Firefox Down

'From your people?'

'Our people!' Andropov snapped.

'I'd forgotten-our people.'

'What about this Nimrod aircraft in the area?'

'It must have picked up the helicopters. Obviously, they also wish to know what happened.'

'And will they have units like ours in the area too?'

Vladimirov shook his head. 'I doubt that. Unfortunately, we have been unable to help giving something of the game away. We need him quickly now. The Nimrod was very low — presumably it collected photographs, which will be analysed. That gives us time. I think enough time.'

'Damned forest!' Andropov erupted.

'I agree. It makes things more difficult. We know he was with the Lapps — but he stole food and clothing, no more. He wasn't hiding there. He cannot be more than a mile ahead of our people — once again, they must put down men ahead of his probable track.'

'Yes, yes, of course they must-!' Andropov drank the remainder of the whisky, and studied the glass. Vladimirov saw his gaze stray to the bottle on the bar, but he made no move towards it. 'Where is the plane, Vladimirov? There's not enough wreckage in those photographs… you and I know that, even though the experts will take hours to decide the same thing.' Spots of pink glowed on the Chairman's high cheekbones. 'We know it isn't there — so, where is it? Eh, where is it, this priceless white elephant of ours? We know he didn't eject because of the parachute they found-he landed that plane, Vladimirov. Do you realise that?"

Vladimirov nodded. 'Yes. I do. But I do not know where. Only he can tell us that. Had he been one of our pilots, or had it been an American aircraft, he would have stayed near it. In this case, he has been trying to open up the distance between himself and the MiG-31. The British Nimrod, too, wonders where the aircraft is, no doubt. Only Gant knows.'

'Then we must have him!'

'We will. His time is running out.'

'I wish I could be certain of that.'

'Your men are following his tracks, Comrade Chairman! What more do you want? Their footsteps are planted in his. In an hour, perhaps two, he will be ours.' Vladimirov smiled. 'Then we will both be off the hook, mm?'

Andropov merely glowered in reply. He pondered for a time, then said, 'Couldn't we track back along his journey?'

'Perhaps. But, had it been me, I would have changed direction a dozen times. And, by now, his tracks will have gone, and his scent will have grown cold. Don't worry — Gant has the answer. Soon you will be able to ask him for that answer — personally.'

* * *

'There's no doubt about these photographs,' Buckholz protested vigorously, his finger tapping the glistening enlargements that lay scattered on the plot-table of the Scampton Ops. Room. 'You use dogs to sniff for explosives — unlikely — or you use them to hunt men. Those are dogs — KGB Border Guard dogs.' His large, blunt-fingered hands spread the enlargements in a new pattern, as if he were dealing cards or flinging down items of evidence. 'These troops are in Arctic camouflage, but they're not military. These MiL Mi-4s are what the Border Guard favour for personnel and equipment transport. And they don't have any markings at all… just the way the Border Guard operates. No, Colonel, what else do you need to see before you make up your mind?'

'Charles,' Pyott began defensively, 'I realise that Washington is very keen to get on with this job, but — '

'You have to get your government off its butt, Colonel! Time is running out for Gant, and for us.'

Aubrey, as a distraction, picked up a sheaf of the photographs that had been transmitted over the wireprint from Eastoe's Nimrod. They were all pale, shining with the ghostly light of the advanced infra-red cameras that had produced them. Men almost in negative in the very last of the daylight and the ensuing darkness.

He looked at the prints of the lake. Broken ice near the neck of the lake, but very little of it. A small, shrinking patch of black water. Yet the Firefox had to be underneath the water, beneath the healing ice. The remaining pictures, of the wreckage at the point of explosion, were uninteresting. Aubrey, without study and without expert advice, knew that nothing of the MiG-31 lay there.

Pybtt glanced at Aubrey. 'Number Ten is being very reluctant over this, Kenneth,' he began, seeking an ally.

'Because the Cabinet Defence Committee has always pooh-poohed the Firefox, I wonder? The P.M. isn't bullying them any more, I suppose?' He turned to Buckholz. 'Is the President applying the right amount of pressure, Charles?' Buckholz nodded. 'Everyone would like to walk away, except for Washington.'…

'The usual restrictions, of course, Kenneth — if you're caught, we'll deny everything.'

'We work with those every day — they're not important. It's doing something — and quickly — that is important.' He stared meaningfully at Pyott, who held up his hands, wrists pressed together to represent unseen bonds. 'Tied they may be, Giles- but really.'

'What can I do?' Pyott asked softly.

'Look at them!' Aubrey returned, his hand flapping towards the scattered enlargements. 'Gant may be alive — he knows where the body is buried, as do we. If they get to him, they will know! We must at least establish what is beneath the ice — before we decide our response.' He looked at Buckholz, and shook his head. 'I don't think there's anything we can do for poor Gant — I can't order military units into that area.'

'I know that. So will he. He knows he's on his own.'

Aubrey nodded lugubriously, plucking at his lower lip. Then, as suddenly and superficially as a child, his mood changed. He turned on Pyott and said, in an intense whisper, almost hunching over the enlargements on the plot-table, 'You already have Waterford standing by with a four-man unit at Kirkenes. Their diving equipment is loaded onto a Royal Norwegian Air Force Lynx helicopter. You have the agreement of Commander, Allied Forces Northern Norway, for this flight under the guise of a search-and-rescue mission… Giles, please make up your mind to act-!'

'I have other people to please apart from yourself, SIS, or even the CIA…' Pyott began, then clamped his lips tightly shut. He shook his head, 'Unofficially, JIC wishes something done — so do the Chiefs of Staff, but Cabinet opinion is against any exacerbation of the situation. They'll settle for the loss of the two — the only two — production prototypes of the Firefox. The expert reasoning is that the Bilyarsk project will have been put back by at least two, even three years by what has happened. The Russians may even scrap the whole, hideously expensive project.'

'And if the Firefox is intact? And the Russians ask their friendly neighbours, the Finns, for their toy back?' Aubrey demanded with withering irony, his face red with frustration. His hands were clenched at his sides.

'Yes,' Pyott admitted.'Yes, I know.'

'Washington will carry the day, you know that,' Aubrey observed. 'Gresham, as P.M., and the rest of the Cabinet will have to sanction whatever the President wishes to happen — however much they dislike the medicine.'

'But they have not yet done so — '

'And we have run out of time.'

Momentarily, Giles Pyott's cheeks glowed with anger, then he turned on his heel. 'Very well,' he snapped, 'very well.'

Aubrey hurried after him as he mounted the ladder to the communications gallery. 'Tell Waterford he must check this KGB activity,' he called. Pyott stopped and turned.

'No!'

'Yes,' Aubrey insisted. 'We have to know whether or not Gant is alive — we have to know when, and if, they take him alive. Everything could depend upon it.'