The Bear's Tears (67 page)

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…"