The Bear's Tears (80 page)

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 —