"What? Oh—"
"What's the matter?" Hyde asked urgently.
"Everything," Massinger began, then noticing Hyde's alarm, he added, "And nothing. No need to worry. I wasn't spotted and followed."
"I know that. I've been here two hours waiting. No face I know, not even one I suspect I ought to know, has shown up." Hyde grinned suddenly, showing his profile once more. "You're not doing too bad for an old man."
"And you — how are you doing?"
"Ahead. Just. It's only real professionals we have to worry about. Brought my papers?"
"Yes."
On the wide empty road raised above flat white fields, they passed a grey, lumped-together factory complex. A red and white chimney belched dark smoke.
"Good. Well, what's the plan?" Hyde was clearly enjoying a human contact he did not have to fear or suspect. He was almost blithe.
"We — we're going to kidnap the KGB Rezident in Vienna. A simple job—"
"You what?"
Massinger was offhand, almost satiric, because he did not care. He was unable to concern himself closely with the matter. It was no more than a preliminary task to be executed before he could return to London to discover the truth concerning Aubrey and Castleford; he might even confront Aubrey, after he had dug around, yes he might…
Hyde was stunned by his apparent nonchalance. "Did I hear you correctly, Massinger? Did you say kidnap the Rezident? Hands up everybody in the Soviet Embassy, all right, come with us, sunshine? You're talking through your backside!"
"There's no other way. The Rezident must know — I am certain he does know what's going on here. He knows about Teardrop, and what's behind it."
"Of course he bloody does! So what?"
"I know where he will be tonight, and I know he will be alone."
"Without a screen." Massinger was amused, in a detached manner, at the signals of competence and superiority he was hoisting. "Shall I go on?"
"Oh, please do," Hyde replied with thickly spread sarcasm.
"Very well."
Small, peeled-paint houses and farms, a flour mill, then newer bungalows, pebble-dashed or faced with grey concrete. Pink or light green, many of them. Then the city began rising to two and three storeys and closing in around the car. The river was dark and sluggish to their left. The wheels of the Mercedes clunked over tramlines. Dingy shops bearing weather-beaten nameboards and advertisements, new cars, tall new buildings. Then the heavy, monumental buildings lining the Ring.
They were in the Johannesgasse and close to the Inter-Continental before Massinger had completed his narrative.
"Well?" he asked finally as Hyde passed the hotel and slid into a parking space fifty yards beyond it. The Australian switched off the car engine and turned, leaning his arm on the back of the bench seat. His eyes studied Massinger over the sleeve of his stained overcoat.
Speaking almost into his sleeve, he said: "So there's me, you and Shelley. That's the entire army, is it?"
"Yes." He felt dry-throated from talking without pause or interruption; weary from lack of conviction in what he was doing.
"And you couldn't give a bugger. What about Shelley?"
"What do you mean?"
"Your scheme is harebrained, but it doesn't seem to frighten you. You don't care enough. I can't see us getting away with it unless you wake up."
"I see." Massinger wanted to explain, but then said bluntly: "Unless you help — unless we get to the bottom of this — you're living on borrowed time."
"Sure — and interest rates are going up and up. I know. But — you watching my back? I don't think so, mate. Thanks all the same."
"You know Aubrey is supposed to have betrayed my wife's father to the NKVD in 1946. She believes it, anyway. Does that answer your question? I may not seem to care — but if I want my own answers, my own peace, then this has to be the first step. Now — do we go or not?"
Hyde studied Massinger's drawn and tired face for a long time, then he said: "This bloke Cass — he's laid on, is he?"
Massinger nodded. "He arrives this afternoon. He knows where to contact me."
"Do you know enough to play the Rezident's pal — just through having a couple of drinks with him and watching the opera from the same box?"
"I'll have to, won't I?"
"You will." Then Hyde shrugged. "I don't have any choice, anyway. Argument's just a lot of finessing crap. I don't have anywhere to go. The body in the alley decided that for me." He held out his hand. "OK, Massinger — light the blue touch-paper and stand well clear."
"You understand, Professor? I'm sure Pete Shelley warned you of the dangers of pentathol interrogation — opening and closing doors?" Massinger nodded. Cass's face was a mere white blank in the darkness of the car. Hyde had left them once more to patrol the street, adrenalin-alert, senses and intelligence heightened to the point where Massinger sensed excitement, even pleasure in him. "Good. You have to be this man Pavel Koslov and you mustn't step out of character, not for a moment. At least, it would be wise not to."
Cass was about Shelley's age, an old school friend of the head of East Europe Desk, clever, fluent in at least five languages, apparently, a good field agent, and totally lacking the other's ambitions. Madrid Station was simply another enjoyable and easy posting on a covert tour of the world. Shelley's assessment of and liking for Cass were both deserved.
"Do you think it'll work?"
"It might — I say only might. I won't be there to increase the dose, or direct you. Shelley made it clear that I should scarper as soon as I've filled his veins."
"Yes, you must get away at once."
"All right. First of all, I'll knock him out with sodium pentathol. Twenty minutes later, I'll inject enough benzedrine to bring him round again. Then he's all yours. I'll stay long enough to check the first couple of questions, to make sure he doesn't need any more benzedrine. He'll be somewhere between waking and sleeping, then. Almost comatose, but bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at the same time. OK?"
"Yes."
"Good. This is a form of narcotherapy. There are other and better drugs that could be used with a greater chance of success, but they're harder to handle. I couldn't leave you to do the whole thing by yourselves."
"I see."
"Now — lull him at first by talking slowly, sleepily if you like — the old-fashioned hypnotist's voice. Mm?" Massinger nodded. "Then come across as strongly as you can in the guise of Koslov. Create an atmosphere for him, a conversation. Now, if he begins to doze off, don't slap his face or shake him about. You might start waking him up properly. I'll leave you a syringe. Ten milligrams of benzedrine if he falls asleep. OK?"
"How long do I have with him?"
"Perhaps an hour, even an hour and a half. But if at any time ten milligrams doesn't bring him back to you, leave it. Unless you don't mind what happens to him."
"I don't want him — harmed," Massinger replied.
"OK, that's that, then. All we have to do now is wait."
Cass settled back in the seat, arms folded across his chest. He seemed sublimely unconcerned. Massinger scanned the street for Hyde and eventually saw him drifting back towards the car from the direction of the Michaelerplatz and the massive facade of the Hofburg Palace. The girl's apartment was on the second floor of an elegant nineteenth-century house, the ground floor of which was a jeweller's shop.
Hyde thrust his head inside the Mercedes, and announced: "Not a bloody sausage, Massinger. The street's clean for three blocks, and the square's strictly kosher. OK? Can I get warm now?"