Downdraft from the straining Mil seeped over them like a slow cloud of heavy gas. He closed his eyes against the stinging sand. He heard the others coughing, groaning with effort. The 24D resisted, solidly unmoving.
Come on, come on, come on, come on!
He heard Garcia increase the power to his engines. The Mil roared. He seemed in darkness when he slitted open his eyes. His feet began to lose what grip they had been able to find, he began to slip backward.
"Come on — heave!" he screamed.
He fell forward, plunging his face into the churned, sand-filled water. Beneath the water, he could hear the throb of the Mil and some thin noise like a distorted cheer.
He lifted his face out of the water. Twenty yards away, as the sandstorm subsided, its wheels axle-deep in the sand at the end of three long, deep furrows, his helicopter sat with a kind of elegance: upright, rotors drooping gently.
Water sparkled as it dripped from the rotor that had been half submerged. Lane was on his knees in the water, Kooper was doubled over. Mac had struggled up the slope and was staring at the Mil as it rested near the fuel cell and the pump, as if quizzical about their situation.
"OK, let's fuel her up and get off. We haven't got time to spare."
Lane groaned, got to his feet. Kooper straightened reluctantly. Mac was already moving toward the MiL. Garcia's helicopter hovered over the water, towrope trailing in the sea. By the time Gant reached him, Mac had cut through the rope. Garcia wobbled in the air, as if bowing, then headed back toward the sandbar. Gant waved him away. Garcia gave a thumbs-up.
"OK — be back with you, Major, just as soon as I can."
The 24A drifted toward the beach.
Urgency was difficult, as if further effort was grossly unfair and to be resented. They should be safe, after what they had done. Instead, Gant felt his muscles crack and protest as they hauled the fuel cell alongside the helicopter, then dragged the pump beside the fuselage. He knocked open the fuel cap positioned just forward of the stubby port wing. Mac attached the hose, Kooper locked it to the fuel cell. Then he and Lane grabbed the handles of the wobble pump, and began pushing and pulling back and forth, pushing and pulling.
"We'll spell you," Gant said. Water sucked around his boots. The sand was dark and wet beneath the wheels of the MiL. He looked at Mac, then added: "I want enough to get me to the beach, is all."
Sweat spread where the water was drying on their overalls. Once more, the air seemed to scorch in Gant's lungs as he relieved Kooper at the pump. A cone of heat and humidity surrounded him. Mac's face, opposite his, was reddened, running with perspiration. Kooper relieved Gant. Water splashed audibly, ankle-deep. Lane took Mac's place.
When Garcia arrived, panting for breath after trudging along the narrow spine of the bar, Gant climbed into the cockpit of the MiL. Fuel gauges… not quite yet…
"Garcia," he called, leaning out of the cockpit. "Unplug the intakes." Garcia splashed through the knee-deep water and climbed onto the fuselage. Gant looked at the rotors drooping to port and starboard. Their tips reached down almost to the level of the stubby wings. The sea had begun to envelop the undercarriage once more. Perhaps two or three feet from the rotors — fuel gauges…?
He began prestart. Auxiliary power unit on.
Fuel gauges?
"OK, guys — disconnect."
"Jesus," someone groaned. Gant heard the hose being disconnected, the fuel cap closed.
He reached up, after glancing down at the water rising toward the weapons pylons beneath the wings. He pressed the two start buttons adjacent to the throttle levers. He advanced the levers to a ground-idle setting. His arm quivered with weariness and a new sense of urgency. If the water beat him now…
The two Isotov engines growled to life. He checked the main panel, monitoring the small percentage of instruments and functions he required to fly the two hundred yards to the safety of the white sand. The whine of the turbines reached a higher note. Water splashed against the weapons load beneath the wings.
He watched Garcia, Mac, and the others retreat in his mirrors, wading back through the water. The sandbar had disappeared. They were thigh-deep in water, walking along its hidden spine. He reached up to the throttles and advanced them to their flight-idle setting. The turbines screamed, the rotors quivered, held by the rotor brake. He stared at the rotor tips to port, then starboard. Six inches, perhaps five—
— released the rotor brake. They began moving, turning as if in amber or thick jelly. Slowly, slowly. Distressing the water over which they passed. He held his breath. Quicker, quicker.
The rotor disk shimmered, the tips lifting well above the water. The Mil seemed to shuffle, as if impatient but still restrained by the water. His eyes were blinking away perspiration as his left hand raised the pitch lever, increasing the engine power. His right hand eased the column toward him, lifting the helicopters nose.
The Mil lifted clear of the water and sand as if climbing out of molasses. The water rippled outward from the downdraft, puckered by streams falling from the undercarriage and fuselage. He lifted the Mil over the staring, waving group wading toward the beach, heading for the trees.
He began to breathe more easily. He lowered the pitch lever and gently applied pressure on the rudder pedals. He dropped the helicopter high up on the beach, the fine white sand beyond the tide line whirling up around the cockpit. Then the thought struck him — the Galaxy… did it make Karachi?
6: In Foreign Places
Dmitri Priabin watched the dogs tail wagging lazily just below the television set. He was leaning one elbow on his desk, holding the telephone receiver to his ear. Nodding occasionally, as he listened to the surveillance report on Valery Rodin from one of Du-dins teams attached to the Tyuratam office. They were established in an empty flat opposite the refurbished mansion where Rodin owned — owned, not rented — a small, expensive apartment.
On the television screen, half a world away and hours earlier, Soviet ice skaters danced a jigging, doll-like finish to their routine and bowed, then slid toward the camera that would study their faces while they waited for their marks. Another of the endless repeats Soviet television relied upon to fill its program schedule. The movement of the dogs tail seemed to dismiss their performance. He watched the skaters' shiny, heavily breathing feces, grinning, and recognized a common identity with them. They were spiritual cousins. Their marks stuttered along the top of the screen. Disappointing. Behind the East Germans. He sensed their anxiety, but without his customary cynicism. They might well be anxious for their new flat with all the modern conveniences — would the second-ranked Soviet pair overtake them, and thereby take over the flat? He smiled. It was what they were all after, just as he was — a flat on the Kutuzovsky Prospekt. The place had never seemed as inviting to the skaters or to himself as at that moment.
He recognized that his mood had lightened.
"He's been what?" he asked sharply, startled out of his half-attentive mood. A photograph of Rodin lay clipped to the first page of the file opened on his desk. The narrow, sensitive face looked up at him scornfully. The eyes were sharply focused; not as they must be now.
The marks for artistic impression were better. The skaters waved with renewed energy. They might yet get to keep their flat on Kutuzovsky Prospekt.
He listened carefully. "You're certain?" he asked.
"Yes, sir. Silver spoon, sniffing it right up his little red nose, sir," the KGB man assured him. "He's practically in a dead faint right now, stretched out on the bed. Silk sheets, sir," he added leeringly.
"After drinking, too?"
"Yes, sir. Brandy and coke."