Pyott paused, his brow furrowed, his cheeks hot. Then he nodded. He, too, could not escape the conclusions Aubrey offered; could not escape his imprisonment within the situation. Aubrey — the covert world that he and Buckholz represented — was his jailer. He saw himself within a fortress, a castle. The politicians had erected the outer walls; they could be breached, or removed, or their existence could be denied as circumstances dictated. But Pyott knew himself to be imprisoned within the keep of the castle, and the walls of the keep had been made by Aubrey and Buckholz and the MiG — and its pilot. The walls were impenetrable, inescapable. He nodded.
'Very well,' he announced angrily. 'Very well.'
He opened the door to the communications gallery. Aubrey scurried in behind him.
He was floundering through the snow now. They still had not released the dogs, but he could hear them barking close behind him. The snow was deep, almost solid, restraining him, pulling him back. He had abandoned the floor of the shallow valley, keeping to the slope, but even here the snow lay heaped and traplike near bushes and boulders. He slipped often. The effects of the hot food were gone. He was utterly weary.
When he had halted last, he had checked the map. More than three miles from the village, perhaps another sixteen — fifteen now, or a little more? — to the Norwegian border, to villages, to police, to another state where he might be safe. Safe — ?
They wouldn't let him remain. They would take him back.
He stumbled, his wrist hurt as his weight collapsed on it, the .22 rifle ploughed into the snow. Furiously, he shook the barrel; snow fluttered away from it. The sky was black and clear, the stars like gleaming stones. Silver light from a thin paring of new moon lay lightly on the snow. He climbed groggily to his feet and looked behind him. Noise of dogs, and a glimpse of lights. The distant sound of one of the helicopters. He did not know where the choppers were, and it worried him. They buzzed at his imagination like flies, as audible in his head as if they were physically present, their belly-lights streaming along the floor of the valley searching for his footprints. One of them had to be ahead, its platoon already fanned out and sweeping slowly back towards him, in radio contact with the pursuit behind him.
Radio -
He had known, had hidden the fact from himself.
Radio.
It winded him like a blow, the admission of their technology, their ability to communicate. Even now, at that precise moment, he was pinpointed.
He looked up at the black sky with its faint sheen, its glittering stars. At any moment, the choppers would come. The pursuit was too close now not to be able to locate him.
Somewhere along the valley floor, just — there…
A finger was tracing contours; the twisting course of the valley. A helicopter would bank, turn-
He ran. Ice glittered on a bush, and he brushed savagely against the obstacle. The rifle pumped against his thigh, against the heavy waterproof trousers. His chest hurt with the temperature of the.air he was inhaling. The survival pack bumped and strained and dragged at his back. He glanced behind once more -
Lights.
Noise — ahead-
Men had been dropped out of earshot, ahead of him, and were working their way back down the valley from the northwest towards him. Pincer.
He stopped running, bent double. He listened. A thin breeze had carried the noises. Shuffling, the clinking of metal, the slither of cross-country skis. The barking of a single dog. Behind him, more dogs, more men, and wobbling flashlight beams. No rotor noise. Nothing. Surprise.
The two groups of Russians were no more than a few hundred yards apart. He began to struggle up the slope, out of the valley. Icy rock betrayed him, a hollow trapped his leg with soft, deep snow. His chest heaved, his back bent under the weight of the survival pack so that his face was inches from the glittering snow. He climbed, feet sinking, body elongating so that he threatened to become stretched out, flat on his stomach. His legs refused to push him faster or further. He used his hands, the .22 clogging with snow as he used it as a stick.
Crest. Dark sky above white snow like a close horizon.
He staggered, pushed up from all-fours to try to stand upright. He gasped for breath, saw the legs, saw the Arctic camouflage, shook his head in weary disbelief, saw the next man perhaps fifty yards away, already turning in his direction, saw, saw -
He cried out in a wild yell of protest and used the rifle like a club, striking at the white form on the crest of the slope. The Russian fell away with a grunt, rolling down the steeper slope on the other side. Gant staggered after the rolling body, as if to strike again, then leapt tiredly over it and charged on down the steep slope.
Trees. A patch of black forest, then the flatness of what might be a frozen lake beyond. The ground levelling out. The trees offering cover, the barrel of his rifle clogged with snow -
He careered on, just keeping his balance. Whistles and the noise of dogs behind him, but no shooting. He ran on, floundering with huge strides towards the trees.
FOUR:
Recovery
The Westland Lynx Mk 86 helicopter, its Royal Norwegian Air Force markings concealed, dropped towards the arrowlike shape of the lake. Alan Waterford, sitting in the co-pilot's seat, watched intently as the ghostly ice moved up towards him, and the surface snow became distressed from the downdraught of the rotors. He ignored the noises from the main fuselage as the four-man Royal Marine SBS team prepared to leave the helicopter. Instead, he watched the ice.
'Hold it there,' he ordered the pilot The downdraught was winnowing the surface snow, but there was no billowing effect. Waterford did not want the surface obscured, the snow boiling around the cockpit like steam, as it would if they dropped any lower. Even so, a few crystals were melting on the perspex. Beyond the smear they made, the ice looked unbroken and innocent as it narrowed towards the neck of the lake where Eastoe's infra-red pictures had revealed a patch of dark, exposed water.
The Lynx steadied at its altitude and began to drift slowly over the ice, the faintest of shadows towed behind it like a cloth. Waterford craned ahead and to one side, searching the surface. As with the photographs, he could see no evidence that an airframe had broken up over the lake. There appeared to be only the one patch of clear water and jostling, broken ice right at the end of the lake.
No undercarriage tracks, but he could not count on them. There could have been a light snow shower, or the wind could have covered them as effectively as fresh snow. Had he landed the plane, or ejected before it ever reached the lake? And if he'd landed, how efficient in saving the airframe and the electronics and the rest of the MiG-31's secrets had the American been in his terror of drowning? Or had he left the cockpit before the plane began to break through the ice?
Behind him, the SBS men, all trained divers, were preparing to discover the answers to his questions. It was too late and too dark to assess fire-damage to the trees on the shore. Gant had to be alive — the Russian activity confirmed that — but had he ejected or landed?
The Lynx moved towards the trees. The patch of dull black water was visible now; ominous. Waterford removed his headset and stood in a crouch. His bulk seemed to fill the cockpit like a malevolent shadow. The pilot, a Norwegian lieutenant, glanced up at him.
'I can't put down this side of the trees — I'm not risking the ice. Tell them they'll have to walk.' He grinned.
'They're used to it,' Waterford grunted and clambered back into the main cabin of the helicopter. Four men in Arctic camouflage looked up at him. Beneath the white, loose tunics and trousers, they were wearing their wetsuits. Oxygen tanks, cutting equipment, lamps, rifles lay near the closed main door. 'You're going to have to walk it,' Waterford announced to a concerted groan. 'You know what they want, Brooke — evidence that the airframe is intact — don't give it to the buggers unless it's absolutely true. Any damage — any at all — has to be spotted. And don't forget the pictures for Auntie Aubrey's album, to go alongside the pressed flowers…' He grinned, but it seemed a mirthless exercise of his lips. 'Keep your heads down — you are not, repeat not, to be detected under any circumstances. And,' he looked at his watch, 'Gunnar tells me we have no more than an hour to look for our American friend — even if we don't run into trouble — so that's all the time you've got. And, sergeant?'