He had him.
'Don't you realise?' he hissed. 'She's going to need everything you can give her, and more.
Langdorf's dislike, even hatred of Hyde was evident. Yet he looked older, too; once more like a man roused from sleep. Hair ruffled, eyes slow to focus and darkly stained beneath. Stubble, grey skin. Hyde glanced at the man's small, plain daughter, hands buried in the folds of the pinafore. There was a picture on the tiled mantelpiece of a woman who must have been her mother. Thin-faced, her hair blonde and parted in the middle, tied back. Squinting into the sun as she smiled at the camera. Hyde felt he had blundered into a situation; damaging it. Only he was truly cynical here. He shook his head and the moment passed.
He had four hours to get to Babbington before it was too late for the old man—
Old man? It might already be too late.
Langdorf laid down his pipe and stood up. Immediately, Marthe went to his side and took his rough hand, which gripped the child's thin fingers. The dirt beneath his fingernails was highlighted against her white skin. Then he reached for Hyde's coat.
'The gun's in there, too,' Hyde remarked, sitting down.
Langdorf appeared not to hear, yet Hyde saw his hand twitch as it brushed against the butt of the pistol. Then the hand withdrew the torn paper packet and a thumb stained from the pipe riffled the edges of the banknotes. Marthe hovered uncertainly.
Langdorf looked at Hyde, then said, 'This is someone's emergency money, I think? Not yours.'
'He won't be needing it.'
'Marthe — put the money away,' Langdorf announced, sweeping up the little brick of notes on the table and tucking them into the elastic band around the packet. He handed them to the child and she took the bundle without word or expression and left the room. Langdorf followed her. A light went on across the narrow hall. Surprised by his own curiosity, Hyde got up and went into the hall.
In her bedroom, Marthe was locking the money into a tin strongbox which lay in the bottom drawer of a chest. The room had pink walls, pink lamp-shades. It appeared at odds with the rest of the flat. The small bed was covered with a brightly coloured duvet. There were a number of small soft toys lying on either side of a depression in the pillows. Waiting for Marthe. A cassette-playing radio, Japanese — a small television set, West German. Langdorf looked round and saw Hyde. His face was angry, as if he had surprised an intruder or a peeping-tom. Then he looked around his daughter's room, and his features relaxed. Something in him wanted Hyde to see, to approve and admire. Hyde nodded and attempted a smile. He had seen Langdorf's dream. The child was being spoiled; or prepared for life in the West. He saw a new, large, expensive doll's pram, a shelf of souvenir dolls from different countries. A hamster in a cage; goldfish in a tank, lit and heated. Marthe closed the drawer and smiled nervously up at her father. She looked, momentarily, like an unwilling accomplice.
'Go to bed now, Marthe. Ask Mrs Janovice downstairs to take you to school with her boys — understand? Tell her I had to go out on an emergency job.' Marthe nodded. 'Don't be rude, remember to say thank you. Don't be late—'
He kissed his daughter. Hyde saw her thin arms around the man's neck, and then he returned to the sitting- room. He felt an intruder, yet tension once more gripped him. He was becoming angry with the delay.
He looked up as Langdorf came back into the room. He appeared calm, satisfied, his face younger and less tired. He picked up his pipe, struck a match, and puffed smoke across the table. Hyde was relieved. The man was now businesslike, no longer reluctant.
He took his pipe from his lips, and announced, 'When she finishes in school, she goes to the West. I have maybe five or six years more. She will be wealthy when I take her across.'
'And that's it, is it?'
Langdorf nodded. 'That's it. That is why. You had enough for me to be unable to refuse. That is all.'
'You could go any time. You could find work.'
Langdorf shook his head. Blew smoke. 'Not for me,' he murmured. Even though his head did not move, the hushed intensity of his voice drew Hyde's attention towards the framed photograph on the mantelpiece. Between two cheap statuettes that stood stiffly erect like candles beside a votive picture. 'I will not go.'
'Christ, you can't
Langdorf shrugged. He began to unfold the map he had brought back with him from Marthe's bedroom. He smoothed it like a new cloth over the table.
'It doesn't matter. I give no trouble, I am not troubled. They do not know what I do. Agreed, for that I would be shot. But, otherwise…' He looked up, pipe clenched in his teeth; competent, intelligent, almost amusedly in control of the situation. 'Communism, capitalism, freedom— who cares? The system does not matter if the price is right — mm? You see, I am a cynic.' He looked at his watch.
'Not quite,' Hyde replied.
'I would have gone, if the three of us could have gone. But now — ach, I would not fit in over there. My family has been here for generations — longer than the Party! Marthe goes alone. A wealthy young woman. Then I stop this business, and no one will be able, by any means, to persuade me to continue.' His pipe-stem tapped at the map. A border line wriggled from north to south through shaded land, indicating mountain and forest. 'It could have been cigarettes, or electrical goods, or the best sort of sanitary towels. But people like you — professional people — pay better.'
'You don't help dissidents — the Charter 77 people?'
'Only if they can pay — then, with reluctance. They talk too freely. Many of them are good Marxists, you see. They object to — private enterprise is what you call it, mm? They would be queuing outside the door if I helped them regularly. All with sob-stories and insufficient money. No, not them, unless your sort of business is very slack!' Again, he tapped the map with his pipe-stem. 'Now, pay attention, please. We have perhaps less than two hours if we are to act in safety. Here is Mytina. We drive up into the hills here, to the point where this track ends — near the border. There is wire — not too many towers, but dogs, and occasionally the helicopter. The wire runs beside this river here… you see?' Hyde nodded. 'A fast-running stream. It is not much used as a crossing-point, except by those who know the area well. Your poor dissidents on the run from Prague or Brno or Plzen wouldn't come here. They can't get maps or pictures of this area to help them!' Langdorf chuckled. 'Herr Professor Zimmermann knows of this crossing-point. He will be here, near the road to Waldsassen.' Langdorf stood up. 'Study that map — and these photographs…' He fanned out a sheaf of colour prints towards Hyde. 'I took them with the Japanese camera I bought for my daughter. Learn the terrain. I will dress now. We must leave immediately, otherwise it will be light.'
The Tupolev-134 moved onto the taxi-way preparatory to takeoff. Babbington dispensed with the binoculars and handed them to Wilkes, who stood beside him in the upstairs lounge at Schwechat. Two more SIS staff from Vienna Station stood on either side of them at a few yards distance. Viennese police officers hovered at a short distance, also awaiting the Tupolev's departure.
Babbington glanced at his watch. Six-ten. The Tupolev's engine had been repaired. Babbington recalled the cold sense of shock he had experienced on arriving at Schwechat, to witness from this very window the tail-unit of the Soviet airliner still jutting from the Aeroflot hangar. And the police cars, lights turning and washing over the aircraft's tail and the open hangar doors. And the remonstrations between the Viennese police and airport authorities and the identifiable figure of Voronin on the gleaming tarmac. Eventually, the police had given up. The airliner had diplomatic status; it was Soviet territory. The police had retired, having satisfactorily displayed their helplessness. A senior officer reported to Babbington that Aubrey had been identified as having arrived in a limousine from the Soviet embassy, traveling under false papers. He was definitely on the aircraft. Babbington had demonstrated anger, then acceptance.
But, the shock of seeing the aircraft still grounded, in that first moment…
Now, the scene around him possessed all the necessary ingredients. A group of men posed, as if for some painter, expressing a communal mood of disappointment and relief.
The wingtip and belly lights flickered on the Tupolev. The aircraft passed along the wall of glass enclosing the upstairs passenger lounge. Drawn up on the tarmac below, the British Airways flight to Heathrow waited for its cargo of businessmen. As soon as the Tupolev had taken off, Babbington would board the Trident.
