by Thomas Craig
He stood up, unsheathed the record, placed it on the turntable. A few moments later, the words struck against Priabin's thoughts as if Rodin had seen into some secret part of him and was using an interrogation technique of his own. Softening Priabin up.
Anna. The song was Dylan, of course. The American CBS album, no cheap copy. Not political Dylan, which Anna had always preferred, but the Dylan Priabin himself would always choose — had always chosen.
He was intent on the words, his face paled by the shocks of memory, and the likeness of his own history to the present. Anna and that damn wheelchair that had become part of the weapons systems of the Firefox. A wheelchair for the totally disabled, governed by brain impulses, corrupted into a thought-guided weapons system; its inventor, Baranovich, corrupted, too. He shook his head, hating the clarity of the past. Rodin studied him, his own face abstracted, filled with memories.
… if 1 could only hear her heart a-softly pounding…
He glanced at his watch. One-fifteen. Time was racing ahead of him. Kedrov in the marshes, Rodin here, the weight of what he had been told. It seemed impossible to act, to lift that weight. A growing dread seemed to have invaded his frame, making him weak.
… and if only she was lying to me…
The song pained.
"But we need this treaty," he heard himself saying, sensing that he wished to avoid the song and prolong the talk. Talk meant inaction.
Rodin shrugged. "They don't. Puts them out of a job, drops them from the top of the First Division, wouldn't you say?" tie returned his attention to the music.
… I'd lie in my bed once again…
… yes, and only if my own true love was waiting…
"You do understand, Priabin?" Rodin asked him after a time. The song had almost reached its conclusion, its final statement of joss. Anna—
"What?"
"All this, man." Rodin's arm gestured toward the soundless pictures on the television. Then he got up, crossed the room, and switched off the record. He stood, hands on hips, as if in challenge. "You do understand?" he repeated.
The shuttle floated. Priabin concentrated upon it. It was over South America. Cloud draped the planet like a bridal veil. The image was unbelievably beautiful He could not make himself care what happened to the shuttle, or to its crew, not for a long time. When he finally spoke, he saw that Rodin had sat down once more and was halfway through another cigarette. He did not look at his watch but simply said:
"They can t do it. They can t be allowed to. We can t afford it. He shuddered, felt cold. The nasal, almost whining song was gone, and Anna, too, had faded below the level of consciousness; as if she could safely leave him to his own devices. He lit a cigarette, blew smoke at the frozen shepherdesses, at the floating shuttle Atlantis. "No one can afford this project, you know that," he said. "The Union's bankrupt. Are they so mad that they can't see that? Why else would we be signing the bloody treaty?"
"I'm not arguing with you."
"We all need the rest, dammit! The whole of the economy's fucked. People are fed up with having nothing in the shops and no money to spend anyway — it's as simple as that in the end. The army can't be allowed to screw them again."
"Oh?" Rodin replied archly. "They can't, can't they?"
"We have to stop it," Priabin blurted out. His thoughts buffeted him like a wind. Maybe he could send a coded message, but they Wouldn't necessarily believe him — and to whom would he send the Message, the bloody Chairman himself? They'd ask the defense Minister to confirm or deny, always supposing they didn't dismiss it out of hand as the ravings of a lunatic. And then he'd be screwed like Sacha and Viktor. God, what could he do?
He studied Rodin.
Relief surged through him. Rodin was being flown to Moscow today. All he had to do was book a ticket on the same flight. Once *hey were in Moscow, he could begin to do something, talk to people, persuade them, with Rodin as his prize piece of evidence, proof—
"Not me," Rodin replied, his face dark with suspicion and self-concern; no longer confident.
"You must."
"And put my head in the gas oven? Piss off, policeman."
"You have to help me."
"What? You must be joking."
"It's your only way out—" He left the sentence evocatively unfinished. His features wore an implacable look.
"Joke over, Priabin." Rodin got to his feet and flicked off the television with a sharp, punching movement. Then he turned to Priabin. "Forget it, brother. Forget I ever told you — or you and I will end up where Sacha is now."
"I can't — not now. It mustn't happen."
"It will happen. Nothing's more certain. It's early on Wednesday morning; tomorrow isn't such a long time. Go home and go to bed and get up on Friday." He moved closer, appeared threatening though slight and dressed only in a robe. "Nothing. Say nothing, Priabin. For your own sake."
"No. We both know now, and we have to do something about it"
"You're crazy. You want to die? Like Sacha — they killed him like that." He clicked his fingers. "I'm staying alive. Whatever my father has in mind for me, I'm staying around for it."
"You can't."
"Just watch me."
"You have to help me."
"You can't beat them."
"Listen to me — just listen." He had grabbed Rodin's slim arms, holding them fiercely. "You're on your way to Moscow. You just have to do what is already arranged for you. I'll get a seat on the plane — we can both be in Moscow in time to stop this thing." Rodin was shaking his head, but in a shamed sort of way, eyes cast down at the carpet. "It's an act of war. And if the Americans ever suspect we had anything to do with the loss of their shuttle, there'll be a holocaust! Do you want that?" Kedrov's told them we have the weapon, he thought. They'll know we destroyed their shuttle.
"You're talking rubbish."
"No. No, I'm not. It's your only hope of safety, and it's the only thing we can do. Your Papa and his pals are mad. They have to be stopped." He was shaking Rodin's arms roughly. Then he released them. Rodin began to rub them at once, walking away toward the window. The tape would have to be erased or taken with him to Moscow — yes, taken to Moscow. Just in case.
Mikhail and Anatoly must be told to clean up thoroughly, and keep their heads down.
Katya and Kedrov in the marshes; Dudin was involved now. Kedrov should be kept under wraps until he got back from Moscow. Would he be safe out there? Anyway, he'd have to arrange all that tonight — in what remained of the night. One-thirty. He'd have to hurry. The plane ticket wouldn't be any problem, and he could be incommunicado as far as any callers at his office were concerned. He could do it.
"Well?" he asked Rodin's narrow back.
"No."
He made as if to move toward the young man, but then remained standing near his armchair.
"You have to," he said.
"They'll kill me."
"Not if we win."
"And the rest of my life — and yours?"
"You'll be protected. For God's sake, we have to do it."
Would Rodin help him?
Ticket. Get on the flight, even if he won't agree. You can have him arrested in Moscow and taken to the Center. You'll have the tape to open him up with — a prerecorded corkscrew. Get the ticket, get on the plane, get Kedrov stowed safely.
One-thirty, thirty-two. Come on, get moving. Heat and energy seemed to mount in him. He steadied himself against the chair, and felt his strength return. Then he said:
"Think about it. It's your only hope — our only hope."
"My father will have me killed if I ever do anything to harm him. You realize that, don't you?"
Rodin would not turn to look into the room but continued to stare out into the windy night. Priabin could clearly hear the wind howling at the building's comers, crying down the narrow street.
"He won't be able to harm you — not anymore."
"So you say."
Priabin was possessed by impatience; technique
was deserting him. If he stayed he would say the wrong things, close the oyster again and alienate Rodin. He had other things to do, arrangements make.
Leave him, then? He did not want to… felt he could not risk… but he had arrangements that must be made. Leave.
"Look, I'm leaving now."
Rodin turned. "Who are you going to tell?" he shouted, his face white, the cords in his neck standing proud.
"No one. No one — not here. You think I'm mad? It's my life, too. No, I have things that need doing."
"You're going to be on that plane?"
"Yes."
"Damn you, then!" Rodin screamed.
"You told me knowing I was a policeman. You told me because you were afraid of it," Priabin soothed. "Think about it. I can save your life."
'The hell you can. Get out, damn you — get out!"
Rodin's fists were formed into claws and raised in front of his chest. He looked dangerous, and unbalanced. As if he might fling himself in an attack upon Priabin, or throw himself from the window.
"Think about it," Priabin shouted back. "Lock the door, don't answer the telephone, and think about it."
Priabin turned away, picked up his overcoat in the hall, opened the door, and let himself out of the flat. He sighed with fear and weakness, leaning back against the door for a moment, head raised. He was sweating profusely.
Rodin, he knew, should not be left alone. But he couldn't involve Anatoly and Mikhail. If they were suspected, they were dead. They had the tape, and they must keep their heads down until the storm had blown over. Kedrov he had to hide somewhere, in Katya's custody… Dudin had to be bought off with some cock-and-bull story about security… he had to get a seat on that morning flight. His head spun.
He crossed to the staircase and began to run down the first flight. Every moment he was away from Rodin would be filled with anxiety. Hurry, then, be as little time as you can. Hurry.
My God, he thought as he reached the lobby of the building. My God, they're going to start the next war!
10: Collision Course
There was still no glow from the tiny light on the receiver. Kedrov had not activated the transponder hidden in the cheap radio. It was not receiving Gant's signal and sending its precoded reply, which only his receiver was able to pick up. Gant knew where Kedrov should be — less than twenty miles away. Either he wasn't there, or—
Gant dismissed the thought as it bullied against his resolve. Kedrov had to be there. Alive.
The white dot that represented the Hind remained motionless on the moving-map display, hovering to the northwest of the marshes, outside the farthest security perimeter of the Baikonur complex; just outside. Fifty miles behind him, the shore of the Aral Sea; twenty miles ahead, the salt marshes. The Hind shivered like a restrained and impatient horse as he held the machine twenty feet above the distressed, dull surface of a man-made lake. Trees quivered or leaned in the wind, encircling the lake like a stockade s wooden wall. The helicopter was hidden from sight by the trees, yet Gant could not bring himself to land and switch off the engines and await Kedrov's response to his signal.
Beyond the trees, the desert was etched with the fine engraved lines of irrigation channels. In a later season, crops would grow there. In summer, people would swim in this artificial lake. He remembered the satellite pictures of the area used in his briefings. He had been able to pick out the heads and reclining torsos of swimmers and sunbathers in the vastly magnified, grainy monochrome Pictures. Now, in winter, the tiny resort was closed; cabanas, the cafe, the boathouses all deserted and lightless. They'd made certain the place was unoccupied in winter before suggesting it as a target point for his arrival.
His hands, feet, whole body it seemed, made the constant tiny movements and adjustments that kept the Hind steady above the lake. He glanced at his watch. Time of arrival, two-ten, Wednesday morning. He had perhaps five hours' darkness left—
— and there was no transponder response. Kedrov wasn't there, twenty miles east of him in the marshes. Waggling into the sky perhaps a couple of miles to starboard, he saw the headlights of a vehicle as it bounced over the undulations of the main road from Aral'sk. He had crossed the road only three minutes earlier, on course for the pleasure lake. To reach it and hover there, near the strange pagoda that had been erected in the middle of the lake, hanging like a zeppelin near its mooring tower.
He had flown most of his route over the Aral Sea itself, low and fast. Fishing boats, the lights of an occasional village on the straggling shoreline. The shallow sea was virtually empty of commercial traffic, as was its shore of habitation. It was little more than a vast, moonlit puddle across which he dashed, disturbing the calm, icy water with his passage. The barren, flat landscape was relieved only by the mounds and peaks of frozen waves reaching out from the shore.
And now hurry had drained away; destination had been achieved, but purpose had been foiled. There was no light on his receiver to show the reception of his signal. And he was a thousand miles from the nearest friendly border.
They had selected the northwest of the Baikonur complex as his point of ingress because it was the boundary closest to the salt marshes and the least protected by radar patrols. The surveillance defenses of Baikonur seemed to straggle away into the desert just like the vegetation; or perhaps they considered that the Aral Sea supplied some natural obstacle to intrusion.
Gant studied the tactical screen, which was alight with flitting dots whose pattern of movement he had already discerned. Helicopter patrols. An outer circle of them, around the perimeter of the complex — expected and easy to avoid, or to use as a cover for his own movement. They would not come as far as this deserted place. Others moved with what seemed a greater urgency, crisscrossing the map on which they were superimposed. CIA intelligence had indicated that there was no more than a single flight of Mil-24 gunships based at Baikonur. These were extra, unexpected patrols.
Purpose: to discover Kedrov, the missing agent-in-place. Minutes before, as he was still skimming the Aral Sea, the first radio transmissions he had picked up on the HF set had worried him. Was he expected? Were they waiting for him, too? Now he did not think so. And the urgency of the dots on his screen was belied by the routine responses and acknowledgments over the headset. They were looking because they had discovered Kedrov was missing, not because they knew he had a rendezvous with a helicopter.
Their search had included the marshes. Was including it now. Dormitory towns, villages, isolated settlements, farms, factories, radar installations — everywhere. The search was being coordinated, and involved foot patrols, cars, and helicopters. Needle in a haystack. Gant had little worry they would find Kedrov. They might, however, find him.
Gently, he lowered the Hind, the decision taken before he became clearly aware of it. The helicopter skimmed the artificial lake, raising its water into tiny waves; then Gant shunted it beneath the young fir trees, watching the rotors intently. Branches waved and lashed above the cockpit. The undercarriage bounced on sand, and he closed the throttles. The rotors wound down into silence, out of which the wind's noise leaped, banging against the Plexiglas. The trees above his head continued to sway and lean. He sighed, eased his frame in the restraint of his straps, and watched the tactical screen. Fireflies.
The stream of orders and reports filled his hearing, but he did not remove his headset or helmet. Not here, not here, not here… couple of kids, looks like we might have found a black-market drop here… not here, no, nothing here, nothing nothing… The reports poured into his mind. They hadn't located Kedrov, and they evidently had no idea where he might be. It was a blanket search that was turning into the boredom of routine.
Gant watched the perimeter patrols. They were calling in, too, hut maintained their conventional role. Because of the proximity of the launch, the security system of Baikonur was operating. It was its own justification. The closest helicopter to the bathing area was five miles away. It would pass perhaps three miles to the east of him as it s
wung onto the southward leg of its patrol. The next helicopter should pass perhaps twenty minutes later. On the ground, only listening posts and mobile units interested him. Those he could bleed onto the display at any time from the satellite's model of security Patrols. Tonight, however, there were more of them.
He had to thread a path between them, avoiding every thing-aural and visual detection most of all. Keeping low—
— changing IDs. He opened the cockpit door, and the wind buffeted him. He gritted his teeth and squinted against the flying sand that pattered on his overalls, slapped his cheeks. He removed a shallow box from the rear of the cockpit, releasing the straps that held it. He climbed down onto the sand, cursing his luck with the wind. Against the sky, he saw distant towers and gantries and radio masts, and their proximity unnerved him. Distances extended without limit and took on the complexion of something animate and hostile. He sensed the silence of the machine by which he knelt, remembered Mac; then, muttering inarticulately, he opened the box to search for what he required.
Strips of adhesive plastic, too flimsy, but he couldn't use the spray cans and the stencils, not in this wind. Beneath his hands lay the means of changing the Hind's identity to that of a GRU or KGB patrol. The insignia, the numerals, the ID flashes were all accurate—
— useless. He stood up, closing the box savagely, then thrust it back into the cockpit. His fist banged against the fuselage. He ground his teeth. There was no transmission from Kedrov. He could avoid visual sighting, in this darkness with the moon aging and dimming, and could avoid the listening posts and the car patrols — or be mistaken for one of their own — if only he could go now, move at once, just the twenty miles to the marshes…
Distantly, he heard the helicopter patrol away to the east, as predicted and expected. He banged the fuselage again with his fist. Where in hell was Kedrov? Where was the signal? Away behind his hunched back, the miles unrolled toward Afghanistan and Pakistan. A thousand of them. To the west, beyond the Aral Sea and the Caspian, Turkey lay a thousand miles away. He shivered.