by Craig Thomas
'Yes,' Vladimirov said. 'I incline to. His descriptions of equipment, of what he saw, even when I questioned him, were too detailed to be misinterpreted. Transportable fuel cells — his black footballs could be nothing else. Compressors and hoses.'
'But, could they do it? Could they possibly do it?'
Vladimirov shook his head. 'I would have thought their attempt likely to end in failure — '
'But not certain to end that way?'
'Are you prepared to be certain?' Vladimirov countered.
Andropov, as if suddenly made aware of the others in the room, the majority of them military personnel, seemed to scuttle across to Vladimirov's side. To create a fiction of competence, he adjusted his glasses to make a renewed study of the map. Its colours palely mottled his features. Eventually, he turned to Vladimirov and said quietly. 'You realise what this means? You realise everything?
'I realise.'
'Very well, then. What do we do?' There was no emphasis on the plural, but it was a commitment from Andropov. Out of necessity, Vladimirov concluded. The man had no idea how to deal with the situation. He was no longer seeking a scapegoat; rather, he required a skilled, expert assistant. Vladimirov felt himself burn with purpose, what he would have mocked in a younger officer as crusading zeal. It was at once both ridiculous and gratifying.
'We can do nothing-for the moment,' Vladimirov said calmly, glancing through the sheaf of papers that represented the detailed Met. reports he had requested as soon as the major's report had been relayed to them. Andropov's face was angry, and also he seemed disappointed. 'We can only prepare for action — we cannot act. Unless you wish to bomb the area from high altitude?' Vladimirov added, smiling. Andropov glowered at him.
Vladimirov pondered the map. He could, hopefully even in this foul weather, continue to assemble troops ready to move them into Lapland. In the hours after his first realisation that Gant must have landed on a frozen lake, and as a preliminary to the location of the MiG by the reconnaissance party, he had ordered the Leningrad Military district to place Engineer Troops and desant commandos from one of their advance Airborne Divisions, on alert. Already, some units were at the assembly point, the military airfield near the town of Nikel, at the meeting point of the Soviet, Finnish and Norwegian borders. The facilities at Nikel were adequate, just, for a swift helicopter assault across the border in the required numbers to guarantee success. But, the commandos mobilised and at present at Nikel, were fewer than seventy. They had been intended only as a guard for the more vital Engineer Troops who would salvage, with the assistance of a huge MiL flying crane, the MiG-31 from whichever lake contained it. Now, any salvage operation would necessitate an armed attack; a rescue by force.
Strangely, perhaps because it so closely paralleled his own embryo plan, he had recovered swiftly from the shock of discovering that he had been beaten to the site, beaten to the recovery of the aircraft. He had clenched his fist the moment he received the news, felt his nails digging into his palm until the pain became numbness. Then he realised that the weather had closed upon the lake. They were isolated. They could not be reached. They were locked in, immobile. If they intended to fly the aircraft out, they would need another break in the weather. It was a stalemate…
To his advantage. The British and Norwegians and Americans had done much of his work for him.
Andropov had moved to the door of the room. He was in conversation with a tall, dark-haired young man with an easy, confident manner which now seemed harassed and half-afraid. Vladimirov returned to his map and his thoughts.
To fly the aircraft to Norway, to somewhere like Bardufoss, was a distance that could be covered in minutes. The aircraft would need to be no more than half-airworthy for that short hop. Was it possible? Someone — Aubrey, perhaps? — evidently thought it was.
They needed a window in the weather. They dare not risk a take-off with a patched-together aircraft in the kind of weather that now prevailed. It would kill the pilot, lose them the MiG.
So -
They were waiting for the break that was promised for late that afternoon. He glanced at his watch. Perhaps in seven or eight hours' time.
The site had to be occupied by Soviet troops and the secrets of the MiG protected. If they had been photographed, stripped down, examined, discovered, then -
No one could be allowed to leave with that knowledge, with those secrets. He had to put troops into the area, for every possible reason.
It would be close. His helicopters would move just as the weather cleared. According to the Met. people, they would have the disadvantage. Thirty minutes' delay as the weather cleared from the west.
Now his excitement was intense. He sensed the danger, the knife-edge, and welcomed it. He was combative, certain, aggressive. The prize was tangible. His troops must surround the clearing beside the lake, prevent damage to the airframe, prevent take-off if that was feasible.
Kill-
Andropov approached him, his face grim. Vladimirov allowed a smile of triumph to appear on his lips, then said gruffly, 'What is it?'
'I–I have received a report that the American has been allowed to escape. He crossed into Finland hours — hours ago!' Andropov was sweating. His forehead shone in the lights. He would be blamed; the KGB had failed.
Vladimirov blenched inwardly at the news. He understood fully now.
Gant.
Vladimirov knew that Gant was the intended pilot of the MiG-31, as he had been before. He could not envisage, even wildly imagine, how he could be transported to the lake. But he knew that that was the intention.
Somehow, when the first Soviet gunships drove down on that clearing, when the first commandos dropped from their transport helicopters, Gant would be there. With a lifting triumph filling his chest and stomach, Vladimirov knew that Gant would die.
* * *
The snow had turned to sleet soon after first light, sliding away from the wipers to the edges of the windscreen. The Mercedes had become a cocoon for Gant; warm, moving, self-contained. The Finnish Intelligence officers, though he sensed their curiosity, were respectfully quiet. They supplied him with vodka and coffee, had bought him breakfast at a service station restaurant — coffee, eggs, herring, cheese, rolls, jam. He had resisted at first because of the pungent unexpectedness of the fish so early in the morning, but then his hunger had insisted. Anna retreated; she was no longer present in the warmth and quiet bustle of the restaurant.
The military airfield was north-east of Helsinki. The Mercedes turned in, papers were checked at the guardroom, and then they drove directly out onto the tarmac. Through the windscreen, through the sleet and against the grey cloud scudding low across the runways and hangars, Gant saw a Harrier in RAF camouflage, standing like a fleeting visitor apart from the planes bearing Finnish markings. The aircraft surprised him, now that his next movement, the coming hours, were forced to his attention. He was reluctant to leave the Mercedes and the quiet, respectful, reassuring company of the Finns.
A drab-painted trailer was drawn up near the Harrier. It had been towed into position by a Land-Rover. The arrangement of the vehicles and the aircraft disturbed him. It appeared temporary; a beginning.
'Major Gant?' the Finn next to him on the rear seat enquired politely, as if to re-establish some former identity. 'Would you please leave the car now and go to the trailer?' The Mercedes drew up a matter of yards from the trailer with its blank windows and dark-grey, wet flanks. 'Please, Major Gant — '
He gripped the door handle. All three of them were watching him with a patient curiosity. Already distancing themselves.
'Thanks,' he said.
'Our pleasure,' one of them said with an engaging smile. 'Good luck, Major.'
'Sure.'
He got out of the car, hunching his shoulders immediately against the cold sting and splash of the driven sleet. He hurried the few yards of wet concrete to the trailer. The door opened, as if at some electronic signal from himself. He climbed the two steps, wipe
d his feet on a rough mat, and only then looked up as the door closed behind him.
He recognised neither man in the room. There was a smell of wetness from the olive-green flying suit worn by one of them. He seemed to appraise Gant more quickly, but less expertly, than the one in the fur hat and the leather overcoat. A pilot's helmet lay on a plain wooden table, flanked by two cups.
'Coffee?' the man in the overcoat asked, holding out his hand. 'Forgive me — my name is Vitsula. I am a — friend of Kenneth Aubrey. My men were the ones who met you at the border. Oh, this is Flight Lieutenant Thorne of the British Royal Air Force.' The pilot nodded. 'That is his transport parked next to us.' Vitsula smiled. 'Coffee?' he repeated.
'Uh-oh, yes. Sure.'
Gant remained looming near the doorway, ill at ease. He was assailed by premonitions. Vitsula moved and talked with the ease of seniority. By 'friend' he meant counterpart. Hence the trailer. Vitsula was helping Aubrey, but Finland was neutral. No, there wasn't anything to concern him here. No more than a covert exit from Finland in the second seat of the Harrier trainer. He moved towards the table and sat down. Vitsula, pouring coffee from the percolator's jug, nodded in approval.
As he sat down, the Finn said, 'You realise, of course, Major, why we must have these precautions? I'm sorry it is cold. The heater is not working.' Vitsula sipped at his coffee. 'Apparently, you are required — cigarette? No? Ah — required in Oslo, at NATO Southern Norway headquarters. Your people wish to talk to you urgently. I can understand that.' He smiled, exhaling the blue, acrid smoke. It filled the cramped trailer at once. 'I have been in contact with Kenneth Aubrey — who is in Kirkenes at the moment. They have been trying, very unsuccessfully I gather, to rescue the aircraft.'
Gant appeared shocked. 'How?'
'By winching it out of the lake where you left it, Major.'
'They didn't manage it?'
'Yes, they did. But, they cannot get it out of the area. Their helicopter didn't arrive. The weather — a breakdown.'
'Shit,' Gant breathed, passing from surprise to disappointment in an instant, almost without registering the implied events of the past days. 'It's out, you say?'
'So I am led to believe.' He shrugged, blowing a rolling cloud of smoke at the low ceiling. 'Do the Russians know its location?' Gant glanced at the pilot, who nodded.
'Not from me,' Gant replied slowly.
'That will be welcome news to my minister,' Vitsula sighed. 'Very welcome. Excellent, in fact. Yes, excellent. Of course, we shall inform them in due course — we shall have to…' He held up his hand as Gant's face darkened and his lips moved. 'Kenneth Aubrey and your Mr. Buckholz know all this. It is not my decision. The aircraft will be without certain systems, I imagine, by the time it is handed over. You will not quite have wasted your time, Major.' Vitsula stood up. 'Excuse me, now, I have arrangements to make. When you have finished your coffee, you may leave at your leisure. Do not concern yourself. Major, at the fate of a machine. You, after all, are alive and safe. That should be enough. Good morning. Good morning, Flight Lieutenant.'
Vitsula adjusted the fur hat on his head, opened the door and went out. Gant turned his head from the door towards Thorne.
'What the hell's going on?' he snapped in a tight, angry voice. 'They've got the damn thing out of the lake?'
'So I'm told.'
'Who's Vitsula?'
'Director-General of their intelligence service. The top man.'
'Why a Harrier?' Gant snapped. 'I know what they do. I've flown our AV-8A. Why a Harrier?' He looked around him, then, and added: 'Is this place safe?'
'I think so. Vitsula said it was. I don't think he'd want to listen, anyway.'
'To what?'
'What happens next.' Thorne was smiling. The smile of a young man, his fingers dipped gently, pleasingly, into the waters of covert work. It was evident on his features that he was enjoying himself immensely.
'What happens next?'
'We take off for Oslo — '
'And when we arrive?'
'Just in case — would you like to get changed? I brought a spare suit. Your bonedome is in the cockpit…' Thorne heaved a pressure suit, folded and compressed, onto the wooden table from the floor of the trailer. 'Get into that — then we can talk in the privacy of my aircraft.' It was lightly said, with an English confidence, a sense of joking, of game-playing. The tone angered Gant quite unreasonably, Anna came back. Blue hole, surprise. No anger. She should have been angry -
He leant across the wooden table and grabbed Thorne's forearm, gripping it tightly. Thorne's narrow, dark good looks twisted, became dislike.
'Before we fucking go anywhere, friend — tell me what happens when we get there! I don't give a shit if this trailer's bugged by the Kremlin — answer the question!' He squeezed Thorne's arm. The pilot winced, tried to pull his arm away, groaned.
'All right — all right, you bloody crazy Yank! Let go of my arm, damn you!'
Gant released his grip. Thorne immediately applied himself to rubbing his forearm, beneath the suit's sleeve. He kept his face averted. Eventually, when he had ceased rubbing, he looked up.
'You're not going to Oslo. We drop off the radar as if making an approach, then I turn the Harrier north.' The confusion on the American's face lessened the threat he posed. Thorne appeared to remember other superiors, more pressing priorities. 'Look, I shouldn't be telling you any of this until we're airborne — ' he protested.
'Why only then?' Gant snapped. 'I could still pull the cord and go out on the bang-seat! Tell me now.'
Thorne hesitated. Gant leaned towards him again. Thorne's arm flinched onto his lap like a startled cat. Gant picked up the folded suit and dropped it heavily on the floor.
'All right. But it's your fault if anything goes wrong-!'
'You don't think Vitsula's worked things out? Man, they all know everything that's going on. It's just one big game. The most dangerous game — people get killed. If Vitsula can't make the right guesses about your airplane, then he won't be in his job for long. Even I can guess…but I don't want to. Now, tell me.'
Gant stood at one of the small, blacked-out windows. Peering through it, he could see Vitsula had taken his place in the back of the Mercedes. An old turboprop transport lurched upwards towards the cloud. He listened to Thorne's voice as if to something reiterated and already known.
'We turn north — heading up the Gulf of Bothnia into Lapland. Across the Finnmark to Kirkenes. She's almost fully fuelled — we have the range to make it in one hop.'
'Aubrey's at Kirkenes,' Gant murmured.
'Yes, old man-'
Gant turned from the window, glaring at Thorne. 'What the hell does he want me at Kirkenes for?'
Thorne shrugged, seemingly with a renewed awareness of their surroundings.
'I — look, I'm just the cab driver. Get into the suit, Major, and I can brief you fully when we're airborne. I don't know much more, anyway — '
'The hell you don't! You know and I know. How does he — how can he possibly believe that airplane can fly out of there? It's crazy.'
'Maybe. But that's what they want you for.' Thorne's face was pleading. 'Please, Major — get changed. We have a schedule to keep.'
Gant realised that his fists were bunched at his sides. Standing, he was aware of the weariness of his body, the confusion of his thoughts. He wished idly for the movement and warmth of the Mercedes once more, Vitsula knew. Of course he knew.
'What about the Finns?'
'There's a deadline. Midnight tonight.'
'For anything Aubrey might want to try?'
'I don't know. But the weather's very bad up there. There's a small window — a pantry-window, no more — it's expected this afternoon. Before dark. It's the one chance you have.'
'They want me to break out, through a weather-window? If I don't make it?'
'I don't know. They'll destroy the airframe, I imagine. You're the only chance anyone's got. I have to get you to Kirkenes. If the window doesn't op
en, you won't be stranded when the deadline expires. At least, Aubrey will have you. If it does open, I'm to drop you in at the lake. If you say you can't fly it out, then I bring you back. And a Chinook, if one can get in, will bring out the best of the stuff they can salvage. Look, Major, I was told to tell you everything. Tell him everything, he said. Be honest with him. Ask him to do it. Tell him we need him. Now, you know it all.' Thorne shrugged, staring at the crumpled, stiff heap that was the pressure suit.
'Aubrey wants me to save his ass for him,' Gant growled. 'He's painted himself into a corner and can't get out, so he had this great idea — really great idea. Get Gant to fly the airplane out of Finland, just like he did out of Russia.' Gant's tone was scathingly ironic. Thorne stared-at him as if he had only just realised the identity and recent history of the other occupant of the trailer.
Gant walked to the window, looked out, then returned to the table. 'All right,' he said heavily. 'Get me there, sonny. Get me to that asshole Aubrey!'
As the Harrier T.Mk4 lifted into the scudding, dark cloud, Vitsula leaned back from straining to look upwards through the windscreen, and sighed. He picked up the telephone from the central armrest compartment, and dabbed at the numbers he required. It was time for him to inform his minister of the departure of Gant. Time to suggest that the first advance units of Finnish troops should set out overland from Ivalo and Rovaniemi to rendezvous at the lake.
He would have to inform his minister of his suspicions concerning Gant's eventual destination, of course. Also, he could not avoid the suspicion that the Russians might know, might suspect, or might discover…
It was unlikely Finnish troops would arrive by midnight in any strength. If the Russians knew, if there was an attempt to fly out the Firefox — he must consult air force experts as to its feasibility — if Aubrey's people were stranded at the lake by the weather…?
His minister must be in full possession of the facts before any or all of those things happened.