Where was it? There was no heading, no positional reference. Where? The Russian continued on the HF set, itself made intermittent by the surrounding mountains. Where? South—southeast, he heard, and then the distance. Looking at the moving-map display, he knew the Mil was close enough to be dangerous. He must have erupted onto one of the Ilyushin's screens in a clear gap of air where no helicopter flight was logged or expected. He had been visible for long enough to be pinpointed, but there was no identifying IFF number alongside the blip to explain who he was. To the Uyushin, he was — unofficial. If the Ilyushin really started looking…
He wished himself alone, without Garcia trailing behind him and already wound tight as a watch spring. He could not spare the effort, if it really came to hide-and-seek, to watch out for Garcia and his crew when all his energies were needed to stay alive. It was a simple, brute fact.
More voices in the headset; two more call signs and positions. A routine patrol instructed to alter course, to overfly the sector in which two unidentified contacts—there was a boyish excitement in the pilots' responses. No one could imagine what kind of unidentified aircraft would be this deep into Afghan airspace; it was probably a false alarm, someone with a damaged radio T u/s IFF transponder, but it would be good practice to seek and find, a game, good fun.
"Major?"
"Shut up, Garcia," Gant snapped into the transceiver near his head. "Stay close to me."
He dipped the MiL's blunt nose. Mac raised his hand in the gunner's cockpit. The helicopter's shadow rushed over gleaming snow, down into the cleft of a dark valley. He hugged the ground clutter like a hedgehog rolling itself in disguising leaves, and pulled the airspeed back to just above one hundred mph. Nap-of-the-earth flying, a feature of all the textbooks. No instruments, no systems; eyesight and reflexes. He felt the exhilarating danger of his plunge. The altimeter unwound with stunning quickness. Garcia, behind him, seemed to fall more slowly than he.
Come on, come on, Garcia—
He leveled the helicopter. Rotor noise boomed back from the pressed-close cliffs on either side. He skimrtied down the long funnel of a deep valley cleft, his eyes and hands aware of each other, his shoulders tense as if the residence of all his reflexes and experience. Stars gleamed at the end of the funnel where the land dropped away. They were cutting across the mountains at the eastern end of the Panjshir and moving northeast. Off-course, for the moment. Garcia's Mil bobbed in his mirrors like a cork afloat on a rocky sea.
Radio — nothing down here. He had dived into deep water, escaping almost like a submarine by going deep. It was lightless down there, and he had no idea of the whereabouts of the dangerous fish that were hunting him. Safety was a two-edged sword.
Stars, snowfields, a sense of flatness—are they above? — a scattering of small lights away to the east of him. The hard stars overhead betrayed no gaps or shadows that might have been the fuselage of a searching aircraft.
Radio — nothing. On the moving map, he pinpointed his position as one hundred miles northeast of Kabul, fifty miles from the air base at Parwan. Radio?
Radio.
Russian again. A mobile listening post, for Christ's sake. Here, here, close, too damn close.
Langley had logged into the onboard computer and the course coordinates every major radar installation, every airfield, every helicopter unit of the Frontal Aviation Army serving with the Limited Contingent of Soviet Forces iii Afghanistan; every air assault brigade that might have helicopters at its disposal or be flying routine transport missions, every AWACS aircraft and the regular pattern of surveillance flights they undertook — the satellite diagnosis of their course and its dangers was full, brilliant, almost complete—
— except the mobile radar and listening vehicles. Untrackable, too many to count, scattered over the mountains and valleys. Most of them were deployed farther south or west than this.
He had to stall, use the cover story. Invite more danger by averting an immediate threat. He replied immediately, even before his voice had fully unfrozen from shock.
Call signs, IDs, radio routine, cover story. It was all there, flashing in his mind like scattered, bright lights. Give them everything. It will all be so familiar maybe they won't even bother to check. He knew they would. Someone would. The mission's luck was running that way; was at the point where he had to begin to think in terms of luck. Kabul contained enough of a full army GHQ organization to nm down, and disprove, his cover story in a matter of — in less time than it would take to reach the Soviet border. LCSFA GHQ was inside the Soviet Union, at the headquarters of the Turkestan Military District — but Kabul was good enough and big enough to blow his cover without reference north to GHQ. An unlogged, private flight he might call himself, but…
In his mirrors, Garcia s Mil skimmed over the tiny group of dim lights, over the huddle formed by a bulky, high-sided truck and its screen of a tumbled stone wall, pale in the moonlight. Nothing more than a truck! The skeletons of antennae and dish aerials threw shadows on the white wall. Gant's passive sensors picked up radar emissions. He heard the radio.
"… please identify immediately. We do not have you logged. Over."
Almost polite. His MiL, the Hind-D, skimmed on like a flung stone.
… attached to 105th Guards Airborne Division," his cover story flowed on, "Kabul. Transfer of top-classification documentation from Army HQ, Kabul to Central Asia Military District HQ, Alma-Ata. That's all you're allowed to know, Mobile Unit 476. Over." Despite his tension, he grinned. The last elegance of the bluff, not letting everything spill out with the haste of denial of a child caught with the jam still on his face.
Gant's eyes scanned the black, star-pricked sky. Scanned his engine instruments and flying displays out of habit, wishing he could use other sensors and radar but knowing he must now preserve his cover story. On such a mission he would be flying visually. Even on the mission he would eventually admit to.
They were out there, like sharks waiting to smell blood or feel movement through the water, and the mobile listening post could guide them to him the moment he failed to satisfy it. He could outrun none of the aircraft. He couldn't even outrun another Hind.
Peaks loomed ahead. Cover. He scanned the sky, the gaps between the mountains to the west of him, then the northwest — there! He swallowed. Red and blue dots that were not stars, but tiny navigation lights winking on two fuselages catching the moonlight.
Cockpit lights, fuselage lights, the silver of metal. Less than two miles away.
"Major—"
"I see them," he snapped into the transceiver. "Leave it to me, Garcia. Out."
Speed of the lights and the flash of metal against the background stars—? MiL's. Gunships, like his own. Drawing his gaze away from them, he quartered the sky — no fighters, nothing but the two helicopters. Two against two — come on, come on, swallow the story!
There was no alarm, not yet, no request to the helicopter patrol to investigate.
He eased his speed to one twenty, one twenty-five, checking in his mirrors to see that Garcia was scuttling to keep up with him. Yes.
The mountains of the Kwaja Muhammed range neared, promising obscurity, loss of detection. But they knew he was here, now. Unless they accepted his story and allowed him to continue unmolested and uninvestigated, they would want to find him again. Everyone would want to find him. On how many screens was he pinpointed by now? The two MiLs had him, the AWACS Ilyushin would have seen him. How many fighters? They had to believe his story.