'Sir?'
'Make sure you conceal that commpack properly — we won't be the last of our side in and out of here, I'm sure of that, and they'll all want to talk to London as quickly as possible.' Waterford indicated one of the packs near the sergeant's feet. 'This'll give them satellite direct-don't leave it where a reindeer can piss on it and fuse the bloody thing.'
'Certainly not, sir,' the sergeant replied. 'Commpack not to be left where reindeer may piss on it — sir. One question, sir?'
'Yes, sergeant?'
'Does the Major know the exact-height to which a reindeer can piss, sir?'
The Lynx drifted slowly downwards. Waterford, smiling at the tension-releasing laughter in the cabin, glanced at the window in the main door. Snow surrounded them like steam. They were almost down. As he observed the fact, the Lynx touched, bounced as if rubber, settled. Immediately, the rotors began to wind down, their noise more throaty, ugly. The sergeant slid back the main cabin door.
'Out you get-quick as you can,' the lieutenant ordered, nodding at Waterford. Packs and equipment were flung out of the door. Through his camouflage parka, the night temperature chilled Waterford. He felt the tip of his nose harden with the cold. When they had dropped to the ground, he moved to the cabin door.
'Good luck. One hour — and I'm counting.' He waved, almost dismissively, and slammed the sliding door closed, locking it. Then he climbed back into the cockpit and regained his seat, rubbing his hands. He slipped on the inertia-reel belt, then his headset. 'OK, Gunnar-let's see if we can find this lost American chap, shall we?'
The Lynx jumped into the air almost at once, the rotors whining up, the blades becoming a dish that caught the moonlight. The four SBS men were already trudging briskly into the trees, laden with their equipment. The helicopter banked out over the lake, and headed north-west. The ice diminished behind them.
There was no nightsight on the folding .22 rifle. There were six rounds, each to be fed separately into the breech. It was a weapon of survival — for Arctic hares for the solid tablet stove or any fire he might have been able to light — but not for defence. Never for offence. Gant had no idea how much stopping-power the slim, toylike rifle possessed, and he hesitated to find out. The nearest of the Russians, white-tunicked, white-legginged, Kalashnikov AKM carried across his chest, was moving with great caution from fir-bole to low bush to fir-bole. The dogs had been kept back, still leashed; perhaps moving with the remainder of the unit to encircle the clump of trees in which they knew he was hiding.
Time had run out. His only advantage was that they wanted him alive. They would have definite, incontrovertible orders not to kill him. Maim him they might, but he would be alive when they reached Murmansk or Moscow or wherever.
The frozen lake was behind him, as clean and smooth as white paper, almost phosphorescent in the moonlight. His breath smoked around him like a scarf; he wondered that the approaching Russian had not yet caught sight of it, not heard the noise of his breathing. Forty yards, he guessed. A glimpse of another white shape, flattening itself behind a fir, farther off. The noise of the dogs.
And, omnipresent and above the trees, the rotors of two of the helicopters. He had glimpsed one of them, its outline clear for a moment before he had been blinded by the searching belly-light. Slim, long-tailed MiL-4s. Frost glittered on the dark trunk of the fir at the fuzzy edge of his vision. He had now recovered his night vision after the searchlight, except for a small, bright spot at the centre of the Russian's chest as he sighted along the seemingly inadequate barrel of the rifle. The man bulked large around the retinal image of the searchlight. Gant could not miss at that range.
Still he hesitated, sensing the moment at the eye of the storm; sensing that any move he now made would be his last. Capture was inevitable. So why kill — ?
Then he squeezed the trigger, knowing the true futility of the attack. A sharp little crack like a twig broken, and the white-dressed Russian flung up his arms and fell slowly backwards. Snow drifted down, disturbed by the downdraught, onto Gant's head and shoulders. Beyond the body, which did not move, did not begin to scrabble towards the nearest cover, another white form whisked behind a dark trunk. Gant turned towards the lake, regretting, loathing the gesture of the kill. Through the trees, the shore appeared empty.
Orders shouted, the crackle of a radio somewhere, the din of the dogs. His head turned back towards the body, then once more to the lake. A light was creeping across the ice. Above it, as if walking hesitantly on the beam, a MiL-4 came into view. The ice glared. He heard the noise of dogs released — released, unleashed, loose…
He began to run, even though some part of him knew they would be trained not to harm him if he remained still. He could not help himself. He had to run. The dogs were loose.
Yowling behind him, a shot high over his head. Small, low branches whipping at his face, depositing snow in his eyes and mouth and nostrils. He held on to the rifle with both hands, almost heaving the air aside as he ran out of the trees, across the snow-covered, slippery stones of the shore, out onto the surface snow that made the ice tactile, sure-footed. The MiL-4 turned its baleful black face of a cockpit in his direction, and the beam of the searchlight licked across the ice towards him.
No more trees, no more cover, his mind kept repeating, attuned to the frantic beating of his ears, but he could not regret the sky. The trees had hemmed him, formed a prison before he was, indeed, captured. The MiL slipped over him like a huge, moving blanket, whirling up the snow around him, cleaning the ice and making it suddenly treacherous. He staggered, then whirled round.
The leading Alsatian was out of the trees, hardly hesitating as it met the stones on the shore and then the smoother ice. He raised the .22 and fired. The dog skidded, sliding on towards him, mouth gaping. He looked up. A face appeared at the open cabin door of the helicopter. It was grinning, savagely. Gant fumblingly ejected the cartridge, thrust a new round into the breech, raised the gun — two more dogs, now on the ice, but he could no longer care even about dogs — and fired. The head ducked back inside the helicopter, but Gant knew he had not hurt it.
He ran on, skating, slipping, then hurrying through patches of undisturbed snow. Then, the MiL slid towards him again, pinning him in the searchlight beam. Whistles, men on the shore…
He reloaded the .22, but the dog was on him, its leap driving him backwards, struggling to keep balance. He was winded, but as he doubled over he struck the dog across the head with the rifle. The Alsatian twisted away, yelping. The other dog watched, suddenly more wary. Gant stood his ground, watching the men approach behind the dogs, caught for their benefit in the glare of the searchlight. The rotors above him hammered, drowning thought.
He knew he would not move now. It was finished. He was defeated. Or perhaps satisfied at having protested, struggled enough. He had made his gesture. Energy drained away, as if drawn out of him by the light. Both dogs now crouched on the ice, growling, only yards from him. The first troops were forty yards away.