The Bear's Tears (38 page)

It was suddenly important, like reorientation, like disguise and
bluff, as a guard rammed his body against him in the doorway.

The Czech embassy in Kensington, amid all the old and graceful
and
corrupted buildings the ugliest and most modern.

He snapped the guard to attention, straightened his cap, wiped
at
his superficial injuries, and glared.

"Colonel Petrunin wants a report - now! Out of my
way!"
The guard's eyes lost suspicion a moment after his Kalashnikov bisected
his features, at attention. Then his eyes became afraid, and Hyde
realised how young he was. Like 1914 - the Russians were sending their
youngest, their youth… "That's better," he snapped, passing the guard
and making for the iron-railed, mock-marble stairs which had already
begun to pull away from the wall alongside them. He sneered at his own
heated image. None of these poor sods was in the Party, in all
probability. Sending their best —? Don't be stupid —

He smelt burning paper. Someone had panicked and was already
beginning to incinerate sensitive material, the incriminating files, as
if a liberating army lay out there in the square. He remembered the SIS
house-joke when the Ayatollah's mobs had climbed the US embassy fence
in Tehran. The only prayer you could hear, so it ran, was for another
box of matches…

He steadied himself at the turn of the stairs. The adrenalin was
out
of control, running like heady wine. He couldn't restrain his thoughts.
That was Petrunin's doing. Even as he saw the sleeve of his uniform
jacket, he envisaged the boy's broken, bleeding head - a small thin
fount of blood - bang back against the rocks before the dead body slid
into a heap. He rubbed his cheek, reminding himself of the stinging
pain. Stop it, stop it —

His hand was quivering, his arm shaking as he gripped the cold
iron
banister. Counter-productive, he told himself. Out of control. He'll
kill you in this state…

Helicopter noises, closing now outside —

Helicopters laying black eggs that opened to let out a mist that
Petrunin had ignited - fifty men dead, charred like burnt biscuits in
no more than a moment. A red helicopter that gloated its way back down
the valley —

He could kill you in this state —

Two hard-faced men in civilian clothes passed him, their arms
clutching bundles of files. They did not even glance at him. They were
obeying an order to abandon ship that had not yet been given. The noise
of the helicopter was louder still. He looked through the windows into
the compound. One helicopter - only one so far, its lights smearing
red-blue-white across the snow on the lawn, red-blue-white, as it
descended.

In five minutes, Petrunin would be on his way back to army
headquarters and be lost for good.

He clattered up the rest of the flight of steps, sprinted along
the
corridor, the plan of the building he had drawn for himself from the
dead boy's description clear in his mind, as if he had summoned in onto
a screen. Almost, in the heightened state of his senses and
imagination, he could see himself like a moving dot on that screen.
Other end of the building - this corner - empty corridor…

A narrow-skirted girl emerged from an office. Hyde sent her
tumbling
as he charged into and past her. He heard his boot crunch on her lost
spectacles, heard her cry as he rounded another corner. Outside, now
that the rotors of the first of the helicopters had slowed, he could
hear the chatter of rifles on automatic, answered more distantly by the
guns of the Pathans from the square.

He looked at his watch. Twelve minutes - less - remaining.
Perhaps
four minutes before the corridor in which he hesitated like a lost
visitor was filled with rescuers, ready to escort Petrunin to that
first helicopter in the company of the Soviet ambassador.

Guards in the next corridor. He could hear the nervous words
flickering between them like gamblers' bids. He strode around the last
corner. Carpet, suddenly, not linoleum. Petrunin's KGB suite of
offices. He glanced out of the tinted windows along one wall of the
corridor. The guards had their noses pressed against the glass like
children at a fairground.

"Back to your posts!" he snapped.

Troops were running across the light-mossed, snowy lawn towards
the
main embassy building. One of them fell, killed by a bullet which could
have come from either side. Other soldiers scuttled beneath the idling
rotors of the MiL-8 transport towards the KGB building.

Three minutes.

The soldiers had already sullenly shuffled back to their posts,
almost forming a ceremonial guard for inspection as he passed down the
corridor to the main double doors at the end. One guard, two, three,
four —

"Sir - there's no admittance," the fourth guard offered,
unslinging
his Kalashnikov from his shoulder.

Hyde turned and glared at him. He pointed at his forehead and
cheek.

"Do you think I've come for the coffee?" he asked. "Comrade
Colonel
Petrunin wants a full report on the situation at the gates. I was at
the gates, unlike you lucky bastards! Understand! You want to delay my
report to the Comrade Colonel?"

"No, sir."

"Then step aside. And don't admit anyone else, not until you've
seen
the proper authority."

"Sir."

Hyde passed swiftly on before he could be asked for papers he
did
not possess. He knocked once, loudly and peremptorily, on the double
doors then opened one of them and slipped into the ante-room, his hand
fiddling with the holster flap over the butt of the Makarov pistol.

A male secretary on the telephone glanced up immediately, his
only
concern his inability to identify the features partially disguised by
the cuts and bruising. One hand reached into the top drawer of his
desk. His left hand still held the telephone. He continued his urgent
request for more back-up.

Then the Stechkin automatic came above the level of the desk and
the
telephone was ignored, and Hyde shot him twice, the Makarov still
pressed against his hip. The secretary ducked under the table, as if
looking for coins he had dropped. The telephone receiver followed him
with a clatter.

Hyde swiftly crossed the carpeted, comfortably furnished
ante-room
to Petrunin's door. Petrunin, in his present circumstances, would be as
alert as a cat. How many of them were in the room, how many guns —?

He wrenched at the handle of the door, felt resistance, then
flung
his shoulder against it, aware of the hollow, soft stomach he presented
to any bullet fired through the door. There was a muffled cry and he
stepped through, closing the door behind him with his heel. It slammed
shut like a call to attention.

Hyde's eyes took in the room.

Petrunin was alone. In uniform, looking much older, much more
cunning. Spreadeagled by Hyde's thrust against the door, he had raised
himself to a sitting position on a circular, rumpled Chinese rug.
Highly polished wooden floor, Afghan, Persian, Indian rugs and
wall-hangings. Exotic. Not Western.

Petrunin was looking at him. And at the Makarov levelled at his
stomach by a young lieutenant with his back pressed against the door.
There was something familiar… ?

"Good morning, Comrade General Petrunin," Hyde said in English
and
he could not help, even though his body was shaking with reaction and
his voice had quavered, indulging in an almost boyish grin.

"Hyde, Hyde." was all Petrunin said. And then once more:

"Hyde," Petrunin repeated once more, then added: "You've come a
long
way."

He exuded an easy, false confidence as he sat on the rug, almost
as
if welcoming a guest to some casual, even exotic party. Hyde remained
with his back against the door. There was no sound from outside, but he
was intensely aware of the dead body of the secretary behind his desk.
Anyone who entered the outer room —

"Comrade General Petrunin," Hyde acknowledged, hearing the noise
of
a second helicopter approaching.

Through the long window behind Petrunin's desk, he could see
people
being hurried by greatcoated soldiers towards the first helicopter. The
ambassador, a dark coat thrown over his pyjamas, waded through the
patchy snow in large fur boots, a woman clutching a dressing-gown
around her followed him. He had less than ten minutes by the timetable
they had agreed before the raid. He had little more than a minute in
this office before Petrunin's rescuers arrived.

Petrunin got up slowly, casually. He appeared unafraid. "You
seem to
have entangled yourself in the web quite willingly," the Russian
observed, flicking the rug's fringe into greater order with the toe of
his right boot. Hyde watched the man's eyes and hands and the shape and
intention of his body.

Beyond Petrunin, the rescued figures were clambering or being
pushed
into the interior of the MiL helicopter. The noise of approaching
rotors was louder now.

"Time for us to go," Hyde said.

"Of course. Then we can walk into those who have come for me."
He
pointed to the window. "Rescuing the ambassador is a matter of correct
form - the helicopter has, in reality, come for me. There is no way out
for you."

"Perhaps - come on."

Petrunin smiled but did not move. The room was overhot. The
central
heating purred and clicked. Petrunin contemplated his desk. Then he
turned on Hyde.

"Why are you here?"

Hyde grinned. "You know I'll kill you, don't you," he said. It
was
not a question. "You know I'd have killed you in Australia because I
knew I should have killed you in England. You're sure of it."

"And that is why you're here?" Petrunin was watching for signs
of
growing impatience. Yet he was also troubled.

Hyde shook his head. "I'm here because of
Teardrop
-
there, I've given you your passport. I need you alive."

Petrunin laughed aloud. "Then they've done it —?" he asked
excitedly. "I wondered, when I saw that Aubrey… but, it's
Teardrop
,
you say. My scheme." His faced darkened. "While I rot
here!" he added with a black and utter bitterness.

"Come on."

"There's no way out for you."

"Nor for you. I'll kill you, if it comes to it. You know that -
quickly
now!"

Hyde moved closer, his eyes intently watching Petrunin's face as
he
brushed his hand over the man's jacket, his torso. Then he moved
carefully behind the Russian, touching along the line of his belt, then
brushing his back. Petrunin had no weapon. Hyde gestured to the door
with the Makarov, and Petrunin hesitated only for a moment, then
collected his greatcoat from the rack and picked up his cap and gloves
from a small table. He passed with assured nonchalance out of his
office, Hyde close behind him, the Makarov drawn as if for Petrunin's
protection.

A guard blundered into the outer office. From his position, Hyde
could see the secretary's legs, despite the cover of the desk. The
guard saluted. Hyde closed on Petrunin, touching the small of his back
with the barrel of the Makarov. Then he stepped quickly away again.

"Is my escort here?" Petrunin demanded.

"Yes, Comrade Colonel —!"

Petrunin's shoulders twitched at the mention of his present
rank, as
if it pained him that Hyde was present to witness his reduced
circumstances.

"Then get on with it. Get out of the way!"

The guard's face was white, thin. He held the door open. Hyde
motioned him away from it and slammed it shut behind them, just as
Petrunin appeared about to issue an instruction to the guard - perhaps
to assist his secretary… ? Hyde grinned. There was the slightest shrug
from Petrunin as he donned his greatcoat. Hyde glanced through the
windows. A splay of lights on the patchy snow, the noises of a
helicopter's descent. In the windowed corridor stood three soldiers and
an officer, the soldiers in combat fatigues and armed with AKM rifles.
Crack troops. The officer saluted Petrunin.

"Come quickly, Comrade Colonel," he instructed. "The helicopter
is
waiting for you." His glance passed over Hyde but was satisfied by the
uniform. Petrunin nodded but said nothing, then swiftly moved into and
beyond the circle of the three soldiers, shielding himself from Hyde
with the three bodies. Hyde realised he had lost the advantage.
Petrunin - this Petrunin - had an animal's quick, alert cunning. A word
- a moment of safety and a quick order - could kill him. The Russians
moved down the corridor and rounded the corner. Hyde hurried after
them, aware of his own danger. People were running and there was a
smell of burning paper and plastic and celluloid. Hyde sensed panic.
There was sporadic firing from beyond the embassy compound as the
second MiL helicopter, a big transport, began to sag into view, thirty
yards or so above the lawns, its lights playing over the grass and snow
and the bare trees on the other side of the compound. Still Petrunin
remained silent. The man was taking not the slightest chance. Hyde
guessed he had begun to enjoy the situation. He knew that the tables
had been turned - that now he had Hyde.

Hyde reached the top of the stairs. People pressed back as
Petrunin
and his small escort moved down the stairs, boots clattering, rifles
bristling, Petrunin at the centre of their tight circle. Hyde cursed
himself. He had allowed himself a moment of confidence in which he had
relaxed, and in that moment Petrunin had surrounded himself with a
protective curtain of soldiers. The helicopters had been minutes too
early, minutes —

A bright, false sunrise garishly lit the windows alongside the
stairs, gleaming whitely on each shocked, puzzled face. The officer,
Petrunin, each of the guards, each of the embassy staff. Hyde's eyes
were dazzled.

Petrunin glanced back up the steps that separated him from Hyde.
His
expression was shocked. For the moment, the man was incapable of giving
the order he might have issued an instant before. Move, then —