Aubrey wouldn't live. He knew that with a sick, inescapable certainty. Whatever Wilkes said or believed, the KGB wouldn't risk it. It could go wrong. The photographs of him getting off the aircraft, looking old and tired and ill, and then—
Heart attack. Eulogies in the papers, on Soviet TV and radio. Medal awarded posthumously. Much safer.
Aubrey was a dead man the moment he left the aircraft in Moscow.
Hyde accelerated. The lights of Karlovy Vary were spread out below him as he descended the hill towards the spa town. Four o'clock. He had five and a half hours. After that, Aubrey was lost; irrecoverable.
He had been surprisingly grateful when he saw the guard carrying his small suitcase containing the clothes Mrs Grey had purchased for him immediately before his flight from London. To dress in something that fitted, something uncreased and clean, delighted him. Strengthened his resolve. It wasn't until he reached Schwechat airport that he realised the image was part of Babbington's purpose.
The black limousine, accompanied by two similar cars, and the van containing the luggage, turned off the main road from Vienna, skirted the passenger terminal, and drew up at the gates leading to the cargo and airline hangars. It was evident they were expected. Politeness from the officers at the gates, some joviality. Aubrey watched Voronin casually hand over a bundle of diplomatic passports and visas. And felt himself watched by the man beside him. Sensed the unnecessary gun jutting near his own ribcage.
The Austrian officer passed down the queue formed by the three cars and the van. Aubrey tried to shrink back into the upholstery, but the man beside him, abandoning the gun he held, gripped his arm and forced his features into the hard light shining down from above the gates. A moment of hesitation without recognition, a glance at the appropriate false papers supplied by Voronin, and then he moved away. The grip on Aubrey's arm relaxed. The gun's barrel touched his side almost at once.
The officer would remember him. Yes, Kenneth Aubrey or a man answering his description was seen arriving at Schwechat, traveling under a Soviet diplomatic passport. Yes, yes, yes—
He glanced down at his suit, his modest tie, his dark overcoat. He would be remembered, as they intended. A man goes willingly in a well-pressed suit and a clean shirt. With false papers. He would step out of the aircraft at Cheremetievo — or at Domodedovo or Vnukovo, whichever airport the flight used — and he would be photographed in that same pressed suit and clean shirt and overcoat and hat, surrounded by smiling men who could be later identified as those who carried out his rescue and who were officers in the KGB. Evidence of his perfidy.
The gates opened, the cars moved forward. One of the officers touched the peak of his cap in a half-salute, as if conniving at his kidnap.
The cars followed the road towards a row of huge hangars. A tail-fin jutted from one of them, its symbol familiar, coincident with the Cyrillic lettering blazoned above the hangar. Aeroflot.
They turned alongside the Tupolev Tu-134 airliner. Aubrey glanced back at the night outside the glaring hangar almost with longing. It had been so
Doors closing behind him. He heard them in his head. Retreat cut off. The car drew to a halt. The van passed it and drew up at the far end of the hangar. There were perhaps a dozen people visible to Aubrey, mostly overalled, one in Aeroflot uniform. So easy — he was helpless. He glanced up at the airliner. One or two faces looking down in curiosity from the windows in the fuselage. Dummy passengers—? Genuine diplomats? It did not matter.
The door was opened by the driver and Aubrey was motioned out. He climbed out slowly, blinking in the hard overhead lights that seemed to shine through a haze of dust. He glanced at the watch they had returned to him. Four-twenty. What had Kapustin said—?
Four-thirty. What was the matter, why was the aircraft still in its hangar? Engine cowling lying beneath the wing, men on a dolly working on the port engine. Something wrong with the aircraft—!
Voronin was talking urgently to the uniformed man. Paul Massinger and his wife were being led from the back of the van, blinking, half-dazed, frightened. He traced their reactions as they saw the airliner, understood the proximity of take-off, of Moscow, of… He did not continue, but looked away from them. His hands quivered in the pockets of his overcoat. Clunk of a heavy spanner against metal, a curse in Russian. He glanced up at the mechanics working on the port engine.
Why? What rescue was possible?
Voronin had turned away from the Aeroflot officer — presumably the pilot — and was heading towards him. His face expressed irritation. 'A fault in that engine — a delay of perhaps one hour, maybe more,' he announced in a clipped tone.
'I see,' Aubrey replied. 'It makes little difference — wouldn't you say?'
'Little difference. That is true. Sir Andrew Babbington is unlikely to come to your rescue, I think.' Voronin's irritation had vanished. 'You will please get aboard the aircraft,' he said.
'In a moment.'
Voronin's features darkened. Then he said, 'As you wish.'
Aubrey walked away from him towards the Massingers. The Russian fell in behind him. The Massingers had seated themselves on a trunk — perhaps one of the trunks in which they had been transported to Schwechat? — dazed and silent, their hands linked on the woman's lap. The image persisted. It seemed to be a pose they had adopted for some portrait. This is how they would like to be remembered, Aubrey thought, feeling his throat constrict with guilt.
He paused and turned to Voronin. 'Is there no way?' he asked.
Voronin shook his head. His eyes appeared bleak. Yet he rubbed briefly at his chin, as if pondering some statement. Then his eyes were alight with amused malice. 'No way,' he said. 'But, you will not have long, Sir Kenneth Aubrey, in which to be — sorry for them?'
Aubrey was aware, beyond Voronin's shoulder, that the Massingers were both watching him. There was something like pleasure, comfort on their faces. He felt very cold. He wished for a walking-stick upon which to lean. The Massingers' faces displayed common cause with him; companionship. And he loathed it.
Voronin nodded stiffly and quickly. 'I must now attend to other matters. You may join your friends.'
He walked away towards the aircraft. The man who had sat beside Aubrey in the limousine hovered alertly. Aubrey felt the hard-lit scene lurch, as if he were fainting. He could not become warm.
Every time there was a scandal in the service, every time an intelligence matter became the concern of the Western media, they would use the clip of film. Himself, descending the passenger ladder alongside this aircraft.
Coming home to Moscow.
He knew the fear would begin soon, and not leave him. For the moment, however, a seething rage possessed him. Always, for fifty or even a hundred years, he would be wheeled out into the lights like Burgess, Maclean, Philby and the others. Photographs, details, comment — and the clip of grainy film of his arrival in Moscow. Flashing bulbs, the dying noise of aircraft engines, and his white, startled face.
Coming home to Moscow. His immortality!
Massinger raised his arm in a tentative invitation. Aubrey hurried towards them with the eagerness of a fugitive seeking shelter.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Place of Execution
When the child brought him a bowl of steaming, spicy stew, its dumplings like small boulders amid the meat and vegetables, he felt defeated; drained of all remaining energy and will. He felt he no longer possessed the strength to persuade Langdorf. The man's small, flaxen-haired, narrow-faced, well-mannered daughter had disarmed him. She was perhaps eleven or twelve. Her name was Marthe — after her mother, Langdorf had informed him. His almost-in-focus watch showed five. No — that was the second hand at twelve. It was already five-thirty. He had been in the plumber's flat for half an hour; to no purpose. Langdorf continued to refuse his help, even though his eyes were drawn again and again to the small, neat paper brick of Swiss francs lying between them on the check tablecloth.
