'Quiet!' Langdorf hissed. For an instant, Hyde believed the plumber was speaking in his memory, then the man's hand gripped his arm, forcing Hyde to his knees at the base of a pine trunk.
'What is it?'
'I heard something — listen!'
Hyde shook off the effort of memory that had kept him awake. He crouched beside Langdorf. The man's hand still held his forearm, and the quiver in it was transmitted to Hyde. The plumber's face was a white patch beginning to acquire features, his shape in the overalls almost possessing colour.
'How far—?' Hyde began.
'Shhh!' Langdorf hissed.
Crack—? Shuffle through pine debris—? Hyde's senses seemed dull, approximate. Sight was unfocused, hearing muddy as if under water. Shadow? Noise?
The crack of a twig muffled by fallen, brown needles and snow. The tiny clink of metal against metal. Then the muted gleam of a torch-beam. Hyde shivered with cold and the effort to remain still. Langdorf seemed as tensely contracted as a wound spring.
A four-man patrol. Armed with rifles, each man carrying a small pack on his shoulders. The patrol moved in a single-file, crossing the path they were using. As they came closer, he could make out their uniforms. Border guard. They passed within ten yards and moved slowly off, routinely alert, waiting for daylight to assist them.
When they had gone, Hyde said: 'Will they find the van?'
Langdorf shook his head. 'No. It is unlikely — if we hurry.'
'Why are they — they know, don't they?'
'I do not know—' the plumber began.
'But you suspect?'
Langdorf nodded. 'For some reason, they are very protective of this part of the border, tonight. It is not usual.' Langdorf shook his head. It was still too dark to see any emotion displayed by his features. 'Not usual,' he repeated. Then he stood up. 'Come,' he whispered. 'We must hurry.'
Hyde climbed to his feet. Weariness had dropped away like a blanket he had left on the ground. His eyes ached, but his body was alive with the myriad small shocks and prickles of tension. He hurried after Langdorf. The ground climbed more steeply, rock jutted through the snow and pine debris, the trunks were thinner, farther apart. The damp low cloud seemed to have lifted. Perhaps it had been no more than a mist.
Ten minutes later, Langdorf again motioned him to stop. They were at the edge of the trees. Their twisting route had always seemed to be ascending, yet now they were on the edge of a sloping stretch of grassland. An alpine meadow. Trees bordered it on all sides, except where a swathe had been cut to make a forest ride. A watch-tower that was not intended for ornithology loomed at the far end of the meadow. Beyond it, a mountain climbed out of the trees, its face masked with snow. The meadow was white, ghostly.
Huts and barns huddled in the snowbound meadow. An animal snorted audibly across the white silence. In the further distance, an engine coughed into life. There were lights on the watch-tower, but no sweeping searchlight.
'The border wire runs alongside a stream,' Langdorf explained, 'on the other side of this meadow. We must follow the trees. The stream is in a narrow bed. The wire is on this bank. Soon, the stream turns west and then it is in the Federal Republic. The wire no longer follows it. Come.'
They skirted the meadow warily and swiftly. In another six or seven minutes, without the aid of his sketch, Langdorf located a narrow track that might originally have been made by deer. He hurried Hyde along it, the meadow now behind them, the slope of the land dropping away, becoming rocky. Langdorf's nailed boots scuttled and scraped ahead of Hyde.
The trees opened as Hyde heard the rush of water. Pebble and rock stretched down to a foaming, narrow stream that pushed and grumbled through its channel. Langdorf's hand restrained him. The pebbles were light, betraying. The top of the watch-tower could be seen. The wire was visible on the Czech side of the stream.
'Is it deep?' he asked.
'Here, no. You can wade across. The current is strong, however. You must be careful. Strong.'
The watch-tower rose like a pit's winding-gear against the slowly lightening sky. Patches of snow grew among the rocks and large pebbles. Snow sheathed the rolls of wire.
'Do I have to cut the wire?'
'No. You can wriggle beneath it. Directly ahead of you, the wire is in poor condition.'
'Electrified? Mines?'
'Neither. This is a cheap border.' Langdorf chuckled, but the nervousness was mounting in his voice and breathing. He wanted to leave. 'They rely on patrols with dogs, and on the tower.'
There was no wind. No movement in the trees or along the stretch of rocks. Only the noise of the stream. Above that, the growing beat of a helicopter's rotors. Hyde waited.
The helicopter slid into sight, a black insect no more than a couple of hundred feet up. It followed the course of the stream, heading north, passing over the watch-tower, which signaled to it with a flashing lamp. Then its noise faded beyond the trees as it crossed the meadow.
'Now you must go,' Langdorf urged. 'Cross here, then follow the course of the stream. To this road here, which climbs into the hills.' He flashed his torch on his sketch-map. 'Here, there is a stone bridge. Herr Professor Zimmermann will be waiting at this point. If he has come.'
Hyde nodded. Silence except for the stream. Thirty yards to the wire, wriggle under and through, ford the stream, then run. Getting colder and colder. But run.
He looked at his watch. Seven-forty. In less than two hours, Babbington's flight would touch down at Heathrow. Babbington would be back at the centre of the web, issuing orders, covering up, persuading— tidying-up. He thrust the cassette into the breast-pocket of his coat. At Langdorf's insistence it had been wrapped securely in a polythene bag, like the pistol. He looked at Langdorf—
Noises. Boot-studs on rock, the flash of torches. Langdorf was startled, and immediately stood up.
'Good luck!' he snapped, and pushed at Hyde as he squatted on his haunches.
The heave was a strong one. Hyde rolled out of the trees, tumbling over and over, disorientated. Langdorf had known exactly what he was doing. Hyde would distract the patrol from himself. As he sat up, he saw Langdorf disappear into the trees, moving swiftly and certainly. Unobserved.
A dog barked. Hyde could almost hear safety-catches being released, the inhalation of surprised breaths. The dog barked again, then growled. Straining at the leash. Then barking more frantically.
They were fifty yards away, coming out of the trees. Two of them and one dog. As he turned his head to the watch-tower, he saw forms pass in front of the lights, then a searchlight flared and began stepping and jumping along the rocks towards him. He got to his feet as they called on him to stop.
He danced across the rocks and pebbles, arms akimbo for balance, awareness rooted in his calves and ankles, prickling across his shoulders. A shot. He winced. The one warning shot. Ten yards to the wire. Now, now the dog—
He skidded onto his belly, skinning his palms. The raw skin beneath his thin gloves protested, crying out. His knees were bruised. The roll of wire was buckled upwards. The snow was shaken off as he wriggled, revealing the barbs. He crawled on his stomach. Two more shots, plucking away off the pebbles. The dog, the dog—
Get into the wire,
The dog howled at its release. He heard it coming. His pained right hand fumbled at his side, fumbled for the pocket of his coat. Snow fell on him from the dancing curls of wire tugging over his back. The dog was close—
He touched the gun in its polythene bag. The dog's growl was almost on top of him, he heard it begin to slither expertly on its belly. Boots, running. Calls to halt, to remain still, not to move.
The gun twisted in his grip. He tried to turn onto his back, but a strand of wire caught in his coat and he could not move. The dog raised its head, pulling at the cloth of his coat-tail. Heaving against his body-weight and the restraint of the wire. Holding him. The men were twenty yards from him, still running. He half-twisted, craning his neck, lying on his left side, tearing the coat open across his shoulders, feeling the barbed wire rip his skin. Felt
