The Bear's Tears (60 page)

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.

"Take that away and get out!" he cried. Wilkes grinned,
shrugged,
and left the room, hooking the door shut with his foot. Someone else
must have locked it, for Aubrey heard the key turn almost at once.

He listened to the retreating footsteps, then to other noises. A
distant car buzzed like an insect. A dog barked. He remained sitting on
the bed, head slumped on his chest, utterly weary. He was too drained
by defeat to feel anger, or resentment at Babbington for his present
captivity and his brief and violent future. Nor was there any
professional regret regarding the fate of British Intelligence headed
and controlled by Moscow's man.

The first face that came at him out of the darkness behind his
closed eyelids was that of Castleford, as he knew it would be. The man
was smiling in his habitually, infernally superior way. Aubrey
shuddered at what he had come to, absorbed with self while Babbington
trampled upon his service and his country. Yet he could not consider
that. There was only Castleford's face from forty years ago, grinning
at the prospect of his rival's demise.

Hyde had watched the brown Skoda for almost an hour. It was
parked
in the Zidovska, almost at the Danube end of the street, loomed over by
the Gothic tower of St Martin's Cathedral. Through the steamed-up
window of the small, cramped bar, he had an uninterrupted view of both
sides of the street and of the cathedral square. Snow fell desultorily
into the Bratislava street. People trudged through rutted brown slush
on the pavements. Passing cars splashed the dirty flank of the Skoda
with grey-brown, half-melted snow.

He had parked the Volkswagen, skis hidden beneath the car, in an
underground car-park. It would reside there, dirty and anonymous, until
he returned from Prague. It was his escape route. He would simply be
returning from his ski-ing trip when he left Czechoslovakia.

In a strange, almost hallucinatory way, he was certain that
Kenneth
Aubrey was slouched, legs wrapped in a tartan blanket, in the rear seat
of the Skoda, waiting for him to climb into the driving seat. The
clarity and insistence of his imagination unsettled Hyde. The pressures
of his task were mounting. He was unable to close his mind to the
background, to the necessity of a successful outcome. Aubrey had
assumed an almost physical presence, and he was nervous of crossing the
street to the Skoda. He knew by now that it was not being watched, that
the STB were not waiting for him. Yet he clung to the safety of the
fuggy, murmurous bar.

If I stay here, if I don't get into the car… don't get into the
car…

He was was warm, hunched into the padded anorak, his chin still
half-hidden by his scarf. The dark Czech beer was numbing. The brown
Skoda, anonymous and drab, was like a parcel which might - did -
contain a bomb.

Don't get into the car…

Aubrey was there. It was as if the old man might open the
passenger
door and beckon him at any moment. The detonator. The wires and
explosives were the travel visas, the false identity papers, car
licence and the other documents that waited beneath the driver's seat.
And the pistol taped to the underside of the chassis. He would have to
stop on the outskirts of the city and untape the gun - safer. With the
gun in the glove compartment -much safer, just in case —

Don't get into the car —!

The dark beer slopped near the rim of the glass. He gingerly put
it
down on the shelf beneath the window. He studied his hands. They were
quivering. He glanced helplessly at his gloves beside the beer glass,
as if they might assist him. He thrust his hands deep into the pockets
of his anorak.

He knew the car was clean. No tail, no watchers. Whatever they
had
gleaned from his flat, and from anything Shelley had left lying around,
they had no idea where, or why. He was ahead of them - they simply
would not think of his scenario —!

Don't —

Go, he told himself. Go now.

He glanced around the bar. Cigarette smoke, grey as the sky
beyond
the fuggy windows. Pale, lined faces. Laughter and sombre, striking
loneliness. The barmaid looked tired - washed-out fair hair and deep
stains beneath her eyes. For yourself, he told his clenched hands,
still pocketed. Told his legs, which seemed watery and a long way below
his mind. For yourself.

Or run forever.

He did not wish to dramatise, would have despised it in others;
in
himself had he thought or uttered the words in other circumstances. But
it was true. Nowhere would be safe, ever.

Unless —

He snatched up his gloves, sending an ashtray spinning with a
clatter to the floor. It startled him into a hasty exit from the bar
almost before people glanced up at the noise. He saw that the
pipe-smoking dominoes players near the door remained oblivious to him,
then he was in the street, the door creaking shut behind him, his feet
suddenly betrayed into uncertainty by the pavement's slush. He stepped
warily to the kerb. A bulky, almost shapeless woman in an old check
coat bumped into him, then moved on without glancing at him. Hyde
shivered. He glanced up and down the Zidovska, judging the traffic. The
cathedral's black steeple against the heavy, smoky grey sky intruded
itself behind the overhead traffic lights as they changed from red to
green.

He hurried to the car. The back seat was empty. He urged his
hand to
the driver's door handle, opened the door, bent his head and shoulders,
aware of the space between his shoulder-blades, almost anticipating the
heavy descent of someone's hand.

The home-knitted cardigan, reindeer on the pockets. As Shelley
had
promised. He'd seen it first, on the front passenger seat, an hour ago;
identifying the car. Now —?

The
Beano Annual,
on top
of the wardrobe in its thin,
cheap wrapping paper. Biffo the Bear on the stiff, shiny cover,
together with the old, fat, red-garbed gentleman sitting in his sleigh,
a cartoon reindeer in the traces, its antlers decked with Christmas
baubles. The first time he had really noticed an image of snow, an
image of reindeer, of winter…

Hyde grinned. Aubrey's spectre was banished from the car. He
felt
warmer now, safer. The memory signalled a returning self-awareness. He
was the priority, his life was at stake. On those terms, he
could cope. 

He climbed into the driving seat, felt underneath it for the
wrapped
package of papers - yes. Was aware of the gun taped beneath the car,
protected by polythene from the slush. He knew it would be there, just
as he knew Godwin would be waiting at a bus stop on the outskirts of
Prague.

He had two hundred and fifty miles to cover. He started the
engine.

He described himself as the Deputy Rezident, temporarily
fulfilling
the office of the dead Bayev, shot while being interrogated by Hyde and
Massinger. Yet to Babbington he had about him something akin to prison
pallor, the sense of having newly emerged from Moscow Centre. He was
evidently Kapustin's man, and Babbington despised himself as he
hastened to reassure, moved and spoke briskly from bluff rather than
authority. The young man's eyes were chilly, intent, clever, and he
said very little, forcing Babbington to fill the cold silences with
ever more exaggerated expressions of confidence.

The gardens of the Belvedere - had this man, on Kapustin's
orders,
deliberately chosen the meeting place? Aubrey had been arrested here.
Was this a reminder of that and a call to duty? Or a demand for
payment, for results? The paths were slippery, glazed with the hard
frost. The hedges were stiff and thick with rime and the lawns -
whenever they emerged from one of the hedge-lined avenues - smooth
white carpets. The statuary seemed lighter than stone against the grey
sky.

The young man, whose name was Voronin, kept pace with
Babbington,
while Wilkes and the young man's principal bodyguard walked a few paces
behind them. Voronin looked curiously old-fashioned in his brown trilby
and heavy dark overcoat; but not innocuous. Babbington was aware of the
dampness of his scarf as it lay upon his chin and throat. His smoky
breath had condensed like cold perspiration. Other watchers moved to
the right and left of them, also ahead and behind them. Babbington,
however, felt the open nakedness of the Belvedere gardens. Was he
intended to? Anyone might see him here… Yet the young man had insisted
on this outdoor meeting.

"It still does not answer the question of the woman, and of
Hyde,"
Voronin pointed out, without rancour or impatience. The voice of a not
unkindly pedagogue. Babbington heard Kapustin's tones, even those of
Nikitin, through the lips of the young man. He controlled a slight
shiver, and looked at Voronin. He was taller than the Russian - whole
inches taller; bulkier. He tried to believe his own significance.

"That is simply a matter of time - both are simply a matter of
time," he asserted.

"Yes, yes," Voronin snapped, and now there was impatience. "This
man
is not important, I agree. Somewhere, at some time, he will show his
head above ground and will be taken. But - the woman. She is another
matter…" He paused in his step, facing Babbington. "She has
connections, she is familiar with powerful people. She cannot be
allowed to remain at liberty."

"Then agree to my request," Babbington replied angrily. "Agree
to my
proposals for the disposal of the bodies."