Firefox Down

by Craig Thomas

  'Yes. But, how long?'

  'Long?'

  'Will they come now, at once?' She shook her head. 'Then no radio. I must go now. I - ' He decided to ask rather than demand. 'I need something warm - to wear.'

  She nodded. 'My husband - he will take you on the sledge, when he returns, or tomorrow, to the main road, perhaps.' Not alien, somehow familiar and expected. He was warm at last. Tears of weariness and respopse pricked at his eyes. The promises of aid in the strange, halting English numbed him as certainly as the cold outside.

  Could he - ? No. No risks…

  Quarter of a mile, no, more than that now.

  'Clothes,' he said heavily.

  The beam of the searchlight from the descending helicopter swept over the room, fuzzily gleaming for a moment through the steam-clouded window. Then it was gone, bouncing off the slope before it finally disappeared and all that remained was the racket of the rotors. Gant listened. Only one, still time…

  'Clothes!' he snapped, his voice ugly.

  She did not, however, react as if she feared him. She nodded. 'Who are they?'

  'Russians.'

  She spat, suddenly and surprisingly. It was the reflex, racial memory of a once-real hatred. She snapped: 'We are Skolt Lapps - we live here now since we lost our homes in Petsamo. Petsamo belongs to them now, since the war. Russians - !'

  The rotors roared, then began to wind down. Gant pressed himself against the wall, and squinted through the steam on the window. The rotors died. He heard no dogs, but the noises from the round-up had quietened. Two minutes - ?

  He glanced around the room. The woman had gone. He panicked, but as he moved she re-entered the doorway, holding a heavy check jacket and a pair of thick trousers. And walking boots.

  'These - I hope they fit you.'

  He bundled them under his arm, fingers locking inside the boots to hold them. She moved to the outside door. He stared at the puddle that marked his presence, the one or two half-footprints on the polished floorboards. Smiling, she tilted the pot on the stove. Stew sloshed onto the floor. Then she beckoned him.

  Cold threatened from the door.

  He dropped his bundle, pulled on the jacket for disguise and warmth, then collected the trousers and boots and rifle. He could hear voices, almost conversational in volume and tone, but he could not hear dogs. On the doorstep, he nodded to her. She touched his shoulder, her expression already settling to a kind of passivity. She was preparing her face.

  'They are pretending to be Finns,' she whispered. 'But their accents are bad. Go now. That way.' She pointed back up the slope. He saw the deep black holes of his descent of the slope. She pushed him ahead of her. 'I went for a walk, looking for the dog,' she said.

  He turned to thank her, but she merely shook her head. 'Go,' she instructed. 'The Finnmark is twenty miles away.'

  He was already climbing the slope, urgency driving out the sense of who had given him the jacket and the clothes he carried under his arm. He was primarily aware of his right hand once more and the rifle it held.

  He turned back once, at the crest of the slope, near the bush which had earlier concealed him. The door of the hut was closed. Probably, the woman had begun to be afraid now, to physically shake with reaction, as much at his presence as that of the Russians. Now, she would be deciding she should not have helped him, that her home had been broken into, invaded.

  The round-up had ended. Reindeer stamped and shuffled. The MiL helicopter sat like a squat beetle, rotors still, near the corrals. A group of men were talking. Dark clothing and white Arctic camouflage.

  Three, four - six…

  Spreading out, searching. There seemed no resistance from the Lapps. Perhaps they believed the fiction that the soldiers were Finns. He turned his back on the village and trudged into the trees.

  Twenty miles, she had said. Twenty.

  It was a huge distance, almost huge enough to be a void, something uncrossable.

  Vladimirov turned from the window of the Tupolev as Dmitri Priabin entered the War Command Centre ahead of the First Secretary. The young man's face was elated, yet he also appeared to be recovering from a bout of nausea. There was a bright sheen of sweat on his forehead, and his neck was pink above the collar of his uniform. Vladimirov knew, with an inward, cold amusement, that the young officer had survived, that the collar and shoulder insignia of the uniform would soon be changed. Now, they denoted Priabin as a lieutenant. What next? Captain Priabin, or the dizzy heights of a colonelcy? It appeared that the young man's former superior, Kontarsky, was to bear the burden of failure entirely alone. Priabin had first identified Gant, probably by accident more than design, and almost in time to stop him. He had earned the reprieve of promotion.

  He had arrived expecting to suffer, and had been rewarded. Vladimirov did not envy him anything except his youth as he hurriedly exited from the room. Then he turned his back on the First Secretary and looked down at the tarmac, where an imposing queue of black limousines was drawn up. Priabin went down the passenger steps and climbed into the back of one of the cars. It drove off towards the administration buildings and the perimeter fence. Presumably, Priabin had some woman to impress with his narrow escape, his unexpected promotion. Vladimirov returned his attention to the War Command Centre.

  The Soviet leader had donned his overcoat. His fur hat rested like a pet in one of his gloved hands. His face was stern. He had paused only to listen to the latest report from the commander of the KGB Border Guard units they had despatched into Finnish Lapland. As the voice from the cabin speaker proceeded with the report, the First Secretary nodded occasionally.

  Vladimirov watched Andropov. There was a faint gleam of perspiration on his shaven upper lip. Responsibility had passed to himself, as well as to Vladimirov. It was an uneasy and temporary alliance that the air force general did not welcome or trust.

  The high-speed transmissions from the command helicopter were received by the AWACS Tupolev, then re-transmitted to Moscow. In the War Command Centre, they were played back at normal speed. Vladimirov could not rid himself of the analogy of some obscure sporting commentary. He listened through the caution, through wanting-to-please, wanting-to-succeed, and tried to assess how close they were to the American.

  For he was there. The parachute had been found by one of the dogs, tracks had been followed, a village might, or might not, have given him shelter, clothing, food. He was heading in a north-westerly direction, towards the closest outjutting of the Norwegian frontier. He was, they guessed, less than twenty miles from his objective. The hunters had a night and part of a day, no more.

  The transmission ended with a request for orders. Immediately, the First Secretary looked at Andropov and at Vladimirov, and then, having fixed each of them with a blunt, unwavering stare, merely nodded. Men sprang to renewed attention as he left the compartment. They heard his high shoes ring on the frosty metal of the passenger ladder. Vladimirov resisted the impulse to turn his head, and continued to watch Andropov. Suddenly, the Chairman of the KGB gestured him to follow, into the recreation suite.

  'Tell the commander to hold for instructions,' Vladimirov snapped, following Andropov. He closed the compartment door behind him. Andropov was pouring himself a whisky at the bar.

  'Drink?' he asked.

  'No, thank you.'

  Andropov gulped some of the liquor as he turned to Vladimirov. 'Well?' he demanded. 'What now?'

  'From your people?'

  'Our people!' Andropov snapped.

  'I'd forgotten-our people.'

  'What about this Nimrod aircraft in the area?'

  'It must have picked up the helicopters. Obviously, they also wish to know what happened.'

  'And will they have units like ours in the area too?'

  Vladimirov shook his head. 'I doubt that. Unfortunately, we have been unable to help giving something of the game away. We need him quickly now. The Nimrod was very low - presumably it collected photographs, which will be analysed. That gives us time. I
think enough time.'

  'Damned forest!' Andropov erupted.

  'I agree. It makes things more difficult. We know he was with the Lapps - but he stole food and clothing, no more. He wasn't hiding there. He cannot be more than a mile ahead of our people - once again, they must put down men ahead of his probable track.'

  'Yes, yes, of course they must-!' Andropov drank the remainder of the whisky, and studied the glass. Vladimirov saw his gaze stray to the bottle on the bar, but he made no move towards it. 'Where is the plane, Vladimirov? There's not enough wreckage in those photographs… you and I know that, even though the experts will take hours to decide the same thing.' Spots of pink glowed on the Chairman's high cheekbones. 'We know it isn't there - so, where is it? Eh, where is it, this priceless white elephant of ours? We know he didn't eject because of the parachute they found-he landed that plane, Vladimirov. Do you realise that?"

  Vladimirov nodded. 'Yes. I do. But I do not know where. Only he can tell us that. Had he been one of our pilots, or had it been an American aircraft, he would have stayed near it. In this case, he has been trying to open up the distance between himself and the MiG-31. The British Nimrod, too, wonders where the aircraft is, no doubt. Only Gant knows.'

  'Then we must have him!'

  'We will. His time is running out.'

  'I wish I could be certain of that.'

  'Your men are following his tracks, Comrade Chairman! What more do you want? Their footsteps are planted in his. In an hour, perhaps two, he will be ours.' Vladimirov smiled. 'Then we will both be off the hook, mm?'

  Andropov merely glowered in reply. He pondered for a time, then said, 'Couldn't we track back along his journey?'

  'Perhaps. But, had it been me, I would have changed direction a dozen times. And, by now, his tracks will have gone, and his scent will have grown cold. Don't worry - Gant has the answer. Soon you will be able to ask him for that answer - personally.'

  'There's no doubt about these photographs,' Buckholz protested vigorously, his finger tapping the glistening enlargements that lay scattered on the plot-table of the Scampton Ops. Room. 'You use dogs to sniff for explosives -unlikely - or you use them to hunt men. Those are dogs - KGB Border Guard dogs.' His large, blunt-fingered hands spread the enlargements in a new pattern, as if he were dealing cards or flinging down items of evidence. 'These troops are in Arctic camouflage, but they're not military. These MiL Mi-4s are what the Border Guard favour for personnel and equipment transport. And they don't have any markings at all… just the way the Border Guard operates. No, Colonel, what else do you need to see before you make up your mind?'

  'Charles,' Pyott began defensively, 'I realise that Washington is very keen to get on with this job, but - '

  'You have to get your government off its butt, Colonel! Time is running out for Gant, and for us.'

  Aubrey, as a distraction, picked up a sheaf of the photographs that had been transmitted over the wireprint from Eastoe's Nimrod. They were all pale, shining with the ghostly light of the advanced infra-red cameras that had produced them. Men almost in negative in the very last of the daylight and the ensuing darkness.

  He looked at the prints of the lake. Broken ice near the neck of the lake, but very little of it. A small, shrinking patch of black water. Yet the Firefox had to be underneath the water, beneath the healing ice. The remaining pictures, of the wreckage at the point of explosion, were uninteresting. Aubrey, without study and without expert advice, knew that nothing of the MiG-31 lay there.

  Pybtt glanced at Aubrey. 'Number Ten is being very reluctant over this, Kenneth,' he began, seeking an ally.

  'Because the Cabinet Defence Committee has always pooh-poohed the Firefox, I wonder? The P.M. isn't bullying them any more, I suppose?' He turned to Buckholz. 'Is the President applying the right amount of pressure, Charles?' Buckholz nodded. 'Everyone would like to walk away, except for Washington.'…

  'The usual restrictions, of course, Kenneth - if you're caught, we'll deny everything.'

  'We work with those every day - they're not important. It's doing something - and quickly - that is important.' He stared meaningfully at Pyott, who held up his hands, wrists pressed together to represent unseen bonds. 'Tied they may be, Giles- but really.'

  'What can I do?' Pyott asked softly.

  'Look at them!' Aubrey returned, his hand flapping towards the scattered enlargements. 'Gant may be alive - he knows where the body is buried, as do we. If they get to him, they will know! We must at least establish what is beneath the ice - before we decide our response.' He looked at Buckholz, and shook his head. 'I don't think there's anything we can do for poor Gant - I can't order military units into that area.'

  'I know that. So will he. He knows he's on his own.'

  Aubrey nodded lugubriously, plucking at his lower lip. Then, as suddenly and superficially as a child, his mood changed. He turned on Pyott and said, in an intense whisper, almost hunching over the enlargements on the plot-table, 'You already have Waterford standing by with a four-man unit at Kirkenes. Their diving equipment is loaded onto a Royal Norwegian Air Force Lynx helicopter. You have the agreement of Commander, Allied Forces Northern Norway, for this flight under the guise of a search-and-rescue mission ... Giles, please make up your mind to act-!'

  'I have other people to please apart from yourself, SIS, or even the CIA…' Pyott began, then clamped his lips tightly shut. He shook his head, 'Unofficially, JIC wishes something done - so do the Chiefs of Staff, but Cabinet opinion is against any exacerbation of the situation. They'll settle for the loss of the two - the only two - production prototypes of the Firefox. The expert reasoning is that the Bilyarsk project will have been put back by at least two, even three years by what has happened. The Russians may even scrap the whole, hideously expensive project.'

  'And if the Firefox is intact? And the Russians ask their friendly neighbours, the Finns, for their toy back?' Aubrey demanded with withering irony, his face red with frustration. His hands were clenched at his sides.

  'Yes,' Pyott admitted.'Yes, I know.'

  'Washington will carry the day, you know that,' Aubrey observed. 'Gresham, as P.M., and the rest of the Cabinet will have to sanction whatever the President wishes to happen - however much they dislike the medicine.'

  'But they have not yet done so - '

  'And we have run out of time.'

  Momentarily, Giles Pyott's cheeks glowed with anger, then he turned on his heel. 'Very well,' he snapped, 'very well.'

  Aubrey hurried after him as he mounted the ladder to the communications gallery. 'Tell Waterford he must check this KGB activity,' he called. Pyott stopped and turned.

  'No!'

  'Yes,' Aubrey insisted. 'We have to know whether or not Gant is alive - we have to know when, and if, they take him alive. Everything could depend upon it.'

  Pyott paused, his brow furrowed, his cheeks hot. Then he nodded. He, too, could not escape the conclusions Aubrey offered; could not escape his imprisonment within the situation. Aubrey - the covert world that he and Buckholz represented - was his jailer. He saw himself within a fortress, a castle. The politicians had erected the outer walls; they could be breached, or removed, or their existence could be denied as circumstances dictated. But Pyott knew himself to be imprisoned within the keep of the castle, and the walls of the keep had been made by Aubrey and Buckholz and the MiG - and its pilot. The walls were impenetrable, inescapable. He nodded.

  'Very well,' he announced angrily. 'Very well.'

  He opened the door to the communications gallery. Aubrey scurried in behind him.

  He was floundering through the snow now. They still had not released the dogs, but he could hear them barking close behind him. The snow was deep, almost solid, restraining him, pulling him back. He had abandoned the floor of the shallow valley, keeping to the slope, but even here the snow lay heaped and traplike near bushes and boulders. He slipped often. The effects of the hot food were gone. He was utterly weary.

  When he had halted la
st, he had checked the map. More than three miles from the village, perhaps another sixteen - fifteen now, or a little more? - to the Norwegian border, to villages, to police, to another state where he might be safe. Safe - ?

  They wouldn't let him remain. They would take him back.

  He stumbled, his wrist hurt as his weight collapsed on it, the .22 rifle ploughed into the snow. Furiously, he shook the barrel; snow fluttered away from it. The sky was black and clear, the stars like gleaming stones. Silver light from a thin paring of new moon lay lightly on the snow. He climbed groggily to his feet and looked behind him. Noise of dogs, and a glimpse of lights. The distant sound of one of the helicopters. He did not know where the choppers were, and it worried him. They buzzed at his imagination like flies, as audible in his head as if they were physically present, their belly-lights streaming along the floor of the valley searching for his footprints. One of them had to be ahead, its platoon already fanned out and sweeping slowly back towards him, in radio contact with the pursuit behind him.

  Radio -

  He had known, had hidden the fact from himself.

  Radio.

  It winded him like a blow, the admission of their technology, their ability to communicate. Even now, at that precise moment, he was pinpointed.

  He looked up at the black sky with its faint sheen, its glittering stars. At any moment, the choppers would come. The pursuit was too close now not to be able to locate him.

  Somewhere along the valley floor, just - there…

  A finger was tracing contours; the twisting course of the valley. A helicopter would bank, turn-

  He ran. Ice glittered on a bush, and he brushed savagely against the obstacle. The rifle pumped against his thigh, against the heavy waterproof trousers. His chest hurt with the temperature of the.air he was inhaling. The survival pack bumped and strained and dragged at his back. He glanced behind once more -

  Lights.

  Noise - ahead-