Snow Falcon kaaph-2

by Craig Thomas

  'He's beyond consideration of his predicament, Charles. He can't bear to think about it. A condition that is going to get worse.'

  'Hell. Is he kidding when he tells us the ringleaders are on the point of being arrested — Andropov says so?'

  'I should think so. Killed, perhaps, but not arrested. If the Chairman's men can get at them in time.'

  'In time for what? They could start the whole thing!'

  'I realise that, Charles. I was trying not to think about it. Just like the First Secretary, I consider that the scenario doesn't bear thinking about!'

  Buckholz looked at his watch, then into the fire.

  'The first units of the AMF should be landing at Bardufoss about now, Kenneth.'

  'Please don't remind me.'

  Ilarion Vikentich Galakhov looked up at the window of the first floor study. A thin strip of light where the curtain had not been dosed properly. Probably the security men, Aubrey and Buckholz, were still discussing his disappearance.

  He cursed Kutuzov for the romanticism of the letter from Moscow. All the way, since the beginning of the operation, he had argued against any final signal to Helsinki. But the old man had been adamant. There had to be a back-up, a contingency. Withdraw — abort — go ahead. A range of signals indicated by the arrangement of the stamps and their dominations on letters addressed to 'Ozeroff' care of the post office — or the final signal, the 'kill' alert, indicated by the addressee — Fanny Kaplan. Nothing had come for the man he was pretending to be, but that afternoon there had been a letter for Ms Kaplan. Stupid game-playing — he was going to kill Khamovkhin anyway.

  He adjusted the rifle over his shoulder, and clapped his hands to his sides as he felt the cold of the night. He heard footsteps behind him, smelt cigar smoke on the freezing air.

  'Anything?' the American asked him.

  'Not a thing,' he replied hi English. He might have been Norwegian with his accent. 'Quiet as the grave.'

  'As long as it's not your grave — or his,' the American commented, tossing his head to indicate the lighted window above them.

  'He's safe now,' Galakhov said lightly.

  'Let's hope so. If anything happens to — him, old man Buckholz will put my ass in a sling!' Galakhov laughed, the American puffed a wreath of smoke up against the hard stars, and walked on, his footsteps crunching like the sounds of a child eating a hard biscuit as he move; on the snow-covered gravel. 'Keep your eyes peeled!' he called back.

  'Sure,' Galakhov replied.

  When the American had gone, he grinned to himself. Easy Simple and easy. Become Norwegian, join the hunters. A for in a pink coat, riding a horse, he thought. The image amused him.

  Fanny Kaplan, the envelope had said. Fanny Kaplar. Khamovkhin was a dead man. The only problem would be getting away alive, afterwards.

  The nose of the huge USAF Galaxy transport plane opened even as the dying roar of the reverse thrust from its engine still hovered at the edge of audibility. The ramp of the cargo-hold thudded against the cleared runway of Bardufoss, northern Norway, and almost immediately a camouflaged truck rolled on to the ramp, then another and another, out into the landscape which glinted a ghostly silver in the moonlight. Exhaust: rolled in white clouds behind them as they moved away from the hard-lit, ribbed interior of the transport plane towards their assembly point.

  Two RAF Harriers roared over the airfield, a deafening wave of sound succeeding them, only to be followed by a lesser wave which lapped against the low surrounding hills as a flight of Wessex helicopters circled the perimeter of the field. Then another Galaxy, which disgorged field artillery, then a Luftwaffe Transall carrying tanks, and an RAF Hercules which contained Royal Marines, landed in swift succession, settling their bulks into the iron-hard airstrip.

  From the tower of the air station, a group of senior NATO officers watched the arrival of the first units of the Allied Mobile Force, the lynch-pin of any NATO first-stage land defence against a surprise attack.

  Among the officers, and the most senior of them, was Major-Gcneral Jolfusson, Commander Allied Forces Northern Norway. As the succession of whale-like transport planes disgorged their cargoes of men and war machines, he was unable to take any satisfaction from the sight. His staff were also subdued. This was no NATO exercise — and it was happening all over the north of Norway that night — or would happen the following morning and afternoon. Especially at Kirkenes, where the main thrust of the Soviet attack would come. Jolfusson was due at Kirkenes, then Tromso, before midday.

  Major-General Jolfusson had never expected to see the day. Never. The unthinkable was happening. On both sides of the border of his country, the world was massing to begin the next war. And it was all but too late to avoid the first clash. His orders stated oh-six hundred, tomorrow, the twenty-fourth. That was when the invasion would begin.

  It was too late. He looked at his watch. Already, it was four o'clock in the morning of the twenty-third.

  PART FOUR

  KUTUZOV

  06:00 on the 23rd to 06:00 on the 24th

  'I do not welcome venerable gentlemen… because in their wake, in their footsteps, springing up like sharp little teeth, I are these dark young men of random destiny and private passions — destinies and passions that can be shaped and directed to violent ends.'

  — Paul Scot: A Division of the Spoils

  Fifteen: The Twain Meet

  Admiral Dolohov walked as quickly as caution would permit up the steps of the Murmansk Central Hospital. All the time, he watched his feet on the icy steps. And he kept his head bent because he was worried, and disturbed, and feeling small and vulnerable because of his fears for his wife, and did not wish anyone to see the look on his face.

  He glanced up only once, as he reached the top of the steps. The glass doors of the main public entrance were directly ahead of him — and he could see a white-uniformed nurse crossing the well-lit reception lobby. A man bumped into him, and he lifted his head again, almost taking his hands from his coat pockets to right his balance. He did not catch even a glimpse of the man's face — noticed only the soft exhalation of the gas from whatever cylinder the Department 'V' operative carried, before his breath seemed snatched away as if by a wind, so that he gagged in surprise, then in fear, then terror as his breath would not come.

  The operative was too far away by the time he staggered for him to fall against him, and he began to lean drunkenly backwards — glimpsed the lit corridor beyond the reception lobby, the imposing facade of the hospital which he had always thought more like a museum, then the starlit sky, then a street light — which had been behind him? — then he tumbled down the icy steps, his heels ringing in a distressed, irregular pattern.

  The woman at whose feet he rolled to a halt, on the pavement at the bottom of the short flight of steps, dropped her little plain paper bag of fruit and clutched the collar of her fur coat round her throat before she began to scream.

  Army General Sadunov, commanding Attack Force One at temporary headquarters near Pecenga, almost on the border with Norway, and less than fifty kilometres from Kirkenes, complained of indigestion almost as soon as his senior staff officers, with whom he had dined, began passing round the good Ukrainian vodka. Reluctant to miss the bout of drinking — at least so much of it as was concomitant with respect from his officers — he decided that a short walk outside would cure his complaint. He bantered and laughed with his staff while he was helped into his grey winter great-coat, and while he donned. his fur hat.

  Outside, the night was fine, starlit and cold. Immediately, and for a few moments, he felt better, attending to the chill of the air in his lungs, to the noises of his army — hum of generators, wind-up of helicopter engines, dicks of tested artillery like the snapping of iron twigs.

  He was thinking that perhaps he should not have eaten the bliny after the beef Stroganov, certainly not after the krasnayaikra, when the pain surged through him, starting in the pit of his stomach and reaching into his chest like a burning hand, spre
ading its fingers as it reached upwards. He had time to half-turn, as if to call back into the wooden building on the steps of which he stood, before he tumbled outwards, falling on his side in the snow. He rolled on his face for a moment, as if trying to put out the raging fire in his stomach by rubbing it in the snow, then lay still.

  They were lined up to see him board the helicopter. General, Pnin, commanding Finland Station Six, already in position south-east of Ivalo, across the border with Finland, was pleased and gratified by the sight. He shook hands with each of his headquarters staff, who would join him only after Ivalo was taken and secured, and they snapped into salutes one by one — like a row of clockwork soldiers, he thought, then dismissed the unkindness. Good men.

  He ducked under the rotors when the last man had been saluted, and climbed into the MIL helicopter. His aide saluted, and proceeded to strap him into his rear seat in the passenger-compartment of the command helicopter. Then Pnin nodded that he was secure, and comfortable, and the aide spoke into the microphone.

  Immediately, the beat of the rotors increased, and Pnin, twisting his head to look out of one of the ports, saw his staff retreating to a distance where the downdraught would be less distressing. He raised his hand once more in salute. The noise of the rotors reached a whine, and there was that little fearful moment as the whole helicopter wobbled as it first left the ground. Then it rose slowly, its lights — he could see them reflected through the port — splashing redly on the snow of the take-off pad. He could see the upturned faces of his staff, caught by the light, hands holding on to fur hats Then the seat seemed to lift quicker than the rise of the whole machine, but he could not be sure because the scene in the MIL turned from shadow into orange into whiteness and he could see nothing. He could feel, just for an instant. He was being pulled apart, and scalded and deafened.

  The staff officers below saw the MIL stagger, then rip like a tin can, belching flame, spit off bits of molten metal and chunks of rotor blade and fuselage — before they began running to escape the debris as it sagged then drove down towards them.

  Marshal Praporovich had not heeded his own warning, nor that of Kutuzov. He was faintly amused, rather than disturbed, by the knowledge. And tickled at the idea that, while he had made love to the young lady whose apartment he had visited, two of his officers had stood guard outside the door — another two had been posted outside the entrances to the apartment block.

  A risible occasion — but he could not help but be smug about his performance. Not that he had been impotent — no, never that. But — disinterested, certainly unenthusiastic. And he could not explain why the study of the map-table, the digestion of the innumerable movement and disposition reports, the smiles and confidence of his staff-officers — why those things had concentrated themselves in a genital itch which blossomed into lewd images, a vulgarity of mental language that had surprised him, gratified him.

  And the girl's call — that had come at just the apposite moment. He had not thought it strange, only convenient — even mystically appropriate. And, laughing, he had collected his little team of bodyguards, and as if they had all been Suvorov cadets they had passed round a flask of vodka in the staff car, and there had even been jokes and vulgarities about occasion and performance and community of indulgence — which he had allowed, so satisfied had been his mood.

  He studied himself in the long mirror in the bedroom, touched his fur hat with his gloves in mocking salute, glanced at the sleeping girl in the round bed under the mirror in the ceiling — that, too, an innovation he had submitted to, enjoyed — then turned on his heel, went out through the lounge where the empty glasses stood next to the champagne bottle, half-empty. He let himself out of the apartment. He acknowledged with a nod the evident interest in the eyes of the two young aides on duty outside the door. They followed him with undisguised smiles to the lift.

  The house was on the island of Krestovski Ostrov, between the Bolchaia and Malaia Nevkas (The Great and Middle Nevas). It was in a tree-shrouded suburb off the Morskoy Prospekt, amid old and spacious houses. The nearby Maritime Park of Victory and the Kirov Stadium were both masked by the trees — gaunt though they were in the cold pre-dawn as Vorontsyev paced the pavement near the Volga saloon in which he had sat for most of the night.

  The house was at least a century old, pre-Revolutionary, lavish, perhaps the retreat of a wealthy businessman or landowner. It had been taken over as a subordinate office and interrogation centre by the Leningrad KGB; just as many of the big houses in those quiet streets had become offices, clinics, kindergardens.

  Vorontsyev ground out the cigarette with his foot, and looked at his watch. Five minutes before six. The sky was dark, but the stars were fading. He was cold with the hours of waiting. The pavements and the road were bright with rime, silver in the light of the few street lamps. Two other cars were parked in this quiet street — containing the team he had selected and briefed from the resources of the Novosibirsk office. The men were bored, yet eager. They had come through visa control at Leningrad airport at midnight, as a part but unconnected with Vorontsyev, ahead of them in the short queue. They were noisy, but apparently drunk. The local KGB man wished them a successful and drunken leave in the city.

  The cars had come from Intourist — a waspish woman woken from sleep in her flat above the office who was immediately, ingratiatingly humbled by the ID card he showed her. If there was a connection between Leningrad KGB and the group of traitors — he thought about them consistently in that way now — then the Intourist woman would be unlikely to possess sufficient suspicion of SID to pass on the information that an alien KGB apparat was in the city.

  He had a reasonable, though undetailed, impression of the interior of the house. If this one — three storied, double-fronted, deep with rooms — worked to the general pattern, then the Englishman would be in the cellar. The cellar would have been converted to interrogation rooms and cells.

  He was still dog-tired, he admitted, yawning. He had slept deeply on the five-hour shuttle Aeroflot Tupolev from Novosibirsk, via Sverdlovsk, Perm, Kirov and Vologda — but a sleep interrupted when he was jerked out of unconsciousness each time the plane landed.

  He would have felt more comfortable with his own men — he remembered that Ilya and Maxim were dead — but he had no special fear of these strangers. They would not fail. He had chosen young men, men who reminded him of his own team. Most of them were graduates of a university as well as one or other of the KGB training schools, and all of them were ambitious. He had chosen them partly because of their ambition. To work with SID was a privilege, something which would assist their careers. It mitigated the sense they must have of working against comrades. At least, he hoped it did.

  He returned to the car, held out his hand, and the driver, trying to look wide-awake with bleary eyes and bleached cheeks, handed him the radio microphone. They had set up a HQ for radio or telephone traffic to be relayed to them from Moscow at another KGB safe house — one due for redecoration in a few weeks and therefore empty. One of their team had been left there with a radio and telephone link.

  ' "Father" to "Son" — are you receiving me, over?'

  The voice was faint, tired and bored. 'Receiving you, "Father" — over.'

  'Any more Moscow traffic?'

  'Three reports for you, "Father", from Centre. Priority One.'

  'Very well. Make them brief- over.' The young driver was looking at Vorontsyev with wide eyes. The highest priority for KGB radio traffic, for a young Major in the SID. He was impressed.

  ' "Sailor" is dead.' Admiral Dolohov. ' "Soldier Beta" also dead.' Sadunov, he thought, the Army General commanding Red Army units in the Kola sector of GSFN — part of any invasion; the most important part.' "Apostle Four" also dead.' Four — four, who was that in Andropov's little code? Pnin — yes, one of the Finland Stations. Vorontsyev squashed a half-formed image of an enraged and wounded animal lashing out blindly, murderously. It had to be done, had to, he told himself. No other way.<
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  'Anything else?'

  'Request for message concerning "Soldier Alpha" as soon as available. And good luck and instructions to take all alive, if possible.'

  'Soldier Alpha' was Praporovich himself. The Department 'V executioner would report to Vorontsyev, and his message relayed to the Centre.

  'Very well. Over and out.'

  He handed back the microphone. The driver clipped it beneath the dash, then said: 'Are we waiting for the mortician to show up, chief, or are we going in now?'

  Five past six. Vorontsyev considered, rubbing his chin. He wanted sleepy, unresisting people. There would be fewer than a dozen people, perhaps only three or four, on the premises. But they had to be taken alive; and they all had immediate access to guns. And he knew Andropov would be waiting for the message concerning Praporovich.

  He was a little man. It was almost six-forty when he arrived. The sky was perceptibly lighter now. There was no traffic and few lights in the quiet street, since there were few houses still occupied by tenants or owners. It was a daytime street. He came on foot, in overalls as if coming from a night-shift somewhere, wispy hair jammed under a fur cap, scarf hiding most of his face, dirty overcoat open in front. A totally anonymous man.

  His face was pinched, mean-looking. Grubby with whatever mechanical job he did. He smiled at Vorontsyev, and his teeth were sparse in his mouth. Vorontsyev wondered how old he was. All he said was, 'I've taken care of your embarrassing little problem, Comrade Major. I'll be off home now. The wife will have breakfast for me.' He began to walk away, perhaps towards the metro, which must have been how he came there.

  'How.. ?' was all Vorontsyev could find to say in the face of such undemonstrative behaviour.

  'How?' The little man rubbed his chin. 'A car accident. The Marshal was leaving the apartment of a young lady. A rather silly affair, I would have thought. He's practically impotent. A car mounted the pavement, skidding on the ice, I expect, and he was knocked down. He only had a hundred yards to walk to his staff car which was waiting for him. Two of his junior staff officers were injured too. One of them must be dead. I would have thought.'