Firefox

by Craig Thomas

  ‘It was,’ Gant agreed. He paused, then said: ‘The weaponssystem … you need to tell me about that.’

  Baranovich seemed unaffected by Gant’s directness.

  In fact, he respected it. This was the time and place for such directness.

  ‘Yes. It is not, I must say, my own development, though I have done most of the work on the electronics involved, the miniaturisation, and so forth.’ He puffed at his pipe. ‘You are literally plugged into the weaponssystem. The sensors which respond to your thought processes and your eye movements are built into the helmet you wear, into the shell and the visor. A single lead carries the brain-impulses to the firing mechanisms, which you manually plug into the console - you know where that is located on the panel?’ Gant nodded. ‘Good. What happens is not important as a process, only, for you, as an end product, a result. The radar system in the aircraft is specially developed to work in conjunction with the weapons-control - basically, it speeds up the firing-time. You receive an impulse quicker than the eye can respond, from the radar, which causes a reaction in your brain to which the weaponssystem reacts. It makes the launching of air-to-air missiles, or the firing of the cannons, that much quicker … and, of course, for visual contact as opposed to radar contact, it places you seconds ahead of any other airplane or pilot. When your eyes see the target, the impulse is transmitted from the brain to the weapons-control - and whatever weapon you decide to launch, is launched and it allows your brain to guide the missile in flight to its target.’

  Baranovich smiled at Gant’s staring eyes. ‘Don’t worry, my friend - some of our Red Air Force pilots are very unintelligent. This system works only as you are wearing the helmet, and are plugged in. Besides,’ he added with a smile. ‘I cannot tell you more - it is top secret, eh?’ Baranovich took his pipe from his mouth, and roared with laughter. Still smiling, he added: ‘There is a master lock-out switch, by the way, which prevents you from blowing friends out of the sky with evil thoughts!’

  After a pause, Baranovich sighed. His eyes seemed to be directed inwards, and when he spoke next, it was as if he were summarising a problem for his own satisfaction alone.

  ‘Your government realises the importance of the weaponssystem. It is the logical next step, and it has endless possibilities. I could tell them much, of course, except that they know they can never get me out of the Soviet Union. To steal the Mig is easier…’ He sucked at the dead pipe, and continued. The United States has hardly begun to develop such a system. If it does not have one soon, then it will never be able to catch up with the flood of refinements and applications that will follow from what is, at present, still a crude electronic implement. So, they have to have the Mig, since they cannot have me. The applications could be endless, infinite as the system is refined. You, naturally, are interested only as a pilot, not as a scientist. At the moment, it employs conventional weaponry - who knows? Soon, the weaponry may leap ahead to match the thoughtguided system…’

  He looked sharply at Gant, who wiped the lack of interest from his face. There was a look sharp with pain in Baranovich’s eyes as he said: ‘Of course, I bore you.

  Perhaps it is selfpity. I would like to go on living, perhaps in the United States…’

  Gant said gently ‘The - antiradar…?’

  ‘Ah.’ Baranovich shook his head. ‘About that, I know nothing. It is the most secret aspect of the whole project - a Jew with a long record of dissidence would not be allowed to become familiar with it.’ Gant nodded.

  ‘I have to know,’ he said, ‘whether the Russians can switch it off by remote control when I’m airborne - or if I could switch it off by accident?’

  Baranovich looked thoughtful for a moment, puffing stolidly at his pipe. Once again, Gant was forcibly reminded of a university seminar, rather than a vital intelligence briefing.

  ‘No,’ the Russian said, shaking his head, then rubbing his nose with thumb and forefinger. ‘As far as I have heard from rumours - and those rumours have been few and uncertain - I understand that the antiradar capacity is not mechanical at all.’

  ‘What in the hell…?’

  ‘As far as I understand it, that is so,’ Baranovich repeated levelly. ‘It is something - perhaps a skin, even a paint, of some kind, like the low-friction finish developed for certain American airline projects?’ Gant’s eyes widened. ‘Mm. Even we know of it - American security is not as good as the Pentagon would like to think… However, as I was saying, it would appear that the antiradar stems from some such system, so that the radar-beam flows over the surface of the aircraft, and passes on, nothing having registered on the screens. I do know that the system can be neutralised for safety requirements, such as landing at your own airfield in the worst weather, by the pilot, but I can’t tell you how it is done.’ His face darkened. ‘You won’t be able to use it, Mr. Gant. I only repeat what I have heard. And we both know it works. That part of the project has been developed elsewhere, not in Bilyarsk.’

  There was a silence, then Gant said, ‘How long can you give me inside the cockpit?’

  ‘No time at all, I think. The security is tighter than ever. You know that the First Secretary is flying down here tomorrow to witness this triumph of Soviet technology? Accompanied by Andropov, the Chairman of the KGB, and other Party notables, of course. Well, because of that - or, even, because of us, Semelovsky, Kreshin and myself - the security is massive, more than ever before.’ He paused and puffed at his pipe in silence. Then he added: ‘A special detachment of GRU troopers was flown in yesterday. They will be under the command of the KGB, of course, but there are more than one hundred of them, in addition to the considerable garrison already here.’ He spread his hands in front of him. ‘Which is why we have been forced to the extremity we have in order to get you into the hangar area…’ Baranovich’s eyes twinkled, and he smiled. ‘You will need to have your hair cut even shorter, of course, so that the helmet and sensors can work efficiently, and your photograph taken for a very special set of papers - but nothing more will need to be done to you.’

  Gant shrugged. There was no resistance whatever to the idea of disguise, of assumed identity. His indifference to his own identity, a quality that Buckholz had understood from the first, made him successful as a chameleon. Most agents attempt, subconsciously, to retain something of themselves - an item of clothing, a mannerism, an inflection - as if they were swimmers, fearing to leave their personalities heaped like clothes until they should come back, fearing they might not be there when they returned. Gant had no such qualms, conscious or subconscious. Orion, Grant, Glazunov and the man he was shortly to portray, whoever he was - they were shadows, as he was.

  ‘What about my route - what’s the lay-out of the hangar area?’ he said bluntly.

  Baranovich watched the American’s face for a moment with keen eyes, then nodded as if satisfied, and stood up, gesturing Gant to where a large-scale drawing hung like the edge of a white tablecloth from the small dining-table. Kreshin had left it there after Gant had finished eating.

  Baranovich fussily straightened and smoothed the pencil-drawn map of the huge compound, and began to point out its features to Gant.

  ‘We are here,’ he said, ‘almost in the centre of the living-area - and all technical and scientific staff enter the hangar and factory complex through this gate…’

  His finger traced a route along the streets until it stopped at a line marked in red, further marked by red crosses at intervals. ‘Yes,’ Baranovich continued, ‘there is another fence, electric, and guarded by these watchtowers…’ his finger tapped at the red crosses, ‘inside the perimeter fence, which keeps us and the project divided from the village. There is only one other gate in this fence - over here, on the other side of the airstrip.’ Again his finger tapped at the stiff paper. ‘That is used only by security personnel - it is the one you will use.’

  ‘How for God’s sake?’

  Baranovich smiled.

  ‘With bravado, naturally - and a little help from myse
lf and the others. Don’t worry about it.’ The Russian returned to his pipe, sucked at it energetically, and spilled a thick cloud of smoke from his lips. Gant wrinkled his nose, as if in disapproval. ‘Do you smoke?’ Baranovich asked.

  ‘No. Not any more.’

  Nodding. Baranovich reached into a pocket of his worn, leather-elbowed jacket, and pulled out a packet of American cigarettes. ‘Learn again - now,’ he said simply.

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘Learn to smoke in the next hour, before you rest.’

  Gant pulled a face. ‘They’re not Russian,’ he said.

  ‘A status-symbol? Foreign cigarettes, in the mouth of the person you will be, will prove as convincing as anything else - even your papers.’ Baranovich smiled, then returned his attention to the map. Gant picked up the pack of cigarettes from the map, and slipped it into the breast-pocket of his overalls. ‘From this gate, you will make your way to this area here, on the far side of the runway.’ The long finger tapped. Gant watched, as if fascinated, the mottled, thick-veined hand as it lay on the white background of the map. ‘This building is the main hangar, where both prototypes are stored. We will be working here through the night, preparing the airplane that is to take part in the trials. Attached to the hangar are the security offices, right on the spot, and also the pilots’ rooms. You see that?’ Gant nodded. ‘Good. You have to go upstairs, and along this corridor…’ Baranovich’s finger was now tracing the direction on a second-storey plan of the buildings attached to the huge main hangar. ‘The other buildings - they are merely the laboratories, wind-tunnels, test-houses, and the like. Waste no time with them. Get yourself to the pilots’ dressing-room as soon as you can. Red Air Force Lieutenant-Colonel Yuri Voskov will arrive some hours before the flight. You must be ready for him.’

  ‘What about visitors?’ Gant asked. ‘I could be there for three, four hours.’

  Baranovich explained patiently, as if to a child: ‘Conceal the body - there are a number of lockers, metal ones, all with good locks.’ He smiled. ‘The pilots complained of a great deal of pilfering of the Western luxury items supplied them for being well-behaved and well-adjusted … the locks are good. As for yourself, since you do not appear to be very much like Voskov, except in general build - you will be taking a shower.’

  ‘For three hours?’

  ‘You will appear to be taking a shower. Once it nears the time for our little - diversion to occur, you will dress and the visor of the helmet will conceal your features. We on the weapons-guidance system request the pilots to wear the helmets until removed in the laboratory. It will not seem strange that you are wearing it even an hour or more before the flight.’

  Gant nodded. ‘What about this diversion?’

  ‘You need not worry. I have a very small radio device, which will tell you when to come down from your room to the hangar area. What you will see there will enable you to enter the cockpit and roll the aircraft out of the hangar, without anyone being in the least suspicious.’

  Gant’s eyes widened again. He was thoughtful for a moment, and then he said: ‘What happens to you guys, after I lift out of there?’ His voice was quiet, breathy, as if he already knew the answer.

  ‘It does not matter,’ Baranovich said softly. His expression betrayed a sympathy for his visitor that the American could not comprehend.

  ‘The hell it doesn’t!’ Gant said, stepping back, his arms raised at his sides. ‘Hell!’ He turned away from the Russian, his shoulders hunched, then turned back and said, waving his arm before him: ‘You guys, all of you - you’re so damn willing to die, I don’t understand! Don’t you resent those guys in London, ordering your deaths?’

  Baranovich was silent for a long time, then he said: ‘It is easy for you to feel indignant, Mr. Gant. You are an American. Any order that you are given is a source of resentment, is that not so? You are a free man…’

  Gant smiled cynically, and Baranovich seemed angered by his expression. ‘You are free! I am not. There is a difference. If I resent the men in London who are ordering me to die, then it is a small thing when compared with my - resentment of the KGB!’ Baranovich was staring down at the map with unseeing eyes, his features strained, his hands knuckled on the table, so that the heavy blue veins stood out like ropes. It was a long time before he straightened, and was able to smile at Gant.

  ‘I’m sorry…’ Gant began.

  ‘Nonsense. Why should you be aware of - our little problems? Now, shall we go over the armament of the plane again? Luckily, for your purposes at least, they will be concerned to use air-to-air missiles in the first trial, not ground-attack weapons.’

  He waved Gant back to his chair. ‘Please smoke,’ he said. ‘We don’t want you coughing amateurishly at the gate, do we?’ His eyes had recovered their smile.

  The beat of the rotors over his head had become almost inaudible to Kontarsky during the flight time from Moscow. Now, at ten o’clock, they were more than half way to Bilyarsk, flowing over the moonlit, silvered country below, marked by the lights of the scattered villages and collective farms, sliced by the beams of the occasional truck or car on the road between Gorky and Kazan, which they were, at that point, paralleling. The helicopter seat was comfortable in the interior of the MIL MI-8. Behind Kontarsky as he sat behind the pilot and co-pilot, were seats for twenty-eight more passengers. Only four of the seats were occupied, by Kontarsky’s personal guard, a male secretary and a classified radio operator - all of them were KGB staff.

  Kontarsky was sleepy, despite the tension within him. He had delayed leaving for as long as possible, in order that he could arrive in Bilyarsk with at least some information concerning the identity, and therefore the mission, of the man who had passed through traffic controls at Moscow, Gorky, and Kazan as Glazunov.

  The result of Priabin’s investigations was - nothing.

  True, they had found the tail-car, a few miles beyond the turn-off to Bilyarsk; true, also, that they had found the overturned truck and the crushed body of Pavel Upenskoy ten miles further down the road to Kuybyshev. There was no sign of the second man. Therefore, with a nauseous, logical certainty, Kontarsky and Priabin had been faced with the knowledge that the second man was on his way, on foot; or by some alternative transport, to Bilyarsk. The old man at the warehouse had died almost as soon as they began to beat his knowledge out of him. Frail, weak heart. Kontarsky was still angry at such unfastidious waste.

  The man’s photograph had been transmitted to Bilyarsk, and the security guard alerted. Kontarsky had panicked himself into flying at once to Bilyarsk, to take personal charge of the counter-measures.

  He lit yet another cigarette, having glanced over his shoulder, at the radio operator sitting before his console. The man, as if telepathically aware that his chief’s eyes were on him, shook his head mournfully.

  Kontarsky turned back, facing forward in the helicopter again, staring at the helmeted heads in front of him, as if they might provide some inspiration. There was the taste of fear in the back of his throat. He brushed a hand across his eyebrows nervously. He knew there would be no sleep for him until the trials were successfully completed. He felt the common KGB impotence of having to rely upon computers, upon the whole huge unwieldy apparatus of the security service for results.

  At that moment, Priabin was gaming access to the central records computer in Dzerzhinsky Street, a priority request for computer time. He was searching for a man, British or American without doubt, who had entered the Soviet Union recently, under a false name and passport, who could be identified as an intelligence agent. He was using the electronic mind of a huge machine to run to earth the second man in the truck.

  An electronic hunt, he summarised bitterly. Like Priabin, Kontarsky’s faith lay in what people could tell him, what they could extract from individual minds and tongues. Yet the two they had picked up knew nothing, that much was obvious, except their own speculations that the man was an intelligence agent whose destination was Bilyarsk and the Mikoyan project; an
d Upenskoy, who would have known for certain, was dead, crushed to pulp beneath the weight of the truck.

  Kontarsky’s thought processes were defensive, even at the moment when he most needed daring, and imagination. Mentally, he was already preparing a defence for the officers of the Special Investigations Department who would be calling on him in the event of his failure. He writhed at the thought of having to depend upon a computer’s master index of files in the Registry and Archives Department of the KGB. Yet, rely upon that machine he had to. There was no other alternative now. There was no one living to ask.

  There was a further problem, of course. Unless he allowed the three dissident agents of the CIA and the British SIS to complete their vital work on the aircraft. There would be no trial the following day.

  He cleared his throat, cleared his mind. He was terrified of espionage, of an attempt to sabotage the trial in front of Andropov and the First Secretary…

  He would, he decided, allow himself at least two hours before the arrival of the official aircraft, to question the dissidents. He looked at his watch. Ten-fifteen.

  He was anxious now, to arrive, to be on the spot, to become active.

  Police Inspector Tortyev was scrutinising a dossier of photographs of Alexander Thomas Orton. He had spread the snapshots across his desk regardless of date or place, and picked up samples at random. For half an hour, he had been picking up and discarding, and comparing samples from the heap. It had taken his small team three hours to collect the full dossier, from various sources within the KGB 2nd Chief Directorate.

  He had been denied computer time, which would have immensely simplified and speeded-up his enquiries. He gathered there was some kind of priority-search being mounted, and his team had been lucky to obtain the number of photographs they had done by manual extraction from the files, to supplement his own dossier on Orton.