Near the top of the map, extending deep into the polar pack at the neck of the conical orthomorphic projection map, was a yellow ribbon, in great loops reaching upwards. This signified the effective extent of the Russian DEW-line, the least of Gant's worries. What really attracted his gaze, riveted his attention, were the sweeps of small pins that marked the fighter bases, those known or guessed, and the missile sites. The fighter stations, all of which would be manned in a twenty-four-hour readiness manner, would possess at least a dozen aircraft that could be scrambled within minutes. These bases were marked in blue and extended along the northern coast of the Soviet Union from Murmansk and Archangelsk in the west to the Taimyr Peninsula fifteen hundred miles to the east. The bases were a little more than one hundred miles apart.
Below these pins were two sweeps of red circles, showing the missile sites. These were slightly less than a hundred miles apart, and extended over the same area of the map, its total east-west projection. Each missile site was semi-fixed, and possessed perhaps a dozen or more surface-to-air proximity and infra-red missiles, launched from concrete pads. Between each pair in both chains, though unmarked, Shelley nevertheless knew there would be mobile, truck-borne missiles, perhaps half-a-dozen to each convoy. The radar system would be located at each of the missile bases, linked to the central radar-control which processed the information supplied by the DEW-line.
Shelley felt mesmerised by the two sweeps of red circles, one along the coast, the second another three hundred miles or more inland, following the same path. It looked like a plan of a classic battle, an army drawn up in two parallel lines — an army of missiles, in this case, linked to radar that scanned every cubic foot of air over the Soviet Union. Gant would have to cross each line, and avoid the fighter-scramble that would follow hard upon his theft of the Firefox.
And, thought Shelley, Buckholz hasn't yet filled in the positions of Soviet spy trawlers, missile cruisers of the Red Banner Northern Fleet, and submarine activity in the Arctic Ocean and the Barents Sea.
He saw that Aubrey was looking at him, quizzically, perhaps even vulnerably. 'There are a lot of them — eh, Shelley?' he said softly.
'Too many,' Shelley blurted out. 'Too bloody many by half! He hasn't got a chance!' He dropped his eyes, seeing Aubrey's anger at his impolitic display of emotion. 'Poor sod,' he muttered.
Four
THE CONCEALMENT
Gant was tired, yet his mind refused to stop racing. Baranovich and the woman, Kreshin's mistress, fussed round him fitting his disguise. Kreshin himself sat in one of the room's low, inexpensive armchairs, watching intently, as if studying the American, expecting to learn something from the way he moved, the way he stood still.
Gant despised the building tension and excitement within himself. It was the wrong way to be, he knew. Yet however he strove to control his feelings, he could not avoid hanging over the edge, staring into the abyss of the hours ahead.
The disguise was, when he considered it, inevitable. There was only one way to walk through a tight security net which was on the look-out for the least unfamiliar thing — to be a part of that net. Baranovich got up from his knees and stood back, hands on hips, in the posture of a couturier inspecting his creation. Gant self-consciously pulled the uniform jacket straight at the hips, adjusted the belt, and looked across at himself in the mirror. The cap he now wore hid his newly-cropped hair, cut close to his head, so that the contacts inside his flying helmet that would control the weapons-system would function, picking up his brain patterns, transmitting them to radar, missiles, or cannon.
Underneath the dark peak, the face that stared at him was cold, narrow, lined and tired. It was the face of a stranger, despite the fact that nothing in the way of disguise had been done to it. In the wall-mirror, all he could see of himself besides was the collar of the brown shirt, the dark uniform tie, and the bright tabs on the laps of his uniform jacket.
'That is — good,' Baranovich pronounced at last. 'It is a good fit now that Natalia has made the little alterations.' He smiled over Gant's shoulder at the woman, who was sitting on the arm of Kreshin's chair, her arm about his neck, as if seeking warmth. Something about the uniform seemed to disturb her, make her seek physical contact with her lover.
'Captain Grigory Chekhov, attached to the Security Support Unit of the GRU, at present assigned under the command of…'
'Major Tsernik, KGB officer responsible for security of the Mikoyan project, Bilyarsk,' Gant finished for Baranovich, a slight smile at the corner of his mouth.
Baranovich nodded. 'What do you think of him, Ilya?'
'Very — convincing,' Ilya Kreshin offered, holding the girl's hand at his shoulder.
'At least, he frightens Natalia — doesn't he?' He was smiling at the girl as he looked into her face, and she tried to smile back. 'You see?' he added, turning back to Gant and Baranovich. 'She takes you for the real thing, and she helped you into the disguise!' He laughed loudly, reassuringly, patting the girl's hand as he did so.
'You recall the rest of your operational background?' Baranovich asked. Gant nodded. 'Good. Now, sit down, or walk about — let that uniform become comfortable — strut a little!' There was an almost malicious humour in Baranovich's blue eyes. Gant smiled, and began to walk up and down the room. Baranovich watched him, and then said: 'No — with the thumbs tucked into the belt — so…' He demonstrated by hooking his thumbs into his trousers. Gant copied him. 'That is good. You must always remember — you will only give yourself away if you fail to be what the guards at the gate expect. And they will expect to see a captain who is arrogant, detached — who means business. If you get the chance, reprimand at least one or two of them, for minor things — their uniform, for example, or anyone who is smoking.' Again Gant nodded. This was an expert talking, one who knew the look of the KGB, or the GRU, intimately, through long and bitter experience. Gant surrendered his own ego, accepted the expertise he was being offered. 'Now — sit down. You stand rather well, eh, Ilya?'
Gant sat down, first wiping the seat of the vacant armchair, and inspecting his fingertips for dust. Then he sat in the chair, completely relaxed, one booted leg crossed over the other. Without looking at them, he drew a silver cigarette case from his pocket, and a rolled-gold lighter — items he could only have purchased in the KGB luxury shop across the square from the Centre itself in Dzerzhinsky Street — extracted an American cigarette, lit it, exhaled noisily, picked tobacco from the tip of his tongue, and then turned his head and looked stonily towards Kreshin in the armchair. The young man clapped loudly.
'It is amazing,' Baranovich observed. 'How melodramatic it all was — and how correct.' His face clouded, as if he were assailed at that moment by a bad memory, then he smiled, his eyes clearing, and added: 'That was very good — you have the gift, Mr. Gant. You can be, without trying, someone else…'
Gant nodded his head politely, frostily.
'Tell me about the observations you made on your lovers' walk earlier,' he said to Kreshin, his eyes hard. It was not a request, but an order. Gant had found that he could channel the useless, wasted adrenalin pumping in his system into his characterisation of Chekhov, whose fictitious papers he had in his pocket, complete with the all-important yellow GRU ID card, transit papers, and the rest. His fake dog-tags were on a thin chain around his neck. He had not asked how the forgery, the disguise, had been accomplished. Baranovich was an expert, driven by hate, and by ego. The results were good.