The Bear's Tears (71 page)

He typed: WHITENIGHTS WHITEBEAR WHITE-RUSSIAN.

ERROR, the screen replied, and requested he submit the correct
password. Three times, Godwin had said - you get only three chances. He
heard Petrunin's voice, dammit —! That awful, empty whispered growl.
Hatred, delight in destruction, fear of his imminent death. The bastard
had lied —!

He glanced towards the glass cubicle which was misty with blue
cigarette smoke. Georgi was pointing at him and Stepanov was nodding.
Then the lieutenant studied the amount of coffee left in his mug and
the length of cigarette yet to be smoked. Hyde, sweating freely, waved
in a casual, delaying manner in their direction.

Cancel it - back away…

He wasn't lying.

He typed: WHITENIGHTSWHITEBEARWHITERUSSIAN - without breaks,
just
like the final secret password to what Petrunin had stored in the
computer. Without breaks —!

ERROR, the screen offered implacably. Hyde felt his temperature
rise, his body quiver. Critical, the reactor out of control, the
organism terrified. Georgi, Stepanov - the telephone… Moscow couldn't
cut him off now, they had to let it run —

He concentrated, screwing up his eyes and face as if in pain.
Bending his head over the keys, as if about to begin some intense
recital. Petrunin's voice whispered hollowly, as if echoing in the
abandoned cave of his own body. What —?

Hyde listened, then, as if he had communicated with some lost
spirit
rather than his own memory, he typed trancelike on the keyboard.

WHITENIGHTSWHITERUSSIANWHITEBEAR

The screen cleared. He opened his eyes. PASSWORD CORRECT. The
screen
asked him what he wished to know, how he wished to be helped, what he
required.

He typed in Petrunin's name, then rank, then given names. Then
KGB
number. He glanced at the glass booth. Stepanov showed no sign of
movement, other than the lifting of his mug to his lips. To his right,
the outer room stretched away into vagueness - his distance to run.
Petrunin's assignments appeared on the screen, in summary. Hyde did not
even glance at them. He knew the last three. London, Moscow First
Directorate HQ, Kabul. Yes, Petrunin would have used Kabul, savouring
and hating the irony. Or would he? Would he? When had he corrupted the
computer?

In response to another password request, and in place of the
valid
password, Hyde typed: KABULMOSCOWLONDON.

Blank. Blank screen —!

He knew, almost by telepathy or spiritualism, that Petrunin had
used
Kabul as his final assignment. He would have changed the password
sequence to include it, if necessary. Oh, yes, he would have —

Come on, come on, come on —

Behind the blank screen, Hyde sensed the bypass occurring, felt
the
computer seek for the tumour that Petrunin had lodged within it. Seek,
seek, seek - find!

A poem. Not information. A poem in Russian. Petrunin's record
continued to unfold, and then it broke off. Became these fourteen lines
of verse rolling down the screen like gentle green water. Malfunction,
of course. Petrunin had warned him. Even so, his hand hovered over the
keyboard. He wanted to depress the Break key and return to the Menu, as
anyone stumbling across Petrunin's secret by accident would now have
done. This was the disarmer. Tears, was that? A sad parting. Something
about career and love, and the conflict thereof. Petrunin in maudlin,
self-indulgent mood. Hyde had no doubt of the poem's authorship. A
younger Petrunin. Much younger. A single tear, the scenery about the
lovers, a swan gliding into the distance. Hyde wrinkled his nose.

Stepanov's hand upon the door. Fourteen lines. To Lara.
His finger still hovered over the Break key. Yet Stepanov appeared to
be in no hurry. The poem vanished. Hyde pressed the button on the
streamer, to begin recording.
Don't
use the printer, no hard copy,
Godwin warned him in his head. He
drew his hand
away
from the printer as if from a flame. Closing of the glass door behind
Stepanov, footfalls on the carpet.
 Cancel —

No! Not yet…

Lettering. The words began to flow on the screen, as if hurried
by
Petrunin rather than himself. Politburo dirt. Family scandals,
nepotism, immorality, jewellery, dachas, furs, everything…

Stepanov was smiling and unsuspicious. Hyde waited to press the
Break key, his eyes hurrying from the lieutenant to the telephone to
the screen.

… houses, mistresses, bank accounts abroad, boyfriends, money,
money, money, paedophilia…

There was no short-cut.
Teardrop
was in there, but
Petrunin had died before he could supply the individual passwords for
the separate sections of his secret file. The dirt continued to spill
down the screen like the front pages of cheap newspapers. Dirt on the
Politburo, dirt on the Secretariat, details of current First
Directorate foreign operations, agents-in-place… all of it useful, much
priceless - but Hyde wanted one name, one man's name connected with one
operation.

Teardrop.

Come on, come on - the name, the name…

Please —

The telephone rang. Hyde's hand jumped, as if electrocuted.

Paul Massinger slumped onto the edge of the vast iron bath with
its
ball-and-claw feet, staring at his reopened leg wound. His breathing
was ragged. Margaret, who had helped him along the corridors, appeared
exhausted. Her pale hair flopped over her drained, bruised face. Paul's
leg ached deeply. His hands clutched the edge of the bath to steady his
shaking body. Beach, standing near the door, appeared genuinely
distressed. His gun was drawn, he appeared alert - but he was
concerned. He did consider Massinger's pain unfortunate, even
unnecessary. Aubrey, too, had been surprised that the wound had
suddenly reopened. But the old man was sunk in a profound despair. He
seemed incapable of volition, regret, or even fear. As if lightly
hypnotised by desperation.

"Can you - Margaret, help me get my pants off…" he whispered
hoarsely. There was no necessity for pretence. His leg hurt like hell.
He glanced at his watch. Eleven-twenty. Couldn't be long now, have to
hurry —

Margaret moved to his side. "Can you raise yourself, Paul? Take
your
weight on your hands and arms…" She undid his belt, kneeled to help his
trousers down around his ankles so that the wound could be washed and
repatched - Massinger felt the pain of the table-edge against which he
had thrust his wound, to open it again. And winced.

"I - Christ, I'll try…"

Come on, Beach —! The man moved, involuntarily, as if the mental
command had reached him. Come on —

Massinger groaned. Margaret cried his name in fear. Beach moved
closer, reaching out a supporting hand, gun hanging at his side —

Massinger struck Beach with his fist, high on the side of the
head.
Margaret heaved at the man, tilting his body over the bath. Massinger's
left hand grabbed for the gun, touched, gripped, held. Beach's face
distorted with rage. He struggled, lashing out with his fist at
Massinger, then at Margaret, who stumbled away from the struggle,
colliding with the wall behind her. Her hair fell across her eyes and
she wiped it feverishly aside. Beach had twisted against Paul and was
bending him back over the bath. Paul's face was white with effort and
weakness. Beach had the upper hand, was stronger - it wouldn't work,
wouldn't —

What could she do? She was aware of her own weakness, her lack
of
height and bulk measured against Beach's trained muscles and reactions.
He hit Paul again, his fist striking her husband's chin. Paul's whole
face seemed to sag.

Jug. Patterns of shepherds or a hunt. Horses, eighteenth-century
costumes on the men and women.

The jug and basin stood on a bathroom stool, dusty, unused. She
touched the handle. Paul groaned —

— grabbed the handle, moved forward with a sob, swung the jug
which
seemed suddenly lighter, not heavy enough —

It cracked, split on Beach's head, near the right ear. Beach
groaned
with what might have been surprise, released Paul's shirt, his body,
then subsided into the empty bath. Immediately staining the white
porcelain with a thin bright smear of blood from his bleeding head. His
breathing was like a groan of protest and surprise.

Margaret leaned heavily over the bath, as if to vomit. She was
gasping for breath. Massinger heaved the gun from Beach's grasp and
slipped off the safety catch.

"Go!" he said urgently. "Quickly, love - quickly!" She
straightened,
flicking back her hair. Her face was ashen around the bruises, older.
"Can you?" he asked, and she nodded at once. "Good girl - be careful.
If they - if they… just don't do anything, please. Put down the
telephone and go quietly. Don't fight —" Again, Margaret nodded. And
smiled, shakily. Like someone leaving an intensive care unit, knowing
there was no hope for a relative but trying to evade the inevitable or
remember some better time.

She bent and kissed his cheek, glanced at Beach who was almost
snoring in the bath, then left the room. Massinger heard her footsteps
patter away like someone fleeing. He stared at the gun, held loosely in
his hands, object rather than weapon, and then at Beach.

The Massingers' last stand. He grinned, and then winced at the
pain
in his leg. And at his fear for Margaret. Stupid move, he told himself.
Stupid, dangerous move —

An act of desperation. He was terribly afraid for her safety.
The
gun quivered in nerveless fingers. Beach snored. Others moved about the
house. All of them threatened Margaret.

Margaret hurried down the corridors, wincing inwardly at each
creak
of a floorboard, her breathing light and shallow, her arms and hands
trembling, fingertips damp so that she sensed the betrayals of smudged
fingerprints left on the wall. Her heart raced.

Another long corridor. She had noted, counted, each of the
closed
doors as she struggled to help Paul towards the bathroom, her mind
reaching forward like a reluctant hand to the violence and danger to
come. She opened the first door carefully, just a crack, fumbled for
the light switch, listening to the room's emptiness —

No telephone.

Next door, next room, light, no telephone, just packing-cases
and
floorboards and an empty table. Down the corridor another room, then
another, her temperature rising at each pause, each eased opening of a
door, each switching on of a light. Five rooms now, then a staircase
leading down to the first floor of the tall house near the Wiener
Gaswerk-Leopoldau, stranded in a scrubby industrial suburb. She hurried
down the stairs to a landing, peered over the banister into an empty
hallway with chequered tiles half-hidden by dusty, faded carpet, then
tried the nearest room.

Door, switch, light, and the moment of caught breath as she
anticipated a challenge. Carpet, chairs, desk - telephone on the desk!
She closed the door silently behind her. The curtains were drawn across
the windows, there were cigarette butts in an ashtray and still wet
rings on a low table near an empty glass. Beer-froth coated the sides
of the glass. The room had been recently occupied - abandoned for only
a few moments? She hurried behind the desk so that she could face the
door. There had been no key in the lock. She fumbled the telephone to
her cheek. It purred with an outside line. She dialled quickly,
noisily. Watching the ashtray and the wet rings on the table. Watching
the door.

Ringing. Guest's flat in Albany. Their only slim chance, that
Sir
William had returned from Washington. Ringing out. No answer. The room
still smelt of cigarette smoke, as if she had entered only a moment
after it became unoccupied. Then the ringing tone stopped.

"Sir William Guest's residence," a voice announced as if in the
role
of a stage butler from a period play. It was the voice, the same
voice —

"No —!" she could not help exclaiming: a protest that became a
moan
of disappointment.

"Mrs Massinger - Mrs Massinger, it's you, isn't it?" the voice
replied. "How the hell —?"

"Oh God, no —!" she cried. "You're -
where are you
?"

She had lifted her head. She did not hear the question because
her
glance had been caught and held. All her attention became concentrated
upon a box with a short tube attached that was incongruously bolted to
the wall, high-up near the ceiling. In shadow at the far corner of the
room. A television camera. For surveillance. Shops and supermarkets. A
security camera.

"Oh, no…" she murmured. Failure oppressed her. The voice
insisted,
demanded, threatened in her ear, but she hardly heard it. She stared,
hypnotised and unnerved, at the camera.

She put the telephone receiver down quite calmly, almost
nonchalantly, as Wilkes entered the room, his face angry yet confident.
He crossed the room swiftly, as if hurrying to obey some summons, and
struck her across the mouth with his open hand. She winced, cried out,
staggered. He hit her again, slapping her face, opening her bruised
lip, making her eyes water, her nose ache. Then he grabbed her against
him like some violent lover, pressing his lips against her ear.

"Who did you talk to?
Who? Who?"

He was shaking her. She was limp in his grip. "Guest," she
murmured.

"What —?" He held her away from him, shook her again. There was
fear
in his eyes now.

"Guest!"
she shouted at
him. "Guest, Guest, Guest,
Guest!
"
She felt the hysteria rising in her like adrenalin, helping her. "I
spoke to
Guest!
"

He hit her then, harder than before. She fell away, against the
unresisting curtains, twisting against them, gripping them as she fell
to the floor. Her jaw ached; pain-lights flickered on a dark screen at
the back of her head. She moaned.

She heard him dial, wait, check, then laugh and reassure. Then
she
was dragged to her feet. Wilkes was grinning.