Vienna?
Hopeless. It was called the city of spies. Everyone was secure and no one was to be trusted in Vienna. Impossible to mount something against the embassy there, even though Hyde — with good strong legs he could not help but think, disliking himself at once — was there, too. In Vienna, agents changed allegiance with every remittance — Queen's face, Presidential features, German philosopher, hero of the people… they obeyed only the faces on the banknotes. And Vienna Station itself was now being run on Babbington's behalf. No go. Definitely no go.
And then he thought—
Hyde… hydrofoil. Hyde — hydrofoil, Hyde-hydro…
There was a hydrofoil trip up the Danube for tourists from Vienna to Bratislava which took less than an hour, no papers required… Bratislava in Czechoslovakia… Hyde-hydro — He could get Hyde into Czecho easily—
The clouds rolled back through his mind as if the film had been reversed, moving more swiftly than ever, radiant with energy. He could — yes, it was possible, it could be done—
Danube. January. Ice—
The hydrofoil only ran in the summer months, for the tourists.
Immediately, he was defeated, his schemes shrunken and dry like long-fallen fruit. But almost at once, because the racing clouds of his ideas did not stop, he thought — Zimmermann. Even as he realised that Hyde could not cross into Czechoslovakia without papers and knew that he could not supply them, he understood that Zimmermann would have contacts in Vienna, that he could supply—
Ski-ing. A ski-ing holiday. Visas were settled at the border, not required in advance. All Hyde needed to get into Czecho was a hired car, a roof rack and a pair of skis as his cover. And an Austrian or German passport supplied by Zimmermann. And he could get out by the same route.
Hyde knew the what, Godwin the how. Hyde had legs — ingress and egress were his business… Godwin could coach him to approach the computer, Godwin would know the precise location and nature of the computer link between Prague and Moscow Centre… Hyde and Godwin, not Godwin alone.
Yes—
He would have to return to the office to get off a long, coded signal — EYES ONLY Godwin — whatever the risk to his security… and however much the desperation that had formed the scheme kept nudging him. Babbington was on his way to Vienna by now. Shelley glanced at his watch, then at the window. It was already getting dark outside. The street-lights were on. The map was washed with an orange glow, as if lit from within.
Desperate, but he had to take the risk of going to Century House, just as Hyde and Godwin had to take the risks he intended for them. Then he would disappear back here, to hide out. Godwin would know an untapped telephone and would be able to call him at Hyde's flat.
He sat down immediately. He wanted no truck with qualifications, with the minutiae of planning, the sense of the many dangers that pushed at his awareness like a madman at a door. Vast scope for error and failure—
No. No!
He began at once, in an almost blithe, superficial mood that he knew would not last, to draft the signal to Godwin in Prague.
Margaret Massinger was huddled into the passenger seat of the hired Ford as they waited near the exit of the car-park beside the sliproad from Schwechat airport to the autobahn. It was a few minutes after four in the afternoon, and the orange lights made the sky behind them prematurely darker. Clouds scudded in the wind, threatening snow if they but slowed in their passage across the sky. The windows of the Ford were misty with their breathing. The instrument panel glowed because Hyde had the ignition switched on so that the heating warmed the car. She felt uncomfortable with Hyde, her rescuer. He seemed an essential component of the trap into which her husband had been led by loyalty, by friendship — and by her. She blamed herself, over and over without respite, fearing he might be dying or even dead by now, and the blame spread like a patch of damp to include everyone connected with Aubrey and his downfall. Hyde was, therefore, a prime target for her outrage.
Hyde had found her sitting on a camp-bed used occasionally during stocktaking or by the manager of a small dress-shop owned by Clara Elsenreith. The woman had taken Margaret there less than an hour after she had discovered her fingering the small patch of blood on the Chinese rug, and told her to remain there. Once Hyde had been directed to Margaret's hiding-place, he instructed Clara to leave Vienna.
Where? she had challenged.
Have you got a summer place?
St Wolfgang, but…
Go there. Now.
The woman had agreed to do so. Hyde himself had witnessed her departure. He saw, also, the surveillance. Russian, he thought, rather than Wilkes and the other corrupted souls. They were evidently waiting for Margaret to return. Clara's Porsche would be followed, of course, but so would the tail-car. Clara had important friends in the Viennese police hierarchy. She had told her story to one of them — she was certain that someone was watching her apartment, following her car. She would be guarded all the way to St Wolfgang.
A pity her friends couldn't solve the problem of Margaret Massinger, her husband, and the old man. Vienna was Liberty Hall as far as intelligence services were concerned. The police just did not see, hear or speak. At best, they would expect to hand Margaret Massinger over to Babbington as his problem.
Hyde glanced at her. Guilt had made its inroads on her eyes and colouring. She was guilty now, disproportionately so; blaming herself for the entire situation and its outcome. And afraid they'd already killed her husband. She'd exorcised her father, for certain, but she believed it had taken her husband's life to achieve it. Because of the situation in which she had placed Aubrey, drawing Babbington's heavy mob after her to Vienna and Clara Elsenreith's apartment, he could feel no sympathy for her. She was an encumbrance, and a reminder that attending to her safety was the only task he was competent to tackle. For Aubrey, he could do nothing.
"He was on the plane," he said. He had returned to the car from the airport observation lounge only a few minutes before. "And he's being met." He had glimpsed Babbington hurrying across fifty yards of windswept tarmac towards the airport buildings. It would have been an easy shot for a rifle.
Hyde had no gun. He patted his waistband. Almost no gun. A small.22 Astra which belonged to Clara Elsenreith, and one spare 6-shot ammunition clip. A lady's gun with only close-range stopping power. He had never used one before. Those few field men and armourers he knew who had used the Astra advised that it required half the magazine to ensure immobilising any enemy. The gun did not provide a great deal of comfort. It was marginally better than nothing. He settled down behind the wheel in silence. The gun might be next to useless, but he had unwrapped some of the bandaging from his right hand so that he could hold it more easily. It had been painful, closing his hand experimentally around the butt. Driving the car, too, hurt his hands, but the pain was now retreating.
When the first escorting car passed them, followed by the limousine which must contain Babbington behind its tinted windows, the sight startled Margaret Massinger. She sat bolt upright in her seat, turning to Hyde, who at that moment switched on the Ford's engine.
"What will he do to them?"
"Who? Your old family friend and escort to the opera?" Hyde sneered. A third car was bunched up behind the limousine. It looked like a KGB procession. It was, he reminded himself.
Margaret's face was pinched with anger. "Yes. Him."
"I hear the KGB Rezident in London got pissed at your place a few times, too. That right, is it?" His hands touched the wheel gingerly, then gripped. A stabbing pain, then almost at once a steady ache he could ignore. He rolled the car gently down the sliproad, accelerating once he reached the autobahn. The traffic was already heavier with the first of the rush-hour. A caterpillar of lights rushed towards them. They were invisible in the thinner stream of traffic heading into the city. Away to their left, the landing lights of an aircraft flickered and winked.