Firefox Down

by Craig Thomas

  Only to lose him, Waterford thought. 'How long?' he asked.

  'A matter of minutes.' Cloud was building above the canopy of the cockpit, the sliver of moon threatened. To the east, it might already be snowing on the Russian border. 'In a few minutes, we can return to the lake.'

  'We're all fucked if that plane's in one piece!' Waterford growled.

  'Well done, Colonel - well done!'

  It was difficult not to smile at Andropov's enthusiasm - smile with it, Vladimirov corrected himself. Smile in concert. The War Command Centre was like the scene of a promotion or medal-presentation party, though the guests were not yet drunk. But they had done it - !

  'My congratulations, too, Colonel,' Vladimirov added into the microphone. He and Andropov watched one another until they heard the Border Guard commander's reply.

  'Thank you, Comrade General - thank you.'

  'What of the other helicopter?' Andropov asked Vladimirov. 'It was Norwegian, I presume?'

  'The Nimrod knew we were looking. It, too, was looking. We found him. Soon, he will tell us what happened to the MiG-31. What he has done with it.'

  Andropov leaned towards the transmitter once more. The operator seemed to flinch slightly from the proximity of the Chairman of the KGB. 'Transfer him to Murmansk with all possible speed, Colonel - then he'll be flown to Moscow He turned away from the transmitter, and added to Vladimirov: 'Midday tomorrow, at the latest. He'll be here by midday.' Andropov removed his spectacles and wiped them. His narrow features sagged. 'It has been a very long day,' he said nonchalantly, 'and now I feel tired.' He suppressed a yawn.

  'I, too.' Vladimirov watched the Chairman replace his gold-rimmed spectacles. When he looked up once more, brushing the disturbed wings of hair above his ears, his confidence had returned. Pleasure had been succeeded by calculation. It was evident that the capture of Gant was of some kind of political significance to Andropov. Already, the incident was being prepared as a piece of propaganda, something to be used against the military, or employed to impress the rest of the Politburo. Their temporary, uncomfortable alliance was at an end.

  'Of course, General.' The remark was a sneer, a comment upon energy, on advancing age. Vladimirov straightened his form, standing three or four inches taller than Andropov. The Chairman turned away. His grey suit could not match the uniform and he realised it.

  The Border Guard commander acknowledged his orders, almost unnoticed.

  'I'll arrange for a transport aircraft to be standing by. The weather is worsening east of Murmansk, but there will be no delay. A detachment of GRU troops will provide an escort for the American -'

  Andropov turned sharply. 'Make certain they fulfil their duties, Comrade General,' he snapped icily.

  Vladimirov's cheeks burned. 'Of course.'

  'Then I will say goodnight,' Andropov offered without mollification, as a bodyguard placed the Chairman's overcoat over his shoulders and then handed him his fur hat. He tipped his gloves to his forehead in salute to Vladimirov, and then exited from the War Command Centre.

  Vladimirov turned to the map-table. On impulse, almost as if reaching for a bottle or a sedative, he said, 'Give me the area of the capture again.'

  Slowly, tantalisingly, the north of Finnish Lapland and the coast of Norway at the northern edge of the projection, appeared then hardened on the table. It was a relatively small area, it had to be… the man had not used his parachute, he must have landed the MiG -

  Or survived a crash-landing.

  North to south, no more than fifty or sixty miles, east to west, eighty miles - it could be narrowed down within that area by time, by Gant's condition, by his rate and mode of travel. He must have been with the aircraft when it grounded.

  Where?

  His hand stroked the surface of the table, glowing white and green and blue as it moved, catching the colours, fuzzy bright colours…

  Vladimirov blinked and yawned. He was bone-weary; he needed sleep.

  He could sleep, he told himself with an undistinguished thrill of satisfaction, until the following midday. Gant knew, Gant would tell them…

  He stifled another yawn, and blinked the hypnosis of the map and its colours out of his head.

  'Stand down all personnel - transfer the transmission monitoring to the operations room here,' he instructed quickly, anxious now to get out into the cold night air, to reinvigorate himself with the chill. 'And - well done, all of you. Well done.'

  A chorused murmur of satisfaction and assent vanished behind him as he closed the door of the War Command Centre. In the compartment aft of it lay his cap, uniform greatcoat, and his gloves. How long ago had he laid them down? When he had boarded this aircraft in Moscow; on his way to witness the weapons trial of the production prototype - a million years ago… yesterday…?

  He looked at his watch. Eleven. No, today still. Early that morning.

  He rubbed his eyes and picked up his greatcoat.

  Brooke reached out his hand and stroked the metal of the fuselage, just behind the headlike nose and cockpit. It was like stroking some huge, sleeping pet whose body retreated out of the fuzzy glare of his lamp into the dark water. He had swum down the length of the airframe, lifting slowly over the huge wing, gripping the edges of the massive tailpipes as he rounded the tail section, his lamp dancing wildly off the contours of the plane. He had propelled himself forward towards the second great spread wing. His flippers had touched against the metal as he lifted over it, before he returned to the nose section.

  It had taken no more than minutes to find the intact airframe. His sergeant had been first down, after he had checked and then hidden the satellite commpack which would carry any transmissions from the site direct to a geostationary communications satellite, and on to London. Almost at once, Sergeant Dawson had been confronted by the blunt, ugly nose of the MiG-31. His lamp had disappeared beneath the new thin coating of ice, for which Brooke was grateful, since their search would be undetectable from the air. He had made the preliminary inspection while Brooke and the two corporals had scouted the shore of the lake, the closest trees and the ice itself for the homing device whose carrier wave Eastoe had picked up. They had searched most carefully where the ice had congregated into rougher, jerry-built shapes, presumably from the break-up after the MiG had landed. They had found it jammed between two resoldered plates of ice, after Dawson had returned to the surface and was warming himself with coffee. Brooke had switched it off, and then listened to Dawson's preliminary damage report. The undercarriage door appeared to have been buckled, there was cannon damage in the port wing and in two places along the fuselage where fuel lines might have been ruptured, but the cockpit was closed - some water inside, but not much - and the aircraft appeared to have been fully shut down, presumably by Gant.

  Brooke understood the significance of the report. The intact airframe was more dangerous, a hundres times more dangerous, than shards and pieces of wreckage on the floor of the lake. The Bilyarsk project continued to exist. He had dived himself the moment Dawson had finished, instructing one of the corporals - the best among them with an underwater camera - to prepare for a full photographic record.

  The aircraft had awed him. Its size, of course, was huge in the partial, weak light of his lamp. More than that, its black paint, its almost total absence of markings, its praying-mantis head, its drooping wings, made it alien; most of all, its location beneath the frozen lake was sufficient to make it mesmeric, almost nightmarish as his lamp's beam danced over it.

  The corporal grinned behind his facemask as Brooke jumped at the heavily gloved hand on his shoulder. Bubbles, air tanks, facemask, all fitted the scene and the airframe. He nodded, indicating the length of the fuselage, the undercarriage, the wings. Almost at once, the corporal, propelling the large underwater camera steadily in front of him, its flash unit like a blank television screen, began swimming along the airframe. The flash unit fired time after time. Each time, a part of the fuselage glared. Cannon-holes, wing section, tail, tailpipe
s, belly of the airframe, undercarriage, wing, cockpit… the light flashed again and again as each part of the MiG was recorded.

  Brooke almost felt betrayal under the ice as he recalled the explosive charges they carried in one of the packs. They had no orders, but the airframe was intact… the easiest way to solve the problem, from London's point of view, would be to plant and detonate enough explosive to shatter the airframe, melt the electronics, destroy the hydraulics - kill the aircraft. That aircraft, that huge thing in the repeated glare of the flash or in the beam he played almost lovingly over it. He was surprised by his own sentiments; perhaps it was the too-familiar expectation of wreckage whenever he dived. Bodies, twisted metal, charred plates, signals of damage and destruction everywhere. But this - ? It was complete, almost untouched; salvageable.

  Impossible. They'd be ordered to destroy it.

  The corporal swam towards Brooke, his thumb erect. Brooke slapped his shoulder and the corporal swam towards the surface. His form bumped along the last feet of ice, and then he was only a half-body in the beam of light, legs flapping lazily, moving away to where the shore sloped upwards. Brooke danced his lamp over the MiG once more, and then rose to the surface. He was becoming very cold. He left the aircraft in the darkness in which he had discovered it.

  As he waded out of the lake, he saw Waterford, white-clad, waiting for him, and already in conversation with the corporal. Waterford patted the camera equipment much as he touched everything; large, possessive, dangerous contacts. Dawson handed the corporal towels and a mug of coffee. Waterford waited for Brooke to remove his facemask. The moment they confronted one another, even before Dawson could take Brooke's air tanks, Waterford said:

  'Well? Looks as if he taxied it to the shore and found the ice too thin?' Brooke nodded.

  'It seems like it. The stream would have continued to drain the lake for a while before it froze over. It must flow pretty quickly in summer - it's not a deep channel, anyway. It left thin ice and a nice big air-pocket. Oops!'

  'The corporal tells me the airframe's factory-fresh. Is that true?' It sounded like an accusation, a laying of blame upon the Royal Marine lieutenant.

  Brooke nodded. 'Almost. Even the undercart is intact. One of the doors is buckled, but - '

  'Christ! That's all we need. So the silly sod landed the bloody thing in one piece, did he?'

  Again, Brooke nodded. 'He must have done,' he said. 'Even closed the canopy before he left. God, Major, you should see the thing!'

  'No, thanks!' Then he continued, as much to himself as to Brooke: 'I almost had the poor sod…' His hand clenched into a grip in front of him, almost touching Brooke's chest. 'He was as close to me as you are now. Sheer bloody luck we found him - but they'd found him, too. Some bloody Ivan rugger-tackled him just as he had hold of the wire… we could have had him here now, for Christ's sake - !' Then, more calmly and even more ominously, he added: 'Having been that close to rescue, having looked in my face, into the cabin of the Lynx behind me, he'll go to pieces now - fast. From what I've heard of him, he's half-way off his head already. He's going to last about five minutes when they start to question him.' He looked out over the lake. 'By tomorrow, the Russians will be crawling over this place like ants. Getting ready to cart the thing home.'

  'You think so?'

  Waterford's face was grim. 'I've seen them, lad,' he snapped sourly. 'In Belfast, in Cyprus, Borneo, the Oman-I've seen how communicative people can be when they're put to it.' His square, stone-cut features were bleak as he spoke. 'Gant, poor sod, won't be able to help himself… and I haven't helped him either, arriving like the Seventh Cavalry just after they've burned down the fort!' He threw up his hands, and added: 'OK, let's tell Aubrey the good news. Dawson, have you hidden that commpack successfully? Will it work for the next lot in?'

  'Reindeer permitting, yes, sir,' Dawson replied.

  'He's going to love this, that podgy little clever-dick - Christ, is he going to love this!'

  The rain blew out of the darkness like something alive and impishly malevolent. Aubrey had closed his umbrella because it threatened to turn inside-out in every gust of searching wind, but he held his hat jammed onto his head. Buckholz walked beside him, bareheaded, chilly and soaked, hands thrust in his pockets, head bent against the splashes and gouts of rain. They had been silent for some minutes. Buckholz, numbed by the signals they had received via the satellite link, as he knew Aubrey must be, had no wish to interrupt the silence. The splashing of the rain against the administration building windows as they passed, the faint noises from the Officers' Mess, their clicking or sloshing footsteps, the sudden yells of the wind, all expressed his mood and deadened it at the same time. He was able not to think, not to consider.

  Aubrey dabbed at puddles with the ferrule of his umbrella, breaking up their rippling reflections of light. As always to Buckholz, his anger seemed no grander than petulance. Yet it was real and deep. The smaller, older man shivered at the intrusion of rain into his collar, and expelled an angry, exasperated breath. Buckholz thought he might be about to speak, but they continued their patrol in silence. Down in the Ops. Room, Curtin was trying to contact Pyott in London.

  They had come to a dead-stop, Buckholz had to admit. They needed fresh orders, a fresh guarantee of support, from Washington and London and Brussels and Oslo, and they had to make fresh approaches to the Finns. But - to what end? For why?

  Buckholz brushed away the thoughts, his face cleansed of worried frowns by the splash of rain that met them as they turned the corner of the building, into a gleam of light from a doorway. Buckholz thought it was Bradnum, standing there in his uniform raincoat, but the RAF officer, whoever he was, saw them and turned suddenly back into the building. They passed the main door. Noises from the Mess emerged as warmly as the heat of a fire. They passed on, feet crunching on gravel, no longer clicking or splashing on concrete.

  Finally, as if in the grip of a tormenting, unbearable secret he must blurt out, Aubrey turned to Buckholz and said, almost in a gasp: 'They have everything, Charles - in the palm of… oh, dammit, they have everything.' Buckholz was prompted, for an instant, to pat Aubrey's shoulder, but desisted. The Englishman would find it patronising, too gauchely American.

  'I know, Kenneth- it's one hell of a blow.'

  'Both prizes, Charles - both of them, lost to us. The airframe is intact and less than forty miles from the Russian border, and the pilot is by now probably in Murmansk, if not on his way to Moscow!' Aubrey leaned towards Buckholz, lowering his voice to an intense whisper as he said, 'And they will make him talk, Charles. Believe me, they will. He is alone, you see - their first and sharpest weapon. Before, he was never alone, not for a moment. He had help. Now, he will know he is alone, and that resistance, courage, defiance, all have no meaning. Sooner or later he will tell them where to find the airframe of the Firefox.'

  'I know you're right, Kenneth.'

  'And, like me, you can see no way out?'

  Buckholz shook his head emphatically, as if to dispel any lingering, foolish hope in Aubrey, who merely nodded once in reply to the gesture.

  'No, all I can see is we've painted ourselves into a corner, Kenneth.'

  'I won't accept that - '

  'You have to, Kenneth. I have to talk to Washington again, you to London. And we have to tell them that, in our considered estimation, we've lost both ends of the operation - Gant and the Firefox.' Buckholz shrugged expressively. Water ran from his short hair in droplets that gleamed in the light above the main doors of the admin, building. 'What else can we say, for God's sake?'

  'You want me to order Waterford to set charges and destroy the airframe? Before it's too late to do so?' Aubrey challenged.

  'Man, what else in your right mind can you do? You can't let them take it back over the border!'

  'If only they didn't have Gant!' Aubrey raged. 'We'd then have the advantage of our knowledge. We could spend weeks examining the airframe, the electronics and avionics, the anti-radar, the thought
-guidance systems… everything. But they do have him, and they'll make him talk!' His umbrella stabbed at the puddles that had gathered in the tyre-marks of a heavy vehicle. Stab, stab, stab, destroying the gleaming mirrors, the petrol-rainbowed water.

  'The Finns wouldn't let you - '

  'It would have to be covert, I agree - '

  'Sneaking around Finnish Lapland for weeks - civilian and military scientists… underwater? Come on, Kenneth, that's a dream and you know it.'

  'What good are spies to us now?' Aubrey asked, his tone that of someone dissociating himself from his lifelong profession.

  'Good use enough to blow the airframe to pieces.'

  'Is that your only advice, Charles? It's not very constructive.'

  'Sorry.'

  Rain slapped at their faces and raincoats. Buckholz shivered, but Aubrey seemed not to notice.

  'I should never have decided on that clever, so clever flight across Finland - it should have been Norway - '

  'Where they might have been waiting? The flight should have lasted a lot less than an hour and a half, there wasn't a risk - when you drew up the scenario.'

  'Thank you, Charles - it doesn't help, I'm afraid.' The words were murmured. Aubrey walked a little away from the American, his head bent forward, oblivious of the falling rain. Water ran from the brim of his hat. Buckholz recognised the signals of intense concentration. He waited, looking up into the rain. The lights of Lincoln glowed dully on the clouds to the south.

  Minutes later, Aubrey turned back to him. His face was determined. Buckholz, knowing the Englishman, recognised Aubrey's refusal to accept defeat.

  'Very well. Waterford may lay his charges - he may need an opinion from someone here - but he is not to detonate them. I shall alert Shelley to talk to Edgecliffe and Moscow Station - they're to look out for Gant's arrival. We must know the moment he gets there, where they take him, how long we might have…'

  'Why-?'