by Craig Thomas
"Your ambition's blinding you to everything except the surface…" Aubrey began.
"You had Castleford killed. You're a Russian agent — my God, to think what might have happened if we hadn't got hold of this! — and we'll have you for that. Especially for that." Babbington collected his briefcase, and made for the door. Looking at his watch, he said, "I'll send Eldon along in a little while. I'm sure you won't object to a late night? I doubt you could sleep, anyway."
* * *
"There. he's ready for you now." Cass inspected the dilated pupils of Karel Bayev, KGB Rezident in Vienna, as his plump, still fully-dressed form lolled in a deep armchair. The light of the room fell on Bayev's blank, dead-yet-alert features. The man looked capable of reason and speech at one moment, incapable even of movement at another. Massinger was disconcerted by proximity to such total imprisonment. "Try him out," Cass suggested as he filled another syringe with benzedrine. Hyde slipped silently back into the room through the door to the bedroom. Presumably, he had tied the girl and gagged her. A call from the Vice Squad had persuaded her to open the door, and shock had prevented her from having to be hurt or disabled as they pressed through. Hyde had gagged her with his hand and bundled her up the stairs in front of him. Bayev had been sitting idly drinking champagne, and at once called out to the girl as they opened the door of the lounge. He had recognised a type in Hyde almost immediately but Cass, holding Hyde's pistol, had quelled protest.
Simple preliminaries, Massinger reminded himself. Almost too easy. Now, begin—
Hyde had crossed to the window, almost unobserved. Bayev's pupils had not followed his progress. He was staring into some unknown middle distance.
Margaret—
Begin.
"Karel, old friend — so good to see you again!" Massinger exclaimed in Russian, attempting as close an impersonation of Pavel Koslov's ringing tones as he could. "Karel!" he tried again, catching in his memory the echo of Pavel's usual enthusiastic greeting. "It's Pavel — your old friend, Pavel!" He chuckled, imitating Pavel's delight, clear in his mind, from the darkened back of an opera box.
"Embrace him," Cass whispered. "Call his name again."
"Karel — come on, Karel!" Massinger bent forward and took Bayev by the sholders, kissing him on each cheek. "It's Pavel. I want you to show me Vienna, old man!"
Bayev seemed to snap into wakefulness. His eyes watched Massinger, who could not but believe that the fiction would be exposed in a moment, that Bayev would protest, attempt to rise from the chair, threaten, become frightened—
"Pavel — Pavel…"he muttered, his voice thick with phlegm.
"That'll clear in a minute," Cass observed nonchalantly. "Once the station's tuned in properly. Go on."
"I've four whole days in this beautiful city, and I'm ready for anything. Just like the school holidays, eh, old man? Tallinn — do you remember Tallinn? The girls?"
Cass was smiling broadly when Massinger glanced up at him. He nodded encouragingly. Hyde was also smiling, then he tossed his head towards the door and went out.
"Ah… aaah…" Bayev sighed. His hands moved in slow-motion, describing the female form in the air. "Yes — the girls in Vienna, too! Wait till you see some of them. Meet them, Pavel! Oh, yes—"
"Very well, old friend. And how are you — busy?"
"Too busy. Much too busy. But, I will give myself a special assignment for a few days — we'll enjoy ourselves!"
"Good, good." Massinger could not see the conversation unfolding any further. He had established the circumstances, the fiction of himself as Koslov, but he could not force his own imagination to ignite. He could not be Koslov.
"What now?" he whispered.
"You've got the script," Cass replied.
"Damn," Massinger breathed, then he said: "London is a pig, Karel, old friend. Trouble, trouble, trouble. I can't tell you how they're keeping us on our toes…" His voice and ideas trailed off once more.
Then Bayev said: "You complain? We had that bloody Deputy Chairman here again last week! My God, that operation is never-ending—!" Bayev was animated, waving his arms slowly like the sails of a windmill or the slow circling of a lighthouse beam.
"My God," Massinger whispered. Then: "Kapustin always was a real shit!"
"Too right, my friend, too r- right… y-es, oh… y-e-ss…"
"What's happening?"
"He's not lasting long, is he?" Cass replied. He moved towards Bayev's form, which now had slumped back in the armchair, his pupils tiny and hard like currants, his eyes staring blankly. His hands and legs lay like those of a dummy about to be folded into its case.
Cass injected benzedrine, and stood back. "He could be overtired or half-cut. I can't tell. Looks like you'll have to keep waking him." He looked at his watch. "If I want to catch the Frankfurt flight, I'd better go, I'll leave you the syringe. Remember, if he doesn't come out of it at any time, leave him alone."
"Very well."
Bayev snapped awake once more.
"Kapustin's a real shit," Massinger said at once.
"Who are you?" Bayev replied in a suspicious voice.
* * *
"Oh, Jesus—!"
"What is it, Wilkes? You told London. What did they say? What did they come back to you for?"
"Never mind — look, go out and get some chocolate cake, will you? I'm starving."
"Now? Everywhere's shut—"
"Not that little delicatessen on the corner. Go on, do as you're told for a change."
"Money first. I know you."
"Here — and don't be long."
"OK. See you."
"Thank God for that. Now, six… seven… four… eight… nine… three… one… five… Come on — Christ, if this hits the fan, Wilkes old son, you can forget a cushy berth next time out — come on… thank God — give me Savin — at once. Never mind, just put me through. Yes, yes, the bloody code of the day is Volgograd — bloody imaginative, isn't it? Hurry up! Savin, is that you? Listen. London just signalled. If you know where your Rezident is, check up on him and keep him secure. Why? Because someone's been into our Registry files, and they've been checking on your boss. Yes, and that someone's in Vienna now — probably with Hyde… yes, that's right, Hyde. So, if you know where he is, I should check up on him if I were you!"
* * *
"Pavel — It's Pavel," Massinger said hesitantly.
"Pavel?" Bayev was still suspicious. Massinger had been attempting to re-establish the fiction of his circumstances for more than five minutes. Cass, as if supremely indifferent, had left to catch his flight; Frankfurt then onward to Madrid, his job now simply to make himself secure. Massinger's task was proving difficult, if not impossible. It had been too easy, like a gleam of sun before fog returns.
"Yes, Pavel — come on, Karel, what's the matter with you? Pissed again?"
Bayev laughed. "Pavel!" he exclaimed. "You old rat, how are you? What are you doing in Vienna?"
"Holiday — fun! And business, of course."
"Not more orders — not more of this business. Does Kapustin never sleep?"
"Thank God," Massinger breathed.
The telephone began ringing. Startled, Massinger stared at it. He did not dare to pick it up. Bayev's round head swung slowly, and bobbed like a bird's on his thick neck as he attempted to focus on the ringing telephone.
"Don't bother with it—!" Massinger said, inspired. "No time for business now. I want you to show me some of the sights!"
Bayev's head swung back. "But, what if—?"
"It's not Kapustin, and who else are you afraid of? I've got Kapustin's instructions. Come on, we'll talk as we walk, eh? I've got a hell of a thirst on me!"
Bayev laughed. The telephone stopped ringing but he did not seem to notice.
A customer, a customer, Massinger prayed in the silence, then he said: "God, I'm thirsty!"
"Same old Pavel!"
"Well, why not? I do my job. Anyway, being a party drunk is a good cover. London society loves me!"
"And so they should. I know a nice new bar — the girls are delightful?"
"When was Kapustin here last?"
"Two weeks ago. We were running round with our arses hanging out trying to keep up with him. He was meeting the Englishman—"
"Aubrey?"
"Of course. Who else?"
Massinger paused. Here was the Pandora-box. Aubrey's ills lay inside it. And then he wondered: Is Aubrey in there, too? Is there something more? He could not bring himself to continue the conversation. Bayev sat patiently, hands folded in his lap, body upright, a machine awaiting a current of electricity. Massinger's hands quivered. He did not wish to discover…
The door opened. Hyde, preceded by a draught of cold air, entered the room. Massinger heard his ragged breathing and turned to him at once.
"Three cars," Hyde struggled to say, clinging to the door handle. "Three cars, and they're not friendly. What the bloody hell do we do with him?"
CHAPTER FIVE:
An Evening on the Town
"Well?" Hyde repeated. "What do we do with him? Not to mention ourselves?"
Massinger turned his gaze back to Bayev's face. He seemed unaware, untroubled by the collapse of the situation in which he believed himself to be; as if he had been switched off until required.
"I don't know — how close are they?"
"They're watching at the moment, cars drawn back maybe thirty yards on either side of ours. They'll be looking for our car first — then us. They'll try not to harm him, but don't you reckon on walking away."
"How did they—?"
"Christ knows — it doesn't matter! Get that bugger on his feet, Massinger."
"He can't be moved—"
"He'd better bloody well be, if you haven't finished with him!" Hyde moved into the room and through rather than across the heavy white carpet. He studied Bayev's simpleton expression and vacant eyes, which had not followed him as he moved. "Christ, he's well away. Have you finished with him?"
"By no means—"
"Then we'd better keep our hands on him. We might be a little bit safer in his company. Help me get him down to the car. We can't barricade ourselves in here."
"It might be dangerous to move him."
"And fatal if we don't!" He looked up at Massinger. He was bending still in front of Bayev like an exhausted runner or an animal tensed to spring. "You can ask him questions in the car. He's not going to bloody well know the difference!"
"Very well—"
"Get his coat — it's hanging up in the hall."
Hyde crossed to the window and peered through a crack in the curtains. Their car appeared unguarded, undetected. Massinger returned with Bayev's coat.
"You talk to him in Russian," Hyde instructed. "Keep him calm."
Massinger nodded, and then bent to lift Bayev by the arms.
"Come on, Karel, old man — you've had one too many, again!"
Hyde raised his eyebrows in what might have been a compliment as Massinger laughed and patted Bayev on the shoulder-blades. They shrugged him into his overcoat.
"Right — weight on you, please," Hyde instructed, loosening the pistol in its shoulder holster. "Just in case."
"Come on, Karel — you need a breath of fresh air!"
"It's cold!" Bayev exclaimed like a child.
"Where did he get that from?" Hyde murmured as they slipped sideways through the door into the apartment's small hallway. "Is he coming round?"
"I don't know — damn! The benzedrine syringe. I've forgotten it — wait here, old man! Haven't paid the bill!" Bayev sagged against Hyde and did not move, as if once more switched off. Hyde watched the front door of the flat, hand hovering near the breast of his overcoat. Massinger reappeared, thrusting a small black case into his pocket.
As soon as Bayev saw the second figure in the hall, he said, "It's cold, Pavel — bloody cold out there!"
"You need to wake up, old man. Come on!"
"Keep the bloody noise down when we hit the street. Put your hand over his mouth if you have to. Right?"
"Right."
Hyde leaned forward and unlatched the door. He levered it open with one foot. The narrow staircase was empty.
"Right, then. Quick as you can, down the little wooden hill."
"Forward march, Karel old man!"
They bundled Bayev down the stairs, Hyde leading, the weight of the Russian across his shoulder and back, while Massinger leaned backwards, taking the strain. He tried to ignore the stabbing pain in his arthritic hip. Bayev seemed drunk in his inability to negotiate the individual stairs, stumbling and giggling. He had evidently accepted the suggestion that he had drunk too much, and Massinger inwardly cursed this further complication. They leaned heavily against the front door to the street, breathing hard. Bayev was still giggling. Massinger's hip was burning with pain.
"Straight across the street to the car. The drunk act might just fool them, but don't let him start bawling in Russian. Don't stop, don't even hesitate — they won't shoot if they do recognise us, not with him between us. Ready?"
"Ready."
Hyde drew the Heckler & Koch. The plastic of the butt was warm from his chest and arm. He levered a round into the chamber, and then nodded.
"OK, here goes…"
He opened the street door slowly then peered round it. The small area of the Herrengasse he could see showed his car and one of the Russian vehicles. The driver was still behind the wheel but there were no passengers. He listened — was startled by a passing car which went on, past the Hofburg — and heard one set of slow footsteps echoing. Other side of the street—?
Moving away—?
There was too little sensory information, and the adrenalin was already dangerously underemployed.
"Come on!" he whispered fiercely, and they dragged Bayev into the street, moving across the pavement onto the cobbles as quickly as they could. Bayev's feet slipped and skidded and stumbled on the icy road.
"It's cold—!" he cried out, and Massinger squashed his hand over the man's mouth. His face winced with shock and the pain in his hip.
"Shit—" Hyde breathed. Bayev slipped heavily, almost bringing them down. Hyde felt the cold of the cobblestones through his trousers as he went down on one knee, Bayev's weight across his back until Massinger took the strain.
One man, two… three—
All now alerted by the brief Russian exclamation, two of them already certain of the small stationary group in the middle of the Herrengasse. The third man focused on them. Movement—
"Don't waste time, they know! Get him to the car as quick…" They rushed Bayev across the road, his toes dragging swerving lines like black snailtracks behind them. Hyde thrust the Russian against the boot of the Mercedes, then heaved open the door. "Get the bugger in!"
Massinger began bundling Bayev into the back of the car, heaving at him as the man protested by kicking out, finally throwing himself, with a stifled groan at his own pain, on top of the Russian and wrestling him across the rear seat.
Closest man ten yards, running now, mouth open to shout—
Second and third coming fast, fourth even closer, but approaching warily, trying to outflank…
Hyde weighed it, then slammed the rear door and jumped into the driving seat, locking the door behind him.
"Lock the bloody doors or they'll—!" Massinger snapped down the locks.
Hyde started the engine. A face appeared at his side window, pressed flat, smearing the glass with his lips. A gun angled across the window, held by white knuckles, threatened them. Now they could shoot him, Hyde realised, without endangering the Rezident. The Russian outside the car straightened up and stepped back a pace from the window. Rear-view mirror, the second and third men closing — a bump as one of them skidded and collided with the boot of the Mercedes — now Massinger, too, was separable, easier to kill.
Hyde pressed his foot down on the accelerator, and spun the wheel. The car slid sideways, lurched, wheels spinning, and then shot away towards
the Michaelerplatz and the Hofburg. The KGB man at Hyde's window staggered back and was left behind. A fourth man began running out into the Herrengasse, but Hyde swerved the car around him.
"It's all right, Karel — just some noisy drunks," Massinger was saying as firmly and soothingly as possible in the back of the car.
"Who are you?" Bayev replied suspiciously. "What are you doing!"
"For God's sake, stop struggling, Karel!" Massinger snapped. "You must be having the DTs, old man!"
Hyde swung the wheel — two cars already moving in the Herrengasse, threatening shapes slipping in and out of the light of successive street-lamps — and the Mercedes turned ninety degrees and roared into the narrow, dark archway of the Hofburg's entrance, beneath the cupola. A pedestrian whisked out of their way, dragging a small dog on a leash behind him. The noise of the engine was magnified by the bowl of the cupola's roof, and then they were into the principal square of the palace leading to the Ring, with traffic lights ahead.
Red.
Mirror — first car turning into the archway already.
"Karel, Karel, wake up, old man! Do you feel better? Come on, you're not drunk, just tipsy!" Massinger was shaking Bayev gently, the two men now propped up on the back seat.
"I can't go back to the hotel," Hyde said, "not until I've shaken all three cars."
"This is no good—" Massinger protested. "He's totally disorientated."
"I'll drive around."
Green. The lights changed as they passed beneath the War Memorial, and Hyde turned right onto the Burgring, opposite the huge, dark, frosty bulks of the arts and natural history museums. Maybe only two of the cars would catch the light—?
Radio. They'd have radio. They were as vulnerable in the Mercedes as they had been in the girl's flat.
Two cars, yes. He accelerated. Karl Renner Ring, Karl Leuger Ring, each set of lights thankfully green.
"Where?" he asked.
"Anywhere!" Massinger snapped.