The Bear's Tears (79 page)

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.

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.