by Craig Thomas
Gant was out of fuel — he should be hugging the ground — the weather satellite shows broken cloud, he can't run around inside the cloud forever — he should be hugging the ground, making a run… when would the American's nerve break, when would he run for cover, skimming across Finland like a flat stone before his engines sighed and surrendered…?
Four minutes… four and a half… five… six…
Then: 'Got him! He's run out of cloud!' The operator had increased the volume so that the Foxbat pilot's ringing, boyish voice was audible above the cheer in the command centre. 'He's at zero feet and travelling sub-sonic, perhaps four hundred knots, no more. I'm going down!' Then, more formally, he added: 'What are your orders, Comrade General?'
'His exact position and heading!' Vladimirov snapped, then to the room at large: 'Alert the search to home in on the MiG-25 — repeat speed and altitude just — '
'Give the order to attack!' the First Secretary announced, glaring at Vladimirov. 'No more games — no strategy. Tell them to destroy the MiG-31 on sight!'
Ground-clutter, ground-clutter, clutter, ground-clutter, his mind kept repeating as the Firefox leapt at the landscape at an altitude of less than a hundred feet, the automatic pilot and the terrain-following radar preserving it from the snow-softened folds and contours of Finnish Lapland. Invisible, invisible, he chanted almost as a prayer. The clutter of images from the landscape would mask the Firefox from any searching eyes — other than those of the MiG-25F still on his tail, less than two miles behind him.
Two pilots with no more to do than choose the moment for the kill; to select, savour, review, revise, re-select the optimum moment. Two pilots — one with four AA-6 missiles, the other with cannon fire and empty tanks. Effectively, he and the pilot of the Foxbat were alone, skimming across the surface of Finnish Lapland. The squadrons of searching MiGs above them were rendered doubly blind — the anti-radar protected him, the ground-clutter masked his pursuer from assistance. The pilot of the Foxbat was transmitting a stream of positional fixes to his newly-arrived colleagues, but he was offering old news, history. The Firefox flicked, twisted, whipped through the landscape at four hundred knots — a butterfly that refused to be pinned to the card.
Until it ran out of fuel, finally…
The threat had hung over him for so long — perhaps fifteen minutes' flying time since he had first noticed his fuel state — that he had begun to disbelieve the gauges. They claimed he could have as much as six minutes' flying time left at his present speed. Yet each evasive manoeuvre squandered fuel, and even more fuel streamed away behind him. And he still could not shake the pursuing Foxbat. It followed him indefatigably. Over his headset, Gant heard the frantic but assured reports of his pursuer. There was a gap of time to be traversed, the optimum moment for the kill still lay in the future, but there was no doubt of the outcome.
He'd heard, too, the strong voice that had first addressed him after the take-off from Bilyarsk. The Soviet First Secretary. This time, he had heard it snapping orders, not addressed to him but to every particle of the pursuit. Kill, eliminate, obliterate. Destroy the MiG-31. The First Secretary's voice had cut across that of the strategist, the man who had weighed and watched and planned and guessed. The gambler. The man who, if Gant could outwit him, offered the chance of escape. He had pride and self-confidence and he believed he would win. Therein lay. the potential for error, for opening the wrong door just long enough for Gant to take his chance. But the Soviet leader's voice expressed only power, accepted only certainties. He wished to end the game — now.
Landscape, suddenly rushing at him with a new ferocity. Mountains, hills, ridges, folds. Lake Inari, the sacred lake of the Lapps, had been no more than a brief glimpse of ice-blocks, ice-sheets, snowbound wooded silent islets and the occasional glimmer of windows in sudden disappearing villages. Now the land creased and folded as if to baffle the terrain-following radar, confuse his eyesight. The Firefox bucked, nose up, then dipped again over the brow of a snow-covered hillock. Gant's stomach settled, and the pressure-suit relaxed its reassuring grip on his frame. Snow flew and boiled in the wake of the Firefox, flung up by the passage of his slipstream across the treetops. It made the rear mirror blind, but he knew that his pursuer remained behind him. Waiting for the moment to launch one of his missiles. The Foxbat would be carrying two infra-red homing missiles, and two which homed on radar. The rocket motors of the missiles were capable of propelling them at speeds far in excess of the Mach 3 that was the MiG-25's top speed. Gant knew that with full tanks he might have outrun a launched missile; but not now. He would have to wait. The range of the missiles was perhaps twelve miles. His pursuer, clear of his rearward-looking radar sensors, was less than two miles behind him.
Gant's course was north-west, towards the nearest point of the Norwegian border.
Wait-
It was all he could do. The two Turmanskys continued to roar but, at ground level, he was wasting the last of his fuel…
Wait -
Two narrow frozen lakes, smooth-surfaced, then white-clad forest, then the narrow valley of a frozen river. Snow flew and rumbled down behind him from the sides of the steep, knife-cut valley. He watched the rearward screen. He was travelling in a straight line, it was a moment of calm in the violent changes of course demanded by the landscape.
Optimum moment…?
A dot detached itself from the pursuing Foxbat, which had entered the valley. There was nothing in the mirror but rolling clouds of snow. Out of that would spring -
The AA-6 missile leapt up towards the centre of his screen, homing on his exhaust heat. A tenth-of-a-second, a fifth, a quarter… Gant's hands were still on the throttles. The right thumb had already armed the tail-decoy system. His left hand twitched on the throttle-levers. The missile moved dementedly, like a virulently-poisoned insect, coming at him at perhaps more than Mach 4. He hesitated… point-seven of a second, point-eight… point-nine -
He released the tail-decoy. Almost immediately, it ignited and the snow was a dazzling, torn-apart curtain, hurting his eyes. Then it brightened further, and he felt the shock wave of the explosion overtake him and shudder through the airframe. His teeth chattered. There was nothing on the radar except the pursuing Foxbat, which had broken to port to avoid the debris and had then dropped back into the narrow valley. It was already accelerating, too. Less than a mile and closing.
A hillock ahead. Without conscious thought, Gant cancelled the automatic pilot and terrain-following radar. He banked the Firefox to starboard, slowing his speed as he did so. The pursuing Foxbat swung left of the long, white, whale-backed hillock, and Gant knew that the pilot had made an error. He anticipated catching Gant broadside.on, an unmissable target for cannon fire or another missile. If he just hadn't slowed enough, however. Gant had time to form the thought in the second he was hidden from the Foxbat, and then he realised that the valley was a closed one. He would have to lift over the ridge, exposing the Firefox's flank to attack — he'd made the mistake, not the Russian. The hillock had tricked him. The valley wall rose in front of him. He pulled back on the control column, sweating with new fear.
The Foxbat leapt the ridge a split-second ahead of him; its pilot similarly surprised by the valley wall ahead, his speed no more than a few mph faster than that of the Firefox.
But he was there. For a moment, he was there — !
Gant banked savagely and pulled tighter, then fired. The Foxbat, caught like an athlete half-way through a jump, seemed to hold, even stagger in the air. As Gant closed on the silver shape, he continued firing. The cannon shells raked through the cockpit and down the spine of the fuselage.
Gant passed beneath the Foxbat, buffeted by its slipstream as it continued to climb. There was a minor explosion — Gant saw it as he pulled round to attack once more — and the cowling of the port engine was breaking up. The Foxbat lurched, staggered, but continued to climb. Gant followed, overtaking it as it reached the apex of some already-dictated parabola. He could see
the pilot dead in the cockpit, beneath the cracked and starred canopy. The nose tilted, began to drop…
The Foxbat stalled at five thousand feet, dropping back towards the ground with as little weight and independence as a leaf. Gant glanced at his radar. The white dots of searching MiGs were scattered across it like crumbs from a meal untidily eaten. Fire was streaming from the Foxbat's port engine. In a matter of seconds, the aircraft would explode -
And he would, with it…
He grinned. He would disappear. The Foxbat fell towards a hillside, spinning. It would bury itself in deep snow. He spiralled down, following it. It was a second from impact and burning like a torch. He loosed a tail-decoy and it ignited, glowing on his infra-red screen, to be matched then surpassed by the explosion of the Foxbat at the base of the hill behind him.
Two fireballs in close succession. Two kills.
The cockpit was silent, except for the jabbering Russian as Bilyarsk and the search squadrons tried to raise the dead Foxbat pilot. He switched off the UHF set. It was silent.
Christ -
Then it happened. The sudden sense of the Firefox slowing that he had dreaded. His rpm was falling rapidly. In his headphones, he could hear the chatter of the auto-igniters. Altitude four thousand feet, fuel non-existent…
He could see the snowbound landscape beneath. He had no more than minutes in which to decide to eject or to land. Then the engines caught for a moment as the pumps dredged the last of the fuel from the tanks. He pulled back on the column. He needed all the altitude he could muster. Three seconds later the engines died again, the rpm dropped, the gauges presented zero readings. The engines were silent, empty. Again, he had to decide — eject or try to land…?
He wouldn't eject, he told himself. Not now, not after everything that had happened.
He banked the Firefox over the wilderness beneath the grey sky, searching for a runway that did not exist.
* * *
'AWACS Tupolev reports losing all trace, Comrade General.'
'We can't raise the pilot, sir. He's not answering.'
'No infra-red trace after the two explosions, sir.' Two explosions, Vladimirov thought, and immediately found himself trapped in the Byzantine labyrinth of his own qualifications and guesses and instincts. It was a maze which was inescapable every time he appeared to be presented with evidence that the American had died, that the Firefox had been destroyed. And again now, when it seemed certain that the second Foxbat, itself shot down, had caused an explosion aboard the MiG-31, he doubted. He hesitated, he would not look up from the map-table, he would not listen to the First Secretary's gruff sense of relief.
And yet, he could no longer express his doubts. He had learned that much diplomacy. He had learned silence.
'Very well,' he replied to the now-finished chorus of reports, still without looking up. 'Very well. Institute a reconnaissance search for wreckage of the two aircraft — and possible survivors…' He looked up into the First Secretary's face and at Andropov behind the Soviet leader. 'Just to make certain,' he added. 'Routine.' He hated the apologetic tone in his voice. This new role did not suit him, but it was the only one which offered itself. He had, at last, begun to consider his own future. 'It should not offend our friends, the Finns — if they ever discover our over-flights.'
The Soviet leader laughed. 'Come, Vladimirov — the game is over. And to you; yes, it was only a game? Played with the most expensive toys?' His hand slapped the general's shoulder and Vladimirov steeled himself not to wince at the contact. Kutuzov appeared tired and relieved. The operators began to relax. The cabin speaker had been switched off.
Nothing, Vladimirov told himself without hope of conviction, nothing… There is nothing there now except wreckage. The American is dead.
'Chairman Andropov — some drinks, surely?' the Soviet leader instructed. Andropov smiled and moved to summon a steward. 'No, no — we'll leave this crowded room — come, some comfortable chairs and good drink before we land — mm?'
'Yes, of course, First Secretary,' Vladimirov murmured, following the Soviet leader out of the War Command Centre into a narrow, deceptively spacious lounge filled with well-upholstered, deep chairs, a television screen, a bar. Already, drinks were being poured…
Kutuzov appeared at his elbow and whispered, 'You've shown good sense, Med — at last.' His voice was a dry whisper. He'd been operated on, successfully, for cancer of the throat some years before. 'It's over now.'
'Do you think so?' Vladimirov asked in an urgent whisper. 'Do you?'
Kutuzov indicated Andropov and the First Secretary, backs to them, already at the bar. 'It would be foolish — monumentally stupid-for you to think otherwise at this moment,' he whispered. Then he smiled. 'Come on, drink with them, listen to them — and remember to smile.'
'It was-such a beautiful aircraft,' Vladimirov announced abstractedly. 'And the American showed us how good it really was.'
'Perhaps they'll build us some more — but don't count on it.' Kutuzov's laughter clogged and grated in his throat. The First Secretary offered them vodka.
'Come,' he said. 'A toast.'
* * *
Two frozen lakes. Silence except for the clicking of the automatic ignition with no fuel with which to work. Gant switched it off. Silence. Two frozen lakes, lying roughly north-south, one larger and more elongated than the other, both surrounded by birch and conifer forest. Snowbound, isolated, uninhabited country in the north of Finnish Lapland.
Little more, according to the map on his knee, than forty miles from the border with the Soviet Union. His escape from the Foxbat had taken him further north than he had wished and turned him unnoticed back towards Russia.
Silence. Wind. Out of time.
He was gliding, the heavy airframe wobbling and quivering in the stormy airflow. Altitude, two thousand five hundred feet. The lakes moved slowly southwards behind him. He banked sharply and glided towards them once again.
He would not eject, would not… He'd come this far. The airplane stayed in one piece.
Two thousand feet. The larger of the two lakes was perhaps more than one mile long — long enough to be a runway. The second lake was fatter, rounder, and he would have to land diagonally across it to be certain of stopping the Firefox with room to spare. There appeared to be a lot of surface snow which would effectively slow the aircraft. It would have to be the larger lake.
Pretend it's the floe, he told himself. Just pretend it's the floe. At the end of March, the ice should be thick enough, it should bear the weight of the airframe.
It didn't matter. It was the only available alternative to a crash-landing, or to an ejection which would leave the Firefox to plough into the ground and break up once it ran out of supporting air. He would not let that happen. Instead, he would land the airplane, and wait. When he was certain the search for him had been called off, he could communicate with Bardufoss or Kirkenes — Kirkenes was much closer — and they could drop him fuel. He checked that the airbrakes were in and the booster pumps off. All the trims he set to zero. He tugged at his straps, checking their security.
He could make it. The conifers grew down to the southern neck of the narrow lake and stretched out drunkenly over it — he could see that clearly — and if he could get in close enough to the frozen shore, he would be sheltered from any chance visual sighting. Excitement coursed through him. He could do it. He could preserve the Firefox.
Altitude, a thousand feet. He had only the one chance.
He nudged the rudder and the Firefox swung as lazily and surely through the chill grey air as a great bird. He lowered the undercarriage as he levelled, and operated the flaps. Four hundred feet, well above the trees which rushed beneath the aircraft's belly. The lake joggled in his vision ahead of the plane's nose. Two hundred feet and out over the ice. He'd got it right. The Firefox sagged now, in full flap, dropping with frightening swiftness, and the wheels skimmed the surface snow for a moment, then dug into it, flinging up a great wake around and behind hi
m. He gripped the control column fiercely, keeping the nose steady. The nosewheel touched, dug in, and Gant saw the surface snow ahead rushing towards him, beneath him. The Firefox began to slow, began to stroll, then walk…
The Firefox rolled gently towards the southern neck of the lake, towards the frozen stream that either fed or drained the lake in summer. His speed slowed quickly — too quickly? The aircraft seemed to no more than crawl towards the overhanging shelter of the trees. Would he make it? It had to reach the cover of the trees…
It was enough. The airplane had sufficient speed to move in close to the bank at the very end of the lake, where it narrowed almost to a point at its conjunction with the frozen stream. Low-hanging branches deposited their weight of snow on the cockpit canopy as he slowed to a final stop. Branches scraped along the fuselage. The nosewheel stopped just short of the bank.
He'd done it. The Firefox was hidden. In one piece, and safely hidden. He breathed deeply. Then he raised the cockpit canopy. Cold air rushed in, chilling him to the bone, making his teeth chatter uncontrollably. He grinned at the drop in his body temperature. He disconnected his oxygen supply, the radio and thought-guidance leads to his helmet; he unlocked his leg restraints, and his seat straps. He removed the helmet and, as he stood up in the cockpit, he began to laugh.
Yes, the trees hid almost everything. One wingtip and the tail assembly were still exposed, but the shape of the aircraft was altered, destroyed by camouflage. The sky was heavy with snow. A fall would hide the signs of his landing. It would be all right.