by Craig Thomas
The dog howled at its release. He heard it coming. His pained right hand fumbled at his side, fumbled for the pocket of his coat. Snow fell on him from the dancing curls of wire tugging over his back. The dog was close—
He touched the gun in its polythene bag. The dog's growl was almost on top of him, he heard it begin to slither expertly on its belly. Boots, running. Calls to halt, to remain still, not to move. The dog's breath on his exposed ankle, he was certain of it—!
The gun twisted in his grip. He tried to turn onto his back, but a strand of wire caught in his coat and he could not move. The dog raised its head, pulling at the cloth of his coat-tail. Heaving against his body-weight and the restraint of the wire. Holding him. The men were twenty yards from him, still running. He half-twisted, craning his neck, lying on his left side, tearing the coat open across his shoulders, feeling the barbed wire rip his skin. Felt the trigger awkwardly through the thin polythene. Moved the safety-catch. Held then squeezed the trigger's vague outline. Fired, deafening himself. As one of the two shots passed through the dog's shoulder, it howled, releasing the coat-tail.
Hyde heaved forward regardless of the wire. The searchlight bounced onto his prone form, passed, returned. Held him. Almost immediately, a machine-gun opened fire. The dog, screaming because it had become trapped in the wire in its pain, fell silent after a single long whimper. The two border guards were flat on their stomachs, out of the line of fire. Stone chips flew, bullets ricocheted. Hyde wriggled out from beneath the wire and flung himself forward into the water. Immediately, the cold stunned him, numbing his legs and trunk to the waist. The current flung him off his feet because he was too cold to move forward. He cried out at the shock. Floated, was pushed then dragged by the current. Machine-gun fire swept back and forth across the stream behind him, but the searchlight had lost him. It bounced forlornly from bank to bank, picked out the two border guards on their knees, both trying to draw a bead on his bobbing head. He swallowed icy water, moved his arms in protest, but the stream thrust him on. His feet dragged on the rocky bed, his leg banged numbly against a hidden rock, then he was out of his depth.
And the searchlight was gone. The guards, running along the shore, also vanished. The wire was just visible. He collided with a midstream rock and was too winded and weak to grasp its gleaming surface. He was hurried on by the current. The banks of the stream narrowed, rose on each side. His whole body was numb, too numb, dangerously—
A rock ahead. He tried to steer for it, tried to reach it, able only to push feebly against it with his feet as he passed. He saw foggily. Drew in one breath with enormous effort. Hands, feet, legs, trunk numb. He tried to stand, touched rocks, was swept onwards, touched rocks again, tried to stand, drew in a huge breath and ducked beneath the surface. Gripping rocks with numb hands, dragging the rocks towards him as his legs and torso were swept sideways. The water's current stretched him out, refloated him. Dragged him at another rock, slimy and hard. Another, then another—
He crouched against the current as it swept to both sides of a jutting rock. Knees on the pebbly bed, hardly registering the painful, hard lumps — his head was above water! He waited, then heaved himself at the bank.
He crawled out of the icy water, heart pumping, breath absent, strength gone. Rolled onto his back, coughing weakly, waiting for the effort to subside and allow him to find the strength to draw in air.
And saw Zimmermann's face. Framed by two other faces. They might have been those of the border guards. His hand flapped on his chest. Could he feel the wrapped cassette—? Could he? He patted weakly. Zimmermann understood and bent down beside him. He withdrew the cassette and held it for Hyde to see. Hyde nodded. Which started him coughing again. He had begun breathing shallowly and quickly. Torchlight danced around his body. Men spoke in German. He realised with difficulty that he had crossed the border.
"Wrap him up well," he heard Zimmermann say. "Get him on his feet as soon as you can." He patted Hyde's shoulder softly. Hyde could hardly feel the gesture. "Well done, Mr Hyde… we came upsteam from the bridge because of the activity in the area. Particularly the helicopter. But, it was a good thing you got ashore by yourself. We would not have seen you in the water."
Blankets laid on him, one after the other, heavy as earth. Someone rubbing his legs, his thighs roughly. Arms, too. A hand raised his head. Brandy. He coughed, losing most of it down his chin and collar.
"Listen—" he began.
"Say nothing at the moment," Zimmermann instructed. Behind his head the sky was beginning to gain colour. West German Frontier Guard — Grenzschütz — uniforms moved around him. Hyde wanted to vomit. His heart would not slow down. They continued to rub at his limbs and body. More brandy. This time he swallowed.
He coughed and said, "Not much time — have to talk to London. Have to, Zimmermann!" He was pulling at the German's sleeve.
The helicopter was away to the left, across the stream. Tree-top height, watching them. Heads turned to observe it. Hyde's head ached with cold, but ideas flashed and bloomed in his mind, as if he had drunk much more of the brandy. And then, for certainty's sake, the helicopter's small searchlight flicked across the river and spotlighted them for perhaps five seconds. Then it blinked out and the small helicopter rose and slipped over the trees. Hyde lost sight of it.
They knew.
Already, Zimmermann was saying: "… suspected they were following from Nuremberg. Someone must have seen me when I landed… they knew from my whereabouts that you—"
Hyde shook Zimmermann's sleeve, and spluttered: "Get me to a phone — if they warn London, then Babbington — disappears as soon — soon as he lands. Understand? We have to have him — have to have Babbington to save Aubrey. No swap, no — no Aubrey. Understand?"
Zimmermann's face darkened. Hie glanced at the sky, as if to pick out the now hidden helicopter.
"Yes," he said. "Yes, of course — of course!" He stood up. "They will carry you down to the car." Then in German, quickly and with authority: "Pick him up. Quickly — we must return to Waldsassen at once. Quickly!"
* * *
Aubrey glanced at his watch. Nine-seven. The unbroken snow lay like a frozen white sea lapping up to the hills of Moscow. The city was revealed like cast-up wreckage; spars and towers, broad avenues, blocks of apartments, ornate, miniature churches and palaces. Railway lines, ring roads and motorways spread in all directions from the city; once noticed, the scene became transformed into a vast spider's web heavy with snow and with Moscow at its heart.
The three of them — Margaret Massinger kneeling on her seat like a child, her head above the back of it — stared out of the windows of the Tupolev as it lazily circled the city, awaiting landing instructions. A small delay, the pilot had informed them over the intercom. Volume of air traffic for the southern international airport of Domodedovo. Aubrey glanced up. Margaret was looking at him intently. He tried to smile and she nodded, as if she understood his intention and his difficulty.
Now, near the end of it all, he was unable to speak to her. Or to Paul Massinger. The three of them had exchanged scrappy, broken phrases, single words, the occasional platitude but nothing more throughout the flight. Guests at a party, the earliest to arrive and strangers to one another. The dozen or so Russians aboard the aircraft ignored them. The hostesses served them with breakfast and with drinks in bland silence. Their guards relaxed. Each of the three seemed grateful for silence, and for the proximity of the others. Aubrey was pleased that their relationship did not exclude him.
The city slid beneath the wing. Traffic on the huge motorway ring, tinier than miniatures. Two trains visible, rushing into the city. The river, the Kremlin.
Aubrey had not been in Moscow since before the war. Yet it had formed the enemy fortress for so long that it was familiar. Any map of the city he had ever seen immediately became an architect's three-dimensional model or a series of aerial photographs. He knew the modern city, but until now it had belonged in his imagination. Moscow had bee
n like Rome and Carthage, made unreal by distance and history. Sites of ancient battles. Now, below him, he saw the enemy camp. And it was also the enchanted castle, the home of the wicked…
He smiled to himself. Moscow, for the past forty-six years, had been both as real and as imaginary as a child's dream. Fairy-tale. Ogre's castle.
Now, the place of execution. All three of them knew that. Already, the Massingers had been forced to dress in mechanics' overalls so that they could be smuggled unrecognised from the aircraft long after he had left it in a gleam of publicity and identification. They had perhaps a couple of hours remaining to them.
The river glinted, frozen and silver in the morning sunlight. Gold glowed on roofs and onion towers. Apartment blocks remained unwarmed, stubbornly grey and drab beneath the clear sky.
The aircraft began to drop slowly southwards towards the airport. Its nose angled more steeply. Aubrey glanced at Margaret Massinger. She patted his gnarled, liver-spotted hand as it rested on the back of her seat. The Tupolev continued to slip through the clear air towards the ground. Moscow, drifting away behind them was still a huge, intricate child's model of a fortress. And Aubrey was grateful for the unreal images of Moscow his imagination provided like a sedative. Miniature. Map. Unreal.
* * *
"There's thirty minutes, and they know!" Hyde all but wailed.
He was huddled in a striped blanket, his hands grasping a mug of coffee as if to still the constant shuddering of his arms and shoulders. His hair was once more wet where ice had melted in his matted curls. The only noise in the small room was the constant sound of his chattering teeth.
Zimmermann stood near the door of the office that had been put at their disposal by the commanding officer of the Grenzschutz HQ at Waldsassen. Sir William Guest's flat in Albany was still unoccupied. The clock on the wall displayed nine for another moment, then its minute hand jerked forward. Babbington was due to land at Heathrow in thirty minutes. Zimmermann entirely agreed with Hyde. Once he disembarked, he would be warned off; taken swiftly into hiding and smuggled out of the country. No exchange, no return of Aubrey.
"Is there no one else?" he asked softly.
Hyde shook his head violently. The green blotting-pad on the desk was sprinkled with damp spots as the melted ice flicked from his hair. He swallowed his coffee greedily, then wiped his mouth.
"No, there's no one else."
"Not even the very top?"
Hyde looked up in disbelief. "Me ring the Prime Minister, or something?" he asked scornfully. Then shook his head more reflectively. "I'd be sidetracked. One of Babbington's people — I'd never get to anyone who could act. There's only Guest."
"You are certain they will dispose of Aubrey at once — without delay?"
"Aren't you?"
Zimmermann rubbed his chin, then sighed. "Yes. In their place, I would not allow him to be seen again, by anyone, once he left the aircraft. Anything else would be a risk, a finesse." He nodded, as if some inner self had finally become convinced of the argument's inevitable logic, then raised his arms in a gesture of helplessness. Hyde merely continued to stare at the telephone clamped to the desk amplifier, his hands kneading the pottery of his mug as if to reshape it.
Nine-three.
"Are you trying that number?" Hyde snapped in English at the intercom.
Zimmermann walked swiftly to the desk and issued instructions in clipped, precise phrases. The Grenzschütz switchboard operator offered assurances of his best efforts. Zimmermann looked up at Hyde.
"I have instructed them that the number is to be left ringing. Continuously."
Hyde was about to reply when the door opened. The features of the Grenzschütz Kapitan were clouded with doubt, even embarrassment. His eyes displayed a sense of having been deceived and there was a stiff, ominous rectitude about his lips. He closed the door behind him.
"Herr Professor Zimmermann," he began formally. "I must ask you to accompany me, please."
"What is the matter?" Zimmermann snapped back, his eyes angry and affronted. Hyde sensed that he had already-weighed the situation, completely understood it. "I do not understand, Kapitan."
Immediately, the Frontier Guard officer was at a disadvantage. But he persisted: "You have deceived me and my men, Herr Professor. This is not a matter of Federal security. You are at present—" He hesitated, as if once more embarrassed, then added: "You are not officially recognised, Herr Professor. You do not have official status."
Hyde, turning his head from face to face, realised that someone had acted without hesitation to inform Bonn of Zimmerrnann's whereabouts and intentions. The ramifications did not bear consideration. The immediate was dangerous enough. This captain could stop them simply by denying them access to a telephone. The thread was that fine, that fragile. Hyde forced himself to say nothing, closing his eyes like a child against something frightening or dangerous.
"Please, Herr Professor," the captain pleaded. "This is a very embarrassing moment. Please, you will accompany me now—"
Immediately, Zimmermann replied in a raised, authoritative voice: "No! Captain, I will not leave your office. I will not do as you ask."
The captain's dark, rounded features scowled, and his eyes glanced momentarily down as if seeking a reminder of his rank and authority. "Herr Professor—" he warned.
"Captain — you are responsible for a stretch of border perhaps fifty miles long — yes?"
Puzzled, the officer nodded. "Yes—"
"Good. You have light and heavy armoured cars at your disposal. You conduct patrols. You are one of twenty thousand." Zimmermann hesitated, then pounced with biting sarcasm. "I could get ten, fifty, a hundred officers to do your job — this moment — from the ranks of the Bundeswehr or the Grenzschütz or even the Territorialheer reservists!" The captain's face opened in surprise, his jaw dropping beneath cheeks growing pink and eyes that signaled his sense of outrage. Zimmermann hurried his words, his tone studiedly angry and dismissive. Hyde appreciated the performance, even as his eyes glanced at the clock. "Do you understand my meaning, Captain? Do you understand what I am saying? On my side, there is myself and this Englishman — no one else. I cannot be replaced, neither can he. Nor will we be. What could you expect to understand about security? About our world!" He gestured in Hyde's direction. "You receive a telephone call from someone in Bonn you have never heard of, and you jump to do as he says? Do you think we dragged this man out of the river for humanitarian reasons? Do you? I suggest you spend some time — perhaps thirty minutes, checking your instructions. Meanwhile, you will leave us here, in the safety of your office where the door and the windows can be guarded, with the use of the telephone and the services of your switchboard operator, and we shall promise not to attempt to escape!" The climax of the sentence was mocking, superior.
Zimmermann, to emphasis his assumed, false control of the situation, immediately placed himself behind the captain's desk, apparently relaxed and comfortable in the officer's own chair. Rights of occupation, Hyde thought. Nine-six. Twenty-four minutes. Hyde once more squeezed his eyes shut. His teeth had ceased to chatter. The electric fire near his legs now gave out an appreciable warmth. He felt the last of the coffee warm in his stomach.
"I — " the captain began, his face flushed, his eyes now calculating behind the anger.
"Well, captain? Well?" Zimmermann persisted. "If we are a danger to the state, you have us well controlled — in custody already. Haven't you?"
The captain's hands were bunched at his sides. His dislike of Zimmermann became masked and hidden. His eyes moved rapidly as if he were dreaming where he stood. What if—? What chance—? Hyde saw the questions dart and flicker. Could he avoid offending Zimmermann and Bonn at the same time? Zimmermann was a powerful man, his authority only suspect, not ended. Eventually, he nodded.
"Very well. This room will be placed under guard, Herr Professor — in twenty minutes, I shall return. You will then be placed in proper custody until I receive further orders. Any use you
make of the telephone will, of course, be monitored." Zimmermann shrugged as if indifferent, and the captain, hiding his anger at the further insult, turned on his heel and left the office. They heard him barking orders in the outer room.
Nine-eight.
"Jesus—!" Hyde began.
Zimmermann waved him to silence. "It was nothing," he observed with assumed modesty and a smile. "But, they are moving very quickly. They have excellent communications. They will definitely attempt to save Babbington when he lands in — in twenty-one minutes." His fingers drummed on the desk. Through the window a high pale sky retreated beyond hills dark with pine. A guard ostentatiously took up position in full view outside the window. Zimmermann laughed. "Ridiculous."
"Anything yet?" Hyde asked the intercom, flicking the switch up for the switchboard operator's reply.
"Nothing, sir."
"Sir," Hyde remarked ironically.
"He is playing even safer than his officer."
"And, in twenty minutes' time?"
"That could be — awkward? I do not know what will happen. I will be in trouble with my ministry, of course. Whether any — more permanent measures might be taken, I cannot say. It depends on what power they can wield. And who could be certain about that?"
Nine-eleven. Nineteen minutes. The KGB might even meet Babbington on the tarmac. Come on, come on—
"Christ—!" Hyde exploded, hurling the empty mug at the clock on the wall. It struck below it and shattered. Hyde had begun shaking once more, and tugged the blanket more tightly around him. His feet shifted, his teeth ground with rage rather than cold. "Come on, damn you!"
"Sir?"
Zimmermann immediately reached for the intercom switch and flicked it.
"Yes?"
"Sir, I have your call. I gave your name, sir — was that…?"
"Yes, yes — put the call through, man!"
Hyde's head came up. His whole frame was quivering. "Is it—?" he began.
Zimmermann clipped the receiver to a desk speaker/amplifier so that both he and Hyde could hear Guest and speak to him without having to transfer the receiver to and fro.