'Her father's paranoid about security. She's caught the infection.'
'It is all real, then?'
Hyde nodded. 'Oh, yes. Silly, but real. The Russians want her dad, or her, or both, because he's invented a purple deathray which will give world domination to whoever possesses its deadly secret. I'm Flash Gordon, no less.'
'That's about what we thought,' Alletson admitted, grinning in a puzzled way. Then he looked at his watch. 'We're back on. You — you'll take care of her?' Hyde nodded.
Alletson and Howarth left the room, Howarth picking up the acoustic guitar lying on the floor at Hyde's feet before he went. Then Tricia Quin was standing in the open doorway as Whiteman's final keyboard crescendo echoed down the corridor. Her face was white. She looked guilty and afraid.
'Okay?'
She nodded. 'Yes. Yes, he's very tired. He'll talk to you, but only to you. I think he's got a gun.' He words were a warning, and an attempt to excuse her own and her father's capitulation. 'He's been worried about me.'
'He's still safe?'
'Yes.'
'Where?'
'I'll tell you when we' ve left here.'
'Luggage?' She shook her head. 'Let's go, then.' She looked up sharply at the tone of his voice. Hyde had remembered the KGB irregular lying unconscious in a windy shop doorway on mosaic tiles. He hadn't reported in—
His hand patted the pocket of his windcheater in which he had placed the tiny transceiver. As if he had triggered it, it began bleeping. Tricia Quin's face blanched, her hand flew to her mouth. Hyde cursed.
'It's one of their radios,' he explained, getting up quickly. His chair clattered over, and she began to back into the corner of the room, as if he had threatened her with violence. The transceiver continued to bleep, its volume seeming to increase. Her eyes darted between Hyde's face and the door she had left defencelessly open. 'Come on, let's get moving!' She was opening her mouth, all capitulation forgotten, betrayal seeping into her features. Hyde bellowed at her. 'It's no time to change your mind, you stupid, mixed-up cow! Shift your bloody arse!' She reached for her jacket.
He grabbed her arm and propelled her towards the door. The corridor was empty. At the back of his mind, Hyde could see the Russians fitfully on a dim screen; wondering, worrying, beginning to move, guessing,
He could hand her over now to the police, to the Branch, and she would be safe. If he did, they'd spend days trying to find out where Quin was hiding. She'd be in a catatonic suspicion, comatosed with her secret. If he went with her, alone —
'You're hurting — ' she said meekly as he bundled her down the corridor through the door. He released her arm, and paused to listen, holding his hand in front of her face, indicating silence. He could hear her ragged breathing, like the last ineffectual plucking of his mother's lungs at the hot Sydney air in the darkened room. The day she died.
'Shut up!' he whispered fiercely.
'Sorry—'
He strained to hear. Nothing. The dim music from inside, the murmur of a radio in one of the trucks, traffic muted in the distance.
'Come on.' He propelled her down the steps, reached for her hand — she allowed him to hold it, it was inanimate and cold in his grip — and they moved swiftly across the yard. The transceiver in his pocket became silent. Moving; fearful, angry,
The same police constable was on the gate, and he acknowledged their appearance with a nod. He did not seem surprised to see the girl.
'Everything all right, sir?'
Tricia Quin seemed reassured by the manner of his addressing Hyde.
'I think so, constable ' Nothing in the narrow, dimly-lit street, but he could not see the baker's shop from the gate. They could be there already. Petrunin might already be out of his car, his minions much closer than that. There was little point in the constable being involved. 'Nip inside, constable. Now I' ve got her, we can start sniffing them out.'
'Very good, sir. I'll just report in.'
'When you get inside.' He realised he was still holding the girl's hand, and he squeezed it. 'Come on. My car's only round the corner.' Probably with someone very unfriendly in it, he added to himself.
A curious but unfamiliar elation seized him. His chest seemed expanded with some lighter-than-air gas like helium, and his head was very clear. One of his Vick moments, as he had once described them. Every thing clear, cold, sharp. The TR7 was behind the Midland Hotel, in the old railway station that had become, without redecoration or conversion, a huge car park. He jiggled her arm, and they began running up the narrow street, away from the rear of the Free Trade Hall and the baker's doorway. Sensuous information flooded in, his brain sifting it swiftly, unerringly.
Light from around the corner — Peter Street. Their footsteps, the girl's padding lighter in flat, crepe-soled shoes, the rubbing of her arm against her borrowed, too-big jacket, the spillage of music — Brahms — from an upstairs window, the splash of one foot in a puddle, the gun cold and noticeable in the small of his back, thrust into his waistband. The emptiness of the end of the street, no shadow against the lights of Peter Street. He was grateful.
The Midland Hotel was across the bright, traffic-filled street. It was a moment before Hyde remembered that Petrunin's car was parked in the square in front of the hotel.
'Okay?' he asked the girl. She was gulping air, but she nodded and tried to smile shakily. 'Keep going, then, shall we?'
Pavement. Pedestrians crossing. Normality. Red man, traffic swooping past them and round into the square or into Oxford Street or Moseley Street. Central Library, Midland Hotel. Forget it, don't turn your head, stop searching for them. You either fully pretend or not at all —
Red man. Green man, traffic stopping. Walk. He tugged at her hand. One pace, two, you can hurry a little here, people always do on zebra crossings.
They were almost across the street before he heard the first shout, the answering call, and sensed the acceleration of the pursuit. On the pavement, he turned. A man waved to him, as if to call him back over a matter of a dropped book or wallet, or an unpaid bill. He stepped off the opposite pavement. Petrunin himself. He'd been the closest, most experienced, sharpest mind. He'd guessed and just strolled round the square from his car, and seen them emerge. Petrunin, who knew him, knew the girl's face, no mistake —
'Is that one of them?' the girl asked, as if facing some extremely difficult task of recollection or recognition.
That's him.' Petrunin was almost smiling. Green man still. Two others, running put into Peter Street from the rear of the Free Trade Hall. Not the man in the doorway, two others who had found him and come running. 'ready?' Hyde asked.
'Yes.' Her hand trembled in his.
Red man. Petrunin, three paces on to the zebra crossing, paused so that the others could catch up with him. The sound of an impatient horn, then the blare of another and revving engines. Petrunin skipped back on to the opposite pavement.
'Now!'
They raced down the shadowy side-street alongside the bulk of the Midland Hotel. The illuminated facade of the old railway station was ahead of them, the car park barrier like a border to be crossed into a safe country. Hyde pulled at the girl's arm, urging her on, sensing that she was flagging.
The squeal of brakes behind them, the bellow of a car horn. Petrunin wasn't waiting for the green light. They ran together across the road, up the slope to the barrier. A black face was behind the glass of the booth. Hyde looked behind him. All three men were across Peter Street and running towards them. Hyde inwardly cursed the bravado of his isolation with the girl. There were police in the square, in Peter Street, Watson Street, in the Free
