"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. Dominusilluminatio 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."