He stepped over the live rail and pressed himself into the inspection arch set in the tunnel wall. The train cried and bellowed past him, his lips quivered almost to the rhythm of the carriage lights splashing over him. He pressed his cheek to the rough brickwork. Silver blur of the flanks of the carriages, a solid rushing wall, a metal blizzard passing the shallow niche of the inspection shelter and the ventilation shaft that rose from it like a chimney above a fireplace.
Then silence, except that his ears rang with the noises of the train. A deafness into which the hum of the live rail insisted after a few moments. Seconds going. He pushed himself away from the wall, stepped over the live rail — five minutes now — and began to walk on weak, trembling limbs down the curving tunnel.
Second inspection shelter, third. Three hundred and fifty yards into the tunnel. He counted his measured paces, his legs marking distance and the passage of time. Each step a yard, each step a second—
He washed the thin light of the torch over the tunnel wall. Instructions, conduits, fuse boxes. A metal plate, unmarked. He walked on. Six paces. There, just on the edge of the beam. Metal plate, like the door of a first-aid box, but unmarked. He hurried to it, stepping over the live rail. Shone the torch. Drew out the snapshot, checked the dimensions scribbled on the back together with the distance from the platform. Yes, yes
A heavy security lock.
The landlines that linked the terminals in the Hradcany with Moscow Centre had been buried in the tunnel walls of the metro system when it was constructed. Under KGB supervision. Just as the rock outcrop on which the Hradcany stood was bomb-proofing for the cellars of the computer room, so the deep tunnels of the metro afforded similar protection to the secure communications channels.
Hyde touched the lock, then removed a drill from his haversack. He waggled the torch beam until he located the heavy-duty power points and plugged in the drill. He switched on — and sensed the whine of the drill funnel along the darkness to reach the platform and alert—
He pressed the drill-tip against the door of the terminal box, felt it jump aside, pressed it with both hands and began to drill into the lock.
The torch nestled under his chin, jammed against his hunched shoulder. Its weak beam wavered, jumped, seemed tenuous. Hyde was aware of the darkness around him, around the metal box he was attacking. Aware of the hum of the live rail behind him. It was thirty yards along the tunnel to the next inspection shelter. He had to listen above the whine of the drill for the next train—
He stopped and dropped into a crouch, unstrapping his watch quickly from his wrist. Then he fished in the haversack at his side, withdrew a roll of black insulating tape, and straightened up. He held the door in the torch-beam and taped his watch to it. Its face hung there in the pale light. Two minutes forty-seven since he had stepped out onto the tracks behind the last train. Two minutes — two-nine before the next train. The second hand jerked across the face of the watch. He wedged the torch beneath his chin once more and placed the drill-tip against the lock. One hole, two, three — one minute-twenty left, one minute and ten — three, four holes. He punctured the metal, withdrawing the drill with a jerk before its tip could contact any of the cables inside the hatch. Then again — forty-five seconds. Five holes. Two more, three—?
Thirty seconds. Sweat was running down his cheeks and into his eyes, even though his breath clouded around him in the torch-light and damply misted the face of his watch. Clouded the metal of the door. He was wet with perspiration. Twenty-five seconds. He listened after the drill's noise had tailed away. The bend in the tunnel obscured the platform. He began to drill again.
Twenty, fifteen, ten.
Six holes, beginning the seventh. On schedule. Five seconds.
Train should be drawing into the station, time to begin to move—
He lowered the drill.
The sigh preceded the train, a rushing wind. He dropped the drill nervelessly. Light on the opposite wall, and a quiver in the sleepers. Hyde ran.
The train bellowed its way around the curve of the tunnel, pursuing him. He flicked the torch ahead of his feet, then to the tunnel wall, then his feet—
The shallow arch was caught in the torchlight. He threw himself into it, his back to the train as it yelled past him and the metal blizzard of its flanks roared inches away from him. Then it was gone, and he slumped against the brickwork. The train had been perhaps thirty seconds early.
Slowly, his breathing stetorious, he returned to the junction box and the drill. Flicking the torch with intense nervousness until he discovered it, lying at the side of the track. Outside the track. It had not been damaged or its wires snapped or crushed. He picked it up, tested it. His breath was noisy, visible around him like a fog. He wedged the torch, checked the watch, and drilled out the last two holes with frantic, careful haste.
Then he drew a thin, long screwdriver from the haversack and levered at the lock. Heaved against it, tearing the tiny patches of metal between each of the holes — snapping out the useless lock. It clattered on the nearest rail, bounced — a flare of sparks, illuminating him briefly, robbed him of his night-vision. The live rail glared on his retinae as he returned his gaze to the door, which now hung open. He waited until the hands of the watch diminished into clear focus, then studied the terminals and cables in front of him.
Third from the top. One, two — he grinned. The red one. The big red one. He bent once more to the haversack. Straightened, replaced the watch on his wrist, then touched his fingertips around the red cable. Enough room. He began to feed the length of coil around the cable, encircling it six or seven times.
How do you know?
Unofficials—
Who? Who told you about this?
He snapped off the length of coiled wire with a pair of pliers, then raised the flip-flop transistor into the beam of the torch. An intermittent noise on the line, interrupting the flow of data from Moscow Centre. Scrambling and altering, disrupting. But not a consistent noise which could be rectified quickly. One difficult to trace because it occurred at imprecise, lengthy intervals.
He began to attach the transistor.
Chartists, people with a grudge, the greedy and the needy, Godwin had replied with a slight smile over the rim of his coffee cup. They sell it, offer it, give it. There's a whole black market in anti-Soviet information out there, if you bother to look…
But, this stuff?
Engineers, designers, surveyors — a lot of them signed the Charter in '77, lost jobs, need to eat or hate the Russians… a lot of clever people were students in '68… the trauma froze most of them their feelings come up brand-new every time …
And you trust them?
I trust their hatred.
Hyde checked that the contacts were good, then drew the battery from the haversack and connected it. Watch, watch—
Three minutes ten already gone. Careful this time—
He stretched out a length of insulating tape and fixed the short-life battery to the hanging door, making certain that it was solidly held. Then he eased the door closed. When he released it, the door swung open once more. Hyde fumbled in the depleted haversack for the timer and set its hands in the beam of the torch.
Three minutes fifty gone—
He glanced involuntarily down the tunnel towards the hidden platform of the Muzeum station. Silence. The air was cold on his heated face. He shivered, aware of the temperature around him. Straightening up once more, he swiftly wired the timer to the circuit. At eight o'clock that evening, the timer would trip the completion of the circuit and the transistor would begin to disrupt the impulses passing through the landline, garbling the flow of information between the Hradcany and Moscow Centre. The intermittent fault would be difficult to trace and cure. The post office engineer would be on the point of giving up when Hyde arrived to test the system. Soon after that, the short-life battery would fail and the fault would disappear.