The Bear's Tears

Intermittent — calm down, it's not staying around to be found. Should already have disappeared, he reminded himself. Ten fifty-six.

The engineer put down the telephone and turned to Hyde. His round face was red and he was perspiring. His lips formed an obscenity in silence before he realised that he, rather than Hyde, remained the outsider of the group around the remote terminal.

Yet he persisted in his anger, saying, 'Not as much fucking trouble as that lot!' He pointed to the telephone. On the screen, green symbols — a simple piece of information, perhaps—? Yes, football scores from Moscow. Hopelessly scrambled. A jumble of Cyrillic letters, gaps, half-lines.

Then, as if by magic, resolved. At the engineer's nod, the KGB Officer cancelled then re-summoned the scores, and they unrolled obediently. Dynamo Tblisi 2, Dynamo Kiev 1.

'See?' the engineer said demandingly. 'See? What a bloody cock-up, Comrade system tester! It's too intermittent to trace. They keep telling me the fault's here, not in Moscow — not even in the Russian section of the line — but here in Prague! I ask you, how can they know that? Just bullshit!'

'Calm down, Jan,' one of the guards told him. 'Want another coffee?'

It was obvious they knew the man well. His freedom of expression and abuse appeared to be tolerated; even amusing to the KGB personnel. The officer appeared a little disapproving, but wished not to appear prudish or petty.

'My insides are silting up with that muck out of the machine!' the engineer grumbled.

'I'm making some real stuff now — won't be long,' the guard bribed.

'Bless you, Georgi!'

Hyde saw a Moulinex coffee-maker on a desk-top in a glass cubicle. 'For you, too, Comrade?' Georgi asked Hyde, startling him. His expression melted into a grin.

'Thanks.' Hyde yawned theatrically. 'How long, mate?'

'I've been here an hour — dragged off a military job for this, and even then the buggers wouldn't let me leave until I'd spun them ten miles of bullshit… nothing so far. Comes and goes.'

'What's it doing?'

'You saw — can't reproduce anything properly one minute — then the next, perfect.'

'I came over,' Hyde began, tasting his cover-story like the bitter stickiness of envelope gum on his tongue, 'because we got your report…?' He looked at the officer, who nodded. 'About eight, was it?'

'Eight-five.' The officer was punctilious but not unlikeable. His men evidently kept him human. 'I got one of our senior managers to look at what was coming out, and he suggested it was a fault on the landline. So, we let you know at the embassy, and sent for the reluctant Comrade Zitek here.' He smiled. Hyde returned the expression, and waited. 'We haven't met before,' the officer observed lightly, with mild, polite curiosity.

Hyde shook his head, sucking his cheeks in to moisten his dry throat. 'Just got here — duty-roster's got my name on it and I'm here — all night by the look of things.'

'Bad luck. I'm Lieutenant Stepanov.'

'Radchenko,' Hyde murmured in reply, shaking the lieutenant's hand. The familiarity folded itself about him like a drying leather shroud. It would suffocate him if he wasn't careful. 'Yuri Radchenko.' Tread carefully, he warned himself. Acquaintance is as dangerous as lack of sleep or the shit-and-sugar interrogators working in harness. Watch what you say, what you think.

'Zitak?'

'Yes?'

'Any time factor — any regularity…?'

'Don't waste time asking. I haven't learnt a bloody thing since I've been here — an hour and a half! Didn't even get the bloody dinner they promised at the barracks! Typical of your fucking army, Lieutenant!'

Stepanov smiled thinly, genuinely trying to be amused and aloof. 'I'll get some sandwiches made up for you, if—'

'Ballocks to sandwiches, Lieutenant,' the engineer muttered, checking the reading on the measuring instrument. Shaking his head, muttering, raising his hands in dramatic gestures.

Georgi had moved into his glass booth and was smoking slyly. His hand waved the blue smoke periodically towards the air-vent set high in one wall — the one plastered wall of his booth— while he watched his coffee percolate. Hyde was mesmerised by his watch.

Eleven — eleven-two, eleven-three, four, five… Priceless minutes vanished as he listened to Stepanov.

Finally, Stepanov broke off from a description of his last leave on the Black Sea coast, just before the summer ended, and smiled at Zitek. The engineer checked his watch once more, then picked up the telephone. He dialled the Moscow number, consulted briefly with his Russian counterpart, nodding vigorously as he spoke, then turned to them as he replaced the receiver and announced: 'That's it! Good luck to you, but that's it! Eight minutes without a single problem. That's twice as long as any other remission. I am announcing that the bug in the system has gone away.'

'You hope,' Hyde remarked, grinning, holding his hands firmly together to prevent an outburst of nerves. To listen to Stepanov, to sip at the coffee, to watch Zitek's broad, overalled back — to wait, wait, wait—! Had been close to intolerable. Worse than the storeroom, this public control of nerves and imagination.

'I hope? My word as an employee of our wonderful post office service. It's gone.'

'I suggest—' Stepanov began, but Hyde interrupted him.

'Give it another five minutes — OK? I'll run the first test in five minutes.'

'OK,' Zitek replied in a grumbling tone.

The telephone rang, making the engineer's hand jump with surprise. Dampness was chill in Hyde's upper arms and sides.

'Bloody Moscow,' Zitek growled, making faces at the receiver as he lifted it to his ear. 'Yes, it's Zitek — what?' He held the receiver towards Stepanov. 'It's for you.'

Stepanov's face was thinned, prepared as if to confront a superior officer in person. His back was straight. He adjusted his uniform tie.

'Yes? Yes, Comrade Colonel-yes, yes…'His ear, in profile to Hyde, had reddened. Hyde carefully rubbed his hands down his cheeks, easing away the tension of facial muscles. 'It — it appears that the fault may have — may have rectified itself. Yes, I understand — of course I realise the importance of speed… yes, he's here—' Stepanov had turned with evident relief towards Hyde, who expressed nothing more than reluctance in his features. His hand jumped in the pocket of his lab coat. Stepanov offered him the receiver like a poisoned drink.

'Y — yes,' Hyde said, clearing his throat. 'Radchenko, Colonel — yes, system tester.' He waited. The voice from Moscow Centre was brusque, authoritative. Radchenko was indeed on the complement at the Soviet embassy, a recent posting. There's a lot ofto-ing andfro-ing in security computer circles throughout the Eastern bloc embassies… Godwin's reassurances seemed transparent now. Hyde felt more thoroughly scrutinised by the voice of the KGB colonel than when he entered the computer room.

'System test — I want Prague back on-line tonight. In the next hour. Understand?'

'Comrade Colonel — a full test will take more than three or four hours — '

'Don't give me that! Do the test in stages. Then we can get terminals back into use quickly. Begin with — Education Records. You have such a test?'

'Yes, Comrade Colonel. The embassy staff roll-call—'

'Very well. Try that. I want to know how much work we're going to be involved in, and I want to know within an hour. Understand?'

'Yes, Comrade Colonel.'

'An hour to be back on-line. Say midnight. No, I'll be generous. Five minutes after midnight. And keep in constant touch. Understand, Radchenko?'

'Sir.'

The telephone in Moscow clicked down onto its rest. The secure line crackled then purred. Hyde replaced his receiver.

'You heard the man,' he said, smiling and shrugging.

Zitek stared at the VDU. Its screen registered a column of football scores with unerring accuracy. 'Good luck to you, son,' he murmured. He looked ostentatiously at his watch. 'That's fourteen minutes since the last noise on the line. I told you — the fault's buggered off somewhere else.'