Firefox

by Craig Thomas

  The Firefox was clear of ice. Alongside, looking as if it had strayed from some gigantic toolshed, was a ten-foot piece of equipment resembling nothing so much as a garden-spray. This was linked by a hose to a fluid tank in the sail of the Pequod, and from it, pumped by a small electric motor, gushed a stream of alcohol-based anti-icing fluid - the ‘booze’ as Seerbacker’s crew referred to it. This kept the wings and fuselage free of ice. Four men operated the sprayer - two men pushed it on its undercarriage, and two others directed the fine, pressurised spray from two small hoses tucked beneath their arms. They went about their task with a mechanical, unthinking precision, and Gant could see the light indentations of the wheels beneath the sprayer where they had ceaselessly circumnavigated the plane.

  Gant stood and watched the Firefox for a long time, as if drawn to the machine, as if feeding through his eyes. He had had no time until now, no moment of being outside the plane with time to absorb its lines, its design, its functional wickedness of appearance. The first time - there had only been the confused impression of noise, and light, and the fire at the far end of the hangar, and Baranovich’s white-coated figure lumped on the concrete … Now he watched in silence, taking in the slim fuselage, the bulging air-intakes in front of the massive engines, larger than anything Turmansky had ever thought of fitting to an interceptor-attack plane, the seemingly impossible stubbiness of the wings, with the advanced Anab missiles slung in position beneath them. He saw the scorch marks where he had fired two of them - one to bring down the Badger, the other to goad the captain of the Riga into premature action. He walked closer. The two missiles had been replaced, making up his complement of four.

  This didn’t really surprise him. A Mig-25 had been captured from the Syrians in the dummy-run for this operation. Presumably, it had been armed and its missiles, Anabs, had been assigned to Seerbacker, for delivery. Buckholz, Gant realised, missed nothing. The refuelling had been completed even while he, Seerbacker and Peck had discussed the ridge. The hoses had been withdrawn, the bonding wire removed from the nose-wheel strut. Presumably, the refuelling crew were now taking their turn at the ridge.

  He walked away with reluctance then, as the distance increased, and the Firefox became a shadowy, insubstantial bulk in the mist, he lengthened his stride. It took him almost half-an-hour to walk from the Firefox to the southerly end of the floe and then to traverse the floe from south to north, along the line of his visualised runway. The collision of the floes had not damaged the runway, other than by the ridge. He was returning from the northern edge of the floe when the handset that Fleischer had issued him bleeped in his pocket.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Gant?’ Seerbacker’s voice sounded laboured, out of breath. ‘Listen to me, mister. We’ve got three sonar contacts to the south of us, along your flight-path.’

  Gant was silent for a moment, then he said: ‘Yes it has to be the cruiser and her two escorts - hunterkiller subs.’

  ‘Jesus - you know how to make trouble for me, Gant - you really, really do!’

  ‘How long before they get here?’

  ‘Forty - maybe forty-five minutes.’

  ‘Then that’s enough time.’

  ‘Fuck you, mister! Enough time for you to get the hell out of here - what about my ship? What about its gallant crew who are at this moment working their tails off to get you a runway you can use?’

  ‘I - I’m sorry, Seerbacker - I didn’t think…’

  Almost as if he were winning a point, Seerbacker replied:

  ‘Anyway - it’ll take longer than we thought. It seems Mr. Peck was a little optimistic in his estimates. We’ll need almost the same time to get you out of here as they’ll need to catch up on us!’

  Gant was silent. Eventually, Seerbacker said: ‘You still there, Gant?’

  ‘Uh - yeah. You sure they’re heading this way?’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. They weren’t, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Weren’t?’

  ‘They were steaming west, across the track of the floe, but sure as hell is hot, Gant, if we can see them, then they can damn well see us!’

  Ten

  THE DUEL

  Vladimirov confronted the First Secretary, a renewed sense of purpose doing little to contradict or overcome the tension he felt. He knew, with a sickening certainty, that he did not want to throw his career away, that he wanted Kutuzov’s rank and post when the old man was put out to grass. Yet he was contained within a dilemma. Even if he managed to quell the rising doubts and proceed as ordered, there was still the chance that, if Gant succeeded in escaping with the Mig-31 intact, he himself would be blamed for the Soviet failure to recapture or destroy. It was that knowledge finally that persuaded him to demand that action be taken with regard to the sonarcontact reported by the Riga a minute before.

  ‘In my estimation. First Secretary,’ he began, keeping his voice neutral, level, with a vast effort of will, ‘this contact, though confused by the presence of icefloes, is worth investigation.’

  His words seemed to be swallowed in the silence of the War Command Centre. Vladimirov was aware that everybody, from Andropov down to the most junior radiooperator, understood that the room had polarised around the First Secretary and the O.C. ‘Wolfpack’.

  They were spectators in a power game being played out between the two men. They seemed to the General, tense with anticipation, almost to appreciate the fact that he was at last making his move - his final move.

  ‘In your estimation,’ the Soviet leader said softly after a while, his voice seeming to blame Vladimirov for speaking.

  Vladimirov nodded. Then he said: ‘I - I am sure that I understand now how they intend to refuel the Mig at sea… ‘ He chose the cryptic words with care. He had to play the First Secretary like a recalcitrant, dangerous fish, a shark. Yet he had committed himself. If his assumption proved to be correct, and they still failed, it would be tantamount to professional suicide to have voiced his ideas. The wild idea had grown in him slowly; he had tried to deny it, rid himself of it and the personal perspectives it evoked. Now, however, it possessed him, and he could no longer avoid its communication to the First Secretary. Damnation, he thought, almost grinding his teeth as he envisaged the consequences of his ensuing conflict with the Soviet leader - but it was their last and only chance to prevent the Mig from falling into American hands, delivered by Gant.

  His hatred of Gant burnt at the back of his throat like nausea.

  ‘Yes - they have used - are using - a large icefloe as a runway, and the refuelling vessel is undoubtedly a submarine. That is the sonarcontact that the Riga has made!’ In bald, hurried words, the idea seemed ridiculous, unconvincing. Yet, in his mind, he could visualise the scene so clearly! The parka-clothed figures, the fuellines, the aircraft sitting on the ice … there were a thousand floes the Americans could have chosen from!

  ‘The aircraft has landed, Vladimirov?’

  Vladimirov knew he had lost. The voice, dry and calm, told him he had failed to convince. He looked around him. Faces turned away, stares directed aside, or downwards, not meeting his eyes. Even Kutuzov turned away, the eyes of a spectator at a road accident. ‘Yes.’ His voice was too high, h& knew it. Damn, he could not even control his voice any more! How was it, he wondered, that the man was able to frighten him from the other side of the map-table, on the surface of which the coloured lights scuttled towards the North Cape? They had accepted Aubrey’s decoys - Vladimirov knew they were decoys, aircraft and a submarine, bustling to no purpose but to trick them - and the total available Soviet air and sea forces had been ordered to dash for the North Cape. The man in front of him now possessed power that could ruin him, drop him, crush him, imprison him - say that he was mad. And Vladimirov did not want to end up like Grigorenko, in an asylum.

  He tried once more.

  ‘The contact is on the flight-path last registered by the Riga and her escorts - just before the trace was lost.’

  Then he subsided into silence. He watched, a
lmost like a spectator himself, as the large, square, greysuited man stared, apparently idly, at the map-table. The Riga and the two escorting submarines were rapidly becoming solitary lights as the scene of Soviet surface and air activity moved further west. Then he looked up into Vladimirov’s eyes. The incredulous General saw, from an instant before the eyes became hooded again, naked, stark fear. He could not assimilate the information, until the First Secretary said: ‘It would take too long to recall the helicopters, and order them to make a search of the area. Instead, my dear General, because you seem to have this - obsessive concern with icefloes and tanker-submarines…’ He paused and Andropov, seated now next to him, smiled thinly. He supplied the expected reaction, even as his humourless eyes behind the steel-framed spectacles indicated that he understood the motives of the Soviet leader. ‘As I said - to give you peace of mind, my dear Vladimirov - we will despatch one of the escorting submarines to investigate this highly dubious sonarcontact that the cruiser claims to have made.’ He smiled blandly, recovering from the moment of naked understanding he had seen in the Chairman’s eyes.

  ‘But, if it is… ‘ Vladimirov began.

  The First Secretary held up his huge hand. ‘One of the escorts, Vladimirov - how long will it take?’

  ‘Forty minutes, no more.’

  ‘Then - if there is anything to report, if the contact turns out to be interesting - the second Mig-31 will be ordered to return from its rendezvous off the North Cape - at top speed.’

  It was over. Vladimirov felt the tension drain away, leaving him physically weak, exhausted. At least it was something. Yet he could not sense a victory. He was unable to do more than continue to despise himself. Swiftly, as if to hide the feelings that must show on his face, he turned to the encoding-console to issue orders to the captain of the Riga.

  Gant had watched the green sonar-screen and the sweep of its tireless arm until his eyes ached. The endless revolution of the arm, dragging the wash of whiteness behind it that left three crystallised points of light in its wake, unnerved him. After silent, tense minutes in the control room of the Pequod, leaning over the sailor wearing headphones, listening to the amplified pinging of the contact, it became apparent what was occurring. One of the blips on the screen, one of the escort submarines, had detached itself from its westward course, and was moving along the line of a bearing that would bring it homing on the Pequod. The other two blips continued on their westward course.

  As yet the blips appeared only on the long-range sonar-screen, the extent of whose survey carried for a thirty-mile radius around the submarine. They were at the top of the screen - and the sonar had been working in a directional sweep, when the three vessels had been picked up. Now, the blip of the escort submarine homing on them was little more than twenty miles away.

  After a huge silence filled only with the quick human breathing of the crew and the reiterated pinging of the contact-echo, Seerbacker, at Gant’s elbow, said, ‘How long before it gets here?’

  The operator didn’t look up, but said: ‘Can’t say, sir. You know what this long-range sonar is like - distortion factor of twenty per cent, sometimes. I can’t be sure, sir.’

  ‘Hell!’

  ‘How fast can those Russian subs move?’ Gant said.

  ‘How the hell do I know?’ Seerbacker stormed, turning on him, his long face white with anger, and fear. ‘I don’t even know what kind of submarine it is, man! Until it transfers from the long-range screen into close-up, we can’t get a 3-D image of it from the computer that’ll identify it.’

  ‘Contact bearing Red Three-Niner, and closing,’ the operator called out, apparently undisturbed by the emotions of Seerbacker snarled in his ear.

  ‘What - will you do?’ Gant asked.

  Seerbacker looked at him for a moment, and then said:

  ‘I have a sealed packet for you - your route, I guess. That’s the first thing. Second, I have to get our disguise out the wardrobe, and dust it off!’

  Gant looked at him, puzzled.

  ‘Contact still bearing Red Three-Niner and closing.’ Seerbacker looked at the operator’s neck, as if he wished the man dead, or dumb at least, then he said: ‘Give me the blower.’ Fleischer thrust the microphone into his hand, and pressed the alert button at the side of the transmitter, signalling the crew to prepare for a message from the captain.

  Seerbacker nodded, and then said into the microphone: ‘Hear this - this is the captain. It’s operate “Harmless” procedure, on the double. We have about thirty minutes, maybe less, I doubt more. Get the lead out of your asses, and move - move as fast as you’ve ever moved before.’

  Having relieved his tension by way of bullying his crew, Seerbacker turned to Gant with a more even countenance. Smiling, he nodded towards the watertight door leading to his cabin, and Gant followed in his wake.

  ‘What is “Harmless”?’ he asked as the footsteps clicked along the companionway.

  Seerbacker was silent until he turned into his cabin, Gant still behind him, and had locked the door. Then he went to a wall-safe, cranked the dial, and pulled the small door open. He handed Gant a package inside a cellophane wrapper. Gant nodded, as Seerbacker’s two-fingered grip revealed the presence of an acid capsule within the clear plastic, the ‘auto-destruct’ for the sealed orders.

  Gant unfolded the single sheet of flimsy within the envelope, studying it carefully.

  ‘What is “Harmless”?’ he repeated.

  Seerbacker grinned. ‘Just our little joke - only it may save our lives,’ he said. ‘We’ll go up top in a while - you can see for yourself.’

  Gant nodded, as if the answer to his question did not really interest him. His orders were simple. There was a list of map coordinates, and times, which he knew would take him at first low across the Finnish coast, east of the North Cape decoy area, across the lake-strewn landscape of Finland, towards Stockholm. Once there, where the Gulf of Bothnia encountered the Baltic, he was instructed to rendezvous with the late afternoon British Airways commercial flight from Stockholm to London. He knew why. If he tucked in behind the plane, and below it, not only would he be out of sight of the crew, but all that would show up on an infrared screen would be the single image of the airliner’s heatsource. And the airliner would be expected across the North Sea, en route and on schedule.

  And he was immune to any sort of detection other than visual - an unlikely possibility. No Elint ship in the North Sea warned to watch for him would guess where he was. When he arrived at a specified coordinate off the English coast, he was to call RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire on a frequency within the general aviation band, assuming the identity of a test-flight for a commercial passenger plane receiving its Certificate of Airworthiness check-up. With luck, if it worked, the Russians would lose him, if they had ever found him, off the eastern coast of Sweden, when he linked infrared images with the British Airways flight.

  He read the coordinates once more, committing them firmly to memory. Then he replaced the sheet in its buff envelope, and the envelope in its wrapper. Seerbacker had already placed a large steel ashtray on the table. Gant placed the packet in the ashtray, then ground the heel of his hand on it. Almost immediately, the fumes of the released acid rose pungently and the packet began to dissolve. Gant watched it until it consisted of no more than a few blackened, treacly specks. Then he nodded, as if to himself, and said: ‘O.K. - let’s get urgent. Captain. I want to see what progress has been made on my runway.’ His eyes, surprisingly to Seerbacker, almost twinkled for a moment, and he added: ‘And I want to see “Harmless”.’

  Of course, Aubrey reflected, he could not be certain - no, not by a very long way, not just at present.

  Nevertheless, he was unable quite to extinguish the small flame of hope that warmed his stomach like good brandy; the heat of success. The code activity from the Russians, combined with the success of the decoymissions around the North Cape area, and the signal from Seerbacker aboard the Pequod that the Firefox was safely down, and refuelled
- all added to his barely suppressed sense of satisfaction.

  Shelley, too, he could see, could hardly keep a schoolboyish grin from his smooth features. The Americans, having swung down with the graph of Buckholz’s doubts, been infected by indecision, now lifted in a rising curve again. Curtin was on the steps, adjusting the positions of Russian planes and vessels as they moved further and further into the decoy area. Aubrey glanced up at the huge map, and saw only the position of the floe, and the coloured pin representing the Firefox alongside it.

  Had Seerbacker risked getting off another signal, to confirm the sonarcontact with the approaching Russian submarine, or had Aubrey been aware of Vladimirov’s intuition, and partial success in Bilyarsk, his mood might have been less equable, his ego-temperature somewhat lower. But he was still blinded by the brilliance of his own design, and Seerbacker had not informed him of the suspicious escort submarine in his vicinity. For Aubrey, the design had become now only a mechanical matter - as long as Gant followed instructions, it was in the bag.

  Aubrey maintained that he was a man who never, absolutely on no occasion, counted his chickens - but now he did. The magnitude of what he had achieved, from inception, through planning, to execution, stunned him, shone like a fierce sun on his vanity, causing it to bloom.

  ‘Hm - gentlemen,’ he said, clearing his throat. ‘I realise that perhaps this may be a little premature… ‘ He smiled deprecatingly, knowing that they shared his mood. ‘Nevertheless - perhaps we might permit ourselves a little - a modicum of celebratory alcohol?’ Buckholz grinned openly. ‘You sure put it tortuously, Aubrey - but yes, I reckon we could open a bottle,’ he said.

  ‘Good.’

  Aubrey moved to the drinks trolley that had stood throughout their vigil in the corner of the operations room. Suddenly, the place seemed to be without the stale, almost rancid, smell of old cigar smoke and unchanged clothing. The faces were no longer strained with tension. It was merely that they were a little tired - tired with the satisfying tiredness of a job well done, of something completed.