He looked again at his watch. Time was running away. Suk had been gone three-quarters of an hour now on his scouting job… it should have been fifteen minutes maximum before he came back to report. The engineer would have been in the Hradcany computer room for more than half an hour by now, perhaps more than an hour… Where was Suk?
The corridor outside was silent, empty.
Suk had buggered it up, got himself suspected, caught… even chickened out. Delaying until it was too late, anyway.
It isn't going to happen, he heard his mind announce with solemn clarity. It isn't going to work.
It isn't going to work — and you're trapped…
CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
In the Labyrinth
Light switched on—
Hyde, startled into movement, slid upright against the wall, the gun coming up immediately, the barrel quivering slightly from reaction until he stilled it, aiming it at—
— at Suk's stomach. Suk's stomach—!
His legs felt weak. Suk's face mirrored his own shock and relief.
"For Christ's sake—!" Hyde hissed venomously. "Where the fucking hell have you been?"
"Come, come quickly," Suk urged, pressing his thin, stooping form against the door he had closed furtively behind him. "Please—"
"It's over an hour since you — Christ, man, where were you?"
"You must come at once, please, you must come now—!" the supervising cleaner pleaded.
Hyde moved on stiff legs.
"Why? What's gone wrong?"
Suk shook his head vehemently. "No, nothing is wrong… I—"
"What?"
"It — it was difficult for me to approach, to know… eventually, I–I did not tell you this, but when I came last, the engineer…"
"Yes?"
"He had already arrived — I did not know how long before — I had to find out, I could not come sooner—"
"And?"
Suk seemed to stoop to Hyde's height, as if to diminish himself as a target for blame or blows. He was sweating. Hyde smelt him, too, intruding upon the smells that had filled his nostrils for the past hours.
"Only ten minutes before — I swear it, only ten—!" Suk cowered.
Hyde nodded, then looked at his watch.
"One hour and twenty — OK, take me down." He stared at Suk, but a threat seemed superfluous, even wrong. And his own tension threatened to interfere with his articulation, and he merely added: "Come on, Suk — take me down."
Hyde climbed into the white lab coat Suk had provided, clipping the ID card with his name, photograph and details enclosed in clear plastic, to the breast pocket. He pocketed the pistol, and tested the weight of his briefcase filled with files and forms in his left hand. Then his right hand fiddled for the other documents in his pocket. The cover seemed as thin and unprotective as the white coat. Joke scientist — did they really expect him in that guise? Godwin nodded, smiling sardonically in his mind. Suk opened the door with exaggerated caution, almost comically. Then slipped through the crack into the corridor. Hyde followed.
Suk's whisper enticed him like the tune of a snake-charmer along the corridors, down the flights of stairs to the cellars of the Chancellery building where the KGB had installed their high-security computer room, protected by the rock of the high Hradcany ridge.
Now, the man wanted to talk, to babble away tension, letting it leak out in words.
"The engineer was delayed by a job outside Prague — a military installation, I think… complained much, but I did not think he was coming, sorry, but I missed him… I have glimpsed the room only once since his arrival… it seems he is still occupied…"
Hyde wanted to order him to keep quiet, but was afraid of a crack in his voice. Suk's words were like a strong light, making the weave of the operation transparent and fragile. Shut up, man, shut up—
Then, the last flight of steps. The shoulder of a uniformed guard at the bottom, jutting beyond a turn in the corridor. Hyde dodged back out of sight, feeling Suk's shallow, quick breathing on his neck and cheek. He shivered, turning to face the supervising cleaner.
Then looked at his watch.
"He was delayed?" Suk nodded. Already, the beads of perspiration on his pale forehead were drying. He had completed his role. In a moment, he would be able to retreat from this location, this tension. Count the money—
"Then the fault on the computer should have disappeared by now," Hyde said. He remembered turning the hands and setting the clock in the darkness of the metro tunnel.
He saw the shoulder of the guard, the first obstacle of his course. Even if he passed him, there would be others; beyond them, he might only find that the engineer had already left, the fault had vanished, his presence unnecessary and immediately suspicious. The guard's shoulder twitched like an organ of sense detecting something amiss. Hyde gripped the material of Suk's suit above the breastbone.
"I'm walking into a trap because you couldn't do your fucking job properly!" he hissed, leaning his lips to the man's ear. He heard Suk's ragged breathing, loud as an alarm signal, and immediately released the thin, coarse material of the jacket. Suk was vigorously shaking his head, and sweating once more.
"No…"he protested.
"Get lost."
He shrugged Suk aside. The man backed away like some cowed, theatrical servant, then muttered in a whisper: "I — will wait…"
Way out, exit, his mind warned, and he placated Suk with a nod. Then dismissed him from his thoughts. He heard the hesitant footsteps vaguely; something that did not concern him.
Down the green wall to the next basement level, parallel with the handrail of the stairs, was painted a red stripe. It signified an area of maximum security. They had passed stripes along every wall, down every set of steps. They had gone from green to yellow to blue and now to red. Indications of growing security, of greater and greater restrictions to access. Increased warnings to Hyde of his danger, of the distance back from the computer room to the castle above.
Red stripe. Absolutely no unauthorised personnel. Strictly no admittance without the correct papers and identification. He looked again at the guard's shoulder. The red stripe down the wall was at the level of the marksman's badge on his upper sleeve. The tip of his rifle barrel jutted beyond his shoulder, as if searching for him; waiting.
Twelve steps — then he had only the ID clipped to his breast pocket and the other papers with which to confront this first guard. And, if he passed him, he would be between the rifle-tip he could see and the Kalashnikov of the next guard further along the corridor. In a crossfire if they so much as suspected…
Twelve steps.
He took the first step, body steady, temperature endurable, legs OK, breathing controlled.
His left foot fumbled at the third step. Already, the guard's shoulder-flashes and arm-badges were more significant, larger in his vision. It was as if he were on the point of tripping, of stumbling the short distance to a collision with the uniform. He hesitated, felt the perspiration beneath his shirt, then almost at once he was two-thirds of the way down the striped wall towards the guard's shoulder. He felt light-headed, as if with fresh, chill air. Better. Under control. Better.
His foot touched the bottom step and the guard, startled, turned to him. Hyde stared into the young, freckled, open features, knowing that if anything went wrong, if he were suspected or even exposed, he would have to kill this guard in order to get out. The narrow corridor and the flight of stairs were the only exit he knew from the cellars of the Chancellery.
Marksman's flashes, KGB stripe. "Good evening, Comrade," Hyde said casually, presenting his breast-pocket ID for inspection, airily waving his other documents in his right hand, as if beginning the theatrical hypnosis of the young guard.