The Bear's Tears (70 page)

"Calm down, Jan," one of the guards told him. "Want another
coffee?"

It was obvious they knew the man well. His freedom of expression
and
abuse appeared to be tolerated; even amusing to the KGB personnel. The
officer appeared a little disapproving, but wished not to appear
prudish or petty.

"My insides are silting up with that muck out of the machine!"
the
engineer grumbled.

"I'm making some real stuff now - won't be long," the guard
bribed.

"Bless you, Georgi!"

Hyde saw a Moulinex coffee-maker on a desk-top in a glass
cubicle.
"For you, too, Comrade?" Georgi asked Hyde, startling him. His
expression melted into a grin.

"Thanks." Hyde yawned theatrically. "How long, mate?"

"I've been here an hour - dragged off a military job for this,
and
even then the buggers wouldn't let me leave until I'd spun them ten
miles of bullshit… nothing so far. Comes and goes."

"What's it doing?"

"You saw - can't reproduce anything properly one minute - then
the
next, perfect."

"I came over," Hyde began, tasting his cover-story like the
bitter
stickiness of envelope gum on his tongue, "because we got your report…
?" He looked at the officer, who nodded. "About eight, was it?"

"Eight-five." The officer was punctilious but not unlikeable.
His
men evidently kept him human. "I got one of our senior managers to look
at what was coming out, and he suggested it was a fault on the
landline. So, we let you know at the embassy, and sent for the
reluctant Comrade Zitek here." He smiled. Hyde returned the expression,
and waited. "We haven't met before," the officer observed lightly, with
mild, polite curiosity.

Hyde shook his head, sucking his cheeks in to moisten his dry
throat. "Just got here - duty-roster's got my name on it and I'm here -
all night by the look of things."

"Bad luck. I'm Lieutenant Stepanov."

"Radchenko," Hyde murmured in reply, shaking the lieutenant's
hand.
The familiarity folded itself about him like a drying leather shroud.
It would suffocate him if he wasn't careful. "Yuri Radchenko."
Tread
carefully
, he warned himself. Acquaintance is as dangerous as
lack
of sleep or the shit-and-sugar interrogators working in harness. Watch
what you say, what you think.

"Zitak?"

"Yes?"

"Any time factor - any regularity… ?"

"Don't waste time asking. I haven't learnt a bloody thing since
I've
been here - an hour and a half! Didn't even get the bloody dinner they
promised at the barracks! Typical of your fucking army, Lieutenant!"

Stepanov smiled thinly, genuinely trying to be amused and aloof.
"I'll get some sandwiches made up for you, if —"

"Ballocks to sandwiches, Lieutenant," the engineer muttered,
checking the reading on the measuring instrument. Shaking his head,
muttering, raising his hands in dramatic gestures.

Georgi had moved into his glass booth and was smoking slyly. His
hand waved the blue smoke periodically towards the air-vent set high in
one wall - the one plastered wall of his booth — while he watched his
coffee percolate. Hyde was mesmerised by his watch.

Eleven - eleven-two, eleven-three, four, five… Priceless minutes
vanished as he listened to Stepanov.

Finally, Stepanov broke off from a description of his last leave
on
the Black Sea coast, just before the summer ended, and smiled at Zitek.
The engineer checked his watch once more, then picked up the telephone.
He dialled the Moscow number, consulted briefly with his Russian
counterpart, nodding vigorously as he spoke, then turned to them as he
replaced the receiver and announced: "That's it! Good luck to you, but
that's it! Eight minutes without a single problem. That's twice as long
as any other remission. I am announcing that the bug in the system has
gone away."

"You hope," Hyde remarked, grinning, holding his hands firmly
together to prevent an outburst of nerves. To listen to Stepanov, to
sip at the coffee, to watch Zitek's broad, overalled back - to wait,
wait,
wait —! Had been close to intolerable. Worse than the storeroom,
this public control of nerves and imagination.

"I hope? My word as an employee of our wonderful post office
service. It's gone."

"I suggest —" Stepanov began, but Hyde interrupted him.

"Give it another five minutes - OK? I'll run the first test in
five
minutes."

"OK," Zitek replied in a grumbling tone.

The telephone rang, making the engineer's hand jump with
surprise.
Dampness was chill in Hyde's upper arms and sides.

"Bloody Moscow," Zitek growled, making faces at the receiver as
he
lifted it to his ear. "Yes, it's Zitek - what?" He held the receiver
towards Stepanov. "It's for you."

Stepanov's face was thinned, prepared as if to confront a
superior
officer in person. His back was straight. He adjusted his uniform tie.

"Yes? Yes, Comrade Colonel-yes, yes…"His ear, in profile to
Hyde,
had reddened. Hyde carefully rubbed his hands down his cheeks, easing
away the tension of facial muscles. "It - it appears that the fault may
have - may have rectified itself. Yes, I understand - of course I
realise the importance of speed… yes, he's here —" Stepanov had turned
with evident relief towards Hyde, who expressed nothing more than
reluctance in his features. His hand jumped in the pocket of his lab
coat. Stepanov offered him the receiver like a poisoned drink.

"Y - yes," Hyde said, clearing his throat. "Radchenko, Colonel -
yes, system tester." He waited. The voice from Moscow Centre was
brusque, authoritative. Radchenko was indeed on the complement at the
Soviet embassy, a recent posting.
There's
a lot ofto-ing
andfro-ing in security
computer
circles throughout the Eastern bloc
embassies
… Godwin's reassurances seemed transparent now. Hyde
felt
more thoroughly scrutinised by the voice of the KGB colonel than when
he entered the computer room.

"System test -I want Prague back on-line tonight. In the next
hour.
Understand?"

"Comrade Colonel - a
full
test will take more than
three
or four hours -"

"Don't give me that! Do the test in stages. Then we can get
terminals back into use quickly. Begin with - Education Records. You
have such a test?"

"Yes, Comrade Colonel. The embassy staff roll-call —"

"Very well. Try that. I want to know how much work we're going
to be
involved in, and I want to know within an hour. Understand?"

"Yes, Comrade Colonel."

"An hour to be back on-line. Say midnight. No, I'll be generous.
Five minutes after midnight. And keep in constant touch. Understand,
Radchenko?"

"Sir."

The telephone in Moscow clicked down onto its rest. The secure
line
crackled then purred. Hyde replaced his receiver.

"You heard the man," he said, smiling and shrugging.

Zitek stared at the VDU. Its screen registered a column of
football
scores with unerring accuracy. "Good luck to you, son," he murmured. He
looked ostentatiously at his watch. "That's fourteen minutes since the
last noise on the line. I told you - the fault's buggered off somewhere
else."

"But, what was it?" Stepanov asked.

"Who knows?" Zitek shrugged. He stood up and stretched. "Anyway,
I'm
off. They've got my number if you need me — don't ring unless
it's an emergency, mate!"

"I'll try," Hyde murmured. Eleven-twelve. He slid the cuff of
his
lab coat over his watch. "I'll try." The football scores remained
unaltered, unaffected. The short-life battery in the metro tunnel had
at last died. The operation was still running.

He watched Zitek pack his equipment, kneeling by his toolbox. It
was
old, even ornately carved and beautifully jointed. His father's?
Grandfather's? It was incongruous on the carpeted floor near an
air-inlet grille and a bouquet of wires. Scraps of Stepanov's
irritating, half-heard account of his Black Sea leave floated in Hyde's
mind, but there was nothing else there. Only Godwin's voice, the
terminal keyboard and screen, and the small group of people around him.
Begin —

Zitek stood up, nodded to his companions, winked at Hyde, and
left.
Stepanov turned expectantly to Hyde. Godwin said in his head:
'The
chances are you'll be expected to
start with Education Records,
Something low-security, innocuous. That's why you've got the roll-call
of Prague embassy personnel. It's one of their standard system tests
—
'

Eleven-thirteen.

Hyde lifted his briefcase onto the table and opened it. He
removed a
thick sheaf of print-out paper and a metal ruler. Stepanov said: "More
coffee?" and Hyde shook his head. "I think I will," the Russian
murmured, staring into his empty mug. "And perhaps make use of the
smoking-room." He smiled disarmingly. Hyde was again suddenly alert to
the danger he presented. Urbane, intelligent, pressured by his
superiors in Moscow. He would remain in the vicinity, watching. Hyde
felt the hair rise on the backs of his arms, on his wrists and neck.
Education
Records. Neutral area. Innocent.
"The
password,"
Godwin
had added with a broad grin,
"is
easy. Everyone knows it.
Dominus
illuminatio mea -
Latin. The motto of Oxford's coat of
arms. They used to use Cambridge's motto, but now, since Blunt dropped
dead, they've
updated it. For
the next generation of recruits. Not
without a sense of humour at Moscow Centre, are they? Every defector
we've had for the past couple of years has told us that joke."

Hyde placed the ruler across the top sheet of print-out. Checked
that the tape streamer and the printer for hard copy were both on-line.
Then the screen. He cancelled the unchanged, unchanging football
scores. The screen became empty; pale green. Georgi was seated in a
chair beside him. The other guard had joined Stepanov and they were
smoking in the glass booth, behind the No Smoking sign in Cyrillic. The
red circle of the sign hid part of Stepanov's face like a birthmark.

Begin - Log on using the embassy code.

The guard, Georgi, was unwrapping sandwiches - some thick Czech
sausage that smelt of garlic and was pressed in slices between
doorsteps of white bread. And unfolding a copy of the evening
newspaper. He was comfortable, in a satisfied mood. Easy work. Hyde
glanced back down the long room. Two figures moving distantly beyond
the glass of the highest security area. Inside the glass, only figures
in uniforms. One, Stepanov, alert and intelligent.

He used the password to gain access to the Main Menu, then
summoned
the Education Records from the Menu presented to him on the screen. As
Godwin had said, these remote terminals were permanently on-line to
Moscow Centre for ease and speed of access to the records. After all,
no one expected an illegal, someone unauthorised like himself, to tap
at this keyboard. Access was permitted to permitted staff and only
permitted staff knew the passwords.

The room stretched away on his right, towards the corridor and
stairs. To his left, perhaps fifty feet away, Stepanov was smoking and
drinking coffee. Georgi bit into a thick wedge of bread. Hyde smelt
garlic sausage once more, until the air-conditioning whisked the
odour away.

Hyde typed the first of the names on his list, Abalakin, I.P. A
moment, then the screen spilled his education record and
qualifications. Hyde checked them against his print-out - Godwin's own
compilation supplemented by the official SIS roll-call for the Soviet
embassy in Prague. Correct. He typed the next name, Aladko, I.A.
Waterfall of facts. Correct. Antipin, V.V. Correct. Baranov, I.K.
Correct.

Georgi munched, rustled the newpaper. Hyde studied his watch as
Boyko's mediocre education achievements appeared on the screen. Eleven
twenty-one. He selected the hard copy option, and the printer startled
Georgi in mid-bite. Hyde stood up, leaned over the printer and checked
the information against that on the screen. Boyko was dim, but his
record was flawlessly presented. Chobotov, Dedov, Didenko, Fatayev,
A.G. Correct, correct, correct.

Georgi folded his sandwich-bag with fastidious care. Hyde turned
to
him. Grim Party faces stared up at him from the newspaper.

"Sorry, Georgi," he said. "You're not allowed to see this. Not
cleared, mate. I'll even have to shred it myself." Hyde shrugged. "I
have to check up on their assignment histories now. Sorry."

Georgi glanced at his officer, still smoking, enjoying some kind
of
joke behind the birthmark of the No Smoking sign. Smoking Absolutely
Forbidden, it read. The smoke did not escape into the computer rooms,
thus they ignored the sign.
Absolutely
Forbidden.
His hands
hesitated over the keyboard. He had to make the transfer before
Stepanov returned; he was cleared to supervise.

Before Stepanov, before Moscow discovered, before the telephone
rang
- go on,
go on —!

Georgi got up slowly, wiping his mouth with a grey handkerchief.
He
nodded, cleaning his teeth with his tongue, bulging his right cheek
into an abcess. "I'll get the lieutenant," he muttered thickly and
walked away casually. As slowly as some ruminant animal.

Fifty feet.

Godwin had warned him to be prepared to snatch at any chance
that
offered itself. But not to make a mistake —

Now?

Now. He stared at the Cyrillic keyboard, momentarily baffled by
the
strange alphabet. Then it was as if he had refocused his gaze; the keys
swam into clear meaning. Last three assignments, in reverse order,
without break. He could almost hear Petrunin, feel his blood-wet
lips against his cheek and ear. He shivered.

He cancelled the Education Records. The Menu presented itself,
requesting usage of the Centre's records computer. For Assignment
History, he needed the passwords that Petrunin had given him; his
thread into the labyrinth. Forbidden, Absolutely Forbidden.
He requested Assignment History, and the screen requested the passwords
that would indicate his security clearance. What —?