by Craig Thomas
"Could you try, Sir Kenneth? Could you try to remember what you discussed at that last meeting?"
"I don't think I can," Aubrey murmured, but in his mind he clearly heard Castleford's voice. Yes, it had been that occasion; that penultimate occasion.
"Damn you, Aubrey, I think you're out to ruin me!"
"No—"
"Yes! Your insane jealousy—"
"Mine, or yours, Castleford?"
"Damn you with Clara, too. You've been investigating me, you arrogant little man. Me? What do you expect to rake up about me? What can you rake up? You intend to smear me, to get me out of your way. I won't let you do that, Aubrey. I won't let a bigot like you take more power than you already have. I warn you, Aubrey — unless you drop this ridiculous, vindictive investigation of me, I'll take steps to see that you are ruined. Understand me? Finished. You'll be finished!"
It was difficult for Aubrey to control his breathing; as difficult to avoid the conclusion that, almost forty years later, Castleford's prophecy of his ruination was about to come true. He watched Eldon watching him, eager for his reply. He shook his head.
"I — can't remember," he murmured. "No doubt it was another occasion for reprimand. It usually turned out to be like that, whenever we met. Castleford taking a high-handed moral line towards SIS's work."
"Yours in particular, I gather."
"Perhaps."
"You disliked each other."
"Yes. Our enmity, however, was not strong enough for me to betray him. I did not wish him dead."
They do not know about Clara, do they? Aubrey asked himself. They must know, some other part of his mind answered. It was known to others — the quarrels, the courtship, the victory — people in Berlin knew of Castleford's interest in Clara, of my interest—? Why hasn't it been brought up?… Don't let it be brought up…
"I see."
"Eldon?"
"Yes, Sir Kenneth?"
"What is the mood — of your masters?" Aubrey hated himself for asking the question, but it had eaten at him from the moment that Babbington had broached the subject. "Will they require a trial? A charge of treason to be answered?"
"Yes, Sir Kenneth — I think they will."
"Rather late in the century for it, wouldn't you say?"
"Some might say, long overdue rather than late."
"I suppose they might."
"You did hate Castleford, didn't you?" Eldon asked quickly.
"He hated me," Aubrey replied.
"You hated him, also."
Aubrey stared at Eldon's quietly implacable features. It was a matter of days, no more. He would know how close he was to being charged with treason the moment they gave him access to his solicitor. At that moment, his interrogation would be over and his trial on the point of beginning.
Trial, trial, his mind echoed. Zalozny had offered him that, often. In the intervals between the bouts of cold water, the bucket over his head being beaten with wooden sticks, the blows of huge peasant fists, the standing to attention in the freezing, snowbound yard of the prison, teeth chattering, body shuddering with ague; if he gave in, they promised him a quick trial and execution. The situation was an almost exact parallel.
One of his most vivid memories was of having to defecate into a bucket while an eye watched him through the spyhole in the cell door. Stained, torn trousers around his ankles, buttocks perched on the icy rim of the iron bucket — all dignity gone, only the reduced, tormented, pained animal left.
He dismissed the past. Of his present situation, he knew that whatever he had to do — except confess — he would do to avoid a trial. He would never be led into court, never hear the charge of treason, never face a jury. Whatever he had to do, he would avoid that.
He watched Eldon. Eldon would never understand about the trial. He would never assume that Aubrey the traitor had left to him anything with which he could not bear to part in public.
* * *
Hyde raised his head above the level of the dashboard. Glass prickled his neck and the backs of his hands and slithered from his overcoat onto the driving seat. Behind him, he knew that Bayev was dead — one glance at the doll slumped in the corner of the Mercedes had told him that. He had not even looked at Massinger. There was no time to consider him. The Russian was coming on now, heavily jogging the last few strides between himself and the car. Hyde fired through the crazed remains of the windscreen and the man disappeared sideways below the bonnet.
Only then did Hyde turn his head. Massinger was sitting bolt upright in the back, evidently in shock.
"Come on, mate! Time's up."
"What—?" Massinger might have been drugged himself, so slow and unfocused were his movements. Hyde reached over the seat and grabbed his arm.
"Bayev's dead — we're next. Get out of the car!"
The top of the incline, where the road passed the freight-yard, was blocked by a long black saloon. Two men were standing by it, one of them already advancing the first few paces down the slope. A glance in the wing mirror had shown Hyde that much.
"Out—?"
"I can't move the car!"
Massinger began to move, groaning as he levered himself out of the door. Hyde saw the walking-stick, and his chest and stomach felt hollow with foreboding. Massinger's bloody hip!
Massinger looked up the slope, appearing to Hyde to lean heavily, breathe hard. "How many of them?" he said urgently.
"Just the one car. They didn't wait for reinforcements. Someone told them to shut Bayev up as a first priority. Tape?"
"Yes." Massinger patted his pocket. "For what it's worth, dammit! We both know it's worthless — he knew nothing—!"
"Come on — this way."
He watched the two men who had halted at the top of the rutted, frosty incline. They were mere dark lumps in the fog, revealed only because of the powerful floodlights. Fog danced and moved around them. Twenty-five yards. The kamikaze had had to come in close in order to pick out his targets. A tactic of desperation, the impetus of a high-ranking order behind him, pushing him on. Now that he was dead, the other two wanted to wait for reinforcements.
"Down?"
"Yes, down. They're not eager to follow. Come on."
Massinger moved ahead of Hyde, who walked carefully backwards, his heels seeking the ruts and frozen puddles. A goods wagon's couplings clanked in the fog, startling him. He could hear Massinger moving away, limping, sighing with effort.
The cautious footsteps of the two Russians reached him, too. Then the sound of a car arriving, braking hard.
"Hurry it up," he called to Massinger. "The cavalry's arrived."
He turned his back, caught up with Massinger, and took his arm. He studied the man's face. Tired and lined, hardly handsome any longer. He nodded.
"I'm all right—" Massinger protested.
"No you're not. Just doing all right. We're going to have to hurry."
He forced Massinger to break into a limping jogtrot. The American used his stick like a drunken, uncertain third leg, and he groaned once or twice; but he did not attempt to slow Hyde until they reached the bottom of the incline. A gate in a wooden fence, then the tracks on either side and ahead disappeared into the fog. A locomotive was moving slowly somewhere in it like a circling, invisible shark. Its headlight flashed occasionally, and its passage made the fog roll and billow. Hyde shuddered with cold.
"All right?"
Massinger nodded, recovering his breath. "I'm OK, Hyde. I'm just angry as hell."
"Never mind. They'll be consulting and planning for a couple of minutes. There's time enough."
"What do we do now?"
"Get out of Vienna. There's nothing else we can do." He pushed open the unlocked gate. Warning signs forbade them to cross the tracks. Massinger passed through the gate and Hyde closed it behind them. The incline retreated into the fog. Hyde could not see the Mercedes or the body in front of it, but nothing appeared to be moving on the slope. "OK. Be careful — I don't know whether there are any live rails
or whether it's all electrified overhead. Just watch where you put your feet."
Massinger was aware of the momentary confidence in Hyde's voice. He was a hundred yards ahead of the pursuit and shrouded by the fog. It was enough, apparently, to satisfy him. Massinger recognised Hyde's quality. He'd controlled only a few men like him all those years ago. One or two, but very few. The nerve-enders, the jack-in-the-boxes. Good field agents.
He crossed the first set of tracks, listening attentively. Scrapings, clanks, the roll of flanged wheels, the movement of locomotives. Strangely, a cow lowed somewhere in the fog and was answered by other cattle. It was unnerving for an instant, then became comfortingly innocent.
A line of goods wagons loomed out of the fog.
"Underneath and through," Hyde instructed.
Massinger grasped the icy buffer of a wagon, then bent down into a crouch. His hip protested as he waddled forward. It hurt badly, and at the centre of the pain was a light, almost floating feeling of weakness, as if he had little more than air or a vacuum to rely upon. He was afraid that his hip might give out at any moment. He straightened up with great difficulty, and his breath escaped in a misty, smoky gasp.
"You OK?" Hyde asked anxiously.
"I'm all right, damn you!" he replied fiercely, leaning on his stick, watching Hyde with a twisted, angry face. "I'm all right."
"OK." Hyde shrugged. "Let's keep moving."
Four more sets of tracks, snaking towards their feet and slithering, so it seemed, away again into the chill-lit whiteness of the fog.
"Hold it!" Hyde snapped suddenly.
Noise of a locomotive, coming towards them. Massinger studied his feet, his heart racing. Between tracks—? Beyond, between—? The fog swirled, writhed, then parted to admit a looming black shape with a headlight struggling to cut a swathe through the curtain. Massinger leaned away, feeling the rush of the air and the bulk of the engine and the thudding of it through his shoes. He could see Hydenowhere.Wagons clanked past, allowing little slats of white light to appear between them.
The noise was deafening.
Eventually, it had gone and the fog had closed in behind the guard's van and the dim red light it carried.
"Hyde?" Massinger asked fearfully into the fog.
"Keep your voice down! Come on."
Three, four, five more sets of tracks. Sheds, repair and maintenance shops, points, gantries, lights. Then a high stone wall with frost thickly riming weeds and ivy, and the dim glow of street-lamps above and beyond it.
"Look for some steps," Hyde instructed. "And be careful."
The flight of steps was two hundred yards away, towards Lassallestrasse. Hyde climbed it first, then waved to Massinger to follow him. At the top, a gate barred their exit to the street. It was unlocked. Hyde gestured Massinger through.
Icy puddles, poor street-lights, blank-faced warehouses. A narrow, grubby, cobbled street empty of people and cars.
"Can you walk a bit more?" Hyde asked defensively, his hands raised, palms outwards.
"Yes. How far?"
"The station. We'll get a taxi back to the hotel. Just take it easy and stay alert."
As they walked, Massinger's stick tapped the cobbles and echoed from the blank walls and doors of the warehouses. The noise of it reminded Hyde of the American's age, his infirmity, and his determination. Nevertheless, he could not avoid the feeling that he was carrying the older man; even though Massinger had adopted the role of his field controller almost naturally and by right. Massinger would make the decisions, but he would be left to carry them out; put himself in jeopardy.
"Have we got anything out of that?" he asked.
"Mm?" Massinger was silent. No, no, no, his stick tapped out in the fog, then echoed its negative. "Tell me about this Petrunin," he said eventually. "You know him, don't you?"
"Too well."
"Sorry—?"
"One-time London Rezident. Later, he tried to screw me again in Australia and Spain. We don't get on — quarrel all the time!" Behind the banter, there was a quiver in his voice that Hyde could not eradicate.
"He's a field man?" Massinger asked in surprise.
"No. He's been a general in his time."
"In his time."
"Word is, he got demoted back to colonel last year…"
"Because of you?"
"No. But I helped. He couldn't keep the lid on something."
"Part of the lid being your death?"
"Right."
"His scheme, apparently, wasn't discredited with him," Massinger commented bitterly.
Hyde stopped the American then moved ahead and checked the well-lit street that lay ahead of them. Cars passed now, moving slowly in the fog, there were one or two pedestrians, dog-walkers or night-shift workers. It felt to Massinger both safe and dangerous at the same moment. More, he sensed an excitement in himself. Dangerous, foolish, desperate. Hyde returned.
"It's clear, as far as I can tell. I don't imagine they've given up, but it's a big area down there behind us. They may not be covering the station yet. But be careful. If I move, you move. I shan't wait for you. OK?"
"OK," Massinger nodded.
"The station's just a couple of hundred yards down the street," Hyde continued. "What do we do when we get back to the hotel and the car you hired?"
"Take the autobahn to Linz, and then maybe Munich. We can get there by morning, with luck. Unless this fog lasts all the way."
"And then—?"
"I must talk to Peter Shelley again. We must consult. I wish I could talk to Kenneth again… but that's too dangerous." He turned to face Hyde. "You see, neither of us has anywhere to go at the moment. Babbington forbade me to go on with this — someone informed Vienna I was here, someone wants me dead along with you."
"Babbington?"
"I doubt it. But — someone. Wilkes can't be the only rotten apple. Wilkes takes orders from someone else. This collusion is too smooth, too efficient and, according to our dead friend back there, too long-standing to be run by people like Wilkes. Someone, in Europe or in London — a senior officer, at least as senior as Shelley or one of Shelley's deputy directors, has to be in the KGB's pocket."
"Christ! I hadn't thought about it… Shelley?"
"Well?"
Hyde shook his head vigorously. "No, not Shelley."
"I thought not."
They had reached the portico of the Nord-bahnhof. A rank of taxis stood alongside the pavement. There seemed no one concerning themselves with Hyde and Massinger. Hyde's relaxation was evident.
Obsessed with his theory, he had forgotten their narrow escape, forgotten the dead body of Bayev in the back of the Mercedes; forgotten the men who wanted himself and Hyde similarly disposed of. Hyde would have to watch his back for him. He had to think—
He had to know. There was a KGB double in SIS, and it had to be someone fairly senior — it was the only explanation that made sense.
"OK, in you get." Massinger struggled into the back of the taxi and ordered the driver to the Inter-Continental. He sighed with relief as he lay back in the seat.
"You accept the hypothesis?" he said as they crossed the Danube Canal. Hyde was silent for a moment, then he nodded. "You have to be right. It has to be one of the high-ups. But who!"
"Yes, who indeed? The KGB have someone important in their pocket, helping to carry out Teardrop, If we knew why, we might know who."
"You haven't any theories about that?" Hyde asked with evident irony. Beneath that tone, there was the indifference that springs from sudden and unexpected well-being. Hyde, out of danger, was shutting himself down like a complex series of circuits and relays.
Massinger, knowing that he was doing little more than thinking aloud, said, "To make sure that Aubrey is finished off? To throw the service into confusion? To assist some huge operation we know nothing about? It could be any or all of those — and maybe other reasons. We've got who and why, and no answers to either question—"
But, I have an answer, he though
t. Even more crazy than this Viennese business. And it needs you, he added to himself, glancing sideways at Hyde's lolling form. And you won't like it, not one little bit.
Margaret returned to him, then. He shut her out. Later, later, my darling, he told her image. This matter first…
Why? That's the real question. Who could be anybody — perhaps one of fifty, even a hundred… and they had no access, no leverage. There was no one who could, or would, tell them. Shelley might be able to draw up a list of possibilities, but it would be a long one.
And there was one man, just one man, who knew everything — who knew why—! Who knew the traitor's name… Petrunin knew everything. Teardrop was his creation.
He glanced at Hyde from slitted eyelids. "Do you know where Petrunin is now — in disgrace, you said?"
"More than one report's confirmed he's in Afghanistan. At the Kabul Embassy. The roughest posting they could find for him, I suppose." Hyde replied without considering the implications of either the question or his answer.
The taxi turned into the Johannesgasse. Hyde was relaxed. In a couple of hours, with luck, they'd be half-way out of Austria.
He patted his overcoat pocket. His new papers lay there, against his breast like a talisman. He did not consider the future beyond the next few hours, which were decidedly hopeful.
He was getting out of Vienna, where he might easily have died.
PART TWO
THE LONGEST JOURNEY
… reassembling our afflicted Powers,
Consult how we may henceforth most offend
Our Enemy, our own loss how repair,
How overcome this dire Calamity,
What reinforcement we may gain from Hope,
If not what resolution from despair.
— Milton: Paradise Lost, Bk.
CHAPTER SIX:
The Golden Road
Hyde was still dazzled by the snow-gleam from the mountains as the Douglas C-47 taxied noisily along the runway at Peshawar. There was thin snow on the plain, but the yellow earth revealed itself in patches, and the foothills beyond the town were stubbornly grey. But, as the old aircraft had circled and dropped towards the airport, he had seen, disbelieving, the mountains stretching northwards towards the Hindu Kush and even the Himalayas as if they would never end, never descend again to desert or plain.