The Bear's Tears (72 page)

"Come on, lady - back to your room in the East Wing! Where they
always lock the loony wife!" He thrust her in front of him across the
room, through the door, along the landing to the stairs. "Where is he?"

"The bathroom," she announced without hesitation, breathless
from
the way he had banged her body against the wall before he spoke.

"Come on. We'll go and surprise him!"

He dragged her up the stairs, along the corridor, pushed her
round a
corner, propelled her down another corridor. "This bathroom - on this
floor?" She merely nodded, and he pressed her more feverishly ahead of
him, as if his timetable were making its own irresistible demands. He
was beyond malice now. Merely urgent.

He knocked on the door. "Massinger, don't waste my time, mate -
I've
got your wife here and I'll kill her unless you come out quietly. I
haven't got time to waste." He paused, then said, "What's the matter -
don't you believe me?" He squeezed her shoulder with iron fingers. She
cried out. "Hear that? Shorthand form of negotiation, I admit - but it
is her."

The door opened. Paul's ashen features appeared. Seeing her,
absorbing the sight, he stepped back, leaving the door wide. Beach was
sitting on the bath, a handkerchief, dyed red, held to his head.

"You stupid cunt!" Wilkes snapped, entering the doorway. "Get
off
your arse and get them back to their room." Wilkes glanced at his watch
while Massinger meekly surrendered the gun to Beach. "Quick —!" Wilkes
ordered.

Breaking glass. A door smashed from its hinges by a heavy blow.
Other noises. Glass again. Wilkes appeared unsurprised, but said, "What
the hell was that? Beach, get down there and find out - go on, man!
I'll take care of our friends. Quickly, man!"

Beach hurried past him and down the corridor. A shot —? Wilkes
grinned.

"It's begun?" Massinger asked, holding Margaret tightly against
him.

"Oh, yes, mate - it's begun. Come on, back to your room. They'll
be
expecting to find you there. Come on - move!"

Hyde depressed the Break key. The screen cleared. The Menu
requested
he make use of it. Stepanov's shadow fell across the keyboard as Hyde
picked up the telephone. He again sucked moisture from his cheeks to
dampen his parched, tight throat. Stepanov hovered, as if indulging a
child in a brief telephone conversation with a friend. The lieutenant
flicked at the sheaf of print-out, lazily interested. Comfortable.

"Yes?" Hyde asked.
No
—!
Bluff it out - be stronger,
impatient. You've been interrupted. "Yes? What is it now?"

"I - why have you been accessing Assignment History, Comrade?"
the
voice asked. "
How
have you
been accessing Assignment History?
Which files are you accessing?"

"Why? What's the matter, Comrade?" Hyde asked with evident
sarcasm.
The tone of a superior - whether rank, class or security clearance
remained unrevealed.

"You were accessing Education Records, then you switched —"

"And you decided to interfere! Listen, Comrade - I'm trying to
find
out whether the fault that just went away has damaged the data files in
any way. You expect me to do that tooling through a list of embassy
staff names, without cross-referencing, without shifting from section
to section of the files? Just do me a favour, will you? Keep your long
nose out until I've finished - otherwise your colonel is going to have
both our heads! Understood?"

Stepanov was openly grinning as Hyde glanced up at him. The
Australian threw in a theatrical toss of his head, rounding out his
portrait.

"But, system tests don't usually —"

"Listen! Don't usually what? Dig so deep? Just skate along the
surface of security? I'm cleared. Are you? I'm testing the system, not
you. You're just the operator. Tomorrow, you can have the system back
to play with. Tonight, it's mine. Now, go away and don't bother me any
more!"

"I —" A pause, then: "I'm sorry, Comrade. Please continue." The
telephone clicked then hummed. The operator from Moscow Centre was gone
- and with a flea in his ear, as Hyde's mother might have said. Usually
when sending away the rent collector…

Hyde sighed with impatience. His tension had been expelled in
the
execution of his bluff. It had worked. A slight delay. But, the
operator would think, talk, perhaps ask the colonel —

Stepanov. Why didn't he go away?

"Found something wrong?" Stepanov asked lightly, com-panionably.
"Anything I can do?"

Hyde shook his head. "Since your engineer couldn't tie down the
fault, if there is one, I'm doing a much wider and deeper test than
they might have expected. Bloody little bureaucrats in lab coats!"

"And everything's in order, so far?"

"It is." Hyde glanced at his watch. Eleven twenty-six. Too long,
it
was taking too long… Bugger
off,
Stepanov! For Christ's sake,
bugger
off
…

"Carry on, Radchecko - I'll not interfere. I promise!" There was
laughter in Stepanov's voice. He had attached himself like a lonely
schoolboy - a new and unwanted friend, clinging like a limpet. Bugger
off—!

In Moscow Centre, they knew when he accessed the computer
exactly
what area of the records he was summoning. They would not know who or
what was under scrutiny. But, they could find out… Trace his enquiry
like a telephone call might be traced. And if they did that - more
likely, when they did that - the telephone would ring and the
screen would go blank as they isolated his remote terminal, amputated
it from the computer's memory banks.

He had perhaps minutes, probably less. Seconds. And he had to
work
through all Petrunin's information until he found Babbington's name and
it was recorded on the data cassette and he could run…

"OK. You needn't hang about if you don't want to… makes me
nervous
anyway, someone hovering behind me."

"Sorry about that. I'm not getting caught not doing my job,
Radchenko, even if you are a nice bloke."

Hyde turned to face the lieutenant, feeling the passing seconds
pumping in his arm like a drip-feed; measuring his danger.

"How much are you cleared for?"

"You won't be going that deep."

"Why not?"

"Because
I
can't - so you
certainly can't." Stepanov pushed his
cap
a little further back on his head. He was still smiling.

"Anyone for more coffee - you, sir? You?" Georgi called out,
adding:
"Comrade Radchenko - coffee?"

Hyde began to quiver uncontrollably, as if he had received an
unexpected shock. He'd blown it - already, he'd —

"You all right?" Stepanov asked. "Not for me, Georgi!" To Hyde,
he
added, "You look as if you need a coffee - or something stronger. Are
you feeling OK?"

"Yes! Look, just let me get on with my job, will you?"

"I'm not stopping you —"

"You're not
cleared
—!"

"Then neither are you - not for more than a system test!"
Stepanov's
features had darkened, his gaze was squinted and intent. "What are
you doing, Radchenko?"

Damn - oh, damn it!

"Look don't get bloody stupid, Stepanov —"

"I'm not. Let's see this great, ocean-deep clearance of yours, shall
we? Just for a giggle…"

Damn —

As if with a gesture of failure rather than aggression, Hyde
slipped
the pistol from his belt and presented the barrel to Stepanov, keeping
the gun below the level of the keyboard. He heard the door close behind
Georgi - the silly old bugger would bring coffee as soon as it was
ready, whether asked or not. Hyde was trapped by kindness, unnerved and
exposed by companionship. Stepanov's eyes widened, his face folded into
creases of understanding and capture.

"Just sit down, Lieutenant. Please sit down next to me." The
pistol
waggled, just a little; a small innocent wave from a toy. Stepanov
removed his cap, as if attending an interview, and sat stiffly on the
chair next to Hyde. "Try to relax, Lieutenant. You're making it look
obvious."

"Who are you?
What
are
you?"

Hyde smiled. "Don't be silly."

"What do you want?"

"Something you won't want to see… in fact, I'll do you a
favour…"
His voice became strained as he twisted his body to request Assignment
History once more. The demand for the passwords. He typed them in, his
fingers touching across the keyboard as if seeking braille, his eyes
flickering from keys to Stepanov to keys to… "A real favour," he
continued. "You just avert your eyes. If you see what's about to come
up…" The poem. A tear for Lara, whoever Lara had ever been, if anyone
outside Petrunin's imagination. "… you won't be very popular at home or
abroad. In fact, your future won't be worth a cork-fringed hat…
understand? You're a dead man if you peek!"

The gun waggled Stepanov's gaze aside. He selected the tape
drive,
his eyes flickering to the screen. First Directorate operations in
progress in Europe… a goldmine from which Hyde desired only the one
nugget. As the information appeared, it was recorded on the data
cassette.

"You seem very afraid," Stepanov said with a level, controlled
voice.

"I am."

"What is it?" the Russian hissed.

"Look and you'll get turned to stone - or fertiliser. Just as
soon
as they know you know."

"You won't get away with this —"

"I hope to."

"You're not sure, then —"

"I'm not sure. No, don't turn around —!"

Hyde glanced towards the glass booth. Patchy steam on part of
the
glass. The coffee-maker was ready. Georgi had made his coffee. Hyde
could see him bent over the table, arranging mugs, spooning sugar.

Come on —

The telephone rang. Stepanov's body twitched, and his lips
parted in
a smile. He half-turned.

"Don't move. Just let it ring - let it ring!"

He glanced at the screen. First Directorate operations - Libya
and
Chad. Names of illegals, guerilla unit commanders, Soviet advisers.
 Come on —

The bloody short-cut - what the hell was the password?
Dominus
illuminatio mea
, for Christ's sake —!

The telephone insisted. Hyde stared at it helplessly.

"I left my heart - in San Franciscooo…"

Wilkes sat down before the bank of twelve monitors - two rows of
six. He continued humming the tune he had begun to sing, failing to
recollect the succeeding lines of the lyric. His eyes flickered from
screen to screen; a patient, absorbed, satisfied spectator of the
scenes presented to him by the remote cameras located throughout the
old house. For years, it had been variously used for training,
interrogation, courses in interrogation counter-measures. The district
around had been levelled and made late twentieth century and the house
had become too noticeable, too easily observed to fulfil many of its
former functions.

"… little cable cars climb halfway to the stars —!" Wilkes burst
out, remembering a detached, floating line of the song.

Vienna had meant bigger business, way back when the house had
been
fully utilised - then it was always crowded with people. Front-line,
like Berlin in the 'sixties. Wilkes whistled the tune of the song
through his closed teeth. Watching the screens. The old house, stranded
between the freight-yards and the gas works, began to fulfil some of
its old functions.

"I left my heart - in San Franciscooooo —!"

Voronin and Babbington had agreed, decided, concluded. No margin
for
error or misunderstanding. The three of them - alarmed and on their
feet
now - were on their way to Moscow. The Massingers would never be seen
leaving the aircraft - go out probably dressed in overalls and carrying
plastic bags full of rubbish from the galley - but Aubrey would get the
pop star treatment. And they'd all be dead within a week; the
Massingers the same day they arrived, Aubrey as soon as the masquerade
had worked. Heart attack. Easier than risking TV appearances, press
conferences and the like. Heart attack.

Wilkes grinned. "I left my heart - in the Lubyanka —!" he bawled
at
the top of his voice, then added: "Your last TV appearance, old boy,
old chap." He leaned towards the screen which displayed the three
prisoners. They'd roused Aubrey, he didn't look so thunderstruck now,
so much in a daze. Wilkes could see the cogs grinding in the old
bugger's brain. Too bloody clever by half —

On another screen, Beach organising checks and barriers and
cross-fire. On the first floor. The cameras strained to pierce the
darkness that Beach had ordered, the screens glowing grey-blue with the
effort to register faces, movement, patches of light skin.

There - ground floor, rear passage. Someone wrapped in dark
wool.
Face dyed with polish. They meant business. The camera watched the
crouching Russian move past and down the corridor towards the kitchen
and the hallway beyond it.

Wilkes leaned over and pulled an R/T towards him. Its thick
short
aerial quivered as he picked it up and tuned it to the frequency he had
been told the Russians would be using. Whispers in Russian immediately
leaked from it. One of the screens - he imagined he could lip-read and
match voice to face - showed the KGB man in command issuing orders,
crouched in the well of the main staircase to the first floor.

Wilkes continued to hum. The prisoners huddled at the door, as
if
eager for their fate. Beach moved - he was registered on a screen
showing the back stairs. He'd anticipated, then…

Wilkes was drawn into the tension of the twelve screens. The
secure
room of the house, in the attic, was silent and aseptic around him,
filled with the ozone smells of electricity and static and charged or
burnt dust. A screen crackled as he ran his finger across it,
cancelling Beach.

For a moment, before the rattle of gunfire and the fall of a
body
away into the darkness of a staircase, his imagination seemed to throw
onto the screen newsreel shots of Vietnam. Protest marches with the
Capitol building behind the queue of idiots melted in and out of
staring-eyed pictures of fatigued, beaten, hashed-out American faces.
Then he blinked away the images as his attention was drawn to another
screen.