by Craig Thomas
To his advantage. The British and Norwegians and Americans had done much of his work for him.
Andropov had moved to the door of the room. He was in conversation with a tall, dark-haired young man with an easy, confident manner which now seemed harassed and half-afraid. Vladimirov returned to his map and his thoughts.
To fly the aircraft to Norway, to somewhere like Bardufoss, was a distance that could be covered in minutes. The aircraft would need to be no more than half-airworthy for that short hop. Was it possible? Someone - Aubrey, perhaps? - evidently thought it was.
They needed a window in the weather. They dare not risk a take-off with a patched-together aircraft in the kind of weather that now prevailed. It would kill the pilot, lose them the MiG.
So -
They were waiting for the break that was promised for late that afternoon. He glanced at his watch. Perhaps in seven or eight hours' time.
The site had to be occupied by Soviet troops and the secrets of the MiG protected. If they had been photographed, stripped down, examined, discovered, then -
No one could be allowed to leave with that knowledge, with those secrets. He had to put troops into the area, for every possible reason.
It would be close. His helicopters would move just as the weather cleared. According to the Met. people, they would have the disadvantage. Thirty minutes' delay as the weather cleared from the west.
Now his excitement was intense. He sensed the danger, the knife-edge, and welcomed it. He was combative, certain, aggressive. The prize was tangible. His troops must surround the clearing beside the lake, prevent damage to the airframe, prevent take-off if that was feasible.
Kill-
Andropov approached him, his face grim. Vladimirov allowed a smile of triumph to appear on his lips, then said gruffly, 'What is it?'
'I-I have received a report that the American has been allowed to escape. He crossed into Finland hours - hours ago!' Andropov was sweating. His forehead shone in the lights. He would be blamed; the KGB had failed.
Vladimirov blenched inwardly at the news. He understood fully now.
Gant.
Vladimirov knew that Gant was the intended pilot of the MiG-31, as he had been before. He could not envisage, even wildly imagine, how he could be transported to the lake. But he knew that that was the intention.
Somehow, when the first Soviet gunships drove down on that clearing, when the first commandos dropped from their transport helicopters, Gant would be there. With a lifting triumph filling his chest and stomach, Vladimirov knew that Gant would die.
The snow had turned to sleet soon after first light, sliding away from the wipers to the edges of the windscreen. The Mercedes had become a cocoon for Gant; warm, moving, self-contained. The Finnish Intelligence officers, though he sensed their curiosity, were respectfully quiet. They supplied him with vodka and coffee, had bought him breakfast at a service station restaurant - coffee, eggs, herring, cheese, rolls, jam. He had resisted at first because of the pungent unexpectedness of the fish so early in the morning, but then his hunger had insisted. Anna retreated; she was no longer present in the warmth and quiet bustle of the restaurant.
The military airfield was north-east of Helsinki. The Mercedes turned in, papers were checked at the guardroom, and then they drove directly out onto the tarmac. Through the windscreen, through the sleet and against the grey cloud scudding low across the runways and hangars, Gant saw a Harrier in RAF camouflage, standing like a fleeting visitor apart from the planes bearing Finnish markings. The aircraft surprised him, now that his next movement, the coming hours, were forced to his attention. He was reluctant to leave the Mercedes and the quiet, respectful, reassuring company of the Finns.
A drab-painted trailer was drawn up near the Harrier. It had been towed into position by a Land-Rover. The arrangement of the vehicles and the aircraft disturbed him. It appeared temporary; a beginning.
'Major Gant?' the Finn next to him on the rear seat enquired politely, as if to re-establish some former identity. 'Would you please leave the car now and go to the trailer?' The Mercedes drew up a matter of yards from the trailer with its blank windows and dark-grey, wet flanks. 'Please, Major Gant - '
He gripped the door handle. All three of them were watching him with a patient curiosity. Already distancing themselves.
'Thanks,' he said.
'Our pleasure,' one of them said with an engaging smile. 'Good luck, Major.'
'Sure.'
He got out of the car, hunching his shoulders immediately against the cold sting and splash of the driven sleet. He hurried the few yards of wet concrete to the trailer. The door opened, as if at some electronic signal from himself. He climbed the two steps, wiped his feet on a rough mat, and only then looked up as the door closed behind him.
He recognised neither man in the room. There was a smell of wetness from the olive-green flying suit worn by one of them. He seemed to appraise Gant more quickly, but less expertly, than the one in the fur hat and the leather overcoat. A pilot's helmet lay on a plain wooden table, flanked by two cups.
'Coffee?' the man in the overcoat asked, holding out his hand. 'Forgive me - my name is Vitsula. I am a - friend of Kenneth Aubrey. My men were the ones who met you at the border. Oh, this is Flight Lieutenant Thorne of the British Royal Air Force.' The pilot nodded. 'That is his transport parked next to us.' Vitsula smiled. 'Coffee?' he repeated.
'Uh-oh, yes. Sure.'
Gant remained looming near the doorway, ill at ease. He was assailed by premonitions. Vitsula moved and talked with the ease of seniority. By 'friend' he meant counterpart. Hence the trailer. Vitsula was helping Aubrey, but Finland was neutral. No, there wasn't anything to concern him here. No more than a covert exit from Finland in the second seat of the Harrier trainer. He moved towards the table and sat down. Vitsula, pouring coffee from the percolator's jug, nodded in approval.
As he sat down, the Finn said, 'You realise, of course, Major, why we must have these precautions? I'm sorry it is cold. The heater is not working.' Vitsula sipped at his coffee. 'Apparently, you are required - cigarette? No? Ah - required in Oslo, at NATO Southern Norway headquarters. Your people wish to talk to you urgently. I can understand that.' He smiled, exhaling the blue, acrid smoke. It filled the cramped trailer at once. 'I have been in contact with Kenneth Aubrey - who is in Kirkenes at the moment. They have been trying, very unsuccessfully I gather, to rescue the aircraft.'
Gant appeared shocked. 'How?'
'By winching it out of the lake where you left it, Major.'
'They didn't manage it?'
'Yes, they did. But, they cannot get it out of the area. Their helicopter didn't arrive. The weather - a breakdown.'
'Shit,' Gant breathed, passing from surprise to disappointment in an instant, almost without registering the implied events of the past days. 'It's out, you say ?'
'So I am led to believe.' He shrugged, blowing a rolling cloud of smoke at the low ceiling. 'Do the Russians know its location?' Gant glanced at the pilot, who nodded.
'Not from me,' Gant replied slowly.
'That will be welcome news to my minister,' Vitsula sighed. 'Very welcome. Excellent, in fact. Yes, excellent. Of course, we shall inform them in due course - we shall have to…' He held up his hand as Gant's face darkened and his lips moved. 'Kenneth Aubrey and your Mr. Buckholz know all this. It is not my decision. The aircraft will be without certain systems, I imagine, by the time it is handed over. You will not quite have wasted your time, Major.' Vitsula stood up. 'Excuse me, now, I have arrangements to make. When you have finished your coffee, you may leave at your leisure. Do not concern yourself. Major, at the fate of a machine. You, after all, are alive and safe. That should be enough. Good morning. Good morning, Flight Lieutenant.'
Vitsula adjusted the fur hat on his head, opened the door and went out. Gant turned his head from the door towards Thorne.
'What the hell's going on?' he snapped in a tight, angry voice. 'They've got the damn thing out o
f the lake?'
'So I'm told.'
'Who's Vitsula?'
'Director-General of their intelligence service. The top man.'
'Why a Harrier?' Gant snapped. 'I know what they do. I've flown our AV-8A. Why a Harrier?' He looked around him, then, and added: 'Is this place safe?'
'I think so. Vitsula said it was. I don't think he'd want to listen, anyway.'
'To what?'
'What happens next.' Thorne was smiling. The smile of a young man, his fingers dipped gently, pleasingly, into the waters of covert work. It was evident on his features that he was enjoying himself immensely.
'What happens next?'
'We take off for Oslo - '
'And when we arrive?'
'Just in case - would you like to get changed? I brought a spare suit. Your bonedome is in the cockpit…' Thorne heaved a pressure suit, folded and compressed, onto the wooden table from the floor of the trailer. 'Get into that - then we can talk in the privacy of my aircraft.' It was lightly said, with an English confidence, a sense of joking, of game-playing. The tone angered Gant quite unreasonably,. Anna came back. Blue hole, surprise. No anger. She should have been angry -
He leant across the wooden table and grabbed Thorne's forearm, gripping it tightly. Thorne's narrow, dark good looks twisted, became dislike.
'Before we fucking go anywhere, friend - tell me what happens when we get there! I don't give a shit if this trailer's bugged by the Kremlin - answer the question!' He squeezed Thorne's arm. The pilot winced, tried to pull his arm away, groaned.
'All right - all right, you bloody crazy Yank! Let go of my arm, damn you!'
Gant released his grip. Thorne immediately applied himself to rubbing his forearm, beneath the suit's sleeve. He kept his face averted. Eventually, when he had ceased rubbing, he looked up.
'You're not going to Oslo. We drop off the radar as if making an approach, then I turn the Harrier north.' The confusion on the American's face lessened the threat he posed. Thorne appeared to remember other superiors, more pressing priorities. 'Look, I shouldn't be telling you any of this until we're airborne - ' he protested.
'Why only then?' Gant snapped. 'I could still pull the cord and go out on the bang-seat! Tell me now.'
Thorne hesitated. Gant leaned towards him again. Thorne's arm flinched onto his lap like a startled cat. Gant picked up the folded suit and dropped it heavily on the floor.
'All right. But it's your fault if anything goes wrong- !'
'You don't think Vitsula's worked things out? Man, they all know everything that's going on. It's just one big game. The most dangerous game - people get killed. If Vitsula can't make the right guesses about your airplane, then he won't be in his job for long. Even I can guess…but I don't want to. Now, tell me.'
Gant stood at one of the small, blacked-out windows. Peering through it, he could see Vitsula had taken his place in the back of the Mercedes. An old turboprop transport lurched upwards towards the cloud. He listened to Thorne's voice as if to something reiterated and already known.
'We turn north - heading up the Gulf of Bothnia into Lapland. Across the Finnmark to Kirkenes. She's almost fully fuelled - we have the range to make it in one hop.'
'Aubrey's at Kirkenes,' Gant murmured.
'Yes, old man-'
Gant turned from the window, glaring at Thorne. 'What the hell does he want me at Kirkenes for?'
Thorne shrugged, seemingly with a renewed awareness of their surroundings.
'I - look, I'm just the cab driver. Get into the suit, Major, and I can brief you fully when we're airborne. I don't know much more, anyway - '
'The hell you don't! You know and I know. How does he - how can he possibly believe that airplane can fly out of there? It's crazy.'
'Maybe. But that's what they want you for.' Thorne's face was pleading. 'Please, Major - get changed. We have a schedule to keep.'
Gant realised that his fists were bunched at his sides. Standing, he was aware of the weariness of his body, the confusion of his thoughts. He wished idly for the movement and warmth of the Mercedes once more, Vitsula knew. Of course he knew.
'What about the Finns?'
'There's a deadline. Midnight tonight.'
'For anything Aubrey might want to try?'
'I don't know. But the weather's very bad up there. There's a small window - a pantry-window, no more - it's expected this afternoon. Before dark. It's the one chance you have.'
'They want me to break out, through a weather-window? If I don't make it?'
'I don't know. They'll destroy the airframe, I imagine. You're the only chance anyone's got. I have to get you to Kirkenes. If the window doesn't open, you won't be stranded when the deadline expires. At least, Aubrey will have you. If it does open, I'm to drop you in at the lake. If you say you can't fly it out, then I bring you back. And a Chinook, if one can get in, will bring out the best of the stuff they can salvage. Look, Major, I was told to tell you everything. Tell him everything, he said. Be honest with him. Ask him to do it. Tell him we need him. Now, you know it all.' Thorne shrugged, staring at the crumpled, stiff heap that was the pressure suit.
'Aubrey wants me to save his ass for him,' Gant growled. 'He's painted himself into a corner and can't get out, so he had this great idea - really great idea. Get Gant to fly the airplane out of Finland, just like he did out of Russia.' Gant's tone was scathingly ironic. Thorne stared-at him as if he had only just realised the identity and recent history of the other occupant of the trailer.
Gant walked to the window, looked out, then returned to the table. 'All right,' he said heavily. 'Get me there, sonny. Get me to that asshole Aubrey!'
As the Harrier T.Mk4 lifted into the scudding, dark cloud, Vitsula leaned back from straining to look upwards through the windscreen, and sighed. He picked up the telephone from the central armrest compartment, and dabbed at the numbers he required. It was time for him to inform his minister of the departure of Gant. Time to suggest that the first advance units of Finnish troops should set out overland from Ivalo and Rovaniemi to rendezvous at the lake.
He would have to inform his minister of his suspicions concerning Gant's eventual destination, of course. Also, he could not avoid the suspicion that the Russians might know, might suspect, or might discover…
It was unlikely Finnish troops would arrive by midnight in any strength. If the Russians knew, if there was an attempt to fly out the Firefox - he must consult air force experts as to its feasibility - if Aubrey's people were stranded at the lake by the weather…?
His minister must be in full possession of the facts before any or all of those things happened.
Yes, he would tell him. He cleared his throat and requested to speak to the minister urgently.
Gunnar rechecked the ropes lashing down the two Lynx helicopters. It was a nervous reaction, checking them again and again. But he could not abandon the tiny clearing, its snow-weighted trees, its stormswept open space, its two huddled, shrouded helicopters. The wind cracked and snapped the shrouds over the two aircraft as if trying to open two parcels with rough, greedy fingers. He worried more than ever now, as the morning wore on. The two Lynxes represented the only means of escape from the lake. They could not be flown in this weather - it would be suicide to try - and they could not fly everyone back. But Gunnar knew that Buckholz would order him, if all else failed, to remove as much as possible of the most secret equipment aboard the Firefox in the two helicopters. He might be asked to fly in impossible conditions. For the moment, he simply had to continually reassure himself that the two Lynxes were safe, lashed down and undamaged.
He let go the taut nylon rope which stretched away to the nearest tree, and thrust his mittened hand back into the pocket of his parka. Reaching the edge of the clearing, he turned back for a last glance. Two grey-white mounds, like igloos. He moved away through the trees, clumping over the snow with broad snow-shoes. As he skirted the shore of the lake, he could see it was little less than a blizzard that was rag
ing across the open ice. Snow rushed as solidly as a white wall seen from a speeding train or car. He would skirt the shore, keeping out of the worst of the storm by staying under the trees.
He settled into the slow momentum of his journey. He was cold, and becoming hungry again. Energy was being used up at a ridiculous speed. The storm thumped and cried at his hunched back as he walked with slow, exaggerated footsteps. Gunnar could not believe that a second weather window would bring the American pilot, or allow them time for escape. They were stranded at the lake. By the time the weather improved, the Finns would have arrived and it would all have been for nothing.
There was only one advantage in the weather. Nothing could fly in it - nothing Russian. They couldn't have moved a single helicopter, a single platoon, even if they knew where the Firefox was…
He was colder now, and he tried to move more quickly.
A freak of the wind brought him the voices. A piece of good luck he appreciated only when he dismissed the idea that the wind had snatched the sounds from the other side of the lake and flung them in his direction. These voices were close to him. Russian voices.
Cold, he distinguished. Fed up… the Major… balls to . . .
Then no more. He leaned against the bole of a tree. He was shaking, almost gripping the tree for support. His hands spread inside his mittens as if to locate and tear at the bark beneath the snow. Fingers twitching -
Russian voices. Soldiers, grumbling about their location, their duties, their officer. They'd been there for some time, they had a purpose which was already beginning to bore them - surveillance without action, his mind supplied - a major was in command. There might be a dozen, two dozen, three.
He turned, his back pressed against the trunk. He saw his breath curdle before it was whipped away by the wind. He was emitting signals as he breathed - where were they? He studied the darkness beneath the trees around him, studied the snow for footprints… the big tennis-racquet patterns of his own were already being covered. Where - ?