by Craig Thomas
Margaret's face was unnaturally still as she struggled to control her emotions. She nodded violently, decisively.
"All right," she said, then more firmly: "All right."
PART THREE
GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE
Our better part remains
To work in close design by fraud or guile
What force effected not.
— Milton: Paradise Lost, Bk.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
No Country for Old Men
Hyde emerged from the low wooden hut, closing the cover of his Austrian passport on the weekend visa which allowed him entry into Czechoslovakia. Immediately, his eyes sought, and found, the hired Ford and the fur-coated woman standing beside it. He tapped his cold cheek with his passport, then descended the steps towards a dirty, grey Volkswagen Beetle, its roof-rack displaying skis and ski-sticks. Manfred Richer, Hyde's cover-name, was going ski-ing at one of the resorts in the Little Carpathians, north of Bratislava. There were at least a dozen other cars displaying skis in the queue to cross the border at Petrzalka, on the main autobahn between Vienna and Bratislava.
And yet he fought to calm his breathing — sending up little grey, cold puffs of air like distress signals — as he watched Margaret Massinger climb into the Ford, reverse, turn, and head back towards Vienna. He had no sense of her danger, only of his own. He glared at the retreating Ford, then turned his head to stare balefully at the red and white pole and the grey, urgent river beyond.
And the city beyond the river and the bridge. Inside Czechoslovakia.
You've crossed borders before, he told himself as he massaged his gloved hands slowly together. The healing skin was still tender. The palms and backs of his hands were still lightly bandaged. It was a reminder of fragility and, strangely, of isolation. He turned his head, watching the plume of the Ford's exhaust disappearing into the hazy grey morning. When he returned his gaze to Bratislava, it seemed in the snow-threatening air that the castle had crept closer to the river, like a guard anticipating his attempt to cross the border.
Hyde shivered, opened the door, kicked the slush from his boots against the car, then climbed into the driving seat. He started the engine. The pole began to swing up. An armed guard waved the queuing cars forward. He rubbed the clouded rear mirror. There was no longer any sign of the Ford. Briefly, he was aware of Margaret Massinger as another person, real like himself, at risk like himself with her instructions and the camera and film they had bought — then she retreated in his mind. He gripped the driving wheel, pressing his palms down upon it to pain them. He shuddered. He could not shake off the sense of impending failure or ignore the hurried desperation that had impelled him to this border crossing.
The arrangements had been easy. A call to Zimmermann, an address in a quiet old Viennese street, Margaret Massinger watching him intently while the lights glared in his eyes and his passport photographs were taken, the hours of work, the fake stamps — the resulting Austrian passport and the new identity. The skis and sticks, the goggles, the winter clothing, the boots…
The clockwork, hectic rush for a surprise holiday or business trip.
To end here, he thought, putting the Volkswagen into gear and letting off the handbrake. Bratislava looked as cold and inhospitable as the Danube beneath the cloudy, snow-filled sky. He revved the engine and shuffled the car forward in the queue. To end here — nerves frayed, confidence ebbed like a tide. Dry like a riverbed, he told himself. He was in poor shape. Everything depended upon him. The weight of that dependence pressed down on him.
The back wheels of the Beetle slithered in the rutted slush at the end of the sliproad, then he was passing beneath the raised pole. He glanced up at it, then down to look through the windscreen. Steeples had joined the castle on the lumpy, indistinct horizon. They appeared like up thrust rifles or spears. Hyde felt there was no comfort to be derived from his papers, from the ease of his passage, from the car awaiting him in Bratislava, a gun taped to the underside of its chassis in a waterproof bag. No comfort. The thing was hopeless from the beginning…
The river slid beneath the bridge, its surface like dirty glass, yet suggesting movement as quick and dangerous as the body of some great snake.
* * *
They had beaten Massinger savagely about the head with the barrels of their pistols, and when he did not slump immediately to the floor but still clung to them, struggling desperately, they, had shot him in the leg. Perhaps the gun had discharged accidentally — certainly Wilkes had been enraged by the noise and the blood — but they seemed determined to punish Massinger. Heaping on him, Aubrey thought, all blame for the frustration of their schemes.
Thirty-six and more hours later, it was easy to believe that Paul Massinger was dying, even dead. It was hard to recall the semiconscious man thrust beside him in the rear of the large Mercedes without imagining that the mask of blood he wore and the red-stained scarf tightened around his thigh were exact prophecies of the American's death. He had not been allowed to see Massinger since their arrival at the safe house. Aubrey, during the entire time, had found his thoughts obsessed by what Massinger had been murmuring in pain and semi-delirium in the back of the car. That, too, suggested an approaching death — the American's desperate attempts to whisper his suspicions to Aubrey before it was too late.
Stop it, stop it, he instructed himself. Massinger isn't dying, Massinger won't die—
Not from those wounds, he began to assure himself, but the phrase became imprecise in his thoughts; became not yet — won't die yet.
Because Massinger certainly would die. They would both die. To make the books balance, to keep matters neat and tidy, they would be disposed of.
Aubrey, hunched over the hands he clasped in his lap, nodded agreement with his conclusions as he sat on the edge of the hard bed, the curtains at the barred window still drawn, the light of the lamp a sickly yellow that fell upon his head and shoulders; upon his crumpled, collarless shirt and unshaven cheeks and ruffled, tufted remains of hair. He shivered, though the room was warm. His thoughts had conspired with the efficient but noisy radiators to keep him awake during most of the night; continually lurching him back to semi-consciousness, back to images of the gun barrels descending on Massinger, back to the deafening noise of the gun detonating in the high-ceilinged room. Back, too, to the doors bursting open, the immediate sense of attack and capture; then the struggle, then the stairs, the cold dusk, the back seat of the car, Massinger's moans and pain interrupting his whispered suspicions, and the name—
The one name, which did not surprise him because it matched the cleverness of the whole Teardrop scenario. It was Teardrop's final justification.
Babbington.
Massinger did not know. The real suspicions belonged to Wolfgang Zimmermann, but Aubrey believed them. He knew those suspicions were correct. He rubbed his arm, noticing a tiny red spot in the crease of his bent elbow. Only then did he associate the dry, ugly taste in his mouth with the administration of a sedative; only then, perhaps two hours after rising from the bed, did he remember the needle and Wilkes's smirking features. They had drugged him to keep him quiet.
Then had he dreamed all those half-waking moments during the night? Had he dreamed the clunking of the radiators, the heat of the narrow room? He rubbed his unshaven cheeks warily and with apprehension. It unnerved and frightened him, that sudden and new sense of vulnerability. His hands shook and he could not still them. He felt saliva dribble down his chin and wiped at it viciously. His hands shook as he studied them. Babbington, Wilkes, others, may have watched him sleeping, may have been there…
One of the radiators clunked. The noise made him stand up stiffly and walk to the corner of the room and a wash-basin fitted to the wall. He avoided the mirror's image of himself, bending his head, swallowing tepid water from his cupped hand, then bathing his eyes and cheeks and forehead as the water ran colder. Icy.
He looked round for a towel. Thin, striped, much-used. He dried his face grate
fully.
The door opened. Wilkes held it ajar. Babbington stepped into the room, shaven, his cologne preceding him, his dark suit uncreased. His lips smiled. Aubrey was unsurprised. He had known the man would come.
I was not asleep, he told himself. I did keep waking. The sedative did not work — not effectively. I was almost awake. Yet he knew that Babbington had stood over the bed at some time during the evening or night. The man's smile betrayed it.
"Kenneth," he said softly, silkily.
"How is Massinger?" Aubrey snapped, deliberately folding and hanging the towel.
"Alive."
"Recovering, I trust?"
"Yes, I think we can say he is recovering very well…"
"Every blow — every blow was delivered by you — your malice was in all of it!" Aubrey raged, surprised by his own outburst. His body quivered. "Because he tried to help me—!"
"I'm sorry you feel that, Kenneth," Babbington murmured. "Please sit down — my dear Kenneth, do sit down." He indicated one of the two narrow armchairs, and the bed. "Please," he soothed.
Aubrey watched the man's eyes. Did he know—? Was he here to learn—?
Babbington sat in one of the chairs. Wilkes tugged aside the curtains. The daylight was grey and snowy. "Bring Sir Kenneth his breakfast, Wilkes," Babbington instructed. Before Aubrey could say anything, Wilkes had left the room. Aubrey sank into the depression in the bedclothes he had previously made. Babbington leaned forward in the chair, hands touching as if at the commencement of prayer. "Believe me, Kenneth, I am sorry about Massinger — but, he brought the whole thing upon himself. You realise that, surely—?"
"They clubbed him down and enjoyed doing so."
Babbington flicked one hand impatiently, then it returned to accompany its twin in further prayer. "I have said I'm sorry, Kenneth. Zeal — and anger. Yes, justified anger, perhaps. Your American friend has caused us a great deal of inconvenience—"
"I see."
"Good."
"I take it he is already in hospital?" Aubrey asked with calculated innocence.
Babbington hesitated, and Aubrey knew that the crucial moment had arrived. Babbington would never return him to England. Babbington must know about Zimmermann, must know how close suspicion was to him—! Aubrey understood his hesitation, the vague shadow of a desire to solve the problem without further violence. Perhaps he, too, had been shocked by the bruised, broken face and the gunshot wound?
"He will be," Babbington replied eventually, and by his tone Aubrey knew that Babbington had relinquished any hope of their ignorance; of their survival. His glance apologised for his decision. Then he added, sighing: "There really isn't anything to say, is there?"
"Perhaps not—"
"In the car — Wilkes heard, you see…" Babbington explained heavily, guiltily.
Aubrey turned and switched off the bedside lamp, whose light was more sickly than ever. With his face averted, he murmured: "I understand."
"You couldn't have hoped—" Babbington began in a tone of protest.
"No," Aubrey snapped, turning to face him. "What will you do about Zimmermann? No doubt you realise how much he knows?"
Babbington bared his teeth, but could not summon the confident smile he desired. "Yes," he said in an ugly voice.
Aubrey held up one hand, fingers spread. He counted off the names he recited. "Shelley, Hyde, Zimmermann — what has begun can't be stopped, Andrew. You must see that…" Aubrey's voice tailed off. Babbington was shaking his head in disagreement, and his smile had become more confident.
"Your own fate will settle matters nicely, Kenneth," he announced. There was still something of bluff, of self-deceit in the voice, but it was evident that Babbington's confidence was growing. Soon, he would command the conversation.
"My fate?" Aubrey enquired.
"Your fate. And that of the American, naturally."
"Naturally." Aubrey's face twisted at the mockery in Babbington's voice. He snapped: "I cannot — simply cannot comprehend your treachery!"
Babbington blushed. His lips tautened, as if his face had been struck. His eyes were chilly. "Don't be so ridiculously naïve, Kenneth."
"Naïve?"
"Patriotism — with your experience of the world? With your knowledge of the skeletons in the closets? Patriotism?" There was a stinging contempt in the tone. Babbington had mastered his voice now. "You're as naïve as that American in the next room, Kenneth. I thought we could safely have left the flag and the anthem to our colonial cousins — this late in the day. I'm surprised at you."
"I'm a little surprised at myself." Aubrey was slowly shaking his head. His lips were formed in a smile.
"Which is why I could never have released you, or allowed you to go free," Babbington announced. "You are even more dangerous than I thought."
"Why, Andrew?" Aubrey asked immediately, unbalancing Babbington, whose cheeks flushed. He smoothed them with his hands, removing evidence.
"Why?"
"Why treachery? You have — everything. You gained the high ground by your own abilities. What can you possibly have gained from them?"
"Unlike yourself, the secret life has never been all in all to me." Babbington smiled, catlike.
"I repeat — what on earth did they have to offer you?" He paused, and continued with biting irony: "For someone with your advantages — your background, education, influential relatives, intellectual promise? What was it? A taste for the same kind of danger that makes a figure prominent in public life — who simply happens to prefer men to women — take to haunting public lavatories?" He smiled. "Is that it? The danger in the deceit — the risk of the policeman's footsteps and voice outside a grimy, odorous cubicle in a public urinal?"
Babbington's cheeks reddened. Then he waved the insults aside. "Perhaps," he admitted. "More to do, I think, with the public lavatory to which you offer up your naïve patriotism." His face darkened, and he leaned forward. "This country, Kenneth. This country since the war. Look for the answer there — in the piddling little American aircraft carrier we have become over the years. The whining, useless voice wailing in the corridors of the UN!" Babbington's rage was sudden, surprising, and genuine. Aubrey was shocked by it. Shocked, too, by the contempt at the core of the man; the lonely peak his ego had climbed. Babbington's clenched fist banged his thigh. "You remain loyal to it? To our masters? How can you? How can you?"
"As you said — naïvety."
"It was not sufficient for me — I couldn't be naïve."
"No. You never could. And what did they offer?"
"Eminence. No, not your sort of secret eminence, unregarded even by yourself—" He broke off. "You never really sought the Director-Generalship after Cunningham, did you?" Aubrey shook his head in agreement. "Eminence," Babbington repeated. "Eminence with the most powerful secret organisation in the world. Do you understand?"
"I think so. A monkey requiring a larger audience for its tricks."
"You foolish old man," Babbington hissed.
"What can you do to me? More than you intend?"
Babbington shook his head. "No — not more than I intend already." He smiled. "You don't display much curiosity in that direction, Kenneth?"
"Should I?"
"I think perhaps you should."
"My appearance in Moscow would clear the field for you. I also think the idea would have a certain — appeal for you? As for poor Massinger, I presume quick disposal will suffice for him." Aubrey was studying his hands as they lay inertly in his lap. He would not give Babbington the satisfaction of looking into his face and showing him his fears.
"You have no country now, Kenneth," Babbington announced. "No country whatsoever. Not much to show for forty years of loyal service."
Aubrey's head snapped up. His pale eyes were hard. "I have the small satisfaction of knowing that for forty years I have occupied the time and space that might otherwise have been filled by someone like you," he delivered in a waspish, superior tone. He was satisfied with the flinch of
reaction in Babbington's eyes.
"It is now occupied by me," Babbington replied after a moment. "And consequently your forty years has been an entire waste of your life. Your whole life has been meaningless." He stood up.
Aubrey said, "Why now?"
"What?"
"Teardrop. Why now, at this precise moment?"
"The time seemed right. The scenario was available. Once you took the bait from Kapustin, the whole thing gained an inertia of its own. It rolled downhill like a great smooth stone. You were so greedy for Kapustin's defection, Kenneth!"
"I know it."
Babbington crossed the room. "I'll leave you for the moment—" he began.
Aubrey interrupted him. "When, Andrew — when did they get hold of you? Tell me that."
Babbington paused for a moment, then shrugged. "Very well. After Suez. I'd begun in security by then. Yes — Suez seemed to clinch matters for me. That — farce!"
"I see."
"I could see nothing ahead — humiliation…decline, bankruptcy in the world's court… and we have it."
"Thus go all Fascists," Aubrey murmured with withering contempt, "down the aisle of that broad church, worshipping order. Was that it, Andrew? Order. The attractions of nothing more than efficiency?"
"You do not even begin to understand," Babbington replied, shrugging.
"Much like Castleford, then — you admired brute force. He chose Hungary rather than Suez."
"Perhaps." It was evident Babbington disliked any comparison with another. "Mm, Castleford…" he murmured. "Poor Castleford. I'm quite sure he deserved to die — however, we pay for our sins, Kenneth. At least, you will."
Babbington smirked, and opened the door quickly. He went out, but the door did not close. Instead, Wilkes appeared, carrying a tray. Aubrey smelt tempting bacon, toast, marmalade, almost as if his sense of smell was artificially heightened. He glared at Wilkes.