The Bear's Tears kaaph-4

by Craig Thomas

  He hurried now. The lounge was a shambles, and the wide-open door of the bedroom as he passed it revealed the tumbled bed and the drawers hanging open like shocked mouths. His clothes were strewn about the room.

  He saw immediately that the silver pieces were gone, and the porcelain. The paintings had been cut from their frames, the photographs — there was one from his own past, in the uniform in which Aubrey had captured him in 1940, grinning from beneath his peaked cap — had been smashed or ground underfoot. The drinks cabinet had been emptied — yes, a bottle of whisky and one of gin neckless, the liquor soaking into the carpet.

  He saw that the small wall-safe hung open, the picture frame askew that had concealed it. The files were gone, each and every one of them, together with his savings books, his chequebook, his other credit cards, his will and the rest of his papers. And the two thousand marks in notes he always kept there.

  But it was the files, of course. The damned files…

  He was galvanised rather than numbed by shock. He looked out of the window but the Audi that had followed him was not to be seen in the street. He crossed to the telephone, rescuing it from its entanglement with a rug, finding the receiver itself hanging over the back of the sofa. He dialled the Konigshof Hotel. He had no wish for a restorative drink — the spilled whisky was oppressive and heady. He was angry at the damage — the professional entry clumsily disguised by modern vandalism. Very angry.

  He requested Massinger's room number.

  "Come on, come on…"he murmured, then: "Ah, Paul, my friend. I apologise for waking you at this hour."

  "Wolfgang? What is it?"

  "I appear to have been burgled. The files have been taken. I'm sure they were the object of the burglary. I am calling you to advise extreme caution tomorrow and for all the days that follow."

  "Burglarised — God…"

  "Please be careful — I will not caution you not to go, because you would not listen. But, watch your back, my friend. You may need old instincts, old training. And hurry back. I — we need each other's help, of that I am certain."

  "Yes, yes I will. A couple of days, no more—"

  "Good night, then."

  He flung the telephone onto the sofa, as if to allow it to remain an integral part of the ransacked room. He rubbed his forehead, his other hand on his hip as he paced the stained and littered carpet. He appeared professorial, and on the point of beginning some abstruse line of argument. His thoughts, however, were clear and simple.

  KGB. Moving to protect, moving to remove proof. Carrying away on large farm forks the dungheap concealing the diamond. Protecting…

  It had to be. Babbington. At once, they had moved to a position of aggressive defence on his behalf.

  It meant caution. Extreme, almost somnolent caution, if he were to proceed. Especially, it meant doing nothing to arouse their suspicions until he had Massinger back with him from Vienna.

  It also meant, he thought suddenly, scrabbling for the telephone, it also meant that Frau Margarethe Schröder might, just might, be in some immediate danger. Picking up the telephone, he began dialling the prison in Cologne, his eyes roaming over the littered, broken remains of his furniture and ornaments with a weary gleam of wisdom and cunning.

  * * *

  He was running into the low, newly risen sun, wintrily-red, his shape black against it for those pursuing, his shadow thrown long behind him. His shadow was palpable to him, even though he could not see it. To his heightened, exhausted, almost hallucinatory senses, it dragged behind him like a lure for hounds. He was an easy black target against a red disc. He could hear the noise of the MiL gunship as it prepared to swoop once more, and he scanned the rocks for cover.

  Finesse, you bastards, finesse, finesse…! he had silently screamed at the helicopter, over and over, as he had reached the narrow, twisting floor of the steep valley and began running as the dead winch-man was retrieved by the crew of the MiL. He wanted them to toy with him, play cat-and-mouse. That way, he might survive.

  The snow had drifted in places in the narrow knife-cut of the valley. It restrained and trapped, caused him to stumble in his fear and haste and weariness, then it was a thin, powdery skin and he ran more easily from rock to rock, dodging, sprinting, bending low then running upright, head back like an athlete. It was perhaps no more than four miles long, and he would reach the border in less than a mile—

  That was what he had announced to himself, between the few quick, deep, preparatory breaths he had taken at the foot of the tumbled, boulder-strewn slope, the Russian helicopter still above and behind him.

  Less than a mile—

  It was meaningless, of course. The border wasn't even drawn at that point, it did not exist. Pakistan lay at the other end of the valley, and Parachinar, which he had to avoid. And somewhere was the army and the people who would be waiting for Miandad, under instructions that the dead Pakistani officer had never divulged to him.

  Less than a mile—

  And he had begun running. Random, fast, hesitant, bent over, upright, apparently directionless. There were one or two shots which faded on the dry, cold morning air, their bullets well wide. It was not Kalashnikovs he had to avoid, but cannon fire, machine-gun volleys, grenades, anti-personnel mines… all the weaponry of a MiL-24 gunship determined to make a kill.

  Half a mile, surely half a mile by now, he pleaded with his judgment as he heard the MiL move from the hover to the approach as if it were a bird of prey stooping. The noise clattered in the thin dry air, bouncing off the rocks. The modern Stuka, he heard some irrelevant part of his awareness remark in the tone of the bar-room bore, passing out his platitudes like helpings of crisps or peanuts.

  The image grew, and he amputated it. He turned, and watched the MiL. It was flying cautiously — no, not cautiously, tauntingly was the right description. One change of acceleration, one dip, and it could cover him like a cloud or a coffin-lid in perhaps no more than six or seven seconds. But it wanted to play cat-and-mouse because its crew were so enraged and so confident. Make him sweat—

  Terror, advancing up the narrow valley, dragging its wake of deafening, reverberated sound behind it. Terror. It minced slightly, from side to side, swaying as if grotesquely miming a woman's walk. It moved towards Hyde's shadow, which had seemed to prostrate itself at the helicopter's approach. Hyde felt his body quivering uncontrollably.

  Terror.

  He turned his back on it, and began running again, weaving as quickly and agilely as he could through the littered rocks and boulders. His legs were leaden; the noise seemed to drain them of strength. Then he heard the launch of one, two missiles from the pods beneath the MiL's stubby wings. He dived for the nearest rock, almost somersaulting over it, crouching behind it immediately. The flare from the rockets dazzled his eyes, he could feel the heat of the exhausts. The two rockets exploded twenty yards ahead of him, throwing up earth and rock and snow in front of the red sun, obscuring it. The valley appeared dark. Hyde stood up and ran into the churning cloud of debris, and through it into the glare of the sun. They'd been playing with him. He wasn't meant to die at once, not just yet.

  The MiL slipped over the haze of settling earth and dust, following him, moving barely faster than he was himself. He jumped a low rock, almost twisted his ankle as he landed on a loose boulder, hopped until his balance was righted, and went on, dodging and weaving in his sprint, changing direction every few paces. Meaninglessly, he realised he must already have crossed the border. The MiL's long, fat shadow slid over him like night, and the machine was a little ahead of him. A grinning face swung the mounted machine-gun in his direction, a flutter of iron butterflies emerged, fell from the belly of the MiL, bouncing and skittering ahead of him like tacks spread to ambush an approaching cyclist. Anti-personnel bombs, the toylike things that had deprived children of arms and eyes and faces in a dozen corners of the world. Play with the nice iron toy, painted dark-green, and numbered. Bang—

  Hyde jumped onto a rock as one of the s
tub-winged bombs rolled towards his feet. He tiptoed like an unpractised tightrope artiste along the rock, arms akimbo for balance, then jumped to another rock, jumped again, ran and skipped three paces, jumped to a larger rock—

  One lay in the fold of the rock, his toe reached at it, he overbalanced, tumbling onto the snow-covered ground where the tips and wingtips of the iron butterflies thrust out of the thin snow carpet, growing like strange plants. He rolled, groaning, and stopped his momentum by digging in his heels. His head swung round and he was staring at the white numbers on the squat little body of one of the bombs.

  Fused, or contact?

  He could not tell whether they would detonate on contact or after the lapse of a precise number of seconds.

  Then one exploded behind him, shattering a loaf-sized lump from its parent rock. He got to his knees, he stood and hopped. A deadly game of hopscotch, one foot, side, forward, side, side, up onto a rock — the MiL was still ahead of him, the machine-gunner grinning, waiting for him to catch up with the game — along the rock, one foot, space there, bomb there, quick, quick, bomb! — clear ground, hole-in-the-snow, avoid! — clear, clear, bomb, clear…

  He was out of the little cabbage-patch they had sown for him, and the ground was clear. Small detonations, throwing up snow and brown earth, began almost at once. He ran, keeping close to the scatter of rocks and boulders, his breath and limbs labouring now that the going was instinctive. He must be no more than half a mile from the end of the valley. He was across the border; closer to death.

  "Finesse, finesse, finesse," he kept repeating through the thick saliva in his mouth, through clenched teeth. "Finesse, finesse…"

  The rocks were charred, even the snow looked black beneath its light, latest covering. Something had burned…?

  Fifty Pathans — metal balls, the strange eggs that had burst open on impact — the silver, gleaming mist…

  It was here. The MiL was above him. He could almost see the eggs dropping, bursting open, smell the napalm mist—

  Egg, egg, three, four, six, ten — fifteen…

  He could see them—.

  Half-eggs, rolling, their contents spilled already. A string of eggs laid by the MiL. They were going to burn him —

  He felt the mist cold on his face. It refracted and distorted the sunlight, enlarged the huge red disc ahead of him. It was cold, chilling, terrifying. It clung. It was higher than he was, he was in it—

  A tunnel of silver mist, just like before, gleaming even in the daylight. It outlined his arm as the limb bobbed in front of his eyes like St Elmo's fire. It clung to his hands, to the skin of his hands, to his Pathan clothing, to every part of him. To his face and beard and eyelids—

  He wanted to scream, to stop and do no more than scream, as the MiL banked sharply and returned towards him. What was it, was it—?

  The match, the firefly glow he had seen drop from Petrunin's blood-red helicopter…

  A tunnel, a box of mist that would become a box of fire, consuming him—

  He rubbed his clothing, the mist moved about him, closed in again — the helicopter slowly settled above him, the machine-gunner grinning, signaling farewell in an exaggerated, final salute — he rubbed at the mist again where he felt it on his skin, waved his arms, shook and danced his body but the mist only stirred sluggishly then closed in, as heavy and unmoving as long curtains in a slight breeze. It surrounded him. He was trapped, already dead. The mist had formed a cell, with a roof, walls, floor. And it would consume everything within it—

  Within it?

  Spark?

  He could see the spark, in the dark belly of the MiL — the means of ignition was about to be released.

  Within it—

  He ran. The mist moved, closed behind him, gleamed and shimmered, dulled the light. He ran. He ran. The mist gave but did not end. Its spread was controlled by its chemical composition. How wide, how deep, how long—? He did not look up. He ran.

  Light, air, less coldness on his face and the backs of his hands. He ran.

  Mist folding behind, rock ahead. He ran.

  He was still covered with it —.

  He dived for the shelter of the rock, hearing the roar of the mist as it became flame. He rolled in the snow, hiding his face and hands, folding them into the bulk of his body. He rolled. Smoke near him, searing pain in his hands, on his face. He plunged them into snow, burning on his legs, he rolled and rolled in the snow, driving his body into a drift against the rocks which half-buried him, filling his nostrils and mouth and eyes and driving out all sensory impressions of the burning mist. Gobbets of fire must have flown in the MiL's downdraught, some of them reaching him. He did not want to know about his burns.

  He did not want to know anything. He was finished. The snow cooled him, froze him. He couldn't move — there was nothing left. The snow numbed his face and hands. He turned his mouth, spat out snow, breathed. It was enough. The air, even if it tasted of napalm, revived him.

  But nothing more—

  He would wait.

  He kept his eyes closed. They were heavy with snow. He heard the helicopter, his body tensed. He waited.

  The noise — he could feel the downdraught of the rotors — clattered off the side of the valley, enlarging and expanding into two, three sets of rotors. Perhaps others had come…? He did not care. He could no longer even be terrified. Soon, soon now…

  He was numb and clean. The smell of the napalm was dying down, the heat dissipating. He opened his eyes slowly. Half-melted snow watered in them. The helicopter hovered above him blackly, haloed with sunlight. There was another helicopter thirty yards away. And he heard the retreating noise of rotors. Retreating…

  Roundels, green and white. Hyde was disorientated, waiting to die. The crescent moon and one star of Islam at the tail of the helicopter.

  Green and white, no red star on the belly.

  Roundels…?

  He could not explain what had happened, not even as the Pakistan Army Sikorsky S-61R gunship helicopter dropped gently and benignly towards the charred floor of the narrow valley, blowing snow over his body from its downdraught as it descended.

  CHAPTER TWELVE:

  Truth from an Old Man

  "This whole matter has gone far enough to have become something of a shambles," Sir William Guest, GCMG, Cabinet Office Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee and a former Head of the Diplomatic Service, appeared pleased with the opportunity to display his seniority. His leather swivel chair creaked under his considerable weight — Babbington noticed again that he had a fat man's enclosed eyes and expressionless facial flesh which suggested slowness of mind, even stupidity. At least, nothing more than a certain money-grubbing low cunning, Babbington added to his observation. It was, of course, a mask. Sir William was his master, and his mentor, and his intellectual capacities were considerable. SAID was his brain-child; its birth was the fruit of his persuasion of the PM and the Cabinet Committees concerned. "A shambles," Sir William repeated with heavy emphasis. Then: "You will remember, Andrew, that I opposed the idea of lifting the 'D' Notices, and especially the idea of a prosecution for treason in Aubrey's case." It was not a hand-washing exercise, rather a reprimand.

  "Yes," Babbington replied, waiting. It had suited his game, and that of Moscow Centre, that Sir William and others had seen him as the coming man, had assiduously encouraged his promotion and effected his seniority in MI5. It was an express-train, as Kapustin had once vulgarly put it, to the top of the mountain. The peasant Deputy Chairman of the KGB had laughed familiarly at that. The man always managed to remind Babbington that he thought of him as Moscow's man, Moscow's property, Moscow's creature—

  Babbington suppressed his hatred. Sir William's thick right eyebrow had moved, as if he had already seen some expression on Babbington's face.

  Sir William's office was a comfortable though drably coloured part of the warren of Cabinet Office rooms in Downing Street. As Sir William had said on one occasion: 'You may call it the factor
y floor — I prefer to call it the hotel annexe.' As he said it, his eyes had seemed to see through all the doors, along all the twisting, narrow corridors, towards the main house and the Cabinet Room and the PM's private office. His thoughts had then evidently returned to his own room with satisfaction, as if his description of the Cabinet Office's whereabouts was mere self-deprecation.

  His chair creaked again as he shifted his bulk. "I'm glad you agree, Andrew. This isn't in the nature of a reprimand." There was cigar-ash on the lapel of his dark suit, and on the old Etonian tie. "However, be that as it may, we are now, to some considerable degree — compromised."

  "I don't follow your logic."

  "The newspapers have the scent, and we have to leave them baying at the moon. You let Kenneth Aubrey—" There was a hint of amusement in the grey eyes that were encircled by folds of fat. " — get away, not to put too fine a point upon it. You don't know where he is, and we have a charge of treason for him to answer. And my god-daughter, Heaven help her, has gone chasing off to Germany to discover the truth about her father!" He raised his hands in the air in mock horror. They descended with a drumlike beat on his desk. He was not smiling as he continued: "I don't foresee great happiness for her there, whatever the truth of the matter…" He seemed to be remembering distant events, even old pain, then he shook his head. "A strange man," he murmured. "Brilliant, but strange." Then his enshrouded eyes blinked into attentiveness once more. "The Prime Minister has changed her mind on this matter." His voice and facial expression implied a sense of frustration, eternally that of the civil servant at the whim of the politician. "There is to be no more fuss. Aubrey is to be found and persuaded to remain abroad. Unless he has plans to appear in Moscow in the near future."

  "He has nowhere else to go," Babbington observed tartly.