Shard Calls the Tune

by Philip McCutchan

  Shard nodded. “And maybe his own life’s more valuable to him than Hughes-Jones’s, when the crunch is near!”

  “I’d not be at all surprised,” Moriarty said evenly. “Which reinforces my view that you’re going to need to watch your step all the way from now, Kolotechin notwithstanding.”

  *

  Shard left the Embassy soon after to walk through for the junction of the Krasnaya Presnya and Ulitsa Chaikovskovo. He still felt somewhat sour: Mortimer Moriarty was a shade too smug and inclined to stress the obvious. Shard had been accustomed to watching his step for a good many years now and didn’t need warning from men who shined the seats of their trousers on office chairs. A touch of field work would be good for Mr Moriarty. Once again, Shard was on the lookout for tails; once again he failed to isolate anyone that seemed suspicious, but that didn’t have to prove anything. However, if there really was no tail, it was unlikely to be due to providence. Back in the Lubyanka, when the plump man had told him he was to be released, he had smelt the fishiness: Kolotechin, even then? Kolotechin was, after all, still the KGB boss. He wouldn’t have any need to explain his decisions to underlings, and in any case those underlings would be well able to dream up an interpretation for themselves: the Englishman was to be given rope, lulled, and then brought in again once he had committed himself; after which he wouldn’t be released but could be used against the political West in no mean fashion. The headlines in Pravda would be joyful: BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY HEADS SPY MISSION. That was how the underlings would see any pro-Shard moves by Comrade Kolotechin. It was all quite neat, really. One way and another, it was a good thing he was on his way out of Russia. Or he hoped he was, anyway. A few more minutes and he saw the Lada go past him, with Hughes-Jones driving. He didn’t believe the Welshman had spotted him in the crowd, but in the thin traffic the Lada and its driver had been easy to pick up. Shard walked on; just beyond the intersection, which was right ahead now, it pulled in to the kerb and hovered with its engine still running.

  Shard crossed the junction. He approached the car; now he had been seen. Hughes-Jones pushed open the front passenger door and Shard got in. “All right?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Without ado, Hughes-Jones got on the move. Shard looked sideways at him; the face was tense, nervy, really uptight and no wonder: there was a hell of a long drive ahead through what might prove very hostile territory. Once Kolotechin reached Malta, their fives would be in the shaky hands of Hedge. There was another thing: back in the Embassy, just before he’d left, Moriarty had made a valid point, one that had naturally occurred to Shard already. Quite apart from the question of Kolotechin, was he not placing a lot of reliance on Hughes-Jones? He was indeed; but Shard believed the Welshman was strictly on the level. Nevertheless, no harm would come from putting an important point to him. As Hughes-Jones drove fast for the south-western outskirts of Moscow, Shard gently but obviously patted his shoulder-holster.

  “I’m trusting you,” he said. “I’m sure I can do that.”

  “You can, yes.”

  “But if not … if there’s any double dealing, you won’t five to benefit from it, I promise you.”

  “There will not be double dealing,” Hughes-Jones said. “You have my word on that.”

  Shard was prepared to believe him; there was an honesty about the man that came through strongly, and was added to when Shard questioned him about what he had said to the Russians after their meeting in the Sokolniki Park. Hughes-Jones admitted readily that he had told his interrogators of the message about his wife but confirmed that he had made no mention of Shard’s warning as to his likely re-arrest and death. He had felt that would have been wrong and unfair.

  *

  “Ah, there you are.” Sir Humphrey dropped into a chair alongside Hedge in the lounge of the Phoenicia, where Hedge was sipping sherry prior to dining.

  Hedge looked surprised. “Well, well, well,” he said, and indicated the sherry. “You’ll join me?”

  “No, thanks, I really haven’t time. My wife’s decided she wants to dine out and I have to pick her up.” The High Commissioner lowered his voice. “There’s been a message for you.”

  Hedge showed interest. “From Whitehall?”

  “No. Our Moscow Embassy. I broke it down myself — that was a liberty, I know, but I thought it justified since the prefix was urgent and I couldn’t contact you here when I rang —”

  “I decided to swim at Sliema. The heat, you know.”

  “Yes, quite. I take it I’m forgiven. Here it is.” Sir Humphrey passed across a sheet of plain paper — he wouldn’t commit the High Commission by the use of official stationery. Casually, Hedge unfolded the sheet of paper and ran his eye down it. Then he almost snarled. Trust Shard to muck things up. Hedge swore beneath his breath, crumpled the paper in his fist and called to the waiter for another sherry. It was too bad, really too bad. Here was the confirmation that his greatest prize ever, his ticket for a knighthood probably, was coming through next forenoon, and he was being adjured by a blasted policeman to forego him — to tell him not to defect just yet! Very likely he wouldn’t be able to tell him anything; very likely Kolotechin would simply defect as was his aim, walking out of the conference in the Palace and presenting himself at the British High Commission. What then, for heaven’s sake? Send him back?

  And what about that confounded Gloster B. Hockaway? Suppose, after all, he got to Kolotechin first?

  Hedge made up his mind. “My duty’s clear as regards Kolotechin. I have to take him in the moment he leaves the Russian party and seeks asylum.”

  “But then the Russians are going to know, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, of course. It can’t be helped. At least, we’ll have Kolotechin.”

  “And the two men trying to get him out of Russia?”

  “Yes. It’s too bad. I’m very sorry, very sorry indeed.”

  “You don’t mean you’ll just leave them to it, surely?”

  Hedge spread his hands and looked doleful. “I have no option. I have my orders, you see.”

  “Yes, but —”

  “My orders must be regarded as superior to my man’s request, Sir Humphrey. Kolotechin’s quite vital. The other person, the one leaving Russia — Hughes-Jones — he’s really of no significance at all, basically unimportant. As for my man, he’s well trained and experienced. All field men are liable to face this kind of thing, you know.”

  “You mean death, don’t you?”

  Hedge looked fastidious. “It’s a word I don’t use, actually.”

  7

  The Lada was out of Moscow now, clear even of the outskirts. Hughes-Jones had contacted Kolotechin — openly, to state a complaint of interference — after Shard had spoken to him in the Sokolniki Park; Kolotechin had known all about Shard, as Shard had suspected. Russian intelligence was superb; so were the arrangements as made — and Kolotechin had acted fast. There was positively no pursuit of the Lada. Pursuit, however, didn’t have to be mounted only from behind; a check ahead was a kind of pursuit and there was all the time in the world for that to come. They had not only to cross out of Russia itself; they had to get right through Hungary and into Austria. Hughes-Jones had said that was the route arranged by Kolotechin. They would enter Austria via the frontier check-point at St Gotthard in Hungary, passing through to Heiligenkreuz on the Austrian side; then, after something like 1400 miles of danger, they would be in the clear and it would be up to them.

  “In the plural?” Shard had asked.

  “The plural, yes indeed. Kolotechin has provided for you, you see.”

  “I thought somehow he must have done. He’s taking a lot of interest … did you meet him often, when you were in custody?”

  “Often, yes. We had many discussions when he sent for me. He was decent to me, you know, very decent.”

  Shard grinned. “Just as a matter of interest, who converted who?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Kolotechin’s for out. You were inclined to want to sta
y in Russia.”

  “Yes, that is true, yes. I suppose each of us affected the other. I spoke much about God to Comrade Kolotechin. He was interested in God, you know, and I was a lay preacher.”

  Shard asked, “Did you convert him to religion, too?”

  “No, no. It was there in his heart already. That is one reason why he wishes to go to the West, you see. As a young man he had no belief, no God, and for very many years that was his situation, an atheist. Then God came to him, and he began to hate his work, what he was doing to men and women because of the politics, you know, and he made up his mind he must stop all that. But in Russia you cannot just stop or you are purged. So he had to leave.”

  “And you? You have God in Britain.”

  “In Wales, yes.”

  Shard lifted an eyebrow. “You’re a Welsh Nationalist, do I gather?”

  “Oh yes, Plaid Cymru, yes.”

  “I see. But God, now. It doesn’t add up, does it? As you’ve suggested yourself when speaking of Kolotechin, there’s no God in the Soviet Union.”

  Hughes-Jones shook his head. “No, no, there, you see, you are wrong. Very wrong indeed. God is everywhere.”

  “Yes, but —”

  “There are no buts, none at all. God is everywhere and that is a fact.”

  Hughes-Jones drove until midnight. He had told Shard that Kolotechin’s orders were that they should pull into the cover of some forest trees a few miles beyond the town of Spas Demensk, take some food — there was food and drink in the boot — sleep for a few hours and then set off again with the dawn. Farther along there would be ‘safe houses’ for proper rest and shelter. Hughes-Jones had also shown Shard the documentation provided by Kolotechin: two British passports, one in the name of Idris David Calland and the other in the name of John James Rowlands, bank clerks both, on holiday with visas and entry stamps to prove it. The shaven head of Hughes-Jones could pose problems, perhaps; but it was the fact that Britain possessed a number of skinheads and there was nothing laid down that bank clerks couldn’t be skinheads. That could be overcome; and so far, so good. It would all have been dead easy and no worries at all if only Kolotechin hadn’t had to defect before he’d expected to.

  Reaching the cover of the thick forest and driving right into a glade some distance off the road, they got out and stretched their legs. Hughes-Jones opened up the boot and brought out a hamper: black sausage, a bottle of Reisling, and some fresh bread and butter.

  “Lovely bread is this,” Hughes-Jones said, munching. “As good, I think, as ever I’ve bought in Llandovery, where there is the finest proper bakery in all Wales …”

  *

  Hockaway was cleaning his gun. He liked to keep it nicely oiled and fit for instant action; often in the past his life had depended on his gun and his own speed on the draw. Once, years ago, he had been an ordinary cop in the Texas Highway Patrol, into which had been absorbed the Texas Rangers, not to be confused with the similarly-named basketball team of later years; and his arduous duties had given him an abiding love for his gun, which was still a revolver and not an automatic. Hockaway didn’t trust automatics: they were too dam liable to jam at vital moments. Also, there was something about their construction that could make a man momentarily careless and imagine he could fire them from the cover of a pocket. Do that, and you could meet disaster. Sure, they fired through the pocket — but usually once only. After that one shot, the sons-of-bitches were liable to catch their slides on the lining and thus only half eject the spent cartridge. You didn’t ever try that with a revolver because commonsense told you the hammer would snag. Naturally, a good man didn’t in fact make the same mistake twice, but when he’d first used an automatic Hockaway had damaged a hand and the experience had put him off automatics for life. Yes, sir!

  He cleaned painstakingly, up in his room as the midnight hour struck somewhere in Valetta; cleaned and thought. That British agent, the man Hedge. Bone-headed as any Britisher he’d ever met. His face had been showing plenty, all evening. Something was in the air right enough and for Hockaway’s money it meant the British had got word of Kolotechin’s ETA. It couldn’t be anything else. If so, that meant the US Embassy in Moscow needed a hefty kick in the pants to help cure slackness, since no word had come through from them, or if it had, it hadn’t reached Hockaway. That was the only thing that made him slightly doubt his diagnosis; Americans were usually very efficient and knocked spots off the British. Which in its turn raised another point: maybe the Britisher had got hold of a bum steer.

  Any way it turned out, it behoved Hockaway to be in all respects ready. He wouldn’t shirk a showdown, he wasn’t the sort: that guy he’d shot in Cuba … he’d had no option, but even so it had taken some glossing over. Sure, the guy had been only a Cuban and this Hedge was British, and Britain and America were friendly; but when the chips were down Hockaway was still possessed of the killer instinct and this Hedge, he’d better watch it. Kolotechin was a big prize and the US needed something like that. Too many loud mouths throughout the world were criticising the USA and those mouths could be stoppered for a while if a big bug like Kolotechin chose America to defect to, so it was up to him to go to the limit if necessary. Hockaway’s mind slid back over the years: he’d been known to his friends and to authority as the whizz-kid of the Highway Patrol. His record was the best. No gunman or motorist had ever got away from him. Whizz-kid Hockaway had been, and still was he believed, a one-man American equivalent of the glamour outfit that the Canadians called the Mounties.

  His gun cleaned, he had a stiff rye from his flask and went to bed. Kolotechin wouldn’t come by night, he was pretty sure of that. From information received, Kolotechin’s intention was to drop off from some official delegation, and official delegations didn’t arrive nocturnally. Hockaway slept well and was up bright and early; he cut breakfast and drove out in the general direction of Luqa, using the Fiat he’d hired on arrival. He left the Fiat some distance away from the airfield and thereafter walked to a remote part of the perimeter and lay low after carrying out a reconnaissance through binoculars. After a while, things began to stir. The odd aircraft had come in, unimportant flights as per schedule, but towards 1030 hours a difference was noticeable. What looked like VIPs began arriving in big cars and some troops also came in, in personnel carriers. So did police. Men lower in the social structure seemed to be sprucing the place up, wielding brooms and hoses. Behind the smart, official cars a little later on, a seedy gharry drove up and a fat figure got out. Hockaway, recognising Hedge through his binoculars, sniggered. Britain must indeed be broke.

  8

  The Russian dawn had come up clear and bright; bread and butter sufficed for breakfast, and then the black Lada emerged from the forest and continued south-westwards, making for the Ukrainian town of Chop where they would cross the border into Hungary. Hughes-Jones was morose at times, in good spirits at others. He seemed to be a mercurial man, for the changes were swift. He was plainly looking forward to seeing Wales again but at the same time was having doubts about putting himself on the western side of the Russian border. Shard, who didn’t believe the man had been exactly converted to Communism but had perhaps been following some God-given directive, tried to keep him on the Wales tack.

  “A lovely country …”

  “In parts, yes.” Hughes-Jones seemed to be a realist. “Brecon, now, there’s a place for you! The beacons, you know. Breathtaking, is that.”

  “God’s work?”

  “Oh, indeed, yes, God’s work is right. Unspoiled nature. God never made the valleys as they are now. That was man, and the greed for money. That is not quite the case in Russia.”

  The point was arguable, but Shard didn’t argue it; it had been a mistake to mention God, who had led back to Russia. They drove for some while in a fairly friendly silence, enjoying the early morning so far as possible: Shard’s mind was filled with mental signposts to danger ahead. He looked at his watch: six-thirty. In two and a half hours Kolotechin was due to leave Moscow
. After that they should have another two hours minimum, probably more before the word was passed back to the Kremlin. With any luck, much more, since Kolotechin would probably not show his hand all that soon. Yet he might; it all depended on the circumstances in Malta, and Hedge could rush his fences. One thing could be relied on: their route out, as given by Kolotechin to Hughes-Jones, would probably not be known to anyone else in Moscow, and that gave hope. But if the truth about Kolotechin emerged the borders would be put under extra close watch. That, unfortunately, could be relied on too … for the hundredth time since leaving Moscow, Shard checked his sums: 1400 miles from Moscow to the Austrian border. They could, with luck, average fifty mph leaving aside stops for rest and food. Twenty-eight hours, say, plus those essential stops. They wouldn’t have that long, but the Welshman was being sensible really in not overly speeding; a reckless belt, which was a strong temptation to Shard, might attract attention. The roads were not too good for speed in any case, and from time to time there were men and women about, groups going to their work in the land communes probably, the collective farms. They were straggling about, not used to much traffic; to kill one would be fatal in more than the one sense. They stared with interest and waved as the Lada went past. Shard and Hughes-Jones waved back, smiling. There was a curious and quite marked benignity in the Welshman’s smile, like God shining through. Shard wondered, as the miles fell away behind, how Hughes-Jones reconciled nuclear physics with lay preaching. His career must have sat oddly with him in the pulpit. But he was not of an age to have been involved in the early days when the war potential was all that mattered; he was probably one of the Atoms for Peace generation. The atom having once been split, it had to be harnessed and accepted as a fact thereafter. Questioned, Hughes-Jones said as much.

  “There are those of us, you see, who feel a responsibility that all the knowledge should not be in the hands of the war-orientated scientists.”