"Yes, I'm all right. I'm in London, I must see you…"
Her exhalation of relief, the trembling of her body, the lump in her throat all transformed themselves, the instant after she knew he was alive and safe, into an angry echo of her recriminations. Paul was still Aubrey's ally.
"Have you given it up?" she demanded.
"What—? I haven't found out the truth, if that's what you mean. Darling, can I come and see you, talk to you?"
"No, Paul—"
"Margaret, I have to!"
"You're in London, you must have seen—?"
"I have seen. It's nonsense — utter nonsense."
"It isn't!"
"You don't know Aubrey—!" Massinger protested. Stephens, the butler, opened the door, hesitated for an instant, then discreetly withdrew. Margaret could hear her own breathing, as well as the noise of a passing car. Then only the noise of the distance between herself and her husband. He was still speaking, still protesting Aubrey's innocence, but she could hear more clearly the whisper of the static and its measurement of distance. "You don't know Aubrey, darling, or you'd never believe that nonsense." There was a false, urgent attempt at jocularity; it was garish and ugly, like too much rouge on a wrinkled cheek. "You can't take that seriously…" Then, "Darling? Are you there?"
"Yes, I'm here," she replied wearily, staring at the blank wall. "You're safe, you say? You'll be safe now?"
"No," he said softly.
"What do you mean?"
"What I mean. I'm in too deep now. Whether I like it or not, I'm in. I've aroused — interest." He sounded grim. There was a tone she had not heard before in his voice; something that belonged to his past, to that world he had once shared with Aubrey — the great, stupid, heroic, filthy game of spying. He was demanding she take it seriously. To him, it was far more real than the idea that people could kill for love, out of sexual jealousy or desire.
"Oh, God…" It was expressed in a shuddering sigh, as a protest.
The grinning skull. In her world, people could die for the change in their handbags or for the desire they could not satisfy or have reciprocated; in Paul's world, people died because they intrigued, they turned over stones, they desired the truth. The skull; her father's grinning bones.
"Let me see you," he pleaded.
"No!" She could not — yet she wanted him to be safe; above all, safe. "You must talk to Andrew Babbington — you must! Tell him you're in danger — please talk to him!"
"I can't — Margaret, I simply can't talk to anyone about this."
"Then leave me alone!" she wailed, thrusting the receiver away from her, clattering it onto its rest on the wall, leaning her head against it as her body slumped. The receiver joggled off and the telephone purred. Paul had evidently rung off. The tears coursed down her cheeks. She stared at her future mirrored on the blank wall of the alcove.
"I must ask you, Mr Hyde, if you have any suggestions as to how we are to capture your Colonel Petrunin?" Miandad's tone was reproving, even recriminatory.
"What the hell else could I do?" Hyde protested sullenly, I squatting on his haunches, his back pressed against the wall of the earthen-floored, chilly room. The pale blue of the sky was visible through the lattice-work of the broken roof. "You know damn well he had me by the short and curlies." Hyde stared into Miandad's face. It was evident that the Pakistani, too, was recollecting Mohammed Jan's words; his ultimatum. The Pathan chieftain had stood over them, tall in the firelight as their discussions ended, and he had spoken to Miandad in Pushtu. Hyde had recognised the trap in the Pathan's tone, even before Miandad translated.
"He will take you to the border, and across it. He will help you, show you where to find your Colonel Petrunin, and he will show you all the difficulties. In return for his help, you will guarantee to capture the Russian and to hand him over to the justice of Mohammed Jan and his tribe. This will pay for the deaths of his sons. It is the Pathan code of Pushtunwali, where the vendetta is the highest loyalty. Mohammed Jan asks you to choose — to go or to stay. Do you understand, Mr Hyde? Do you know what this means? If you want his help, you must promise him the capture of Petrunin."
All the while, Mohammed Jan had stood over them, immobile as a carved figure, the long Lee Enfield rifle with its gold inlay cradled in his arms. Hyde avoided looking at him, avoided too the circle of faces around the fire; Mohammed Jan's council of elders. Nevertheless, as soon as Miandad had finished his translation and given his warning, Hyde had replied.
"Tell him yes. I promise he will have Petrunin for his justice." There had been no other way. He had not dared to even hesitate.
To be trusted, to gain their help, he had had to commit himself at once. He wanted them to endanger themselves on his behalf. He had had to agree.
"I agree," Miandad said. "There was nothing else you could do. But, you have no idea of how to lay hands upon the Russian?"
Hyde turned to the Pakistani. "Look," he said, "there's you and me and a gang of brave nutters. They're prepared to stay inside Afghanistan until the job's done. For the moment I've managed to stall them with the idea of an ambush." He grinned mirthlessly. "They'll get some new guns and who knows — we might get some hard news of Petrunin."
"You're an optimist, Mr Hyde."
"Am I? I'm bloody trapped, that's what I am, sport."
"Perhaps."
"At least they'll wait. Wait until Petrunin comes out to play."
"I know much about your Russian. He is unlikely to allow himself to be captured. By helicopter, he has at least two heavily-armed gunship escorts, by road he travels in a heavy convoy. He is virtually impregnable. He spends a great deal of his time at Soviet army headquarters when he is in Kabul, and the rest of the time at the embassy — very little time at the embassy, actually. You see, he knows how much he is hated, how deep the desire to punish him is."
"All right, all right…" Hyde sighed. "I know we're in the shit. Thanks for jumping in with me."
"There are obligations."
"To Aubrey you mean?"
"And to men who served with me. It is not only Pathans who have been burned by your Russian's napalm." Miandad's face was grim. Hyde lowered his head, looking at the baggy trousers and sheepskin jacket that were part of his disguise. He rubbed his unshaven skin and sighed.
"I realise now how you knew what would happen." He looked at Miandad again. The Pakistani, similarly disguised as a Pathan warrior, was softly rubbing his chest and shoulders. Hyde remembered that the man had been discreet, almost coy, when they had changed into their Pathan costumes. Burned—? Hyde left the subject of Miandad's experiences in Afghanistan, but he could not ignore Petrunin. "How has it happened?"
"The Russian?" Miandad shrugged. "It is not a nice war here. Not cricket — not even ice hockey." Miandad smiled. "Your Russian was sent here in disgrace, was he not?" Hyde nodded. "He is a very bitter man. This is a war of bitterness. It was easy for him, I suspect. It is always easy to degenerate." Miandad shivered and stretched out his hands to the small fire around which they crouched.
They were alone in the ruin of the Afghan fort. They had crossed the border before daybreak, a party of thirty picked men, all well-armed and provisioned. After miles of high, snowbound passes they had come down, before midday, to this abandoned fort, trudging through a pine forest to reach its shelter. A bitter wind had searched their clothing throughout the journey. Hyde had reached the fort exhausted and chilled to the bone. He had eaten ravenously, then slowly thawed in front of a small fire. The wind moaned and shrieked around the partially-ruined walls and barracks and stables. Mohammed Jan had seemed to find some source of satisfaction in the Australian's weariness. Then the Pathans had left, to scout the road between Kabul and Jalalabad.