worry as he locked the secure room's door behind him.
The ringing stopped. Stepanov's body, erect and stiff, seemed to shudder with the impact of the silence. Hyde's temperature jumped. He felt beads of sweat along his hairline and a cold sheen across the small of his back and beneath his arms. The pistol quivered in his left hand. The screen continued to unfold the contents of Petrunin's insurance policy; the streamer stuttered, recording each piece of data then pausing for the next buffer full of information. Already, Hyde had enough to guarantee his own safety. A coup—
Get out—
Without destroying Babbington, he had nothing. Wasted, used computer recording tape. His eyes flickered to the screen — still First Directorate current operations, still within the sphere of 9th Department — Africa. There was so bloody much of it—! And a short-cut password to each and every section and no way to short-circuit the parade of secret information. He looked down at the pistol, glanced at Georgi, who was looking up wondering why the phone hadn't been answered, glanced back at the screen, at Stepanov, who had now absorbed the shock of silence. He was beginning to smile at Hyde's failure. Glanced then at the vz.75 pistol in his hand. Fifteen rounds between himself and Hradcany Square.
Silence. Short-cut, bloody short-cut—!
The operator in Moscow would be reporting to his superior, perhaps at once to the colonel. If they became alarmed, they could ring anywhere — everywhere in the Chancellery or the whole of the Hradcany complex. Hyde was two floors beneath the Third Courtyard, like a rat in a sewer…
They could block every exit without his being aware of what they had done until he ran into the gunfire.
Stepanov made to turn to him, a remark forming itself silently on his full lips.
'Don't—!' Hyde warned in a shaky voice, and Stepanov sat staring ahead of him. The weakness of Hyde's voice seemed a sufficient and satisfactory answer to the enquiry Stepanov had intended.
Then he glanced at Georgi, who was emerging through the glass door, fifty feet from them, carrying two steaming mugs of coffee. Hyde stared at the screen. Nothing yet. Forty feet away — as soon as Georgi reached them he would see the gun and, and, and…
He could not even complete the thought, the certainty that he could not control two men and the screen as time ran out. Couldn't control himself—
Georgi stopped, half-turned, half the distance to them. The telephone was ringing in the glass cubicle. Above the hum and mutter and conversation of the machines, Hyde could hear it dimly calling for attention. It seemed whispered, but urgent. Demanding. Georgi glanced very slowly at the mugs in his hands, at Hyde and Stepanov, then shrugged and turned on his heel. Stepanov's tense smile faded, then reappeared as he realised the nature of the call, the probable identity of the caller. Moscow Centre—
First Directorate — damn, damn, damn—
Georgi had reached the glass cubicle, opened the door, gone in, picked up the telephone.
'Not long now,' Stepanov murmured with exaggerated confidence.
He watched Georgi, the pistol pressed against Stepanov's side to prevent a sudden move. The guard was almost at attention, one hand fiddling with his unbuttoned collar. Moscow Centre. Then Georgi glanced towards them, speaking as he did so — describing the two men he could see, explaining, painting a picture. Nodding. Face suspicious, puzzled. Soon the orders—
Short-cut, short-cut,
And then—
He did not even pause to consider the idea because, at the back of his mind, he could see Petrunin smiling, his lips painted with blood, but smiling…
Break.
MENU.
He typed in ASSIGNMENT HISTORY, praying that the screen would not go grey and blank, listening intently to Georgi's door, waiting for the noise of its being opened, of the first question the guard would ask of Stepanov—
Watching Stepanov, feeling his rigid, unmoving and confident frame against the hole at the end of the vz.75's short barrel.
WHITENIGHTSWHITERUSSIANWHITEBEAR, he typed furiously.
The screen cleared. He typed in Petrunin's name and rank and KGB number. Then, almost at once, with drops of sweat falling on the keys, making them treacherous, slippery—
KABULMOSCOWLONDON.
Georgi had a pistol in his hands! Stepanov was watching Georgi, willing him to move. Telephone clattered down. Door opened, banging back against the glass wall. Georgi hurrying—
Poem to Lara. Tear for Lara.
He typed LARA.
A tear for Lara. A bear's tears.
TEARDROP, he read in Cyrillic.
He drew in a deep breath, sobbing almost, nearly choking on the aseptic, dust-free air. Georgi was hurrying, hurrying — phone left off the hook,
Hyde raised the pistol and shouted. Georgi halted, his hands feebly gripping the air level with his shoulders, fingers fumbling into surrender. His gun barrel was raised to the ceiling.
Georgi almost tumbled into a cross-legged position on the carpet, the gun yards away from him, sliding harmlessly to rest. The telephone began to ring next to the VDU. Hyde glanced at the screen.
The name, Christ the name—!
The name—!
Stepanov, Georgi, the telephone. Noise, urgency, fear. He felt himself out of control, weak and trapped.
Blank screen.
Illusion? He touched the grey surface of the screen, smoothing out its charge of static. Illusion?
Babbington. He'd seen the name in the instant that the screen was isolated and Moscow Centre cut off his terminal from the main computer. The telephone continued to ring. Babbington.
He had it. Had Babbington and Wilkes and the others. Had Babbington—
Then Stepanov moved. The gun had strayed from his side and when the pressure of numbness had diminished he had realised the fact — and grabbed for it, twisting the barrel upwards. For a moment, Hyde was reduced to utter, feeble panic. Stepanov's breathing was hot on his face, the man's lips were twisted with effort — Georgi had begun to move into a crouch from his cross-legged squat and the movement distracted Hyde further — alarm bells began to sound very distantly, as if along deserted concrete tunnels and corridors. Hyde's arms were weak, unable to struggle.
Then he leant towards the Russian officer and butted his head into the man's growing-triumphal face. Heard the groan, sensed the resistance of bone. Then struck with his right hand, at the point where blood was seeping from Stepanov's nose. The officer slumped from his seat, knelt as if in prayer for a moment before falling sideways, then lay curled on the carpet as if sleeping. Georgi's boots had reached him before he lay still, but the guard halted as he saw the gun reasserting its freedom of aim. Hyde wiped his nose on his sleeve and grinned shakily.
'Forget it, Georgi,' he muttered. 'Just forget it.'
