Firefox Down

by Craig Thomas

  'OK, tell him I'm coming.' He turned back to Brooke, hesitated, then said, 'OK you bums - do your thing.' Brooke smiled as the American walked away. 'Mr. Aubrey said it was urgent, sir.'

  'Sure,' Buckholz replied, attempting a grin. 'With him, everything is. OK - put me through,' He shivered. At least in the Lynx helicopter, one of two that had brought in the non-parachutists and which were now tied down and camouflaged on the far side of the lake, it had been crowded but warm. He looked at the coffee-mug in his mittened hand. He hadn't been warm since… too old, that was the trouble. Thin blood. Buckholz devoutly wished Aubrey his own present discomfort. The operator keyed in the voice scrambling code and paused for the light which would signify the console was ready to transmit. Then he sent his call-sign and received an acknowledgement a few seconds later. He nodded to Buckholz, who held the microphone close to his lips, as if about to whisper

  He was assailed by a sense of foreboding, which made him pause before he said: 'OK, "Mother", go ahead. What's on your mind? Over.' The conversational, almost jocular tone was deliberate, as if it could fend off what he sensed was approaching bad news. He heard Aubrey's voice through the one earpiece of the headset that he pressed against the side of his head.

  'Bad news, I'm afraid, "Fisherman". The Skyhook has had to put down at a military airfield in southern Sweden for repairs. I'm assured that the repairs are minor, something to do with the rotors being out of balance. Caused by the bad weather they've been forced to fly through. However, even more important, they can't yet give an accurate estimate of the length of the delay. I'm sorry. Over.'

  'Hell! Give it to me straight, "Mother". Don't bullshit me. I'm a big boy and I can take it. Over.'

  'At least tomorrow afternoon - that's the earliest they could be with you. Over.'

  'But they will come? Over.'

  'They must! When do you think you'll be able to begin winching out? Over.'

  'Some time around midnight tonight. Before first light, the Firefox will be on land. And no Skyhook! Over.'

  'It will come. "Fisherman" - it will come. Over.'

  'If it doesn't arrive by eight, I'm planting the charges and we start ripping out the thought-guidance and anti-radar systems! Over.'

  'It will arrive, "Fisherman" - just be patient. Over.'

  'Get the damn weather changed, will you? Over.'

  'I'll do what I can. "Fisherman". Meanwhile, prayer might be advisable. Over.'

  'I'll pray, "Mother" - I'll pray. Out.'

  Buckholz looked around him. The SBS two-man reconnaissance units were vanishing behind the weather and the trees, on their way out of the camp. He could hardly see the last of them. Brooke had already descended with one of the other divers. In the silence after the chain-saw had ceased, a stunted tree fell with a crack like the beginning of a landslide.

  Buckholz looked up. The snow was heavier, the wind colder, stronger.

  'Yeah, I'll pray,' he said, 'I just hope He can hear me above this wind!'

  He had been like a thief, an intruder, in her apartment. She had had to be careful, almost obsessive, about the things he picked up, touched, used. She was coming back - she had determined on that - and Dmitri would be coming back there, too. There must be no traces of any other man - this American least of all. After each cup of coffee, after the one small whisky, after the lunch she had prepared, she washed cups and glasses and plates and dried them and put them away. The actions prevented discovery and occupied her; distracting her from the growing claustrophobia of her apartment now that it contained the American. His presence was so - so palpable, so inescapable.

  He spoke little after he had accepted her story. She had no idea what his feelings were towards her. Towards his own future. He was tired - for two hours he dozed in the armchair in which he had first sat down - and his experiences in the Unit on the Mira Prospekt, about which he remained silent, had worn at him. He seemed almost unliving, so passive and withdrawn was he. It was as if he had come to effect her arrest himself, wrench this life away from her.

  The suit that Vassily had brought, with his papers, was a good, sober one of foreign cloth and cut. Three-piece. Pads fattened his lean face and half-glasses added age. Once he had shaved and showered and donned his disguise, he appeared almost like one of her senior colleagues in the Secretariat… which was what his papers declared he was, a civil servant travelling to Leningrad on ministry business. The bluff was bold, designed to attract attention but deflect scrutiny. The American seemed easy with the disguise, his body adopting a stiffly correct uprightness, seeming to add inches to his height. The dark overcoat would finish the portrait of a bureaucrat.

  They left the apartment at four. In the lift, when someone she knew from the floor below her own got in, she murmured to him in businesslike, formal tones, having greeted the neighbour. It was evident from what she said that she was accompanying a colleague: her overnight bag and his small leather suitcase suggested the length of their stay. Gant's brief replies were in practised Russian. He seemed at ease, but she could not be certain. The part he was playing protected him like a carapace.

  The taxi, a chequered band along the doors and side panels, was waiting outside the apartment block The traffic on Kutuzovsky Prospekt was heavy, but sedate. The cars were larger and moved more slowly. The Party limousines seemed almost to queue in the central lane. The driver put their bags in the boot and they slid into the back seat. Cant unfolded a newspaper and pretended to read immediately the door was closed behind him, obscuring his features from the driving mirror.

  'Leningrad Station,' Anna said.

  She thought of Maxim. The dog, and her father, had welcomed him. The dog seemed suspicious of her, as if picking up her mood, and this suspicion seemed to communicate itself to her father. But he did not ask, except after her health and after her KGB lover. A couple of days, she assured him…

  For her office, she had a heavy cold. For Dmitri, it was a sudden trip to Leningrad-no, by train, the afternoon flight was full and she enjoyed train journeys. What business? Oh some complicated case of fraud at one of the hospitals, the disappearance of clothing, money… no, not a police matter yet, until she had seen the records… yes, love to you, love, love…

  She had almost betrayed something then, over the telephone. Choking back tears, choking back the desire to prolong the call, she had rung off before he became concerned at the strangeness underlying her reassurances.

  She had left Gant in the apartment while she delivered Maxim to her father's dacte. No one, he said when she returned, had called at the door, no one had rung. When she entered the apartment, it seemed like a stranger's home.

  They crossed the river by the Kalinin Bridge and picked up the Sadovaya Ring. Blocks of apartments lined their route. Gant fastidiously concentrated on his newspaper while she stared absently through the window, hand cupping her chin. She determined not to notice the city either to right or left of her, because she would not allow herself even to consider she might be taking some final journey through Moscow. There was the bulk of the Peking Hotel with its pink facade incongruous against the snowfilled sky. If she concentrated on the apartment blocks to the left, even though she saw Gant in profile all the time, their grey, weatherstained concrete and countless, anonymous windows deadened her sense of Moscow. It could be any modern city, anywhere in the world.

  They left the Ring at Kirov Street, passing between the twin, guardian-like towers of the Leningrad Hotel and the Ministry of Public Works. Komsomolskaya Square, with its three main-line railway stations, closed around them. The taxi pulled up beneath the portico of the Leningrad Station. She got out first, and Gant paid the fare, and a slender tip which caused the taxi driver to mutter under his breath but which he might have expected from a bureaucrat such as the man who had ridden in his taxi, his nose in his newspaper

  Snow speckled the shoulders of Gant's overcoat. He jammed his fur hat on his head, adjusted his half-glasses, and studied Anna. She saw his keen, appraising-glance and fel
t challenged, even insulted by it. This man who had done nothing, said little. Then, surprisingly, he smiled briefly.

  'OK,' he said, holding her her overnight bag. 'They'll he checking papers. I'll queue first, you go to the ladies' room or something so that you're further back in the queue. I'll collect the tickets.'

  She nodded, feeling suddenly undermined and nervous He had, by taking control of the situation, deflated her little air-pocket of confidence and self-reliance. He gripped her arm as he saw her hands shaking.

  'Take it easy,' he said, not unkindly, bending his head close to hers. 'You've done OK up to now-just take it easy.'

  She nodded, more vigorously. 'I - I'm all right.' She changed her grip on her bag, and added, 'Very well. But, be careful…'

  They walked under the portico into the smallest of the square's three stations. Marble pedestals, at shoulder-height, displayed countless ever-vigilant busts of Lenin placing the station concourse under eternal surveillance. The roof of the station arched above them, glass and steel, the ribs of a huge animal. The station was busy with the first commuters. Gant read the Departures board. Anna slipped away from him towards the toilets. Then, walking with an easy confidence, turning his head with the appearance of casual interest, he made for the ticket reservations counter. He picked out uniforms, overcoats, guns, bulky figures questioning arriving passengers He felt himself moving through a network of invisible alarm beams. Yet it was not as before, it was not like the metro when he had trailed at Pavel's side, trying to keep up, trying to adapt and adjust. He had spent most of the day preparing for this. He had temporarily forgotten Gant.

  He arrived at the window and. with the appropriate impatient authority, bent and spoke into the grille set above the swivelling wooden begging-bowl that issued the tickets and snatched the payment for them. He asked for his reserved tickets - yes, his secretary had reserved them that morning. He sounded as if he already anticipated some confusion, some mistake on the part of the ticket clerk, a small balding, grey-faced man in a jacket with a worn collar, and frayed shirt-cuffs. He fumbled with his book of reserved tickets, fumbled out the appropriate ones. There were two styles of first-class on Soviet trains, and Anna had reserved seats at the front of the train, where the best carriages were always placed, the ones with two-seater compartments, heating, air-conditioning, radio - and restaurant service. The most expensive seats; the Party seats.

  Gant paid for the tickets with large-denomination notes. They too, were an element of disguise. Almost new notes. Declarations of privilege.

  He turned away from the window, pocketing his change and picking up his suitcase. A leather-coated man watched him, and he tensed. It was really beginning now -

  He pretended not to notice the man and headed across the wide concourse towards the platforms. A second man appeared on the point of stopping him, but assessed his clothing and bearing and let him continue. He hardly-looked at his face, hardly noticed the features above the well-cut formal suit and behind the glinting half-glasses. Conventionally, they did not expect him to arrive at the station; if he did, they would expect him to sneak, to lounge, to slip through - not to stroll. He reached the ticket barrier. The long Leningrad express stretched away to where the dark grey sky and the snow cancelled the perspective. He queued. Tickets and papers, of course. The KGB man who informed him was more deferential than he was to the man ahead of him or the woman behind. Gant pursed his lips in affected irritation.

  Two people ahead of him. Suddenly he wanted to know where she was in the queue. The man's papers being inspected with great thoroughness, with absolute leisure. Would his stand up? Where was she?

  Stop it.

  Where - ? Would they - ? Did they have pictures - ?

  Yes, behind them, pinned to the side of the ticket barrier, next to a notice about the penalties for not purchasing the correct ticket for any journey - a silhouette of a figure being grabbed and held by a taller figure, the sense of a struggle, of an arrest.

  Stop it!

  He dabbed his forehead with his sleeve, pretending to remove his fur hat to disguise the gesture.

  The picture taken of him at the rnotorway barrier, when his papers said he was Glazunov… next to that, something they must have obtained from the Centre's Records Directorate computer - himself in USAF uniform, taken perhaps eight or nine years before. He had been much younger then, he told himself, much -

  Beneath the pictures, he was described as an enemy agent, spy and saboteur. He was sought with the utmost urgency. People were instructed to be vigilant.

  The hairpiece they had given him was an expensive one, one that had been purchased in the West, in all probability. It was, Vassily had said, grinning, better even than Tito's had been. Yet, deliberately, it looked false. His hair was too short from having to wear the helmet with its thought-guidance sensors to be anything but noticeable. A wig which looked like a wig was deemed a bolder call to attention. Were he suspicious, he would not wear an evident hairpiece. His motive would be considered to be vanity.

  He replaced his fur hat. The youthful hair showed beneath it, a slightly different shade from his own.

  He handed over the tickets, and gave the KGB man his papers, drawing them from his breast pocket. The ticket-collector asked the reason for the second ticket, and Gant turned his head loftily, indicating Anna when he saw her three places behind him. He waved her forward without consulting the KGB man. A man in the queue scowled, resenting authority and privilege. Gant introduced her off-handedly to the KGB man, and she passed over her papers.

  To Anna, he paid no attention. To Gant, he was respectful, studying him from beneath narrowed eyelids. He scrutinised the papers for a long time, but did not glance behind him at the photographs. The hairpiece seemed to amuse him but he was nervous of revealing his smile and his contempt. Eventually, he handed back the two sets of papers, and nodded.

  'A good journey. Comrade,' he said with insolent mock-servility. Gant pretended to study the name displayed beneath the man's picture on the ID card clipped to his breast pocket - but only for a moment. The man winced visibly.

  They passed through the barrier onto the platform. Gant felt his legs weaken, his hands shake. But he did not falter in his stride.

  'Are you all right?' Anna asked.

  'Yes,' he replied without looking at her.

  Side by side, in silence, they walked down the long, wide platform, past the newspaper shop, the confectioner's, the gift shop, the buffet. Gant imperiously waved away a porter.

  Bullshit, he thought. It's keeping you going, just bullshit. And he wondered who had suggested the disguise and the false identity and how well they knew him. It helped. To play-act arrogance helped. Bullshit -

  They reached the designated carriage. Gant looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes before the train left. They found their compartment, claimed their seats. He was grateful for the relative safety of the twin-berth compartment. No one would be able to intrude.

  'A magazine or newspaper, Comrade Ossipov?' Anna asked him as he lifted their cases onto the rack. 'Some confectionery?'

  'No… ah, perhaps a magazine. Soviet Science World?' he replied, smiling at the pantomime. 'Yes.'

  'Very well, Comrade Ossipov,' Anna said, and left the compartment.

  He watched her climb onto the platform and make for the newsagent's shop. She looked small and vulnerable as she passed two uniformed KGB men with guns on their shoulders. She had been angry, he remembered - blazingly angry - when she had seen his false papers. Secretariat, like herself. They were forcing her to use her own papers rather than the set they provided, which described her as his wife. She had been insulted and challenged. She'd chosen to travel as his professional colleague. There was some declaration in it, he thought, some assertion of herself, of her personal life.

  She disappeared into the shop. Gant began to relax. The hairpiece felt as hot and constricting as the fur hat he had removed. He brushed flecks and creases from his suit. He unfolded the newspaper. He be
gan to allow time to pass more slowly, feeling his whole body relax, inch back from the pitch of tension he had experienced at the ticket barrier. It had worked, had worked, he repeated to himself over and over, like a calming spell. The woman-was excellent cover. In the time available, in the extreme situation in which they had found themselves, Aubrey's people in Moscow had done well, very well.

  He glanced out of the window, directly after looking at his watch. Four minutes to departure time - she was talking to a man in uniform, a young colonel in the KGB. Fifteen yards from the window. She knew him -

  Four minutes - she was smiling - three minutes fifty - she was smiling.

  Gant felt his body constrict into a straitjacket, his fists rest heavily on his knees, his eyes begin to dart about the carriage…

  Who was she - ? What was she doing?

  Anna leaned up and kissed Dmitri Priabin, aware of Gant's staring face fifteen yards away.

  'What a surprise!' she exclaimed.

  Holding her arms, as if to restrain her, he grinned. 'Duty, my love - duty. I'm here in my official capacity, inspecting the security arrangements. I didn't know whether or not you'd arrived.'

  She looked pointedly at her watch. 'Only a couple of minutes,' she murmured.

  'Soviet Science World?' He asked, looking at the top of one of the magazines under her arm. 'Looking for more wheelchair projects? No, I'm sorry,' he added when he saw her face darken. 'That was cheap.' He bent to kiss her, and she responded. She had half-turned and she could see Gant clearly as she pressed against Dmitri's chest. He looked betrayed, frightened. She could not tell him -

  She pushed away. 'I'd better get on the train, I suppose.'

  'When will you be back?'

  'A couple of days.'

  'You didn't leave a hotel number.'

  'I'll ring you - tonight.'