Firefox Down

by Craig Thomas

  'I see our revered First Secretary heading this way,' Andropov murmured, smiling thinly as Vladimirov's head jerked up and his lips trembled slightly. Then anger at his own weakness darkened the soldier's features. 'You can't be above it all, you see,' Andropov added.

  Vladimirov felt as if the Soviet leader had been watching them from his office window and had pounced, hoping to catch them at some conspiracy, or simply off-balance. His trilby hat was jammed onto his head, his coat with its astrakhan collar was wrapped around him; his bodyguards hurried after him. Both men moved towards the Soviet leader, preparing their minds and faces.

  'What is happening?' the First Secretary asked accusingly, looking at each of them in turn. The bodyguards loitered. 'I rang the command centre, only to be told that you had gone for a walk.'

  'It is all decided - everything has been worked out,' Andropov replied calmly, indicating Vladimirov. The First Secretary appeared to make an immediate pact with the Chairman of the KGB. His face darkened when he turned to Vladimirov, ready to accuse.

  'Well, General-well?'

  'Comrade Chairman Andropov and myself have made our decisions, First Secretary. We were on our way to inform you privately.'

  Andropov's glasses caught the sun, and glinted. It was like a surrogate smile, a small signal of congratulation. 'Yes,' he agreed. 'We differ in some essentials, however.'

  'I will tell you what is to happen,' the Soviet leader announced, walking on down the path, careful of his footing, waiting for them to fall into step at either side of him. Vladimirov clenched his fists for a moment, then caught up with the older man. Andropov was already to his left.

  'We would value your opinion, of course - ' Andropov began.

  'You will listen to your orders.'

  'First Secretary, I have to say that you are not - '

  The gleam in the First Secretary's eyes silenced Vladimirov. It was more eloquent than the threats which followed. 'Orders. Do you really want me to produce the Minister and Deputy Ministers, the Military Council in force, the General Staff, the Commander-in-Chief of Warsaw Pact Forces, members of the Politburo - more than enough to form a quorum - half the Central Committee…?' The Soviet leader waved his arms in the air, as if conjuring his supporters. 'All of them will tell you that I am right, even before I say anything! What is it you want, Vladimirov? What proof do you require before you realise that this business - all.of it - falls under my control? I have allowed you to lead. Now, you will follow. Do you understand me?'

  Vladimirov stared over the trilby hat, towards the Archangel Cathedral and the great bell-tower of Ivan the Terrible. He fought to control his features; to prevent his lips from twisting in ugly, frightening contempt, to prevent a blush of anger and shame entering his skin. Eventually, without meeting the Soviet leader's gaze, he nodded stiffly. 'I understand you, First Secretary.'

  'Good.' Clouds moved swiftly behind the trilby hat, behind the bell-tower and the cathedral's domes. Shadow for a moment or two, then cold sunlight again. 'Good.'

  'What is it you wish to be done?' Vladimirov asked. It was evident that the First Secretary had been in consultation with members of the General Staff and the Military Council. He was certain of himself. He had a scenario prepared. A consensus had been reached.

  'You have one attempt - just one - to recapture the MiG-31. If that fails, then the aircraft is to be destroyed where it stands. Do you comprehend?'

  Vladimirov nodded miserably. The First Secretary had ensured his backing for such a decision. The wasted billions, the wasted high technology, the wasted lives, did not matter. Safety first. The General Staff and the Council had accepted the wisdom of erasure. Better no one than the Americans. Obviously, he already had given guarantees that the project would be continued, and that continuity of funding was assured. In exchange, the General Staff had agreed that no one be held responsible for the theft of the MiG. A fresh start would be made. The matter would be forgotten.

  Vladimirov wondered who had been on his side. The Minister of Defence - Kutuzov, certainly, but who else? He still had some influential allies, otherwise he would never have been granted even one chance to recover the aircraft. Someone would have ordered a small, powerful bomb to be dropped, or a stand-off missile to be fired -

  And then he saw the trap, opening up at his feet. Realisation raced like the clouds beyond the domes of the cathedral. He was expected to fail. He would be disgraced, and removed. The First Secretary - perhaps even Andropov, too - would be revenged upon the insubordinate soldier. A warning to others. He dropped his gaze and met the Soviet leader's eyes. And saw that his insight was a true one. This man wanted his head.

  Summoning as much bravado as he could, he said, 'One chance, First Secretary? Then I shall take it, gladly. We'll capture the aircraft and our friend, the American!'

  The MO-MAT creaked with frozen snow as a great bale of it was slowly unrolled along the cleared shoreline. The trees there had been cut down and the bases and roots grubbed out to make an open flat area which stretched away to a point where the ice would bear the weight of the Firefox. The portable runway covered rutted mud, pockmark holes, frozen slush.

  Buckholz stood on the shore, his back to the soupy, refreezing water beneath which the aircraft had lain. He could hear the creaking of the MO-MAT, and the noise disturbed him. At that distance, he should not have been able to hear it. The wind must be dropping. He turned his face into it, and his cheeks were numbed almost instantly. But he could hear the MO-MAT, hear distinctly the chain-saws, even hear the voices of the mechanics and engineers who swarmed over the airframe. There should be nothing else but the wind. He pulled back the cuff of his parka, and looked at his watch. According to updated reports, they had another hour.

  Runway, he told himself. Runway. He would need Moresby to check that. They needed upwards of four thousand feet of clear ice, and God alone knew what lay out on the lake. He had an image of Gunnar stumbling, tripping and falling against small ridges of drift that had frozen. The aircraft could never achieve its take-off speed, maintain its heading or preserve its undercarriage intact if the obstacles were too numerous, too solid…

  He moved towards the aircraft. It was like entering a warm and familiar room. Cannon ammunition was being fed into the huge drum aft of the cockpit. Two AA-6 missiles had already been fitted beneath the wings. The ammunition was NATO in origin, but fitted the drum and the calibre of cannon aboard the MiG-31. The two missiles were a bonus, Buckholz admitted. Salvaged from a MiG which had crashed, killing the pilot, on the Varanger-Halvoya while trying to get back to its Kola Peninsula base with an electrical fire on board. The wreckage had been returned, together with the pilot's remains. The missiles had ended up at Bardufoss with the RNAF Tactical Supply Squadron.

  Beneath the aircraft lay a crude timber support and a deflated black airbag. They had been used to lift the airframe off the ground to test the undercarriage. To one side, the hot-air blowers lay waiting for re-use. Much of the MiG's airframe was covered by temporary shrouding when operations began, and the air blown around the airframe to dry it. The shrouds remained around the engine intakes. One engineer had only minutes before completed his slow, patient journey around the aircraft with a smaller, more portable blower, drying off every hinge, flap, and lock on the airframe.

  The fuselage had been patched where it had been torn by cannon fire. The fuel lines had been repaired. Oxygen had been loaded aboard. The aircraft looked like an expensive model, as far as Buckholz was concerned. Somehow, it no longer seemed designed to fly. Sinister yes, beautiful in a dangerous way. But - a copy. A fake. He could not believe that the avionics, the hydraulics, the instruments, the engine itself, even the flaps and rudders - would operate. More than seven hours after the drop, after work had begun on the Firefox, Buckholz could not believe.

  He signalled to Moresby, who seemed reluctantly to detach himself from a conversation with two of his team leaders. Yet the Englishman hurried the short distance between them.

&nb
sp; 'What is it, Buckholz?' he snapped, glancing back towards the aircraft. 'Not just a polite enquiry, I hope?'

  'No.' He turned to face the snow-swept lake. Visibility, he realised, was improving. He could see the ice, the patches of snow, the ridges, stretching away from the shore. 'The runway,' he explained.

  'Ah, yes. Been thinking about that.' Moresby glanced back at the aircraft, and shouted, 'I don't want that radio tested until we know we're going for the real thing!' One of the two men to whom he had been talking raised his hand in acknowledgement. 'Can't trust the bloody Russians not to be listening, mm? Even if they know, I don't want them knowing any more… that way, they might think we haven't got a hope!' His smile was like a wince. 'Come on, let's have a look at this runway!'

  They walked out onto the ice, hunching against the wind and the intermittent snow.

  'Four thousand feet-better give him a little more…' Moresby murmured, studying a compass, changing direction almost mechanically. 'Swings here… Ah, clear ice. Just a spot of paint for the moment.' He drew an aerosol from his parka and sprayed red paint onto the ice, a curving arrow in shape. 'There - nice touch.' Then he began striding in measured steps away from Buckholz, heading north up the lake. Buckholz caught up with him, and they walked together, faces protected from the wind, goggles now in place to cover their eyes.

  'How're things?' Buckholz asked eventually. Moresby appeared to be counting. Every hundred paces or so, he sprayed the snow or ice with a blotch of red paint.

  'Wife's fine thank you. Wants to go to Venice this year… not keen myself.'

  'The airplane, dammit!'

  'Oh-so-so. Good and bad, yes and no.'

  'I see.'

  'It won't be ready in the next hour, nor the next two,' Moresby announced. 'Except by a miracle.'

  'Hell - what's wrong?'

  Moresby sprayed a patch of clear ice. Then he bent near a ridge of snow, and poked at it. It was only fifteen inches high. 'Mm,' he murmured. 'Some of these will have to be levelled off-hot air, and all that. The rest can be blown off with a downdraught.'

  'Downdraught?'

  'We have two helicopters, old man. If they fly up and down this runway you want, they'll blow most of the snow clear. What's too stubborn to move, we'll have to melt! Come on, let's get on with it.'

  'What's wrong with the aircraft ?'

  'Oh… Look, Buckholz, let me take you through it, nose to tail, as it were - then you'll see the problem. The problem that is now increased by the fact that the Russians know where we are and what we're doing… I really don't think, do you, that a short slow hop into Norway is going to be enough?'

  'Maybe not - I just hope…'

  'Well, you do that, Father, and the rest of us will work. That aircraft has to work - it has to be capable of speed, altitude, combat tactics, firepower. Just like when it came from the factory. And that is taking a little longer to achieve!'

  'Can you?'

  'No. Nowhere near. Look - ' He sprayed a ridge with red paint. 'That's three thousand feet. The whole airframe is dry… the air-driven back-up instruments and systems - they all work… hydraulics and flying controls, OK… We can't even begin to tinker with the thought-guidance or the anti-radar - we don't know how they work. We've checked the connectors, the switches, the wiring, in case of shorts or damage…' They paced on through the flying snow. Visibility stretched suddenly to perhaps seventy or eighty yards, then closed in again just as quickly. Moresby continued: 'Patching up the battle damage was relatively easy, so was draining the water from the fuel tanks. The radar and the other avionics in the nose section-well, we've done what we can. Checked it out, replaced just about all the multi-connectors and some wiring that looked a bit dodgy… that's about the limit of what we can do here-without the workshop manual!' Moresby smiled, sprayed red paint, paused to kick a low ridge that extended to either side of them, then moved on. 'The manual firing systems seem OK. Your man could shoot. However, down at the tail, those decoys are not what the Russians were using, but they might work, they come off the ejector rails OK, and they ignite, of course, they might just give enough of a showing on infra-red to fool a missile - perhaps.'

  He was silent, then, and eventually Buckholz said, 'And yet you won't be ready?'

  Moresby sprayed paint and announced, 'Four thousand. Where are we?' He stared into the snow and wind. 'Mm. Visibility, fifty yards. Let's have a look and see what he's got left before he hits the north shore and the trees!' They walked on for some paces, and then Moresby replied to Buckholz's question. 'No, we won't be ready. She has to be fuelled up, for one thing. The radio, the electrics, the engine all has to be tested. We're less than half-way through the full instrument check. I wouldn't give this aircraft a chitty by the end of tomorrow.' He paused. 'Ah, there we are. Just a bit less than four and a half thousand feet. He'll be lucky.'

  'How long will it take to strip out the most important equipment from the aircraft?'

  'Two hours minimum.'

  'Then-'

  'We're committed, one way or the other. Once the weather clears, your man will have to take off, or else we blow up everything, without salvaging even the anti-radar and the thought-guidance systems. I can't put it any more kindly than that.'

  Buckholz stared at the trees fringing the curving shore of the lake. It was visible now, a vista that retreated into the snowy haze. The weather was improving. There was less snow, even though the wind did not seem to be dropping.

  'Can we clear this runway?'

  'Oh, yes - I think so. Not too much trouble, using our two Lynx helicopters. And a hot-air blower for these bloody-minded little ridges. The ice underneath was OK. If he's any good, he could get off…' Moresby glanced up at the sky. Cloud, heavy and grey, was revealed above the lessening snow. 'But, now that they know, what is he going to meet up there, even-if he does get off? I wouldn't give that aircraft any chance in a dogfight with a Spitfire, never mind a MiG-25!'

  'Yes, Moresby, I understand that. Yes, yes, it's my decision. Thank you. I'll be in touch.'

  Aubrey walked away from the console towards Curtin, deliberately ignoring Gant, who was staring out of the window at the returning landscape of mountains and fjords.

  'Well, sir?' Curtin asked.

  Aubrey wobbled his hand, a signal of dubiousness. 'Moresby is keener on salvage than on flight,' he said. 'What do you have from Eastoe and North Cape?'

  'The traffic they've picked up at North Cape indicates at least one troop helicopter has crashed on landing. No details, but it happened at Nikel, which seems to be their main assembly point.'

  'Mm. What estimates of current strength?'

  Curtin shrugged. 'Now we're really into the guesswork area. Maybe upwards of one hundred commandos… that's predicting the time they found out, the weather then and since, the known locations of units of the Independent Airborne Force… just about everything. But it's still pretty vague, sir.'

  'A hundred-I see.'

  'And gunships. Our people haven't got Blowpipe or any other missile. They're sitting targets for a gunship attack - so's the Firefox.'

  'I know that - !' Aubrey snapped, then added: 'Sorry. Go on.'

  'Eastoe's reporting movements all the time. It's very difficult for them… hence the helicopter crash. That will teach them a little caution, sir, if nothing else. There are troop movements on the ground - hard to make out, but it's safe to assume there are some…'

  'And nothing has crossed the border as yet - nothing?'

  Curtin shook his head. 'We don't think so…'

  'But, no one can be certain.'

  'No.'

  'Well?'

  'It looks like they're settling for one big push - a hundred men or more, perhaps two or three gunships besides the transport helicopters…'

  'Activity at Kola Peninsula bases?'

  'Plenty. No flying - there's no weather for that - yet. The first forward base, at Pechenga, will clear soon after we do, sir. We know what will happen then.' Curtin suddenly detached hims
elf from detail, and said, 'Mr. Aubrey-they know everything. They must know about - him,' he added, nodding his head towards Gant, 'and they know what we're trying to do at the lake with "Nessie"… it's a race, sir. One we can't win. If all they want to do is destroy the Firefox, they'll have an easy time of it.'

  'If that's what they want,' Aubrey replied, but it was evident that his features expressed his mind's agreement with Curtin's arguments. He glanced towards Gant's back, then into Curtin's face. He shook his head as a signal of doubt rather than denial. 'The weather is about to open, Curtin. I have ten minutes, little more, in which to decide. It's - difficult…' He pinched his lower lip between thumb and forefinger, cradling his elbow with his free hand. 'So difficult,' he murmured. 'We would have an hour, perhaps less, of sufficiently good weather… after that, he could not take off anyway. Half of that time we will be safe-the Russians won't be able to move. Then perhaps another ten or fifteen minutes before their first units arrive. Three-quarters of an hour. And Moresby swears the thing won't be ready…' He looked up again. 'It is ready, in one sense. Ready for a low-level two hundred mile flight at sub-sonic speed to Bardufoss. He won't guarantee anything more than that. Worse, he cannot tell whether or not the anti-radar is working, or will continue to work, during any sort of flight.'

  Curtin nodded his agreement. He dropped his voice, and said, 'You would be sending him up in an airplane which might break down at any moment, which won't do what he wants, hasn't the speed to run away… and may be seen on every radar on the ground and in the air for hundreds of miles around him. That's the gamble, Mr. Aubrey - the real gamble!'

  'You think I'd be killing him?'

  'I do.'

  'Then I can't ask it of him - can I?'

  'No, I don't think you can.'