Firefox Down

by Craig Thomas

  'Very good,' the First Secretary announced with evident sarcasm. 'Very good-the MiG-31 is in Finnish Lapland!' He turned to Vladimirov. 'We know that, General - we already know that!' It was obvious that the Soviet leader had simply been waiting for this opportunity to harangue and threaten. Now he had an audience, and it was one that pleased him - the military; the despised and feared military. He would humiliate one of their heroes in front of them, show them their idol's feet of clay. Vladimirov steeled himself to control his features and remain silent. 'Find it! You find that aircraft, today. And you, Andropov,' he added in a less hectoring voice, 'find the pilot.' He turned as if to leave, his bodyguards already opening the door of the control room and making room for him to pass. Then he returned his gaze to Vladimirov. 'It must be found,' he said. 'I do not need to remind you of the consequences if it is not found - today.'

  He left the control room. Abashed, Andropov immediately wiped his spectacles with his silk handkerchief. There was a sheen of perspiration on his brow. His nostrils were narrow with rage. Vladimirov, feeling the resentment of his body begin to dissipate, realised two things concerning the Chairman of the KGB. He was playing for perhaps higher stakes than Vladimirov himself - and he was uncertain of his allies in the Politburo if he could still be bullied by the present First Secretary. Therefore, Andropov would now become an ally; untrusted and dangerous, but an ally. The Soviet leader had included him in the catalogue of blame should Gant and the MiG-31 not be found.

  As if to confirm his thoughts, Andropov moved towards the perspex map, closer to Vladimirov. He smiled, an expression that turned to its habitual ironic shape almost as soon as it formed on his lips.

  'If you wish for a more - sympathetic? - audience, I offer myself, General Vladimirov,' he said quietly.

  Vladimirov nodded. 'Accepted, Comrade Chairman.'

  'Good - now, I understand the logic of your deductions thus far-but, how could he have landed the aircraft? In that terrain - it is snow-bound, surely?'

  'Yes, it is. However, we think his best chance would have been a forest track or minor road.'

  'Would he have thought of it?'

  'I think so. I think he would have felt himself - shall we say - challenged, to do it? He is possessed of a massive certainty of his own worth and talents. He would have tried, I think. He must have tried, because of the parachute. And he was uninjured, which I think means the airframe is virtually undamaged - certainly recoverable, certainly a threat if recovered by the Americans or the British. So, all we have to do, Comrade Chairman, is to find it.'

  'A forest track or a minor road - still covered with snow - '

  'Out of fuel, with little risk of fire, he might have risked landing on snow. Too deep, and I agree he would turn tail-over-nose and break up. But, with the winds and the weather over the past weeks, we think that at least some of these tracks could have had sufficiently little depth of snow to help rather than destroy the MiG.'

  'And there are two of these tracks within your circle also crossed by the white line predicting his route,' Andropov observed. He bent closer to the map, then clicked his fingers. 'You're ignoring these lakes,' he said. 'Might he not have used a frozen lake?'

  Vladimirov shook his head. 'We discounted them. Our aerial reconnaissance immediately after the loss of the second Foxbat showed nothing. On a lake, he could not have hidden the MiG.'

  Andropov shrugged. 'I see,' he said. 'Very well. What is the scale of this map?'

  'We are talking about a matter of fifty or sixty kilometres from our border, at its closest point, to this road, another fifteen to this one here.' The arrow of the light-pen danced like a moth on the surface of the map.

  'You have ordered a new aerial reconnaissance?'

  Vladimirov shook his head. 'All we could do in this weather is high-altitude infra-red, and that airframe is as cold as the landscape around it by now. We won't have photographs. Any search would have to be on the ground. We should have to cross the border - a small party…'

  'But then, your deductions would have to be correct. They would have to be accurate—extremely accurate for a small party.'

  'Working back along this white line, into the circle - sufficiently spread out, they could cover a wide area - '

  'As long as the weather gets no worse and visibility drops no further - and just so long as the aircraft is not buried under the snow by now!'

  Vladimirov shook his head. He enjoyed the Chairman's scepticism. It enlivened the debate and cemented their alliance. 'I think it's under the trees somewhere - he taxied it off a road under the trees.'

  'And left it like a parked car?'

  'Just like a parked car.'

  Andropov looked doubtful. 'Is there any other way?' he asked.

  'Your experts have been examining the tapes of Gant's interrogations ever since he escaped, in the hope of finding something, some concrete piece of evidence to indicate what he did with the aircraft.' Vladimirov's features hardened as he remembered. His hand squeezed the material of Andropov's jacket sleeve. The Chairman seemed not to resent the grip on his arm. 'He was about to tell us - on the point of telling, when he knocked himself out. He was within an inch- !' He held up his fingers, almost closed together. 'An inch, no more-'

  'But, he didn't-'

  Vladimirov shook his head. 'Your people are good, but they seem unable -'

  'I'll have the tapes brought here, together with their report,' Andropov promised. 'Meanwhile, I suggest a reconnaissance party consisting of Border Guards?' Vladimirov nodded. 'I take it their helicopters can fly in the weather they're experiencing up there?'

  'Just.'

  'Then they must be ready to move at once. Where do you suggest they begin?'

  The arrow of the light-pen wobbled up the perspex map, alighting above the white line of Gant's suspected journey.

  'Here's where they found evidence that he had made camp, slept. All the other traces - parachute found here, village here, capture - are further to the north-west. I suggest we have your party dropped here, and that they work backwards along this line, perhaps making for the closest forest track, here…' The arrow buzzed almost dementedly above the line.

  Andropov studied the map, then simply said, 'Very well - I'll issue orders for a reconnaissance party to prepare for an immediate border crossing - please have the co-ordinates and any other advice ready for them.'

  Gant pushed down the window of the compartment. Snow flurried against his face. The drab provincial station on the edge of the town of Chudovo was almost deserted. A handful of passengers gingerly left the train as if stepping into an alien environment. Boots and galoshes slipped on the snow-covered platform. Lights gleamed through the snow. The train hummed. One or two uniformed guards, railway police, individuals in leather coats or heavy mackintoshes checked papers. There was one more stop amd perhaps forty minutes before Kolpino, where they must leave the train to meet Harris. To explain their through tickets to Leningrad, Anna would assume a sudden indisposition, a need for fresh air, a slight fever that might be infectious. The local hospital might be required…

  It seemed slack and fortuitous to Gant, but he sensed that it would work. A small country station in a suburban town, the staff tired and bored, their unexpected visitors important Party officials. Panache and bluff would convey them from - the station to Harris's car with little trouble. A suggestion of food-poisoning, though the restaurant meal had been good, might further the bluff.

  It didn't matter, he thought. Priabin had not boarded the train here at Chudovo - and if he was waiting for them in Leningrad, as Anna thought he might, then he was powerless. Gant had as good a hostage as he could have wished for. That thought satisfied him, though it gave him no pleasure. He heard the guard's whistle, saw the swinging lamp the man held winking at the far end of the train, and withdrew his head from the icy air and closed the window. When he turned to Anna, he saw that she had pulled her coat over her shoulders and was shivering.

  'Practising - right?' he sai
d. She looked at him vehemently. 'Sorry - ' He nodded his head towards the window. 'No sign of trouble,' he added, sitting down opposite her. The train journey had lulled him; every passing mile had reinforced his sense of having broken through the net tightening around him. Not so for Anna, apparently. The journey might have been one into exile. She was still terrified of what Priabin might do.

  She fumbled in her bag, drew out a gold lighter and cigarette case, and lit an American tipped cigarette. The brand was as unconscious as the habit of smoking; a badge, long worn, of success. She blew the smoke towards the ceiling. Her hand was shaking, trembling.

  She shook her head, softly, rhythmically, at some inward image or idea. She appeared as if entirely alone in the compartment. It was evident she blamed him, entirely, for her situation; just as her lover would do by now. The thought chilled Gant.

  Was there a way out for them? Could they manage, between them, his own death and their safety? He suspected that both she and Priabin would be concentrating their entire energies on finding such a solution.

  Killing him would be the easiest way.

  The train gathered speed, the last of the station lights flashed past. The darkness of the night pressed at the windows. Snow was caught by the lights of their compartment, beyond the reflection of his features. He stared at himself, his cheeks fattened by the pads, his face changed by the addition of the half-glasses. They might kill him, if they ever got together and considered it -

  The door of the compartment slid back. Anna was sitting bolt upright. Gant's eyes flicked up towards the reflection of the newcomer. Civilian clothes, he thought, with a sense of relief.

  Then he saw the drawn pistol and the distraught and grim features of the man who was holding it. Only then did Gant turn his head.

  'Dmitri - !' Anna cried.

  Gant felt numb with shock, as if his fears had conjured the man into the compartment. Priabin had boarded the train at Chudovo. Priabin with a pistol. The KGB officer who was Anna's lover had reached the end of his particular journey, and he had found his answer. A simple and obvious answer.

  Kill Gant.

  'Out,' Aubrey said, limply handing the microphone to the radio operator. He turned away from the console, and almost bumped into Curtin, who had been standing at his shoulder throughout the conversation with the senior engineering officer at the Swedish airbase. Curtin shrugged, but Aubrey appeared not to notice the gesture. 'Damn,' he breathed through clenched teeth. The single word seemed invested with a great weight of anger and frustration, even something as dark as defeat.

  'It's one hell of a piece of bad luck- ' Curtin began, but Aubrey turned on him, glaring.

  'Bad luck! Bad luck? It is a monumental fall coming after pride, Curtin - that's what it is! It is entirely and utterly my own fault.' Curtin made to interrupt, but Aubrey gestured him to silence. 'It is my fault! I was warned - Giles Pyott warned me, as you did yourself, as Buckholz did. I chose to take no heed. I chose not to listen.' He clenched his hands together at his lips. He paced the hut, intent upon recrimination. Eventually, he turned to Curtin and said, 'We know that Gant is on the train. In a matter of hours he will be across the border into Finland - it has proceeded with the smooth regularity of clockwork. Harris is at Kolpipo to meet them. We know that the aircraft will emerge from the, lake within the next few hours - and we can't do anything to remove it! We will have salvaged it simply for the Russians to collect!'

  'You couldn't fight the weather.'

  'I should never have ignored the weather! That was my sin. Pride, Eugene, pride - !'

  'Bad luck.'

  'No- !' He began pacing the room again, murmuring to himself like a child learning by rote. 'Thirty-six hours, even then they're not certain - almost twelve hours after the deadline expires - and the weather may not allow them to continue. Pyott told me not to rely on the Skyhook, but I ignored that. Now I have been shown my error!' He did not pause in his pacing. The radio operator huddled over his equipment, ignoring Aubrey's voice. Curtin perched himself on the edge of a folding table, carefully balancing his weight, Aubrey continued with his catalogue of self-blame. He forcibly reminded Curtin of an animal newly caged in a zoo, pacing the boundaries of its prison, seeking a way of escape. 'I didn't listen, I didn't damn well listen - ! I knew best - Nanny knows best. Nothing left now but to rip out the systems we most want and blow the airframe to pieces - and I still want that aircraft.' Curtin strained to catch what followed; 'I owe it to them… but I can't - there's no way - !'

  Then he turned to Curtin, arms akimbo as if begging for some relief of mind.

  'What - ?' Curtin said, spreading his own arms, unable to understand what Aubrey required and reluctant to intrude.

  Aubrey's lips worked silently. Then he burst out: 'If only the damned plane would fly!'

  Curtin grinned in embarrassment. 'Yeah,' he said. 'If only.'

  Aubrey closed his eyes. 'If the Firefox could fly…' Then he looked up and announced to Curtin: 'They would leave me in peace, then, wouldn't they?'

  'I don't understand?'

  Aubrey disowned his words, his hand sawing through the fuggy, paraffin-smelling air. Then he wiped his lips, as if what he had said amounted to little more than a geriatric dribble of sounds.

  'I'm sorry,' he said with exaggerated, ingratiating apology.

  'I forgot myself for a moment.' He moved closer to Curtin, placing himself near the heat from the wood-burning stove, rubbing his hands as if cold. He looked directly at Curtin instead of the floorboards of the hut, and said, 'Forgive me for asking - but the aircraft could not fly, of course?'

  Curtin shook his head. 'No…' he said. The word was intended to be definite, to end the speculation he could see beginning to cloud Aubrey's pale eyes, but it faded into a neutral, hesitant denial. Aubrey seized upon it.

  'You don't seem sure - '

  'I am sure.'

  'Then why not be definite!' Aubrey snapped, his face sagging into disappointed folds once more.

  'I am, but-'

  'But what?'

  'I - it's been immersed in water for more than forty-eight hours… you've got a smidgeon more than twenty-four hours…' Curtin shook his head, almost smiling. 'It is impossible,' he announced. 'I'm sure of it.'

  Aubrey persisted: 'As a matter of interest, why did you hesitate?'

  'Because - well, because I've heard of Navy planes getting a ducking and making a comeback - ' He held up his hands to stop a torrent of questions from Aubrey. 'It took weeks, Mr. Aubrey - weeks! Well, maybe one week anyway. I just remembered it had happened, is all. It doesn't help you. Us.'

  'You mean the aircraft is immediately damaged by immersion in water?'

  'Sure, the damage starts at once.'

  'But the damage is not irreparable?' Aubrey's voice hectored, bullied. Curtin felt interrogated, and resented the small, arrogant Englishman who was too clever for his own good and too self-satisfied ever to admit defeat.

  That depends on how it went in, whether it was all shut down, sealed… Hell - !'

  'What is the matter?'

  'I don't know the answers, for Christ's sake! You're crazy, Mr. Aubrey, sir, crazy.' He climbed off the table and stretched luxuriously, as if about to retire. The gesture was intended to infuriate Aubrey and it succeeded.

  'Damn you, Curtin - stay where you are and answer my questions!' He pressed close to the American, undeterred by his greater height and bulk. Curtin thought, quite irreverently, that Aubrey was squaring up to him ready to fight.

  'OK, OK - if it passes the time,' he murmured, regaining his perch on the table. -

  'Just answer me this - could the Firefox fly?'

  Curtin shrugged, hesitated, and then said, 'I don't know - and that's the truth.'

  'Then who would know?'

  'Why don't you ask the Senior Engineering Officer - what's his name, Moresby? The guy from Abingdon. He's standing right next to the airplane, he knows the state it's in - ask him!'

  The radio operator was sittin
g erect in his seat. 'Get me Squadron-Leader Moresby, at once.' Then he looked at Curtin and held up his hand, displaying his fingers in sequence as he spoke. 'We have the pilot, almost safe… We have the runway - the lake… We have twenty-four hours… the aircraft needs to fly fifty or a hundred miles, no more, to be safe from recapture. Is that asking too much?'

  'Much too much - but you don't want that answer, I guess,' Curtin murmured.

  'Squadron-Leader Moresby, sir - '

  'I'm coming, I'm coming - ' Aubrey's eyes gleamed, almost fanatically. 'I won't let it go!' he said. 'Not yet, anyway. I won't.'

  TEN:

  'Nessie'

  'Don't kill him, Dmitri! Dmitri, think - !'

  Gant's hand had stopped reaching for his breast pocket. He remembered that he had not transferred the Makarov from his suitcase. Priabin's pistol was pointed directly at him, even though the man was staring into Anna's face. His head had flicked towards her the moment she shouted. Gant remained motionless, an observer of the scene. There was no way in which he could move quickly enough across the compartment, before Priabin had time to shoot him. He forced himself to remain still.

  'Anna-?' Priabin exclaimed in the tone of a child that does not understand a parental order. He was being prevented from doing something he very much wanted to accomplish.

  'Don't kill him, Dmitri,' Anna repeated, her hand moving slowly towards his gun. He kept it trained on Gant and out of range of her grasp. 'How can I escape from this if you kill him?'

  Priabin appeared deeply confused. 'You? But, you come with me. You'll be safe, then - '

  'Do you think they'll allow that? Don't you think they'll know I allowed him to be killed? It's a trap, Dmitri - I have to do what they want!'

  He held out his left hand, and she caught it with the fierce, clamping grip of a vice. She clung to him, he to her. Then he shook her hand, gently.