Light, air, less coldness on his face and the backs of his hands. He ran.
Mist folding behind, rock ahead. He ran.
He was still covered with it —.
He dived for the shelter of the rock, hearing the roar of the mist as it became flame. He rolled in the snow, hiding his face and hands, folding them into the bulk of his body. He rolled. Smoke near him, searing pain in his hands, on his face. He plunged them into snow, burning on his legs, he rolled and rolled in the snow, driving his body into a drift against the rocks which half-buried him, filling his nostrils and mouth and eyes and driving out all sensory impressions of the burning mist. Gobbets of fire must have flown in the MiL's downdraught, some of them reaching him. He did not want to know about his burns.
He did not want to know anything. He was finished. The snow cooled him, froze him. He couldn't move — there was nothing left. The snow numbed his face and hands. He turned his mouth, spat out snow, breathed. It was enough. The air, even if it tasted of napalm, revived him.
But nothing more—
He would wait.
He kept his eyes closed. They were heavy with snow. He heard the helicopter, his body tensed. He waited.
The noise — he could feel the downdraught of the rotors — clattered off the side of the valley, enlarging and expanding into two, three sets of rotors. Perhaps others had come…? He did not care. He could no longer even be terrified. Soon, soon now…
He was numb and clean. The smell of the napalm was dying down, the heat dissipating. He opened his eyes slowly. Half-melted snow watered in them. The helicopter hovered above him blackly, haloed with sunlight. There was another helicopter thirty yards away. And he heard the retreating noise of rotors. Retreating…
Roundels, green and white. Hyde was disorientated, waiting to die. The crescent moon and one star of Islam at the tail of the helicopter.
Green and white, no red star on the belly.
Roundels…?
He could not explain what had happened, not even as the Pakistan Army Sikorsky S-61R gunship helicopter dropped gently and benignly towards the charred floor of the narrow valley, blowing snow over his body from its downdraught as it descended.
CHAPTER TWELVE:
Truth from an Old Man
"This whole matter has gone far enough to have become something of a shambles," Sir William Guest, GCMG, Cabinet Office Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee and a former Head of the Diplomatic Service, appeared pleased with the opportunity to display his seniority. His leather swivel chair creaked under his considerable weight — Babbington noticed again that he had a fat man's enclosed eyes and expressionless facial flesh which suggested slowness of mind, even stupidity. At least, nothing more than a certain money-grubbing low cunning, Babbington added to his observation. It was, of course, a mask. Sir William was his master, and his mentor, and his intellectual capacities were considerable. SAID was his brain-child; its birth was the fruit of his persuasion of the PM and the Cabinet Committees concerned. "A shambles," Sir William repeated with heavy emphasis. Then: "You will remember, Andrew, that I opposed the idea of lifting the 'D' Notices, and especially the idea of a prosecution for treason in Aubrey's case." It was not a hand-washing exercise, rather a reprimand.
"Yes," Babbington replied, waiting. It had suited his game, and that of Moscow Centre, that Sir William and others had seen him as the coming man, had assiduously encouraged his promotion and effected his seniority in MI5. It was an express-train, as Kapustin had once vulgarly put it, to the top of the mountain. The peasant Deputy Chairman of the KGB had laughed familiarly at that. The man always managed to remind Babbington that he thought of him as Moscow's man, Moscow's property, Moscow's creature—
Babbington suppressed his hatred. Sir William's thick right eyebrow had moved, as if he had already seen some expression on Babbington's face.
Sir William's office was a comfortable though drably coloured part of the warren of Cabinet Office rooms in Downing Street. As Sir William had said on one occasion: 'You may call it the factory floor — I prefer to call it the hotel annexe.' As he said it, his eyes had seemed to see through all the doors, along all the twisting, narrow corridors, towards the main house and the Cabinet Room and the PM's private office. His thoughts had then evidently returned to his own room with satisfaction, as if his description of the Cabinet Office's whereabouts was mere self-deprecation.
His chair creaked again as he shifted his bulk. "I'm glad you agree, Andrew. This isn't in the nature of a reprimand." There was cigar-ash on the lapel of his dark suit, and on the old Etonian tie. "However, be that as it may, we are now, to some considerable degree — compromised."
"I don't follow your logic."
"The newspapers have the scent, and we have to leave them baying at the moon. You let Kenneth Aubrey—" There was a hint of amusement in the grey eyes that were encircled by folds of fat. " — get away, not to put too fine a point upon it. You don't know where he is, and we have a charge of treason for him to answer. And my god-daughter, Heaven help her, has gone chasing off to Germany to discover the truth about her father!" He raised his hands in the air in mock horror. They descended with a drumlike beat on his desk. He was not smiling as he continued: "I don't foresee great happiness for her there, whatever the truth of the matter…" He seemed to be remembering distant events, even old pain, then he shook his head. "A strange man," he murmured. "Brilliant, but strange." Then his enshrouded eyes blinked into attentiveness once more. "The Prime Minister has changed her mind on this matter." His voice and facial expression implied a sense of frustration, eternally that of the civil servant at the whim of the politician. "There is to be no more fuss. Aubrey is to be found and persuaded to remain abroad. Unless he has plans to appear in Moscow in the near future."
"He has nowhere else to go," Babbington observed tartly.
"Whatever he has done, I cannot see Kenneth Aubrey enjoying a state pension and a Party flat in Moscow. Whatever… we do not want him back here. Understood?" Babbington nodded, tight-lipped. "Good. It is the future we must now look to — and that will be your business, at least in part. A cleansing of the stables. That and a full enquiry. That should satisfy the House, and the Press. The PM's first puritanical flush of enthusiasm — nay, her sheer exasperation after Blunt and the others that there was more bad weather coming from the direction of the intelligence service — has died down. She has listened to wiser heads, to counsels of calm—" Sir William seemed to glare at that moment. Babbington, of course, had been one of the headhunters… the PM had listened with enthusiasm, had agreed. Now Sir William had changed his mind and his advice was being heeded.
"I see."
"Excellent. You can bring Margaret back as soon as you wish — you have my blessing on it. That foolish man, her husband… but, when have we ever expected maturity from our Transatlantic cousins, mm?" Babbington was invited to smile, which he dutifully did. He was not still to be blamed, apparently. He would continue as Director-General of SAID, at the pinnacle. And Sir William, like everyone else, would continue to be unsuspecting in the matter of his real power. It could have been a great deal worse, he concluded.
Except for Massinger and Aubrey and Hyde and Shelley — the small party of the faithful. Sir William had made them inviolate — but they had to be silenced.
"When I return from Washington in a few days' time, I want to have a long talk with my god-daughter. Why she did not come to me at once I shall never understand!" Again, he threw up his hands melodramatically. "Dashing off like that. She was to hostess a small party for me next week." His full lips were twisted with indulgent humour. A confirmed bachelor, it was evident that Margaret Massinger had provided an easy, comforting surrogate child who had never cost Sir William money, time or tears and brought him some degree of easily gained pleasure. Parenthood without responsibility, Babbington thought sourly, an image of his own son, tie askew, dinner jacket stained, wildly drunk — a regular feature of the Tatler's picture pages. Ex-Eton, ex-Oxford, ex-, ex-, ex-