by Craig Thomas
'Weather has cleared sufficiently at Pechenga. Two squadrons of interceptors airborne. ETA - six minutes.'
He looked up. Visibility perhaps seven hundred yards, maybe seven fifty. He would be rushing towards a blanket of what might have been fog, except that it was grey-white and falling slowly. The snow was heavier. Only the wind was missing. One of the Lynxes took off, being almost immediately swallowed by cloud. The second Lynx drifted towards the Firefox, to await the rescue of Moresby's technicians.
'OK, that's everyone except your people, Moresby,' he heard Buckholz announce. Gant could see him beside the commpack. The rotors of the Lynx died down. 'We can leave our four prisoners tied up where they are. Their friends will be along any minute. So - let's go…?'
Moresby nodded. 'Thank you, Mr. Buckholz. We'll be aboard in a moment or two.' Then he addressed Gant. 'They've split into two groups - south of us and east, as Waterford suggested. But the gunships are still airborne. They're obviously awaiting orders.'
Gant checked the fuel gauges. And shook his head. 'Not yet,' he said. 'I'll tell you when to stop.' Moresby's face was tired and angry; even frightened.
'Those bloody gunships,' he murmured.
'Gant?' he heard in his earpiece. 'Gant - this is Thorne. I've got an idea.'
'What?'
'A double take-off - let me take off first… it might keep some of them off your back.'
'What are the gunships doing?'
'Holding - agreed?'
Gant flicked on the radar. On the scope, amid the clutter from the worsening weather, he could just make out two heavy, glowing blips of light in close formation. Range perhaps two or three miles. There were paler, higher dots beyond them, at the very edge of the screen, but he disregarded them. They were still as much as five minutes away.
'Good idea - but no thanks. They know which is which. You move out now before they get their orders. Good luck.'
There were puffs of snow from beneath the Harrier which became small billows as she rose on the downward-directed thrust of her engine. The Harrier wobbled aloft, lights winking beneath her wingtips and belly, glowing as much as at dusk. The aircraft turned in the air like a clumsy dancer, then the thrust of the engine was vectored to forward flight. The aircraft slipped behind the snow and was gone.
Gunnar in the second Lynx had watched the Harrier's disappearance avidly. Now, he returned his attention to the Firefox. Gant saw the turn of his head. He was the only Norwegian remaining, waiting for the last handful of technicians. Around the lake were perhaps forty-five marines, all of them hidden except for the white-clothed figure of Waterford outside the windbreak which protected the commpack and its operator. He knew they were waiting for the aircraft to take off so that they could disappear deep into the forest, and make for the Norwegian border in small, quick-moving groups.
The lake was suddenly isolated and lonely. Gant wanted to stop the refuelling that moment, let the technicians go, let Moresby go. Take off-
Two heavy, nearby glows on the radar; other paler dots moving steadily closer above the clouds. In minutes, they would be above him, poised like birds of prey. The encounter was inevitable.
He watched the fuel gauges. He glanced down at Moresby. The two dots on the radar remained motionless.
'Advance units report no contact, General.'
Vladimirov listened with his head cocked slightly on one side as the reports began coming in from the airborne troops set down to the south and east of the lake. The British troops must be slowly falling back to the lake itself, with orders not to engage. A quick thrust now - a surprise outflanking movement around the tree-lined southern shore of the lake, and they might yet have the airframe intact -
The two MiL-24 gunships had been ordered to hold their position, despite the reports from the reconnaissance helicopter that Gant had started the MiG-31's engines and the Harrier and one of the Lynx helicopters had departed. There were only moments left. They must push forward now.
The microphone was in his hand, to give the order. His lips had begun to frame the first words. He had summoned saliva into his dry mouth -
The First Secretary's hand fell heavily on his, startling him. He turned from the communications console. The Soviet leader was framed by the fibre-optic map. The scene upon its surface looked like an indictment.
'What are you about to do, General Vladimirov?'
'I - want our troops to push forward to the lake with all speed-' he began.
There was scorn in the heavy face of the First Secretary. 'No,' he said quietly. Then, more loudly: 'No! Your time has run out, General Vladimirov - run out! There is no time left for you. You - are dismissed!'
The silence in the long gallery was intense, almost audible. Andropov had turned away. No one looked in Vladimirov's direction, although he knew by their stance and lack of movement that they were all listening.
'What do you mean…?'
'I mean you are dismissed, Vladimirov - I mean you are to get out.'
'But - '
'Go! Give me the microphone - ' For a second, they struggled for possession of it like two children quarrelling over a toy. Then Vladimirov wearily, defeatedly released his grip. The First Secretary cleared his throat and said simply; 'Gunship commander - you will begin an attack at once. Destroy the runway, destroy the MiG! Do you understand my order? Destroy!'
Buckholz was standing next to Moresby, looking up at him. Beside him was a large briefcase. He appeared like a traveller eager to be gone.
'Mitchell!' he said through Moresby's microphone. 'Let's get the hell out of here - all of us!' He waved his arms towards the east for emphasis. Gant checked the radar -
And saw that the two glowing dots, in close formation, had begun to move. At high speed.
He waved his hand in agreement. Immediately, Moresby dashed forward to the fuel cell, and switched off the pump. Then he jerked the landline free with a violent tug. As the pump's noise subsided and the first distant hum of approaching rotors reached them, Gant pulled down the cockpit canopy, checked his straps, switched on his oxygen supply, checked the anti-G device of his pressure suit, and pushed the test button. He checked the gauges. The pump was abandoned, the empty fuel cell, like a huge collapsed black aircraft tyre, beside it. Then he saw Buckholz, Moresby and the technicians scurrying across the ice to the open door of Gunnar's Lynx. They climbed in hurriedly.
Gant checked the temperatures and pressures. The dots on the radar hurried through the mist of ground-clutter towards the scope's centre, closing on him. Runway, he thought. Runway first, airplane second. The Firefox strained against the brakes. He eased the throttles forward once more, paused, caught a glimpse of two helicopters - the Lynx lifting and sliding away towards the western shore of the lake and into the obscuring snow, and the first of the armed MiLs, a hundred yards ahead of him, at the edge of the trees. A gauntlet.
He released the brakes. The Firefox skipped forward, like a dog kept too long on its leash. It raced at the unfolding smooth runway of ice. Visibility, perhaps six hundred yards - snow blowing across the lake once more. He switched on the wipers. He thrust the throttles fully forward, and felt the power of the Turmanskys punch him in the back. The ice rushed beneath the nose of the Firefox. Fire bloomed beneath the stubby wing of the MiL-24, and snow and ice cascaded over the fuselage of the Firefox as he raced on.
The wipers cleared the cockpit screen. In the mirror, he saw the ice open up, but the black snaking branches of the cracks caused by the rocket's impact lagged behind him, out of breath and tired.
Fierce elation. Almost delight. The airspeed indicator read one hundred and twenty knots. He still could not see the far end of the lake. The airframe was shaking as the wheels careered overridges and bumps. His teeth chattered painfully, his hand shuddered as it gripped the control column. One hundred and forty knots. The aircraft was almost skipping and bouncing as the wheels discovered every tiny indentation in the ice. One ridge that had been missed, he thought - then quashed the idea.
It persisted for another moment-just one, and the undercarriage would snap -
One-fifty, one fifty-two -
He began to ease back on the column, beginning to lift the aircraft's nose. In the mirror, he saw the MiL loom up again as it pursued him. Fire billowed from its wing-pods; rockets. They struck the ice behind him, around, ahead. He was showered with fire which burst into boiling snow and ice. Something clattered against the fuselage. A huge crack in the ice to starboard snaked towards him at terrible speed - then he was past it. The scene behind him was completely obscured.
One-sixty knots.
Then he saw the second MiL, directly ahead of him, the end of the lake behind it; the trees like pencil-marks against the white-grey sky. The MiL wasn't moving. Hovering. Helicopter and shore filled his vision.
It was directly in his path. He was airborne, accelerating through one sixty-five knots. The MiL had positioned itself - it had shunted slightly a moment earlier - directly in the path of his climb-out. It enlarged, an enormous black beetle, hanging there.
He hauled back on the column, sweat bathing his body, his lips stretched to point at the clouds.
The MiL rushed forward anticipating his action, prepared for suicide. Missiles armed. He pulled the column back almost against his chest. The Firefox seemed to stand erect on its exhaust and stagger into the air as if tearing free of a swamp rather than a frozen lake. The MiL was huge in his vision. He retracted the undercarriage as the helicopter seemed to move its nose in, so that he almost expected a shark-mouth to open and tear at the belly of the Firefox. The aircraft leapt at the low cloud. The MiL had vanished; become no more than a wide dot on his scope. A missile's infra-red trail pursued him for a moment, then fell away, unable to match his rate of climb. It would have been wire-guided, for use against ground targets.
He was at ten thousand feet, climbing at the rate of five hundred feet a second. The airframe quivered and shuddered, like a human body that was chilled and growing rapidly colder, as the storm thrust and battered outside the aircraft. His fingers trembled on the control column. The throttles were all the way forward, through the detent and into reheat. The Mach-meter clicked rapidly upwards. Mach .8, .9, 1.0, Mach 1.2…
Eleven thousand feet. He studied the radar. Three glowing dots were moving towards the scope's centre. He demanded contact time from the computer, and the read-out appeared almost immediately. Twenty seconds. They were at fifty thousand feet, and they could see him on radar -
He would break through the cloud ceiling at twenty-four thousand feet, into a searing blue sky, and he would be under a roof of interceptors. Already other, paler dots were appearing at the edge of the screen. His body was still shaking from the aftermath of the almost-collision. Had he kept the Firefox beneath the MiL, he would have ploughed into the shore and the trees and exploded…
He tried to dismiss the past.
Don't think about it, don't think about it, his mind kept repeating. Don't think about it…
He pulled back on the throttles and scanned the instrument panel. No warning lights. Fuel-flow, rpm, radar, avionics, inertial navigator, armaments. The airplane functioned. It was an airplane again, not salvage.
Altitude, eighteen thousand feet and climbing. The grey cloud slid and writhed past the cockpit. The bright white blips on the screen were nearer. Ten seconds to contact.
No anti-radar. They can see you, he reminded himself.
Remember that -
The MiGs were too close to outclimb. Stand-off missiles, heat-seeking, would overtake him even if the fighters that launched them could not. Six aircraft, all closing. All of them could see him. Already, they would have reported that fact, and would have deduced the failure of the anti-radar. The adrenalin would begin to flow, now that they knew. They would consider it easy, consider it already accomplished…
Hide.
Ground-clutter -
Dive.
Course - Bardufoss.
Twenty-one thousand feet. Contact time six seconds. Feverishly, he punched in the co-ordinates to the inertial navigator, and began to alter course. Hide - ground-clutter. Deceive the radars. Five seconds, four-and-a-half, three.
He saw the infra-red flare. A missile launched at Mach 3, then a second and a third. He banked savagely, flinging the aircraft into a steep dive, twisting into a roll so that the thicker, heavier grey cloud was now beneath his canopy. Then he completed the roll and the nose of the Firefox was driving through the cloud, the altimeter unrolling, the streaks of the missile exhausts still pursuing him across the screen. The white blips behind them had altered course and were following him down.
He banked savagely again, feeling the G-pressure build until it was painful. The suit he was wearing, not tailored for him or the aircraft, was slow to adapt to the abilities of the Firefox. His head hurt, his vision was hazy for a moment. Ten thousand feet. The missiles were pursuing a different course, dropping away towards the ground because they had lost his infra-red scent. The effects of the savage turn drained away. He eased the aircraft into a steeper dive. The three closest white blips still pursued him.
Five thousand feet. He began to pull out of the dive, slowly and easily. Four thousand feet. Three, and the aircraft was beginning to level out. Two-five, two, one-five, then he was flying level. He flicked on the terrain-following radar, then the autopilot. The inertial navigator altered the aircraft's course immediately, directing it towards Bardufoss. From the readout, he knew he was already in Norwegian airspace. Somewhere over the Finnmark, inland of the Porsangerfjord.
The Russians, too, were inside Norwegian airspace.
The Firefox twisted, banked, flicked like a dart through the unseen mountains. Gant felt as if he were watching a grey blank screen ahead, through the haze of. snow swept aside by the slipstream. There was nothing. Except the sense of the mountains of the Finnmark around him intruding, seeping like a gas. He could not help but feel their solidity, their massive obstruction. They were a maze through which the TFR and the autopilot flung him. He was like a runner off-balance on a treacherous surface. So long as his flight was headlong, arms flailing, he kept upright, leaping from foot to uncertain foot. TFR - autopilot. Keeping him alive. He felt, too, the constant, chilly quivering of the fuselage as it met the impact of the storm outside. It was as if his own body was growing colder and colder; shivering violently.
The three Russian interceptors followed, but they were slowly dropping back. They might have been MiG-25s, or even MiG-27s. They were not the Firefox. They were confused by ground-clutter, they had to trail him at an altitude above the mountains, they had to employ their manual skills. With each change of course, he gained upon them. He glanced at the map strapped to the thigh of his suit. His finger traced his course. Over the mountains east of the Lyngenfjord - flicking through that valley there, wings trembling as the aircraft banked and banked again through the turbulent air, following the valley's turns and twists…
A hundred miles from Bardufoss
The Firefox banked steeply, almost turning into a roll, then changed course again to follow a valley before lifting over an unseen ridge and then dropping lower into another fold of the land. Rock faces on either side crowded upon the slim black fuselage. He could not avoid imagining the landscape or tracing his course on the map. He knew it was reaction; reaction to everything - the MiGs that were dropping further and further behind him, the MiL helicopter that had filled the whole of his vision, the steep climb, even the hours before the take-off.
And it was Bardufoss. If the weather closed in, clamped down with high winds and nil visibility - a blizzard, close to white-out - he would never be able to land.
The thoughts unrolled like the images flicking upon the TFR screen; the blurs and lumps and flashing glimpses of radar-imaged mountains, rock faces, valleys -
The TFR screen went black. Grey. Empty. The aircraft was halfway into a steep turn, following -
No time! Much too late, a row of warning lights had rippled across the autopilo
t panel. No time -
The Firefox seemed to hang. Grey screen, grey beyond the perspex of the cockpit. Without instructions from the autopilot, the column did not move, the engine note did not change, the angle of bank remained. The two Turmanskys were driving him towards a terrain he could not see. Into it -
He sensed the storm outside the aircraft more vividly. The fuselage seemed to shudder, as if anticipating impact. He imagined the noise of the wind, felt he would be tumbled from the cockpit when the aircraft struck and would hear the wind - before…
Still his hands hesitated, clenched almost into claws. Choose - He couldn't. The Firefox maintained the steep change of course the autopilot had initiated on the instructions of the TFR. Where-?
Valley! Lift-
He levelled the aircraft, pushed the throttles forward, cancelled the autopilot by pressing the button on the column, then pulled it towards him. Grey ahead of him, nothing, nothing, nothing…
The nose came up, the Firefox climbed. Four thousand feet. Four-and-a-half, five -
He was above the mountains. Sweat ran from beneath his arms. His facemask was fogged. On the radar, the MiGs seemed to have surged forward, away from the bottom of the screen towards its centre. They could see him clearly now; a target upon which to home. Gant shuddered uncontrollably, gripping the column as he levelled the aircraft at six thousand feet. He forced himself to look at the map on his knee, at the tiny printed heights of the peaks. Then he pulled back on the stick once more, lifting to eight thousand feet as quickly as he could. Now he was above them; the mountains no longer threatened him.
The MiGs closed. He demanded a read-out from the computer. Contact time, fourteen seconds. He pushed the throttles forward, forcing the Mach-meter past Mach 2; flying blind.
He flicked on the UHF set. He would be over Bardufoss in minutes now. He had to know.
'Bardufoss Approach - this is Firefox. Over.' He listened. Checked the frequency. Listened. The UHF set was on, it should be working. 'Bardufoss Approach - come in, Bardufoss. This is Firefox. Over.'