The Bear's Tears (43 page)

"Now!" Miandad shouted. Hyde prodded Petrunin forward and they
blundered past the transfixed Pathan into the cone of light from the
nose of the MiL. Machine-gun bullets plucked and tore at the packed
earth of the floor. Hyde heaved at Petrunin to make him run. They
almost tripped over the Pathan's body. Bullets ricocheted from the
stone walls.

They stumbled out into the courtyard which was washed by moving
searchlights. Something dark tumbled from one wall of the fort.
Machine-gun fire from two more MiL helicopters raked across the open
space. Hyde saw fleeing figures, still forms.

Panic, noise, death. Three, four bodies - another Pathan
falling,
then the light fixed them, held them. Hyde, surprised, realised that
Miandad was on his knees. He seemed to be coughing. A vertical cone of
light, then a second, more glancing beam. It was as if the courtyard
had become a stage, and the spotlights had focused upon the three tiny
figures.

Petrunin was looking up into the light. His shadow was flung
away
across the courtyard by the noselight of the second helicopter, which
shuffled closer through the dark air. There was more shooting. One
half-ruined wall of the old fort bulged inwards, and Hyde glimpsed
figures and lights moving up the suddenly exposed hillside towards them.

Petrunin was waving. Hyde was distracted by a wracking cough
from
Miandad. Snow whirled up around him, but the snow just in front of his
hunched form was red in the hard light. A patch of bright crimson. Hyde
moved to him. Petrunin was waving to the helicopter. Miandad looked up
at him as he clutched his shoulders, tried to smile, coughed deeply,
spraying the front of Hyde's sheepskin jacket with blood, dyeing his
supporting hand. Then the Pakistani slumped against him, his eyes
staring into the beam of the searchlight with dilated pupils. Hyde let
the body fall gently to the ground. The helicopters hung over him. He
could feel the beat of the rotors. He turned his head.

Petrunin was waving and shouting. The helicopter neared.
Something
blundered against Hyde, and fell. Mohammed Jan's green turban was
blurred by its proximity, the man's dead face fell past him; a curved
knife glittered in the snow. Hyde drew the Makarov, concealing it
against his stomach.

Petrunin looked up into the open side door of the MiL, arms
uplifted
as if in prayer. He looked, too, into the muzzle of a Kalashnikov
levelled at him. Hyde swung the Makarov, realising the entire situation
subliminally, knowing without understanding. Petrunin stepped back a
single pace. The marksman was bracing himself against the metal frame
of the side door; the MiL was absolutely level, completely stationary.
The Kalashnikov fired - Hyde saw the spit of flame - and then Hyde
fired. The marksman fell through the open door, arms spread, rifle
dropping ahead of him. His body thudded onto the snow.

Hyde ran. The MiL lurched away, bursting into flames. One of the
surviving Pathans had used the rocket launcher, or else it was a lucky
rifle shot. The MiL crashed into the wall of the fort, exploding. In
the lurid light, its flames echoing on his retinae, Hyde turned over
the body of Petrunin, realising that he had lost everything.

The block of luxury apartments was no more than a few years old
and
stood on the east bank of the Rhine, looking across the river towards
the old city of Cologne. Even seated in a deep leather armchair,
Massinger was still able to glimpse beyond the windows the tops of the
cathedral's three spires, sooty and aspiring against the leaden sky.
The whisky he had been offered on arrival had made his stomach rumble
audibly, and his host had immediately offered to make sandwiches. The
plate of neat, afternoon-tea triangles of bread and German sausage now
lay between them on the long coffee-table.

Gerhardt Disch was ebullient, clever, alert. Recently retired,
he
had also become recently widowed. The pictures of his wife - mountains,
ski-ing resorts, beaches, the Lower Manhattan skyline behind her - were
rather more prominent on the walls and sideboards and cabinets than
those of his children and grandchildren. The large, comfortable, warm
room was overfilled with heavy furniture, much of it antique, an
indication that he had once occupied more spacious premises. There was
also an artificial, almost sparkling tidiness about the flat which
denoted a fastidious man with too much time to fill. Only one or two
concessions had been made to spontaneity, to the continuation of
living. Massinger noticed particularly a very old sepiaed enlargement
stuck at an angle into the frame of the ornate mirror above the gas
fire. A young woman, presumably Disch's late wife, staring into the
lens and into strong sunlight; squinting and smiling. Massinger
suspected that Disch had found the old photograph when packing or
unpacking during his recent move. What was it - first holiday together,
honeymoon, just a day trip? Her dress was post-war. Disch himself was
only a little over sixty; Massinger guessed his wife had been perhaps a
few years younger.

He took one of the tiny sandwiches and bit into it, nodding his
compliments. Disch seemed inordinately pleased with the effect of his
cuisine upon his guest.

"I believe that Herr Zimmermann has already spoken to you?"
Massinger said when he had finished the sandwich.

Disch nodded. "That is correct." His English was good, his
accent
more pronounced than that of Zimmermann. His voice rumbled. "But only
for a moment - and to ask if I would help you. I know Wolf Zimmermann
for some years now… I was attached to the Chancellery Security Section,
you understand?" Massinger nodded. "Of course, I am pleased if I am
able to help." He shook his head lugubriously. "It is a sad thing, what
they say of Mr Aubrey - my apologies, Sir Kenneth Aubrey
- and, of course, it is ridiculous."

Massinger felt his heart pluck in his chest, as if uplifted by
some
great sense of relief. Doubt, however, immediately returned.

"Please go on," he said. "I understand you worked with Kenneth
in
Berlin, after the end of the war."

"Ah - that is what interests you?" Disch's eyes were bright with
enquiry. Massinger felt himself studied, weighed. Retirement and
bereavement had not dulled the man's professional instincts or
abilities. "You are in some doubt about the matter?" Disch asked
sharply. "I was not told this."

"I'm sorry, but I thought —" Massinger began. Disch was studying
him
with a bright, narrow suspiciousness in his eyes. The German raised his
hand. "What did Herr Zimmermann say to you?" Massinger persisted.

"Only that you wished to speak to me. He explained who you were,
of
course. And that you were trying to help your friend, Sir Kenneth
Aubrey."

Massinger felt hot with embarrassment; shame, too. Hesitantly,
he
said, "I am not here under false pretences, Herr Disch." Even to
himself, it sounded priggish. He was surprised at the evident loyalty
towards Aubrey evinced by the German. It was almost forty years old,
and still it had not atrophied. With a cynical amusement, Massinger
realised it was the same kind of loyalty that had made him visit Aubrey
the morning after the fateful news bulletin.

"I wonder?" Disch said. He brushed his hand over his remaining
strands of grey hair. His face was cherubic in complexion and shape,
and now it appeared almost froglike with suppressed anger. "Yes, Herr
Massinger, I wonder about your motives."

Massinger resisted an explanation, as if he felt the use of
Margaret's name and situation would be an evasion. Yet he was not
prepared to admit that it was his doubts that must be satisfied. His
disloyalty…

"Please tell me about Berlin," he pleaded at last.

Disch continued to study him, then said carefully: "And this
will
help? It will help Sir Kenneth?" Massinger nodded, his features
expressionless. "What will happen to him?" Disch asked then.

Massinger shrugged. "I don't know. With luck - with a great deal
of
luck, his name perhaps can be cleared. I don't know what will happen
then."

"I see." Disch was like a man guarding a precious hoard,
suspecting
every caller of being a potential thief. He rubbed his round chin and
pressed his jowls into froglike enlargements against his collar, as if
he had bent his head to watch his visitor over half-glasses. "I see,"
he repeated softly.

Massinger quelled his irritation and his tension. He received a
moment of insight. Behind the bonhomie and the good manners lay the
cleverness and the professional training. And those elements of Disch's
character were troubled. Massinger's questions posed some kind of
threat. There was a secret, then. There was a suspicion
hidden in Disch's mind. Of Aubrey… ?

Yes. Of Aubrey. Disch had been disloyal in his own way, perhaps
only
since Zimmermann had spoken to him. Zimmermann had appeared confident,
but Massinger had no idea as to Zimmermann's sense of morality. The man
was in debt to Aubrey, and wished to repay. He had, perhaps, made
allowances, given no weight to what Aubrey might have done in Berlin.
But Disch had. Disch knew or suspected something to Aubrey's detriment.

"Please tell me," he prompted.

Disch shrugged expansively, and attempted a smile. "Very well,"
he
said with something like relief. "But Sir Kenneth, I am certain, is
innocent of these charges against him - he is not a Russian agent…" He
hurried on: "I worked with him again in '74, when he was in Bonn. What
the press here and in your country have suggested is nonsense!"

"But, about Berlin?"

Disch nodded, and swallowed. He was obviously burdened.

Massinger should have seen it earlier, played upon it. There was
a
confessional air about Disch, suddenly.

"Yes, yes," he said almost breathlessly.

"Kenneth was captured in East Berlin and held for some days -
then
he escaped."

"I believe that he did escape," Disch protested, angry
and
yet somehow relieved that he was under interrogation. "All other
suggestions are nonsense."

"Why did he go to East Berlin? Wasn't it dangerous?" It was
difficult to think of Aubrey as a young man, a field agent. It had been
his job - a stupid question. "I have been told," he added, "that one of
his networks was threatened?"

Disch nodded. "Yes," he said heavily, "we agreed to that."

"Agreed? It wasn't the truth, then?"

Disch shook his head vigorously. "I did not say that —"

"Who agreed?"

"Sir Kenneth - and the others - four of us."

The voice was laden with guilt. Massinger was appalled. What
kind of
conspiracy was this —?

"Why was it necessary to agree?"

"I do not mean - agree … I mean we - oh, how do you
say,
we were told by Sir Kenneth that this is why he had to go over… told to
say that…" His voice tailed off. There had been turmoil, then. For how
long? Forty years, or just since Zimmermann had spoken to Disch?

"Why?"

"For security reasons. It was a cover story -" Disch blurted.
"There
is nothing unusual in that. It was our cover story from the beginning."

"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?"