The Bear's Tears by Craig Thomas Read Free Book Online

the dark at the back of his mind, more real than the
lights and the laughter and talk and the reassurances of Wilkes's voice.
    He closed the door behind him. Sleet blew down the narrow
Goldschmidgasse and through the halo of white light around a
street-lamp in the Stephansplatz. The wind had strengthened, and it
eased itself through his overcoat. He shivered, then turned towards the
lights of the square, shoulders hunched, collar turned up, the melting
sleet from his hair insinuating itself between his collar and skin. The
west door of the Stephansdom was a gap of dark shadow in the sooty
facade of the cathedral. Light burst from the metro entrance to his
right. Hyde eased himself into the doorway of a shop and surveyed the
square. Three minutes by his watch since he had put down the receiver.
He had only to wait.
    A group of people emerged from the mouth of the metro station, most
of them young; noisy. He watched them bait each other, bait an old man,
reel. One youth blundered against the shop's grilled window, pressing
his nose flat as he tried to resolve the blurred souvenirs into
distinct objects. Then he rolled on, bumping against Hyde before moving
away. Hyde's body had flinched from the contact, and he was aware of
his heightened nerves. The youth expelled beery breath and a hard laugh
and almost returned to reproduce the fear he sensed, but then was towed
by the laughter of his friends towards the north side of the cathedral.
Couples drifted or were blown like black scraps across the square.
Bodies crouched beneath umbrellas. Hyde's breathing returned to normal.
    "Come on, come on," he murmured. Six minutes, and his feet were cold
through the suede boots. His hands seemed numb in his pockets. "Come
on…"
    An old woman tottered down the steps into the metro station. The
light coming from it appeared now like the open mouth of a furnace as
Hyde became colder. He could wait there… ?
    He moved out of the doorway. Sleet slapped against his cheek. He
hurried across the square, head bowed, into the darkness beneath the
archway of the cathedral's west door. He pressed his
back
against the wood, then scanned the square once more.
    And saw the first of them. Expected-unexpected. He had been looking
for surveillance, something that might prevent him reaching the car.
Someone stumbling upon him by chance. He found purpose. He found
informed opinion - knowledge. The car in the Goldschmidgasse, coming
from the far end of the narrow street, extinguished its lights perhaps
seven seconds before it turned into a parking space. And the man he had
seen on foot, moving from the Rotenturm towards the side street, had
signalled to it. He shuddered, pressing his arms against his sides to
still the quivering of his body. Overcoat, sports jacket, woolen
shirt, skin. He was intensely aware of his vulnerability.
    Second man, third man…
    One had come out of the mouth of the metro station in a dark hat and
overcoat. The other had come from the cathedral's south side, moving
purposefully across the still-lit windows of a men's outfitters. Dark
hat, dark overcoat. Dressed for the weather but umbrella-less in the
sleet. Erect, unaware of the weather, heads turning like pieces of
machinery; oiled, regular, thorough. Point of convergence, the
Goldschmidgasse. The first man he had seen paused in the shop doorway
where Hyde had first placed himself.
    Eight minutes. These people had come for him - by arrangement.
    Hyde could not bring himself to admit the idea, even though the
accentless voice cried in his head,
Kill him, kill him
… He
was able, just, to hold the idea of
collusion
simply as an
unfamiliar word in his awareness. It did not burgeon into acts,
arrangements, betrayals, pain, faces. Eight minutes thirty —
    Move, he told himself. Go now. Fourth man. He scanned the
Stephansplatz. A dark figure beneath a street-lamp, then another
passing across the lights from a coffee-house window. Point of
convergence, the Goldschmidgasse —
    Then a