Firefox mg-1

by Craig Thomas

  'What in hell's name…?' he said, his voice small, choking.

  'What was it?' Gant said.

  Seerbacker struggled to his feet, ungainly, bruised. Blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. He had bitten his tongue. He wiped the blood from his face, and stared at his reddened fingers for a moment. Then he seemed galvanised into action by the sound of running feet outside. He heaved open the door.

  'What the hell's going on, sailor?' he bawled.

  Gant picked himself off the floor, rubbing his shoulder. Feeling was returning to it, and he reckoned that nothing was dislocated or broken.

  'Sir — we don't know.'

  'What? Then what the hell are you doing here, sailor? Find out!'

  'Sir!' The man's footsteps retreated down the com-panionway.

  'The Firefox!' Gant said.

  'The hell with that!' Seerbacker exploded. 'What about my boat?'

  Gant followed him out of the cabin. Fleischer was leaning against the bulkhead, blood oozing from a deep, livid gash on his forehead. Seerbacker ignored him, dazed as he was, and pressed past him towards the control room. Gant stopped briefly to examine the wound, then he patted the young man on the shoulder, and followed in the captain's wake.

  The control room gave a confused impression of men picking themselves up, of furniture overturned. Gant headed towards the hatch-ladder up to the bridge.

  'Get me a damage report — and quick!' barked the captain.

  The freezing air bit through Gant's parka, and the wind plucked his first raw breath away from him. From the top of the sail, he could see the Firefox in the improved visibility, apparently undamaged. The men who had been working on the ice were scattered, one or two still prone, obviously injured, other men bending over them, others spreading out over the ice.

  Gant yelled down to a sailor near the submarine:

  'What happened?'

  The man looked up, saw the captain standing alongside Gant.

  'Don't know, sir. We — heard this cracking sound, like a scream, and then I was trying to push my face into the floe. I thought it was a fish homing on the boat, sir!'

  'It was no torpedo. Where's Mr. Peck?'

  'He headed off that way, sir,' the sailor replied, pointing due north across the floe.

  Gant strained his eyes, but the mist still clung to the floe in patches, and visibility was no more than a hundred yards at best. He stared in the direction of Peck's disappearance, and there was an unstable yet formless apprehension watery in his stomach. As the minutes passed, the wind, stronger now it seemed, gusted occasionally into his face, making his eyes water. And he began to be afraid.

  Then he saw Peck's figure emerging from the mist. As if prompted by something in his mind, or as if Peck's appearance heralded an answer, he began to run towards the Chief Engineer.

  'What is it?' he asked breathlessly, reaching the big man. 'What's wrong?'

  Peck looked down at him, and said simply: 'Pressure ridge.'

  'What?' Gant's face was open with shock. 'How big?'

  'Three, maybe four feet — right across the floe, if my guess is right.'

  'Where, man — where? Show me!' He dragged at Peck's sleeve, and the big man turned round, following him. Gant's white, desperate face disturbed him, especially the way he kept moving ahead in obvious impatience and then looking round, like a dog hurrying its master. Seerbacker, puzzled, followed in their wake.

  The pressure ridge was almost four feet high and it had emerged from the ice like a low wall stretching, right across the floe, as far as Gant could see in either direction.

  'You said it — goes all the way?'

  'All the way — I walked a fair piece of it, in both directions. I guess it goes right across.'

  Gant looked as though he disbelieved Peck for a moment but he knew that the engineer would have understood the significance of the ridge, and would have checked its extent for the right reason.

  'How — did it happen?' he said stupidly.

  'Only one way,' the big man said grimly. 'Ousting wind drove one of the smaller floes behind us right up our ass — like an automobile smash. Result, one pressure-ridge.'

  Gant turned on Peck, grabbing the sleeves of his parka in both hands. 'You realise what this means?' he said. 'I can't damn well get out of here. I can't take off!'

  * * *

  The result of his deliberations, of his self-recriminations and the growing certainty that he was right and the First Secretary was disastrously wrong was, Vladimirov reflected bitterly, nothing more than a hesitation, a glance in the direction of the most powerful man in the Soviet Union. When the bulky figure merely nodded, emphasising his last order, Vladimirov turned back to the console in front of him and spoke.

  'Tretsov — Vladimirov.' Though he had ignored code, he would not identify the aircraft with which he was communicating, other than by the pilot's name. In that lay a degree of anonymity.

  At that moment, Tretsov, tide second test-pilot on the Mig-31 project was at fifty thousand feet, his nose-probe buried in the udder of a refuelling plane, with which the Mig had made rendezvous minutes before.

  Static crackled through the console speaker. 'Tretsov — over,' came the faint voice.

  'Vladimirov to Tretsov. Proceed to the North Cape area as soon as refuelling is completed.'

  'North Cape — repeat your message please.'

  Vladimirov's voice betrayed his anger. Of course the pilot wondered at the change of plan!

  'I said North Cape — make radio contact with the following units — missile-cruiser Riga, "Wolfpack" ground patrol Murmansk — do you copy?'

  After a silence: 'Tretsov — I copy. Proceed to North Cape, contact Riga and ground control Murmansk — over.'

  'Good. Await further instructions — over and out.'

  Vladimirov flicked the switch, and turned away from the transmitter. It did not matter, he thought, that the Americans would undoubtedly pick up the signal, transmitted in clear voice as it had been. It was merely another unit being directed towards the decoy area. He looked once more at the First Secretary but the Soviet leader was in whispered conversation with Andropov. He turned his gaze towards Kutuzov. The old man's rheumy eyes met his, and he shook his head slightly. Vladimirov's eyes thanked him for the gesture of sympathy, of understanding.

  Then the thoughts began to nag at him again. If only he could be sure in some way… He knew how it had been done, what the search-units ought to be looking for. But he was afraind, afraid to risk the shreds of his credibility, the remains of his career, on such a wild idea. He swallowed. He knew the answer — and he knew the First Secretary would not listen.

  He despised himself. He was throwing away the Mig-31, handing it to the Americans on a platter! Yet he could do nothing — they would not believe him.

  * * *

  They had checked the floe. As Peck has surmised, the ridge ran the whole east-west axis. It was a little more than half-way down the length of the floe, down the runway for the aircraft. Gant could not possibly, by any mechanical or physical means, take off along the length of snow-covered ice available to him while the ridge remained.

  'It will work, sir,' Peck was saying, leaning forward, standing taller than the thin figure of Seerbacker. Fleischer, his training and experience inadequate for these particular circumstances, remained silent. Peck's second engineer, Haynes, contributed his assessments of time and effort in support of his chief. With Gant, there were now five of them, standing stiffly in the raw air, wrapped in the mist that still clung to the floe. The wind was still gusting, but less strongly now as if, having achieved its purpose, it had become satisfied, quiescent.

  'Hell, Jack — have we enough axes and shovels on board to do the job?' Seerbacker said. His eyes slid for a moment towards Gant, who seemed to be studying the floe intently, taking no notice of the discussion. Seerbacker was irritated by the man's apparent detachment, then dismissed it from his mind.

  'Sir, we've got enough — crowbars, heavy screwdriver
s, axes — anything!' Peck seemed to take Seerbacker's caution as a personal affront. 'And we could place a couple of small charges, maybe?' he added.

  'Damn that, Jack!'

  'No, sir. You place 'em properly, small ones — you won't damage the ice!'

  Seerbacker was silent for a moment, then he said, addressing Gant:

  'How wide is the wheel-track on that bird, Gant?'

  'Twenty-two feet,' Gant replied mechanically.

  'You certain?'

  Gant merely nodded, without shifting his gaze from the ridge. He kicked at it aimlessly with a boot. Some loose snow flicked away, spattered on the toe — he had not marked the surface of the ridge.

  'How much d'you need — how much of this wall you want to come down?' Peck said.

  Gant turned his head, recognising the challenge in the big man's voice. He smiled humourlessly, thought for a moment, and then said: 'Thirty feet.'

  There was a leaden silence for a moment, then Seerbacker said:

  'Don't bullshit, Gant. You're not going to waste my time and wreck that bird just to prove something to my chief engineer!' His eyes flickered between the two men, sensing the challenge and response, its origins in Gant's earlier momentary panic in front of Peck.

  'Thirty feet,' Gant said. 'That's all I'll need.'

  'Then it's thirty fuckin' feet you'll get, mister!' Seerbacker spat back. 'Now you pick out the spot, man — and Mr. Peck and his team will get to work for you!'

  Gant strolled away from them, and the four men tagged wearily behind him, as if unwilling. Seerbacker regretted the way he had handled Gant, bridling him, making him say something which he would obviously regret. Yet there was no sign of doubt on Gant's face, no fear that a margin for error of four feet on either side of the main undercart in the visibility now available to him was almost like cutting his throat with a blunt knife.

  Damn him to hell! Seerbacker thought. He gets right under my skin!

  Gant stopped, waited for them, and said: 'Here.'

  He kicked a boot hard into the ice at the crest of the ridge at stomach height, and chipped the crest slightly. Peck reached into the pocket of his parka, pulled out an aerosal can, and sprayed it on the ice. Part of the chipped portion of crest sagged under the impact of the alcohol-based de-icing fluid. Gant paced out thirty feet, and waited for Peck to mark the ice. Then he nodded. Seerbacker sensed they were almost in the centre of the ridge, near the centre of the floe. Gant had picked the longest north-south axis for his take-off.

  'How long to clear thirty feet, Mr. Peck?' Seerbacker asked.

  'An hour, sir — if you include the spraying-down.' -

  Gant wanted to tell them it was too long — but there was no point in futile protest.

  'An hour?'

  Peck nodded. Seerbacker was silent for a moment, then tugged his handset from his pocket. He pressed the button, and said: 'Waterson — hook me up to the ship's address system, huh?' He waited until his request was accomplished, and then he said: 'This is the captain — hear this. It will take one hour for the pressure-ridge to be cleared, and that means we have to stay on the surface for that length of time. I want utmost vigilance at all time; air, surface, and subsurface searches to be thorough. If any of you guys misses something, you kill all of us — understand that. You won't just be shitting on yourself or your service record! And you stay rigged for silent running — we're going to be making enough noise up here for all of you, so keep it quiet. You guys on the plane — just keep it de-iced and ready to roll the minute you get the word. Mr. Peck is in charge of the shore-party to work on the ridge, and I'll let him tell you who's volunteered, and what equipment he wants out here. Just a minute — Doc?' There was a pause, then:

  'Yes, skipper?'

  'What about our casualties?'

  'Harper's concussed — hit that hard head of his on the deckplates. Smith lost a couple of teeth fighting the ice, and I'm putting four stitches in the back of Riley's skull. Anything else is less dramatic than that.'

  'Thanks Doc. Tell Riley it should improve his brain — and Smith's looks will definitely have improved! O.K., here's Mr. Peck, you guys. Hear him good.'

  He switched off and pocketed his own handset, and left Peck calling out his list of names, the catalogue of brawn that the Pequod was able to muster.

  Seerbacker joined Gant. He stared at him for a moment, then said: 'You are sure?'

  Gant nodded.

  'Don't worry — Peck doesn't get to me. I can get out through thirty feet of clear ice.'

  'In visibility like this?'

  'In worse.'

  'Hell, man — O.K., but it's your funeral.'

  There was a silence, then Gant said: 'Thanks, Seerbacker — for the hour.'

  Seerbacker felt awkward. Gant, he sensed, was making a real effort, meant what he was saying.

  'Yeah — sure. I wouldn't do it for just anybody, though,' he said, and grinned.

  'I–I'll go take a look at the plane.'

  'Sure, you do that.'

  Gant nodded, and walked away. Near the Pequod, he could see figures hurrying through the grey curtain of the mist, wrapped in the white breath of their effort Peck, he thought without rancour, was a taskmaster, and when he said jump, they jumped. It wasn't his business. Peck knew what he was doing.

  It had been his suggestion, from the beginning. The crude hacking out of a section of the ridge, then the smoothing process to follow, the former accomplished by brute force and axes, the latter by spraying the broken section of the ridge with the superheated steam that drove the turbines of the submarine, directed onto the ice by pressure hoses.

  The Firefox was clear of ice. Alongside, looking as if it had strayed from some gigantic toolshed, was a ten-foot piece of equipment resembling nothing so much as a garden-spray. This was linked by a hose to a fluid tank in the sail of the Pequod, and from it, pumped by a small electric motor, gushed a stream of alcohol-based anti-icing fluid — the 'booze' as Seerbacker's crew referred to it. This kept the wings and fuselage free of ice. Four men operated the sprayer — two men pushed it on its undercarriage, and two others directed the fine, pressurised spray from two small hoses tucked beneath their arms. They went about their task with a mechanical, unthinking precision, and Gant could see the light indentations of the wheels beneath the sprayer where they had ceaselessly circumnavigated the plane.

  Gant stood and watched the Firefox for a long time, as if drawn to the machine, as if feeding through his eyes. He had had no time until now, no moment of being outside the plane with time to absorb its lines, its design, its functional wickedness of appearance. The first time — there had only been the confused impression of noise, and light, and the fire at the far end of the hangar, and Baranovich's white-coated figure lumped on the concrete… Now he watched in silence, taking in the slim fuselage, the bulging air-intakes in front of the massive engines, larger than anything Turmansky had ever thought of fitting to an interceptor-attack plane, the seemingly impossible stubbiness of the wings, with the advanced Anab missiles slung in position beneath them. He saw the scorch marks where he had fired two of them — one to bring down the Badger, the other to goad the captain of the Riga into premature action. He walked closer. The two missiles had been replaced, making up his complement of four.

  This didn't really surprise him. A Mig-25 had been captured from the Syrians in the dummy-run for this operation. Presumably, it had been armed and its missiles, Anabs, had been assigned to Seerbacker, for delivery. Buckholz, Gant realised, missed nothing.

  The refuelling had been completed even while he, Seerbacker and Peck had discussed the ridge. The hoses had been withdrawn, the bonding wire removed from the nose-wheel strut Presumably, the refuelling crew were now taking their turn at the ridge.

  He walked away with reluctance, then, as the distance increased, and the Firefox became a shadowy, insubstantial bulk in the mist, he lengthened his stride.

  It took him almost half-an-hour to walk from the Firefox to the southerly
end of the floe and then to traverse the floe from south to north, along the line of his visualised runway. The collision of the floes had not damaged the runway, other than by the ridge. He was returning from the northern edge of the floe when the handset that Fleischer had issued him bleeped in his pocket.

  'Yes?'

  'Gant?' Seerbacker's voice sounded laboured, out of breath. 'Listen to me, mister. We've got three sonar contacts to the south of us, along your flight-path.'

  Gant was silent for a moment, then he said: 'Yes — it has to be the cruiser and her two escorts — hunter-killer subs.'

  'Jesus — you know how to make trouble for me, Gant — you really, really do!'

  'How long before they get here?'

  'Forty — maybe forty-five minutes.'

  'Then that's enough time.'

  'Fuck you, mister! Enough time for you to get the hell out of here — what about my ship? What about its gallant crew who are at this moment working their tails off to get you a runway you can use?'

  'I–I'm sorry, Seerbacker — I didn't think…'

  Almost as if he were winning a point, Seerbacker replied:

  'Anyway — it'll take longer than we thought. It seems Mr. Peck was a little optimistic in his estimates. We'll need almost the same time to get you out of here as they'll need to catch up on us!'

  Gant was silent. Eventually, Seerbacker said: 'You still there, Gant?'

  'Uh — yeah. You sure they're heading this way?'

  'Maybe, maybe not. They weren't, that's for sure.'

  'Weren't?'

  'They were steaming west, across the track of the floe, but sure as hell is hot, Gant, if we can see them, then they can damn well see us!'

  Ten

  THE DUEL

  Vladimirov confronted the First Secretary, a renewed sense of purpose doing little to contradict or overcome the tension he felt. He knew, with a sickening certainty, that he did not want to throw his career away, that he wanted Kutuzov's rank and post when the old man was put out to grass. Yet he was contained within a dilemma. Even if he managed to quell the rising doubts and proceed as ordered, there was still the chance that, if Gant succeeded in escaping with the Mig-31 intact, he himself would be blamed for the Soviet failure to recapture or destroy. It was that knowledge finally that persuaded him to demand that action be taken with regard to the sonar-contact reported by the Riga a minute before.