weed out everyone who had worked with him and alter the organisation's structure sufficiently to render his betrayals relatively harmless.
Yes, it was a consummation to be profoundly thankful for.
'Very well. Sir Andrew,' he replied. 'What about Shelley and Paul Massinger?'
'Mm.' It was evident that Babbington had already made his decision and was simply pretending to muse. 'I'm pretty certain that Shelley will be a good boy in future. I think he has been somewhat misled by old loyalties… and of course, Massinger has been subjecting him to pressure.' Babbington steepled his fingers, elbows on his desk. 'As for Massinger, his conversation with Miss Dawson has left him seriously in doubt. I think we can predict he will drop the matter very soon. He's beginning to believe that Aubrey did the dirty deed, after all.'
'You're certain of that, Sir Andrew?'
'No, Eldon, I'm not certain. I simply don't think we need do very much more. There is no need for us to make the whole thing more messy than it is by precipitate action. Massinger doesn't want to lose his wife. Anything that persuades him, or helps to persuade him, that Aubrey is guilty of her father's murder, will be clutched to his bosom only too eagerly. Just let the matter take its course.'
'Very well, Sir Andrew. And — Hyde?'
'He must be under cover somewhere — skulking on the Continent like a debtor. He'll come to light eventually. He's no problem. Incidentally, any KGB activity?'
'None.'
'They've cut their losses. Abandoned Aubrey to his fate, then?'
'It appears so, Sir Andrew.'
'Wise of them, in the event. Very well, Eldon. The DPP would like the papers by midweek. Naturally after they've been seen by the PM and the Attorney-General, in this extraordinary case. Can your department manage that?'
'Yes, Sir Andrew. Sir Kenneth can be formally charged this week.'
'Good.'
'You know where he is now?'
'Yes, Comrade Rezident General. He is returning from Oxford at this moment. He is driving—'
'Never mind. Just make sure they don't lose him in London. You presume he is planning to return to the man Hyde's flat?'
'We presume so, Comrade Rezident General.'
'Very well. Dispose of him — this morning. As soon and as quietly as possible. Our friend seems to be over- confident as to Massinger's harmlessness. I am not convinced. What he knows already is too dangerous. He might — just might — talk to someone who will believe him. Someone like Colonel Eldon, for example. No, it is too dangerous. Massinger represents too great a threat. They lost Hyde in Vienna — we have found Massinger. We will make certain. Give the order — kill Massinger. I'll sign the authorisation.'
'Thank you, Comrade Rezident General—'
'You didn't think I'd leave you holding the baby, did you?'
'I'm sorry, Comrade Rezident General.'
'Very well — get on with it. Poor Paul.'
'I beg your pardon, Comrade—?'
'Never mind. Just see that it's done.'
Hyde had been jolted by Kabul, alienated. They had approached the capital a little after noon, filtering into the city in small groups, making their rendezvous in one of the city's oldest and most warrenlike bazaars, setting up headquarters in the rear of a rugmaker's shop. Its owner was, apparently, a relative of Mohammed Jan. He bewailed the loss of Jan's sons, dropped the ritual tears, put his resources at the Pathan chieftain's disposal.
After they had eaten fragrant, indigestible nan bread and a rice dish with mutton and raisins, Mohammed Jan and Miandad set out with Hyde to reconnoitre the Soviet embassy buildings. The city was crowded, its poorer suburbs and bazaars timeless, antique. The donkeys and handcarts seemed intruded upon by the few ancient cars, the handful of military vehicles. Veiled women, turbanned men, or men wearing beaded, gold-threaded caps; then, suddenly, the Inter-Continental Hotel and high-rise office blocks. Earth underfoot changed to tar. The contrast stunned Hyde. A rug-vendor, samples of his wares over his shoulder and at his feet on the pavement, stood in front of a department store. Hyde grinned, and Miandad returned his expression.
'Nothing changes,' the Pakistani murmured.
The smell of passing donkeys, overladen with petrol fumes. The noise of a passing Russian lorry. Someone getting out of a very long black American sedan in front of the hotel; a man in a well-cut, fur-collared overcoat, a woman in furs. The squeak of cartwheels, the noise of a single-decker bus. Roll-neck women's sweaters in the nearest window of the store.
A car or lorry backfired. Hyde immediately saw Azimov's face in the moment that he had turned and fired the single shot from the pistol. The boy had known — even as he feared, even as he experienced a terror of realisation and was crushed by its weight, he had known. His eyes had retained a kind of calm. If there was forgiveness, even gratitude, Hyde could not trust to it. He might have been inventing it.
One shot, through the forehead, knocking the boy's dead body back against the rocks. Keeping the vital, invaluable Soviet military uniform intact, unblemished, without bloodstains. Even as Mohammed Jan had argued, had demanded the boy, Hyde had been unwilling, unable—
Then a Pathan had moved to lay hands on Azimov, at Mohammed Jan's orders, and Hyde had simply turned and fired, almost without taking aim.
'He was my prisoner!' he had raged at the Pathan chieftain. Within the circles of kohl around his dark eyes, Mohammed Jan had acknowledged Hyde's claim with a single flicker of his. eyelids. Then Hyde, calming himself, had explained the necessity of the quick, clean death — the condition of the uniform. Mohammed Jan had accepted his cunning.
As he had accepted his scheme for reaching Petrunin, after listening to what Hyde had learned from the boy. Oh, the boy had been informative. He'd known a lot, remembered a lot, and he told Hyde everything because he was spending the coinage that ensured he would live. He was bribing the Pathan tribesman who spoke Russian and had light eyes and a lighter skin than the others. He had held his letter and the snapshot of his wife against the unmarked breast of his uniform jacket all the time he spoke. Hyde had put it and the letter back inside the battered wallet, appropriating both the private man and the public figure indicated by the ID documents.
'Hyde?' Miandad asked, nudging his arm.
'What—?'
Mohammed Jan was already striding away from them, towards the principal square of Kabul, where the main facade of the Inter-Continental Hotel outfaced high-rise offices and apartment blocks and overlooked the compound of the Soviet embassy.
'We must not loiter,' Miandad instructed. Two soldiers with Kalashnikovs on their shoulders took up position on either side of the main doors of the Inter-Continental. Two other guards, now relieved, marched towards a troop transport, then climbed beneath the shelter of its tarpaulin. The lorry roared away, black fumes belching from its exhaust.
'OK.'
They trailed after the tall Pathan, crossing the square. There were more cars, many of them Russian, with small, stiff flags on the bonnets of the black saloons. Others, mostly cream or white, still possessed an official appearance. The buses were crowded. The street-lamps were beginning to glare in the afternoon air, and some illuminated neon signs gained a bolder glow. Hoardings for consumer products vied with stern governmental portraits and Afghan and Soviet flags.
Flags on the Soviet embassy. Behind high black railings, across a forty-yard width of snow-patched lawn, the low bungalows of the compound were dotted around the white facade of the embassy building. An ugly, modern concrete and glass extension lay alongside the main building like a squat, utilitarian transport ship berthed alongside an elegant, superseded sailing vessel. The extension appeared sufficiently modern to have been completed after the Russian invasion. There was a guard on either side of the main gates and a red and white barrier pole. Ten yards further out into the square stood a large concrete bunker, the guard post.
