The read-out gave the time-to-target as twenty-one seconds, distance to target as two point two miles. Soon, within seconds, he would see the low shape ahead of him. It was the Firefox against the… He wished he knew the name of the cruiser.
A long, low ice-floe slipped beneath the belly of the Firefox, dazzlingry white against the bitter, unreflecting grey of the Barents Sea. He had passed over other floes during the past few minutes, the southernmost harbingers of the spring drift of the impermanent pack. Then he saw the cruiser, a low shape on the edge of the horizon which neared with frightening rapidity. He felt that moment of tension, as the adrenalin pumped into his system, and the heart hammered at the blood, the precursor of action.
He wondered whether the cruiser would wait like a complacent animal, to swallow him in its fire, or whether it would launch a brace of missiles while he was still more than a mile away. Infra-red was imprecise — technology had been unable to narrow the inevitable spread of a heat-source as it registered on the screen. It was not a good way to obtain an accurate fix. Nevertheless, fire-control aboard the cruiser, using infra-red missiles, did not need to be precise.
He knew he was now visible to the men on the bridge, a grey petrel seemingly suspended just above the surface of the icy water. He watched the screen, waiting for the sudden bloom of missile-exhausts to emerge from the bulk of the cruiser. At the moment of launch, any SA missile would show up as a bright orange pinprick.
On the radar screen, he picked up what he guessed was one of the cruiser's Kamov helicopters, and his ECM read-out calculated height and range. He decided to launch one of his own AA missiles as a diversion, let the electronic adrenalin of the information flood the cruiser's fire-control computer, let the physical diversion of a hit on the chopper add another dimension to the chessboard across which he moved towards the cruiser.
He launched. The missile pulled away, and whisked up and out of his view. He watched it tracking across the screen, homing on the helicopter which, he knew, would have picked up the missile, and would be scuttling to take avoiding action. Gant bared his teeth behind his facemask. The eletronic war that was all he had ever known thrilled him to the bone, every nerve and muscle fulfilled. War was reduced to a game of chess, to an elaboration upon elaboration of move and counter-move. And he was the best.
The deck of the cruiser bloomed with pale fire, brighter spots on the screen. They had waited, anticipating that he would pull away from the threat of the submarines and the helicopters. Yet he had maintained the same course, heading directly towards them. The fire-control on the bridge, as he had hoped, had been triggered by his own attack upon the Kamov — the helicopter burst into flames in the sky above him, but he saw it only peripherally as a sudden orange flower, petals falling…
They had wanted to drive him between the cruiser and one of the submarines, expected him to pull up and away from them. But he had kept coming at them. Whatever the Soviet captain knew or did not know, he would have been told of the perilous estimate of the Firefox's fuel supply. That would have driven him to action. The Soviet captain had jumped the gun, triggered by Gant into a reflex action.
The ship was only hundreds of yards ahead of him as the SA missiles leapt from the twin-launcher forward of the bridge. Gant pulled away, sliding with exposed underbelly to port, to pass the cruiser. On the screen in front of him, he saw the missiles deviate from their original track, to close on him with frightening speed. Then, at his silent command as he reached the optimum moment, the thought-guided weapons-system triggered the tail-unit. Behind him, suddenly, there was an incandescent flare that paled the sun. He shoved the throttles forward, and the Firefox leapt across the water like a spun stone, skipping the tops of the wrinkled waves, the bows of the cruiser looming above the cockpit in one brief, momentary glance, and then he could see nothing but the grey water as he passed no more than fifty yards from the ship's plates.
Behind him, the tail-unit, releasing a heat-source which, for four seconds burned far hotter than his two Turmansky turbo-jets at low speed, attracted the pair of heat-seeking missiles, and the ball of fire on the screen brightened until it seemed to hurt his eyes, even behind his tinted facemask. Then the bloom died suddenly. On the screen, the cruiser was more than a mile behind him as he went supersonic.
His fuel-gauge registered empty. The Mach-counter showed him steadied at Mach 1.6. The altimeter showed him skipping over the sea at less than fifty feet, still, he hoped, out of sight of the submarines and their infra-red, though by now they would have a transmitted bearing and range from the cruiser.
He watched the screen, saw the two patches of dull orange from the exhausts of a second pair of SA infrared missiles overhauling him. The Soviet captain had been premature. He had been waiting for the better target, the optimum moment, but the trick of the tail-unit must have taken him by surprise. However, he had responded by ordering the release of two more missiles — and…
Gant saw the patch of light at the port edge of the screen as another two remotely launched SA missiles from the submarine nearest to him began to converge on his exhaust.
He checked the read-out on the 'Deaf Aid'. The bearing of the transmitter remained dead ahead of his present course, right on the last course he had fed into the aircraft after leaving the Novaya Zemlya channel. The distance was still one hundred and sixteen miles to its location. The homing signal began to clamour at his brain in the silent aftermath of the split seconds of violent action. He knew it was imperative to slow down.
Easing the throttles back he slowed, so that on the screen the four distant dots of dull orange seemed to draw swiftly nearer. The tail-unit had worked. Gant knew he was gambling, but this time he had an alternative, whereas before he had had none. He could attempt to outrun the pursuing missiles until his fuel ran out.
It was a curious sensation of helplessness, with not even a button to press, as his only link with reality seemed to be the four closing points of orange light. He felt, since he was not looking up from the screen, as if he were a still, helpless point, a kind of sacrifice. He could feel the sweat beneath his arms, running down his sides, chill inside the pressure-suit. He knew that under the weight of the grip he was exerting on the throttles, his hand was shaking fiercely. He waited.
He threw the throttles forward, and the Firefox leapt like a startled animal, flew like a terrified bird. The tail-unit released again and the explosion was almost instantaneous, huge and audible; then the shock-wave rocked the Firefox and he fought to steady the plane. It was like an extra thrust of engine-power. Quickly, he eased back the throttles and the speed dropped to below 170 knots once more.
He ignored the fuel-gauge. His eyes turned to the 'Deaf Aid' his whole attention being to the noise of the homing signal. Less than a hundred miles. In the sudden, almost sexual release after his escape from the coordinated missiles from cruiser and submarine, he didn't see how he could make it.
Ice-floes, larger, more frequent now, passed beneath the belly of the Firefox as he headed north.
The First Secretary's conversation was brief, and to the point. He wasted no time on an appeal to Major Alexander Tretsov's loyalty as a Russian and as a member of the party, or on specious inspiration. Rather, he used the other weapon which had become synonymous with his name — fear. He told Tretsov what was at stake, and he impressed upon him the price of failure. Tretsov was to head northwards, at top speed, using the phenomenal power of the Mig-31, and to rendezvous with a tanker-aircraft over the northern coastline of Russia. From there, he would head for the current position of the Riga, from which vessel there had, as yet, been no report; here another tanker would be waiting in the event that he required a further refueling. The tankers were already on route to their contact co-ordinates.