'But why? Why did he go?'
Disch shifted uncomfortably in his chair. The leather squeaked in the tense, warm silence.
'Very well. I persist in believing—' Massinger waved the protestation aside gently. 'Yes. The cover story, to protect the real reason for the operation, was that Sir Kenneth suspected a double agent in one of his networks in the Russian Sector…? 'Massinger nodded. 'You know we also searched for Nazis—?' Disch asked with apparent inconsequentiality.
'Yes.'
'That was his real reason.'
'But I don't understand, Herr Disch. Why did he need a cover story for such a mission? Everyone was looking for Nazis then.'
'I agree. Also many Germans were involved in the hunt — like myself.'
'Yes,' Massinger admitted awkwardly.
Disch smiled. 'You need not worry. My family was killed by the Russians during the bombardment of the city. All of them.' He shook his head. 'I was twenty-one, and starving. I burned my uniform, and went into hiding. I did not surrender to the Allies until the city had been divided into its four sectors. I was not a Nazi, nor a Communist — though my father was sympathetic until he saw what the Russians were doing to his country and his city. Sir Kenneth found me interned — he questioned me in case I was a Russian plant… then, because I had existed in the Russian Sector for a year, and I knew people, and places, he took me to work for him. He trained me well. Mine was the story of many people — not at all unusual.'
'I see. Go on, please.'
'The cover story — yes, it was necessary because we had been working — for a long time working — to discover how so many Nazis were still able to escape from Berlin, even from the Russian Zone of my country. Sir Kenneth believed that they received help from inside the Control Commission itself…'
Disch's voice tailed off. His face was red with embarrassment, guilt, suspicion. He wished to say no more.
'Who?' Massinger demanded in a thick voice.
Disch shook his head. 'We did not know. But then Sir Kenneth had a message from one of our people in the Russian Sector — some news of the source of the assistance to escaping Nazis inside the Control Commission. The contact could not come over — Sir Kenneth made his arrangements immediately to enter the Russian Sector.' Disch shook his head. 'He told us when he returned that he had learned nothing. The signal had been no more than a clever trap for him.'
Massinger said with disappointment, 'Then there was nothing? You don't know anything?' Disch merely shrugged. Then he leaned forward and selected one of the tiny sandwiches. 'But — what did Kenneth suspect before he went over?'
'That the man was British, and highly-placed,' Disch said hurriedly, mumbling slightly through the bread and sausage in his mouth, using the sandwich as if it would help conceal the truth from Massinger.
Massinger opened his mouth to speak as the implications of Disch's statement struck him. Without the German's evasiveness and Massinger's certainty that the man had his own suspicions, the statement would have meant little or nothing to him.
'British?' he said at last.
Disch's eyes were little more than slits. He nodded. 'He was highly-placed. But, Sir Kenneth told us he learned nothing in the Russian Sector, that it was only a trap for him—!'
'You don't believe that, Herr Disch—'
'I am certain that there is no connection—'
'But you do believe it! You think this highly-placed Nazi sympathiser was Castleford and that Aubrey murdered him on his return from the Russian Sector.'
'No—!' Disch protested weakly.
'Oh my God, man — you do believe it! Ever since you spoke to Zimmermann, you've been thinking about it.' Disch blanched, then nodded. 'You do believe it, don't you? That Aubrey killed Castleford because he was helping Nazis to escape? Don't you?'
The central heating plopped in the silence. The room seemed hot. The cathedral spires rose against the grey sky, a sky as bleak and featureless as the landscape of Massinger's imagination.
'Yes,' Disch admitted finally in a small, weak voice. 'Yes, I believe it.'
The second helicopter flicked up and away, its belly luridly reddened by the flames from the first. A fuel tank exploded, and a ball of white flame soared into the air, almost touching the underside of the surviving MiL. The whole of the courtyard was illuminated. Dead Pathans, sporadic movement, Miandad's body, Mohammed Jan's green turban on the snow only yards away. Hyde turned over the body of Petrunin and tugged open the greatcoat and the jacket beneath. There was a spreading stain on the front of his uniform shirt. A thin dribble of blood from the corner of Petrunin's closed mouth. Hyde groaned as if he, too, had been wounded. The flames from the crashed helicopter died down and he almost missed the flickering of the Russian's eyelids. But he saw it, and heard the groan of pain. It was thick, as if coming through a liquid. More blood dribbled across Petrunin's cheek.
Hyde hauled Petrunin into a sitting position, then laid the Russian's weight across his back and heaved himself upright. Petrunin was draped heavily and unmoving — perhaps fainted, perhaps now dead? — in a fireman's lift. Staggering, Hyde jogged at a leaden pace across the courtyard. The spotlight of the second MIL was returning, moving towards the now located source of the rocket that had destroyed its companion. The shooting had almost stopped. Then the four-barrel machine-gun in the nose of the gunship opened up, raking the other side of the courtyard.
Hyde stopped, regained his bearings, shifted Petrunin's weight to greater comfort across his back, and then jogged through the shattered gates of the fort. Immediately, his feet blundered into thicker snow and his breathing became more laboured. His field of vision was restricted, but he saw no soldiers. He was climbing before he fully realised the fact, stamping one precarious and tired footstep ahead of the next, his face bent almost to the snow under his burden. He heard a groan, but sensed no movement through Petrunin's body. Fire lit the snow around him, dimly and fadingly. He thought he could hear orders shouted above the noise of his heart and breathing, but he could not be certain it was not his own voice urging him to greater effort. The light on the snow had vanished, and he realised he was in the trees above the fort. He leaned their combined weights against the rough bole of a fir, then let the Russian's body slide into a sitting position while he rested, hands on his knees, dragging in lungfuls of freezing air. When he turned his head, Petrunin seemed to be watching him sightlessly and Hyde could only wish it had been Miandad still alive and whom he had carried out of the fort. It might have been his hatred that caused the trembling in his limbs, or simply weakness. Blood stained Petrunin's chin. Hyde knelt by him, holding him upright, his hand at his back. It felt sticky, and he realised that the bullet had passed through the Russian's body. He realised, too, that the bullet had punctured one of Petrunin's lungs and that the man was going to die.
He studied the terrain below him. Figures moved in the light of the hovering helicopters — there were two of them again now — checking bodies. There were three Pathans in turbans in the centre of the courtyard. He heard clearly on the cold air the shots that killed them. The helicopter which had crashed had almost burned out. He counted more than twenty Russian troops, disregarding however many the two MiLs carried. He returned his attention to Petrunin, who had turned his head slightly and was looking directly into Hyde's face. The Russian tried to smile, but only coughed blood. Hyde wiped the man's chin slowly and delicately with the sleeve of his loose blouse. The blood, he saw, stained his sleeve almost up to the elbow. Petrunin was dying.
Petrunin nodded, as if he guessed at Hyde's thoughts.
'They had orders to kill you,' Hyde said. 'You're right in the shit now, just like me.' Again, Petrunin nodded. 'They wouldn't take the slightest chance, would they? Not with your bloody
Petrunin held up one limp hand. Hyde knelt by him. Then he said, 'Drop them in the shit, sport. Tell me about
He dragged Petrunin's arms across his back, hefted the body — Petrunin groaned once and immediately
