The boys fought for places on the bench. Cold fingers fumbled and tugged at wet, icy bootlaces. Bodies that had wisps of steam about them in the freezing air struggled into overcoats and anoraks and thick jackets. The sons of civil servants, schoolteachers, one of them even the son of a Soviet film star. Boys from the same expensive block of apartments as Maxim. From the place where he lived with Anna -
'Come on,' he said. 'Hot dogs and hamburgers all round — but only if you're quick!' He turned to Anna. 'One good thing the Olympics did, from their point of view. We now have Muscovite hot-dog stands!' He sniffed the air loudly. 'I can smell the onions from here!' he exclaimed. The boys hurried into their shoes and boots arid coloured Wellingtons. Bobble-caps and scarves, and they were finally ready. Priabin handed Maxim a crumpled heap of rouble notes, and nodded towards the stone porch and the Lenin Prospekt beyond. 'Your treat,' he said. 'And none of you stray away from the stand before we get there!'
Noisily, the party of footballers and would-be diners ran off. Football boots, trailed carelessly, clattered on the frosty path as they ran. The ball bobbed between them before it was retrieved.
'He's not going to take any chances with that ball!' Priabin laughed.
'Like his mother,' Anna replied, slipping her arm into that of Priabin. 'He can recognise a good thing when he sees it!'
'Bless you,' Priabin said awkwardly, blushing. He patted her hand.
She leaned her face against the shoulders of his greatcoat, then said mischievously, 'Those new shoulder boards are very hard.'
He burst into laughter. The noise of the traffic was louder as they walked towards the archway. Away to their left, across the darkening park, the double line of lights along the banks of the river were fuzzy. An icy mist hung above the Moskva. Priabin shivered. He had remembered their argument the previous evening.
As if she read his thoughts, Anna murmured: 'I'm sorry about last night — '
'It doesn't matter.'
'I'm still glad about that damned aircraft — I'm still glad it's been stolen, it's gone-!' she added vehemently, as if making an effort to fully recapture her emotions of the previous night; rekindle their argument.
'I know,' he soothed.
'When I think-!' she burst out afresh, but he patted her hand, then grabbed her closer to him.
'I know it,' he murmured. 'I know it.'
He detested the vehemence in her blind, unreasoning hatred of the MiG-31 project. It was an intellectual hatred, the worst kind. He had loathed the previous evening and the argument that had seemed to leap out of the empty wine bottle like a jinn. He had been totally unprepared for it. He had informed her of the death of Baranovich at Bilyarsk almost casually, his head light with wine and the meal she had cooked to celebrate his promotion. He had been high on drink, and on his colonelcy. Blind. He hadn't seen the argument coming, hadn't watched her closely enough. Baranovich had been the trigger. As he held her now, he could hear her yelling at him across the dining table.
'Baranovich is dead?' she had asked. 'You pass me the information like a bundle of old clothes? Your project — your damnable bloody project has killed Baranovich? His mind was — priceless! And that filthy project killed him!'
There was much more of it. Priabin crushed Anna's body to him to prevent the working of memory, feeling her slightness beneath the heavy fur coat. She struggled away from him.
'What is it?' she asked, studying him intently.
He shook his head. 'Nothing — nothing now…'
'Come on, then. The boys will be getting cold — in spite of their hot dogs!' She reached for his hand, like an elder sister, and pulled him towards the arch and the traffic beyond. He matched his step to hers. The flushed lightness of his mood had disappeared, and he blamed Baranovich, the dead Jew. Anna had met him no more than three or four times. He was not a friend, not even a real acquaintance. Instead, he had become some kind of hero to her; even a symbol.
He shook his head, but the train of thought persisted. It was almost six years earlier, from Anna's account, that her role with the Secretariat of the Ministry of Health had brought her into contact with the Jewish scientist. He had developed a prototype wheelchair for the totally disabled, which used thought-guidance via micro-electronics for its motive power and ability to manoeuvre. Anna had taken up the project with an enthusiasm amounting to missionary zeal. After eighteen months, the project had been scrapped.
Correction, he admitted to himself. He could hear the group of boys around the hot-dog stand now, above the rumble of the traffic. The smell of the onions was heavy, almost nauseating. Correction. The Ministry of Defence had acquired the project for its anticipated military applications; acquired Baranovitch, too. The design for the wheelchair which was never built found its way eventually into the MiG-31 as a thought-guided weapons system.
Anna had never forgiven them for that, for creating a means of more efficient destruction; out of the prototype for a wheelchair.
Them — ?
Everyone. The military, the Civil service, the Politburo — even himself. She had never forgiven anyone.
'Come on, come on,' he said with forced enthusiasm as the boys gathered around him, full mouths grinning, feet shuffling, the lights of passing cars playing over the group. The hot-dog seller stamped and rubbed his hands. Onion-breath smoked from the stand. 'Where's your car?' he asked Anna. She gestured down the Lenin Prospekt. 'See you at the apartment, then,' he said. 'Take as many as you can… the rest of us will get the metro.'
She nodded, and smiled encouragingly. He knew his face was dark with memory. He nodded. 'OK — all those for the metro, follow me!' He marched off pompously, making Anna laugh. The boys, except for Maxim and the film star's son, followed in his wake, giggling.
Priabin waved to her without turning round. He envisaged her clearly. Thirty-eight, small-faced, assured, fashionable, ambitious. A senior assistant secretary to the Secretary to the Ministry of Health; a prominent and successful civil servant. Her income was greater than his.
As they clattered down the steps into the Park Kultury metro station, he thought that last night he had begun to understand her. He started fishing for the fare in his trouser pockets, hitching up the skirts of his greatcoat to do so, his gloves clamped between his teeth. Yes, he had at last begun to understand.
It was that damned project. It had always been that damned Bilyarsk project. She had wanted revenge for what they had done, for never developing and mass-producing that bloody wheelchair.
So, she had begun to work for the Americans…
He gripped a handful of change and small denomination notes and heaved them out of his pocket.
She had begun to work for the Americans…
'We have one chance-just one,' Aubrey said with heavy emphasis. 'If we can get in before this approaching front brings winter's last fling with it — ' He tapped the projected satellite photograph with a pointer. ' — then perhaps we can beat the Russians and the Finns to the Firefox.' Pyott, who was operating the slide projector, flicked backwards and forwards through the satellite pictures as soon as Aubrey paused. They fluttered grey and white on the old man's face as he stood in front of the screen, pointer still raised. Finally, Pyott switched off the projector. Buckholz put on the Ops. Room lights. 'Well?' Aubrey asked. 'Well, Giles?'
Pyott shook his head and fiddled with his moustache. 'This front is producing heavy snow at the moment, and it's bringing a lot more behind it — heavy snow showers, high winds, even the possibility of electrical storms. As you so neatly put it, Kenneth, it's winter's last fling over northern Europe and Scandinavia- I don't know. I really don't know.'