by Craig Thomas
"What the hell do you want with me, Wilkes?" he yelled, at the same time scurrying along the wall, deeper into the warehouse, almost on all fours. Weak moonlight seemed to drip with the rain from broken skylights in the roof above him. Something—?
Nothing.
Wilkes's voice pursued him, and there was movement from ahead of him. He crouched silently against the wall.
"We have our orders, Patrick. We have to render you harmless," Wilkes announced dispassionately.
Hyde was shuddering with exertion, damp, cold and terror.
"Why?" he yelled out in anguish. "Why?"
His body had given up, collapsing into spasm and chill numbness.
"You know why, Patrick. London says you're under suspicion." Wilkes's voice oozed insincerity. "Sorry. You've been a naughty boy." Then, as if slightly unsure of the endgame, Wilkes shouted: "Where are those bloody lights?"
Hyde's hand gripped the steel of a girder. Unwillingly, his eyes traced it aloft. It grew up the whitewashed wall like a tree. Part of the framework supporting the roof, some reinforcement of the original wooden structure.
"I've got them," he heard someone call distantly. "Ready when you are."
Hyde's other hand — stuffing the pistol into its holster — climbed up the girder, involuntarily. Then his left hand climbed, then right, so that he was standing upright, pressed against the wall. Right hand encountering a handhold, left foot a foothold, left hand, right foot, right hand…
He was climbing, past the lower crossbeam, up towards the roof. The noises he was making were like the scrabbling of rats, perhaps discountable by the men below him. The lower crossbeam was below him now, and the weak moonlight cast the faintest sheen. The black bar of the upper steel girder was still above him. If it was more than six feet below the broken skylight, he could never get out that way -
"Everyone under cover?" he heard Wilkes ask, interrupting his doubts. It had to be no more than six—
The others replied; his hearing, choked with his heartbeat and breathing, could not distinguish direction. They seemed all around him.
Lights—
A glare of whitish light. He scrambled across the girder, lying flat for a moment, then rising onto his haunches, hands white as they gripped the cold, wet steel. He was sitting like a waiting animal, yet the posture suggested resignation, immobility at the same moment. A pool of shadow lay below him, cast from his body by the…
No, not his body, Wilkes's body as the man moved out into the open. They couldn't see him, a gauze of light between him and the ground, thrown by the lamps suspended on long wires. He was above the light—
Rain seeped through the skylight onto his neck. His forearms and shoulders already ached with the pressure he was exerting through them simply to remain still and balanced on the narrow girder. Wilkes was almost directly below him. An animal would have dropped at that point, that moment — an animal would have ignored the odds of four or five to one.
"Patrick? Come on, Patrick…" Wilkes was regretting his bravado, regretting the open and the hard, dusty light.
Hyde looked up. Five, six, six and a half? Jagged glass, but bare wood in places — rotten wood? One jump, one stretch only. Or wait—?
Perhaps for no more than a minute they would be surprised, confused, puzzled, inactive. Then the ratlike noises would take shape and purpose and identity, and when they had scoured the floor area and the ground-level hiding places, they would look up.
Look up—
Six and a half; wet, dark, paint-peeled window frame; jagged glass, no footholds — he could imagine his shoulders heaving up and through, legs kicking, noise of effort, of cracking wood and glass, then the surprised, upturned faces and the guns aimed at the struggling, kicking legs…
A shudder ran through his aching arms and shoulders. He steadied himself, then looked down. Four of them, emerging from the shadows against the walls, collecting beneath him — Wilkes waving his gun, miming instructions now… one moving towards a stack of wet cardboard boxes, another back into the recesses of the warehouse, a third moving away towards an open door to some disused office.
Apart for a moment, then they'd be drawn back together again—
Now—
No movement—
Stand up.
Hands letting go, reluctantly. Thighs and calves feeling weak, rejecting the effort. Hands free, fingers numb, slow to flex. Arms aching. Legs quivering as they straighten, window not coming close enough. Arms protesting as they stretch above the head, fingers clenched to grasp. Touch — not enough. Touch; grip.
Yes, close enough. Girder wet, foot slipping a fraction. Wood — wood sound enough. Grip.
Now.
Hyde heaved at his seemingly laden body, drawing it up towards the skylight and the rain blowing in. His arms shrieked with cramp and the pain of his effort. Slowly, his head came through the skylight into a windy night, ragged clouds being scuttled and bullied across gaps of stars and the sliver of a new moon. His shoulders passed his elbows, and he kicked with his legs. The wood of the window frame groaned loudly, and he scrambled through, leaving the skylight empty, a hole through which Wilkes's cry of surprise pursued him.
The roof sloped away from him. Splinters of wet wood pained his fingers and palms. Other shouts below him now, and the concussion of two shots striking the corrugated iron of the roof, their impact shuddering through his hands and the soles of his feet.
Quickly, quickly, his mind bullied, echoing Wilkes's cries from inside the warehouse. He scuttled down the slope of the wet, ice-cold iron roof towards the guttering. He extended his legs, using his heels as brakes. The guttering coughed in protest, and shifted, but held. Hyde lay back for a moment, pressed against the roof listening. Running footsteps, shouted orders, pauses of intent silence — the hunt. He sat up, and leaned his body over the narrow alley that ran between the warehouse in which he had been trapped and its neighbour. Empty. Ten feet—?
He lowered himself over the gutter, clinging to it, wincing at every groan and squeak of protest it uttered. His legs dangled for a moment, and then he dropped.
"Here!" someone yelled, only yards away. "Come on—!"
Inexperienced, some cold and previously unused part of his brain informed him. The man was slow, undecided, afraid. Kill it—
Hyde was on his haunches, absorbing the impact with the ground, and he fought the momentary weakness after effort and the trauma of surprise and shock. The pistol was in his hand with only a fractional delay — kill it — danger — trap closing, insisted the cold, now-admitted, now-controlling part of him. Kill it.
Hyde fired twice, and the body to which the voice had belonged, the body that had prompted vocal chords to utter a cry for help, bucked away against the wall of the warehouse, then slid into a patch of deep shadow, losing shape, identity, volition. Then Hyde pushed himself to his feet and ran.
Broken wooden slats over a glassless window. He clambered up onto the sill, and kicked at the rotten wood. It gave inwards, instantly disintegrating into wet sawdust. He hesitated for a moment, hunched and staring into the interior of the dark, wet-smelling warehouse, and then he jumped, colliding almost immediately with cardboard that gave soggily, and rolled and tumbled through a stack of boxes and cartons.
No way back, another part of his brain informed him. The icy part had retreated momentarily. This part was nervy, feverish, close to panic. He had killed one of his own. Now, he was no longer one of their own, one of them.
They were going to kill me…
No way back. It's over. You're out. You're dead. He could smell the recently-fired gun in the damp warehouse air. He thrust it, warm-barrelled, into his pocket.
He scrambled out of the wreckage of old packing-cases and empty cartons, arms outstretched, and blundered across the warehouse. He could hear footsteps, then silence, then a curse. The elimination order on himself was now precisely defined and endorsed. There was now no possibility that they would not kill him if they had the opportunity
.
Gate—
A minute, perhaps two, and then they would guard the gates against him. The only direction in which he could be certain there was not a blind alley lay towards the gates through which he had followed Wilkes. Perhaps he had less than a minute.
His claw-bent fingers collided with the opposite wall. Now he could almost see the faint gleam of its whitewash. Direction—? There were no noises from outside the window, from the kneeling group around the dead thing slumped in the shadow. Door, then—?
This warehouse was closer than the first to the gates, he would not have to cross their line of fire, they would be behind him from the start of his run.
He moved slowly, carefully towards the doors. To his adjusted night-vision, the warehouse now possessed a pallid gleam. The floor space was empty. He reached the double-doors, touching them with the urgent delicacy of a blind man. One huge, rusted bolt above his head and below it the doors rested slightly ajar from one another. One bolt—
He listened. His advantage was draining away. He touched the bolt, trying to ease it. It squeaked, then grumbled. He let it go, as if it contained a charge, held his breath, and then jerked at it. It slid noisily out and he heaved open the.drunkenly-leaning doors.
Voices—?
Traffic, then his own footsteps beating across the slippery cobbles, splashing noisily in puddles. Other footsteps, then the first shot. He began to weave in his running, slipped once, regained purchase. The gates ahead of him wobbled in his vision, but he could discern no one outlined against the street-lamps beyond. He collided with them then propelled himself through the gap he had left. A shot struck one of the scrolled ornamentations, and careered away. Then he was in the wide, cobbled street, and a trarn flashed sparks at him like a signal of assistance. He dodged one car and ran across the street, just as the tram stopped.
A very old woman was climbing painfully aboard, helped by a younger woman. Hyde, his breath escaping and being recaptured in great sobs, watched in a fever of impatience — left foot, stick, hip swung, right foot, totter, the young woman's arm braced against the weight that threatened to topple back off the platform. There was a figure at the gates, then a second shadow. Come on, come on—
The old woman heaved her centre of gravity forward into her habitual arthritic hunch again, and then tapped a step forward. The younger woman placed her left foot on the platform. Someone — a tall figure, not Wilkes — was pointing towards the tram. Come on, come on—
He had to clench his teeth to keep the words in. The tall figure began running across the road. The younger woman had both feet on the platform. Through the lighted glass of the rear of the tram, two figures were moving across the road like fish in a bowl; black, shadowy fish, hunting.
Three steps, and the old woman had still hardly mounted the lowest of them.
Trap, trap—!
Hyde turned his head wildly, realising his stupidity, his meek acceptance of the first assistance he had recognised. On the tram, he was trapped. There was nowhere else -
Trap, safe — trap — safe…
He pushed past the two women as gently as he could, squeezing past the surprised malevolence of the old woman's face and her hunched, tottering form. He passed down the tram. Now he was the fish in the lit bowl. Timing, timing. He could take them all the way on the tram, but they'd still be there when it emptied. They could wait. It had to be timing, but he was already beginning to realise that the information was erroneous. Its origins were fictional.
Two men hopping on and off the New York subway — a film, Christ, nothing but a film—! Wires crossed, not training, just a bloody film—! French Connection, man with a beard, jumping on and off…
He should never have got on the fucking tram—!
Standing opposite the centre door of the tram, he watched the door by which he had entered. Both doors were open. Wilkes's face, lighting up and hardening in the same moment, bobbed into view behind the two women, still not seated. Where was the other one? Wilkes's expression promised him full retribution; malevolent, full of hate, full of pleasure. Where was—?
Wilkes's smile was broadening, and the tall man was standing on the pavement opposite the centre door. They'd seen the film, too. Hyde let his shoulders slump. The tall man stepped onto the platform, raised a foot to the step.
The driver waited. The tall man stepped back. He'd follow in the car, having blocked Hyde's escape. The driver pressed the bell, and the door moved fractionally. Hyde went through without touching it and the Heckler & Koch's barrel struck the tall man across the forehead. He staggered back, blinded by pain and sudden blood.
Inside the lit glass bowl of the tram, Wilkes's mouth opened like a fish's. Hyde stepped over the tall man's still form, and ran, at first as if to catch the tram, then into a narrow, ill-lit street, guessing it headed towards the West-bahnhof and light and crowds.
He ran. The noise of the tram faded behind him. There was no noise yet of a car engine firing or of pursuing footbeats. It was enough of a gap.
He ran.
* * *
Peter Shelley remembered looking out across dark, light-pricked London on numerous earlier occasions from the broad windows of his office in Century House. The river wound like a black snake between two borders of light, its back striped by the lamps of bridges. Increasingly, his last, reluctant, half-ashamed cogitations of the day had come to concern Kenneth Aubrey. He could not help but consider himself as some kind of betrayer. Aubrey and the old order — he owed them everything, including his latest and most gratifying promotion to the directorship of East Europe Desk. That office was a recognised stage on the road that led to the very top: part of the Jacob's Ladder of SIS mythology. He should repay, honour his debts to Aubrey. Yet whenever he decided that, an image came to him of a sunlit garden in Surrey, and his wife pushing the swing which held and delighted his small daughter. He was always the observer of the scene, and he seemed to himself to lurk beneath the apple trees like an intruder, someone who intended harm to that secure and loved couple. The feeling of danger posed to them was so intense it was as if he held a weapon in his hands, or the two people were naked and vulnerable and he, a stranger, obscenely desired sexual violence.
Paul Massinger had hinted darkly at SIS collusion with the KGB, on Hyde's word. Shelley trusted both men, and could not ignore them. But Babbington, with Sir William's blessing, now controlled SIS along with MI5, and Shelley was in danger — his family was in peril along with his mortgage and his promotion and his career and his ambitions — if he did more than nothing. He must do nothing, nothing at all.
He turned from the nighttime view of the city, and the telephone seemed immediately at the focus of his vision. He all but removed his right hand from his pocket to reach for it, then relented. His breathing was audible, almost a gasp. There was one more moment of reluctance, and then he picked up the receiver and dialled an outside line. The telephone purred. He watched the door, as if afraid of being surprised in some guilty act. He had to, no matter what the cost. The calculation, the selfishness he had hoped would come to him, had not materialised. He was helpless before his obligations to Aubrey. He had to help -
He dialled his home, and waited. His wife's voice gave their number.
"Darling…" he began.
"Peter — where are you?" Then testiness creeping in, tones of a dinner postponed or spoiled. "You're not still at the office, are you?"
"Yes — sorry. Something's come up. Can dinner be kept?" he added hopefully.
"No!" she snapped, then: "Oh, I suppose so. Honestly, Peter, you said you'd be early this evening."
"I know," Shelley soothed. A hard lump of guilt appeared in his throat. "I'm sorry. Look, it won't take me very long. I'll be with you by—" He studied his watch, a birthday present from his wife. " — oh, eight at the latest. OK?"
She sighed. "OK. Don't be any later." Her voice had hardened again, as if being mollified had left her feeling cheated. "Please don't be any later," she repeated with
heavy irony.
"I promise—"
The receiver clicked and she was gone. Reluctantly, he put down the instrument. Her testiness, he felt, was entirely justified; he felt more bereft at it than he might have done had they been more affectionate. He was betraying her, all the more so because she was not an ambitious wife, not pushing. She might even have supported his decision to assist Aubrey, to repay his debts. That knowledge was almost insupportable.
Swiftly, he left and locked his office, and made for the lifts. The corridor was empty except for a cleaner with a noisy vacuum. She did not look up as he passed, as if to mirror his shifty guilt. The lift arrived almost immediately, surprising him, and it did not stop until he had reached the basement level which housed Central Registry.
He stepped out into an echoing concrete corridor. He waved his ID quickly at the duty security officer opposite the doors of the lift. The man nodded, even smiled briefly. Shelley was known, Shelley was senior…
The refrain ran in his head like a mocking jingle. Shelley was recognisable to everyone at Century House, Shelley was a coming man, Shelley was known, Shelley was senior, senior, senior…
Known came back at him out of the darkness in his head. It was easy to get into Registry, easy to fulfil Massinger's request. And easy for others to remember he was there, what he wanted.
A second duty officer, then the doors opened automatically to admit him.
The cavern of Registry retreated before him, the strip-lighting in the ceiling shedding a dusty light. There was a musty, underground chill to the place, too, despite the efficient heating. Registry was a sterile, low-ceilinged library, even a cathedral nave. The confessionals of partitioned booths lay to his left, each of them containing a microfiche viewer and a VDU terminal with access to the main computer files. It was a place to which Aubrey very rarely came; he dispatched emissaries if he required files, digests, or information. Shelley shivered with his own nervousness. The place repelled him, too, at that moment.
Registry retreated into shadows where rows of ceiling-high metal shelves held the hundreds of thousands of low-grade files that had not yet been sifted for transfer to computer tape or for shredding. The place was almost deserted. He showed his identification at the desk, and the clerk gestured towards an empty booth. Shelley hurried to it like a man on whom it had suddenly begun to rain.