The Bear's Tears (15 page)

He lowered himself over the gutter, clinging to it, wincing at every
groan and squeak of protest it uttered. His legs dangled for a moment,
and then he dropped.

"Here!" someone yelled, only yards away. "Come on —!"

Inexperienced, some cold and previously unused part of his brain
informed him. The man was slow, undecided, afraid.
Kill it
—

Hyde was on his haunches, absorbing the impact with the ground, and
he fought the momentary weakness after effort and the trauma of
surprise and shock. The pistol was in his hand with only a fractional
delay - kill it - danger - trap closing, insisted the cold,
now-admitted, now-controlling part of him. Kill it.

Hyde fired twice, and the body to which the voice had belonged, the
body that had prompted vocal chords to utter a cry for help, bucked
away against the wall of the warehouse, then slid into a patch of deep
shadow, losing shape, identity, volition. Then Hyde pushed himself to
his feet and ran.

Broken wooden slats over a glassless window. He clambered up onto
the sill, and kicked at the rotten wood. It gave inwards, instantly
disintegrating into wet sawdust. He hesitated for a moment, hunched and
staring into the interior of the dark, wet-smelling warehouse, and then
he jumped, colliding almost immediately with cardboard that gave
soggily, and rolled and tumbled through a stack of boxes and cartons.

No way back, another part of his brain informed him. The icy part
had retreated momentarily. This part was nervy, feverish, close to
panic. He had killed one of his own. Now, he was no longer one of their
own, one of them.

They were going to kill me…

No way back. It's over. You're out. You're dead. He could smell the
recently-fired gun in the damp warehouse air. He thrust it,
warm-barrelled, into his pocket.

He scrambled out of the wreckage of old packing-cases and empty
cartons, arms outstretched, and blundered across the warehouse. He
could hear footsteps, then silence, then a curse. The elimination order
on himself was now precisely defined and endorsed. There was now no
possibility that they would not kill him if they had the opportunity.

Gate —

A minute, perhaps two, and then they would guard the gates against
him. The only direction in which he could be certain there was not a
blind alley lay towards the gates through which he had followed Wilkes.
Perhaps he had less than a minute.

His claw-bent fingers collided with the opposite wall. Now he could
almost see the faint gleam of its whitewash. Direction —? There were no
noises from outside the window, from the kneeling group around the dead
thing slumped in the shadow. Door, then —?

This warehouse was closer than the first to the gates, he would not
have to cross their line of fire, they would be behind him from the
start of his run.

He moved slowly, carefully towards the doors. To his adjusted
night-vision, the warehouse now possessed a pallid gleam. The floor
space was empty. He reached the double-doors, touching them with the
urgent delicacy of a blind man. One huge, rusted bolt above his head
and below it the doors rested slightly ajar from one another. One bolt —

He listened. His advantage was draining away. He touched the bolt,
trying to ease it. It squeaked, then grumbled. He let it go, as if it
contained a charge, held his breath, and then jerked at it. It slid
noisily out and he heaved open the.drunkenly-leaning doors.

Voices —?

Traffic, then his own footsteps beating across the slippery cobbles,
splashing noisily in puddles. Other footsteps, then the first shot. He
began to weave in his running, slipped once, regained purchase. The
gates ahead of him wobbled in his vision, but he could discern no one
outlined against the street-lamps beyond. He collided with them then
propelled himself through the gap he had left. A shot struck one of the
scrolled ornamentations, and careered away. Then he was in the wide,
cobbled street, and a trarn flashed sparks at him like a signal of
assistance. He dodged one car and ran across the street, just as the
tram stopped.

A very old woman was climbing painfully aboard, helped by a younger
woman. Hyde, his breath escaping and being recaptured in great sobs,
watched in a fever of impatience - left foot, stick, hip swung, right
foot, totter, the young woman's arm braced against the weight that
threatened to topple back off the platform. There was a figure at the
gates, then a second shadow.
Come on, come on
—

The old woman heaved her centre of gravity forward into her habitual
arthritic hunch again, and then tapped a step forward. The younger
woman placed her left foot on the platform. Someone - a tall figure,
not Wilkes - was pointing towards the tram.
Come on, come on
—

He had to clench his teeth to keep the words in. The tall figure
began running across the road. The younger woman had both feet on the
platform. Through the lighted glass of the rear of the tram, two
figures were moving across the road like fish in a bowl; black, shadowy
fish, hunting.

Three steps, and the old woman had still hardly mounted the lowest
of them.

Trap,
trap
—!

Hyde turned his head wildly, realising his stupidity, his meek
acceptance of the first assistance he had recognised. On the tram, he
was trapped. There was nowhere else -

Trap, safe - trap - safe…

He pushed past the two women as gently as he could, squeezing past
the surprised malevolence of the old woman's face and her hunched,
tottering form. He passed down the tram. Now he was the fish in the lit
bowl. Timing, timing. He could take them all the way on the tram, but
they'd still be there when it emptied. They could wait. It had to be
timing, but he was already beginning to realise that the information
was erroneous. Its origins were fictional.

Two men hopping on and off the New York subway - a film, Christ,
nothing but a film —! Wires crossed, not training, just a bloody film
—!
French Connection
, man with a beard, jumping on and off…

He should never have got on the fucking tram —!

Standing opposite the centre door of the tram, he watched the door
by which he had entered. Both doors were open. Wilkes's face, lighting
up and hardening in the same moment, bobbed into view behind the two
women, still not seated. Where was the other one? Wilkes's expression
promised him full retribution; malevolent, full of hate, full of
pleasure. Where was —?

Wilkes's smile was broadening, and the tall man was standing on the
pavement opposite the centre door. They'd seen the film, too. Hyde let
his shoulders slump. The tall man stepped onto the platform, raised a
foot to the step.

The driver waited. The tall man stepped back. He'd follow in the
car, having blocked Hyde's escape. The driver pressed the bell, and the
door moved fractionally. Hyde went through without touching it and the
Heckler & Koch's barrel struck the tall man across the forehead. He
staggered back, blinded by pain and sudden blood.

Inside the lit glass bowl of the tram, Wilkes's mouth opened like a
fish's. Hyde stepped over the tall man's still form, and ran, at first
as if to catch the tram, then into a narrow, ill-lit street, guessing
it headed towards the West-bahnhof and light and crowds.

He ran. The noise of the tram faded behind him. There was no noise
yet of a car engine firing or of pursuing footbeats. It was enough of a
gap.

He ran.

Peter Shelley remembered looking out across dark, light-pricked
London on numerous earlier occasions from the broad windows of his
office in Century House. The river wound like a black snake between two
borders of light, its back striped by the lamps of bridges.
Increasingly, his last, reluctant, half-ashamed cogitations of the day
had come to concern Kenneth Aubrey. He could not help but consider
himself as some kind of betrayer. Aubrey and the old order - he owed
them everything, including his latest and most gratifying promotion to
the directorship of East Europe Desk. That office was a recognised
stage on the road that led to the very top: part of the Jacob's Ladder
of SIS mythology. He should repay, honour his debts to Aubrey. Yet
whenever he decided that, an image came to him of a sunlit garden in
Surrey, and his wife pushing the swing which held and delighted his
small daughter. He was always the observer of the scene, and he seemed
to himself to lurk beneath the apple trees like an intruder, someone
who intended harm to that secure and loved couple. The feeling of
danger posed to them was so intense it was as if he held a weapon in
his hands, or the two people were naked and vulnerable and he, a
stranger, obscenely desired sexual violence.

Paul Massinger had hinted darkly at SIS collusion with the KGB, on
Hyde's word. Shelley trusted both men, and could not ignore them. But
Babbington, with Sir William's blessing, now controlled SIS along with
MI5, and Shelley was in danger - his family was in peril along with his
mortgage and his promotion and his career and his ambitions - if he did
more than nothing. He must do nothing, nothing at all.

He turned from the nighttime view of the city, and the telephone
seemed immediately at the focus of his vision. He all but removed his
right hand from his pocket to reach for it, then relented. His
breathing was audible, almost a gasp. There was one more moment of
reluctance, and then he picked up the receiver and dialled an outside
line. The telephone purred. He watched the door, as if afraid of being
surprised in some guilty act. He
had
to, no matter what the
cost. The calculation, the selfishness he had hoped would come to him,
had not materialised. He was helpless before his obligations to Aubrey.
He
had
to help -

He dialled his home, and waited. His wife's voice gave their number.

"Darling…" he began.

"Peter - where are you?" Then testiness creeping in, tones of a
dinner postponed or spoiled. "You're not still at the office, are you?"

"Yes - sorry. Something's come up. Can dinner be kept?" he added
hopefully.

"No!" she snapped, then: "Oh, I suppose so. Honestly, Peter, you
said you'd be early this evening."

"I know," Shelley soothed. A hard lump of guilt appeared in his
throat. "I'm sorry. Look, it won't take me very long. I'll be with you
by —" He studied his watch, a birthday present from his wife. "— oh,
eight at the latest. OK?"

She sighed. "OK. Don't be any later." Her voice had hardened again,
as if being mollified had left her feeling cheated. "
Please
don't be any later," she repeated with heavy irony.

"I promise —"

The receiver clicked and she was gone. Reluctantly, he put down the
instrument. Her testiness, he felt, was entirely justified; he felt
more bereft at it than he might have done had they been more
affectionate. He was betraying her, all the more so because she was not
an ambitious wife, not pushing. She might even have supported his
decision to assist Aubrey, to repay his debts. That knowledge was
almost
insupportable.

Swiftly, he left and locked his office, and made for the lifts. The
corridor was empty except for a cleaner with a noisy vacuum. She did
not look up as he passed, as if to mirror his shifty guilt. The lift
arrived almost immediately, surprising him, and it did not stop until
he had reached the basement level which housed Central Registry.

He stepped out into an echoing concrete corridor. He waved his ID
quickly at the duty security officer opposite the doors of the lift.
The man nodded, even smiled briefly. Shelley was known, Shelley was
senior…

The refrain ran in his head like a mocking jingle. Shelley was
recognisable to everyone at Century House, Shelley was a coming man,
Shelley was known, Shelley was senior, senior, senior…

Known
came back at him out of the darkness in his head. It
was easy to get into Registry, easy to fulfil Massinger's request. And
easy for others to remember he was there, what he wanted.

A second duty officer, then the doors opened automatically to admit
him.

The cavern of Registry retreated before him, the strip-lighting in
the ceiling shedding a dusty light. There was a musty, underground
chill to the place, too, despite the efficient heating. Registry was a
sterile, low-ceilinged library, even a cathedral nave. The
confessionals of partitioned booths lay to his left, each of them
containing a microfiche viewer and a VDU terminal with access to the
main computer files. It was a place to which Aubrey very rarely came;
he dispatched emissaries if he required files, digests, or information.
Shelley shivered with his own nervousness. The place repelled him, too,
at that moment.

Registry retreated into shadows where rows of ceiling-high metal
shelves held the hundreds of thousands of low-grade files that had not
yet been sifted for transfer to computer tape or for shredding. The
place was almost deserted. He showed his identification at the desk,
and the clerk gestured towards an empty booth. Shelley hurried to it
like a man on whom it had suddenly begun to rain.

The VDU screen was blank and coated with a film of dust. Shelley's
fingers touched it reluctantly. He sat down in front of it, and
switched on. Immediately, a request for his security classification and
identity code appeared on the screen. His hands poised over the
keyboard. Once he tapped out his code and identity, he was logged into
the computer. On record, for anyone who looked to see, would be his
name, the date, the files he had asked for. He had thought of
disguising his request, approaching the information regarding the
Vienna Rezident obliquely. Hurriedly, he identified himself, and a few
moments later the screen accepted him with its permission to proceed.

He could still postpone, or avoid, identifying himself with any
particular file, any area of information. He cleared his throat; a
weak, dry little noise.