The Bear's Tears (59 page)

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 gratefully.

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?"