Petrunin got up slowly, casually. He appeared unafraid. "You seem to have entangled yourself in the web quite willingly," the Russian observed, flicking the rug's fringe into greater order with the toe of his right boot. Hyde watched the man's eyes and hands and the shape and intention of his body.
Beyond Petrunin, the rescued figures were clambering or being pushed into the interior of the MiL helicopter. The noise of approaching rotors was louder now.
"Time for us to go," Hyde said.
"Of course. Then we can walk into those who have come for me." He pointed to the window. "Rescuing the ambassador is a matter of correct form — the helicopter has, in reality, come for me. There is no way out for you."
"Perhaps — come on."
Petrunin smiled but did not move. The room was overhot. The central heating purred and clicked. Petrunin contemplated his desk. Then he turned on Hyde.
"Why are you here?"
Hyde grinned. "You know I'll kill you, don't you," he said. It was not a question. "You know I'd have killed you in Australia because I knew I should have killed you in England. You're sure of it."
"And that is why you're here?" Petrunin was watching for signs of growing impatience. Yet he was also troubled.
Hyde shook his head. "I'm here because of Teardrop — there, I've given you your passport. I need you alive."
Petrunin laughed aloud. "Then they've done it—?" he asked excitedly. "I wondered, when I saw that Aubrey… but, it's Teardrop, you say. My scheme." His faced darkened. "While I rot here!" he added with a black and utter bitterness.
"Come on."
"There's no way out for you."
"Nor for you. I'll kill you, if it comes to it. You know that — quickly now!"
Hyde moved closer, his eyes intently watching Petrunin's face as he brushed his hand over the man's jacket, his torso. Then he moved carefully behind the Russian, touching along the line of his belt, then brushing his back. Petrunin had no weapon. Hyde gestured to the door with the Makarov, and Petrunin hesitated only for a moment, then collected his greatcoat from the rack and picked up his cap and gloves from a small table. He passed with assured nonchalance out of his office, Hyde close behind him, the Makarov drawn as if for Petrunin's protection.
A guard blundered into the outer office. From his position, Hyde could see the secretary's legs, despite the cover of the desk. The guard saluted. Hyde closed on Petrunin, touching the small of his back with the barrel of the Makarov. Then he stepped quickly away again.
"Is my escort here?" Petrunin demanded.
"Yes, Comrade Colonel—!"
Petrunin's shoulders twitched at the mention of his present rank, as if it pained him that Hyde was present to witness his reduced circumstances.
"Then get on with it. Get out of the way!"
The guard's face was white, thin. He held the door open. Hyde motioned him away from it and slammed it shut behind them, just as Petrunin appeared about to issue an instruction to the guard — perhaps to assist his secretary…? Hyde grinned. There was the slightest shrug from Petrunin as he donned his greatcoat. Hyde glanced through the windows. A splay of lights on the patchy snow, the noises of a helicopter's descent. In the windowed corridor stood three soldiers and an officer, the soldiers in combat fatigues and armed with AKM rifles. Crack troops. The officer saluted Petrunin.
"Come quickly, Comrade Colonel," he instructed. "The helicopter is waiting for you." His glance passed over Hyde but was satisfied by the uniform. Petrunin nodded but said nothing, then swiftly moved into and beyond the circle of the three soldiers, shielding himself from Hyde with the three bodies. Hyde realised he had lost the advantage. Petrunin — this Petrunin — had an animal's quick, alert cunning. A word — a moment of safety and a quick order — could kill him. The Russians moved down the corridor and rounded the corner. Hyde hurried after them, aware of his own danger. People were running and there was a smell of burning paper and plastic and celluloid. Hyde sensed panic. There was sporadic firing from beyond the embassy compound as the second MiL helicopter, a big transport, began to sag into view, thirty yards or so above the lawns, its lights playing over the grass and snow and the bare trees on the other side of the compound. Still Petrunin remained silent. The man was taking not the slightest chance. Hyde guessed he had begun to enjoy the situation. He knew that the tables had been turned — that now he had Hyde.
Hyde reached the top of the stairs. People pressed back as Petrunin and his small escort moved down the stairs, boots clattering, rifles bristling, Petrunin at the centre of their tight circle. Hyde cursed himself. He had allowed himself a moment of confidence in which he had relaxed, and in that moment Petrunin had surrounded himself with a protective curtain of soldiers. The helicopters had been minutes too early, minutes—
A bright, false sunrise garishly lit the windows alongside the stairs, gleaming whitely on each shocked, puzzled face. The officer, Petrunin, each of the guards, each of the embassy staff. Hyde's eyes were dazzled.
Petrunin glanced back up the steps that separated him from Hyde. His expression was shocked. For the moment, the man was incapable of giving the order he might have issued an instant before. Move, then—
The first helicopter had been minutes early, had been left out of Hyde's calculations. Then the second helicopter, the big transport…
Gobbets of flaming metal, a burning body, flailing rotor blades scattered down on the snow and grass and the guards around the first MiL. A huge ceremonial firework; Miandad had used the rocket launcher once more, perhaps because he had weighed the odds against Hyde. Panic now—
Hyde moved, skipping the intervening steps. Petrunin watched him come, his gloved hand reaching towards the officer's arm, to turn him and his dazzled attention towards this new danger — then Hyde was alongside Petrunin and the Makarov was pressed into the flank of the military greatcoat, hard. Hyde grinned.
The remains of the transport helicopter were burning like a scattered bonfire on the embassy lawn. Soldiers were rolling in the snow, extinguishing the flames that had caught them. One or two green greatcoats lay still. Frightened faces watched from the windows of the surviving MiL. The soldiers surrounding Petrunin had begun to drift towards the glass doors of the building. One of the transport's main rotors lay buried like a sword in the lawn. A ball of flame ascended from an exploding fuel tank. The light washed the foyer. Much of the glass had shattered — Hyde felt his face and hands prickling with fragments — and the cold night air had entered, the successive waves of heat from the fire now dispelling the chill.
Hyde had regained control.
"Guard the helicopter!" he yelled in a high, panicky Russian voice full of desperate authority, pressing the gun into Petrunin's side to ensure his silence. The officer in charge of the escort detail turned to him. "Do it! It's the Colonel's only way out, you fools. Move!" People were clambering into the surviving MiL — civilian staff, soldiers, clerks and secretaries, clinging to it like the one remaining lifeboat adrift from a sinking liner. "Get everyone off that helicopter except the ambassador and his wife!" Hyde yelled in Russian. "Get them off."
And they moved. The officer transmitted Hyde's orders. The Makarov pressed against Petrunin's side, just below the ribs. A BMP rolled gruntingly, cautiously past the foyer, passing a parked staff car. Petrunin moved his hands as if to restrain the now running soldiers, but he said nothing. The soldiers spread out, moving towards the helicopter, whose rotors had begun to pick up speed. There was shouting — a woman was bundled from the interior of the MiL and flung spreadeagled on the melted slush.