reminded him of dandelion clocks were the small stabilising
drogue parachutes which ensured that after the grenade was thrown, its
shaped charge struck nose-first.

One of the BMPs launched a Sagger missile with a bright,
spilling
flame. Rock and snow and dust flew away from the suddenly obscured
hillside above the road; above the Pathans, too. Boulders began to roll
towards the lower slopes. The echoes of the noise deafened Hyde.

The first dandelion clock struck, then the second. One detonated
on
the surface of the road, the other on the trailing scout car's back.
The armour erupted like a boil, then split as if the vehicle had been
unzipped. Something staggered from the ruin, ablaze, and fell to a
whisper of rifle fire. Hyde could not hear screaming at his safe
height. Other grenades struck one of the BMPs. Flame, noise, the
tearing of armour. Hyde had never realised the hideousness of the noise
of splitting armour-plating. It seemed to cry out on behalf of the
occupants of the troop carrier.

Another Sagger was launched by the undamaged BMP. The cannon
atop
the first troop carrier also opened fire. Rock and hillside boiled and
shattered. The narrow gorge filled with smoke and raging noise. The
surface of the grey river was pattered into distress by falling rock
and metal. Uniformed men running - others lying still, sprawled down
the
sides of vehicles or by the caterpillar tracks or on the slush and grey
tar of the highway. Hyde could hear, though he could no longer
distinguish, the firing of both 73mm cannons from the BMPs. Flame lit
the smoke and dust cloud from within - flickering flames from the
shooting, steadier flame from one of the scout cars, burning.

The roar of the hillside being torn by another missile, the
chatter
of a machine gun. Then the noise of only one of the two cannons and a
newer, brighter source of light within the cloud of smoke and dust.

Miandad nudged him, leaning his head towards him. "It is time
for us
to make a move!" he yelled. "Otherwise, there will be no one left alive
to question!"

Hyde blanched as he looked down into the boiling, dense cloud
garishly lit by flame. He could not, for a moment, shake off the
distance between himself and the action below. Then he nodded.
Together, they scrambled down the loose-surfaced slope, entering the
cloud of smoke and dust. Hyde wound his scarf around his face, coughing
violently, his eyes watering. He could see Miandad only as a shadow
beside him.