by Thomas Craig
He stood up groggily, swaying in the wind as it buffeted him. He held the rifle like a comforter. The collective was maybe two miles west, a dotted collection of buildings in the middle of nowhere. Farm headquarters, barns, and maybe a car or a truck.
He forced his legs into motion, forced his frame into a quick jog, despite the huge inertia of disappointment and futility that weighed on him. A car or truck would mean quicker movement away, would be a means of staying alive that he did not possess while on foot. It wouldn't take him a thousand miles, maybe not a hundred, but it was better than this, better, better, better. His heavily pounding boots drummed and reiterated the word, as did his pounding ears. He would stay alive, stay free for twice as long, three times as long as on foot… better, better…
His elbow seemed to pain him more in Rodin's presence, like an old wound reacting to imminent changes in the weather. He did not cradle it with his good hand, however, not before Rodin's gray, almost fanatic stare. There was a madness about the damn old man, he decided, even though he felt, along with the others in the room, that Rodin was right to pursue Lightning with all possible speed.
Eight-fifty, Wednesday evening. Digital clocks and calendars littered the walls like urgent graffiti, adding to the tensions and pressures of that vast, humming room. Serov smelled the ozone of a hundred screens and keyboards and fiber-optic maps. Banks of mission controllers retreated like an audience into the shadows behind and almost above the lights. On the huge upright map nearest to him and Rodin, the American shuttle Atlantis weaved the slow pan1 of a weary fly; a poisoned fly about to die. Serov's vitriol was sluggish without the antifreeze of his best health. The elbow drained him like a disease rather than a fracture. It was an effort to hold h*s features clear of pain, even during those short periods when Rodin* turning occasionally from his senior officers and technical staff looked directly at him. His courtiers were sycophantic and filled with enthusiasm, fired with the old man's purpose. Serov knew that if they lost this one chance — bows and arrows and menial tasks, cleaning shithouses like Afghanistan, training the fucking Cubans and Palestinians and Shiites in half a dozen countries. It was as plain as the nose on Rodin's face — the army's last chance to keep its grip on the Politburo's collective balls.
Rehearsing the old war cries kept the pain at a tolerable level.
"Where is he now, Serov?" Rodin hissed at him, his head snapping around to fix his gray gaze on the shorter man. "Where is your American and his little KGB friend? You haven't come to tell me you've caught them, by any chance?" Almost languid, almost joking. Almost.
Serov shook his head, his features grave. "Not yet, comrade General," he said with regretful confidence. "It is, of course, only a matter of time."
"It had better be." And yet Rodin was detached from the fate of Gant and that stupid little prick Priabin. The screens that curved in a crescent to their left showed the shuttle moving toward the distant launch pad, showed the waiting booster, showed the crew in their quarters, intruding on their sleep like spy cameras. The murmurs, if one concentrated, were a chorus of instructions, orders, reports, checks. Atlantis moved on the screen, the weaving line that traced its course slipping across Africa. "It will be," Rodin murmured, and turned back to one of his people, launching into an immediate discussion on the shaving of minutes from the boarding and preflight checks by the crew. Serov waited to be dismissed.
He gazed at the screens, the huge map, other maps, a chart of the pattern of radar and telemetry stations across the Soviet Union that would follow the shuttle in orbit, the banks of controllers at their screens and keyboards, rendered identical by the shadows and ty their each wearing a headset and microphone. Cigarette smoke rolled and billowed amid the suspended lights. He looked up toward tinted windows of the GRU's security room. Squinting, he real-*fed that one of his people was waving urgently to him. The immediate leap of tension and the beat of his heart enforced his fear of the Edition of his nerves. Could it—?
He nodded to the unseeing Rodin, who was insisting that another ten minutes be trimmed from the hand-over ingress routines, the crew boarded. Then Serov hurried across the cable-lit-red floor toward the door. Along the cold, concrete corridor. He clattered up an iron spiral staircase, careful not to knock his broken arm in his haste. He could clutch it now, protect it. He hurried down the narrow corridor to a single door. He thrust it open, entering the security room, surprising its half-dozen occupants. Ozone again, VDUs, radios, fiber-optic maps. The hunt for Gant was once more their business, returned to their charge by Rodin.
"Is—?" he began.
The lieutenant was nodding. "Yes, Colonel, they've found it, on the ground, too — here." His finger dabbed at a screen that displayed a map — where? South of the river? Yes.
"Thank Christ!" he could not help but exclaiming. Then: "Are Jiey still with the machine?"
"Priabin, the KGB colonel, sir — he's there."
"But Gant is not?"
The man shook his head. Serov did not even bother to recall his name; no requirement to be congratulated or commended officially. He was just the bearer of a report. Yet a small, secret pleasure welled from his stomach to his chest. He felt the knife tickle at his collar again, the pain in his elbow surged through him as he remembered — then cleared as he anticipated. Priabin would pay, he'd beat the little shit to a pulp, with one hand tied behind… He grimaced. With his one good fist then.
"What does Priabin have to say?"
"Do you want to talk to—?'
"Just give me the gist of it, man!" he roared.
"Sorry, Colonel." The man lowered his eyes and rushed on. "He said he was waiting for — our people to turn up. Sir, that's exactly what he said. The woman you wounded is dead, sir. The Mil suffered damage during its encounter with the zveno, just as they suspected — rudder controls inoperable, the report says. The American was forced to crash-land, about two and a half hours ago. Gant has a videotape of the — assembly building with him, a rifle, food. He's on foot. Priabin has no idea where he's gone, and says he couldn't less."
Serov realized how muddy, how defeated his thoughts had been-The impact of what he heard struck him only after the lieutenant had finished his summary. Then he hit his head as if to jolt his mi*1 to activity.
"Then he's on foot."
"Yes, sir.".
"Thank Christ for that. You realize what it means? He's as good as in the bag. He can't possibly get anywhere on foot. My God, we've won, we've stopped it. Tell them, the gunships, the ground patrols, everyone — two hours to find the American. Two hours."
He turned away, walking across the room toward the windows. Immediately, he located Rodin. Right, you old bastard, he thought carefully, precisely. I'm no longer here on sufferance. I have a right.
Quenching a sneer of triumph, he turned* quickly toward the door. He'd tell Rodin now.
Resolve and will had turned against him, robbing him of strength as they, too, ebbed. His imagination was using energy at a suicidal rate. His legs had become leaden, hard to move, and his head felt light. The sense that it was hopeless, that he could go on for only a little longer, waited at the door of his conscious mind, pushing it slowly open.
Moonlight, gleaming on snaking ice, sheened on the early frost glittering across the stretches of sand and dirt. Clouds moved across die sky like great dark shoulders heaving at something that resisted their solid force. The rifle banged against his ribs as he jogged with repeated, sapping blows. The others — the dead woman and the KGB man he hardly knew who had wanted so much to kill him, even Serov and the pursuit — were increasingly behind him, distant and unreal. His head was becoming fuzzy with exertion and defeat. There was nothing in front of the next few heavy thumps of his boots, nothing behind other than the slow distance he had come.
How many miles? Three, four since the last glimpse of the map? He gritted his teeth, hearing his breath roar in his ears, his blood pound. Nothing had come near him, no other vehicle, no helicopter. They had no idea where
he was.
They'd find him before daylight, for sure.
The certainty grew that he was merely expending energy to no Purpose. His body ran with sweat, the rifle banged, even the videotape cassette weighed heavy in one pocket of the parka. The ground beneath his boots seemed to shift, become uncertain and ^dy. Trees filtered the moonlight darkly, as if hoarding it.
Trees.
He staggered to a halt, his head reeling like a drunks, his body Quivering. He looked around him wildly, as if he had been ordered to halt. He dropped to one knee, flicking on the flashlight, waggling j*16 maps creased folds beneath its thin beam. The map shivered in ^ hand, but not from the wind, which distressed his hair and was chilly on his damp neck and throat. His eyes traced the way he had come — flatness, flatness, a small plantation, yes, he remembered it, a narrow, clattering bridge across a main irrigation channel, two other planklike crossings, yes — this small fir plantation? His mind jogged back along the track. He did not remember, and shook his head in puzzlement and fear. Like a driver on a long straight highway, startled to realize that the last miles were a blank in his memory. At any moment, they might have surprised and taken him; at any moment. He shivered. The wind was increasingly cold, his body small and vulnerable. The track was a pale, moonlit strip running between the two dark, high banks of trees. Stars glinted coldly. Warmer light insinuated between the narrow boles of the farthest trees of the plantations — warmer light, represented a danger now to his exhausted mind, not a destination. He stood up slowly, like an old, arthritic man.
Breathed deeply to calm himself, but felt only colder because he was not moving. Gripped the rifle with gloved hands, but thought it to be little more than a harmless stick he had gathered somewhere. He looked up, his gaze swinging across the strip of sky he could see. It was empty, but the fact brought no reassurance.
A cloud hid the moon.
Startling him. He studied his watch, holding the dial close to his eye. It was already eight-fifty in the evening. Again he shivered in reaction at his inability to account for the past half an hour. How long since the UAZ had driven away?
The landscape refused to become less than alien, however much it resembled Nevada in its sandy barrenness. He had struggled to make it familiar, but it had resisted him, remaining a place a thousand miles inside hostile borders, a place where he had no resources and no future.
He doubled over with stomach cramps, thrusting the rifle against his abdomen to resist the pain. It was psychological or it was hunger, it was not fear, it was not isolation, it was not fear — he repeated the formula of words, breathing stertorously, groaning softly. He would not kneel, would not rest against a tree, but stood in an invalid crouch as if retching silently, the gun hurting his stomach and pelvis. Eventually, the griping waves of pain receded and he was able to stand erect gingerly. His mouth was wet, his hands shaking* his body cold with drying sweat. He did feel more awake; shaken or startled into wakefulness. He squinted, studying the pale but warmer lights sparkling between the boles of the separate firs. had to be the farm buildings of the collective. He listened, but heard only the wind, the stir of the young trees, the tiny noise of gritty dust against his parka and across the boots he wore — he looked down as if surprised to find himself still wearing the KGB uniform the dead woman had brought. His mind pursued the recent past, concluding that Priabin was no danger because he had no idea in which direction Gant had gone. Even when they found the wreck of the MiL, the wreck of Priabin, they would learn nothing except that he was on foot.
He moved cautiously, with new alertness, keeping in the shadows of the trees, just off the dirt track, painted once more by the returning moon. The trees gradually opened like dark curtains— buildings, low and functional, with an abandoned air despite the lights that shone from them. Two, three, five, half a dozen, scattered like the counters of some abandoned game. Seven buildings, all one-storied, some large, the largest of all in darkness. The quiet noise of a radio creeping toward him. No other human sound, nothing moving. There were numerous windows aglow, many of them in the same building. Barns, tractor and cultivator stores, grain silos most distant of all, other huts that had all the frontier appearance of bunkhouses from an American past. He could not see a single vehicle as he crouched in the shadows of the outlying firs. As his eyes registered more and more of the scene, he saw the dim glow from even more windows, curtained. The gusts of chill wind brought the murmur of voices, the rattle of utensils, the noises from other radios and television sets. The place took on life and peril.
He stood up, leaned against a fir, studied terrain, distances, the shapes and angles of the buildings. Listened intently, then began running, crouching low, rifle across his chest, safety catch off. His shadow, a deformed and dwarfish thing, scuttled beside him like a mocking effigy. Then he sprinted, his whole body tensed against the first cry of curiosity that would become alarm and challenge, the UAZ had undoubtedly preceded him, warned them to keep a lookout.
His back and shoulders banged concussively against the wooden Planking of the barn. The eaves threw down darkness like a cloak, "is breathing was loud, too loud, and he stifled it as well as he Pould, dragging in slow, hard breaths through his teeth. He pressed cheek against the rough, cold planking, but there seemed no ^nd from inside the building. Ten yards from him, an ugly lean-to or storeroom. The huts with lighted windows were farther away than the shed. They formed an incomplete, untidy crescent, as if a builder had begun a town and failed to complete even a single street of it. A bankrupt, isolated place. Beyond the huts, the desert country undulated just perceptibly, raised banks and ditches and canals crisscrossing it; firs growing in clumps. He edged along the wall, pressing back into shadow, face averted.
He reached a blacked-out window; tried it, but it would not move. Continued. Halfway along the side wall, another window. He raised his arms, rifle now slung across his back by its strap, and pushed. The window frame cried out, as if to alarm the workers in their huts. Gant paused, his cheek distorted against the wood. He stifled his breath and listened more intently. Rough shouting that was louder — greetings, he recognized, a casual obscenity, then the banging shut of a door. He continued to hold his breath after that for a long time, fearing the noise of a dog or another door opening, a quizzical human voice registering alarm as it discovered his shadow crouched against the wall.
Eventually, he straightened in a continuing silence filled only by the loutish wind lurching against the collective's buildings. He gently, slowly so slowly raised the creaking, protesting window. He felt through the opening, his fingers touching some sacking material that blacked out the glass. He smelled gasoline like a heady, reviving drink. Vehicles. Oil, too, on the icy air before the wind snatched the scents away. He raised himself level with the sill, then levered his body across it, resting on his stomach as if stranded through exhaustion. He tore at the sacking, then let it fall. The darkness of the barn seemed impenetrable. None of the barn's windows let in the moon. Blinded or boarded? It did not matter. He grasped the flashlight and heaved his arm out in front of him, flicking on the thin beam. He played it waterily over the ground immediately below and in front of him.
Cans, empty tins, rubbish, bundled rags, a pitchfork, a workbench, concrete flooring. An inspection pit gaped like a grave. Vehicles. Oil stains. He flicked the beam of the flashlight farther into the room like a lifeline desperately flung. The beam wavered and darted like a small, feeble animal. He heard disturbed chickens somewhere outside. Someone coming? His body was weak, shivering. The chickens quieted, disturbed only momentarily. He grunted with relief.
A tractor's huge, ridged tire and red side — plowshare, the super' structure of a combine… no good. A covered truck — an open" backed pickup… yes. He held the beam steady, then played it like a voyeur's gaze slowly, caressingly, over the small gray truck. He inhaled the scent of gasoline. A pickup — flick of the flashlight, a crazy, wobbling search until… gasoline cans. Vehicle, fuel.
Gant wa
s aware of his body straddled like a side of meat across the window's sill. He raised himself on his arms, began to swing one leg up to the sill, heard his boot scrape on the flaky wood. Wind snapped along the side of the barn. The dog's bark was on it, as if the animal itself were already rushing toward him. A human growl, questioning the dog or ordering it—
— frozen. Hands, elbows, wrists locked like a tumbler supporting the huge weight of the rest of his troupe. The quiver through his arms like a nearing earthquake. The dog again — where? Where? Wildly, he swung his head from side to side. Away to his left, back toward the half circle of huts and other buildings… the human voice was there, too. A door opened, someone yelled, the dog barked, an answer came on the wind: sodding patrol, fuck the cold, bollocks to you, Sergei, coffee? Why not? Heel, heel, damn you, heel… don't make a fuss of the bloody thing — supposed to be a guard dog — up yours, too…
He unfroze and dropped to the ground, still listening intently to the voice coming on the wind. He cowered in the shadows as he heard the conversation of the two men and the low, continual growling of the dog. His head was reeling with the sense of the truck in the barn behind him. He knew the dog would come, the man would probably be armed — even if only with a voice to cry out or give the dog the order to attack. Knew he must go, must.
Dog distressing the chickens, growling with movement, the man thanking Sergei, exchanging friendly obscenities, calling the dog, which therefore could not be leashed—this way, damn you—the voice coming closer, the man's whistling becoming louder. Go, get out now! Growling of the dog. Gant stared down at his boots. He had already left his scent, he must get as far away as possible before the dog picked it up.
He staggered out of the shadows of the barn and ran hunched across moonlight that lay like a pale carpet. His blood rushed in his ^S so that he could hear nothing else. He dared not pause to try to Pick up the first noises of the pursuit, as if the distance behind him threatened like a jagged crack in thin ice pursuing him as he ran. He Cached the darkness of the trees but even so did not pause, his thoughts filled with the dog and its freedom, its strength and speed. Panic filled him. He could not stop running.