by Craig Thomas
Come on, come on — make a beginning, he told himself. Alison was safe in Hove, perhaps walking their daughter, the dog, even her mother's spaniel along the beach. He, too, was safe for the moment.
Safe until he talked to someone. He could not approach Sir William without Hyde, without Margaret Massinger. Whatever he said would be transmitted directly to Babbington, and he would have endangered himself for nothing. Sir William was leaving for Washington that evening. If he spoke to him now, he would pass the matter to the Cabinet Office or JIC, and they would immediately inform Babbington. No — that way, Aubrey's final disappearance was certain, and time would run out for the Massingers…
He was Aubrey's only hope. He and the annotated, scrawled-upon map on the wall. He flinched at the responsibility, convinced as he now was that Aubrey would be shipped to Moscow as soon as it could be arranged. It made sense. A drugged, bewildered Aubrey would pose for pictures in Moscow, the world would believe his treachery, and Babbington would be safe.
Shame about poor Massinger, dying in that car crash… his wife was terribly upset — she committed suicide, you know… poor woman. It wouldn't take long, or much of an effort, to clean the stable and ensure the continuation of Babbington the Russian agent as controller of all British intelligence and security.
Pictures of Aubrey — Babbington must already have thought of it and needed only to arrange the delivery of the package to Moscow Centre… Aubrey wearing his new medals, Aubrey in his new Moscow flat— Before Aubrey died and was forgotten. Come on, come on—!
He moved closer to the map. London was out — too well-guarded, impenetrable. And he didn't have the people… Likewise Paris, Rome, Stockholm, Helsinki…
The Middle East — SIS were thin on the ground there, anyway. He'd dismissed Baghdad, Cairo, Amman almost at once… Far East — they wouldn't have the computer links to Moscow Centre in some places, in others they'd be too well guarded, too secure.
His long fingers touched, even caressed the map, smoothing it, stroking whole continents, countries. Nothing. All his notes, almost every one of them, registered hopelessness. The men he could trust were pitifully few, those he could still trust in senior posts even fewer. None of them promised the kind of expertise required in handling a computer terminal, gaining access using Petrunin's instructions, and coping satisfactorily with ingress and egress. And already, almost all of them would have accepted Babbington as DG, and the re-organisation of SIS into SAID. Aubrey was no more than an unfortunate part of their collective past.
An irrelevant sense of fastidiousness made him lift the bottom corner of the map and look to see whether he had marked the wall with his pins and jottings. Yes… stabs of felt pen, little stains, the pricks of pins — damn!
He cursed himself for evading his task. Looking behind the map—!
Map — curtain — map — Curtain… Curtain…
He had lifted the map like an old lady peering from behind her net curtains, glimpsing adultery or a marital quarrel or new furniture being moved into the house across the street. But the image of a political curtain, the idea of the capital letter — had come to him instead.
Behind the Curtain…
He'd noted one or two of their embassies in Eastern Europe already… a preliminary listing of Aubrey's people, the still loyal, the ones who would act word-of-mouth from him without official orders, without explanations… where?
He knelt at the coffee-table, a vague progression of thoughts unrolling in his mind, but shapeless and changing as soon as he examined them. So he moved with them, instinctively, quickly… where?
He shuffled the papers, casting them aside because they seemed no longer relevant; a foolish speculation. Yes, here it was. A handful of people — lower echelon as before, SIS personnel who owed everything to the old man, as he did.
Berlin, Warsaw, Prague, Sofia, Belgrade, Budapest, Bucharest…
He had to look at them on the map. He got up, the sheet in his hand — locals, unofficial, businessmen, SIS officers, clerks and cleaners and secretaries — inside and outside the Soviet embassies.
Berlin… His pen tapped at the city, at head-height on the wall. Berlin… everything was kosher between the Russians and East Germans — the old pals act. East German Intelligence was used by the KGB, they shared lots of work, security would be sloppier…
Berlin. Babbington would have Berlin Head of Station on his side already — Macauley would see the main chance, a London posting to East Europe Desk — Shelley's own job… who else was there? Clerks, ciphers — might do, might not? Shelley didn't know the men and therefore couldn't risk trusting them. Plenty of cleaners and secretaries on SIS's books in and around the Soviet embassy but no field officer capable of being trusted with the job.
He sighed with disappointment. The shapeless, changing ideas scudded through his mind. It was only their movement, their suggestion of energy that he obeyed. He anticipated nothing.
Warsaw. Nothing, not since martial law. SIS people had been picked up in the nets that caught the Solidarity leaders and so had many of the locals SIS employed. Warsaw, he noted with grim acceptance, was a blank piece of paper which he ought to affix to the map.
Bucharest — no. Too far, too many unknowns — possibly no high-grade traffic with the Moscow Centre main computers. Budapest — now, Budapest…?
A network had been rolled up there six months before. It had never been re-established. An indiscreet junior minster had been on the hook, right inside the Interior Ministry. He gave the names of all the others, of his contact officer, of the occasional visiting field controller, and they'd all gone into the bag.
They'd got two back, three were still in prison — two businessmen and an exchange student — and the native Hungarians had all been shot. Budapest — blank sheet, then…
Belgrade. Tight, because of Yugoslavia's non-aligned status. Just like a foreign country to the KGB. Plenty of Yugoslavs, but little to show for their efforts.
Prague… another old pals act. The KGB used the STB, Czech Intelligence, as its messenger-boys, its hit-men on occasion. The heavy mob. That obscenity of a Czech embassy built of grey concrete and smoked glass in Kensington Palace Gardens carried more high-powered aerials and receiving dishes than the Soviet embassy itself. The KGB and the STB played footsie all the time with one another.
Shelley remembered a report from a low-grade source that much of the communications network used by the KGB in Prague now existed inside the Hradcany Castle rather than in the Soviet embassy. As he recalled the information, he remembered himself as a tourist, years before, on holiday in Prague, and immediately his mind was filled with images of the huge, looming cathedral of St Vitus, part of the Hradcany. He'd queued for hours to get into its garish, almost oriental interior — Cologne cathedral tarted up for a pop concert, Alison had said of it.
He'd seen — they'd both seen — the big black Russian saloons parked like a defensive barricade around the government buildings in the castle. That had been before 1968. Now, they were back with a vengeance. Hand-in-glove, almost incestuous, the relationship between KGB and STB.
It was so pally, it was downright sloppy—
Shelley looked at the map. He tapped the city on the Vltava with his forefinger. He studied his list, then looked back at the city almost with longing. Who could he trust, out of all the SIS personnel in Prague, other than Godwin? Godwin was Aubrey's man. But — useless… Shelley heard the words echo in his mind; ashamed of them, bitter at their truthfulness. Godwin had been wounded in Germany protecting the life of a fake Chinese defector. He'd taken two bullets in the back and now he walked on crutches, moving two dragging, useless legs with their aid. Aubrey had not pensioned him off, as he should have done. Instead, the old man had posted him to Prague as a cipher clerk. Poor bloody Godwin.
Two crippled, dragging legs. No go. No penetration op in prospect there. Worse, Godwin had the qualifications. He was trained in computers, had used them at Century House before his Hong Kong postin
g, where he had agreed reluctantly to go and only because of the sunshine, since there was little or no computer work for him. He would understand — be able to analyse and explain — everything Petrunin had told Hyde. He would understand—!
"Damn! Oh, damn, damn, damn it!" he shouted. Godwin, fit and healthy, could have done it!
The ideas in his mind seemed to drain away towards a distant horizon, like clouds seen in a speeded-up film covering the passage of a day or even a week in mere seconds. Dead end. He touched the map once more, his fingers spread as if he were about to use some secret combination that would open a wall-safe.
Godwin had useless legs, Godwin couldn't even hobble without both heavy metal crutches.
His mind began softly chanting the formula over and over. Failure. Dead end. His fingers stroked the map, as if trying to coax some solution from its colours and contours and boundaries. Slowly, heavily, they stroked southwards—
Vienna?
Hopeless. It was called the city of spies. Everyone was secure and no one was to be trusted in Vienna. Impossible to mount something against the embassy there, even though Hyde — with good strong legs he could not help but think, disliking himself at once — was there, too. In Vienna, agents changed allegiance with every remittance — Queen's face, Presidential features, German philosopher, hero of the people… they obeyed only the faces on the banknotes. And Vienna Station itself was now being run on Babbington's behalf. No go. Definitely no go.
And then he thought—
Hyde… hydrofoil. Hyde — hydrofoil, Hyde-hydro…
There was a hydrofoil trip up the Danube for tourists from Vienna to Bratislava which took less than an hour, no papers required… Bratislava in Czechoslovakia… Hyde-hydro — He could get Hyde into Czecho easily—
The clouds rolled back through his mind as if the film had been reversed, moving more swiftly than ever, radiant with energy. He could — yes, it was possible, it could be done—
Danube. January. Ice—
The hydrofoil only ran in the summer months, for the tourists.
Immediately, he was defeated, his schemes shrunken and dry like long-fallen fruit. But almost at once, because the racing clouds of his ideas did not stop, he thought — Zimmermann. Even as he realised that Hyde could not cross into Czechoslovakia without papers and knew that he could not supply them, he understood that Zimmermann would have contacts in Vienna, that he could supply—
Ski-ing. A ski-ing holiday. Visas were settled at the border, not required in advance. All Hyde needed to get into Czecho was a hired car, a roof rack and a pair of skis as his cover. And an Austrian or German passport supplied by Zimmermann. And he could get out by the same route.
Hyde knew the what, Godwin the how. Hyde had legs — ingress and egress were his business… Godwin could coach him to approach the computer, Godwin would know the precise location and nature of the computer link between Prague and Moscow Centre… Hyde and Godwin, not Godwin alone.
Yes—
He would have to return to the office to get off a long, coded signal — EYES ONLY Godwin — whatever the risk to his security… and however much the desperation that had formed the scheme kept nudging him. Babbington was on his way to Vienna by now. Shelley glanced at his watch, then at the window. It was already getting dark outside. The street-lights were on. The map was washed with an orange glow, as if lit from within.
Desperate, but he had to take the risk of going to Century House, just as Hyde and Godwin had to take the risks he intended for them. Then he would disappear back here, to hide out. Godwin would know an untapped telephone and would be able to call him at Hyde's flat.
He sat down immediately. He wanted no truck with qualifications, with the minutiae of planning, the sense of the many dangers that pushed at his awareness like a madman at a door. Vast scope for error and failure—
No. No!
He began at once, in an almost blithe, superficial mood that he knew would not last, to draft the signal to Godwin in Prague.
* * *
Margaret Massinger was huddled into the passenger seat of the hired Ford as they waited near the exit of the car-park beside the sliproad from Schwechat airport to the autobahn. It was a few minutes after four in the afternoon, and the orange lights made the sky behind them prematurely darker. Clouds scudded in the wind, threatening snow if they but slowed in their passage across the sky. The windows of the Ford were misty with their breathing. The instrument panel glowed because Hyde had the ignition switched on so that the heating warmed the car. She felt uncomfortable with Hyde, her rescuer. He seemed an essential component of the trap into which her husband had been led by loyalty, by friendship — and by her. She blamed herself, over and over without respite, fearing he might be dying or even dead by now, and the blame spread like a patch of damp to include everyone connected with Aubrey and his downfall. Hyde was, therefore, a prime target for her outrage.
Hyde had found her sitting on a camp-bed used occasionally during stocktaking or by the manager of a small dress-shop owned by Clara Elsenreith. The woman had taken Margaret there less than an hour after she had discovered her fingering the small patch of blood on the Chinese rug, and told her to remain there. Once Hyde had been directed to Margaret's hiding-place, he instructed Clara to leave Vienna.
Where? she had challenged.
Have you got a summer place?
St Wolfgang, but…
Go there. Now.
The woman had agreed to do so. Hyde himself had witnessed her departure. He saw, also, the surveillance. Russian, he thought, rather than Wilkes and the other corrupted souls. They were evidently waiting for Margaret to return. Clara's Porsche would be followed, of course, but so would the tail-car. Clara had important friends in the Viennese police hierarchy. She had told her story to one of them — she was certain that someone was watching her apartment, following her car. She would be guarded all the way to St Wolfgang.
A pity her friends couldn't solve the problem of Margaret Massinger, her husband, and the old man. Vienna was Liberty Hall as far as intelligence services were concerned. The police just did not see, hear or speak. At best, they would expect to hand Margaret Massinger over to Babbington as his problem.
Hyde glanced at her. Guilt had made its inroads on her eyes and colouring. She was guilty now, disproportionately so; blaming herself for the entire situation and its outcome. And afraid they'd already killed her husband. She'd exorcised her father, for certain, but she believed it had taken her husband's life to achieve it. Because of the situation in which she had placed Aubrey, drawing Babbington's heavy mob after her to Vienna and Clara Elsenreith's apartment, he could feel no sympathy for her. She was an encumbrance, and a reminder that attending to her safety was the only task he was competent to tackle. For Aubrey, he could do nothing.
"He was on the plane," he said. He had returned to the car from the airport observation lounge only a few minutes before. "And he's being met." He had glimpsed Babbington hurrying across fifty yards of windswept tarmac towards the airport buildings. It would have been an easy shot for a rifle.
Hyde had no gun. He patted his waistband. Almost no gun. A small.22 Astra which belonged to Clara Elsenreith, and one spare 6-shot ammunition clip. A lady's gun with only close-range stopping power. He had never used one before. Those few field men and armourers he knew who had used the Astra advised that it required half the magazine to ensure immobilising any enemy. The gun did not provide a great deal of comfort. It was marginally better than nothing. He settled down behind the wheel in silence. The gun might be next to useless, but he had unwrapped some of the bandaging from his right hand so that he could hold it more easily. It had been painful, closing his hand experimentally around the butt. Driving the car, too, hurt his hands, but the pain was now retreating.
When the first escorting car passed them, followed by the limousine which must contain Babbington behind its tinted windows, the sight startled Margaret Massinger. She sat bolt upright in her seat, turning to
Hyde, who at that moment switched on the Ford's engine.
"What will he do to them?"
"Who? Your old family friend and escort to the opera?" Hyde sneered. A third car was bunched up behind the limousine. It looked like a KGB procession. It was, he reminded himself.
Margaret's face was pinched with anger. "Yes. Him."
"I hear the KGB Rezident in London got pissed at your place a few times, too. That right, is it?" His hands touched the wheel gingerly, then gripped. A stabbing pain, then almost at once a steady ache he could ignore. He rolled the car gently down the sliproad, accelerating once he reached the autobahn. The traffic was already heavier with the first of the rush-hour. A caterpillar of lights rushed towards them. They were invisible in the thinner stream of traffic heading into the city. Away to their left, the landing lights of an aircraft flickered and winked.
"Yes," Margaret admitted miserably. Hyde desisted from further comment. Accusations, reminders only fed her guilt. Guilty, she was useless, even dangerous. "What will he do to them?" she repeated after a mile or more of silence.
"If it hasn't occurred to him yet, then it soon will."
"What?"
"The old man on display in Russia."
"How could he—?"
"Easy. Drug the poor old sod up to the eyeballs, take a few snaps, then get rid of him. Babbington would be safe then, because the old man's treachery would have been confirmed."
"And Paul?"
"An accident."
"No…" Margaret's voice shuddered, and she covered her face with her hands.
The three cars ahead had left the autobahn into Vienna and were climbing and twisting through the maze of a major junction. Hyde closed the gap between them, aware of the plethora of signs and distances and directions. The cars braked, turned and Hyde followed them onto Autobahn 23, heading south-west. He wondered for a moment whether he had been spotted, since the three cars appeared to be retracing their journey, and then decided it was merely a precautionary move. He let the Ford drop back into the stream, half-a-dozen cars behind the trailing.