the making, he was!'
'Yes, poor old Vorisenko,' Massinger laughed. 'Are you all right now?'
'Headache.'
'Just the drink, I expect.'
The fog was thickening around the floodlights, so that they became sheets of white light, no longer glaring circles hung in bunches. The windscreen of the Mercedes was misting over outside and Hyde switched on the wipers. Through the cleared arc, he could see no one moving.
'Shut up,' Bayev grumbled. 'Shut up, Pavel. I'm sick of your bloody voice, sick of the sound of it. I want to sleep.'
'Kapustin would be pleased with you, Karel. You must be getting old.'
'Piss off. Let me sleep.'
God, Massinger thought, he's slipping away. The next ten milligrams won't bring him back. He's exhausted. What could he do—?
'All right?' Hyde murmured.
'I don't think we've got long.'
'Christ, get on with it, then.'
'How?'
'Give him a ballocking — that always works with the KGB. They're all scared of some big Red chief sitting on their necks.'
'How can I? I'm Pavel Koslov — same rank, same function. His friend.'
'Tell him you're talking on behalf of someone else—'
'Kapustin?'
Hyde shrugged. 'Why not? Why not Petrunin, even…?' Hyde's face twisted in dislike.
'I'll try Kapustin.' He turned to Bayev, leaning closer to him. 'Karel, the reason I came to Vienna…'
'Shut up. I'm tired.'
'Kapustin especially asked me to come. As a friend of yours, he thought it might be easier for me to tell you…' Massinger's tone was insinuating, even sinister.
A goods train shunted below them, its lamps enlarged by the thickening fog. The wagons rattled and grumbled together.
'Tell me? Tell me what?' The first spots of fear, forerunners of the infection, had appeared in Bayev's tone.
'Kapustin's disappointed…'
'With what? In me?' Bayev was sitting upright now, his eyes wide and alarmed, though even now they remained unfocused. 'What do you mean?' His reluctance, his weariness were both gone for the moment. He was tensely alert within the fictitious situation.
'I'm afraid so. You've been letting the British control too much here in Vienna.' Massinger saw, from the edge of his vision, Hyde's knuckles whiten on the back of his seat as he watched them. He could hear the Australian's breathing, hard and urgent. 'He doesn't want the British in control here.'
'They're not in control.'
'They are — the man running it, the link man… oh, what's—'
'Wilkes doesn't run anything. We liaise, that's all. Wilkes does as we want. That's always been the understanding.'
'What understanding?'
'How the hell do I know? Kapustin doesn't confide in me! I deal with Wilkes. What else goes on I know nothing about.'
'Shit,' Hyde murmured slowly.
'Why haven't you got hold of this Englishman, Hyde? Kapustin wants to know that. What are you playing about at?'
'Wilkes wanted to handle that. I thought everyone agreed they'd do it!' Bayev protested. 'It isn't my fault,' he whined. 'He must understand that…' His voice had begun to slur, and Massinger looked at Hyde, shaking his head.
'Nothing more.'
'Ask him why, dammit!'
'What's behind it all, Karel?' Massinger demanded, still maintaining the voice but not the person of Pavel Koslov. Bayev was evidently confused. His head wobbled slowly in puzzlement on his shoulders. His body was already sliding slowly back into the seat. Massinger realised that he was slipping away once more, and that this time he would, in all probability, remain unconscious and unreachable, despite benzedrine.
Hyde glanced at the windscreen. Like the side windows, it was misting over again. He reached for the wiper stalk. The car was silent, isolated, almost unreal. In the goods yard, couplings clanked weirdly.
'What's behind it, Karel?' Massinger persisted. 'Why are we running our tails off? What are we doing it all for?'
'Who knows…?' Bayev replied faintly.
Hyde tensed, staring at the Rezident. His hands gripped — the back of his seat, squeezing the plastic hard. Come on, come on…
'Why? Karel — why, man, why?' Massinger shouted.
'Who knows… who — knows… Petrun… runin… i-i-i-n- n…'
His head lolled forward. Instantly, they heard him snoring.
'Damn—' Massinger groaned.
Hyde cursed aloud and snapped down the wiper stalk. The blades slithered frostily across the windscreen.
'He didn't know — he bloody didn't know!' Hyde yelled accusingly. 'Oh, fuck it, he didn't know!'
He turned in his seat. Through the cleared windscreen, he could see the bulk of the approaching man, no more than a few yards from the car. His hand came out of his overcoat and he had fired two shots through the windscreen even before Hyde began reaching for his pistol.
'You simply cannot continue to deny everything, Sir Kenneth,' Eldon admonished him in a voice that was reproving, wise and sinister. 'You have admitted your signature, you have admitted your capture, your imprisonment in the Russian sector, your interrogation at the hands of Colonel Zalozny, whose methods and successes are well- documented…' Eldon paused, passing his hands like a magician over the papers on his lap. Self-evident, the gesture repeated. Conclusions, proofs are here…
Aubrey could no longer disguise his signals of frailty and hopelessness. Wearily, he rubbed one hand across his forehead, as if he intended soothing some fierce ache.
'You think not?' he replied softly. The tone was pale, lifeless.
'It would, of course, assist everyone — including yourself, Sir Kenneth — if you would confirm the accounts presented in these documents?'
'I can't.'
'I see.'
'No, you do not see. Keeping me from my bed, agitating my nerves, giving me violent indigestion — none of these things can extract additional, confirmatory information which I do not possess.' Aubrey's voice soothed him. Calm, quiet, soft; as if he retained control of the situation.
'Very well, Sir Kenneth — let us go back to the coincidence of events — the fact that Robert Castleford was last seen alive on the very day, the very evening, that you made your successful return to the British sector of Berlin, mm?'
'Yes. Yes. By the time I had — recovered from my imprisonment, he was missing. No trace of him. The morning after I returned, apparently, he was not to be found.'
'Did you lead the NKVD to him?'
'No.'
'But you told them where to find him?'
'No.'
