No telephone.
Next door, next room, light, no telephone, just packing-cases and floorboards and an empty table. Down the corridor another room, then another, her temperature rising at each pause, each eased opening of a door, each switching on of a light. Five rooms now, then a staircase leading down to the first floor of the tall house near the Wiener Gaswerk-Leopoldau, stranded in a scrubby industrial suburb. She hurried down the stairs to a landing, peered over the banister into an empty hallway with chequered tiles half-hidden by dusty, faded carpet, then tried the nearest room.
Door, switch, light, and the moment of caught breath as she anticipated a challenge. Carpet, chairs, desk — telephone on the desk! She closed the door silently behind her. The curtains were drawn across the windows, there were cigarette butts in an ashtray and still wet rings on a low table near an empty glass. Beer-froth coated the sides of the glass. The room had been recently occupied — abandoned for only a few moments? She hurried behind the desk so that she could face the door. There had been no key in the lock. She fumbled the telephone to her cheek. It purred with an outside line. She dialled quickly, noisily. Watching the ashtray and the wet rings on the table. Watching the door.
Ringing. Guest's flat in Albany. Their only slim chance, that Sir William had returned from Washington. Ringing out. No answer. The room still smelt of cigarette smoke, as if she had entered only a moment after it became unoccupied. Then the ringing tone stopped.
'Sir William Guest's residence,' a voice announced as if in the role of a stage butler from a period play. It was the voice, the same voice—
'No—!' she could not help exclaiming: a protest that became a moan of disappointment.
'Mrs Massinger — Mrs Massinger, it's you, isn't it?' the voice replied. 'How the hell—?'
'Oh God, no—!' she cried. 'You're —
She had lifted her head. She did not hear the question because her glance had been caught and held. All her attention became concentrated upon a box with a short tube attached that was incongruously bolted to the wall, high-up near the ceiling. In shadow at the far corner of the room. A television camera. For surveillance. Shops and supermarkets. A security camera.
'Oh, no…' she murmured. Failure oppressed her. The voice insisted, demanded, threatened in her ear, but she hardly heard it. She stared, hypnotised and unnerved, at the camera.
She put the telephone receiver down quite calmly, almost nonchalantly, as Wilkes entered the room, his face angry yet confident. He crossed the room swiftly, as if hurrying to obey some summons, and struck her across the mouth with his open hand. She winced, cried out, staggered. He hit her again, slapping her face, opening her bruised lip, making her eyes water, her nose ache. Then he grabbed her against him like some violent lover, pressing his lips against her ear.
'Who did you talk to?
He was shaking her. She was limp in his grip. 'Guest,' she murmured.
'What—?' He held her away from him, shook her again. There was fear in his eyes now.
He hit her then, harder than before. She fell away, against the unresisting curtains, twisting against them, gripping them as she fell to the floor. Her jaw ached; pain-lights flickered on a dark screen at the back of her head. She moaned.
She heard him dial, wait, check, then laugh and reassure. Then she was dragged to her feet. Wilkes was grinning.
'Come on, lady — back to your room in the East Wing! Where they always lock the loony wife!' He thrust her in front of him across the room, through the door, along the landing to the stairs. 'Where is he?'
'The bathroom,' she announced without hesitation, breathless from the way he had banged her body against the wall before he spoke.
'Come on. We'll go and surprise him!'
He dragged her up the stairs, along the corridor, pushed her round a corner, propelled her down another corridor. 'This bathroom — on this floor?' She merely nodded, and he pressed her more feverishly ahead of him, as if his timetable were making its own irresistible demands. He was beyond malice now. Merely urgent.
He knocked on the door. 'Massinger, don't waste my time, mate — I've got your wife here and I'll kill her unless you come out quietly. I haven't got time to waste.' He paused, then said, 'What's the matter — don't you believe me?' He squeezed her shoulder with iron fingers. She cried out. 'Hear that? Shorthand form of negotiation, I admit — but it is her.'
The door opened. Paul's ashen features appeared. Seeing her, absorbing the sight, he stepped back, leaving the door wide. Beach was sitting on the bath, a handkerchief, dyed red, held to his head.
'You stupid cunt!' Wilkes snapped, entering the doorway. 'Get off your arse and get them back to their room.' Wilkes glanced at his watch while Massinger meekly surrendered the gun to Beach. 'Quick—!' Wilkes ordered.
Breaking glass. A door smashed from its hinges by a heavy blow. Other noises. Glass again. Wilkes appeared unsurprised, but said, 'What the hell was that? Beach, get down there and find out — go on, man! I'll take care of our friends. Quickly, man!'
Beach hurried past him and down the corridor. A shot—? Wilkes grinned.
'It's begun?' Massinger asked, holding Margaret tightly against him.
'Oh, yes, mate — it's begun. Come on, back to your room. They'll be expecting to find you there. Come on — move!'
Hyde depressed the break key. The screen cleared. The Menu requested he make use of it. Stepanov's shadow fell across the keyboard as Hyde picked up the telephone. He again sucked moisture from his cheeks to dampen his parched, tight throat. Stepanov hovered, as if indulging a child in a brief telephone conversation with a friend. The lieutenant flicked at the sheaf of print-out, lazily interested. Comfortable.
'Yes?' Hyde asked.
'I — why have you been accessing Assignment History, Comrade?' the voice asked. '
'Why? What's the matter, Comrade?' Hyde asked with evident sarcasm. The tone of a superior — whether rank, class or security clearance remained unrevealed.
'You were accessing Education Records, then you switched—'
'And you decided to interfere! Listen, Comrade — I'm trying to find out whether the fault that just went away has damaged the data files in any way. You expect me to do that tooling through a list of embassy staff names, without cross-referencing, without shifting from section to section of the files? Just do me a favour, will you? Keep your long nose out until I've finished — otherwise your colonel is going to have both our heads! Understood?'
Stepanov was openly grinning as Hyde glanced up at him. The Australian threw in a theatrical toss of his head, rounding out his portrait.
'But, system tests don't usually—'
'Listen! Don't usually what? Dig so deep? Just skate along the surface of security? I'm cleared. Are you? I'm testing the system, not you. You're just the operator. Tomorrow, you can have the system back to play with. Tonight, it's mine. Now, go away and don't bother me any more!'
'I—' A pause, then: 'I'm sorry, Comrade. Please continue.' The telephone clicked then hummed. The operator from Moscow Centre was gone — and with a flea in his ear, as Hyde's mother might have said. Usually when sending away the rent collector…
Hyde sighed with impatience. His tension had been expelled in the execution of his bluff. It had worked. A slight delay. But, the operator would think, talk, perhaps ask the colonel—
Stepanov. Why didn't he go away?
'Found something wrong?' Stepanov asked lightly, com-panionably. 'Anything I can do?'
Hyde shook his head. 'Since your engineer couldn't tie down the fault, if there is one, I'm doing a much wider and deeper test than they might have expected. Bloody little bureaucrats in lab coats!'
'And everything's in order, so far?'
