'The immediate recall of the second Mig from the North Cape rendezvous.'
Vladimirov felt his voice tighten in his throat. His energy drained away. Now there was nothing left but fear, the sense of lost honours, of power thrown away. His victory was a bitter, icy moment in time. The First Secretary nodded, once. It did not matter about the remainder of the massive forces mis-directed to the Cape. Not now. Only the second Mig-31 and Tretsov could affect the outcome this late. And, as if in recompense for his career sacrifice, he wanted Gant dead now, wanted Tretsov to finish him.
As he crossed to the console to issue orders to Tretsov, he glanced in the direction of Kutuzov. He thought for a moment, that he saw a kindly, even admiring, wisdom in the rheumy eyes, coupled with a profound compassion. Then he received the impression that the old man was detached, unaware of what was going on. He felt very alone, unable to decide which impression was the truth.
He snapped out his orders — possibly the last orders he would issue as O.C. 'Wolfpack', he reflected grimly — in a calm, level voice, aware of the eyes behind him, watching him. The room was still with tension.
As Tretsov acknowledged, and the second Mig altered course for the ice-floe using its top speed of over four thousand miles an hour, Vladimirov grasped at this last chance that Tretsov would kill Gant.
'They're calling, sir — want identification immediately sir,' Fleischer's voice creaked out of the handset still clipped to Seerbacker's top pocket.
'The hell they do. You know the routine, it's written down. Do it.'
'The Russian wants to speak to you sir.'
'Tell him I'll be along — I'm engaged in goddam experiments at the other end of the floe! Tell him I'll be along.'
'Sir. ETA three minutes and fourteen seconds.'
The conversation had gone on somewhere outside Gant, at a great distance. He and Seerbacker, waiting now by the aircraft, watching the snail-like approach of the men and the hoses, were miles apart in reality. Gant knew, almost to the second, how much time was left, and how much time they needed. They had precisely one minute to spare.
Seerbacker was visibly on edge. The voice of Fleischer acted on his lanky form like a twitch of the puppeteer's strings, pulling him taut He could not, as the Russian closed on the Pequod, any longer believe that the crude hut, the bogus charts, and the thermometers and the masts, would save him. Gant, however, was like a passenger whose train has arrived, calmly collecting the luggage of his thoughts prior to departure. He was no longer what Seerbacker had privately, thought him, a man without a past on his way to no discernible future. He was in transit, and the figures on the landscape of mist and ice had little or nothing to do with him.
'Hell — they'll never make it!' Seerbacker snapped, unable to bear the tension.
'They will,' Gant said calmly, his voice so level, almost a whisper, that Seerbacker looked at him curiously.
'Man, but you're cool…'
Gant smiled. 'Somebody once told me I was dead — the flying corpse they called me in Vietnam,' Gant said.
'You minded?'
'No.' Gant replied, shaking his head slightly. 'Most of the guys who used the name were dead before they pulled us out… missiles, AA guns, enemy planes.'
'Yes,' Seerbacker said softly. 'Hell of a war… '
Peck, sweating, pale, angry and weary, came towards them. There remained only a hundred yards of runway left to clear. He said, towering over Gant: 'We won't make it, mister — if you don't get that bird out of here before the Reds arrive, we're all for the Lubyanka!'
Gant shook his head. 'You have a minute in hand, Chief,' he said. Peck stared at him, his mouth opening and closing, his eyes reflecting baffled incomprehension which changed slowly to conviction.
'If you say so,' he muttered and turned away, back towards the hoses, exhorting his men blasphemously.
'You sure impress the hell out the Chief,' Seerbacker said with a thin smile. 'I just hope you don't have to do it to the Russians.'
'ETA two minutes and thirty seconds,' Fleischer said. 'He keeps asking for you, sir. He wants convincing — I don't think I've done a very good job.'
'To hell with that, Dick. Keep stalling him — does he look like surfacing? Has he asked any awkward questions?'
'No, sir. He seems just naturally suspicious — not as if he's looking for anything special.'
Powdery snow blew into Gant's face. For a moment, distracted by the voices, he glanced up at the cloudy sky half-hidden by the shreds of mist. Then he realised that it was the vanguard of Peck's blizzard. The hose-men were still on schedule. He smiled to himself, and pulled off the parka. Peck's men were forty yards away from the Firefox. The de-icing team trundled past him, and stopped to look enquiringly in his direction. He nodded at them, at which they seemed vastly relieved, and the giant garden-spray was wheeled speedily towards the Pequod, to be hauled aboard and stowed before the arrival of the Russians.
Gant waited, like a guest anxious to be gone, until Seerbacker had finished his conversation with his Exec.
Seerbacker seemed surprised that he was stripped to his anti-G suit once more. He smiled awkwardly. 'I — er, of course…' he said.
'So long, Seerbacker — and thanks.'
'Get out of here, you bum!' Seerbacker said with mock severity.
Gant nodded, and swung his foot to the lowest rung of the pilot's ladder set in the fuselage. He climbed up, and slid feet first into the cockpit There, he tugged on the integral helmet, plugged in the oxygen, the weapons-control jackplug, and the communications equipment. He needed first of all to taxi gently back to the southern extremity of the floe, where the snow had not, as yet, been cleared — it would be slowing, he knew, but he needed the maximum distance to the ridge. He went through the pre-start checks swiftly. He plugged in the anti-G suit automatically, even as he read off the dials and gauges that informed him of the condition of flaps, brakes and fuel. The fuel-tanks, he saw, smiling grimly, were satisfyingly full. It seemed aeons since there had been so much fuel in his universe. He pressed the hood control and it swung down, locked automatically, then he locked it manually. The handset issued him by Seerbacker was in the breastpocket of the pressure-suit. He heard Fleischer's voice, from a great distance, saying:
'ETA one minute and thirty seconds.'
'You hear that, Gant?' Seerbacker's voice chimed in. He continued, without waiting for a reply: 'Good luck, fella. Got to get Mr. Peck's suspicious hoses stowed now, so get out of here!'
Gant gang-loaded the ignition, switched on the after motors, turned on the high-pressure cock, and pressed the button. He heard, with relief, the sound of a double explosion as the cartridge start functioned. There was the same rapid, mounting whirring that he had heard in the hangar at Bilyarsk, as the huge turbines began to build. He switched in the fuel-booster, and eased open the throttles, until the rpm gauges were steady at twenty-seven per cent. He paused for only a second, then pushed the throttles open, until he reached the fifty-five per cent rpm, then he released the brakes. The Firefox did not move.
He hauled back the throttles, and applied the brakes again. Even though he knew instantly what it was, and knew that it could be cured, his own failure to anticipate it made him weak and chill with sweat.
He opened the hood, tugged open the face-mask, and yelled into the handset: 'Seerbacker — get those hoses over here — on the double!'
'What in the hell is it, Gant — can't you leave us…?'
'Get over here! The wheels, they've frozen in!'
'You're stuck — with those engines, man?'
Already, even as Seerbacker apparently argued with him, he saw Peck and the others tugging the hoses towards the aircraft.