Doors closing behind him. He heard them in his head. Retreat cut off. The car drew to a halt. The van passed it and drew up at the far end of the hangar. There were perhaps a dozen people visible to Aubrey, mostly overalled, one in Aeroflot uniform. So easy — he was helpless. He glanced up at the airliner. One or two faces looking down in curiosity from the windows in the fuselage. Dummy passengers—? Genuine diplomats? It did not matter.
The door was opened by the driver and Aubrey was motioned out. He climbed out slowly, blinking in the hard overhead lights that seemed to shine through a haze of dust. He glanced at the watch they had returned to him. Four-twenty. What had Kapustin said—?
Four-thirty. What was the matter, why was the aircraft still in its hangar? Engine cowling lying beneath the wing, men on a dolly working on the port engine. Something wrong with the aircraft—!
Voronin was talking urgently to the uniformed man. Paul Massinger and his wife were being led from the back of the van, blinking, half-dazed, frightened. He traced their reactions as they saw the airliner, understood the proximity of take-off, of Moscow, of… He did not continue, but looked away from them. His hands quivered in the pockets of his overcoat. Clunk of a heavy spanner against metal, a curse in Russian. He glanced up at the mechanics working on the port engine.
Why? What rescue was possible?
Voronin had turned away from the Aeroflot officer — presumably the pilot — and was heading towards him. His face expressed irritation. "A fault in that engine — a delay of perhaps one hour, maybe more," he announced in a clipped tone.
"I see," Aubrey replied. "It makes little difference — wouldn't you say?"
"Little difference. That is true. Sir Andrew Babbington is unlikely to come to your rescue, I think." Voronin's irritation had vanished. "You will please get aboard the aircraft," he said.
"In a moment."
Voronin's features darkened. Then he said, "As you wish."
Aubrey walked away from him towards the Massingers. The Russian fell in behind him. The Massingers had seated themselves on a trunk — perhaps one of the trunks in which they had been transported to Schwechat? — dazed and silent, their hands linked on the woman's lap. The image persisted. It seemed to be a pose they had adopted for some portrait. This is how they would like to be remembered, Aubrey thought, feeling his throat constrict with guilt.
He paused and turned to Voronin. "Is there no way?" he asked.
Voronin shook his head. His eyes appeared bleak. Yet he rubbed briefly at his chin, as if pondering some statement. Then his eyes were alight with amused malice. "No way," he said. "But, you will not have long, Sir Kenneth Aubrey, in which to be — sorry for them?"
Aubrey was aware, beyond Voronin's shoulder, that the Massingers were both watching him. There was something like pleasure, comfort on their faces. He felt very cold. He wished for a walking-stick upon which to lean. The Massingers' faces displayed common cause with him; companionship. And he loathed it.
Voronin nodded stiffly and quickly. "I must now attend to other matters. You may join your friends."
He walked away towards the aircraft. The man who had sat beside Aubrey in the limousine hovered alertly. Aubrey felt the hard-lit scene lurch, as if he were fainting. He could not become warm.
Every time there was a scandal in the service, every time an intelligence matter became the concern of the Western media, they would use the clip of film. Himself, descending the passenger ladder alongside this aircraft.
Coming home to Moscow.
He knew the fear would begin soon, and not leave him. For the moment, however, a seething rage possessed him. Always, for fifty or even a hundred years, he would be wheeled out into the lights like Burgess, Maclean, Philby and the others. Photographs, details, comment — and the clip of grainy film of his arrival in Moscow. Flashing bulbs, the dying noise of aircraft engines, and his white, startled face.
Coming home to Moscow. His immortality!
Massinger raised his arm in a tentative invitation. Aubrey hurried towards them with the eagerness of a fugitive seeking shelter.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Place of Execution
When the child brought him a bowl of steaming, spicy stew, its dumplings like small boulders amid the meat and vegetables, he felt defeated; drained of all remaining energy and will. He felt he no longer possessed the strength to persuade Langdorf. The man's small, flaxen-haired, narrow-faced, well-mannered daughter had disarmed him. She was perhaps eleven or twelve. Her name was Marthe — after her mother, Langdorf had informed him. His almost-in-focus watch showed five. No — that was the second hand at twelve. It was already five-thirty. He had been in the plumber's flat for half an hour; to no purpose. Langdorf continued to refuse his help, even though his eyes were drawn again and again to the small, neat paper brick of Swiss francs lying between them on the check tablecloth.
Langdorf was wary of his own safety. Perhaps because of his child. "It is too late today," he kept repeating. "Already it is too late. It would be almost dawn before we reached the border. I cannot take you now." He had added, after the second or third refusaclass="underline" "You can stay here until it is dark again. Then, I will get you across." Marthe had stood at the table's edge, watching Hyde intently. When Langdorf had made his offer, her head had moved slightly, indicating agreement. Now, she stood in the same spot, waiting for him to lift his spoon, taste the stew. He did so.
It scalded his throat and made his eyes water. Langdorf's face, seen through Hyde's tears, wore an amused expression. Marthe seemed to take the matter much more seriously, and he felt compelled to nod approval, and to say: "Thank you — yes, great. Lovely." His stomach resented the heat of the food, but its hunger was evident, and he ate — accelerating with each mouthful, blowing on the meat and vegetables in the spoon.
Eventually, his stomach seemed satisfied. Immediately, he said, "You have to take me — now. Whatever the risks, I must get across before first light." He tapped the little brick of high-denomination notes, knowing it was probably more than Langdorf had ever been offered before for such a crossing. "You have to." Half of Godwin's money lay on the table, the other half in Hyde's overcoat pocket; with the pistol, which might become necessary.
Except that it would probably be fatal to threaten his lifeline. His guide. Stupid— a last resort. He groaned inwardly at the prospect that it might come to such a desperate solution. Take the money, you stupid bugger—!
"What's the matter?" Hyde sneered deliberately. "Isn't the money your motivation? Zimmermann told me it was."
Marthe lifted the empty bowl from between Hyde's planted elbows. Her narrow, pale face was filled with reproach, and Hyde realised that she spoke good English. Either that, or she was alive to every nuance of negotiations such as the present one. Practice. She'd seen it all so many times before.
"She speaks English," Langdorf explained, lighting his pipe, streaming blue smoke towards the flat's low ceiling. "I pay for the lessons. It is part of her education." Marthe smiled at her father; in gratitude, it appeared to Hyde's unpractised eye. He felt moved by the exchange of looks; a conspiracy of affection where he might not have looked for it. "Yes," the plumber continued, still dressed in his shabby woolen dressing-gown and slippers. Thick, striped pajama-bottoms protruded from below the hem of the long dressing-gown. "Yes — money is my only motivation, as you say." Blue smoke rose in puffs; signaling contentment, even superiority. Langdorfs features and his relaxed posture at the table suggested that he could not be surprised, taken aback. He knew himself; he could not be insulted or goaded.