Firefox Down

SIX: Echoes In A Tunnel

The dream required the presence of his father. His father had to be made to walk along the Mira Prospekt and be seen from the vantage point of a passing black car. If he could make his father walk in a northerly direction, if he could slow down the moving car to a kerbside crawl, if, if if…

It was important to remejnber the Mira Prospekt. Important, too, to remember the room in the moments before the needle, the pause, the unconsciousness. White, clinical, smelling faintly of antiseptic, rubber, ether, furnished with an operating table and hard chairs. Most important to remember the faces…

Vlad — i - mir — ov -

The Soviet general looked like his father now, but Gant remembered who he was. White coats — doctors… Guards, a nurse, others he did not know. He tried to see his father's face, but was forced to allow the shirt-sleeved, shambling figure to wear Vladimirov's features. However, he made him move and glance from side to side like his father. The imaginary car slowed, sliding along the kerb, and Gant peered at the passing faces as they kept pace with his father's intoxicated, shiftless, shameful progress. Nurse, doctor with the needle, other doctor, guard, man in suit — who was he? — Andropov, Priabin — no, no — !

Pavel, Baranovich, Semelovsky, Kreshin, Fenton — his face like red-dyed dough — other faces… Gant concentrated. He could see, ahead of them and farther along the Mira Prospekt, against the snow-laden clouds, the huge cosmonaut's monument of a rocket atop its narrowing trail of golden fire. His father was an insect-figure moving towards it, then the car turned off the road, moving at a snail's pace behind the shambling, despicable gait he knew so well. His father was heading through tall iron gate towards the front entrance of a large house hidden from the busy road by tall, thick, dark hedges.

It looked like the house of a dream, but it was real. He recollected the steps, the door opening — nurse's uniform, guard's uniforms-and two flights of marble staircase. His father had disappeared into one of the ground floor rooms, he thought. It did not matter. Each time he retraced his journey, his father reappeared to hold the memories together.

It was important to remember the journey. To remember the black limousine, the pressure of the two bodyguards' frames on either side of him; to remember the Mira Prospekt and to remember the house, the steps, the door, the marble staircase, the columns and doorways and ornamental urns and pots, the old furniture, the white room and its smells, the doctors, guards, Vladimirov. Vital to remember the hard chair, the straps about his wrists and ankles, the needle… held up, spurt of colourless fluid, hovering, moving closer, skin pinched up, needle inserted…

In his dream, he was sweating profusely with the effort of memory — but he had done it! He had remembered it all while the dream still contained him…

Remembered everything, everything that informed him that he was under interrogation, that he was drugged and prepared — probably sodium pentothal followed by benzadrine, or some other two drugs in harness. He was only dreaming now while they waited for the first drug to take effect, he was certain of it… then the stimulant would jolt him into wakefulness, dreamy and slow or hyperactive he did not know, but when it happened the questions would begin -

And he had to remember everything! He knew where he was, he knew why he was there. He knew they would ask him questions about — about…?

Gant panicked in his dream, felt himself chilled and burned by his fear. He could not remember why he was there!

Don't, he told himself, don't… I have to … don't, secret, don't…

He had remembered everything — he had remembered enough.

Pinprick — ?

His skin crawled. Pinprick? He was instantly wary…

Something else — quickly, something else, quickly… just before the needle, as he looked down at the needle, as his skin was pinched into a little hillock and the needle went in, something else…?

Watch, watch, watch -

They hadn't taken off his watch, he had been staring at it as his eyes snapped shut and he was suddenly in darkness. He had told himself to remember the time, to look when he awoke again. Time -

It was getting light. Murmur of voices that was more than the dream-traffic on the Mira Prospekt. People constructing sentences, discussing, arguing… waiting for him to awaken.

Light — his head was lifted, eyelid plucked at, a blurred form moved away, and a fuzzy light was revealed which did not seem to hurt his eyes.

Pinprick again. A few moments, and he was able to see more clearly. Doctors, nurses, uniforms. White room. It's starting, he told himself with great difficulty. He seemed to be trapped in a heavy, translucent oil, his thoughts moving with extreme difficulty. It wasn't like a dream — he had swum easily through the dream, raced with it. Now, his body — he was aware of it quite clearly — was laden, his eyes focused slowly and he could almost feel them moving in his head as he transferred his gaze from face to face. He saw a doctor nod, slowed-down like a failing movie-reel.

He remembered the watch. Focused with exaggerated slowness. Read the time. It did not seem meaningful. Thirty minutes had passed. It did not seem to matter. Father on the street outside, a long gallery on the second floor lined by tall ornamental urns. It did not matter. None of it mattered. He was trapped in his body which was trapped in the translucent oil. He watched the faces around his chair, as dull and unmoving as a fish on the watery side of an aquarium's tank. He stared out at the human faces, unthinking.

Vladimirov watched Gant carefully. The doctor assured him that the man was prepared. He could be interrogated immediately. He was now capable of suggestion. Vladimirov savoured the helplessness of the American strapped in the chair which was itself bolted to the floor of the clinical room. More than the bruising on the face, the swollen lip he had himself inflicted even before the bodyguards had operated upon the American, he enjoyed the man's present helplessness. It satisfied his craving for superiority, his desire for the restoration of his self-esteem. This — thing — in the chair, drugged and animal-like, could never have succeeded against him. Now, indeed, the thing in the chair was about to tell them everything it knew -

Where he had hidden the MiG-31. After that-his life preserved only for the length of time required to locate the aircraft-he would be disposed of together with the other rubbish that accumulated in such a place; in a Forensic Psychiatry Unit of the KGB.

He turned to the plainclothed KGB officer who had been assigned by Andropov. He and his two fellow-officers were experts in interrogation by the use of drugs. Most of their work was performed at this Unit on the Mira Prospekt. The man probably had a research degree in psychiatric medicine or clinical psychology.

Vladimirov suppressed the contempt he felt for the tall, angular, harmless-seeming man next to him. The man is only doing what you wish of him. He smiled and turned to the tape deck that rested on a metal-legged table behind them. Wires trailed across the floor to speakers arranged on either side of Gant.

'These haven't been edited-I have only the flimsiest acquaintance with them, Comrade General — ' the interrogator complained.

'But you approve their use?' Vladimirov asked firmly. 'Comrade Colonel Doctor,' he added to emphasise the politeness and formality of their circumstances.

The interrogator nodded. 'To begin with, yes,' he replied. 'But the man outside may be of more use. This form of induced regression often has no more than a limited application. We must use it to warm him up, perhaps, make him familiar with the area we want to investigate — but sooner or later, he must be more fully regressed, as himself, not someone else.' The interrogator smiled. 'He must be debriefed, and believe me he is being debriefed.' When Vladimirov did not return his pale-lipped smile, he rubbed a long-fingered hand through sparse sandy hair, and added, 'We will retrieve what you have lost in his head, Comrade General. Don't worry about it.' It was a stiff, formal insult; an assertion of authority, too. Vladimirov nodded thoughtfully by way of reply. The interrogator glanced at Gant, then nodded to one of his senior assistants, who switched on the tape deck. He watched the leader tape move between the reels, then said to Vladimirov, 'He speaks Russian sufficiently well to understand this?'

Vladimirov glanced at Gant, as if to assure himself that the American was not eavesdropping, then nodded. 'He does.'

'Very well, then. Let us see what occurs.'

Gant heard the static, the mechanised voices, the clicks and bleeps of communication; recognising them, knowing them as well as he knew his own past. UHF communication between a pilot and his ground control. The sound seemed all around him, enveloping him as if he were wearing a headset, as if he were the pilot. He listened, his eyeballs moving slowly, rustily; unfocused. He absorbed the conversation, his awareness pricked and heated and engaged by the brief exchanges. His hands hung heavily at the ends of his wrists, and his body seemed a great way below him. His attention seemed like a little peak rising above dense jungle foliage which nothing could penetrate. He listened. The words enveloped him. He was back in the cockpit of the Firefox.

'I've got him!.. vapour-trail, climbing through sixty thousand… must get into the tail-cone to avoid his infra-red:' Whose infra-red — ? 'I'll have to slot in quickly behind him… climbing past me now… contrail still visible… seventy-thousand now, climbing up past me… come on, come on — please confirm orders…'

'Kill,' Gant heard.

'Two missiles launched… he's seen them, the American's seen them, come on— he's got the nose-up, he's into a climb, rolling to the right… missed… Bilyarsk control, I'm reporting both missiles failed to make contact…'

Gant listened. It was him, and yet he remembered what was being described… his violent, evasive action… it was strange, inexplicable. It was in Russian, it was a MiG-31, yet not him. There was a pressure, almost too strong to resist, which suggested he was the pilot, the speaker… yet somehow he knew it was the test pilot he had killed, flying the second prototype Firefox. It enfolded him after that moment of lucidity. He was back in the cockpit.

'Missed him again…! Wait, he's going into a spin, he's got himself caught in a spin. he's losing altitude, going down fast, falling like a leaf… I'm diving, right on his tail…' Gant heard his own breathing accelerate, become more violent, as if the white room — dimly seen — were hot and airless. His blood pumped wildly, he could hear his heart racing. He sweated. 'I'm right on his tail — he can't pull out of the spin — he's going to fall straight into the sea, he can't do anything about it-!' Gant groaned, hearing the noise at a great distance. 'Thirty thousand feet now, he's falling like a stone-he's dumped the undercarriage… wait… the nose-down's getting steeper, twenty thousand feet now… he's levelling out, he's got her back under control… I'm right on his tail…' Gant was groaning now, stirring his hands and legs against the straps, moving his head slowly, heavily back and forth like a wounded animal. He might have been protesting, repeating No, no, no over and over, but he could not be sure of that. He knew the end of the story, the climax. He knew what was going to happen to him as he followed the American down and levelled out behind him, the cold Arctic Ocean below them — he knew.

'Careful, careful… I'm on his tail… careful… he's doing nothing, he's given up… nothing — he's beaten and he knows it… I've got — ' Gant was minutely, vividly alive to the change of tone, the terror that replaced excitement. He knew what would happen… he could see the other Firefox ahead of him, knew what the American was going to do, knew he hadn't given up… 'Oh, God — !'

Gant, too, screamed out the words, then his head lolled forward as if he had lost consciousness. The tape ran on, hissing with static. Tretsov was dead. Vladimirov was watching Gant with a look almost of awe on his face. He shuddered at the identification of the American with the dead Tretsov. The manner in which the American had played Tretsov's role, acted as if he, too, were suddenly going to kill, then die — uncanny. Unnerving. Gant was nobody now, or anybody they cared to suggest. Perhaps he could believe himself anyone at all, anywhere they said?

'Mm,' the interrogator said beside him. 'Perhaps not quite the effect you wished for… but, from his file, I suggest the effect is not without merit.'

'How?'

'He has his own nightmares — his delayed stress syndrome. I think he will be sufficiently easy to convince that it was his own nightmare he experienced…' He smiled. 'When I heard your tape, I projected we might make such an impression on him.' One of his assistants nodded obsequiously as the interrogator glanced at him. 'Illness,' he continued, 'shock. We can work on this now. Very well — bring him round again, to the same level of awareness, no lower… and bring in our mimic.' He looked at Vladimirov. 'I hope the voice is good enough. We have tapes of the Englishman, of course — innocuous material, mostly gathered at long range in outdoor situations. The imitation seems to me sufficient.' He smiled again, studying the unconscious Gant and the white-coated doctor bending over him, pointing the needle down towards Gant's bared arm. 'He'll probably accept the man whatever he sounds like…'

The light, the resolving faces and the familiar voice all came to Gant in the same moment. White room… He was sitting up-why had he expected to be lying down? Yes, nurse's uniform, he was in hospital… nightmare? He listened to the voice; familiar — changed, somehow foreign-tinted, but familiar. He listened to Kenneth Aubrey as he spoke slowly and soothingly. His eyes concentrated on the only two figures he could see, a nurse and a doctor. They stood directly in front of him… Aubrey must be behind him as he murmured gently, confidentially in his ear. Nurse, doctor — where was he? What had happened to him? His body felt dull, heavy, but without pain. What had happened?

The voice explained.

'You're recuperating very quickly, very fully, Mitchell,' Aubrey said soothingly. 'We're very pleased with you… but time presses us. You're the only one who can help us… time is pressing, you must try to remember-'

Remember?

There were things to remember, yes…

What?

Street, shambling figure, black car -

Who? Where?

Aubrey continued, frightening him, making him cling to the familiar voice. Crash, he thought. Crash? Dead. 'You seem to have been suffering from some sort of local amnesia, Mitchell. Even from delusions… You've been very ill, my boy, very ill. But, you're getting better now. If only you could remember — if only you could tell us where the aircraft is!'

Street, shambling figure, father… black car, gates, corridors, white room… remember -

'Do you remember, Mitchell?' Aubrey asked soothingly.

Gant felt his head nod, as distant a signal as another's head or hand might have made. 'Yes.' he heard himself reply, but the voice was thick with phlegm, strangely flat. 'Yes…'

A murmur of voices, then, before Aubrey said, 'You remember exactly what happened after you destroyed the second MiG-31 — the second Firefox?' Aubrey's voice was silky, soothing, gentle. Gant nodded again. He remembered. There had been things to remember. These things — ?

Street — blank — car — figure ahead-huge sculpture of a rocket's exhaust — street — blank — figure, catch up with the figure, see his face — blank — house — steps — corridor — blank — watch — blank — watch — blank -

It was a series of pictures, but the cartridge of slides had been improperly loaded. There were gaps, frequent large gaps. Blank — car — blank… remember…

'What do you remember, Mitchell?' Aubrey asked once more. 'After you destroyed the second Firefox, what happened then? We know that you destroyed the two MiG-25Fs-you remembered that much. Do you still remember?' Gant nodded. 'Good. The first one you took out in the clouds, and the second one almost got you… but you survived and the aircraft survived… What did you do next? What did you do, Mitchell? Time is of the essence. We haven't much time to prevent it falling into their hands. What did you do with it, Mitchell?' The voice insisted. Yet it soothed, too. It was almost hypnotic. There seemed to be a window behind the doctor and the nurse, through which Gant could see… what was it? London. Big Ben? Yes, Big Ben. There seemed to be a bright patch of colour at the corner of his vision, perhaps flowers in a vase? He could see Big Ben — he was almost home — he was safe…

And Aubrey's voice went on, seductively soft, hypnotic, comforting.

'Where, Mitchell, where? Where did you land the aircraft? You can remember, Mitchell!.. try — please try to remember…?

'Ye — ess…' he breathed slowly, painfully.

'Good, Mitchell, good. You can remember!'

'Yes,' he enunciated more clearly. He was feeling better. Whatever had happened to him, he was on the mend. His memory had come back. Aubrey would be delighted, they might yet rescue the airframe from the bottom of the lake -

Lake-

No!

'No!' his voice cried an instant after his mind. 'No-!'

He was drowning and burning in the lake. His drug-confused memory had jolted awake against his utter terror of drowning. Wrapped in icy water, then in the same instant wrapped in burning fire -

His nightmare engulfed him.

'No-!'

Vladimirov stared at the interrogator, at the mimic bending near Gant, whose earpiece picked up every question suggested by the interrogator and the general, then he stared at the nurse, the doctor bending towards Gant, at Gant himself -

'What's happening?' he asked, then, more loudly: 'What the hell's happening to him?'

Vladimirov found himself staring at the slide projected on one of the white walls, the one opposite Gant. A London scene, looking across the Thames towards the Palace of Westminster and Big Ben. Now that Gant was screaming, over and over, that single denying word, the illusion seemed pathetic, totally unreal. Like the flowers someone had placed against the wall. Who would be fooled by such things, even under drugs? Gant was evading him again, evading him — !

He shook off the angry, restraining hand of the senior interrogator and crossed the room. Gant's eyes were staring blankly, his mouth was open like that of a drowning man, but instead of precious air bubbles it was the one word No! which emerged, over and over again. Vladimirov looked up, confused.

'What is it?' he shouted. 'What is it?'

The interrogator reached Vladimirov's side. The doctor was checking Gant's pulse, his pupil dilation, his respiration. When he had finished, he shrugged, murmuring an apology at the interrogator.

'Put him out '

'No — !' Vladimirov protested. He bent over Gant. 'He knows! He was about to tell us…' The mimic had moved away, removed his earpiece; anxious not to be blamed. 'Do something!'

'Put him out,' the interrogator repeated. 'Shut him up! We'll make another attempt later — ' He turned to Vladimirov. 'It's simply a matter of time. We have stumbled upon something that is interfering with the illusion. There's always a risk of tripping over something in a dark tunnel…'

The doctor injected Gant. After a moment, he stopped repeating his one word of protest. His head slumped forward, his body slackened.

'How long?' Vladimirov asked, and bit his lower lip. 'How long?'

'A few hours — this evening. We'll start from a different point. With more careful preparation. Think of it as mining for gold — only the last inches of rock lie between us and the richest seam in the world!' He smiled. 'Next time, he'll tell us.'

Dmitri Priabin shivered in his uniform greatcoat as he watched Anna's son playing football on the snow-covered grass of the Gorky Park of Culture and Rest. The bench on which he was seated was rimed with frost which sparkled in the orange sodium lights. Beneath the lights which lined the paths through the park, Maxim and his friends would play until it was fully dark, and then on into the night, if they were allowed. He felt indulgent, despite the cold, though he knew that when Anna arrived she would scold all of them, him most of all for allowing them to get cold and damp and tired. He smiled at the thought, and at the high, childish voices, the imitations of star players' protests and antics. He contented himself with occasional glances towards the gigantic stone porch and architrave that marked the main entrance to the park. Beyond it, traffic roared homewards on the Sadovaya Ring and along the Lenin Prospekt. Workers hurried through the park, one or two of them stopping for a moment to watch the boys' football game; stamping their cold feet, rubbing gloved hands before rushing on into the gathering dusk.

Maxim had new boots — Dynamo First Class — which Priabin had purchased for the boy's birthday the previous week. The ball also belonged to Maxim. He watched as Anna's son dribbled past two friend-opponents and slid it inside the tall metal rod which marked one goalpost. Maxim pranced, hands in the air, after he had scored. Another boy protested at offside while the very diminutive goalkeeper picked himself out of the snow after his desperate, unavailing dive for the ball. Priabin clapped his gloved hands, laughing, then looked at his watch. Time to go — at least to begin to round them up.

He glanced towards the architrave and the Communist Party symbols carved upon it. Then, from beneath the curving weight of the stone porch, he saw Anna Borisovna Akhmerovna emerge, and he found his breath catching, as it almost always did when he unexpectedly caught sight of her; when it was no more than a few moments before she would be at his side. Hurriedly, with a great show of concern, he stood up and walked through the snow, waving his arms, collecting the teams. All the time, he was aware of her approach, half-amused, half eager, almost to the point of desperation. He still could not properly catch his breath. The boys crowded reluctantly, protestingly around his tall figure. He continued to wave his arms in shepherding gestures, turning eventually to where he knew she had stopped. Red-faced and puffing, he knew he could easily have appeared to be one of the schoolboys. He was taller and heavier, but closer to their age-group than he was to the woman who stood on the frosty path, arms folded, head slightly on one side, appraising the group of which he formed the centrepiece.

'I didn't realise the time… you're late, anyway,' he protested. Maxim waved shyly, a gesture he could not prevent but which was muted out of deference to his friends and the rough masculinity of their recent activity.

'Who won?' she called.

'I — don't know,' he laughed.

'Maxim's team — lucky swines!' one boy explained.

'No luck in it!' Maxim retorted.

Priabin walked towards Anna, feeling his cheeks glow. She was wearing a fur coat and hat with long black leather boots. Her fair hair escaped untidily from the hat. Her face was pale from the cold. Priabin could not bear not to touch her, but contented himself with a peck on her cold cheek and murmured endearment. Her gloved hand touched the side of his face, briefly; his skin seemed to burn more heatedly afterwards.

'Come on — all of you,' she ordered. 'Collect your things. Change out of those wet boots before you go anywhere! No, no, coats on first or you'll all catch pneumonia!'

The boys fought for places on the bench. Cold fingers fumbled and tugged at wet, icy bootlaces. Bodies that had wisps of steam about them in the freezing air struggled into overcoats and anoraks and thick jackets. The sons of civil servants, schoolteachers, one of them even the son of a Soviet film star. Boys from the same expensive block of apartments as Maxim. From the place where he lived with Anna -

'Come on,' he said. 'Hot dogs and hamburgers all round — but only if you're quick!' He turned to Anna. 'One good thing the Olympics did, from their point of view. We now have Muscovite hot-dog stands!' He sniffed the air loudly. 'I can smell the onions from here!' he exclaimed. The boys hurried into their shoes and boots arid coloured Wellingtons. Bobble-caps and scarves, and they were finally ready. Priabin handed Maxim a crumpled heap of rouble notes, and nodded towards the stone porch and the Lenin Prospekt beyond. 'Your treat,' he said. 'And none of you stray away from the stand before we get there!'

Noisily, the party of footballers and would-be diners ran off. Football boots, trailed carelessly, clattered on the frosty path as they ran. The ball bobbed between them before it was retrieved.

'He's not going to take any chances with that ball!' Priabin laughed.

'Like his mother,' Anna replied, slipping her arm into that of Priabin. 'He can recognise a good thing when he sees it!'

'Bless you,' Priabin said awkwardly, blushing. He patted her hand.

She leaned her face against the shoulders of his greatcoat, then said mischievously, 'Those new shoulder boards are very hard.'

He burst into laughter. The noise of the traffic was louder as they walked towards the archway. Away to their left, across the darkening park, the double line of lights along the banks of the river were fuzzy. An icy mist hung above the Moskva. Priabin shivered. He had remembered their argument the previous evening.

As if she read his thoughts, Anna murmured: 'I'm sorry about last night — '

'It doesn't matter.'

'I'm still glad about that damned aircraft — I'm still glad it's been stolen, it's gone-!' she added vehemently, as if making an effort to fully recapture her emotions of the previous night; rekindle their argument.

'I know,' he soothed.

'When I think-!' she burst out afresh, but he patted her hand, then grabbed her closer to him.

'I know it,' he murmured. 'I know it.'

He detested the vehemence in her blind, unreasoning hatred of the MiG-31 project. It was an intellectual hatred, the worst kind. He had loathed the previous evening and the argument that had seemed to leap out of the empty wine bottle like a jinn. He had been totally unprepared for it. He had informed her of the death of Baranovich at Bilyarsk almost casually, his head light with wine and the meal she had cooked to celebrate his promotion. He had been high on drink, and on his colonelcy. Blind. He hadn't seen the argument coming, hadn't watched her closely enough. Baranovich had been the trigger. As he held her now, he could hear her yelling at him across the dining table.

'Baranovich is dead?' she had asked. 'You pass me the information like a bundle of old clothes? Your project — your damnable bloody project has killed Baranovich? His mind was — priceless! And that filthy project killed him!'

There was much more of it. Priabin crushed Anna's body to him to prevent the working of memory, feeling her slightness beneath the heavy fur coat. She struggled away from him.

'What is it?' she asked, studying him intently.

He shook his head. 'Nothing — nothing now…'

'Come on, then. The boys will be getting cold — in spite of their hot dogs!' She reached for his hand, like an elder sister, and pulled him towards the arch and the traffic beyond. He matched his step to hers. The flushed lightness of his mood had disappeared, and he blamed Baranovich, the dead Jew. Anna had met him no more than three or four times. He was not a friend, not even a real acquaintance. Instead, he had become some kind of hero to her; even a symbol.

He shook his head, but the train of thought persisted. It was almost six years earlier, from Anna's account, that her role with the Secretariat of the Ministry of Health had brought her into contact with the Jewish scientist. He had developed a prototype wheelchair for the totally disabled, which used thought-guidance via micro-electronics for its motive power and ability to manoeuvre. Anna had taken up the project with an enthusiasm amounting to missionary zeal. After eighteen months, the project had been scrapped.

Correction, he admitted to himself. He could hear the group of boys around the hot-dog stand now, above the rumble of the traffic. The smell of the onions was heavy, almost nauseating. Correction. The Ministry of Defence had acquired the project for its anticipated military applications; acquired Baranovitch, too. The design for the wheelchair which was never built found its way eventually into the MiG-31 as a thought-guided weapons system.

Anna had never forgiven them for that, for creating a means of more efficient destruction; out of the prototype for a wheelchair.

Them — ?

Everyone. The military, the Civil service, the Politburo — even himself. She had never forgiven anyone.

'Come on, come on,' he said with forced enthusiasm as the boys gathered around him, full mouths grinning, feet shuffling, the lights of passing cars playing over the group. The hot-dog seller stamped and rubbed his hands. Onion-breath smoked from the stand. 'Where's your car?' he asked Anna. She gestured down the Lenin Prospekt. 'See you at the apartment, then,' he said. 'Take as many as you can… the rest of us will get the metro.'

She nodded, and smiled encouragingly. He knew his face was dark with memory. He nodded. 'OK — all those for the metro, follow me!' He marched off pompously, making Anna laugh. The boys, except for Maxim and the film star's son, followed in his wake, giggling.

Priabin waved to her without turning round. He envisaged her clearly. Thirty-eight, small-faced, assured, fashionable, ambitious. A senior assistant secretary to the Secretary to the Ministry of Health; a prominent and successful civil servant. Her income was greater than his.

As they clattered down the steps into the Park Kultury metro station, he thought that last night he had begun to understand her. He started fishing for the fare in his trouser pockets, hitching up the skirts of his greatcoat to do so, his gloves clamped between his teeth. Yes, he had at last begun to understand.

It was that damned project. It had always been that damned Bilyarsk project. She had wanted revenge for what they had done, for never developing and mass-producing that bloody wheelchair.

So, she had begun to work for the Americans…

He gripped a handful of change and small denomination notes and heaved them out of his pocket.

She had begun to work for the Americans…

'We have one chance-just one,' Aubrey said with heavy emphasis. 'If we can get in before this approaching front brings winter's last fling with it — ' He tapped the projected satellite photograph with a pointer. ' — then perhaps we can beat the Russians and the Finns to the Firefox.' Pyott, who was operating the slide projector, flicked backwards and forwards through the satellite pictures as soon as Aubrey paused. They fluttered grey and white on the old man's face as he stood in front of the screen, pointer still raised. Finally, Pyott switched off the projector. Buckholz put on the Ops. Room lights. 'Well?' Aubrey asked. 'Well, Giles?'

Pyott shook his head and fiddled with his moustache. 'This front is producing heavy snow at the moment, and it's bringing a lot more behind it — heavy snow showers, high winds, even the possibility of electrical storms. As you so neatly put it, Kenneth, it's winter's last fling over northern Europe and Scandinavia- I don't know. I really don't know.'

'It won't take us forty-eight hours to arrive on the site, Giles — '

'I realise that, Kenneth. But, the Skyhook's already making very slow time. We shall be very, very lucky if it gets there at all.'

'The winches we have are capable of moving something as heavy as the Firefox. She'll have to be winched out of the lake.'

'And then what do you do with her?'

'The Skyhook will arrive.'

'And if it doesn't?'

'Then we must salvage what we can and destroy the rest!' Aubrey turned his back on Pyott and crossed to the plot table. Curtin, seated on a folding chair, watched him in silence. Buckholz appeared genuinely distressed and firmly in a dilemma. Aubrey glared at the Mack model of the MiG-31, at the map of Finland and northern Norway, at the coloured tapes and symbols.

He turned on his three companions. 'Come on,' he said more pleasantly, 'decide. The Finns don't want the aircraft on their territory. If we removed it before the Russians found out, they'd be delighted with us! Their strong language is bluff — mostly bluff. We have placed them in an awkward spot. In twenty-four hours, perhaps less, no aircraft will be able to fly in that area, there will be no aerial reconnaissance to interrupt us. There will be no detachment of Finnish troops flown in, either. We would be on our own. We — at least our forward detachments — are little more than sixty miles from the lake. We're nearer than anyone else! One full Hercules transport could drop all our requirements and our people on the spot!'

Aubrey paused. He felt like an orator who had come from the wings towards the podiurn and, discovered an extremely thin, utterly disgruntled audience. Buckholz, instead of looking in his direction, seemed to be looking to Pyott for an answer. Curtin was doing no more than acting out his subordinate rank. Pyott was brushing his moustache as vigorously as if attempting to remove a stain from his features.

'I — ' Buckholz began, still not looking at Aubrey. 'My government wants this thing cleared up — I don't mind telling you, gentlemen, Washington is becoming a little impatient…' Aubrey watched Buckholz's face. The Deputy Director of the CIA had said nothing of his last lengthy telephone conversation with Langley. This, apparently, was the burden of it. 'I've argued the weather, the logistics, the lack of a fall-back operation, the political dangers and pitfalls. The White House still wants action…' Now, he turned directly to Aubrey, and added: 'I have my orders, Kenneth. I don't like them, but I have to try to carry them out. I don't have any answers, but I sure want some!' It was evident that Buckholz had been browbeaten by Washington. He had been ordered to mount some kind of recovery operation, however much he rejected any such idea. Buckholz shrugged. 'It has to be done — something has to be done.'

'What about Mitchell Gant, Mr Aubrey?' Curtin asked sharply.

Aubrey glared at him. Then he transferred his gaze to Pyott. 'There is the absolute time-limit, Giles,' he said. 'Gant will be unable to hold out for very long against drugs — my God, they could persuade him he was being debriefed by Charles and he'd be likely to believe it! So the Russians, who will also be watching the weather, will move soon. Or they will wait until the weather clears. It's going to be coming from their direction — they'll have it sooner than we will — it might just give us enough time, it might just persuade them to wait — ' He cleared his throat of its intended, husky sincerity. 'I think it is worth the chance. Don't you?'

Pyott looked up then. His face was clouded by doubts, by a hundred considerations. His features were maplike. He stared at his knuckles as they whitened on the edge of the plot table.

'I agree that the weather is swinging around the low and moving west across Russia — ' he said slowly and at last. 'I agree, too, that they will be hampered, even grounded, before we are. I accept that they may, just may, wait until it clears before they take their first look… But — '

Aubrey harried his opponent. 'We can withdraw, melt back into the landscape, if we find the Russians there. If we find them arriving while we're there, we can do the same…' Again, he cleared his throat. 'I don't need to remind you that possession of the intact airframe by the Soviet Union — despite the deaths of Baranovitch and the others at Bilyarsk — will mean that the Firefox project continues. We shall be where we were last year, before we ever thought of this — this escapade.' Aubrey paused for effect. Pyott's face expressed vivid uncertainty. JIC and the Cabinet Office had left the decision, the final decision, to Aubrey and Pyott. 'Our people are waiting to embark. Waterford and his SBS people are gathered at Kirkenes…' Aubrey soothed. 'We are only hours away — '

'And the Russians may be only minutes away!' Pyott snapped.

'Nothing is happening at the moment,' Aubrey countered.

'As you say,' Pyott replied with heavy irony. 'At the moment, nothing is happening.'

'Giles!' Aubrey exclaimed. 'Giles, for God's sake, commit. This aircraft is still the threat it was yesterday and last year. It is invisible to radar, its electronic systems are a generation ahead of ours, it flies twice as fast as our fastest fighter! It is a threat. Commit, Giles — one way or the other, commit.'

In the heavy ensuing silence, Buckholz cleared his throat. Curtin's chair scraped on the floor as he shifted his weight. Pyott stared at his knuckles. Aubrey's left hand made futile, uncertain sweeps over the plot table.

Then Pyott looked up. 'Very well — very well. Talk to Hanni Vitsula in Helsinki. Tell him we're on our way!'

'Giles!' Aubrey exclaimed with the excitement of a child. 'Giles — well done!'

'Kenneth!' Giles Pyott replied in an offended tone. 'It is not a matter of congratulation. Damn your scheme and damn that aeroplane!' He stretched his arms wide. 'I hope to God we never find out whether or not it holds the balance of terror — and I hope to God we don't find out it's a dud.'

'You know as well as I do — '

'Don't lecture me! I know what that anti-radar system would do if it were used on a Cruise missile or an ICBM or a MIRV–I know where thought-guided weaponry could take the Russians in five years or less… I've heard your arguments, I've heard the Pentagon on the subject — I don't need to be reminded!'

'Don't be such a sore loser, Giles,' Buckholz grumbled. Pyott turned to the American, 'I sometimes think the profession of arms is as morally delectable as the oldest profession itself,' announced freezingly.

'Don't despise we night-soil men, Giles,' Aubrey soothed. 'Better this way- '

Pyott banged the plot table with his fist. 'Let's get on with it, shall we? Charles, you'll be on-site, but Waterford has military command- you understand?' Buckholz nodded. 'I must stay here — '

'And I shall set up HQ in Kirkenes!' Aubrey announced brightly. 'Shall we go?'

He seemed to be lying down. He concluded, very slowly, that he must be in bed. The ceiling was chalk-white. It reminded him of other familiar ceilings. People were whispering out of his sight, like mice in a corner of the room… it had to be a room, there was a white ceiling and the beginnings of white walls. His head felt very heavy. He could not be bothered to move it to check. There was the ether-smell — it was a hospital room. A bedside light shone in his peripheral vision, and cast a glow on the ceiling. It must be night.

Whispering — ?

Whispering in English, he thought. Why did that matter? What else would they talk in…?

He had once known the answer to that question, had known the alternative, strange, indecipherable language they might have spoken… but not in a hospital room.

In a bamboo cage -

They poked him with long sticks like goads. Then the little girl had burned, dissolved in napalm fire…

He shuddered and groaned. He remembered. Remembered, too, why he was in hospital. His body remembered resentment, even hatred, and he tried to move. His arms were restrained. Or too tired and heavy to lift.

A face appeared above him, floating below the ceiling. A starched cap on dark hair. A nurse. She examined his eyes — a man did, too — and there was more murmuring…

He tried to listen. It seemed to concern him. American — ? His mind formed the word very slowly, as if he were in class, learning to spell a new and difficult word. American…

A strong face floated above him. It wobbled — no, someone was shaking his head. He heard the American voice again as soon as the head whisked out of sight.

'Poor bastard. What the hell did he go through, Aubrey?' He heard the words quite distinctly now, though the effort of eavesdropping made him sweat. 'My God, those injuries — !'

Injuries? Heavy unmoving arms, the answer came back. Legs he could not feel… yes, they prickled with sweat, but he could not move them. He did not try to move his head. Perhaps it did not move. He was stretched out -

He listened, terrified. 'The doctors are doing their best for him,' the English voice replied. 'We have the best surgeons for him…'

'And?'

'Who can say? He may walk again — '

Gant gagged on self-pity. It enveloped him, filled his mouth as though he were drowning.

'And he never told them anything… not a damn word. Even when they started to break him to pieces, he never told them a damn thing!'

'He's a very brave man,' Aubrey replied. Aubrey — yes, it was Aubrey… the self-pity welled in his eyes, bubbled in his throat as soon as he opened his mouth. He was drowning in it; only the unwilled and even unwanted pride kept him afloat, like a life-jacket.

His eyes were wet. The ceiling was pale and unclear, the glow of the lamp fuzzy, like a light shining down through deep, clear water. The voices appeared to have stopped, as if they wished him to hear no more. Aubrey and an American…

He had been asleep. Or they had given him something. Chillingly, he remembered himself screaming. It was the nightmare. The litle girl erupting in flame, her form dissolving. Yes, that was it. Yet he remembered water, too, as his mind tried to understand what he had overheard. He remembered water, and drowning — ? It was hard to think of it, difficult to concentrate, but he made the effort because he could not bear to allow any other thoughts to return. Deep water, dark… fire down there, too-? Water, drowning, his left hand trapped, but his right hand moving…

A shape retreating into the dark water, like a huge fish. Black. Airframe…

He shouted then. Just once.

'No-!'

Two faces hovered over him. He did not recognise them. The nurse mopped his forehead soothed him with clucking noises. He was injured, yes…'

No.

Yes…

Someone was speaking now. To him.

Explaining.

He listened avidly and in terror. 'You ejected, Mitchell.' It was the American voice. 'You ejected from the MiG-31 when it was on fire… at least, that's what we conclude from your — your burns…' He gasped and swallowed. Burns — ? 'It exploded — '

He moved his head very slowly, wondering whether they would realise it was a negative sign. He did not trust himself to speak. His throat and mouth were full of water which he could not swallow. His father would hit him if he spat in the house…

No one seemed to have noticed. The American voice continued.

'On the ball to the last…' He must have been addressing Aubrey again. Gant strained to hear, holding his breath. 'They must have found him unconscious and airlifted him direct to Moscow.' Gant tried to remember. He could not remember the ejection from the aircraft or the explosion. Then he could. But that was — was Vietnam, where the cage and the little girl had been… he shook his head very slowly. Someone quickly held his face, checked his eyes, and vanished. The voice continued. 'And in that condition, they beat up on him until he couldn't take any more. Christ, those people over there — !'

Gant drifted. His father was walking towards a huge golden spire that narrowed towards the top, like the exhaust of a rocket leaving its launch platform. Gant could not explain the fleeting image. He let himself drift. It was better than listening. It was better than the creeping sensations of pain that possessed him in legs and trunk and head and arms -

Pinprick.

He stopped drifting almost at once and the American voice seemed louder. He did not dare turn his head. His father disappeared behind a tall dark hedge; vanished.

'We'd better ask him — '

'We must be certain.' That was Aubrey. 'Yes, we must make certain.'

'The problem is — the real problem,' the American said, 'is to make him believe he's safe now. He can stop being brave and silent.'

'I agree.'

A face overhead. The strong sandy-haired man. Smiling. The collar tabs of a uniform, model ribbons. Shoulder boards. USAF. An Air Force general. Blue dress uniform. Comforting. He opened his mouth. A bubbling noise came out. He clenched it shut again. The general smiled at him. The American general smiled.

'Mitch — Major Gant… Mitch-listen to me, boy. You're safe-now. We're going to make you well again. I promise you that. We just need to know one thing-you're certain the aircraft exploded? You are certain? They can't get their hands on it again, can they?' Gant realised the bed near his shoulder was being patted, slowly and gently; reassuringly. 'We need to be sure of that.'

'We're not tiring him too much, are we, doctor — in his condition?' That was Aubrey, speaking somewhere out of sight.

'Quiet, Aubrey,' the general said, then looked back at Gant. 'Now, Mitch, how much can you remember? Are you certain the Firefox exploded?'

Gant swallowed. He listened. Aubrey was talking, still talking, to the doctor. Concern — ? A tongue clicking like a grasshopper, a low sombre tone.

Then he heard it.

'He's dying, I'm afraid… I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do about it — '

'Shut up!' the general snapped.

'Hurry!' Aubrey replied. 'We must be sure!'

Gant was shaking his head more quickly, with a huge and desperate effort of will and muscle. 'No,' he said.

The general looked very sad. 'I'm afraid so, Mitch. It — Christ, it wasn't what they did so much as the burns. When you ejected, boy, it was already too late — but help us now. Tell us the airplane exploded. That's what we need to know. Tell us. Please.'

'No-it didn't… didn't…'Gant sobbed. 'I'm not burned. It's not-I couldn't be… didn't…'

'Didn't what, Mitch? What didn't happen?'

'I — didn't eject — ' If he told them, explained to them, they would realise their mistake. They wouldn't say he was dying from burns, not then. They'd realise they'd made a mistake, an awful mistake, if he could prove he landed the airplane…

'What? Mitch, what are you Saying?'

'I landed-landed…'

'Oh my God — ! Aubrey, did you hear that? He landed the airplane!'

'No-!'

'Yes!' Gant cried out. 'Yes!'

The general leaned over him. Gant could smell a violet-scented breath-sweetener. The face was concerned. The eyes pleaded. He suddenly looked like the general who had decorated Gant on the flight-deck of the aircraft carrier in the South China Sea — looked just like him or his twin-brother. The resemblance comforted Gant, made him want to speak. He smiled. Just as on that previous occasion, he smiled at the general. He had wished he had been able to send the official photographs to his mother — but she was dead…

He realised he was in a trough. Like the sea-swell beneath the carrier's hull, he was in a trough. The general's face was a moment of calm.

He wouldn't have sent the photograph to his father, not in a lifetime, not in a million years…

Father -

Street, monument, dark hedge, front door, corridors, marble staircase, urns, white room, white room white room white -

The finding of his thread appalled him. He tried to shrink from the general whose face bore down on him, enlarging like the opening jaws of a fish -

Fish. Black fish — airframe. Water — drowning. Firefox — lake, sleeve trapped, cut free, airframe intact…

He knew he was out of the trough now. He even knew, for the briefest moment, that he was drugged. He knew where he was, he knew he was being deceived, he knew he must say nothing. Then that moment went. He wanted to talk. Had to talk.

'Dying… dying… dying-dying, dying, dying…' Seemed to be all the general was saying, though his lips did not move except to make his smile broader. The words seemed to come out of the air and fill the room. He disbelieved them for a moment then did not know why he disbelieved…

Then-

'He's not dying!' Aubrey's voice. 'For God's sake, he didn't crash — he didn't eject — the aircraft's still out there somewhere.' Aubrey did not come into view. The general's face looked away. His head shook sadly. An earpiece and a wire came out of the general's ear. Gant realised he was deaf. His father had worn an uglier, more obvious one. The general was deaf.

'He's dying, Kenneth…' He turned back to Gant. 'Tell us the airplane was destroyed.'

Deaf — would he hear? Gant reached up — huge effort, sweat bathed his body, but he grabbed the general's uniform and pulled him nearer so that he could hear. He placed his lips near the general's ear, near the earpiece…

'Not burned… not burned…' Something seemed to hurry him, quicken inside him like an increase in adrenalin. He began to babble incoherently, desperately trying to make himself understood. 'Not burned… drowning… drowning — on fire, but water, water… not burned… landed, not burned…water…'

The general's earpiece fell from his ear. Gant lay back in abject apology. His body twitched with adrenalin, or something. He felt too alive, a collection of jangling nerve-ends. He scrabbled for the earpiece. The general shouted at him, jerked away, but Gant held the earpiece. A long wire snake unreeled in his hand, seemingly alive. There was nothing at the other end of the wire, no box in the general's breast-pocket, like his father had. The wire trailed away out of sight.

Someone shouted, almost a snarl. He did not understand the language. Truth bubbled in his throat as self-pity had done. He gritted his teeth, held the words back, making them into a growl…

He did not know why he was stopping himself from speaking. The adrenalin demanded it. His body twitched and jumped with it. If he could tell, say everything, then he could relax. He must tell — must tell…

He sat up, jerkily, quickly, mechanically. Sat up in bed. Not bad for a dying man…

Not dying — tell — explain — in the lake…

'Not — explain!' he said through his teeth, looking around him. 'Listen!' he cried.

He saw two figures in one corner of the room. And flowers. And other faces. Nurse, doctor, general, man in suit -

Two generals…Blue and brown…

They stared at each other, the two generals.

'Listen to me!' Gant screamed. He had to tell them now — he had to. He would burst, explode, If he didn't get the words out. He had to tell them.' Listen!'

He moved, tried to pull his legs out of the bed but they would not move and he felt himself tumble forward. The floor rushed up at him, blue and white tiles. He dived at it, striking it with all the force of the energy surging through him.

Vladimirov rushed forward, shaking off the interrogator's restraining arm garbed in the USAF uniform, and knelt by the unconscious American. Blood seeped from Gant's forehead where it had struck the tiles. Vladimirov, in his frustrated rage, smeared it over Gant's face and neck like some horrific tribal badge of manhood. Then he turned to look at the interrogator in his American uniform.

'You had him!' he raged. 'You had him in the palm of your hand!'

The doctor lifted Gant's body back onto the bed. Then the nurse wiped the smeared blood from his face and dabbed antiseptic on the spreading, livid bruise. Vladimirov stood up and moved away from the bed. Gant was breathing stertorously, his chest heaving up and down as the last effects of the stimulant surged through his body. Uselessly -

'It is a matter of time,' the interrogator said, checking the earpiece the doctor had removed from Gant's hands. He had used it to listen to the comments of his aide, seated in another room in front of a bank of monitors where hidden cameras focused on eye-movements, muscular reaction, a hundred other tiny factors. He shook his head ruefully. 'A pity — but next time for certain — '

Vladimirov grabbed him by the upper arms. 'I want that information — I want it tonight!'

'He has to be allowed to rest now. We have to clear his system before we try again.'

'I want that information!'

'You'll have it — before morning,' the interrogator snapped, shaking off Vladimirov's fierce grip. 'Before morning!'

The Hercules transport, bathed in hard white light, sat like a stranded whale at the end of the runway. Beyond it, the lights of Lincoln created a dull, furnace-like glow on the underside of the low clouds. As he stood with Pyott near the RAF Land-Rover which would ferry him to the transport aircraft, Aubrey was impatient. The breeze lifted Pyott's grey hair and dishevelled it. It gave a wild, almost prophetic emphasis to the gloomy expression on his features.

Buckholz and Curtin were already on board. The Hercules waited only for Aubrey. The small, routine Ops. Room was behind him. He had left it, and the larger underground room beneath it, with a sense of freedom, of advantages gained, of wilfully having got his own way.

Now, Pyott held him — like the Ancient Mariner, Aubrey thoaght irreverently, and then said, 'Well, Giles, I wasn't on my way to a wedding, but you've nevertheless detained me. What is it you want to say?' His smile was an attempt to jostle Pyott into a more acquiescent mood. The soldier smoothed down his wind-blown hair and returned the smile.

'I want your assurance, Kenneth — ' he began.

'Oh, don't be so solemn!' Aubrey chided.

'Kenneth-damn it, you're impossible! I want your assurance, your solemn word that if the Skyhook does not arrive before the deadline expires — you will destroy the airframe completely.'

'Oh, Giles — '

'Don't "Oh, Giles" me, Kenneth. The airframe must not be left intact for anyone else to retrieve. You must salvage the most important systems and then destroy the rest. Now, do I have your word on it?' He paused, then added, 'It's too serious for anything less than your word. I know it isn't in your orders — you've persuaded everyone that your precious Skyhook will arrive — but, you must make certain the Firefox is not recovered by the Soviet Union. That is imperative.'

Aubrey patted Pyott's arm, just at the elbow. 'I promise, Giles, that the Firefox will not fall into the wrong hands. Don't worry — you'll give yourself ulcers.'

'You will give me ulcers, Kenneth.'

Aubrey looked across the tarmac. His gamble was beginning: He knew that Pyott was right, that his entire fortune was staked on breaks in the weather and a single helicopter already in difficulties and behind schedule. And, for himself, he was on the point of laying do wn his cards.

Gant, he thought suddenly, and shivered. He pulled the collar of his overcoat around his neck and ears, but felt no warmer.

'Good luck,' Pyottsaid, holding out his hand.

'What? Oh, yes — ' Aubrey returned the handshake. There was no trace of excitement left in his body; nothing now but cold and fear and nerves.'

SEVEN: Felony In Progress

His head hurt. It was heavy and seemed grossly enlarged, a huge melonlike thing. He could not lift it from the pillows. Faint lights washed across the ceiling, but he could not hear the noise of passing traffic. When he breathed in, there was the smell of ether. Hospital. The word filled him with a vague dread. His body seemed jumpily alert, filled with an undefined tension.

Hospital. Ether-smell. He found the thread once more. Street, hedges, steps, door, hall, marble staircase, gallery with ornamental urns, white room, white room -

He stifled a groan. This was not the same room, not the same bed. He had been moved. After… after his interrogation under drugs…

Gant understood. He raised his heavy arm. The watch was still there. In the darkness, the hands glowed. A little before ten. He let his arm drop, tired of supporting its weight. He was aware of other bodies; aware of muttered or snorting breaths. People were sleeping in the room. He pushed with his hands against the mattress, easing his heavy body half-upright against the bed-head. Slowly, sweating with the effort and stifling his heavy breathing, he turned his head from side to side. A night-light over one of the beds helped him to see the contours and outlines of the small ward in which he had been placed. It was a brief glance. He slid down the bed again when he saw the male nurse sitting near the double doors. The man was dimly lit by a small angle-poise lamp, and silhouetted against the light entering through small, opaque panes in the doors. He appeared to be reading a book. When he lay flat again he wondered if he had warned the nurse he was conscious, and listened for the scrape of his chair. Eventually satisfied, he closed his eyes and pictured the room.

There were six beds, three of them occupied by sleeping — drugged? — figures. One's head was heavily bandaged, the second was identifiably male, the third, on the far side of the room and away from the weak light, was in deep shadow. The windows of the ward were barred. In a wash of headlights from outside, he had seen the vertical lines of the bars and the wire-reinforced glass beyond them. The male nurse near the only exit from the ward was muscular, probably armed.

Gant listened, but the nurse did not move. So intently was he listening that he heard a page of the book being turned. Then he relaxed, and immediately the small victory of knowing and mapping his surroundings dissipated. He was trapped in the room; parked there until he was again required for interrogation. He knew he had been interrogated twice; he knew they were only waiting until his body had recovered sufficiently to be drugged once more; he knew that at the next interrogation he would tell them what they wanted to know.

He remembered the USAF general in his uniform, he remembered Aubrey's voice. He remembered the scrambled and confused mess his thoughts and awareness had become. He understood the furious, undeniable desire to tell the truth that had come over him, and which they would induce in him again…

Burns?

He touched himself carefully. He was wearing a sweatshirt and shorts. His legs did not hurt when he touched them, nor did his arms or face. There was a lump on his temple, but he remembered the tiles rushing up at him. They had saved him from telling.

But he had believed he was dying -

That was the real measure of their power over him, of his inability to continue resisting.

The sweat was cold on his body. His hands lay beside his thighs, reminding him he no longer possessed even trousers. Nothing but a sweatshirt — no shirt, no jacket, no shoes. He was helpless. Like the figures in the other beds, who were probably criminals or even dissidents, he had ceased to exist. Isolation swamped him.

He struggled to escape it by following the thread back into his interrogation. His removal to this silent ward might mean he had told them everything, that they had finished with him while they checked the truth of his story — had he told them?

Slowly, cautiously, he sifted through the wreckage — father, aircraft carrier, burns, Aubrey, the lake, drowning, burning, ejecting… the tiles, the tiles…

He had been sitting up, screaming for them to listen to him. What had he said? He squeezed his eyes shut, concentrating. What had he said?

He could not stifle the audible sigh of relief when he was certain. Nothing. He had not told them. They did not know.

He listened as the nurse's chair scraped on the linoleum. He heard the footsteps approach. The light over his bed flicked on. Gant controlled his eyelids, his lips. The seconds passed. He tried to breathe normally. The light went out, the footsteps retreated, the chair scraped once more. The nurse grunted as he sat down. Gant heard the book being picked up, re-opened, pages being shuffled.

He was sweating freely once more. It had taken a vast effort of control and made him realise how weak he was. The nurse would have been capable of plucking him upright with one hand and dragging him from the bed without effort. He could never overpower him.

And there was no weapon. His itchy, sweating hands, tense yet without strength, did not constitute a weapon. And there was nothing else. He could never take the nurse's gun away from him, even if he wore one.

He heard the chiming of a clock somewhere, a small, silvery, unreal sound. Ten. He must have been asleep for hours. In all probability they would be coming soon. They were pressed for time. There was an almost frantic sense of urgency about their pursuit of what he knew. There was no reason for it — no one else knew of his whereabouts or the location of the airplane, but they could not seem to stop until it was over.

So they would come, and he would be helpless. Weaponless and helpless.

Mitchell Gant lay in the dark waiting for the doctors and interrogators. The bandaged head of one of the other patients loomed in his thoughts. A mummy, almost. Something, like himself, long dead and forgotten.

He felt himself once more on the point of losing the struggle against his sense of isolation.

Aubrey felt the nose of the Hercules C-130K dip towards the carpet of gleaming cloud he could see through the round porthole in the fuselage. It still lay far below them, stippled and endless. The moon was brilliant, the stars as hard as diamonds. It was difficult to believe that from that black, light-punctured clearness would come weather conditions even worse than they had anticipated when the aircraft took off from Scampton.

He removed the headset, his conversation with Waterford at Kirkenes at an end. As he stared through the porthole, the clouds seemed to drift slowly up to meet them. They were still flying along the Norwegian coast, inside the Arctic Circle. The pilot was taking the Hercules down as low as he could, to deceive the long-range Russian radars, before turning to an easterly heading which would take them towards Kirkenes. To all intents and purposes, the Hercules would have dropped out of radar contact west of Bardufoss and be assumed to be a routine transport flight to the Norwegian NATO base.

Aubrey fretted, even though he attempted to allay his mood by losing himself in the mesmeric effect of the clouds. It might have been a white desert landscape with wind-shaped rocks rising from its surface. The self-hypnosis held momentarily, then dissipated. Aubrey transferred his gaze to the whale-ribbed, bare, hard-lit interior of the transport aircraft.

It was almost done, they were almost there. He was for the moment in suspension, unable to do more. It was always the most frustrating, dragging part of an intelligence operation — the flight, the drive, the train journey, whatever it was… just before the border was crossed, the building entered, the target sighted. Useless tension, pointless adrenalin. He did not control the thing at that moment -

Five huge pallets of equipment were secured in the aft section of the cargo compartment. The team of fifteen men lounged or stretched or checked equipment. Charles Buckholz once more familiarised himself with the cargo manifest, in conversation with the WRAP Air Loadmaster. Curtin was standing at a folding table on which lay a large-scale map. He was talking to the Hercules' co-pilot. Everything had been decided, the briefings had been completed. This was repetition to occupy time, nothing more.

The Hercules would land at Kirkenes and Aubrey, Buckholz and the other members of the team without parachute training would disembark. Waterford and his SBS unit, twenty-five men in total, would then embark and the Hercules would take them and their equipment to the area of the lake. The dropping zone for the parachutists had already been selected; the surface of the lake. Waterford had confirmed its suitability. Once the men had dropped, the Hercules would make a low-level run and the five pallets of equipment would simply be dropped, without parachutes, from the rear cargo doors. At first, Aubrey had considered the method primitive, unsophisticated, potentially dangerous to the valuable equipment — especially the winches. RAF reassurances had failed to convince him, even though he accepted them. It still seemed an amateurish manner of accomplishing the drop.

Above the Norwegian border with Finland, Eastoe's AWACS Nimrod was back on-station. It would operate in an airborne, early-warning capacity, a long-range spyplane, observing the Russian border for any and every sign of movement. Also it would provide a back-up communications link with Washington, London, Helsinki and the lake to supplement the direct satellite link established when Waterford's initial search party had left the commpack at the lake.

He turned away from the scene. Buckholz and the non-parachutists would be flown by RNAF Lynx helicopters, arriving no more than an hour behind Waterford's party. Aubrey looked at his watch. Ten-thirty. By four-thirty, the whole party would be in place at the lake, where the Firefox lay in twenty-six feet of icy water.

Twenty-six feet. It was hardly submerged. A man standing on the fuselage would have his head above water. Eighty feet in length — the tailfins in perhaps thirty-four feet of dark water — with a wingspan of fifty feet, it had to be winched no more than one hundred and fifty feet before it was ashore. Or, preferably, plucked out of the water like a hooked fish by the Skyhook which had refuelled on the German-Danish border thirty minutes earlier. The figures were temptingly simple, the task easy to achieve. Yet he could not believe in it, in its success.

Gant -

The nose of the Hercules was dipping into the clouds when the operator of the communications console that had been installed for Aubrey's use, turned to him.

'There's a coded signal coming in, sir — from Helsinki.' He attended to his headset; nodding as the high-speed frequency-agile message ended. 'There's no need to reply, sir. They've signed off.'

'Very well-run it.'

The operator flicked switches, dabbed at a miniature keyboard set into the console, and hidden tapes whirred. It was Hanni Vitsula's voice.

'Charles!' Aubrey called.

Buckholz arrived as the replayed voice chuckled, then said: 'Don't rely on the weather, Kenneth. Forty-eight hours from midnight tonight is our final, repeat final offer. Our forecasts suggest it might be easier to reach the site than you're supposing… don't expect us not to arrive. Good luck. Message ends. Out.'

Buckholz shook his head ruefully.

'He guesses we're relying on getting ourselves socked in by the weather. Think he'll decide to move in before the deadline?' Aubrey waved his hand dismissively. 'No. But, otherwise he means what he says.' He slapped his hands on his thighs. 'Well, that's it. Your President has gained us the dubious bonus of a few more hours.' Through the porthole, Aubrey could see the grey cloud pressing and drizzling against the perspex. 'But that's all the time we have.'

'Let's just you and me hope the weather turns real sour, uh?'

'Then we will have lost the game, Charles. The Skyhook will never arrive in the weather you're hoping for!'

Dmitri Priabin turned slowly and gently onto his back and sat up. In the soft lamplight, he stared intently at the hollow of Anna's naked back, as if he were studying the contours of a strange and new country. Eventually, he clasped his hands behind his head, leaned back, and stared at the ceiling. He pursed his lips, pulled dismissive, laconic faces, prevented a sigh, but knew that the time of recrimination had once more arrived. He slipped from the bed and hoped she would not wake.

He sat cross-legged on a padded chair. He could taste the onions from the hot-dog one of the boys had pressed upon him, unable himself to finish it. He belched silently behind his clenched hand. Yes, onions — it recurred more strongly than the wine, than dinner, than the vodka. It was more persistent than the taste of the perfume from her neck and breasts on his tongue and lips.

Onions — recrimination. Both brought back the park and the metro station and the other reminders of her treachery that had assailed him at the ticket-counter so that the clerk's face had changed from puzzlement to nerves before he had recollected himself sufficiently to buy the tickets.

Now, recrimination, guilt, fear all returned like some emotional malaria as she slept. It was an illness which never left him, only remained dormant.

He leaned forward, resting his chin on his fist, studying her.

He lived on the verge of a precipice. He had done so ever since the momentary looks of guilt and fear he had noticed wheri he had answered unexpected telephone calls, looks which had vanished as soon as he put down the receiver and shrugged. And, he reminded himself, he always put it down with the sense that he had been speaking to an American who spoke good but very formal Russian.

He had lived on the cliff edge ever since he began to follow her himself. Ever since he witnessed her make covert contact wih a man who might have been her Case Officer. Ever since he had tailed that Case Officer to a known CIA safe house…

He had been on the edge for six, almost seven months -

She stirred, alarming him, as if surprised in some deep disloyalty of his own. She turned onto her back but did not wake. Her flattened breasts were revealed as her unconscious hand pushed the bedclothes down. It was a strangely erotic exposure; crudely inviting. He studied her unlined, sleeping face; unlined except where the brow was creased even while she slept. He felt tears prick his eyes, and because he could never bring himself to even begin to tell her that he knew, that he wanted to help…

Recrimination, palpable as the taste of onions -

As soon as he had moved into her apartment, he had looked for bugs. He had spent the whole of that moving day checking the telephone, pictures, walls, floorboards, cupboards, wardrobes, bed. His relief at finding no traces of surveillance or bugging had overwhelmed him. As soon as he had straightened from pushing back the last corner of fitted carpet, he had had to rush to the bathroom and vomit into the avocado-coloured toilet.

For weeks after that he had been unable to rest until he had checked the files, checked her office, followed her to discover whether anyone else was following her. He had become like a jealous lover, or like the private investigator such a lover might have employed.

Like a spy -

Gradually, he came to believe that it was only he who knew. There was no evidence, no one was gathering information, no one even suspected.

What she supplied was not state secrets, it was little more than high-grade gossip. Details of the Soviet Union's social services, housing programmes, illnesses, alcoholism — the temperature of Soviet society — which would be useful to them in building their total picture of the Soviet state. Promotions inside the Secretariat and the Politburo and the ministries, glimpses of the working or stumblings of the Soviet economy, matters of that kind -

Almost not like spying at all. Little more than indiscreet gossip, careless talk which was overheard by strangers.

Priabin could make himself believe that. She was not an important agent, hardly an agent at all. Revenge, disgust with the system that preferred weapons to a wheelchair, had made her do it, were her motives. He could understand that. How much the suicide of her husband, in unexplained circumstances years before she met Baranovich and his damned wheelchair, had to do with it, he had no idea. He preferred the motive of revenge. It gave her a certain honest dignity.

Recrimination. He was certain she did not suspect he knew. He blamed, even hated himself for not telling her, for not weaning her away from the addiction, for not saving her. But he dare not risk losing her…

He stood up and crossed the room swiftly to kneel by the bed. Very gently, he kissed each flattened breast, each erect nipple. Then he continued to kneel, as if partaking in a further religious ceremony. He could not let her go, but he could not let her be discovered. He must speak to her -

He could never admit his knowledge -

Angrily, he stood up. She stirred and moaned lightly, half-turning away from him. The glow of the lamp fell on the fine down along her arm. He watched, then walked swiftly into the bathroom. He did not switch on the light because he had no wish to see himself in the long, bevelled mirror. Instead, he fumbled in the poor light that came from the open doorway, found a glass and filled it with tepid water.

Recrimination. He must do something — !

But he would lose her -

His mouth was dry and the taste of onions was making him feel nauseous.

Whispering near the door, as it squeaked shut once more. Gant came awake immediately, shocked that he had dozed, making a vast effort to stop his left arm rising from the bed to display his watch. He breathed in, slowly and deeply, and listened.

Dressing change… who? He was sufficiently propped up by the pillows to see the two figures at the table without lifting his head. Starched cap, long hair tied back. The male nurse had put down his book. Gant saw him nod, then the woman began moving across his line of sight towards — his bed? — no, the bandaged patient, the mummy. Gant relaxed, and immediately the sense of isolation returned. He did not know how he had slept, or for how long. How had he been capable of sleep?

He could see the nurse's back as she bent over the second bed from his own. She had flicked on the overhead light. The mummified head murmured. It might have been a stifled groan. Gant watched crepe bandage being unrolled, stretched upwards by a slim arm in the muted light. Something glinted, and the arm fell. The mummy murmured again in a frightened tone, as if someone intended him harm. Something glinted, and clicked lightly.

More clicking, like the sound of distant hedge-clippers…

Gant felt his body tensing itself without his will. His hands curled and uncurled, his arms lifted slightly, testing their own weight. His body felt compact, less weary. Bruised, though. The drugs had worn off, leaving the pain of his brief, violent beating.

The nurse was murmuring, the mummy seemed to protest. Then her arm stretched again in the light. Then the clicking noise, and something slim and metal gleamed. And, at the moment of realisation, as his thoughts caught up with his body, he heard footsteps coming down the corridor towards the ward, and he moved.

One chance, only one…

He flicked the bedclothes away, rolled, wondered for an instant what strength he had, and then rolled across the next door bed, his right hand reaching for her arm, his body closing with her, knocking the breath out of her. Gleam of the scissors, her frightened mouth and eyes turning to him, the eyes of the mummy and the half-exposed, purple cheek and swollen mouth. Then he dragged the nurse sideways so that they did not topple on the patient, and whirled round -

'Don't — !' he yelled in Russian, feeling his legs buckle but holding the snatched scissors at the girl's throat, the blade imitating a slight downward stabbing motion. 'Don't think about it!'

The male nurse was on his feet, his hand reaching into his short white coat to where a breast pocket or a shoulder holster would be. Then he was bumped forward as the doors opened behind him. The doctor-

Gant recognised the man and fought off the weakness that followed his realisation of how late he had left it. He moved forward with the nurse in front of him, even as the doctor was asking what was happening and breaking off in mid-sentence as he understood.

'Over here!' yelled Gant, pushing the reluctant nurse forward. The doctor snapped on the main strip lights, which flickered and then glared on the scene. There were two plain clothed guards with him. A stretcher waited behind them; he could see it through a gap where one of the guards still held the door half-open. 'Move!' His voice sounded panicky. His legs felt weak, even shuffling at that snail's pace. The scissors gleamed. He pressed the point of them down, touching the girl's throat. It would not take a minute more, perhaps only seconds, before they moved out of shock and drew their guns and killed the girl and took him for interrogation as if nothing had occurred.

The male nurse moved slowly, reluctantly. Three yards separated them now, then only two, but Gant hesitated because the manoeuvre seemed too complicated. He lacked the necessary co-ordination. The man's eyes were quick and alert, the girl had gone soft and unresisting in his arms. Both of them were beginning to think he was already beaten. In the man's face Gant could already detect his anticipation of what might happen to the girl when he made his move, and his lack of concern.

One of the guards was moving his hand very slowly to the breast of his jacket. The doctor, sensing the approaching moment of violence, had made a single step to one side, away from the doors. Two yards, a yard-and-a-half -

Now — !

His left hand gripped the girl's arm, his arm across her breasts. He spun her away from him, flinging her to the left. Then he kicked the male nurse with his bare right foot, almost losing his balance, striking at the groin. He had already dropped the scissors to the floor. He grabbed the nurse, hoisted him upright, fumbled in the man's coat, withdrew the Makarov. Awkwardly, he juggled the pistol until it pointed towards the group at the doors.

'Back off!' he snapped. 'Out! Move!' He waggled the gun in their direction.

The doctor was flat against the wall. He slid along it and slipped through the doors behind the two guards. Gant turned to the male nurse, who was groaning softly, still clutching his genitals, and prodded him through the doors -

Alarm, hand reaching for it -

Gant moved, bringing the pistol's barrel down on the extended wrist of one of the guards as he reached towards the wall at the side of the door. The man groaned as something cracked. The violence thrilled Gant, made him feel stronger. As the guard slumped against the wall, Gant kicked his legs away and the man sat in a moaning, untidy heap. Gant waggled the gun at the remaining guard and the doctor.

What to do — ?

Guide them — but what about the alarms — ? Guide — alarms…

'Move!' he said. 'Go on — move! Get out of here!' There did not seem to be any other alarms down the corridor. 'Take him — get out.' He indicated the guard sitting against the wall, eyes malevolent, one hand clutching the other like a precious, damaged possession. The second guard bent, helped the injured man to his feet, and then the two of them began to hurry down the corridor, the doctor following them, casting occasional glances over his shoulder.

Gant held the nurse against the wall, arm across the man's throat. The girl had not emerged from the ward, but he knew she would sound the alarm the moment the corridor was clear — he knew, too, that the guards were hurrying to the nearest alarm… the male nurse understood. His eyes anticipated what he might be able to inflict on Gant before the doctors and interrogators ordered him to desist.

Which way — ?

He gripped the nurse's shoulder, pressing his forearm against the man's windpipe. Which way — ? His feet were cold on the linoleum. He was aware of his bare legs.

The alarm sounded above their heads. Someone had triggered every alarm in the building; overlapping, continuous ringing.

'Which way up?' he barked. 'Up to the top of the house? Which way?'

He released his grip on the man. The alarm just above their heads was deafening. The nurse hesitated — then shrugged. It was no more than a postponement of his intentions towards the American. He pointed along the corridor, his body adopting a submissive stance. Gant motioned him forward with the pistol. At first, Gant's legs moved reluctantly, and then he was running, his bare feet slapping on the linoleum, the gun clutched in both hands.

At the end of the corridor, the nurse turned left. The ether-smell and the cream walls they had left behind suddenly clashed with ornamental urns and carpets and upright chairs against the panelled walls. A short gallery overlooking the main hall — the clatter of boots on the tiles below — and then they were climbing a steep wooden staircase that twisted back on itself, then climbed again. Gant glimpsed another corridor, wide and panelled. Heavy, unrestored oil paintings retreated along the walls. Snow-bound hunting scenes, a rich, faded carpet, a frowning, heavy Tsarist face, then more stairs. Bare walls, old plain wallpaper swollen with damp. Colder. His feet resented the uncarpeted, dirty floor of the next corridor.

The nurse halted. The gun prodded his back. He half-turned. Gant struck his shoulder with the pistol. The man groaned.

'Where?'

The alarms were all distant now. He heard no sounds of pursuit. He caught the musty, warm smell of animal cages. The nurse went ahead of him down the corridor. He opened a door. Ether-smell, overhead lamps, an operating table. A surgery or another interrogation room. They passed into a pharmacy, then into a room from which the animal-straw scent emerged strongly. Monkeys chattered as the lights were switched on — Gant realised the man was leaving a trail of turned-on lights for others to follow, but ignored the danger.

Rats in cages, an operating table, loudspeakers, instruments. Monkeys. In one cage, a cat mewed pitifully. An electrode emerged from its shaved, plastered head. Gant shuddered with the cold of the sight. The room itself was warm, the smell overpowering. Straw and urine and food. A bird chirped somewhere.

'Undress!' Gant ordered. The nurse watched him, weighed him. Gant felt himself swaying on his feet, his breath coming heavily, raggedly. 'Undress — clothes on the floor!' Still the man hesitated. 'Do it! I don't give a shit whether you live or die, I just want your clothes!'

The man's resolve snapped and he undressed swiftly. At a movement of the pistol, he kicked the little heap of clothes towards Gant. Gant watched him. The cat mewed again. Gant glanced at it, its protruding electrode touching the wire of the cage. Its food was uneaten. The nurse moved. Gant struck out with the barrel of the Makarov, hardly moving his eyes from the cat's gaze. The nurse held his head and stumbled against a cage of white mice, spilling them onto the floor. They scattered-and clambered over his underclothed body, making for the room's corners. The nurse lay still, blood seeping from his temple down the side of his face. Hurriedly, Gant climbed into the jeans, then the shirt. He leaned against a table as he put on the shoes that were at least a size too large. Then he buttoned the white coat. He brushed dust from the uniform. Still the nurse did not move. A mouse emerged from behind him, sniffed the air and the body, then skittered away beneath one of the tables.

Gant turned swiftly and left the room, switching off the lights. As he closed the door, he heard the monkey chatter die, heard the scamper of mice-paws. He switched off the pharmacy lights, then the lights of the interrogation room-surgery. As he closed the door behind him, at the moment when he wanted only to pause and recover his breath, someone turned into the corridor. Booted feet. He looked round wildly.

A uniformed KGB man strode towards him. The Kalashnikov in his hands hesitated to draw a bead on a white hospital coat.

'Anything up here?' he asked.

Gant shook his head. 'Only the mice,' he managed to say.

The guard laughed. 'The bloody American's loose,' he said. 'You know?' Gant nodded. The guard was already reaching into his breast pocket. The packet of cigarettes emerged before Gant could react. 'Smoke?' Gant shook his head. He was sufficiently aware to keep his bruised temple out of the guard's direct line of sight. The man struck a match, the cigarette's acrid smoke was pungent in the bare corridor. The man smoked secretively, as if at every moment he expected the appearance of one of his officers. Seconds extended to a half-minute, three-quarters…

'I'd better get back down,' Gant explained.

'Plenty down there rushing around — say you heard a noise up here… thorough search.' He grinned, his stony face opening as if a rock had cracked apart. 'They like that, officers — ' He spat, without malice, more out of habit.

'I'd better go — ' Gant said.

The guard shrugged. 'I'll take a couple of minutes more,' he said.

Gant hesitated. If he left the man here — ? The cigarette had not burned halfway to its cardboard tube. Two, three minutes — ? The nurse…

'You all right?' the guard asked. Gant turned directly to him. Immediately, he realised the guard was staring at his bruised temple and swollen lip. Something slow but certain began to form behind the man's eyes.

'Yes, sure,' Gant said, then struck at the man's face. The guard half-stepped, half-fell backwards against the wall. There had seemed no strength in the blow. Gant moved inside the rifle and struck again, and again, his fists beginning to flail at the man because he felt he would be unable to overpower him.

The guard slid down the wall to end in a slumped crouch, rifle between his knees. Gant ran, clattered down the first flight of stairs, glimpsed the ranks of oil paintings again, took the second flight as quickly as he could in the slopping shoes, and reached the gallery overlooking the main hall. He almost collided with a man in uniform. Lieutenant. KGB.

'What is it?' the officer asked. Someone else in uniform emerged from another room. The alarms were loud. Gant shook his head.

'I thought I saw him — ' he began.

'Where? Up there?'

'No, coming down this way… it was just a glimpse. I could have been wrong…'

'Very well.'

There were four people on the gallery now, two in uniform, one in a white coat, one in a suit. Gant did not recognise any of the faces, but he knew he could not be certain. He did not know how many people had seen him since his arrival.

'Are you the one he escaped from?' the officer asked.

Gant nodded, shamefaced. 'Yes.'

'I thought so,' the lieutenant sneered, nodding at the livid bruise. 'Serves you right. God help you if they don't catch up with him — your mother won't know you!' He turned, motioning to the guard in uniform. 'Up these stairs — he might have missed him!' Laughing, the officer followed the guard up the stairs.

Gant looked over the gallery, down into the main hall. Two men in white coats were moving up the sweep of the marble staircase to the first floor. Someone who might have been the American general during his interrogation followed behind them. He moved slowly and angrily.

Gant walked swiftly along the gallery, opened a door at the end of it, and found himself at the head of a flight of narrow stairs. He clattered down them, one hand bracing himself against the bare plaster of the wall because he was increasingly afraid to make demands upon his body. It seemed like the fuel leak in the Firefox, the gauges in the red, waiting for the first, hesitant sound of the engines dying. He felt he might suddenly seize up, be unable to move.

The stairs twisted to the right, then descended again. Ground level — ? A narrow corridor, quarry-tiled. He opened the door at the end of it. A room that might once have been a vast kitchen was now dotted with armchairs, a television set, radio, a still-smoking cigarette which had fallen onto the carpet from the ashtray where it had been left. He stepped on it, grinding it into the carpet -

They wouldn't rescue the monkeys and the cat if the place caught fire…

He left the room by a door at the far end of it, knocking over a half-full glass of beer as he brushed past a small table, then he crossed a narrow passage. Through frosted glass, moonlight shone; almost impossibly, it was an outside door. A shudder ran through his body. Coats, uniform greatcoats, scarves and hats hung from pegs inside the door. He shuffled through them, found a donkey jacket, snatched at a bright scarf, and tried the outside door.

It opened. He slipped through, closed it softly behind him. The alarms were still loud. Outside alarms -

He judged himself to be at the rear of the house. Blocks of sombre flats marched away from him. Lights from the house spilled onto the gravel that surrounded the building. Here, the dark hedges were replaced by a high stone wall, against which a car was parked. Gant ran to it.

The wind was cold once he moved out of the lee of the house. He shrugged on the coat and wrapped the scarf around his face. He thrust the pistol into his right-hand pocket. He tried each door of the car. All of them were locked.

The door opened behind him. He turned slowly, attempting to deflect suspicion. Two men — no, a third armed man behind them, in uniform. More lights flickered on in the ground floor rooms, throwing their glow at him.

Vladimirov stepped forward, the guard moving swiftly to his side, his rifle raised to his shoulder and aimed directly at Gant. Vladimirov's face was chilled by the wind and half in shadow, but Gant saw his smile of undiluted pleasure. Hopelessly, he tugged at the door handle behind him. Locked.

Two men at one corner of the building, rounding it, slowing, then moving forward. A solitary figure at the other end of the building. The wall behind him, Vladimirov in front -

Vladimirov moved forward, closing on Gant. The guard kept his rifle at his shoulder. His aim did not waver. Two white-coated doctors, emerging from the doorway, shivered with the raw cold. Two plainclothed KGB men followed them.

He turned, then, and mounted the bonnet of the car, feeling the weakness of his legs as he clambered onto the car's roof. The thin metal flexed beneath his weight. A bullet smacked flatly into the wall, inches from his face.

Vladimirov screamed at the guard. 'His legs! His legs — don't kill him'

He turned to the wall, elated as if by alcohol or drugs. He jumped, scrabbled, his fingers clutching then being skinned by the rough stone as he slid back to the roof of the car.

'Stop him!'

Footsteps running on the gravel. He did not bother to look, knowing there was time for only one more effort. He stood up, swayed — heard footsteps skidding only feet away and heavy shoes striking the metal of the car's bonnet — and jumped.

Clung, heaved, felt the weakness again, heaved once more, his face sliding inch by inch up the stone, then the wind hitting into his face as it cleared the wall. Something touched, then grabbed at his left leg. He lashed out. Two bullets smacked against the stone near his left hand, then he heaved himself astride the wall. Looking down, he blanched at the drop. Two more bullets, the heat of one of the rounds searing his leg below the knee. He swung both legs over the wall, and dropped towards the pavement. A car passed, headlights on. A quiet side street -

He crumpled as he hit the pavement, sitting down hard. He questioned his ankles, waiting for the pain of a sprain or twist.

Then he stood up. Looked up. A face appeared. He drew the Makarov and fired at it. The bullet chipped dust from the capping stone. The head disappeared. He glanced up and down the street. Ill-lit canyons opened between blocks of flats. The street lamps were dim and few. He ran across the street, sensing the moment he reached deep shadow.

Sensing, too, the opening of gates, the switching on of engines, the beginnings of pursuit. His leg ached but he thought the flesh only scorched. He had escaped. He did not consider the alien city, not yet — only the concealing night as he ran.

'The Hercules flies south along the airway — my people drop by parachute, the Hercules drops off the Russian radars as if landing at Ivalo, then doubles back below the radar net and makes a low-level pass — booting these five pallets out of the cargo door as it goes…' Waterford broke off, and turned from Aubrey to the pilot. 'One smoke flare enough of a marker for you?' he asked. The pilot nodded. Waterford returned his gaze to Aubrey. 'Buckholz and the non-parachutists will come in on the two Lynx helicopters we've got here.' Without even the trace of a smile, he added, 'Simple.'

Aubrey was nodding abstractedly. When Waterford had finished speaking, he looked up. 'Very well.' He glanced at his watch. 'You'll be ready for take-off in…?'

'One hour maximum,' the pilot answered.

'Good.' Aubrey's gaze traversed the interior of the transport aircraft. The SBS men under Waterford's command were now coming aboard, bringing their weapons, packs, skis and diving equipment with them. In conjunction with the WRAP Air Loadmaster, Brooke and another marine officer were checking the manifest of the equipment the aircraft had brought from Scampton. Aubrey wondered whether or not he should address the marines.

'Sir — ' It was the radio operator.

'What is it?'

'London requests immediate signals contact, sir — it's Mr. Shelley. Utmost priority.'

'I'll come at once.' He crossed the cargo compartment of the Hercules with an agitated swiftness, then seated himself in front of the console. He waited until the operator nodded, and then he began speaking. 'Peter — Aubrey here. What is the problem?'

He waited impatiently. He had sanctioned the use of high-speed transmission rather than one-time encoding because of the greater ease and speed of communication, voice to voice. Yet still the conversations seemed endless, punctuated by silences which fearful guesswork ittempted to fill. A light indicated that Shelley's voice was now being recorded at highspeed within the console. The operator dabbed at keys, and he heard Shelley's voice; breathless, as if not quite slowed to normal speed on the tape.

'Sir-it's Gant. He's escaped from the Unit on the Mira Prospekt…' Shelley seemed to pause, as if for a reply, then appeared to remind himself that he was not at the other end of a telephone line. 'We had someone watching the Unit, and they witnessed the alarms, the whole fuss… he must have got over the wall at the back, but our man couldn't find hide nor hair of him. But there was complete and utter panic among the KGB. A huge search is underway already…'

Shelley faltered rather than stopped. Immediately, Aubrey said: 'Peter-wait until I get Charles Buckholz here, please. You're certain there's an extensive search for him?' He turned and raised his voice. ' Waterford, get Buckholz — at once, please.'

Waterford disappeared immediately through one of the para-troop doors in the side of the fuselage. Buckholz was supervising the loading of the two Lynx helicopters, parked near the Hercules on the ramp of Kirkenes airfield. Aubrey's fingers drummed on the side of the console. It sounded as hollow as an empty drum.

Shelley's voice came back soon after the red light flicked on once more.

'In answer to your question, sir, the British and American embassies are bottled up — no explanation, no official contact, but the cars are outside in force. They're waiting for the lines to go dead any minute now. Our low-grade people still on the streets are ringing in with reports of high-level KGB activity — saturation cover, was the term David Edgecliffe used. Shall I hang on now, sir?'

Aubrey turned on the swivel chair. Buckholz, his face half-hidden by the fur trimming of a white parka hood, clambered through the paratroop door, Waterford behind him. He hurried to Aubrey's side.

'He's got out — !' Aubrey blurted. 'Damn it, but he's got out of that unit — they're looking for him all over Moscow!' Buckholz grinned and slapped Aubrey's shoulder heavily. But, even before he could speak, Aubrey clicked his fingers — a dull sound in his heavy gloves — and said excitedly, 'Saturation cover, the Moscow Head of Station reports — you realise what that means, Charles? Do you realise! My God!'

'What?'

'They don't know — they didn't break him — !' He gripped the sleeve of Buckholz's parka, tugging at the material. 'If they knew, they wouldn't have every available man on the streets of Moscow looking for him — they need him!'

'That's just a guess… they don't want us to get him back — '

'Squadron Leader!' Aubrey called to the pilot of the Hercules. 'Contact Eastoe — I want an up-to-the-minute report on border activity.' The pilot nodded and began moving forward towards the flight deck. 'I don't believe he's told them, Charles — I don't believe they know.'

'It's only a matter of time, Kenneth — he can't survive on the streets for long. Can we get someone to him?'

Aubrey turned to the console. The operator nodded. 'Peter, what are the chances of finding him?'

He waited, listening to Buckholz's heavy breathing, his eyes willing the red light to wink off.

Then Shelley was speaking once more. 'Edgecliffe's signal was very clear, sir — and I checked at once. Every known contact, every member of the embassy staff outside the building, is already under surveillance. Edgecliffe also reminded me,' Shelley's voice hesitated, and then added in a more mumbled tone: 'We-used up the best people two days ago — especially Pavel. He's still very angry about losing Pavel — '

'To the devil with Edgecliffe's anger!' The operator flicked at the keyboard to try to overtake Aubrey's unexpected, rushed reply. 'Is there no one? Do they have any idea where he might be?' As his questions were transmitted, he turned to Buckholz. 'You realise that the time-limit is expanding, Charles? Gant has given us a stay of execution.' The pilot appeared from the flight deck, shutting the door behind him. 'Any activity?' Aubrey asked.

'No change in the situation.'

'See, Charles-they don't know!'

'Where does that leave us? They could pick him up any time. Maybe we ought to pray he gets run over by a bus!'

Shelley's voice anticipated Aubrey's reply. 'No information, sir. Moscow Station personnel simply can't move — it's the same for the Americans. We have a few low-grade watchers who Edgecliffe has been using, but no one he could use to give help, even if he knew where to look. He's got out, but that seems to be as far as anyone can go, sir. We can't do anything for him.'

Aubrey stood up, puriching his right hand into the palm of his left; a dull concussion. He looked almost wildly around the crowded, murmurously noisy interior of the Hercules. Breath smoked. Runway and perimeter lights gleamed beyond the lowered cargo ramp. It was as if Aubrey expected to find a volunteer from among the marines and RAF personnel around him. His eyes rested on Buckholz.

'We must do something, Charles — something to try to keep him out of their hands! Now we have this slim chance — now we might be given all the time we need… he mustn't go back into the Unit!'

'I agree — so? What in hell do you want me to think?'

Aubrey strutted a few intense, excited steps from Buckholz, then returned to the console. 'Peter — do we have anybody… anybody we can use?'

He waited in silence, his brow creased, his face intent, until Shelley replied.

'Not a native Russian who's capable of finding him, making contact, shielding him, and none of our officials could get near him. We might be able to locate him, with a great deal of luck, but there's no one we could trust to take care of him — in whichever way you wish — ' Shelley added in a softer, almost apologetic voice.

Aubrey wrinkled his nose in disgust. 'I'm not having him killed!' he snapped, turning to Buckholz so that he understood his decision.

'Even if you find him, you mean?' Buckholz observed with heavy irony. 'Let's face facts, Kenneth. You're hamstrung — our two services are hamstrung in Moscow. We don't know where he is, where he might go… and we couldn't reach him to help him if we did!'

Aubrey stretched out his hands imploringly, but his face was flushed with anger. 'Then give me someone who can help him! Charles, the CIA must have someone — a Russian with the resources, the nerves and the intelligence to help Gant? Give me one of your Category-A Sources, Charles!'

'I can't authorise that, Kenneth.'

'To save Gant-to save all this, perhaps…?' His arms encompassed the entire contents of the cargo compartment; men, equipment, purpose. 'Give me one of your Sources. Someone with freedom of movement. Someone who can travel!'

Buckholz was silent for some time. Aubrey allowed him to pace the cargo compartment, his face thoughtful. His mittened hands rubbed at his cheeks or alternately held his chin. Aubrey instructed Shelley to remain in full contact, and to wait, then he spent the endless minutes of Buckholz's silence furiously reviewing his own extensive knowledge of the CIA's Moscow operations.

They were avid for information, and lavish in their corruption and persuasion of agents. They had dozens of Russians in key positions who supplied them with high-grade information. They were designated Category-A Sources. Any one of them might be young enough, resourceful enough to locate and assist Gant. Get him out of Moscow…?

But, would Charles agree? Would he endanger one of the CIA's key Sources for the sake of possibly finding, possibly assisting Gant?

Eventually, Buckholz stood in front of him once more. He nodded, slightly and only once.

'Source Burgoyne,' he said enigmatically. 'I'll have to confirm with Langley… Source Burgoyne seems the most — expendable.' He flinched as he saw the look on Aubrey's face, then snapped: 'Like Fenton and Pavel and even Baranovich — you were pretty wasteful there, Kenneth.'

'Damn you, Charles,' Aubrey breathed, but his face was white with admission and a surprising self-disgust. 'Burgoyne is less important than your other Sources, I suppose?' he asked acidly. 'How many Category-A Sources are there at present, Charles?'

'Maybe thirty — scattered through the ministries, the Secretariat, the Supreme Soviet, top industrial concerns, the Narodny Bank — '

'And Burgoyne is one of the least significant, I take it?'

'You got it. I — we've tried to persuade her to request — '

'Her?'

'Right. A woman. We've tried to get her to move into more sensitive areas for years now — she won't. She's useful, but she's not crucial, as you put it. You want her or not?'

Aubrey pondered for a moment, — then brightened: 'Yes, I'll take her. A female companion would avert suspicion, and she must have intelligence or resource pr you wouldn't have tried to get her into more useful work! She can travel with some ease. Yes, I'll take her. Does the codename Burgoyne suffice to wake the sleeper?'

'It does. Let me talk to Shelley. I'll supply the telephone number. It's then up to you what you do with her. She's a limited asset and no longer our concern — she'll be all yours!' Buckholz grinned crookedly.

Aubrey moved away from the console. Fenton, Pavel, and now Source Burgoyne …

'What's her name?' he asked without turning around.

'Anna — Anna Akhmerovna. She's a widow. Touching forty. She has almost complete freedom of movement. Just one thing, though. She lives with a KGB officer, if I remember correctly.'

Aubrey turned on his heel. ' What — ?'

'She's the one you're going to get, Kenneth. Langley would never agree to any of the others.'

Aubrey turned away. His mind raced, skipping over crevasses and chasms that opened beneath his optimism, threatening to swallow it. If Gant could be saved — ? Edgecliffe could work up a suitable escape route, provide good papers, the woman was good cover…

Buckholz completed his instructions to Shelley, then addressed Aubrey. 'You still want London, Kenneth?'

'I do!' He faced Buckholz once more. 'I'll save him if I can,' he murmured. 'And her — I'll save her, too!' It was mere bravado and he knew it, as did the American, who merely shrugged.

'I don't think you can win this one, Kenneth. You'll just be losing the Company a useful agent. You'll get Burgoyne killed along with Gant.'

'No I won't, Charles!'

Buckholz snatched off his mittens angrily, and held up the fingers of his left hand, splayed. He counted them off with his right forefinger, folding them into his palm at each of the names he recited.

'Fenton — Pavel — Baranovich — Semelovsky — Kreshin — Glazunov — the old man at the warehouse, I forget his name…'

'Damn you, be quiet!' Again, Aubrey's face was white and his mouth trembled. Appalled, he witnessed the appearance of guilt in his mind. It made his heart race, his stomach turn. Guilt -

Shakily, he said, 'I will atone, Charles — I'll save Gant and your Source Burgoyne. Now, let me talk to Shelley — !'

'Yes, Comrade Deputy Chairman — yes, of course. I'll come at once!' Priabin put down the bedside receiver and turned to Anna, his face flushed with an almost boyish pride and self-importance. Anna watched him, watched his innocent pleasure spreading in a broad grin.

'What is it?' she asked sleepily, glancing at the travelling clock on her bedside cabinet, propped open in its leather case. Two o'clock. Then she yawned, as if the reminder of the lateness of the hour and her interrupted sleep had wearied her.

'Orders,' he said almost blithely, getting out of bed and opening the sliding door of the fitted wardrobe.

'You're going out?'

'I am. Panic stations — ' he answered, hoisting his uniform trousers then pulling his shirt from its hanger. He buttoned it hastily, looking down at each button as he did so. He talked as he dressed. 'Your friend the American pilot is on the loose — seems they mislaid him…' He looked up and grinned. His tie was draped over a chair. He snatched it up and began to knot it.

'What happened?' She was leaning on one elbow, her small breasts invitingly exposed, nipples erect in the coolness of the bedroom. She shivered, then, and rubbed her goose-pimpled arms. Then she stretched. Priabin hunted for his jacket in the wardrobe.

'Some monstrous cock-up, I expect. Deputy Chairmen don't give explanations over the telephone to newly-promoted colonels.' He thrust his arms into the jacket, and buttoned it. 'Where's my cap?'

'When will you be back?'

He shrugged. 'Can't say, love. I'm appointed one of the coordinators of the search. They've got saturation cover on the streets as a matter of routine, now they want people like me to sort it out…' He stopped smiling. 'And people to blame, no doubt, if he gets away. Still, we colonels must bear our appointed loads — ' The smile was back. He moved to the bed, bent and kissed her. She folded her arms behind his neck, holding him in the kiss.

'Take care,' she murmured.

'I'll watch my back.' He grinned. 'I suppose you're a little bit on his side, aren't you — with your attitude to the project?'

She shook her head vehemently. 'Not if he endangers you,' she said.

He winked and crossed to the dqor. 'See you,' he said, and opened the door. 'I love you.' He closed the door behind him. Anna heard the front door of the apartment close quietly a few moments later. Doubtless, he had paused only to collect his holster and greatcoat from the rack in the hall.

She shivered, rubbing her arms again. She swung her legs out of bed, crossed to the door and took down her dressing-gown. Warm and sensible, but silk-lined. She buttoned it quickly.

As she crossed the hall, she listened at Maxim's door. Satisfied he had not awoken, she went into the kitchen. Her anxiety at Priabin's departure was usual, even though disproportionate. To her, every departure was only the prelude to a meeting where he would be ordered to arrest her.

She turned on one of the small strip-lights beneath the kitchen cabinets. It gave the room a hard but confined glow which she could tolerate. It preserved a quality of secretive darkness the room had possessed when she entered it. She switched on the percolator, having checked that enough coffee remained in it.

What was it — ? What had disturbed her so much? It wasn't simply her recurring nightmare of discovery and arrest… no. It was something — the arrival of fate as palpably as a knock on the door. Yes, that was it. A sense of fate, renewed by the American's escape. It had been with her ever since Dmitri was transferred to security on the Bilyarsk project. Baranovich's wheelchair had begun her double-life — Dmitri had moved closer to that double-life when he was transferred. Now, leading the hunt for the American, he seemed in some vague and shadowy way to threaten her. There was something fateful about the whole affair.

Of course, Dmitri knew. She had known for months. She had learned to live with that terror; it had been like a mad dog in the back garden, gradually tamed and thus ignored. He would not give her away and therefore lose her-not yet, at least, and perhaps not ever.

To go back, she thought bitterly, pouring the heated coffee into a thick brown mug. Just to go back.

The futile recrimination wailed like a lost child in her head. Baranovich, and before that, her husband. Suicide because he had lost his academic post — samizdat copies of banned writings in his locked drawer at the university -

She had had to live with the knowledge that he had killed himself to protect her. She had known nothing until the KGB told her, after she had found him dead in the bath, afloat in red water. Samizdats, meetings, planned protests, anti-Soviet activities. A dangerous criminal, the loving, gentle, innocent husband? It was impossible to believe; impossible, later, not to realise that he had the courage to face them, to undergo imprisonment. He had killed himself to protect her, to free her from the stigma of being the wife of a prisoner, a zek in the Gulag -

Gradually, very, very gradually, she had returned to life and to her career from that dark tunnel where he had left her. And then Baranovich, corrupted forcibly from his idealistic work — his wheelchair — to build a warplane more destructive than anything ever known…

That had been the breaking-point. Not her husband's suicide but the destruction of Baranovitch's project. She had made her first contact with an American diplomat-agent at the next embassy cocktail party she attended.

And then Dmitri, and Dmitri working to protect that damned, infernal aircraft project, and Dmitri discovering her double-life -

And now hunting the American. It was fate. She could not disbelieve it. It was a time of ill-omen -

If only they would let her go, if only she could go back. Her head cried like a lost child — if only…

The coffee scalded her mouth as she sipped it, then spilled onto her dressing-gown as the telephone startled her. She put down the mug, staring at her quivering hands. Then she snatched at the receiver hanging on the kitchen wall, as if to protect her sleeping son from its intrusion.

'Yes?' she said breathlessly.

'Burgoyne, is that you?' a voice asked in English.

'What-?' she breathed. 'I–I'm afraid I don't understand…' She spoke very deliberately in Russian.

'But I do,' the voice said. It sounded English — but if it was, then why not an American accent? She felt panic mount in her, filling her throat.

'Who is this, please?' she asked as calmly as she could.

'Listen carefully, Burgoyne — my name is Edgecliffe, British Embassy. This line is secure at my end, and I know yours is not tapped — I also know that Colonel Priabin left the apartment ten minutes ago. You're alone, except for your son…' The details were as palpably nauseating as hands pawing her, caressing her body beneath the dressing-gown.

'What do you want?' Now, at last, she spoke in English.

'Your help. Please listen carefully. You may confirm my identity and instructions with your Case Officer, if you wish. When I have finished. You've been loaned to us, Burgoyne, by your present employers, to do a special job.'

'What-?'

'Colonel Priabin, no doubt, has been summoned to the Centre to take charge of some part of the search for the escaped American pilot — we want your help to find him before your lover does…' There was a chuckle at the other end of the line. 'We're a little limited as far as resources are concerned — we need your help.'

'Go to hell!' Suddenly, she was frighteningly angry, hardly able to speak, so full was her throat, so tense her whole body. 'Go to hell, whoever you are!'

'Listen to me, Burgoyne.' the Englishman snapped. 'I don't have time to play games. You'll do as you're told. Otherwise, well, you know what might happen to you — enough of that, however. It will be up to you to get our American friend out of Moscow, once we've located him. I'll have papers for the two of you, travel permits, everything — and a full scenario in a matter of hours. All you have to do is be ready to move when I tell you.'

He fell silent, and into that quiet Anna dropped the small pebble of her voice. 'And what if — if Colonel Priabin catches him?'

'Then we won't require your services. You can carry on with your life as before.'

'But what do I tell him — what about my son — ?'

'I'm sure you can discover a sick relative somewhere if you try hard enough. You have many friends, I'm told. Send your son to stay with one of them. Or with your father, perhaps?'

'Just like that-?'

'Everything is just like that, I'm afraid. You don't have a choice. None at all. You must comply with our wishes — I'm sure you realise that. I won't even bother to assure you that if the KGB recapture the American they will get back their aircraft — the one you loathe so much. Even though that is true, it isn't necessary to persuade you, Burgoyne, because you must do as we say and you are intelligent enough to realise it.'

'But — how? How?' Anna asked.

'The details have yet to be decided. Simply prepare yourself for a journey, perhaps by train. Be ready to move as soon as it becomes necessary.'

'I can't — ' she wailed.

'You must. And, who knows? With your connection with Colonel Priabin, our American might be safer with you than anyone else we might have been loaned — mm? Goodbye for the present, Burgoyne. I'll be in touch — soon.'

The line clicked, then purred. Anna sat for some moments, staring into the receiver, as if the man who owned the voice might emerge from it, oozing smokily out like an appearing jinn. One hot, angry, frightened tear fell on her upturned wrist. Then she lifted her head to the pine-panelled ceiling of the kitchen, and howled like an animal in pain.

It was the absence of pedestrians that worried him most. In the small hours, he might have expected the streets to have emptied, but there had been no crowds and little traffic from the time he had vanished into the dark canyons between the endless blocks of apartments. It had taken him more than two hours to work his way back into the centre of Moscow via side-streets and alleys and lanes and waste ground. And all the time he did so, he knew he was moving slowly but certainly into the mouths of the trawling net the KGB and the police had cast for him.

Sirens, prowling cars, foot patrols, even helicopters. From the Mira Prospekt he had moved east, then north, then west, using the deeper darkness of open spaces, sports complexes, recreation parks, climbing their frosty railings, resting in the deep shadow of trees; fighting his rising panic and sense of isolation like two attackers in the darkness. He passed through Dzerzhinsky Park which contained the Ostankino television tower; the park surrounding the army museum; the zoo park. He kept away from the streets as much as he could; avoided streetlights.

The shops of the Kalinin Prospekt were lit like fishtanks. Above the windows, ranks of unlit offices marched towards Tchaikovsky Street and the American Embassy. Gant knew, though he suppressed the knowledge, that it would be guarded — barred to him. But he needed a destination, an objective. It was the only one he could enlarge in his mind and store with the comforts of safety, help, food, sleep. During his two hours of walking and skulking and scuttling across lit spaces and shrinking into doorways and behind trees, the embassy had become furnished and warmed in his imagination. There was no need to imagine anything after its doors opened. When the door closed behind him, he would be safe. It would be over.

He stared down the Kalinin Prospekt as if studying a minefield. Two foot patrols, two parked police cars, another cruising slowly towards him from the direction of the Kalinin Bridge. It would be a gauntlet he would not survive. He turned right, into the sparsely-lit Malaya Molchanovka Street. Ranks of tall offices and department stores retreated towards the Tchaikovsky Street and the bridge on his left. The street was empty, except for the quick darting shape of a cat crossing the road. Gant hurried, hands thrust into the pockets of the short coat, the cap he had found in one of those pockets pulled down over his eyes. He had long abandoned the white coat. His heels were raw from the rubbing of the too-big shoes, and the pain in his calf where the dog had bitten him had resurfaced now that the effect of the drugs and sedatives had disappeared. He stamped out the memory of the frozen lake and the Lynx helicopter only yards from him, waiting to save him.

He heard music coming from a still-lit window as he passed a low apartment block opposite the rear of a cinema. A child cried somewhere, startled from sleep. A car turned the corner from the Kalinin Prospekt behind him, and he forced himself not to run but to turn into the entrance of another apartment block. The outer door was not locked. He pushed his way inside. The foyer smelt of cabbage and greasy cooking. He flattened against the wall and waited.

The car drifted slowly along the street. For a moment, a spotlight played on the entrance, washing over the walls of the foyer. Then it was gone. Quivering, he returned to the street. The police car had turned off. He hurried on, head down, breath smoking around him, feet hurting, leg stiffening.

He reached the corner of Tchaikovsky Street. It was wide and at first glance almost empty. It formed part of the Sadovaya Ring of boulevards around the inner city. It was lined on each broad pavement by trees. A red-and-white striped tent, unexpectedly, occupied one kerb. Flashing yellow lights, a taped-off section, the noise of a compressor. Road works of some kind. He crossed the Kalinin Prospekt, seeing the same foot patrols and parked cars, and began to move cautiously down the boulevard, keeping to the shadows of the trees. The street lighting was good here; betraying. His eyes sought each shadow, trying to dissolve it.

A parked car; he paused. The embassy was number nineteen, less than a hundred yards away, a post-war, ugly building. He could clearly see its facade, safe behind railings and the emblem of the eagle, illuminated by the yellowish street lighting. Just the single car…

He repressed the leap of optimism. He must not believe in the single car and its two occupants he could see as shadows through the rear window. He had to look -

Road works. Six men, two leaning on shovels, one leaning on a pneumatic drill, three others using pick-axes in slow, rhythmical movements. He waited, turning his attention to the windows of the buildings, especially the second and third floors. There were smaller, brightly painted houses jammed incongruously between the Stalinist-style apartment blocks, frowned upon by the concrete towers. Gant studied the windows. A car passed, but did not stop, did not even slow down. He looked at his watch, a nervous, hardly-aware reaction. Most of the curtains were drawn, most of the lights were off. One or two of the windows were open, even in the cold weather. He watched until his eyes were confused with dots and with dancing, unfocused images of windows, but he saw nothing to make him suspicious.

Excitement began to mount through his chilled body. There would be a marine behind the gates. Once he opened his mouth… he needed only one word, his name… the startled marine would open the gates and he would be safe…

Against belief, it seemed the guard was minimal. Perhaps they expected him to try the British Embassy — ?

He forced himself to study the windows again. Nothing. After ten minutes, nothing. Parked cars too far down the boulevard, only the one near the gates. And the road works -

He looked at the six workmen. The drill was working now, so were the two men with shovels. The other three, the men wielding the pick-axes, had stopped to rest under the spindly legs of the spotlights they had erected. The noise of the drill violated the silence of the street. Each of the three resting men faced in a different direction as he leaned on his pick-handle. Each head moved rhythmically slowly, traversing an area of the Tchaikovsky Street.

The red-and-white striped tent was twenty yards from the embassy gates. The six men were not workmen. The roadworks were a fake.

Gant swallowed bile and backed away from the shelter of the tree. He had passed a telephone box. In shadow, he hurried back towards it, entering and slamming its door behind him. Immediately, his tension and fear clouded the glass. He fumbled for coins — there were coins in the pockets of the jeans — and dialled the number of the embassy. It sprang out of his memory without effort, a signal of his necessity. He withdrew his finger from the dial and waited. The telephone clicked, then the noise became a loud, continuous tone. He joggled the rest and dialled once more. The same loud, unceasing noise sounded in his ears.

The lines to the embassy had been cut off at the switchboard. There was no way to reach them.

He clenched his fist and banged it gently but intensely against the small mirror above the coinbox. He swallowed, and shook his head. Illusions of safety dissipated. Then, furiously, he dialled another number, and waited, holding his breath.

The ringing tone -

They'd left the lines to the British Embassy — he would be able to talk to them, he would -

'Come on, come on…'

The operator on the embassy switchboard — a night-duty man — answered. Asked his name, his business… there seemed a note of expectant caution. Gant felt relief fill him, the words hurried into incoherence even before he began speaking -

Then he heard the clicks, three of them.

He stood there, mouth open, not daring to speak. The man on the switchboard insisted, his voice more demanding and, at the same time, more suspicious. Gant heard the man breathing as he waited for a reply. He understood the clicks, and wondered whether the switchboard operator had heard them — must have heard them…

The line was tapped. They'd left it open, hoping he would call. A tracer was probably at work now, seeking him.

'Caller?' Gant did not reply. He stared at the mouthpiece. Distantly, he heard the operator say: 'I'm sorry, caller…'

Then the connection was broken. The operator had circumvented the tracer both of them knew had been put on the call. Gant continued to stare at the receiver, then slammed it onto the rest, heaving open the door of the box almost blindly.

He looked down the wide boulevard. Red-and-white striped tent, six men, one parked car. He would never make it. He knew he did not dare to make the attempt.

He felt the wetness in his eyes and rubbed angrily at them. He jammed his hands in his pockets, hunching his body until its shivering stilled. Then he turned his back on the American Embassy.

Gant did not see the shadowy figure slip from beneath one of the trees on the opposite side of the Tchaikovsky Street and hurry after him.

EIGHT: The Strangers

The noise of her anguish had woken Maxim. The eleven-year-old had come into the kitchen, startled and half-awake, rubbing his eyes, his mouth already working with anticipated fears for his mother. Instantly, as quickly as sniffing back her tears and dragging the sleeve of her dressing-gown across her eyes, she had transformed herself once more into the figure he expected and needed. Even his immediate enquiries had been halfhearted. Being allowed to sit with her, drinking fruit juice, had been in itself a comfort, a reassertion of normality. He had gone back to bed satisfied.

Once she was alone in the kitchen, Anna buried her terror in activity. She called her Case Officer at the embassy, and he confirmed her sentence. The image of punishment had occurred to her with bitter humour. When the line suddenly went dead, the humour vanished and she felt chilled and isolated. She had put down the telephone, forcing herself not to consider the implications, not to consider her own danger. Instead, she began to build her fabric of deception. It would have to be an old aunt in Kazan — she didn't even have a telephone, though she lived in comfort, so Dmitri couldn't check on her story, nor could the ministry or her superiors…

She ticked off the benefits on her fingers.

Then, Maxim -

Her father, naturally; the boy's grandfather. The father who had assiduously promoted her career and had protected her from censure and suspicion after her husband's suicide. Her father, who had once risen to the position of first secretary of the party organisation of the Moscow Oblast region, and had thus been a member of the Party Central Committee. His retirement to a dacha outside Moscow had been honourable, luxurious. He still had the weight, the contacts and friendships to protect Maxim if something went wrong.

She swallowed. Maxim would enjoy a few days in the woods outside the city. The old man had taken up wildlife photography as a hobby. He had even bought Maxim a small Japanese camera for his birthday.

Maxim would enjoy -

She was sobbing. The camera had become inextricably linked in her mind with the Dynamo First-Class football boots that had been Dmitri's present. The two presents, their images so clear in her rnind, pained her.

She sniffed loudly after a time, and shook her head as if to clear it of memory and association. Blonde hair flicked over her brow. She tugged it away from her forehead.

If it worked — if, if, if, if — she might be away for only a couple of days, perhaps three at the most. If she helped the American successfully, did what they wanted her to do, then she would be back with presents and an explanation that her aunt was a little better and she could stay away no longer…

If-

If not, she would have preserved her son from the shipwreck. Her father had protected her; now he could do the same for her son, his grandson. His task would be simple. Narrow and bigoted though his political and social ideas were — a surviving splinter of the Stalinist period who cut and bruised at every encounter with her newer, more liberal ideas — he had always been a kindly, though authoritative father; and an indulgent, fond grandparent. Maxim liked him, they would get on.

'No…' she whispered slowly, intensely. It was as if she were already giving her son away. Not if she could help it — not if she could win.

Dmitri's knowledge, her eventual safety from the KGB, her continued function as a Category-A Source for the CIA -

She would face those problems afterwards.

The telephone rang. She glared at it as if it had been a hated voice, then snatched the receiver from the wall.

'Yes — ?' It might be Dmitri, but the second of silence before she heard Edgecliffe's voice told her it was not.

'Burgoyne? Listen carefully. The American is still loose in the city. He hasn't been arrested or spotted by the police. We had someone in contact with him, but he shook them off-we presume he thought the mark was KGB. We think he's tried our embassy and the American embassy. He realises by now that he can't find a bolt-hole in either place…'

'And?' Anna snapped, determined that Edgecliffe should hear nothing but competence, resource — however much that played the Englishman's game,

'The papers are, ready — we'll have them delivered before morning. We shall require you to take the American to Leningrad, by train. You and he must manage the station as best you can.'

'Leningrad?'

'You'll be met. I'll tell you how and where-when we have it finalised. He'll be taken into Finland — What you do will be up to you. Your exit can be arranged — '

'No!'

'I should consider it carefully, if I were you,' Edgecliffe warned. 'We're offering you a way out.'

'A passport to nowhere,' she sneered.

'As you wish. Think about it. We will want you to board the Leningrad train this afternoon… there'll be clothes for the American, delivered with his papers. Some sort of disguise. Your job will be to get him to Leningrad.'

'Your job is to find him first.'

Edgecliffe chuckled, an almost pleasant sound. 'I realise that. Be ready to leave your apartment the moment I call on you to do so. Once we locate him, he's in your hands. You'll make contact — it's too risky for us to try.'

'And if you don't find him today?'

'Then it may be too late — he's running out of time. However, you'll stand by until you hear otherwise. Have you made your arrangements?'

'Don't worry — they'll be made.'

'Then expect the papers and another call.' He hesitated, then added: 'Goodluck.'

Anna replaced the receiver without replying. She watched as the shadow of the cord stilled against the tiled wall. It formed a tightly-coiled noose below the telephone.

She hoped, fervently hoped to the point of prayer, that Dmitri would catch the American. He had the short remainder of the night, the morning, noon, the afternoon.

Please, please…

Priabin stood in front of the large-scale map, rubbing his chin with his left hand. Moscow's main line stations were represented by coloured pins. His right arm was folded across his chest as he pondered his responsibility; the seven principal stations for long-distance routes, and one of the four airports around the city, Cheremetievo in his case. His whole department had been seconded, and he occupied Kontarsky's old office in Moscow Centre, co-ordinating the surveillance. Dmitri Priabin was grateful for the static nature of his participation. At least his men were not walking the streets, combing the parks and open spaces, searching the apartment block's, the empty houses, the building sites and the shops. Nor were they manning roadblocks in the freezing night.

And yet — and this was the splinter in his satisfaction since he had left Anna — it might be his people who let Gant slip. If he got out of the city, it might well be by train. And Gant could bring him down just as effectively as he had ruined Kontarsky.

Surely they had to find Gant soon? It was impossible for the man to roam the city undetected. He was alone, without friends or contacts. The SIS and CIA were bottled up in their apartments, embassies, compounds, safe houses. There was no one to help him, hide him, provide him with papers, protect him. The man was utterly, entirely alone.

His forefinger touched each of the coloured pins in turn, as if for luck. His hand described a circle around the inner city — Leningrad Station, Riga Station, Savolovsky Station, Belorussia, Kiev, Pavolets, Kurskaia.

And the principal airport to Leningrad and Scandinavia at Cheremetievo, north-east of the city -

He looked at his watch. Time to make another tour of the stations and drive out to the airport — yes, he would do that. It was suddenly urgent, necessary to remind his men of the stakes, the risks.

The intercom sounded on his desk.

'Yes?' he asked, depressing the switch.

'General Vladimirov wishes to see you, Comrade Colonel,' the secretary informed him. The girl had a heavy cold, and her mood had not been lightened by having to work this extra duty.

'Where?'

'He's here, Comrade Colonel.'

'Very well — send the general in at once!'

Priabin took up a position in front of Kontarsky's — his — desk, almost posed, exuding confidence. He had sensed something overbearing about the general when he had been aboard the First Secretary's Tupoley. Priabin wanted to make a good impression; he did not wish to appear an interloper in that office — some sort of caretaker. His secretary opened the door, nose buried in her handkerchief, much to Vladimirov's evident distaste, and ushered the general in. She slammed the door immediately.

Priabin held out his hand. Vladimirov took it briefly. Priabin studied the older man's eyes. Bloodshot, but intense with purpose. He evidently had not slept for even a small part of the night. Priabin understood that Vladimirov's pride had been insulted and diminished by what the American had done. Only hours before he had been confined and on the point of revealing the truth, yet now he was at large again. To Vladimirov, his ill-luck must have seemed like a continuing taunt.

'General — I'm honoured. What can I do to help you? Please sit down — ' Priabin indicated a chair near the desk. Vladimirov shook his head.

'Tell me your arrangements, your dispositions — all of them,' he ordered sharply, without preamble of any kind. 'Quickly, Colonel — I haven't time to waste!'

The Deputy Chairman had briefed Priabin sufficiently for the authority exuded by Vladimirov not to come as a surprise. However, he was abashed by the peremptory, almost violent expression of it. Vladimirov had been placed in command of the hunt for the American — an unusual step since he was not KGB or even GRU — but that position was a KGB safeguard. Only Vladimirov would fall if the American eluded them — no one in the KGB would suffer. Priabin almost felt sorry for the older man, even as he bridled at his tone.

Swiftly, he explained the disposition of forces, using the map on its easel. Vladimirov stood near him. There was a faint smell of whisky and cachous on his breath. He nodded violently, his rage and impatience barely concealed. When Priabin had finished his outline, Vladimirov studied him with the same piercing glance he had bestowed on the map and its pins.

'So,' he remarked at last, 'you will simply wait until he makes himself known to one of your men and then arrest him?' The sarcasm was evident and stinging. Vladimirov raised an eyebrow in further emphasis. Priabin felt his face redden and grow hot.

'These — are normal, tried and tested security procedures, Comrade General,' he said with heavy slowness.

'It was normal security that allowed the American to escape from the hospital.'

'I-'

'I have toured three departments in this building of yours so far,' Vladimirov pursued, 'and in each of them I have heard variations on the same refrain. Routine — normal — usual … even from Deputy Chairmen and Directors of Departments and their principal Deputy Directors and Assistant Deputy Directors — ' His arms were in the air, expressing exasperated hopelessness. 'People who should know better, much better, tell me the same things you do! Do you think it is enough, Colonel? Do you think you are doing all you can to apprehend the most important escapee in the whole of the Soviet Union?' Priabin glanced towards the door, whether for signs of help or out of embarrassment he could not be certain. The general raged on. 'This organisation of yours has too much experience with prisoners and not enough with escapers.' His lips parted in a thin, mirthless, arrogant smile. 'You're not up to the job, perhaps?' His left eyebrow lifted ironically once more. The expression did nothing to alleviate the heavy anger of the eyes. He turned back to the map. 'Well?' he asked. 'You've nothing to say? Nothing at all? Not an idea in your head, mm?'

Priabin cleared his throat and composed his reddened features. He was already considering how best, how painlessly, he could manoeuvre the general out of his office.

'I — am sorry you're not satisfied, Comrade General. You are, of course, unfamiliar with our methods…'

Vladimirov turned on him. The white light from the table-lamp fell on his cheek, giving it the dead, flat appearance of skin that had undergone plastic surgery. A lock of grey hair fell across the older man's creased forehead. He flicked it back into place.

'Unfamiliar? Aren't jailers very conventional — the same the world over?' he hissed. 'Dolts, buffoons with clubs and guns? Well? Have you an idea in your head, or not?'

Priabin stared at the map. A circle of pins, the weave of a net. Other maps in other rooms displayed other pins. A huge trawl-net being dragged across the city. He must surely be netted soon. The Sadovaya Ring, Red Square, the river, the broad avenues and boulevards, the narrow streets, the buildings and monuments — Gant was alone out there. He'd walked the city only once in his life before, and that for little more than an hour. on his way to rendezvous with the now-dead agent Pavel Upenskoy.

Priabin clenched his fist; began beating it into the palm of his left hand. Red Square from the Moskva Hotel, past GUM, down to the river — the murder had taken place there, then they'd fled via the metro to the warehouse near the Kirov Street… then he'd been driven out of Moscow the next morning in a van. He didn't even know the city, not at all — !

His forefinger traced the route that Gant, in his disguise as Orton, must have taken from the Moskva Hotel to his rendezvous near the bridge. Having reached the Pavolets metro station, he traced the route once more.

'Well, what is it, man?' Vladimirov asked impatiently. 'Are you awake or half-asleep?'

Priabin turned on the general, grinning. 'I think I'm awake, Comrade General!' he said with something akin to elation in his voice. It was at least enough of an idea to get rid of this uncomfortable old man.

'What is it?' Vladimirov's excitement was hungry and dangerous.

'Gant knows very little of Moscow. He must reason someone would be looking for him, he's valuable. If they know he's out, and they probably do, then they'd have people looking for him — low-grade people, unofficials, anyone they could get out of bed on a cold night — ! He might, just might, retrace his steps. It's the only piece of knowledge they all share — the route he took to his meeting with Pavel Upenskoy and the others.'

Vladimirov looked doubtful. Then he nodded, once. 'They might make an assumption — he might make it…' He stared at Priabin. 'Well, where do you begin? Quickly, man — where?'

Priabin flicked the intercom switch, 'Bring me the files on Upenskoy's cell — yes, all of them. Every name!' He glanced up. How many were there — Upenskoy. the old man, Boris Glazunov who died under interrogation, Vassily who'd disappeared without trace, one or two others, suspects only… it didn't seem much, but it was something. A beginning.

'He'll wait for daylight, if he tries it… for the crowds,' Priabin explained, once more facing the map. At that moment, he almost believed in his own idea, so convincing was his act for the imperious air force general. 'Yes, he needs the daylight and the cover of the crowds.' He turned as his secretary entered. She deposited the files, sneezed, and left. Vladimirov wiped the cover of one of the files. The name borne by the file was that of Boris Glazunov. Vladimirov opened it eagerly, in desperate, almost pathetic ignorance. It seemed a foolish idea to Priabin, but it appeared to more than satisfy the general. He shook his head gently.

Vladimirov looked up. 'Well, help me, man! There are names, addresses, relatives in here, in each of them. Put them all under surveillance. And get me the departments responsible for street surveillance in the areas you pointed out to me — quickly! Don't just stand there, Colonel — earn your salary for once!'

The Hercules had completed its southward run, utilising the airway and a civilian call-sign and flight number. The pilot had requested landing instructions from Ivalo airport and dropped below the Russian radar net. Then, using visual and electronic navigation, and its radar in the mapping mode, it had flown northwards once more, heading for the dropping zone. The SBS unit had departed from the two paratroop doors during the first run over the lake at three and a half thousand feet.

First light was no more than a greyness in the sky, patched with darker cloud. Snow flurried across the windscreen, causing the co-pilot to intermittently operate the wipers.

Every light on the Hercules had been extinguished.

'All clear ramp doors and depressurising,' the pilot heard the loadmaster announce over his headset. 'Ramp opening, ramp down and locked.'

'Roger. Ninety seconds to Initial Point.'

'After IP, heading two-one-five, skipper,' the navigator informed him.

'Roger — two-one-five.'

'Roger… turning to two-one-five… two-one-five steady.' Ahead of the aircraft, the dawn attempted to lighten the sky beyond the flurrying snow. The wipers cleared the screen. Stunted and dwarf trees confused the pilot's sense of distance. 'Speed coming back to 160 knots.' The undulating, snow-blurred outlines of the land seemed to rush just beneath the belly of the aircraft. 'Wheels down,' the pilot announced. 'Flaps down.' It was a precaution, in case the aircraft came into contact with the ground. 'Lamp on, Diane — '

'OK — ready this end,' the loadmaster replied.

'Lake in sight,' the co-pilot said:

Ahead of them, beyond the last, straggling trees, the apparently smooth surface of the frozen lake stretched away, narrowing as it did so. Trees crowded down to the shore, like a fence around the ice.

'Got it. Keep the wipers on.' Snow rushed at and alongside them.'I've got the smoke marker-'

'Altitude fifteen feet… twelve… ten…'

'Stand by-five, four, three, two, one… Go!'

The nose of the Hercules tilted up slightly as the five pallets followed each other, sliding off their metal tracks and disappearing through the open ramp. The aircraft seemed to bob up, floating on a slight swell.

'Drop good-all away, clean and tight. Ground party already beginning to recover… ready to close up this end.'

'Roger, Diane, standby for ramp closing.'

The Hercules passed southwards over the narrow neck of the lake. A stronger flurry of snow rushed at them, obscuring the pilot's glimpse of tiny, moving figures on the ice. Then the lake was behind them.

'Initial heading — two-two-four.'

'Roger-turning on to two-two-four… ramp closed.'

The Hercules skimmed the stunted trees to the south of the lake. Whenever the flurries of snow revealed the horizon, the lightening sky appeared full of dark, heavier cloud.

Delaying his decision for as long as possible, Gant watched the apartment block of stained, weatherbeaten grey concrete that overlooked the Riga Station on the Mira Prospekt. In the windy, snowy light of dawn, he watched the first overcoated, booted, scarved inhabitants leaving for work. Cheap curtains had been drawn back at a hundred windows; faces had glanced at the day. without enthusiasm. The traffic had begun to flow along the wide street. Trains left the station noisily and arrived in increasing numbers from the northern and north-eastern suburbs.

He had returned to the Mira Prospekt almost by the route he had taken to the US Embassy, taking to the streets only when they began to fill with the first flow of workers heading into the inner city. He had made better time once there were hundreds of other pedestrians. He had even risked a short trolley-bus ride, but the sense of closeness of other bodies, the growing claustrophobia of the self-imposed trap, had forced him to walk the remaining distance.

He was there simply because he remembered the address of Boris Glazunov, whom he had impersonated during the truck journey from Moscow to Bilyarsk with Pavel. Boris Glazunov was married — he remembered the details of the papers Pavel had given him. Boris Glazunov had been arrested, but perhaps they would know someone — a name, an address, a codeword, something…

He had passed the warehouse near the Kirov Street where he had spent the night after Fenton had been killed. It was locked and empty. The old man, too, must have been arrested. He had hurried away from there, alert and fearful. Glazunov's was the only other address he knew belonging to anyone even remotely connected with the operation to steal the Firefox. He had at least to try.

He was cold, but no longer hungry. He had drunk a bowl of thick soup, eaten bread and a thick-crusted, grey-doughed meat pie from a stall selling hot food to early workers. It was parked near a building site on the Sadovaya Ring. The food gave him indigestion but temporarily rid him of his growing sense of unreality. He could not decide the centre of the unreality. It frightened him. He had learned to be wary, alert, clever, but to what purpose? What could he do? How many days and nights could he spend on the streets, without papers and with a diminishing supply of roubles and kopecks, eating from steaming food-stalls and riding claustrophobic trams and trolleybuses? He could see no end to it — and that was his real fear.

He waited for twenty minutes, until he was certain that the apartment block was not under surveillance, that no one and no cars were halted suspiciously for long periods, that no police or KGB had arrived. The traffic thickened — Party limousines sped past old saloon cars and heavy trucks, using the yellow-painted centre lane. The trains came and went monotonously. People left the apartment block, and its companions lining the Mira Prospekt, in greater and greater numbers.

Eventually, he was stamping his feet in the too-big shoes as much with impatience as cold, and then he crossed the thoroughfare at the nearest pedestrian lights and climbed the stepstothe foyer of the apartment block.

'Yes — quickly. You must come at once. The Gagarin apartment block on the Mira Prospekt, near the Kulakov intersection. Please hurry — you must bring your, car… the American has just entered the apartment block — No, I do not know whether they are waiting for him. It is the apartment of someone who — was arrested, but I do not know what happened to his family… but I have just seen a KGB car pull up in front of the block. Yes, someone must have spotted him, someone I did not see. What? They're sitting in the car still… I must go in and warn him — Yes, you must hurry. Park in Kulakov Lane. What is your car? Yes, and the number — quickly, please. No, no, they are still sitting in the car — I think that must mean there are people already inside… I must hurry. Please reach Kulakov Lane as quickly as you can!'

The wide, grubby foyer of the apartment block possessed a sticky, stained linoleum floor. The walls were badly in need of a fresh coat of cream paint. One of the six lifts did not work. Gant, unnoticed amid the hurrying tenants leaving the building, attempted to envisage Glazunov's papers as they had been handed to him by Pavel. He could see the grainy identification picture which was later replaced by one of himself, he could see the name, see the overlying official stamps, the address…

The number, the number -

A hurrying woman bumped into him, seemed to search his face with a scowl on her own features, then hurried away. The tiny incident drained him of energy… concentrate-

Apartment — four, four, five-? Five-four, yes, five-four… nine, nine — ! Apartment 549. He stood in front of a set of lift doors. Only odd-numbered floors were served by the lifts on that side of the foyer. For a moment, the foyer appeared entirely empty, except for the concierge — who might or might not have been more than that — reading Pravda behind his counter. From the open door behind him, leading to his own quarters, came the smell of percolated coffee. There was also the noise of a radio. Gant half-turned his head as he heard footsteps. High-heeled shoes — boots — and a long, warm coat. Fur hat. The pert daughter of the house, dressed beyond her station. The concierge was also the KGB official and informer. Gant's head snapped back to face the doors of the lift. The foyer was silent, empty. No lifts arrived. The seconds passed. Gant forced himself to remain absolutely still.

Then a lift door opened on the opposite side of the hall. Footsteps, hurry -

He glanced towards the concierge. He was still reading his paper, uninterested in anyone who passed; apparently uninterested in Gant. Someone called the man, and he turned his head, then went in, shutting the door behind him. The lift door in front of Gant opened. He waited until the lift was empty, entered, and pressed the fifth-floor button. It seemed a tiny but important victory that the concierge had taken no interest in him. He probably thought it was someone coming back for something he'd forgotten, if he thought at all.

People tried to press into the lift on the fifth floor before he could get out. He squeezed through them, not ungrateful for the press of their bodies, their scents and smells. He did not resent or fear them for that brief moment. Then the door closed and he was alone in the corridor. Linoleum, chipped and stained, on the floor, a succession of brown-painted doors, dirty green paintwork on the walls lt was an infinitely depressing place. He checked his direction, then followed the trail of mounting numbers on the doors. Some of them were missing. Radios played pop music loudly behind many of the doors, as if to drown out something else.

Five-four-nine. He raised his fist, and hesitated. He listened. Radio playing, but not loudly. No other human noises. He looked back down the corridor. No one. Swallowing, breathing deeply, he knocked loudly on Boris Glazunov's door.

At the third knock, as if at a general signal or alarm, a number of things happened. The lift doors sighed open, and Gant turned his head. A young man emerged, saw him -

The door opened. Gant turned. A tall man faced him, a grin already spreading over his face as he evidently recognised the caller. Someone spoke from inside the flat, a man with an authoritative tone. The young man near the lift shouted. His voice seemed full of warning.

Gant's hand remembered the Makarov in the coat pocket, and clenched around its butt. The tall man's grin spread. His hand moved from behind his back, slowly and confidently. He was intent upon the widening fear in Gant's eyes. The young man was running towards him down the corridor shouting, his shoes clattering on the linoleum.

Gant half-turned, half-drew his hand from his pocket. Then the young man, ten yards away, skidded to a stop and yelled his name. A plea rather than a challange. The tall man had stepped forward through the doorway, his hand now holding a pistol, bringing it up to level on Gant's stomach. Gant squeezed the trigger of the Makarov, firing through the material of the coat pocket. The noise was deafening, ringing down the corridor, pursued by the explosion of the tall man's gun which discharged into the ceiling. Plaster-dust fell on Gant's hair and shoulders.

'Quickly! Gant — quickly!' the young man shouted, grabbing his sleeve. Gant thought the face familiar, distorted by urgency as it was. A second KGB man was emerging from the room at the end of the apartment's hall. Gant fired twice, wildly. The man ducked out of sight. Gant heard a window slide protestingly up, felt chilly air on his face. 'Come!'

Gant crossed to the window and the iron fire-escape. The young man climbed out and began to descend. There was frozen snow and ice on the rail and the steps. The young man danced carefully down them as quickly as he could. Gant watched the door of apartment 549 as he climbed over the window sill and felt for the first step. Then he was outside, shaking with cold and reaction.

Familiar — the face behind the two or three days' stubble of dark beard — familiar…

He clattered down the first flight, then the second, slipping once, pursuing Vassily -

Vassily — !

He had helped Pavel throw Fenton's body into the river. He had disappeared after the metro journey, near the warehouse. Vassily. Gant looked back up the twisting fire-escape. A face had appeared at the window, a walkie-talkie clamped to its cheek. He saw a pistol, too, and then looked down once more, aware of the treacherous nature of the ice-covered steps.

Relief, the excitement of danger being met and overcome, filled Gant. Vassily bobbed ahead of him, half-a-flight further down. He chased him.

First floor — ground floor. Rear of the building. Lock-up garages, dustbins, football goal painted on a brick wall. He bumped into Vassily, almost breathless.

'Vassily-!'

Vassily grinned.'Come. Quickly…'

They ran across the courtyard. Then Vassily jumped at a garage door, clinging to the low roof, kicking his legs, easing himself up and onto the felted roof. Gant followed. He could hear whistles and shouts now, but no noise of vehicles other than the muted roar of traffic on the Mira Prospekt. Vassily crouched as he ran across the roof, then he jumped out of sight. Again, Gant followed.

He dropped into a snowy patch of garden. A dog barked. Vassily was already climbing a fence when Gant caught up with him. Gant heaved himself over the fence and dropped into an icy alley way.

Vassily ran to the corner of what appeared to be a narrow, quiet street. When Gant reached him, he said, 'I hope she is here…'

There were a few parked cars. Vassily seemed to be searching for one in particular, reciting numberplates half under his breath. Gant's chest hurt with the effort of drawing in the icy air.

'She — ?' he began.

'Yes-there!'

They ran across the street. She? Who? Vassily bent to peer at the driver of the car, then nodded. He pushed Gant into the back seat and climbed in after him.

'Get down, both of you!' the driver snapped as she eased the car away from the pavement, then turned left. Gant's face was against Vassily's arm. He could taste the worn leather of his jacket.

'They were — waiting,' Gant said as the car turned right, travelling at no more than thirty miles an hour once it had done so.

Vassily's face, close to his own, frowned. He nodded his head vigorously. 'Yes. I was not sure. I was watching you. The moment you entered the building, a car pulled up in front. It was KGB, but they did not get out. I knew then that they were waiting for you.' A police car passed them, siren flashing, heading in the direction of the Mira Prospekt. 'I was almost too late!'

'How long have you been following me?'

'Most of the night.'

'Why didn't you make contact?'

'He was ordered not to!' the driver snapped. 'He always obeys orders — we all do!' Gant felt the force of the driver's resentment.

'Are we being followed, Comrade?' Vassily asked very formally, surprising Gant. His face was serious, perhaps in awe of the driver.

'No.'

Gant felt the car turn sharply left. After a silence, he raised his head, and was shocked to see the cosmonaut's monument, the rocket atop its narrowing trail of golden fire, drifting past-the car windows. He clenched his hands together to stop them from shaking. They were near the Unit, heading for it — !

'What is it?'

'Where are we going?' he snapped in a high, fearful voice. They were leaving the monument behind them now.

'We have a place…'Vassily assured him.

'A change of clothes for you,' the driver said. 'A change of appearance. Papers. Everything is to be provided for you.' The resentment was deep, angry. The woman disliked, even hated him. Who in hell was she?

'OK-what then?'

'I must get you out of Moscow.'

'And Vassily?'

'Vassily is not trusted — not as much as is necessary.' Vassily shrugged at her words. He grinned, almost pathetically. 'They do not consider he is capable of the task.'

'And you are?'

The car had stopped at traffic lights. Gant could see them through the windscreen. The car was almost new, the fawn-coloured fabric of the seats very clean. It was a large saloon. Gant was suspicious. Then the blonde woman turned her head, so that she was in profile as she answered him.

'I have certain qualifications,' she announced. 'The greatest of which is my capacity to be blackmailed into helping you. I have been told that Vassily is someone who keeps changing addresses, who deals in black-market goods as well as espionage work. He is useful, but not their person! I am.'

She turned her head as the lights changed. The car drew away, accelerating. They passed the Ostankino television tower, a steel needle against the heavy sky. Gant stared at Vassily, disconcerted, troubled by the woman's resentment. Almost afraid of help now that it had come.

Waterford lifted his head as the noise of the chain-saw ceased. At the far end of the clearing that had been made and was still being enlarged, a tree fell drunkenly forwards with a noise like the concussion of a rifle. Immediately, branches were lopped from it and stacked for later use in general camouflage. At the perimeter of the clearing which reached from the shore of the frozen lake back into the trees in a rough semi-circle, bundles of white netting lay ready for use. Already, much of the camouflage netting had been strung between the trees, forming what might have been the roof of a huge, open-sided marquee.

Two RAF mechanics were laying and checking nylon ropes which stretched from the trees that held the winches down to the shore. They had selected the stoutest trees, capable of taking the strain imposed by the three chain-lever winches which would be used to haul the Firefox out of the lake. The winches were anchored to the trees and additional steel anchor pins had been hammered in the frozen ground — not reaching a sufficient depth in the soil to completely satisfy Waterford or the Senior Engineering Officer from Abingdon. Even the Royal Engineer mechanics who would operate the winches were unconvinced there was a sufficient safety margin. They would only know, however, when they tried.

Waterford returned his attention to the group of marines around him. Six of the SBS unit were seconded as divers, which left the eighteen in front of him in full Arctic combat kit. The group was framed by upright or slightly leaning pairs of long, cross-country skis and vertical ski-sticks. Each man bore a laden pack on his back. Nine of them also carried radio equipment. They were assigned to work in pairs rather than their more usual threes and fours, and their duties were reconnaissance rather than defence. His early warning system, he thought — which was all they could be with their small numbers.

Their rifles were slung in white canvas sleeves across their chests, below their snow-goggles. The usual mixed bag favoured by an elite force such as SBS — some standard L1A1s, a few 7.62 sniper rifles, one or two of the new, short-stock 5.56 Enfields, and a couple of the very latest 4.7 mm Heckler & Koch caseless rifles. Even in their disguising sleeves, they possessed the appearance of plastic planks narrowing at one end. Waterford himself had one, for evaluation on behalf of the army. He thought it ugly, futuristic, and effective, firing its bullets from a solid block of propellant rather than a cartridge case. It had the stopping power and accuracy to penetrate a steel helmet at more than five hundred metres. He appreciated the weapon.

Looking at the rifles, he reminided himself he must stress yet again the reconnaissance nature of their duties. He moved two paces to the unfolded map on its collapsible table. The eighteen SBS marines crowded around him. Their breaths climbed above them like smoke from a chimney. Flurries of snow struck Waterford's face and settled on the map. Angrily, he brushed them away.

'Right, you gung-ho buggers-; now you've got yourselves together, I just want to remind you what you're supposed to be doing. I'll keep it simple so you won't have to take notes…' He tapped at the map with a gloved forefinger. 'You're on recce not engagement duties. You have your headings and you know the maximum distance you should go. It's a scouting perimeter, nothing more solid than that. Beyond the trees — beyond three or four kilometres, that is — the country is rolling, with mixed thickets and lots of open areas. Find the best observation posts, and sit tight. Report in only at specified times and keep it brief. We're not playing requests for Grandma and Aunt Glad and the rest of the family this time. Unless, of course, you wake up to find yourself being buggered by a huge, hairy Russian soldier — in which case, don't wait for your allocated time-slot, just yell Rape! and get out of there.' They laughed. 'As far as we know, there's nothing out there. We don't expect trouble, we dont want trouble, but we want to know if it's coming. So, make sure your dinky new trannies work, and keep hold of the nice new binoculars MoD issued you, and — good luck. Any questions?'

'Reinforcements, sir?' a lieutenant asked. 'I mean, if it comes to it…?' He gestured round him.

'I know. You'd like to know there's a Herky Bird full of your mates ready to drop in — well, they'll be at Bardufoss if they're needed. But, just remember this is a nice quiet pub — we don't want a bloody awful punch-up in the lounge bar, if we can possibly help it! OK?' More laughter, then Waterford said, 'Anyway, you're the lucky ones — think of this lot having to break all the ice and dig away at the bank until it's a nice shallow incline, then lay runway repair mats. OK, let's confirm your OP sites, shall we? Crosse and Blackwell?'

'Blackburn, sir,' one of the marines corrected him amid anticipated and preconditioned laughter at a familiar joke.

'Crosse and Blackburn — your heading?' Waterford replied, his face expressionless as he stared at the radiating lines on his w map that Ted from the lake to the observation sites he had decided on for the nine pairs of marines. Not so much the thin as the transparent red line, he remarked to himself.

Buckholz turned to look at Waterford, and then returned his attention to Brooke. Evidently, Waterford knew how to handle his men. The laughter that had distracted the CIA's Deputy Director was high-pitched, nervous. The SBS men were, like most elite forces, somewhat too thoroughbred in behaviour when not in action. Buckholz had found that to be true of US Special Forces men in Vietnam. But, they were there to function, not for show…

Brooke stood with his air canisters at his feet, a white parka over his wetsuit. Two other divers had joined them, one bringing coffee. Buckholz sipped it now. The snow pattered against the back of his parka and the wind buffeted him.

'This is vital,' he reiterated, sensing Brooke's resentment of his inexpert interference. He criticised it in himself. He did not mean to imitate his own grandmother, but he simply could not help it. Brooke had already been down twice through the jagged hole they had broken in the ice. His damage report had been expert, thorough. His inspection of the undercarriage, especially, had been positive in conclusion. Then he and two others had removed the charges they had laid when they had first found the Firefox. Now, Buckholz had ordered them to make another check on the undercarriage. 'You have to be certain, really, really certain, that those three legs are going to be able to take the strain of the winching. She's got to come out of there by the strength in her legs…'

'Yes, sir,' Brooke said stiffly.

Buckholz grinned. 'OK, I know I'm fussing-but humour me, uh?'

Brooke returned his grin. 'OK, sir — I'll double check.'

'Good boy.'

'Mr Buckholz?'

Buckholz turned in the direction of the call. The chain-saw was at work again. Snow flurried into his face. The sky was dark grey, the snow almost constant now, and the wind had increased from around five to more than ten knots. Sure, it was all helping to mask the signs of the air drop and their prints out on the lake, but it was reducing visibility at times to less than thirty yards. From the shore, it was difficult to see across the clearing to the Royal Engineer corporal with the chain-saw. He mistrusted the weather. A small example of its crippling effect had been the three hours of parching required to locate the contents of one hurst pack out an the ice Yes, more than anything it was the weather that, made-him fuss and triple-check. It held the key. Worst of all, the weather was delaying the Skyhook so much that they couldn't now assume it would arrive by the time they had winched out the Firefox. Buckholz was worried that the flying crane would never arrive, and they would have to destroy the Firefox where it stood. Damn the weather.

'What is it?' he called into the gusting wind. 'Mr. Aubrey, sir,' the radio operator called. He was bent over the control console of the commpack as he crouched behind a canvas windbreak reinforced by lopped tree-branches. A dish aerial rose to the height of the lowest overhanging branches of the tree canopy on the shoreline.

'OK, tell him I'm coming.' He turned back to Brooke, hesitated, then said, 'OK you bums — do your thing.' Brooke smiled as the American walked away. 'Mr. Aubrey said it was urgent, sir.'

'Sure,' Buckholz replied, attempting a grin. 'With him, everything is. OK — put me through,' He shivered. At least in the Lynx helicopter, one of two that had brought in the non-parachutists and which were now tied down and camouflaged on the far side of the lake, it had been crowded but warm. He looked at the coffee-mug in his mittened hand. He hadn't been warm since… too old, that was the trouble. Thin blood. Buckholz devoutly wished Aubrey his own present discomfort. The operator keyed in the voice scrambling code and paused for the light which would signify the console was ready to transmit. Then he sent his call-sign and received an acknowledgement a few seconds later. He nodded to Buckholz, who held the microphone close to his lips, as if about to whisper

He was assailed by a sense of foreboding, which made him pause before he said: 'OK, "Mother", go ahead. What's on your mind? Over.' The conversational, almost jocular tone was deliberate, as if it could fend off what he sensed was approaching bad news. He heard Aubrey's voice through the one earpiece of the headset that he pressed against the side of his head.

'Bad news, I'm afraid, "Fisherman". The Skyhook has had to put down at a military airfield in southern Sweden for repairs. I'm assured that the repairs are minor, something to do with the rotors being out of balance. Caused by the bad weather they've been forced to fly through. However, even more important, they can't yet give an accurate estimate of the length of the delay. I'm sorry. Over.'

'Hell! Give it to me straight, "Mother". Don't bullshit me. I'm a big boy and I can take it. Over.'

'At least tomorrow afternoon — that's the earliest they could be with you. Over.'

'But they will come? Over.'

'They must! When do you think you'll be able to begin winching out? Over.'

'Some time around midnight tonight. Before first light, the Firefox will be on land. And no Skyhook! Over.'

'It will come. "Fisherman" — it will come. Over.'

'If it doesn't arrive by eight, I'm planting the charges and we start ripping out the thought-guidance and anti-radar systems! Over.'

'It will arrive, "Fisherman" — just be patient. Over.'

'Get the damn weather changed, will you? Over.'

'I'll do what I can. "Fisherman". Meanwhile, prayer might be advisable. Over.'

'I'll pray, "Mother" — I'll pray. Out.'

Buckholz looked around him. The SBS two-man reconnaissance units were vanishing behind the weather and the trees, on their way out of the camp. He could hardly see the last of them. Brooke had already descended with one of the other divers. In the silence after the chain-saw had ceased, a stunted tree fell with a crack like the beginning of a landslide.

Buckholz looked up. The snow was heavier, the wind colder, stronger.

'Yeah, I'll pray,' he said, 'I just hope He can hear me above this wind!'

He had been like a thief, an intruder, in her apartment. She had had to be careful, almost obsessive, about the things he picked up, touched, used. She was coming back — she had determined on that — and Dmitri would be coming back there, too. There must be no traces of any other man — this American least of all. After each cup of coffee, after the one small whisky, after the lunch she had prepared, she washed cups and glasses and plates and dried them and put them away. The actions prevented discovery and occupied her; distracting her from the growing claustrophobia of her apartment now that it contained the American. His presence was so — so palpable, so inescapable.

He spoke little after he had accepted her story. She had no idea what his feelings were towards her. Towards his own future. He was tired — for two hours he dozed in the armchair in which he had first sat down — and his experiences in the Unit on the Mira Prospekt, about which he remained silent, had worn at him. He seemed almost unliving, so passive and withdrawn was he. It was as if he had come to effect her arrest himself, wrench this life away from her.

The suit that Vassily had brought, with his papers, was a good, sober one of foreign cloth and cut. Three-piece. Pads fattened his lean face and half-glasses added age. Once he had shaved and showered and donned his disguise, he appeared almost like one of her senior colleagues in the Secretariat… which was what his papers declared he was, a civil servant travelling to Leningrad on ministry business. The bluff was bold, designed to attract attention but deflect scrutiny. The American seemed easy with the disguise, his body adopting a stiffly correct uprightness, seeming to add inches to his height. The dark overcoat would finish the portrait of a bureaucrat.

They left the apartment at four. In the lift, when someone she knew from the floor below her own got in, she murmured to him in businesslike, formal tones, having greeted the neighbour. It was evident from what she said that she was accompanying a colleague: her overnight bag and his small leather suitcase suggested the length of their stay. Gant's brief replies were in practised Russian. He seemed at ease, but she could not be certain. The part he was playing protected him like a carapace.

The taxi, a chequered band along the doors and side panels, was waiting outside the apartment block The traffic on Kutuzovsky Prospekt was heavy, but sedate. The cars were larger and moved more slowly. The Party limousines seemed almost to queue in the central lane. The driver put their bags in the boot and they slid into the back seat. Cant unfolded a newspaper and pretended to read immediately the door was closed behind him, obscuring his features from the driving mirror.

'Leningrad Station,' Anna said.

She thought of Maxim. The dog, and her father, had welcomed him. The dog seemed suspicious of her, as if picking up her mood, and this suspicion seemed to communicate itself to her father. But he did not ask, except after her health and after her KGB lover. A couple of days, she assured him…

For her office, she had a heavy cold. For Dmitri, it was a sudden trip to Leningrad-no, by train, the afternoon flight was full and she enjoyed train journeys. What business? Oh some complicated case of fraud at one of the hospitals, the disappearance of clothing, money… no, not a police matter yet, until she had seen the records… yes, love to you, love, love…

She had almost betrayed something then, over the telephone. Choking back tears, choking back the desire to prolong the call, she had rung off before he became concerned at the strangeness underlying her reassurances.

She had left Gant in the apartment while she delivered Maxim to her father's dacte. No one, he said when she returned, had called at the door, no one had rung. When she entered the apartment, it seemed like a stranger's home.

They crossed the river by the Kalinin Bridge and picked up the Sadovaya Ring. Blocks of apartments lined their route. Gant fastidiously concentrated on his newspaper while she stared absently through the window, hand cupping her chin. She determined not to notice the city either to right or left of her, because she would not allow herself even to consider she might be taking some final journey through Moscow. There was the bulk of the Peking Hotel with its pink facade incongruous against the snowfilled sky. If she concentrated on the apartment blocks to the left, even though she saw Gant in profile all the time, their grey, weatherstained concrete and countless, anonymous windows deadened her sense of Moscow. It could be any modern city, anywhere in the world.

They left the Ring at Kirov Street, passing between the twin, guardian-like towers of the Leningrad Hotel and the Ministry of Public Works. Komsomolskaya Square, with its three main-line railway stations, closed around them. The taxi pulled up beneath the portico of the Leningrad Station. She got out first, and Gant paid the fare, and a slender tip which caused the taxi driver to mutter under his breath but which he might have expected from a bureaucrat such as the man who had ridden in his taxi, his nose in his newspaper

Snow speckled the shoulders of Gant's overcoat. He jammed his fur hat on his head, adjusted his half-glasses, and studied Anna. She saw his keen, appraising-glance and felt challenged, even insulted by it. This man who had done nothing, said little. Then, surprisingly, he smiled briefly.

'OK,' he said, holding her her overnight bag. 'They'll he checking papers. I'll queue first, you go to the ladies' room or something so that you're further back in the queue. I'll collect the tickets.'

She nodded, feeling suddenly undermined and nervous He had, by taking control of the situation, deflated her little air-pocket of confidence and self-reliance. He gripped her arm as he saw her hands shaking.

'Take it easy,' he said, not unkindly, bending his head close to hers. 'You've done OK up to now-just take it easy.'

She nodded, more vigorously. 'I–I'm all right.' She changed her grip on her bag, and added, 'Very well. But, be careful…'

They walked under the portico into the smallest of the square's three stations. Marble pedestals, at shoulder-height, displayed countless ever-vigilant busts of Lenin placing the station concourse under eternal surveillance. The roof of the station arched above them, glass and steel, the ribs of a huge animal. The station was busy with the first commuters. Gant read the Departures board. Anna slipped away from him towards the toilets. Then, walking with an easy confidence, turning his head with the appearance of casual interest, he made for the ticket reservations counter. He picked out uniforms, overcoats, guns, bulky figures questioning arriving passengers He felt himself moving through a network of invisible alarm beams. Yet it was not as before, it was not like the metro when he had trailed at Pavel's side, trying to keep up, trying to adapt and adjust. He had spent most of the day preparing for this. He had temporarily forgotten Gant.

He arrived at the window and. with the appropriate impatient authority, bent and spoke into the grille set above the swivelling wooden begging-bowl that issued the tickets and snatched the payment for them. He asked for his reserved tickets — yes, his secretary had reserved them that morning. He sounded as if he already anticipated some confusion, some mistake on the part of the ticket clerk, a small balding, grey-faced man in a jacket with a worn collar, and frayed shirt-cuffs. He fumbled with his book of reserved tickets, fumbled out the appropriate ones. There were two styles of first-class on Soviet trains, and Anna had reserved seats at the front of the train, where the best carriages were always placed, the ones with two-seater compartments, heating, air-conditioning, radio — and restaurant service. The most expensive seats; the Party seats.

Gant paid for the tickets with large-denomination notes. They too, were an element of disguise. Almost new notes. Declarations of privilege.

He turned away from the window, pocketing his change and picking up his suitcase. A leather-coated man watched him, and he tensed. It was really beginning now -

He pretended not to notice the man and headed across the wide concourse towards the platforms. A second man appeared on the point of stopping him, but assessed his clothing and bearing and let him continue. He hardly-looked at his face, hardly noticed the features above the well-cut formal suit and behind the glinting half-glasses. Conventionally, they did not expect him to arrive at the station; if he did, they would expect him to sneak, to lounge, to slip through — not to stroll. He reached the ticket barrier. The long Leningrad express stretched away to where the dark grey sky and the snow cancelled the perspective. He queued. Tickets and papers, of course. The KGB man who informed him was more deferential than he was to the man ahead of him or the woman behind. Gant pursed his lips in affected irritation.

Two people ahead of him. Suddenly he wanted to know where she was in the queue. The man's papers being inspected with great thoroughness, with absolute leisure. Would his stand up? Where was she?

Stop it.

Where — ? Would they — ? Did they have pictures — ?

Yes, behind them, pinned to the side of the ticket barrier, next to a notice about the penalties for not purchasing the correct ticket for any journey — a silhouette of a figure being grabbed and held by a taller figure, the sense of a struggle, of an arrest.

Stop it!

He dabbed his forehead with his sleeve, pretending to remove his fur hat to disguise the gesture.

The picture taken of him at the rnotorway barrier, when his papers said he was Glazunov… next to that, something they must have obtained from the Centre's Records Directorate computer — himself in USAF uniform, taken perhaps eight or nine years before. He had been much younger then, he told himself, much -

Beneath the pictures, he was described as an enemy agent, spy and saboteur. He was sought with the utmost urgency. People were instructed to be vigilant.

The hairpiece they had given him was an expensive one, one that had been purchased in the West, in all probability. It was, Vassily had said, grinning, better even than Tito's had been. Yet, deliberately, it looked false. His hair was too short from having to wear the helmet with its thought-guidance sensors to be anything but noticeable. A wig which looked like a wig was deemed a bolder call to attention. Were he suspicious, he would not wear an evident hairpiece. His motive would be considered to be vanity.

He replaced his fur hat. The youthful hair showed beneath it, a slightly different shade from his own.

He handed over the tickets, and gave the KGB man his papers, drawing them from his breast pocket. The ticket-collector asked the reason for the second ticket, and Gant turned his head loftily, indicating Anna when he saw her three places behind him. He waved her forward without consulting the KGB man. A man in the queue scowled, resenting authority and privilege. Gant introduced her off-handedly to the KGB man, and she passed over her papers.

To Anna, he paid no attention. To Gant, he was respectful, studying him from beneath narrowed eyelids. He scrutinised the papers for a long time, but did not glance behind him at the photographs. The hairpiece seemed to amuse him but he was nervous of revealing his smile and his contempt. Eventually, he handed back the two sets of papers, and nodded.

'A good journey. Comrade,' he said with insolent mock-servility. Gant pretended to study the name displayed beneath the man's picture on the ID card clipped to his breast pocket — but only for a moment. The man winced visibly.

They passed through the barrier onto the platform. Gant felt his legs weaken, his hands shake. But he did not falter in his stride.

'Are you all right?' Anna asked.

'Yes,' he replied without looking at her.

Side by side, in silence, they walked down the long, wide platform, past the newspaper shop, the confectioner's, the gift shop, the buffet. Gant imperiously waved away a porter.

Bullshit, he thought. It's keeping you going, just bullshit. And he wondered who had suggested the disguise and the false identity and how well they knew him. It helped. To play-act arrogance helped. Bullshit -

They reached the designated carriage. Gant looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes before the train left. They found their compartment, claimed their seats. He was grateful for the relative safety of the twin-berth compartment. No one would be able to intrude.

'A magazine or newspaper, Comrade Ossipov?' Anna asked him as he lifted their cases onto the rack. 'Some confectionery?'

'No… ah, perhaps a magazine. Soviet Science World?' he replied, smiling at the pantomime. 'Yes.'

'Very well, Comrade Ossipov,' Anna said, and left the compartment.

He watched her climb onto the platform and make for the newsagent's shop. She looked small and vulnerable as she passed two uniformed KGB men with guns on their shoulders. She had been angry, he remembered — blazingly angry — when she had seen his false papers. Secretariat, like herself. They were forcing her to use her own papers rather than the set they provided, which described her as his wife. She had been insulted and challenged. She'd chosen to travel as his professional colleague. There was some declaration in it, he thought, some assertion of herself, of her personal life.

She disappeared into the shop. Gant began to relax. The hairpiece felt as hot and constricting as the fur hat he had removed. He brushed flecks and creases from his suit. He unfolded the newspaper. He began to allow time to pass more slowly, feeling his whole body relax, inch back from the pitch of tension he had experienced at the ticket barrier. It had worked, had worked, he repeated to himself over and over, like a calming spell. The woman-was excellent cover. In the time available, in the extreme situation in which they had found themselves, Aubrey's people in Moscow had done well, very well.

He glanced out of the window, directly after looking at his watch. Four minutes to departure time — she was talking to a man in uniform, a young colonel in the KGB. Fifteen yards from the window. She knew him -

Four minutes — she was smiling — three minutes fifty — she was smiling.

Gant felt his body constrict into a straitjacket, his fists rest heavily on his knees, his eyes begin to dart about the carriage…

Who was she — ? What was she doing?

Anna leaned up and kissed Dmitri Priabin, aware of Gant's staring face fifteen yards away.

'What a surprise!' she exclaimed.

Holding her arms, as if to restrain her, he grinned. 'Duty, my love — duty. I'm here in my official capacity, inspecting the security arrangements. I didn't know whether or not you'd arrived.'

She looked pointedly at her watch. 'Only a couple of minutes,' she murmured.

'Soviet Science World?' He asked, looking at the top of one of the magazines under her arm. 'Looking for more wheelchair projects? No, I'm sorry,' he added when he saw her face darken. 'That was cheap.' He bent to kiss her, and she responded. She had half-turned and she could see Gant clearly as she pressed against Dmitri's chest. He looked betrayed, frightened. She could not tell him -

She pushed away. 'I'd better get on the train, I suppose.'

'When will you be back?'

'A couple of days.'

'You didn't leave a hotel number.'

'I'll ring you — tonight.'

'What is all this business?' he asked, taking her arm — an image of arrest? — and walking her towards the door of the carriage. She leaned against him, trying to display the innocence of the meeting to Gant. She smiled broadly. She could not tell if Gant relaxed. He continued to watch them very obviously. Had Dmitri seen him — ?

And she realised, with a horrible, sickening force, that the hunter and the hunted were eight yards from each other. She was certain that even she would have recognised Gant beneath that disguise, beneath that ridiculous hairpiece, even from those grainy pictures of him near the ticket barrier…

'Oh, some petty fiddling, they think. It's got to be verified before the police are called in.'

'No drugs?' he asked in all seriousness.

'No — clothing, sterile supplies, all kinds of silly things — sometimes I think people will steal anything in this country! It may even be a fraud on the part of the suppliers because they're behind with their production schedules — I'm not sure yet. But it has to be investigated.' She whirled him round suddenly, and smiled up into his face. 'Never mind about that — just say you'll miss me!' A part of her awareness was stunned with the ease with which she lied.

'I will-like hell.' He kissed her. She pressed her mouth against his, held his head between her hands, clung to his neck as the kiss continued. It was a farewell, to something.

A whistle blew. She pulled away from Priabin. 'I must go — '

'Come on then — on you get!' He was blithe, confident she would be away for no more than two days, enjoying this tiny interlude in the search for Gant. He handed her onto the train, and slammed the door. She leaned out of the window and kissed him again.

The train moved. He stepped back. She waved, blew him a further kiss, which he returned. He grinned like a schoolboy. She waved furiously, already ten yards away.

Hers must be the nearest compartment of the first-class carriage, the others were full, two faces at each window. Who was she travelling with — ? He waved. The train gathered speed, twenty yards away now -

He began running, still waving. He took the first two steps because he wanted to keep her in sight as long as possible — and then the third and fourth steps and all the others because of the face at the window. Strangely, he did not falter in his waving.

He was ten yards away, and puffing for breath, when he recognised the face at the window; confirmed the suspicion that had dashed over him like cold water. And saw, too, the horrified, appalled look on Anna's face when he transferred his gaze to her.

And knew, then-Gant.

Travelling with Anna. Anna, helping him. Gant.

NINE: En Route

Kirkenes civilian airfield possessed the very temporary appearance of a forward position likely to be abandoned at any moment, crouching uneasily just inside the Norwegian border with the Soviet Union. Its low wooden buildings did not seem entirely explained by its latitude or the Norwegian style of architecture. Instead, they suggested impermanence; the reluctance to invest in Kirkenes — just in case. Aubrey had been allocated a low, barrack-like hut behind the control tower, part of the Fire Section, into which was crammed the communications equipment, the maps, charts, telephones and men he would need to employ. The windows looked out over the iron-grey water of the Korsfjord, and beyond it the peaks on Skogeroya, the Varangerfjord and the Barents Sea. The water was a fitful sight through the slanting snow showers. The main room of the hut smelt strongly of the numerous paraffin stoves that supplemented the main wood-burning stove. The noise of a twenty-eight volt generator outside the hut intruded. Power cables snaked over window sills. The edges of the window panes were foggy. It was a depressing place; an image of exile, or defeat.

Aubrey stared out of the windows at the sleet, attempting to imagine the weather conditions the Skyhook lifting helicopter had encountered on its slow journey from Germany, and the even worse conditions that would prevail if it ever took off again from the airbase in southern Sweden. He had been in communication with the helicopter's US Army pilot, and with the senior engineering officer at the airbase. Repairs to the rotors were proving a slower, more complex, more serious task than had at first been anticipated. Parts were required which the Swedes did not have; parts which, at present, could not be flown in.

The Skyhook was crucial. No fall-back, Giles Pyott had said. Everything depending on better weather and a single helicopter… If the Firefox was to be removed from the site, they could not dispense with the helicopter. Aubrey knew that he, too, had fallen for the spurious, glamorous excitement of the helicopter lift, just as the politicians had done. There was no way in which the aircraft capable of carrying the dismantled pieces of the airframe, an extra forty-five thousand pounds weight, could land and take off at the lake. They could not have got trucks through — too much snow and no roads.

Now, he knew that the bad weather might last a week. It would worsen for the remainder of that day, and though the following day might begin a little better, it would rapidly close in once more. There might be short breaks, windows in the weather, but they were unpredictable. By the time it finally cleared, the Finns would have cordoned off the entire area and informed the Russians where they could find their precious MiG-31!

Aubrey choked silently on his enraged frustration. He was helpless; bound and gagged. He could do nothing, nothing. Unless the Skyhook arrived before the expiry of the deadline, at midnight the following night, then it would all have been wasted, all have been for nothing.

And he would have failed, and he would have to attempt to live with the increasing sense of guilt he felt concerning the people who had died. Aubrey shook his head. He did not want to have to do that. It was an unfamiliar feeling, and it pained him. He had no defences against it.

All he could see ahead of him were the explosive charges clamped to the airframe, the mutilated cockpit instrument panel and systems consoles — then the bang. Snow, earth, metal — then nothing!

Damn, damn, damn, damn -

Guilt thrust itself once more into his consciousness, a weed growing through concrete. Pavel, Semelovsky, Fenton, Baranovich — especially Baranovich. He had killed them all, only to fail to catch the ball they had thrown.

Damn the weather and the helicopter…

And damn Kenneth Aubrey!

'Mr. Aubrey?' It was the voice of his radio operator. The communications equipment from the Hercules had been transferred to the hut.

Aubrey turned his head to respond, thankful for the interruption. One of the Norwegian army guards passed the window, face held to one side against the blowing sleet and snow. 'What is it?' Aubrey asked.

Curtin was at the top of a pair of step-ladders, leaning against a huge map of the Finnmark, the Kirkenes area, and Finnish Lapland. It was sedatory work, Aubrey thought. Curtin was intently applying red-flagged pins to the map, designating Soviet activity along the border. There were no red flags inside Finland. There had been little movement along the border, and no aerial reconnaissance since the weather had worsened, according to reports from Eastoe in the Nimrod.

'Mr. Shelley from London, sir,' the radio operator replied. Aubrey joined him at the console, lowering his overcoated body onto a flimsy-looking swivel chair. He had retained his coat as a vague protest at inactivity, as if to suggest he might be called away at any moment or be engaged in some furious travel. Aubrey had to feel that his own sojourn at Kirkenes was utterly transitory.

'Hello, Peter — what can I do for you?' he said off-handedly.

After a few moments, when the Receive light had winked out and the tape had re-run, he heard Shelley say: 'Just to report that they're on the train, both of them. One of our scouts saw them go through the barrier, inspection and everything.' He sounded pleased. The rescue of Gant was working like clockwork, and it irritated Aubrey. Shelley would have an easy and notable success with it -

He crushed his anger in the silence. Shelley was waiting for a comment.

'Well done. Peter — is everything else in place?'

'Harris will pick them up at the station outside Leningrad — Kolpino-when they leave the train. He'll have the travel warrants and the visas for them to cross into Finland. Director-General Vitsula has agreed that a team will meet them at the border, just to take the weight off their shoulders when they've got that far. It's looking good on the operations board — fingers crossed, sir.'

Aubrey waited beyond the time when the Transmit light indicated that he could speak once more. Shelley's success made him envious. It had been his idea to rescue Gant and the woman the CIA were prepared to throw away — and now under Shelley's control it looked as though it might work.

And yet, it was the damned aircraft that he really wanted! The Firefox-that was the real prize — the big one, as Charles Buckholz might have described it. The big one…

'Well done, Peters.' he repeated eventually. 'Keep me informed. Harris should do a good job — he's worked for us before. Out.'

He stood up and returned to the window, wrapping his overcoat testily and showily about him. Curtin watched him from the top of his step-ladder, tossed his head and grinned, and went back to his map and his pins. A gap in the sleet again showed Aubrey the lower slopes of the lumpy, barren peaks of Skogeroya and the grey, featureless Varangerfjord beyond them. An awful place -

A mirror of failure.

At least Gant would be saved -

And Aubrey admitted that at that moment Gant seemed a poor prize without the aircraft he had stolen.

Dmitri Priabin continued to stare as the last carriage and the guard's van moved around the curve of the line just beyond the end of the platform. Then the train was masked by an oncoming express. Anna and Gant had disappeared.

His thoughts were in a turmoil. He felt paralysed and weakened to such a degree that it was difficult to remain standing; impossible to move — to turn and walk or run to the nearest telephone, the nearest fellow-officer -

The flight of his imagination horrified him. He had actually thought of telling someone — of reporting it to his superiors — !

His hands were shaking. Nerves in his forearms made them seem chilly, even beneath his greatcoat. He rubbed his arms to stop them quivering. As he did so, he realised his body was bent. He was leaning forward as if he were about to vomit. He straightened up very slowly, his eyelids still pressed tightly together — warding off what he had witnessed or retaining the dampness behind them. The pain of it, the waves of shock, went on like a series of coronaries, each one worse than the one before. He could not escape the image — her face, Gant's disguised but recognisable face, together.

He heard himself breathing very quickly. He sniffed loudly, and wiped surreptitiously at his eyes. He was facing down the length of the platform. And Oleg was coming towards him from the barrier, still wearing the overcoat that smelled of mothballs.

'Damn,' he muttered between gritted teeth.

Suddenly, Oleg was an enemy. A KGB man. A spy-catcher. He must know nothing.

'You all right, Colonel?' the older man asked in a not unkindly tone. 'You look a bit pale?'

Drrütri tried to smile. It was more like the expression of a wince at sharp pain. 'Yes, all right, just indigestion.'

'Oh — Comrade Akhmerovna got off all right, then, did she?' Oleg persisted, smiling; almost winking as he continued: 'Did you catch a glimpse of the bloke she was with, sir?' The grin was broad, jokey, knowing. Priabin stifled a groan. 'Travelling on business, like you said, but with this bloke wearing a hairpiece.' He continued to grin at Priabin, expecting a jocular reply. 'You might have trouble there, sir,' he added. Priabin again provided a slim, pale smile.

'One of her colleagues in the Secretariat, I gather,' he said stiffly, and moved away, He had to find somewhere to think, to decide. It was racing beyond him, he was losing control, falling apart — Oleg was making him want to scream — he felt he would explode if he didn't get away from him.

He strode towards the barrier, hearing Oleg's sarcastic: 'Sorry I mentioned it, Colonel sir,' behind him. Don't upset the man! He paused and turned. 'It was a very obvious wig,' he said with studied lightness. Then he smiled. Oleg returned the expression, nodding and chuckling.

'Wasn't it though — what a shocker! They always make me laugh, wigs. Don't know why — haven't got much myself — but, wigs — !' He burst into laughter. Priabin joined in for a moment.

'The wind all right, sir?' Oleg asked solicitously.

'Bit better, thanks.'

'You got anything?' he asked, fishing in his pocket and bringing out a wrapper of indigestion tablets. 'These are good — get them in the beryozhka shop. American, they are. Better than those peppermint things they make in Minsk. Try one.' He held out the wrapper. There was fluff from his pocket on it. Priabin did not dare risk reaching out his hand. He could envisage fumbling with the wrapper, tearing it, spilling the tablets, arousing Oleg's suspicions.

'Don't do anything for me. It's vodka I need!' he announced as heartily as he could.

'Comeon, then, sir-'

Priabin shook his head. 'I've taken enough time off-better get on with my tour of inspection.' He shrugged. 'See you, Oleg.'.

He touched his cap with his gloves and walked off.

'A real pity, sir — ' he heard Oleg offer.

'What?' he snapped, turning on his heel.

Oleg was holding out the wrapper of indigestion tablets. 'These,' he said. 'They smell of mothballs — taste of 'em, too. Don't blame you for refusing.'

Priabin smiled. 'Bye, Oleg.' He strode towards the ticket barrier, passed through it with a nod to the KGB man who must have inspected Gant's papers, glimpsed the poster displaying the pictures of the American pilot, and passed into the station's main concourse. A wig… attracting attention to a distraction. See the wig, see the silly vanity, the life-style and personality it suggests — miss the pilot beneath.

The air outside the Leningrad station was cold. It was as if he had walked into a sheet of glass. He breathed deeply, many times. His head would not clear. It was like a night sky against which rockets and other fireworks burst. Crazy, useless schemes, exploding, leaving their fading images on an inward eye. He had no idea what to do.

Except he knew he could not report her. He could not tell his superiors, could not tell Vladimirov, that the woman he lived with, the woman he loved, was aiding Gant in his escape from Moscow. They would arrest her, interrogate her, make her talk — then dispose of her. Into a pine box or into one of the Gulags, it was the same thing in the end. Reporting her would be her death sentence.

'Gant-!' he murmured fiercely, clenching his fists, then pulling on his gloves in a violently expressive manner. 'Gant — '

Anna was running a terrible risk. She was in the utmost danger.

He clattered down the station steps towards his limousine.

Where?

What to do?

They were going to Leningrad — in all probability, they'd leave the train before it reached the city. Someone would be waiting for them, an Englishman or an American…

And then it struck him, jolting him like a blow across the face. She was leaving — leaving with the American — she was getting out-

He climbed into the back of the black car and slammed the door behind him.

'The apartment!' he snapped.

The driver turned out into the square. Railway stations all around the square. Images of departure, of fleeing.

He did not know what to do. He knew only that he must not lose her.

The train gathered speed, passing the television tower, its top hidden by low grey cloud. Sleet melted on the window, becoming elongated tadpoles of water. The closest suburban stations all exhibited the same functional, deserted appearance as they headed north-west out of Moscow. The compartment was warm. A loudspeaker softly provided Tchaikovsky. Gant did not know how to begin the conversation he knew he must have with the distraught woman who sat opposite him. She was staring at her hands, which seemed to be fighting each other in her lap. Her lover, she had replied to his first question. The man she lived with. He had been unable to find another question to ask. Instead, he had stared out of the window as if surprised that the train was still moving, still being allowed to continue on its journey.

Finally, as the suburbs flattened into parkland, grey and white beneath the driving snow and low cloud, and then rose again into the old town of Khimki-Kovrino, Gant turned away from the window.

'What will he do?' he asked, staring at his own hands, as if imitating the woman's supplicatory posture. She looked up, startled back to her present surroundings. Her features appeared bruised with emotion.

'What — ?' she replied in Russian. He wondered whether her use of her native language — he had spoken in English — was some way of keeping him at a distance. Or simply security?

'I said, what will he do, the man you live with?' he repeated in Russian.

She shook her head. 'I don't know — !'

'He knew it was me,' Gant explained unnecessarily. 'And he guessed we were together.' He cleared his throat. 'What would he make of it?'

'He knows about me!' she exclaimed, beating her fists in a quick little tattoo on her thighs. 'He already knows — !'

'Jesus-H-Christ…' Gant breathed, leaning back in his seat.

The small compartment was hot, even though he had removed his formal overcoat and unbuttoned his jacket. He fiddled with the half-glasses on his nose, but did not remove them. 'He knows about you…' he repeated in English.

'He's known about me for a long time. He's done nothing about it. He — ' She looked up, and essayed a smile. 'He's very much in love — ' She might have been talking of a favourite Son and another woman. 'It pains him — sometimes he can't sleep — but he protects me…'

'Christ — ' Gant rubbed his forehead, inspecting his fingers for dampness. Very little. He was surprised. He checked his body. Hot, yes, but no sense of rising panic. The movement of the train, north-west towards Leningrad and the border, lulled his body. The first stop was Kalinin, a hundred miles from Moscow. Perhaps they were safe until then.

He could not panic, he decided. The woman had coped, coped with much more, over a much longer time. While she remained almost calm, so would he.

'Listen,' he said, leaning forward, reaching out his fingertips. She withdrew her hand, holding it against her breasts. He sat back. 'Listen- think about it. What will he do? What will he think?'

'I-God, I don't know…'

'Will he — will he blame the CIA? Will he blame me?'

'What do you mean?'

The daylight outside was failing. It was as dark as late evening already. The tadpoles of melted sleet wriggled across the window. A collective farm lay unused beneath a layer of snow. A tractor huddled near a hedge.

'Does he love you enough to blame everyone else except you for what he saw?' Gant explained with some exasperation. 'Is he that blind? Will he blame the CIA, the British, me — ?'

'Instead of me?' Gant nodded. 'Perhaps- '

'Will he report us to his superiors? Will they stop the train?'

'I — don't think so…' Anna's brow creased into deep lines. Gant guessed her age to be around thirty-eight or nine. Older than the young colonel he had seen on the platform. He leaned back and closed his eyes. What had he seen? Seen her trying to reassure him… yes. He'd understood that there was no danger, even through his shock. What else — ? The man? Smiling, laughing, holding her -

His face when she climbed aboard the train, in the moment before he saw Gant — ?

Love. Something from paintings, almost religious — what was it? Adoration — ? Adoration…

And he began to believe that they were safe… safe, unless -

'Could he follow us?' Gant asked sharply.

'What?'

'Could he arrange to follow us — himself?'

'Why?'

'To kill me.'

'Why?'

'He might — just might work it out. If he believes in you, he'll blame me most of all, lady. And he could keep your dark secret and put the clock back to yesterday, if he killed me. I wouldn't even be able to tell tales on you.' The Makarov was in the suitcase. Later, he would think about transferring it to his inside pocket.

'Do you think he would do that?'

Gant shrugged. 'He might — you know him, not me. You've screwed up what was a nice neat assignment. He could either hate you, or me. There's no one else to attract his interest.' Gant leaned back, closing his eyes. His lack of panic surprised him.

Maybe it was the woman's presence? She was a talisman who had, perhaps, become a hostage. He felt safe with her. Adoration… yes. Priabin was besotted with the woman, and he could use that to his advantage. Priabin might come after them, but he wouldn't betray her, give her up.

He'd blame the good old US of A and one of its citizens.in particular. Yes, he'd want to kill Gant.

Gant could not believe his luck. The car journey after Vassily had helped him, the apartment for most of the day, the disguise and the easy access to the platform and the train — they were all dreamlike, unreal. It had been going too well.

But this — this was real luck.

He found himself thinking aloud: 'This is real luck…'

Immediately, the woman's face narrowed. She despised him. He could not help that. Real luck. He might have had thousands of KGB looking for him, but now, thanks to her, he had only one who was looking in the right place. And, as they say, his lips were sealed.

It was working out. He could make it, with those odds. The papers and the disguise had stood up, would stand up. Harris would be meeting them at a quiet- suburban station with a car and new documents. And, if heskept Anna by his side or in front of him like a shield, he had nothingfo worry about… nothing at all. '

'Stop it!' she said intently. He opened his eyes. 'Stop it!'

What-?'

'You're smiling — you're enjoying it!' She was very close to tears. Her teeth nibbled at her full lower lip. Her pale, drawn features seemed inappropriate to the expensive hairstyle, the costly, fashionable clothes.

'All right,' he said. 'I'm sorry. It was good not to be the one who's really alone for a change. I am sorry.'

She nodded. 'I — ' she began.

'Could you go back?'

'I don't know — I thought so, before, before — '

'Take it easy. Maybe the Company will lay off, if this all works out?' He watched her shaking her head. The blonde hair flicked from side to side. On the platform, she had seemed so much in control, so much the stronger partner. But, she was weakened by her own love. She wasn't so much afraid of getting caught as of losing her lover. Well, maybe the Company would release her if she pulled this off…? Miracles did sometimes happen.

He looked at his watch. Five hours to Kolpino. They had tickets for the restaurant car. She'd have to make up before she appeared in public -

Gant retreated from concern. It complicated matters. She was, effectively, his hostage, and that was the easiest and most satisfactory way to think of her.

Dmitri Priabin had dismissed his driver when the car dropped him at Anna's apartment. He had hurried from the lift and fumblingly unlocked the door as if half-expecting to find her there. The apartment was, of course, empty.

He tore the expected letter open, glanced at the excuse of business in Leningrad, his eyes highlighting the love that constituted the remainder of the letter. Then he crushed it, threw it across the room, and retrieved it only moments later, thrusting it into his pocket. Without conscious decision, he had packed a suitcase with a civilian outfit — a disguise, he thought — and then he had left the apartment once more, slamming the door hollowly behind him. Maxim was with her father — whatever happened, the boy was safe. Whatever happened to Anna, whatever was discovered — whatever part he played himself — her father could protect his grandson even if he could not save his daughter.

In one way, then, it would be clean.

He hailed a taxi. Conscious thought seemed to have caught up with bodily activity, and he ordered the driver to take him to Cheremetievo airport.

Flights to Leningrad -

He had to inspect the airport security anyway, it lay under his authority. They would expect to see him.

And what would he do? What was he planning that required the suitcase on the seat beside him? He did not really know. Thought had not yet overtaken reaction, to discover what lay in the future. It, like his body, was content simply to be active. He was hurrying to the airport — he appeared to be pursuing…

Who and what was he pursuing?

His hand touched the holster at his hip, providing the answer. The American — Gant. He wanted to kill Gant. He would kill Gant! In his death lay safety. Anna would be safe, he would be safe.

The driver had a bald, shining head. His ears were red and prominent. The sleet flew at the windscreen, rushing towards the wipers, then sliding jelly-like to either side. It was hypnotic.

Priabin shook his head, waking himself. If there was a flight to Leningrad, he could overtake them. They would leave the train before the terminus, though -

If he got a list of stations where the express stopped, he could work back along the line to the farthest point they could possibly leave the train. There he could board it, and confront them.

Like a cuckolded husband, he could not help thinking, hating the image. He could kill Gant — shot resisting arrest, he could live with Vladimirov's rage, and Anna could disappear into the Leningrad night. He'd spotted Gant, followed him…

He should have boarded the train then, in Moscow — !

No, no…

He'd had no plan, then. He'd have blundered in like the cuckold, not the rescuer.

And, when he'd killed Gant, what would the Americans do to Anna? Would they guess who and why and assume she'd been a party to it?

And turn her over to his own organisation?

He sweated; even though (he heating of the taxi was primitive. He banged his fist slowly, mesmerically against the leather of his suitcase. Have to hide that at the airport, get on the aircraft at the last moment, mustn't be seen by his own men…

Any of his personal subordinates posted there? He didn't think so, but was not sure. Have to be careful -

It's awful, he thought. The mess is awful, awful -

He sat back in the corner of his seat, out of the view of the driver's mirror, because he knew his face was pale and cold and utterly confused. He could not see the end of it. He could not believe that he could save Anna. He rubbed one gloved hand over his face, as if trying to remodel his expression by heavy stroking movements.

Each time he thought about his situation, the main priority appeared to be to save Anna. Get her away from the American, get her back safely to Moscow, reinstall her in her apartment. Life could go on, then — from that point.

But, each time he considered the priority and agreed with it, he thought of Gant and the desire to kill him rose like nausea in his chest and throat and it became difficult to consider Anna's safety or his own. Gant's death increasingly thrust itself upon him as a course of action that was inevitable.

'Then, while we do not have the pilot, we must return to our search for the aircraft,' Chairman Andropov announced. At his side, Vladimirov did not demur, even though he understood that this was little more than another deflection of blame in his direction. A similar move to his surprise appointment as security co-ordinator of the hunt for the American.

Strangely, he did not resent his assigned role as scapegoat. Rather, it increased his sense that he was the only man — the only one of all of them — capable of recovering the MiG-31. Even when the First Secretary nodded his agreement with Andropov and looked immediately towards him, Vladimirov felt no resentment arid little anxiety. He was prepared, even equable, as he awaited an outburst from the Soviet leader.

It came almost at once, beginning on a low, histrionically calm note.

'Gant must be found,' he announced from behind his desk. The Kremlin office had once been used by Stalin. It was not the great anteroom where all visitors were cowed and fearful long before they ever reached the huge desk behind which Stalin had sat, but nevertheless it was a large, high-ceilinged room with a tall marble fireplace and massive, dark furniture. It daunted visitors, and it expressed the Soviet leader's ideas of his own personality and authority. This First Secretary had moved to another floor of the Arsenal building, and the windows of his office and the luxurious apartment beyond it stared across a triangle of grass and trees towards the Senate and the rooms once occupied by V.I. Lenin.

'Yes, First Secretary,' Vladimirov replied.

'And so must the aircraft — Gant is only the key to the aircraft. You agree, General Vladimirov?'

'Of course, First Secretary. Of course — ' He bit down upon the rising irony in his tone. He rubbed his hands on the carved arms of the huge chair in which he sat before the mahogany desk with its lion's feet.

'Then where is the aircraft? Where is it now?' The First Secretary got up, pushing back his chair noisily on the parquet flooring. He strode to the window, hands clasped behind his back. He looked out at the failing light, the white trees and grass, the windows of Lenin's office. 'Where is the aircraft?' he repeated without turning.

Vladimirov did not need to glance at Andropov to realise the satisfaction that would show on his features. To think, that man, the secret policeman, might become the successor to the grey-haired buffoon at the window. Vladimirov, unable to suppress his contempt, was pleased that neither of them could see his face. But, just to think of it…' Andropov was already, a member, perhaps the most powerful member, of the inner cabal of the Politburo. He was rumoured to be about to resign as Chairman of the KGB, to become head of the General Secretariat of the Party, thereby broadening his power base. Andropov might one day sit behind that very desk…

Andropov would have the Lenin offices opened up again, Vladimirov thought bitterly. They would become offices once more, rather than a museum — his offices.

'I — have people working on that. We have selected a number of landing-sites, First Secretary; places where the American could have landed the MiG-31.' The words were automatic.

'These I should like to see,' the First Secretary said, turning slowly and over-dramatically to face into the room once more. 'And — the American told you nothing under the most intense interrogation?'

Vladimirov gambled. There was something there, in those tapes — he was certain of it.

'I'd like you to listen to it — and Chairman Andropov, of course — to the tapes our people made. I'm sure we're missing something there.'

He heard the First Secretary sigh with satisfaction. All the man wanted, ever wanted, was his authority recognised. He wanted the scent of subordination strong in every room he entered. It was easy…

Careful, Vladimirov warned himself. He stood up slowly as the First Secretary passed him. The two bureaucrats in grey suits preceded him to the door. Their coat-tails were creased with sitting. He had managed a few hours' sleep late the previous night, a shower and a change of uniform. He followed the two men through the outer offices where the Soviet leader waved secretaries back to their desks. Two bodyguards fell in behind Vladimirov — a prisoner's escort, he thought for an instant, then smiled inwardly.

They used the lift to the ground floor. It was only a single floor's descent, but the lift was modern, air-conditioned and emitted quiet piped music. Guards saluted with uptilted rifles as they passed across the marble floor towards the main doors. The two bodyguards hurried a little way ahead, then issued umbrellas from a rack beside the doors. Vladimirov took an umbrella, but disdained the galoshes the two guards were now fitting over the shoes of the First Secretary and the Chairman. The image of the guards kneeling before the two men was too striking not to be savoured.

They cautiously stepped out into the darkening evening, descending the swept, damp marble steps of the Arsenal like very old men. Birch trees and snow-covered lawns were dyed pale orange by the lights. Vladimirov walked alongside his companions. The Kremlin was a place he did not often visit, and he tilted back his umbrella to gain a clearer view of the palaces and cathedrals within the walls, thereby displaying what the other two might sniggeringly have called his provincialism, his gaucheness.

The place was a monument to absolutism. Even the cathedrals repelled rather than invited. There was little sense of quiet expressed by their facades, nothing of sanctuary. The red towers, topped by their neon Party stars, ringed the buildings; penned them. They were heading towards the largest of the new buildings, the Palace of Congress, which, together with the Senate, contained most of the government offices within the Kremlin complex. To Vladimirov, it looked like a glass and concrete weed growing up modernistically amid the planted, massive, tropical flowers of the older buildings.

The wind splashed sleet against his shaven cheeks, chilling his skin. Yet he continued to stare, to appraise, until they reached the main doorway of the Palace of Congress. They passed the guards on duty and entered the main foyer of the glass building. Heavy chandeliers hung from the ceiling. Vladimirov followed the First Secretary and Andropov across the tiled floor — a huge modern mosaic depicting the inevitable triumph of Socialism — towards the reinforced steel doors of a special lift. They descended six floors before the lift sighed to a stop. Guards faced them as they entered a corridor of whitewashed concrete. Steel doors, like the watertight doors of a submarine, confronted them. The bodyguards inserted plastic identity tags into the locks, and the doors opened.

Vladimirov inhaled deeply as he once more prepared to enter what bright, cynical young army officers who had served there called the Führerbunker, beyond what was little more than an airlock, where more identity tags were inserted into computerised locks, examined, and returned, a second steel door opened onto a vast underground room. They stepped into a command centre which mirrored not only that in the Tupolev but also those deep beneath the Moscow Garrison's HQ and his own air force headquarters south-east of the city. He followed the others across the room, then mounted a metal ladder onto a gantry which overlooked the command centre. A long glassed-in gallery formed the control room of the underground complex.

All this, Vladimirov thought, the means of obliterating most of the earth, is being used for no more than a skirmish, a small fuss on the border. The insight increased his sense of well-being. Officers saluted, operators sat more erect and alert as they entered. Vladimirov immediately directed the Soviet leader's attention to the fibre-optic map against one wall; a smaller version of the huge perspex screen erected on the main floor of the underground centre. It was edge-lit, computer-fed like the map-table aboard the Tupolev, and at that moment it displayed Finnish Lapland. There were patches of light on the screen, dotted like growths of luminous fungus across Lapland.

'We've selected these sites, First Secretary-' Vladimirov began, using a light-pen to pick out each of the small glowing points. 'These are the only places where the terrain would allow an aircraft to land.' He was confident now. He'd already spent two or three hours in this control room. Its occupants were military personnel — with a sprinkling of KGB and GRU and GLAVPUR people, of course, but soldiers in the main, soldiers first — and he was at home amid the paraphernalia of electronic warfare and computer strategy. He picked out, too, a line of small red dots. 'This is the American's route, from the point at which the Chairman's Border Guards picked up his trail.' The light-pen's arrow bounced along the row of dots, as if picking out a melody. 'He travelled in the same general direction, and we deduce that he was making directly from the point where he left the aircraft to the Norwegian border at its closest point. Paint in the suggested route, in both directions, please.'

The red dots became a white line, extending roughly northwest to south-east. It crossed lakes, valleys, minor roads, forest tracks, frozen rivers. In the north-west, it terminated at the border, while to the south-east it halted at the shores of Lake Inari.

'Time is crucial here,' Vladimirov continued in the tone of a kindly, expert lecturer of greatly superior intelligence. 'We know when the second MiG-25 was destroyed, we know when we first found traces of Gant. We know how fast he was able to travel and we can deduce distances. This white line is far too extended, of course — therefore, we consider that the MiG-31 must be somewhere in this area…' The arrow of the light-pen described a circle. When the arrow bobbed away, off the map, the computer had traced a circle, as if the pen had drawn on the perspex. It was perhaps twenty miles in diameter.

'Very good,' the First Secretary announced with evident sarcasm. 'Very good-the MiG-31 is in Finnish Lapland!' He turned to Vladimirov. 'We know that, General — we already know that!' It was obvious that the Soviet leader had simply been waiting for this opportunity to harangue and threaten. Now he had an audience, and it was one that pleased him — the military; the despised and feared military. He would humiliate one of their heroes in front of them, show them their idol's feet of clay. Vladimirov steeled himself to control his features and remain silent. 'Find it! You find that aircraft, today. And you, Andropov,' he added in a less hectoring voice, 'find the pilot.' He turned as if to leave, his bodyguards already opening the door of the control room and making room for him to pass. Then he returned his gaze to Vladimirov. 'It must be found,' he said. 'I do not need to remind you of the consequences if it is not found — today.'

He left the control room. Abashed, Andropov immediately wiped his spectacles with his silk handkerchief. There was a sheen of perspiration on his brow. His nostrils were narrow with rage. Vladimirov, feeling the resentment of his body begin to dissipate, realised two things concerning the Chairman of the KGB. He was playing for perhaps higher stakes than Vladimirov himself — and he was uncertain of his allies in the Politburo if he could still be bullied by the present First Secretary. Therefore, Andropov would now become an ally; untrusted and dangerous, but an ally. The Soviet leader had included him in the catalogue of blame should Gant and the MiG-31 not be found.

As if to confirm his thoughts, Andropov moved towards the perspex map, closer to Vladimirov. He smiled, an expression that turned to its habitual ironic shape almost as soon as it formed on his lips.

'If you wish for a more — sympathetic? — audience, I offer myself, General Vladimirov,' he said quietly.

Vladimirov nodded. 'Accepted, Comrade Chairman.'

'Good — now, I understand the logic of your deductions thus far-but, how could he have landed the aircraft? In that terrain — it is snow-bound, surely?'

'Yes, it is. However, we think his best chance would have been a forest track or minor road.'

'Would he have thought of it?'

'I think so. I think he would have felt himself — shall we say — challenged, to do it? He is possessed of a massive certainty of his own worth and talents. He would have tried, I think. He must have tried, because of the parachute. And he was uninjured, which I think means the airframe is virtually undamaged — certainly recoverable, certainly a threat if recovered by the Americans or the British. So, all we have to do, Comrade Chairman, is to find it.'

'A forest track or a minor road — still covered with snow — '

'Out of fuel, with little risk of fire, he might have risked landing on snow. Too deep, and I agree he would turn tail-over-nose and break up. But, with the winds and the weather over the past weeks, we think that at least some of these tracks could have had sufficiently little depth of snow to help rather than destroy the MiG.'

'And there are two of these tracks within your circle also crossed by the white line predicting his route,' Andropov observed. He bent closer to the map, then clicked his fingers. 'You're ignoring these lakes,' he said. 'Might he not have used a frozen lake?'

Vladimirov shook his head. 'We discounted them. Our aerial reconnaissance immediately after the loss of the second Foxbat showed nothing. On a lake, he could not have hidden the MiG.'

Andropov shrugged. 'I see,' he said. 'Very well. What is the scale of this map?'

'We are talking about a matter of fifty or sixty kilometres from our border, at its closest point, to this road, another fifteen to this one here.' The arrow of the light-pen danced like a moth on the surface of the map.

'You have ordered a new aerial reconnaissance?'

Vladimirov shook his head. 'All we could do in this weather is high-altitude infra-red, and that airframe is as cold as the landscape around it by now. We won't have photographs. Any search would have to be on the ground. We should have to cross the border — a small party…'

'But then, your deductions would have to be correct. They would have to be accurate — extremely accurate for a small party.'

'Working back along this white line, into the circle — sufficiently spread out, they could cover a wide area — '

'As long as the weather gets no worse and visibility drops no further — and just so long as the aircraft is not buried under the snow by now!'

Vladimirov shook his head. He enjoyed the Chairman's scepticism. It enlivened the debate and cemented their alliance. 'I think it's under the trees somewhere — he taxied it off a road under the trees.'

'And left it like a parked car?'

'Just like a parked car.'

Andropov looked doubtful. 'Is there any other way?' he asked.

'Your experts have been examining the tapes of Gant's interrogations ever since he escaped, in the hope of finding something, some concrete piece of evidence to indicate what he did with the aircraft.' Vladimirov's features hardened as he remembered. His hand squeezed the material of Andropov's jacket sleeve. The Chairman seemed not to resent the grip on his arm. 'He was about to tell us — on the point of telling, when he knocked himself out. He was within an inch-!' He held up his fingers, almost closed together. 'An inch, no more-'

'But, he didn't-'

Vladimirov shook his head. 'Your people are good, but they seem unable — '

'I'll have the tapes brought here, together with their report,' Andropov promised. 'Meanwhile, I suggest a reconnaissance party consisting of Border Guards?' Vladimirov nodded. 'I take it their helicopters can fly in the weather they're experiencing up there?'

'Just.'

'Then they must be ready to move at once. Where do you suggest they begin?'

The arrow of the light-pen wobbled up the perspex map, alighting above the white line of Gant's suspected journey.

'Here's where they found evidence that he had made camp, slept. All the other traces — parachute found here, village here, capture — are further to the north-west. I suggest we have your party dropped here, and that they work backwards along this line, perhaps making for the closest forest track, here…' The arrow buzzed almost dementedly above the line.

Andropov studied the map, then simply said, 'Very well — I'll issue orders for a reconnaissance party to prepare for an immediate border crossing — please have the co-ordinates and any other advice ready for them.'

Gant pushed down the window of the compartment. Snow flurried against his face. The drab provincial station on the edge of the town of Chudovo was almost deserted. A handful of passengers gingerly left the train as if stepping into an alien environment. Boots and galoshes slipped on the snow-covered platform. Lights gleamed through the snow. The train hummed. One or two uniformed guards, railway police, individuals in leather coats or heavy mackintoshes checked papers. There was one more stop amd perhaps forty minutes before Kolpino, where they must leave the train to meet Harris. To explain their through tickets to Leningrad, Anna would assume a sudden indisposition, a need for fresh air, a slight fever that might be infectious. The local hospital might be required…

It seemed slack and fortuitous to Gant, but he sensed that it would work. A small country station in a suburban town, the staff tired and bored, their unexpected visitors important Party officials. Panache and bluff would convey them from — the station to Harris's car with little trouble. A suggestion of food-poisoning, though the restaurant meal had been good, might further the bluff.

It didn't matter, he thought. Priabin had not boarded the train here at Chudovo — and if he was waiting for them in Leningrad, as Anna thought he might, then he was powerless. Gant had as good a hostage as he could have wished for. That thought satisfied him, though it gave him no pleasure. He heard the guard's whistle, saw the swinging lamp the man held winking at the far end of the train, and withdrew his head from the icy air and closed the window. When he turned to Anna, he saw that she had pulled her coat over her shoulders and was shivering.

'Practising — right?' he said. She looked at him vehemently. 'Sorry — ' He nodded his head towards the window. 'No sign of trouble,' he added, sitting down opposite her. The train journey had lulled him; every passing mile had reinforced his sense of having broken through the net tightening around him. Not so for Anna, apparently. The journey might have been one into exile. She was still terrified of what Priabin might do.

She fumbled in her bag, drew out a gold lighter and cigarette case, and lit an American tipped cigarette. The brand was as unconscious as the habit of smoking; a badge, long worn, of success. She blew the smoke towards the ceiling. Her hand was shaking, trembling.

She shook her head, softly, rhythmically, at some inward image or idea. She appeared as if entirely alone in the compartment. It was evident she blamed him, entirely, for her situation; just as her lover would do by now. The thought chilled Gant.

Was there a way out for them? Could they manage, between them, his own death and their safety? He suspected that both she and Priabin would be concentrating their entire energies on finding such a solution.

Killing him would be the easiest way.

The train gathered speed, the last of the station lights flashed past. The darkness of the night pressed at the windows. Snow was caught by the lights of their compartment, beyond the reflection of his features. He stared at himself, his cheeks fattened by the pads, his face changed by the addition of the half-glasses. They might kill him, if they ever got together and considered it -

The door of the compartment slid back. Anna was sitting bolt upright. Gant's eyes flicked up towards the reflection of the newcomer. Civilian clothes, he thought, with a sense of relief.

Then he saw the drawn pistol and the distraught and grim features of the man who was holding it. Only then did Gant turn his head.

'Dmitri — !' Anna cried.

Gant felt numb with shock, as if his fears had conjured the man into the compartment. Priabin had boarded the train at Chudovo. Priabin with a pistol. The KGB officer who was Anna's lover had reached the end of his particular journey, and he had found his answer. A simple and obvious answer.

Kill Gant.

'Out,' Aubrey said, limply handing the microphone to the radio operator. He turned away from the console, and almost bumped into Curtin, who had been standing at his shoulder throughout the conversation with the senior engineering officer at the Swedish airbase. Curtin shrugged, but Aubrey appeared not to notice the gesture. 'Damn,' he breathed through clenched teeth. The single word seemed invested with a great weight of anger and frustration, even something as dark as defeat.

'It's one hell of a piece of bad luck- ' Curtin began, but Aubrey turned on him, glaring.

'Bad luck! Bad luck? It is a monumental fall coming after pride, Curtin — that's what it is! It is entirely and utterly my own fault.' Curtin made to interrupt, but Aubrey gestured him to silence. 'It is my fault! I was warned — Giles Pyott warned me, as you did yourself, as Buckholz did. I chose to take no heed. I chose not to listen.' He clenched his hands together at his lips. He paced the hut, intent upon recrimination. Eventually, he turned to Curtin and said, 'We know that Gant is on the train. In a matter of hours he will be across the border into Finland — it has proceeded with the smooth regularity of clockwork. Harris is at Kolpipo to meet them. We know that the aircraft will emerge from the, lake within the next few hours — and we can't do anything to remove it! We will have salvaged it simply for the Russians to collect!'

'You couldn't fight the weather.'

'I should never have ignored the weather! That was my sin. Pride, Eugene, pride — !'

'Bad luck.'

'No-!' He began pacing the room again, murmuring to himself like a child learning by rote. 'Thirty-six hours, even then they're not certain — almost twelve hours after the deadline expires — and the weather may not allow them to continue. Pyott told me not to rely on the Skyhook, but I ignored that. Now I have been shown my error!' He did not pause in his pacing. The radio operator huddled over his equipment, ignoring Aubrey's voice. Curtin perched himself on the edge of a folding table, carefully balancing his weight, Aubrey continued with his catalogue of self-blame. He forcibly reminded Curtin of an animal newly caged in a zoo, pacing the boundaries of its prison, seeking a way of escape. 'I didn't listen, I didn't damn well listen — ! I knew best — Nanny knows best. Nothing left now but to rip out the systems we most want and blow the airframe to pieces — and I still want that aircraft.' Curtin strained to catch what followed; 'I owe it to them… but I can't — there's no way — !'

Then he turned to Curtin, arms akimbo as if begging for some relief of mind.

'What — ?' Curtin said, spreading his own arms, unable to understand what Aubrey required and reluctant to intrude.

Aubrey's lips worked silently. Then he burst out: 'If only the damned plane would fly!'

Curtin grinned in embarrassment. 'Yeah,' he said. 'If only.'

Aubrey closed his eyes. 'If the Firefox could fly…' Then he looked up and announced to Curtin: 'They would leave me in peace, then, wouldn't they?'

'I don't understand?'

Aubrey disowned his words, his hand sawing through the fuggy, paraffin-smelling air. Then he wiped his lips, as if what he had said amounted to little more than a geriatric dribble of sounds.

'I'm sorry,' he said with exaggerated, ingratiating apology.

'I forgot myself for a moment.' He moved closer to Curtin, placing himself near the heat from the wood-burning stove, rubbing his hands as if cold. He looked directly at Curtin instead of the floorboards of the hut, and said, 'Forgive me for asking — but the aircraft could not fly, of course?'

Curtin shook his head. 'No…' he said. The word was intended to be definite, to end the speculation he could see beginning to cloud Aubrey's pale eyes, but it faded into a neutral, hesitant denial. Aubrey seized upon it.

'You don't seem sure — '

'I am sure.'

'Then why not be definite!' Aubrey snapped, his face sagging into disappointed folds once more.

'I am, but-'

'But what?'

'I — it's been immersed in water for more than forty-eight hours… you've got a smidgeon more than twenty-four hours…' Curtin shook his head, almost smiling. 'It is impossible,' he announced. 'I'm sure of it.'

Aubrey persisted: 'As a matter of interest, why did you hesitate?'

'Because — well, because I've heard of Navy planes getting a ducking and making a comeback — ' He held up his hands to stop a torrent of questions from Aubrey. 'It took weeks, Mr. Aubrey — weeks! Well, maybe one week anyway. I just remembered it had happened, is all. It doesn't help you. Us.'

'You mean the aircraft is immediately damaged by immersion in water?'

'Sure, the damage starts at once.'

'But the damage is not irreparable?' Aubrey's voice hectored, bullied. Curtin felt interrogated, and resented the small, arrogant Englishman who was too clever for his own good and too self-satisfied ever to admit defeat.

That depends on how it went in, whether it was all shut down, sealed… Hell — !'

'What is the matter?'

'I don't know the answers, for Christ's sake! You're crazy, Mr. Aubrey, sir, crazy.' He climbed off the table and stretched luxuriously, as if about to retire. The gesture was intended to infuriate Aubrey and it succeeded.

'Damn you, Curtin — stay where you are and answer my questions!' He pressed close to the American, undeterred by his greater height and bulk. Curtin thought, quite irreverently, that Aubrey was squaring up to him ready to fight.

'OK, OK — if it passes the time,' he murmured, regaining his perch on the table. -

'Just answer me this — could the Firefox fly?'

Curtin shrugged, hesitated, and then said, 'I don't know — and that's the truth.'

'Then who would know?'

'Why don't you ask the Senior Engineering Officer — what's his name, Moresby? The guy from Abingdon. He's standing right next to the airplane, he knows the state it's in — ask him!'

The radio operator was sitting erect in his seat. 'Get me Squadron-Leader Moresby, at once.' Then he looked at Curtin and held up his hand, displaying his fingers in sequence as he spoke. 'We have the pilot, almost safe… We have the runway — the lake… We have twenty-four hours… the aircraft needs to fly fifty or a hundred miles, no more, to be safe from recapture. Is that asking too much?'

'Much too much — but you don't want that answer, I guess,' Curtin murmured.

'Squadron-Leader Moresby, sir — '

'I'm coming, I'm coming — ' Aubrey's eyes gleamed, almost fanatically. 'I won't let it go!' he said. 'Not yet, anyway. I won't.'

TEN: 'Nessie'

'Don't kill him, Dmitri! Dmitri, think — !'

Gant's hand had stopped reaching for his breast pocket. He remembered that he had not transferred the Makarov from his suitcase. Priabin's pistol was pointed directly at him, even though the man was staring into Anna's face. His head had flicked towards her the moment she shouted. Gant remained motionless, an observer of the scene. There was no way in which he could move quickly enough across the compartment, before Priabin had time to shoot him. He forced himself to remain still.

'Anna-?' Priabin exclaimed in the tone of a child that does not understand a parental order. He was being prevented from doing something he very much wanted to accomplish.

'Don't kill him, Dmitri,' Anna repeated, her hand moving slowly towards his gun. He kept it trained on Gant and out of range of her grasp. 'How can I escape from this if you kill him?'

Priabin appeared deeply confused. 'You? But, you come with me. You'll be safe, then — '

'Do you think they'll allow that? Don't you think they'll know I allowed him to be killed? It's a trap, Dmitri — I have to do what they want!'

He held out his left hand, and she caught it with the fierce, clamping grip of a vice. She clung to him, he to her. Then he shook her hand, gently.

'It won't be like that,' he said soothingly. Gant saw that he was sweating, and not simply because of the heating in the compartment. He was almost feverish with purpose. And now he was witnessing his schemes begin to dissolve. 'It won't be like that, Anna!' he reiterated more firmly, attempting to persuade himself.

'It will,' she said, 'I know it will — you don't know them.'

'Believe her,' Gant added, and they both looked at him with utter hatred. He quailed. Priabin was a man still in shock and panic, revolving harebrained schemes to save his mistress. The situation eluded Gant. He did not understand how to use it to his advantage. He was certain that the wrong word would act like a spark on the Russian.

'Shut up!' Priabin snapped unnecessarily.

Gant squeezed into the corner of his seat, his eyes flicking upwards for an instant to his suitcase. But there was no chance, no hope.

As if room had been made for him, Priabin sat down at the other end of the seat, the gun still aimed at Gant. Gant felt the cold of the window against which his back was pressed seeping through his jacket, between his shoulder-blades.

Priabin spoke to Anna without looking at her. He still held her hand. Anna's fingers were white and bloodless, twisted in his.

'Listen to me Anna,' he began. 'If he tells us where the aircraft is-you know, don't you?' Gant nodded carefully, his face expressionless. 'If he tells us, we can pass that information on. We — we could get out of it like that. All they want is to know where the plane is, nothing else — that's their only interest in him. I can say… can say that I followed a hunch, or he was reported to me as seen boarding the train, alone — we struggled, the gun went off, but he'd told me everything…!' He stared at her. 'It would work!'

'And they'd be sure as hell to turn you over, Anna,' Gant said quietly. He realised he could not remain silent. Ever since he had noticed the bloodless fingers gripping those of Priabin. He had understood that she was not a contestant, rather the prize for which he was fighting with Priabin. If she became persuaded of her lover's case, then she would allow Gant to die. She hated him as much as Priabin did. At his words, Priabin's gun jabbed forward in little threatening movements. The man's eyes were grey, and now as unyielding as slate. His face wore a sheen of perspiration, and his cheeks were flushed. He looked feverish. 'Believe me,' Gant added, forcing himself to continue, 'I know them. They've wasted people on this operation already — he knows that. Even Baranovitch.' The name was like a stinging blow across her face. 'They'll use anybody. He's right — the man's right. They're only taking care of me because I know too much. I mustn't fall into the wrong hands.' He attempted to smile at Priabin. 'That's why they used you. But, you have to see it through, Anna. I'm sorry, but you have to. If you get me away — then they'll maybe let you off the hook. I'll try to make them do that.'

'Don't believe him!' Priabin shouted.

'Dmitri, keep your voice down!' Anna snapped fearfully at him. Her eyes had glanced into the corridor.

'Pull down the blinds,' Gant said.

Priabin released Anna's hand. He tugged at the blind above his head, sliding it down behind him. Anna rubbed her white hand. Gant turned, watched Priabin for a moment in the window, looked out at the snow flying past the train, and heard Anna draw down her blind. He turned back to Priabin. He would not jump from the train, not yet. He might just win the game -

'OK,' Gant said in English, as before. Priabin's English was better than Anna's. 'That's better. I will try to help — but I can't help if I'm dead, can I?' He turned to Priabin. 'Look, sonny, I know you want to kill me, and I know why. But I'm no volunteer, either, just like her. I didn't pull her name out of a hat, so let's get blame out of the way, uh?'

'I'm not going to let you go,' Priabin replied immediately. He had wiped the sweat from his forehead. He was calmer now; he held rather than gripped Anna's hand. Yet Gant saw that he was now perhaps more dangerous.

'If you turn me in, I'll tell them where the airplane is — sure, I almost did a dozen times, I guess. But, I'd tell them about Anna, too… even if I didn't want to,' he hurried on as the pistol in Priabin's hand waggled threateningly. 'It would come out, under drugs. Man, you know that! I couldn't keep quiet even if I wanted to.'

'So, I kill you.'

'And the CIA tips off your bosses, and Anna goes into the bag and maybe you do, too. What in hell are you doing here, anyway? Where's your back-up, who else knows?' Priabin had begun to grip Anna's hand tightly once more. Gant saw her wince, but he did not know if her pain came from the grip or from his words. 'Face it, man, you've messed up!'

'No-!'

'Your hide's on the barn door along with hers!'

He wanted to look at his watch, he bent his head slowly, as if weighing his next words. Fifteen minutes before the train stopped at Kolpino, where Harris would be waiting with a rented car. He had fifteen minutes to persuade, or kill, Priabin. And he knew he had no chance of killing him.

'They don't expect her to go over with you to prove how loyal she's been, do they?' Priabin asked with contempt.

Gant shook his head. 'They gave her the option,' he said. 'She turned them down.'

Priabin looked at Anna. Her face was pale, frightened. Gant sensed her need to touch the KGB officer, reassure both of them by gentle, continuing physical contact. Priabin scrutinised her face.

'You weren't going?' he asked hoarsely. She shook her head.

'No.'

He appeared utterly relieved. The situation, Gant realised, was more complex than he had thought. Part of Priabin behaved like a jealous lover pursuing his mistress and the other man in the triangle he had invented. Probably, he did not realise it himself. But it formed another spark that might ignite him. Gant did not know the truth — did Anna intend to stay?

'Thank God,' he breathed. It was touching, and dangerous. 'I thought — I thought…' Then he seemed to recollect Gant's presence, and broke off, returning his gaze to the American. There was a sharp, quick cleverness in his face now. He was weighing the alternatives.

'That's it, sonny,' Gant said. 'Think about it. It's all one big trap — a maze. You have to find a way out, just like the rest of us.' He smiled carefully. 'There's just the three of us. What are we going to do about it?'

'What are the arrangements for this man?' Priabin asked.

'We were to leave the train at Kolpino — ' Priabin looked at his watch, and Gant quickly did the same. Twelve minutes. ' — the next station. Someone will be waiting for us, with a car.'

'Then you are not needed!' Priabin exclaimed. 'Don't you see, Anna, you're not needed! You don't have to provide cover for him by travelling all the way to the border — you don't!'

Gant controlled his features as she looked at him pleadingly.

Priabin had leapt upon the flaw, the escape route for Anna. Now, she would ally herself with him.

'They'd still hand you over,' he said.

'No! What are you — one of their Category-A Sources, Anna?' She looked at him, and nodded. 'Yes, that's what my Case Officer says.'

'Then you're important to them, don't believe you're not. If the American fails to get away, you wouldn't be blamed. If you hand him over to whoever is to meet him, then your part is finished. If he is killed trying to get out of the country, then you cannot be blamed…' He hurried on breathlessly, his hand shaking hers in time to the rhythm of his thoughts. Gant felt his stomach become watery. His eyes flicked to the rack and the closed, unattainable suitcase. There was nothing he could do now, but wait.

Ten minutes to Kolpino — but Priabin already knew about the waiting man and the waiting car. He would understand that Gant would be given exit papers for Finland, that he would be hurried out of the Soviet Union to safety. There was nothing Gant could do as Priabin continued talking, his face young and excited, as if he were engaged in nothing more dramatic than watching a football match or opening Christmas presents.

'Stay on the train — leave the American to whoever is meeting him. Understand? Just continue to Leningrad, and then fly straight back to Moscow. You can be there by morning, in work on time, everything

'And you?' she asked. 'What will you do?'

Priabin looked down at his pistol. A heavy Stechkin. 'It doesn't matter,' he murmured. 'I'll be back in Moscow tomorrow.'

'He's going to kill me, after waiting until you've averted your pretty eyes,' Gant said. 'He thinks it's the easy way out.'

'No-!'

'Isn't it?' Priabin grinned, but the expression was more akin to a sneer. He knew, now, that he possessed all the high cards in the game. Gant had lost his hostage, his secrecy — soon, his life.

'No. You'll have killed me. They won't like that.'

'The Americans.'

'No. Your bosses. Vladimirov, the First Secretary, your Chairman… the really big boys won't like it!'

'I can live with demotion, with a rotten posting — just like Kontarsky will have to,' Pfiabfri said sullenly.

'She'll still be working for the Americans — '

And Priabin's face unclouded, beamed at Gant. 'I've thought of that!' he said, laying down füs lalt and best card. He turned to Anna. Gant quailed. 'I've just thought of it — she can become an agent of mine! An agent of — a KGB officer who's just died, or retired, but I knew about her — he would have set you up, Anna, as a double-agent, and you were passed on to me. I went to bed with you as well as made use of you. They'd believe that easily-!'

Anna was horrified. 'I would have to go on, and on, and on — forever?' she asked.

'Safe!' he replied.

'But — I'd never be allowed to leave it, to get out?'

'Then why did you do it in the first place?' he snapped in a hard voice. 'Why?'

Gant glanced at his watch. Six minutes. When the train slowed? Outside the station — ? Would he be able to get to Harris's car before Priabin did? He would be unarmed. But — jump?

'You ask me — ? Why are you a policeman?'

'It's my job.'

'I want to get out of it, Dmitri — I don't want to pretend to have been working for the Americans while really working for you!' Her voice was high, her eyes bright with tears. She had released his hand. Both her small hands were clenched into protective fists in front of her breasts. She was shaking her head. She looked much older, almost plain, as she pleaded with Priabin. 'I don't care what clever excuses you think up, I don't want to be trapped forever — !' She unclenched her right fist and dragged a lock of hair away from her eyes. Then she clenched her hand once more in front of her. She was staring at her lap, not at Priabin. 'I don't — I can't go on with it, Dmitri…' Then she looked up. 'If only I could go back — you don't know how much I'd give just to go back!'

Priabin appeared to be about to speak, but then he slumped back against the window blind, his eyes staring at Gant.

Gant said quietly, 'Come with me to the border, Anna — get me out, and I promise they'll let you go. If you let him kill me, they'll turn you over to his people. His plan won't work because the Company won't let it work. My way, you have a chance — his way, you have none.'

'You'll be his hostage, Anna.'

'Sure she will. But, there's a way out at the end of it. All you'd do for her is to put her in the bag for the rest of her life — do you want that? Really want it?'

Priabin blinked slowly, heavily. His features expressed confusion, indecision. 'I can't let you go,' he said. Gant thought that he was speaking to Anna, but the remark was addressed to himself. 'I can't do that.'

Must be no more than three or four minutes, Gant told himself. Stay with this.

'You could go home, resign from the ministry, take a job where you're no use to them. They'll be angry, but they won't be able to stop you. And they won't turn you over just for the hell of it.' His voice was soft, the syllables like careful footsteps through a minefield. She looked up at him, attentive, almost beginning to hope. Gant squashed a sense that he might be lying to her, that the Company might indeed turn against her and betray her to the KGB.

'I'll help,' he said. 'Get me to Finland — keep this guy off my back until we reach the border, and I promise you'll walk away free. Come to Helsinki with me — ' he added urgently. Two minutes, was the train already beginning to slow — ? 'Talk to the Company-talk to Charlie Buckholz or to Aubrey…' The names confused her, but he pressed on: 'Aubrey would be on your side. It wouldn't take long, don't come unless you want to. Just get me over the border alive. That way you have a chance — his way, there isn't a hope in hell you can get away free!'

The train was slowing -

Priabin stared at Gant, then at Anna. When his gaze returned to the American, there was a deep, unsatisfied hatred in his eyes. The pistol was still aimed at the centre of Gant's chest, and the man was still intent upon using it. It depended on Anna. Now they were silent and watching him once more, he had no chance of jumping from the door of the slowing train.

The lights of a small town through the snow. White fields. The green splash of a signal light at the trackside.

'Well?' he asked.

Anna looked up. She reached for Priabin's hand, and clutched it. Still looking at Gant, she said: 'I must do it, Dmitri. I must do as he suggests — '

'No!'

'My darling, I must. You've wanted only to help me — we kept it from each other, but all you wanted to do was help me. Now, please help me. Help me, my darling. Let him go, and let me go with him. Don't follow us, don't stop us… I'll come back, I swear. You know I will. But let him get away, and we can both be free. They will do it, won't they?' she asked Gant.

He nodded. 'The people I know — they'll let you go. I swear they will.'

Station lights, rushing at first, then slowing to walking pace as they passed the window.

'Quickly, Anna,' he said, looking at Priabin. The gun was cradled in his lap. His face was miserable, angry and defeated and fearful for her safety.

'Dmitri — '

He nodded, just as the train sighed to a complete stop. 'Yes,' he said, then added to Gant: 'It had better work, American. It had better work!'

'It will. I swear — '

'Then get your coats and luggage. I'll escort you — '

'No,' Gant said.

'Yes. Your excuse for leaving the train here is flimsy, suspicious. With me, you will be asked no questions.'

'And afterwards?'

'I'll wait for the next train. I'll wait for you in Leningrad, Anna — '

She rushed into his arms while Gant gathered the coats and luggage. He felt the ache of their passion, the intensity of their relationship. He had walked through the minefield, but until now he had never realised quite how dangerous it had been. And, deep inside himself, he felt something he could only describe as envy.

He owed her. He would, at least, try on her behalf -

'Come on,' he said, turning to them, interrupting their kiss, almost embarrassed by it. 'Hurry — '

Brooke shone his lamp on the nosewheel strut of the Firefox for what might have been the tenth or twelfth time. He could not help his reaction, avoid the jumpy tension in his body. It reminded him vividly of that period of childhood when he had avoided walking on the cracks in paving stones, always followed the borders of rugs and carpets, always checked and checked again that the light was properly switched off — at first it had needed four checks, then six, then eight… He had thought he was mad, until he discovered that half his classmates engaged in the same obsessive routines. Checking the ropes around the three undercarriage legs was now the same kind of thing. He felt almost obsessional. They had to be right. The raising of the aircraft was about to begin, everything depended on these three nylon ropes, on his checking them…

He bobbed beside the nosewheel strut. The rope passed several times around it, wound over heavy padding to avoid damage to the undercarriage leg. For that reason, too, the rope was high on the leg. He tugged, quite unnecessarily, at the nylon rope once more, ran the beam of his lamp along it as it stretched away towards the shore.

Yes, he thought, nodding his head — yes.

He turned his back on the aircraft, his lamp's beam running Over the MO-MAT that reached down from the shore to the nosewheel. The portable roadway was of fibreglass-reinforced plastic and lay over the mud and rubble of the lake bed, the incline of the shore itself and the trampled snow of the cleared site beyond that. The Firefox would be winched along its non-skid surface, moving easily and smoothly, in theory, up onto dry land. The light bounced and wobbled over the waffle-like appearance of the MO-MAT, then Brooke's head bobbed out of the water and he began walking easily up the lessened incline of the shore. As he removed his facemask, he saw Waterford and Buckholz, dressed in white parkas, silhouetted against the lights suspended from the perimeter trees. They were standing together on the MO-MAT, waiting for him.

Snow flew across the glow of the lights as Buckholz waved his hand in Brooke's direction. The SBS lieutenant returned the wave. It was all right — they could begin.

'Yes,' he said, nodding. He turned to look at the frozen lake, just as the American and Waterford were doing. 'Anything in the latest report from the Nimrod?' he asked. An SBS corporal took his air tanks and facemask, and Brooke climbed into the parka. He did not feel cold.

'Sod all,' Waterford replied. 'Nothing.'

'They still don't have Gant — he's on his way to Leningrad,' Buckholz said. 'He didn't tell them.'

Through the curtains of snow that seemed dragged across the scene at irregular intervals, Brooke located a lump of timber floating in the patch of clear water. It was wrapped in Dayglo tape, and was attached by a thin line to the nose of the Firefox. Beyond it, more difficult to make out but spectrally visible, a huge crucifix of planks and logs, similarly wrapped with luminous tape, represented the position of the aircraft under the ice. He and his divers had measured that outline. Now, all that remained was for the ice marked by the cross to be broken where it had thinly reformed after the plane had sunk. Then the winching operation could begin.

Brooke sensed the excitement in the American beside him. It matched his own. Waterford looked grim, but the expression was habitual. Brooke could not deduce any meaning from it.

Buckholz pressed an R/T handset to the side of his face, watching Brooke as he did so. 'OK, diving party. Let's start clearing that ice.'

Brooke's SBS divers moved down to the shore. Two of them entered the clear water, walking like penguins down the MO-MAT, then drifting out towards the edge of the ice. They reached the crucifix's tip, and immediately began sawing at the new, thin ice, working outwards from each other around the cross. Two more SBS men moved onto the ice itself, armed with steel spikes and hammers. White light reached out towards them as one of the powerful lamps was adjusted.

Even through the deadened, snow-filled air, he could hear the hammering of steel spikes into the ice. To these, lines would be attached so that sawn-off sections of ice could be towed to the shore. His divers were furiously at work cutting away chunks as the steel spikes were hammered in. He glanced at his watch. Twelve-fifteen. On schedule.

Two plates of ice were dragged by lines across the widening patch of clear water to the shore, then manhandled onto the thicker ice. Twelve-thirty. Lengths of timber floated in clear water now. The cross was losing shape. The sawing and hammering continued.

They had left the ice intact for as long as possible for reasons of security. A Dayglo crucifix, too, would signal their presence, even in bad visibility, to any low-flying aircraft or helicopter. Two hours earlier, they had had cause to consider the delay a wise one. Helicopters had been reported by Eastoe, heading north-west into Finland. Agreed, they were well to the south of them at first and later north-east as they cruised the area of the lake where Gant had been captured for almost an hour. Then they had retraced the route he had taken to that lake.

Buckholz's party had waited in darkness and silence for their approach. It never came. The weather had worsened and the helicopters, picked up with difficulty by Eastoe's most sophisticated radar, had changed course and headed south-east to re-cross the border. Immediately, the lights had been switched on and the crucifix laid out on the ice to represent the fuselage and wings of the Firefox. Since then, Eastoe had reported no activity along the border. Presumably the Russians had decided against further helicopter reconnaissance in the weather conditions that now prevailed. It indicated that they did not know where to look, were ignorant of the location of the aircraft.

More plates of ice were dragged out of the water, which now receded to the edge of visibility. Then the scene was further obscured by a curtain of snow. The corporal had thrust a mug of coffee into Brooke's hand which he had accepted almost without noticing. He sipped at it now. Twelve-thirty.

He turned his head. Royal Engineers were checking the nylon lines with the same kind of obsessiveness he had shown in relation to the undercarriage of the Firefox. Some abrasive surfaces were padded with logs of felled timber. The three trees which held the chain-lever winches were not equidistant, nor were they in a straight line. Therefore, the winching operation would be complex, and slow, in order to prevent snagging and rubbing against the undercarriage doors and ensure that the airframe ascended the ramp of the MO-MAT in as straight a line as possible. The officer in charge of the party would be required to monitor the speed and progress of each winch and line — constantly.

Out on the ice, his divers had handed over the task of driving in the remaining steel pins to RAF engineers. They dropped into the dark water, to make a thorough final check for underwater obstacles — they had spent hours clearing rocks and rubble that afternoon — and to take up their monitoring positions. They would be watching the undercarriage for signs of strain or weakness, the ropes for the same — and both for the first movements.

Twelve-forty. Brooke's coffee was cold in the mug, and he threw it away with a flick of his wrist. It dyed the trampled snow at the edge of the MO-MAT's carpet. Two of the shore party were brushing at the waffle-like surface, keeping it as free of snow as possible.

Brooke watched Moresby, the squadron-leader from the Field Recovery Unit at Abingdon and their Senior Engineering Officer, ambling towards them. He nodded to Buckholz and Waterford, taking up the stance of a spectator immediately, hands thrust into his pockets, parlca hood pulled around his face, shoulders hunched.

'As soon as we reach the level,' he announced as if he had been engaged in a conversation for some time and was-now answering one of a series of questions. 'I'd expect her stopped — oh, here,' he added, waving his arms to indicate the area just behind them where the slope of the shore all but disappeared. 'I've had a word with the engineers and they're fairly certain we can hold her on the winches. In fact, I'd like to have a look inside the cockpit as soon as she clears the water.'

Buckholz, unabashed, nodded. 'OK, Squadron-Leader. Any auto-destruct mechanism is entirely your baby. We'll order the winches to stop just as soon as she's clear of the water.'

'Splendid. The anti-radar capability and the thought-guidance systems must be protected by some kind of auto-destruct. Since the bang-seat wasn't used, they may not be armed. But they could, just could, be armed by immersion in water — some of these devices are. So, I think I'd better find out before the aircraft dries off.' He smiled perfunctorily, saluted quickly, and ambled off once more.

'It won't be much of a bang,' Waterford commented. 'They won't have rigged the whole airframe to blow up, much too dangerous. Russian pilots are very thick. Might kill the squadron-leader, of course, and give Aubrey a heart attack when he hears he's lost all the best stuff on board…'

'Thank you, Major,' Buckholz retorted.

Out on the ice, the last plates were being manhandled onto the firmer ice. The channel of clear water stretched away into the darkness beyond the lights. Bits of luminous wood floated randomly. The cross had gone. The shore party had begun to return, and his divers were walking out of the water up the slope of the temporary roadway. They were grinning as they removed their facemasks. Brooke nodded, and one of the divers turned and slipped back into the water to take up a monitoring station. Brooke watched the beam of his lamp flicker palely, like the track of some glowing fish, as it moved away towards one of the wings of the submerged Firefox.

'Tell me, Major,' Buckholz began, 'did Aubrey call this operation "Nessie" because he thought he wouldn't get the airframe out of the water?' He was smiling as he asked the question.

Waterford tossed his head. 'Aubrey's idea of a joke, Mr. Buckholz — just his idea of a joke.' He smiled briefly, then added: 'Time for me to check with the Apaches out there. Excuse me.'

Waterford's huge, solid calm had acted like a barrier, but now that he had moved away Brooke could sense the electricity of the scene, the tension felt by each man. The ice was clear, the lines checked, the divers on-station. Moresby was standing with the party of Royal Engineers at the rear of the scene, upstage. They were checking drills, and walkie-talkies. Then he scoured the ground around each of the trees selected to take one of the winches, checking anchorages and knots. Eventually, he waved a hand towards Buckholz and moved back towards Brooke and the American.

Brooke could smell soup on the snowy air. And coffee. It would be served when — if — their first attempt proved successful and they got the airframe to move. Then, safe in the knowledge that it was possible to move the plane, they would be given a ten-minute break for food and drink. The winching would take much of the night.

Buckholz's head swivelled inside the fur-edged hood of his white parka as he checked with each section of the operation by walkie-talkie and hand-signals. Then he turned to Brooke. His grin was nervous, his face pale with cold and excitement. Brooke grinned and gestured him to begin.

'OK, everyone — let's catch "Nessie", shall we?' he announced, and immediately turned to watch the winches take up the first of the slack in the nylon ropes.

Buckholz turned his back on the lake and looked towards the three teams manning the winches. As the two men on each winch levered back and forth easily and rhythmically, the nylon ropes tautened. The teams slowed almost immediately at a command from the Royal Engineer officer. The central pair stopped winching altogether at his hand signal only moments later; quickly followed by the pair to the left. The RE captain allowed the right-hand winch to continue as he moved forward to check the relative tension of each rope. A few seconds later, he made a chopping motion with his hand, and the third winch stopped.

Moresby, joining him, spoke briefly, then nodded.

Buckholz heard the captain call: 'Numbers One, Two, Three — haul away,' and the ropes stretched, creaking slightly in the silence. Buckholz noticed the science only then, at the first renewed sound of winching. He was aware, too, of the stillness of everyone there, except the six men at the bases of the trees which anchored the winches. Buckholz could sense their effort now; both men on each winch were straining. 'All stop?' the captain called out. The lines had lifted from the surface of the MO-MAT. To Buckholz, they appeared overstretched, ready to break. Then he felt the silence again and realised he had thrust his hands into his pockets because they were trembling.

One of the SBS divers slipped into the cleared dark water and swam to the lines in turn, tying an orange marker to each one at the point where it emerged from the water. Moresby, like some parody of a keen-eyed, grasping factory owner, had walked down to the shore and was studying the diver, as if about to sack or reprimand him. Hands behind his back, head craned forward, back slightly bent.

'Haul away, One, Two and Three!' he called out as the diver turned and swam towards him. The levers of the winches pumped evenly. More quickly, rhythmically, Buckholz felt, as if-

He watched the flags on the lines, almost mocking Moresby's intent, craning stance. Buckholz understood only what he was looking at, hardly considered what it would mean if -

He grinned, and exhaled, seeming to hear a communal sigh in the windy, snow-flown clearing. Moresby straightened up, hands still clasped behind his back, chest and stomach a little thrust out as if continuing to portray the factory-owner whose school history-book image would not desert Buckholz's thoughts.

The orange marker flags, all three of them, had moved off the surface of the water. The Firefox had moved. A facemasked head bobbed above the surface, gave a thumbs-up signal, and disappeared. The Firefox had rolled forward, perhaps no more than a few inches, but the undercarriage had withstood the initial strain of moving.

'One, Two and Three — haul away!' Moresby called over his shoulder, and the captain hand-signalled his three teams to begin in unison. The even rhythm of the levers was barely audible above the wind. Buckholz felt his heart racing, and grinned to himself.

His walkie-talkie bleeped.

'Yes?'

'Mr. Aubrey, sir — sorry, sir, it's Squadron-Leader Moresby he wants… sorry, Mr. Buckholz.'

'OK, son.'

Curiosity made him follow Moresby towards the windbreak which half-concealed the commpack and its operator. The RAF officer detoured to nod his congratulations to the three teams on the winches. The men were bent and heated now, creating the impression of labour as much as speed, effort more than achievement. They would be relieved within ten minutes by fresh teams. Moresby had already picked up the microphone. The look on his face puzzled Buckholz. Something like outrage. Again, he could not help but picture the British factory-owner, this time faced with the prospect of a strike or a Luddite wrecking his machines. He smiled, but the expression vanished a moment later.

'You want to ask me about what?' Moresby asked, his face expressing disbelief now that he had spoken. 'Are you serious? Correction — you cannot be serious! Over.' He looked up and saw Buckholz, and immediately waved him into the tiny enclave of the windbreak. The radio operator's glance was vivid with humour and the prospect of a quarrel.

'What is it?' Buckholz asked, and was waved to silence by Moresby, who was once more listening to Aubrey in Kirkenes.

Immediately Aubrey finished speaking, Moresby replied, his face flushed despite the cold. Within the hood of his grey-white parka, he appeared almost apoplectic. 'I can't even begin to answer your question, Mr. Aubrey. I have not worked with you on previous occasions, and I don't understand your sense of humour. What you propose is preposterous! Over.'

'What the hell's going on?' Buckholz growled.

'He wants me — ' Moresby began, then swallowed before he added ' — to tell him whether the aircraft could be prepared to fly again… to fly from here, to be exact! Absolutely out of the question — '

'You realise what this means?' Buckholz snapped. 'He doesn't ask idle questions. It means the Sikorsky isn't coming, old boy, old buddy — he's just found out and he's clutching at straws. Give me the mike, Squadron-Leader.' Buckholz pressed one earpiece against the side of his head, and said, 'Kenneth, this is Charles. Are you certain the Skyhook won't make it? Over.'

Immediately, Aubrey replied, 'I'm sorry, Charles, but — yes, I'm afraid so. There is no possibility of it arriving before the deadline — until it is well past, in fact. Over.'

'So, where did you get this craiy idea from, Kenneth? The squadron-leader here doesn't think much of it.'

'Absolute rubbish!' Moresby foamed.

'I realise that,' Aubrey snapped. 'Very tiresome. Over.'

'I think you're as crazy as he does, in case you're interested. Over.'

'Charles, there is simply no time to waste. I need a shopping list Curtin can transmit to Bardufoss — if they haven't got what is required, then we may be in trouble. Please put Moresby back on. You listen if you want to…' There was the faintest tinge of a dry laughter in Aubrey's tone. It surprised and even angered Buckholz. It made the depth of his reaction to the first movement of the aircraft seem somehow exaggerated and adolescent.

'Listen,' he snapped, 'we have no one to fly the damn thing!' Then he added waspishly, as if formality was a further element of the ridiculous: 'Over!'

'Gant and Source Burgoyne should be crossing the border into Finland within an hour or two. Gant will fly the aircraft.' Aubrey sounded self-congratulatory. Buckholz understood why Giles Pyott, out of Aubrey's hearing, referred to him as a gifted, restless, hyperactive child. He was brilliant — a brilliant pain in the ass for much of the time.

'You mean you got an airplane that's still at the bottom of a lake and a pilot who's still inside Russia, and that's the groundplan for your idea? You're crazy if you think that will work!'

Moresby snatched at the headset. The radio operator plugged in a second headset and offered it to Buckholz with a grin. 'Top ratings for this phone-in show, sir,' he murmured. Buckholz snorted. It was the laughter he could not comprehend. From Aubrey in particular…

Laughter in the dark. Game-playing. And yet people like Aubrey, even Pyott, made him feel heavy-footed and stolid, somehow colonial and gauche. All of it angered him.

Before Moresby could speak, he snapped, 'Get off the air, Kenneth. You're an asshole for ever suggesting such a crazy scheme! If the Skyhook can't make it, we'll dismantle what we can. You get a Chinook from Bardufoss to take us out before the deadline expires. Over.'

'Sorry, Charles — I said you could listen. Is Moresby still there?'

'I'm here!'

'Good. Now, Squadron-Leader, perhaps you'll be so good as to try to answer my question. Could the aircraft be prepared for a flight of, say — fifteen to twenty minutes duration, at sub-sonic speed, of course? A distance of a couple of hundred miles? Please think very carefully.'

Both Moresby and Buckholz had, by some unspoken common assent, turned their backs on the commpack and its operator, and shuffled to the extent of their headset leads; as if to remove themselves from the communicable lunacy of Kenneth Aubrey. Both of them watched the fresh teams at the winches slip quickly into the easy, regular rythm of the levering. The ropes, at the edge of clear vision out on the dark water, shook off silver drops of light. The marker flags were perhaps a few feet nearer the shore.

A diver's head popped above the water. He removed his facemask and mouthpiece, and they heard him shout: 'Port wheels are almost on top of a rock. Stop winching and give me a crowbar!'

'One, Two, and Three — stop winching!'

Brooke, the skirts of his park gathered up around his body, waded out into the water, which moved sluggishly around his legs, and handed the crowbar to his diver. Their conversation was brief. The diver disappeared.

Moresby seemed to recollect Aubrey. 'I've already told you that it's impossible, Mr. Aubrey. Please forgive my outburst — didn't mean to sound raped.'

'You were, buddy — or you will be,' Buckholz growled beside him.

'But it is impossible. I'm concentrating on what kind of auto-destruct may or may not be attached to the thought-guidance systems, the on-board computer and the anti-radar. If we don't locate the auto-destruct assuming there is one, you won't have anything left that's worth the time and effort already spent. Over.'

'I realise that, Moresby. But, please, simply tell me — Captain Curtin is listening, pen poised — what would be needed if the Firefox were to fly again — from that lake?'

The diver's head popped above the surface again. Brooke had waited for him, and took the crowbar. Both of them gave the thumbs-up, and the engineer captain immediately ordered the three teams to recommence winching. Moresby sighed, then with an angry reluctance returned his attention to Aubrey. Buckholz willed him to utterly refute the Englishman as he felt the impact of the news concerning the Skyhook helicopter spread through him. They couldn't get the Firefox out. As simple as that. They were winching it out of the lake only to be unable to do any more than steal a few of its systems and instruments and samples of its airframe materials… and photographs. Countless photographs.

Buckholz understood Aubrey's refusal to surrender to the inevitable. But he could not share the man's new, impossible scheme. Which, he reminded himself, Aubrey was conjuring out of thin air just because he left himself without any fall back plan!

'Hot air blowers,' Moresby snapped as if the information was being extracted by physical pain. 'Undercover job, drying the airframe. That takes care of the airframe. Now you have a dry lump of metal. Do you wish me to go on? Over.'

'Please continue, Squadron-Leader. All this is most interesting. Over.'

Moresby sighed at the sarcasm in Aubrey's voice. Buckholz watched the three orange flags dancing like great butterflies above the dark, soupy water as the ropes strained.

'Engines next, then. Drying out — then you have problems with igniters, lubrication, barometric controls, engine ancillaries, and fuel, of course. Number three — hydraulics and pneumatics. They could be OK, after such a short immersion, but everything, repeat everything, would have to be thoroughly checked otherwise you could end up without undercarriage, airbrakes, flaps. Four — the electrics. It would depend on what level of operation would be acceptable. Again, everything would have to be thoroughly checked, and any damage would have to be made good. You do have a private pipeline into the Mikoyan production line, so that we have easy access to Russian spares, I suppose?' Moresby snorted; a noise not much like laughter but which Buckholz assumed was the air force officer's means of expressing amusement. 'Five — instruments… the air-driven ones may be OK, since the water may not have got into the instrument heads — but, the electrically-driven gyro ones — I wouldn't even like to speculate on that. Over.'

Buckholz sensed that Moresby had flung a great douche of cold water in Aubrey's direction and expected his ploy to work. He imagined Curtin scribbling furiously, shaking his head almost without pause. When he heard Aubrey's voice, however, he realised that he was undaunted.

'What about armaments? Over.'

'For Heaven's sake, Aubrey!' Moresby exclaimed. 'You'd have to talk to my armourer, but my guess is that you're on to a hiding to nothing on that tack.'

'I see. But, thus far, apart from things mechanical and electronic, I would need experts in airframes, engines, hydraulics, control systems, electrics, avionics, instruments and weapons… in other words, a full ground-crew who would be experienced in servicing military aircraft. That doesn't seem too tall an order… Over?'

'Don't forget the runway, fuel, oxygen, a set of jacks, tools that fit — I simply cannot see any way in which it is feasible. Impossible in less than twenty-four hours, which is what we have. Impossible in three days or more, even at Abingdon — never mind Lapland!'

'Get off the guy's back, Aubrey!' Buckholz snapped. 'You haven't got a chance with this. You couldn't even get the stuff he needs here, never mind the men. Forget it. Arrange for that Chinook to pick us up at dusk tomorrow. Jesus — !'

'What's the matter! Over.'

'She — she's on her way up, Aubrey — she's on her way up!'

He had noticed the silence. Now, cheering filled it. The winches paused, the orange marker flags danced. Pearls of water dropped from the taut nylon lines. Cheering.

The nose of the Firefox had slipped above the water, black and snoutlike, ugly and still threatening. Above it, like eyes, the perspex of the cockpit canopy stared at them. It was a sea creature, Aubrey's Nessie. Watching them, waiting for them to be foolish enough to enter the water.

'Is she-?' he heard Aubrey ask in a quiet voice.

'Beautiful,' Buckholz said. 'Dangerous and beautiful. My God, when Gant first saw that — '

'Now tell me not to try. Over,' Aubrey replied sardonically.

'It's still impossible,' Moresby interrupted. The winches began again. Inch by inch, the snout and cockpit slipped higher out of the water, sometimes lost in the flurries of snow, sometimes clearer and more deadly in appearance.

'The weather, Kenneth?'

'At dawn, something of a lull is anticipated… enough for a Hercules to make a low-level drop. One drop, of everything you need. Then the weather will close in again.'

'So no one gets out of here?'

'The Met reports anticipate another such lull, late in the afternoon. The fronts will allow two windows in the weather, at dawn and around dusk. Over.'

'That means less than twelve hours, Aubrey — '

'I realise that, Squadron-Leader. However, you could have everything you need dropped on the lake at first light. If it doesn't work, I promise you will have my reluctant permission to utterly destroy the aircraft. Over.'

Involuntarily, Buckholz's head flicked round so that he was looking at the Firefox. The leading edges of its huge wings were beginning to emerge. Now, it looked like something captured, caught in a net and dragged from its own element into the snowy air; a great manta ray rather than an aircraft. It mounted the slope, moving slowly, very slowly out of the water. Menaced. Yes, Buckholz thought, it already exuded menace, even though there was no possibility it could ever fly again.

'I see,' Moresby replied.

'It doesn't have a runway and we don't have any way of putting it back on the ice,' Buckholz said quickly, aghast at the clear sound of disappointment in his voice. 'Over.'

'Tractor tug and a great deal more MO-MAT,' Moresby snapped. 'Over.'

'Gentlemen,' Aubrey said calmly, all trace of satisfaction carefully excluded from his voice. 'How long before the aircraft is ashore? Over.'

'Two hours at least. Over.'

'Then we have two hours, Squadron-Leader, Charles. I suggest we begin talking in true earnest, don't you? Over.'

Before he replied, Buckholz glanced at the Firefox. And felt Aubrey's stupidity in having no fall-back, and his illogical, desperate brilliance in daring to assume the airplane could fly out of Lapland. And, he admitted, he too wanted her to fly again. She had to fly -

He glanced at Moresby, who shrugged. Then the air force officer nodded, even smiled. A tight little movement of his lips beneath his clipped moustache. 'Very well,' he breathed in the tone of an indulgent parent. 'Very well.'

'OK, Kenneth. Give us a few minutes to round up some people whose opinions we need — then we'll throw it on the porch and see if the cat laps it up!' Buckholz felt a strange, almost boyish exhilaration. In front of him, the wings continued to emerge from the water. The black snout seemed to seek him, the cockpit to stare at him.

Menace.

'Just make sure you don't lose Superpilot at the last fence, uh, Kenneth?'

Vladimirov yawned. It was an exhalation of his tension rather than an expression of weariness. He quickly stifled it. The room was small and cramped, the tape-recorder on the folding table almost its only furniture apart from a number of chairs stacked against one wall. The bare room accommodated himself, Andropov, and the senior interrogator from the KGB Unit on the Mira Prospekt. All three of them leaned their elbows on the table in the attitude of weary gamblers. A sheaf of pages — hurriedly typed and corrected and now overlain with the interrogator's scribble — lay near the recorder. Vladimirov had a pad and a ball-point pen in front of him. He was no longer concerned to disguise the fact that he doodled occasionally. There were few words on his pad, and little meaning. Andropov's pad was clean, unmarked.

Vladimirov had lost his eagerness to hear Gant's sufferings under drugs, his hallucinations and illusions, his terror at dying and his attempts to persuade them that he was not. He had listened to the two interrogations several times in that cramped and almost foetid room, and he loathed something in himself that had actually anticipated the experience. When they had first arrived he had wanted to hear them. Now, he did not.

The tape continued in silence. Gant had hit his head on the floor, silencing himself. Nothing -

Vladimirov had learned nothing from re-hearing Gant screaming for them to listen to him. Even with the volume turned down, it was horrid. He had helped to torture Gant. It was his shame that was being replayed in front of the Chairman of the KGB.

Slowly, he looked up, and shrugged, 'Nothing,' he murmured.

'Mm. Your opinion?' Andropov snapped at the interrogator, who flinched before he replied deferentially.

'Comrade Chairman-' he began. Andropov appeared to be impatient, but could not quite bring himself to wave the deference aside. Instead, he merely pursed his mouth and nodded the man along. 'I–I am not familiar with the kind of information the general is seeking.'

'Was the American about to reveal something or not?'

'You mean-'

'From his condition, from the frenzy in his voice and manner at the end of the tape, was he trying to tell you something?' Andropov had begun to doodle on his pad as he talked. Strong bold curves which vanished beneath heavy geometric shapes.

'Yes, Comrade Chairman.'

'Then, what was it?'

'I-that I cannot say.' The senior interrogator shrugged, brushed his hand through his hair, stared at his notes, shuffled them, looked up once more. He spread his hands. 'I — he believed in me as an American general, and he believed that the man he could not see was Aubrey, the British — '

'I know who Aubrey is,' Andropov interrupted icily.

'Yes, of course. He — he was attempting to assure us that he was not dying — '

'Because he knew he hadn't burned in the explosion you pretended had occurred on the MiG-31-yes, yes. We all understand that much. Now, what was he going to tell you? Vladimirov, surely there are some clues in what he said, what he couldn't help letting out?' Andropov's pale eyes gleamed behind his gold-rimmed spectacles. Vladimirov felt pressed. The Chairman's perspective was a larger one than his own. He wanted an answer so that he could avoid the First Secretary's censure, because if it was used against him, he might remain no more than a minor figure on the Politburo. However, his desire for an answer was no more urgent than Vladimirov's own. He wanted the MiG-31 more than ever. His insurance would be the recovery of the aircraft.

'Perhaps, but I can't see it. He does not talk — anywhere — about landing the aircraft.'

'And yet he must have landed it?'

'Of course he did!' Vladimirov snapped testily. 'Do you think he jumped out without using his parachute?' Almost immediately, he signalled a silent apology. 'Yes, he landed it,' he said more softly. Then he looked at the interrogator. 'Very well. Rewind the tape to the point — oh, where he first claims he wasn't burned… find that.'

The interrogator looked at his rough transcript and then rewound the tape. He followed the numbers flicking back on the counter, checking it with the column of numerals at the edge of each page. Then he stabbed his finger down on the Stop button. He looked at Andropov, who nodded. The tape began to play.

The mimic playing the part of Aubrey cried out immediately: 'He's not dying!' Vladimirov leaned forward, head cocked, intent upon the charade, trying to hear something through the illusion, through the familiarity of the dialogue; through his recurring shame. The interrogator in his guise as the American general murmured that Gant was, indeed, dying. Vladimirov remembered, and could clearly envisage Gant's hand clawing as if with a life of its own up the uniform worn by the interrogator. He had pulled out the earpiece through which the interrogator was receiving reports from those monitoring the television cameras focused on the bed. Gant had tried to pull the interrogator towards him…

'Not burned, not burned…' he had heard the American repeating. He seemed pressed to tell something, to explain, to correct their mistake. Vladimirov could not prevent the pluck of tension and excitement he felt in his tight chest. Not burned, not burned … What had been happening in his drugged, confused, disorientated head at that moment? What had he wanted to say so desperately?

Andropov's fingers tapped silently on the edge of the table, as if accompanying the words with appropriate music. The interrogator was merely performing a charade of concentration. He did not know what to look for. He had not been a pilot.

'Not burned… drowning… drowning — on fire, but water, water…' Gant continued on the tape, his voice mounting, losing control, trying to convince them that their diagnosis was wrong, that he was not dying of burns. 'Not burned… landed — '

'Stop it!' Vladimirov shouted. The interrogator jumped, then pressed the button. 'Very well — you heard that? He said that he landed-'

'And where does that get us?' Andropov asked with withering sarcasm. 'You already knew that, didn't you?' He smiled thinly. 'Now, where did he land? Which one of your roads or tracks?'

Vladimirov shrugged. 'Begin — again,' he said.

'… not burned-water…' Gant said immediately, then there was nothing but the noises of rustling clothes, hesitant footsteps. Vladimirov remembered, then. Gant had slumped back on the bed at that point. A little later, he was to sit up once more, and scream out listen and explain!

But he had never explained, though they had listened. In his frenzy, his legs had become entangled in the bedclothes and he had toppled out of bed, striking his head and knocking himself unconscious. End of the affair -

Footsteps on the tape — or was it Andropov's drumming fingers? Breathing, murmurs that were indistinct, someone cursing, fumbling with something. Everyone waiting for the moment that never arrived.

Not burned… Gant was not burned. He knew that. Vladimirov looked down at his pad. Almost unnoticed, he had torn off the sheet of doodles and had virtually carved words onto the sheet beneath.

He counted. Gant refuted his having been burned five times. He mentioned fire, though — just once. Vladimirov realised he had scribbled each of the words separately, each time they were spoken. Taking Ganfs fevered dictation. He had written water, too. Gant had said that, apparently, three times. And, drowning — twice…

Burning, drowning, water, fire, landed…

Vladimirov realised how much depended upon the tapes, the solution, the moment. He had to find the answer — !

Water three times, drowning twice, landed once… His ballpoint pen almost surreptitiously linked the three circled words by trailing lines. Drowning and water were like balloons floating yet anchored above the word landed…

He remembered Andropov asking about the aircraft being landed on a frozen lake -

And then he knew

Landed — water — drowning.

He had broken the code. He knew what Gant had done. He had landed the MiG-31 on a frozen lake, and the ice had given way and he had almost drowned. And there was no trace of the aircraft because the water had frozen over it.

He had discounted the lakes in the designated area because there was no shelter for that black aircraft standing on white snow and ice. But, under the ice-!

His hand was shaking. He looked up, to find Andropov watching him intently. Vladimirov hardly heard Gant shouting for attention in the moment before he tumbled to the floor. Andropov gestured for the tape to be switched off, and Vladimirov announced in a quiet.hoarse voice:

'The MiG-31 is at present under the ice of a frozen lake, Comrade Chairman. I am certain of it.'

'Explain.' Vladimirov did so. Andropov stared at him, his face expressionless. Then, in the ensuing silence, which seemed endless, his features became intently reflective. Andropov was evidently weighing the consequences of his acceptance of the general's theory. Eventually, the Chairman spoke. 'I think we should consult the map. Perhaps you would lead on, General Vladimirov.' Then he turned to the senior interrogator. 'That will be all, Comrade Deputy Director. Thank you.' It was evident that the senior interrogator derived little comfort from the flat, non-committal tones.

Vladimirov reached the door. Andropov followed him into the huge underground room. Heads turned to them, then returned to appointed tasks, as they crossed the floor together and climbed the ladder onto the gallery. Expectant faces looked up as they entered the control room of the command centre. Yet no one joined them at the fibre-optic map. Finnish Lapland remained as they had left it, except for a dotted red line that had inched south-east during their absence.

'Well?' Andropov asked, surrendering the consequences to Vladimirov.

The general traced the dotted red line with his finger. The reconnaissance party had made good time, moving on a very narrow front, retracing Gant's journey… from a lake, he reminded himself. Where? His finger continued southeastward, moving swiftly over the roads and tracks he had at first nominated. How could he have been so stupid — ?

Two lakes, almost in a direct line with the route of the reconnaissance party; certainly within the tolerances which allowed for slight changes of direction by the American. One of the lakes was rounded, the other longer and narrower. He recalled the scale. Either might have done…

And there was a third lake to the north of that pair, and a fourth to the east. Four lakes. The red dotted line was closest to the pair of lakes. His finger tapped the surface of the map.

'There,' he said, 'First priority — a reconnaissance of those two lakes.' He stared at Androppv.until the chairman silently nodded his head. Then he said, more loudly, 'Major, please check these co-ordinates, then transmit them to our reconnaissance party. At once!

A young major in the GRU hurried forward to join them at the map.

ELEVEN: Crossing The Border

Harris stopped the hired car, switched off the engine, and turned in his seat. For a moment he appeared to study Gant and Anna with a cool objectivity, then he said, 'I'll just call in and check with my people in Leningrad. The border is ten miles up the road…' He pointed through a windscreen that was already smeared with snow now that the wipers had been switched off. 'I don't want us to get caught out by any alarm or increased security. The Finns are waiting for us. They'll have signalled Leningrad in case of trouble. We passed a telephone box on the edge of the village.' He smiled. 'Best not to park near it — if any one sees me now, they'll assume I'm a local. Just sit tight. I won't be long.'

Harris opened the door. Snow gusted in. He climbed out and slammed the door behind him. Gant turned his head and watched him trudge away, back towards the few scattered lights of the tiny hamlet through which they had passed a minute earlier. Harris had pulled the car off the main road, into a lay-by which was masked by tall bushes heavy with snow.

Harris disappeared from view. Gant turned to Anna.

'Check your papers again,' he instructed. He pulled his own documents from his breast pocket, unbuttoning his overcoat to do so. As he opened the travel documents and visas, he wondered once more about Anna. She had accepted the papers Harris had supplied, and the cover story. She had examined the documents periodically during their three-hour car journey from Kolpino, via the outskirts of Leningrad and the industrial city of Vyborg. Yet he sensed that she still in no way associated herself with them. They were like a novel she had picked out for the journey and in which she had little interest.

Harris, a British businessman with a Helsinki base and frequent opportunity for business travel inside the Soviet Union, was to pose as a Finn when they reached the border. He possessed a Finnish passport and his visas had been stamped to indicate that he had travelled from Helsinki to Leningrad a few days before. Gant and Anna were to remain as Russians, and as members of the Secretariat. They were accompanying Harris from Leningrad to inspect his facilities on behalf of the Leningrad Party. Harris was in the metallurgical business, and factories and businesses in the area covered by the Leningrad Oblast required his products.

The covers were impressive, even unnerving to a border guard. The only suspicious circumstance was the time of arrival at the border and the manner of travel. Yet, Gant knew it would work. He no longer noticed the hairpiece and the half-glasses, and in the same fashion he no longer considered the flaws in Harris's plan.

The journey helped, of course. The constant moving away and, after Moscow, the openness of the dark, snowbound countryside. Frozen lakes gleamed in scraps of moonlight between heavy snow showers. Moscow had hemmed him. It had been a huge trawl-net laid just for him. Here, he saw no evidence of the hunt and he accepted the innocent-seeming time at its face value. He even dozed in the back of the warm car, head nodding on his chest, waking periodically to glimpse the countryside or the lights of a village or see the snow rushing out of the night towards the windscreen.

But, Anna — ?

It was as if some motive force within her had seized up. She seemed incapable of action or decision. He did not even know, this close to the edge of the Soviet Union, whether she really intended to cross with them. He could imagine her opening the door of the car, even as the red and white pole began to swing up, and start walking back down the road into Russia. Also, he did not know whether Priabin was to be trusted.

At Kolpino, he had looked like a man striving to cling to the wreckage of his life; trying not to display emotions he might normally have considered womanish. He had waved them through the inspection at the station, chatting to them, strutting a little with his superior rank, dropping hints of mystery and important Party business. He had watched them into Harris's hired car, had stood in the falling light of a lamp outside the station, a solitary and enigmatic figure, as they had driven off. Gant, glancing round, had the impression of a small figure with arm aloft. And then his sense of intruding upon some private act had made him turn away. Anna had remained with her head turned to the rear window long after the bend in the road had removed him from sight.

He did not think Priabin would follow them or betray them at the border, because of Anna's safety. But, he was not quite certain. As they had all three left the train, Gant and he had come face to face for a moment. Priabin had still possessed the grim, almost fanatical look that had been on his features when he first entered their compartment — when he had intended shooting Gant.

Priabin still wanted to kill him.

'You are coming over?' Gant now asked hoarsely, slipping his papers back into his breast pocket. He fiddled with the glasses on his nose, as if working himself back into a portrayal just before going on-stage.

Anna looked up at hitn. She looked older, even in the semi-darkness. He heard her shallow, quick breathing. He thought she was very minutely shaking her head, but it did not seem to be any kind of denial. He touched her hand as it lay on her lap. The hand jumped like a startled pet, but did not withdraw.

'It's going to be all right — I promise,' he said. He had made Harris support his idea, render assurances. Anna could be got back into the Soviet Union without difficulty — via the same route and within a couple of days. Harris knew Aubrey — yes. Did Aubrey have the necessary clout with the CIA — ? Yes, Harris thought so. Yes, he didn't see any reason why she should not be let off the hook for getting Gant back to the West…

'A couple of days,' he murmured, prompted by his memories of Harris's reassurances. 'That's all it'll take, I promise you.' He smiled crookedly, sorry that she could not see clearly the reassuring expression. 'I'm big for them now — at the moment. I can get them to do what I want — get you out of it.'

Her head was shaking now. 'I can't believe it is going to work.' She looked up at him, having taken his hand. 'I do not blame you, Mitchell Gant — believe that, at least. You were just… the wrong man at the wrong time.' She might have been talking of a ruinous love-affair, one which had cost her her marriage. That heartfelt tone gave Gant an insight. For her, the relationship with Priabin had been somehow altered, perhaps even destroyed. She could not envisage a satisfactory future unless she restored her relationship with him.

Gant envied and pitied her. And realised the mutuality of their passion. Priabin's hatred, harrowed to himself alone now, was as palpable as if the man had just put his head into the car. The three hours since they had left him would have done nothing to dissipate that hatred. It would have grown, perhaps run out of control like a forest fire.

And Gant knew that Priabin would not give up, would not be content to wait in a Leningrad hotel for her return.

'Listen to me,' he said urgently. 'You love him, he loves you. What is there to be afraid of? Only people like your Case Officer — nothing more dangerous than that. And the Company will be warned off. You won't have to worry… and it won't matter how long it takes to get cosy with Dmitri again. You'll have the time to do it. For Christ's sake, Anna, just cross the border with me and I promise you everything will work out!'

He gripped her hand fiercely. It lay dormant in his fist. He dropped it onto her lap, sighed, and slumped back in his seat.

After a long silence, he heard her say softly, almost apologetically, 'Very well. I have made up my mind. You are right. I will come with you.'

He looked at her carefully. He could see the pale skin and her cheeks seemed dry. Her eyes were in shadow. The touch of her hand did not seem pretended or assumed, and he believed her.

'OK,' he said. 'You've made the right choice. I know you have.'

'Will he understand?'

'He knew all along — '

'But that was different — ' It was almost a wail.

'You mean — you weren't helping me, uh?' Gant snapped. 'I wasn't the key to his career?'

'He wouldn't think like that.'

'Maybe, maybe not. Whichever way you look at it, he owes me. He's a man with a lot of grief to unload, and I gave him all of it. I just hope he sits tight in Leningrad and boozes himself into self-pity. It could be safer for all of us.'

'You mean-?'

'I don't mean anything. Let's just hope, uh?' He was angry that he had voiced his own fears precisely at the moment she had become reconciled to accompanying him. He glanced at his watch, holding its dial close to his face.

Harris had been gone for more than fifteen minutes.

He gripped the door handle.

'I'm going to look for Harris — stay here,' he ordered.

'You think — ?' she asked fearfully, as if Priabin threatened her, too. Priabin, yes, he thought. Both of us are afraid of the same man -

'I don't think anything. He could have slipped and broken a leg. I'll be back.'

He pressed his fur hat onto his head and squinted into the blowing snow. Anna watched him as he trudged as quickly as he could out of the lay-by and onto the main road. The high bushes hid him.

Anna turned back, and stared at the thick coating of snow that obscured the windscreen. There were lighter, paper-like coverings on the side windows. The car was claustrophobic, small and cell-like. Her fears enlarged within it.

She had coped, so easily and successfully she had always coped — ! But not with this.

She rubbed her hands down her face, as if scouring her skin. She was trapped, utterly trapped. Only the American, whom she ought to have hated because he had acted as the catalyst of her ruin, offered her any hope of escape. If they would let her go — if only they would let her go!

Gant had said it didn't matter how much time it took to rebuild her relationship with Dmitri. He had promised her time in which to do it. She could only believe him, because there was no other solution. No other way out.

The door of the car opened. She turned her head and stared into Dmitri's face. Her mouth opened, as if to protest at the appearance of a ghost, and then he had climbed into the rear of the car and was holding her in his arms. She gasped and clung to him. His overcoat was chilly and wet with melting snow. His cheek was cold against her temple, but it soothed her. She held onto him, even when he made as if to push her away, because the world was no larger than the material of his coat, the cold of his cheek, the noise of his laboured breathing in her ear. Then he forced her to sit upright, holding her arms tightly enough to hurt. She studied his face in the darkness of the car. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he seemed to be searching her face for some emotion he feared to find.

'Dmitri-where…?'

'No time, Anna,' he said breathlessly, placing his gloved forefinger on her mouth. 'Listen to me. Come back with me now. Please come back with me now — !' It was an order, but more than that, a plea. As if he saw into a black future, and wished to pull her back from it as from the edge of a cliff.

'What is it?'

'What do you mean? I want you to come with me. Quickly, before Gant returns. Let him cross the border by himself. We can be in Leningrad before morning, in Moscow by noon. Look, Anna, we can explain everything. I–I can explain in some way or other why I had to leave Moscow, why I travelled to Leningrad. No one need know that you ever left the city. Come quickly now, before he returns…' He was eager to be gone, like a thief leaving a house he had ransacked. She did not understand his urgency. She did not understand why he was there, how he had followed them. There was something in his tone that lay beneath love, and she could not help her mistrust of it.

'Why? Dmitri, what's the matter — tell me…? '

Her hands gripped his arms. They appeared to be jockeying for a position whereby one could use a wrestling throw upon the other. She shook her head slightly.

'There's nothing the matter. Now, come with me, Anna — quickly, before he returns — '

She knew, then. The anxiety was clear in his voice. Knew part of it, at least. 'Where's Harris, Dmitri? Where is the driver? What will the American find?' She shook his arms.

'It doesn't matter,' he said softly.

'Tell me!'

'You killed him?'

'There was a struggle,' he answered lamely.

'No there wasn't — !' she almost screamed, outraged more by his lie than by the death of Harris. 'You killed him. Don't lie to me!'

'Come on — '

'No! Not until you tell me what will happen.'

'Anna — '

'No. What will happen?'

'Gant will be arrested at the border — perhaps even shot. Yes, best if he were shot.'

'You mean you've told them to expect him — expect us?' she asked, appalled, her hand covering her mouth, then both hands clamped upon her ears.

'No. Not yet. I came for you first.'

'Dmitri — for God's sake, what are you doing — ?'

'Saving you — saving us. Harris knew about you, Gant knows about you. He won't give himself up at the border when they try to arrest him — they'll have to kill him. You'll be safe, then.'

'No-'

'What matters most — him or us? Anna, if Gant dies no one will know you helped him. He won't be able to tell them — '

'And the CIA?' she asked bitterly. 'They will know.'

'No they won't! You can tell them he made you turn back, that he went on by himself while you returned to Leningrad… he and Harris were killed. It's easy — '

'Easy? Killing two people is easy?'

'Anna — forget all this. Just get out of the car, come with me and let him go by himself. I'll — I won't call the border post, I'll let him go. I promise he'll be safe-'

'I don't believe you — you want him to die.' She studied his face; even though he mqyed his head back and away from her, she could distinguish the gleam in his eyes. He did want Gant killed. Like a jealous lover, he wanted his rival dead.

The windows of the car were fogged. The snow was slush-like, beginning to slip down to the sills, because of the warmth inside the car; their anger. She did not know what to do. Dmitri could not protect her from the CIA. She could not let Dmitri kill Gant. Because he was Dmitri, because she could not live with him if she acquiesced… she would learn to live with Harris's death, change it from murder into something else. But not Gant. She would have known beforehand, and would never escape it. 'I can't let you…' she murmured eventually.

'What? You want to protect him?' Dmitri raged. 'You want to go on being a spy, an agent? For the Americans?'

'Not for the Americans, not for him — for us. I can't agree to his murder, I can't let you murder him! Don't you see? I can't live with that — !'

'I can,' he announced with cold solemnity. 'I want to.'

'Dmitri-'

He shook his head. 'You're coming with me, Anna,' he said, grabbing her arm. This time the pressure of his grip made her cry out. He pulled at her arm, opening the door with his other hand. 'You're coming with me! You'll forget about this, you'll forget about everything…'

'NO!'

He grunted and twisted her arm, making her scream. 'Come on, Anna,' he snarled, threatening her. 'Come on.'

He twisted her arm further, almost seeming to Anna to be on the point of breaking it. Fire spread through her wrist to her elbow to her shoulder. She cried out again, looking wildly at him, unable to understand his rage, his desire to hurt her, 'No-!'

'Come on — !' He pulled her upper body clear of the car. She lay almost horizontally on the seat. He bent and slapped her face. 'Come on, come on-!' He wrenched her arm. She screamed.

Then she felt the pressure, the agony, lessen. The skirt of his overcoat brushed her head, she saw feet slipping and struggling in the trampled snow by the wheel of the car, then something banged heavily against the front passenger door. She heard Gant's voice.

'What the hell is the matter with you?' Gant was breathing heavily, almost grunting out the words. She could hear Dmitri's rough breathing, too. She rolled back into a sitting position. Dmitri's back had wiped away the snow from the passenger window. The freezing air made her shiver violently. She held her injured arm gently, cradling it like a child in her other arm. 'That's better,' she heard Gant say. 'Just take it easy.' Then: 'You all right, Anna?'

'Yes, yes,' she managed to say thickly. Then she groaned as she moved.

'OK?'

'Yes.' She got heavily out of the car, still cradling her arm. Dmitri looked at her, horrified. Gant's arm had been across his throat, his pistol at Dmitri's forehead. Now, the American stepped back, motioning her away from Dmitri. She obeyed.

'What the hell was happening when I came up?' Gant asked. Then he added: 'You know he killed Harris?' She nodded. Addressing Dmitri, he said, 'You stupid bastard. What the hell's the matter with you? You could get us all caught!'

'You I want caught!' Dmitri snapped back.

'OK, kid, I'm the biggest villain you ever met! That I can understand — but her! You're putting her in danger. You think you can just take her back, without guarantees from the Company. You're dumb — too dumb.' Something else, something more dangerous, occurred to Gant at that moment, and he said, 'Are they expecting us? Are they?' The pistol jabbed forward, at Dmitri Priabin's stomach.

Anna gasped, then cried out, 'No! He hasn't told them yet — I swear he hasn't!'

'I believe you. You,' he added, addressing Priabin, 'what was the plan, uh? Kill Harris so we get into trouble at the border… or just me? Anna was going to walk? You'd have left me stranded, and you'd have made sure I got killed.' Gant's features twisted in anger and contempt. 'Get in the car,' he snapped. 'Back seat, with the window rolled right down — get in!' Priabin climbed reluctantly into the car and wound down the window. He glared out after the door was closed on him. He avoided looking at Anna. He rubbed his hands together between his knees, as if warming or washing them. Gant pocketed Priabin's heavy Stechkin automatic, keeping his own pistol levelled. 'Anna — come here,' he said. 'Not too close.'

She moved closer to Gant. Priabin's eyes blazed as she seemed to touch the American.

'I'm all right,' she announced, now rubbing her injured arm. 'I'm all right, Dmitri — '

'I'm sorry,' he said, shamefaced.

'OK, that's fine, real fine. Now, what do we do with him? If we leave him here, he'll call the Border Guard just as soon as he can. If we take him, he'll turn me in the first chance he gets — and that will mean he screws things up for you, too, Anna.'

'No,' Priabin protested sullenly.

'Wake up to the fact that I'm the only real chance she has of walking free of this whole mess!' Gant snapped angrily. 'You let us cross the border, and she'll be able to come back to you. Your way — she hasn't a prayer.'

Priabin's face gleamed with hatred. He could not accept Anna as a gift of the American. He was not calculating, not operating, in any kind of professional capacity. He wanted to kill Gant, but it was because of Anna. He blamed the American for everything. The killing of Gant would be some kind of cleansing ritual; either that, or it would prove his manhood or keep his mistress or ensure their safety. Whatever the reason, the death of Gant was inextricably tangled with any solution he envisaged. Perhaps he wanted Gant dead as much as he wanted Anna safe.

'Dmitri, let us go,' Anna pleaded, almost leaning into the car. 'Please let us go. It has to be this way — I have to be free of them-!'

Gant was shocked at the depth of bitterness in her words. However, he addressed Priahin in a tone of laconic threat. 'Well, Dmitri, speak up. You heard the lady. Will you let us go?' Priabin did not reply, did nof even look at Gant. Gant said to Anna, 'Will he let us go? Can you really believe he won't try to kill me?'

She glanced round at him, as if invited to participate in a betrayal. Then she shook her head. 'No,' she sobbed.

'Then he's a damn fool!' Gant snapped and strode swiftly to the window of the car. Priabin flinched. Anna made as if to cry out. Gant struck Priabin across the temple with the barrel of the Makarov. The Russian slumped away from the window, across the seat.

'No — !' Anna cried, gripping the sill, stumbling against Gant.

'He's alive! It just gives us time.'

'Dmitri — '

'Get into the car and listen to his heartbeat if you don't believe me!'

'No, no, I believe you…' she mumbled. 'Thank you, thank you.'

'Don't waste time. Let me get him out of the car — he won't freeze in this coat.' Grunting with effort as he spoke, Gant hauled Priabin out of the car and dragged him into the shelter of a heavy, snow-laden bush. Anna walked beside him, her eyes never leaving Priabin's face. When Gant lowered the unconscious Russian, she knelt by him. Gant watched her stroke the young man's face, gently touching the swelling on his temple. He walked away. The whole attitude of her body, the look on her face, was too much like prayer. 'Are you coming?' he asked in an almost fearful tone.

He turned to look at her. She was still kneeling beside the unconscious Priabin. She touched his face slowly, gently. Then she stood up.

'He will be all right?'

'Just a headache.'

'There is no other way, is there?'

'No. No sure way except coming with me.'

'Will he believe that?' she asked, glancing down at Priabin again.

'I can't answer that.'

'I don't believe he will…' She shrugged, and walked away from Priabin towards Gant. 'But I have no choice — do I?'

'No, you don't,' he replied softly.

They reached the car and Gant opened the passenger door for her. She climbed in slowly and reluctantly, her face turning immediately to Priabin's body. He slammed the door and walked round to the driver's side. He brushed snow from his hairpiece, from the shoulders and knees of his clothing, then sat heavily in the driver's seat.

Harris had left the keys in the ignition. Gant had checked his pockets when he found the body, thrown into a snow-filled ditch near the telephone box.

'Christ,' he breathed, remembering his shock on finding Harris's body and instantly realising who had killed him. 'Why the hell did he do it? How could he be so blind?' He shook his head, his hands fiercely gripping the steering wheel.

'I don't know — love?' Anna said.

'Crazy — '

'Yes, love.' She was nodding to herself, confirming her analysis.

Gant looked at her. 'Have you got the nerve to cross the border without Harris? If he's expected along with us, then we'll have to bluff it out — he fell ill in Leningrad, something like that… we're angry at being delayed and having to cross the damn border in the middle of the night for talks early tomorrow. Can you do that?'

She nodded. 'Yes, I can do that.'

'OK. We have ten miles' rehearsal time. We might just make it before that crazy bastard wakes up.'

'Do you understand why he did it?'

'It doesn't matter — '

'It does! He's a murderer. I have to find a reason for that.'

'OK…'

'Harris and you — you were taking me away from him. He didn't believe I would come back…' She choked back a strange, crumpled, defeated sound in her throat, but she could not prevent tears from rolling down her pale cheeks. Gant flicked on the windscreen wipers. The view cleared of slush. The wipers squeaked across half-ice. 'He didn't believe…' she repeated, but the words were submerged. She shook her head violently, as if to clear it. 'He didn't…' Her voice was awed, and profoundly disappointed.

'And killing me makes everything right, uh?'

'Yes,' she replied, staring through the windscreen at the steadily falling snow. 'You are to blame. You have to be to blame. If you are to blame for everything that has happened to us, then I am not to blame and Dmitri is not to blame… but, especially me. I would be to blame for nothing, nothing at all…'

'It doesn't matter.' He glanced back at Priabin's unmoving form. 'We might just make it, even without Harris.' he announced, switching on the engine.

With the assistance of a Norwegian radio operator, Curtin was engaged in a long, wearying, intense conversation with the senior engineering officer, the station commander, and the pilot of the Hercules Aubrey had commandeered, at Bardufoss. Aubrey himself was using the high-speed communications system to talk to Shelley in London.

Aubrey was pleased with himself, with the situation, with the progress they had made. In a little more than two hours, he had put his shoulder to the great wheel of circumstances, and had managed to move it. He was tired, but felt elated. Later, he knew he would collapse, like a cliff sliding slowly into the sea. But not yet, not while things remained to be done.

'I shall be telling Director Vitsula that Gant is required in Oslo immediately for a full debriefing. In fact, he will be brought here. You do have the Harrier, Peter?'

Aubrey waited while his message was transmitted via geostationary satellite to Shelley in Century House, overlooking the river. Then the tapes gathered Shelley's reply at high speed, rewound, and spoke.

There was amusement in Shelley's voice, too, as he said, 'Yes, sir, we have a Harrier. It's already en route to Oslo, thence to Helsinki to collect Gant. Allied Forces, South Norway, will inform you of the aircraft's arrival. Won't Vitsula think it just a little suspicious that you had a Harrier collect Gant rather than something that can't land at the lake?'

There was a short pause in the message, but the operator knew that Shelley had not finished.

'There's quite a bit more yet, sir,' he informed Aubrey.

'Christ…' he heard Shelley breathing an aside, then clear his throat. 'Thank you, Bill. Yes — no, keep running the tape, man!' Then evidently, he addressed Aubrey directly. The old man was alert, almost trembling. He understood the first drops of rain from an approaching storm. 'Sir, message just received from Leningrad Station. Most urgent — the panic button, sir. Harris telephoned in with ten miles to go, and was cut off. They don't think it was the line, sir. Reception was quite good, in spite of the weather, and they swear the line was still open for some seconds after Harris stopped speaking. They even heard the pips demand more money in the slot.'

'My God.' Aubrey exclaimed, raising his hands in the air. 'Oh, my God.'

Curtin was watching him from the other side of the hut. He had paused in his conversation. Aubrey absently waved him to continue, as if dismissing him from the room.

Gant — what the devil had happened to Gant?

The radio operator waited for his reply. Looking slightly bemused and a little worried, Curtin continued his conversation with Bardufoss. His technical specifications, the details of what Aubrey had called their shopping list, the ranks and areas of expertise of the men volunteered, the strength and capacity of arms of the Royal Marines — all mocked him now. Curtin's words bore in upon him in the hot, paraffin-smelling silence of the hut. Curtin was discussing Blowpipe missiles, and dismissing the idea. They had not yet decided whether there would be sufficient room on board the Hercules for more than a handful of Royal Marines and their equipment. Aubrey had been prepared to discount the idea of reinforcements because the Russians still had no idea where the Firefox was located. There was less need of defence than of extra equipment. The bales of MO-MAT occupied a great deal of space, as did the tractor tug, and both were crucial.

But now, but now, his thoughts repeated. Where was Gant? Did they have him? He had to know.

He was deeply afraid. He had to talk to Vitsula, he had to have a report of Gant's arrival at the border, his crossing-if he arrived, if he crossed…

He had to. He needed news of Gant much as he might have needed a tranquilliser. Had to have news, had to — at once…

'Yes, Peter — I understand. I must talk to Helsinki. Message ends.'

He turned away from the console, rubbing his cheeks vigorously with his hands. He realised his palms were damp with nervous perspiration. Curtin had moved on to the subject of air transportable fuel cells and the number required. At Bardufoss, with the Royal Norwegian Air Force's Tactical Supply Squadron, things we're still happening. Everything was happening. The Hercules was already being loaded. Met. reports indicated that the dawn window in the appalling weather would occur, and the Slrop could take place on schedule. Hydraulic and lubricating oils now, and oxygen cylinders…

Madness, Aubrey could not help pronouncing to himself. He had taken leave of his senses. To have ever conceived of such a scheme — !

The radio operator had signalled Helsinki. Director-General Vitsula of Finnish Intelligence might already be seated before a console, awaiting his message. He must talk to him -

Aubrey knew there was nothing Vitsula could do. The Finns could not, would not cross the border. Gant was on his own until he crossed into Finland.

If he was still alive -

He must talk to Helsinki, must pretend, for his own sake, that there was something that could be done, that there were reassurances that might yet be gained. Mere talk. Filling the accusing silence.

The nose of the Firefox lowered, seemed to droop like the beak of some huge, black, drinking bird, as it moved over the crown of the slope onto the level stretch of the MO-MAT. Buckholz, who had been waiting for a sign of eventual success, felt relief begin to invade his chilled body. The winches creaked. He sensed the huge weight of the aircraft as he watched the nosewheel inching forward along the portable runway, dragging the long, streaming fuselage behind it. The nylon lines quivered with strain, and he realised that the three anchor trees that held the chain-winches must be under the same strain. They seemed to protest, sounding like the amplified noises of aching muscles.

Yet he felt relieved; close to success, Moresby's head and shoulders above the cockpit sill were another sign; an imitation pilot, making the Firefox appear to be an aircraft once more. Half an hour ago, it had been different. The undercarriage had become threatened by rocks and rubble on the lake bed. Brooke and his divers had had to inflate huge black buoyancy bags beneath the aircraft's wings to lift the undercarriage clear before it suffered structural damage. Then, when the rocks had been left behind, or removed, the divers had had to carefully deflate the bags once more and lower the undercarriage — main wheels first, very slowly and steadily — back to the lake bed. Though everyone had emphasised that it was no more than a hitch, it had affected Buckholz. Once winching had recommenced, he had obsessively watched the nosewheel, measured its progress — waited for it to reach and surmount the crown of the slope.

He turned to look at the winching teams, at the taut ropes and the quivering trees. Then back to the fuselage of the aircraft. Then the winching teams once more; knowing that he was ignoring the real drama of the scene. Moresby was securing the ejector seat, to which any ordinary auto-destruct system would be rigged. He was ensuring that no accident could trigger it. Then he could begin to search the cockpit for any other mechanical or electrical system designed to ensure the destruction of the most secret equipment aboard the aircraft. Buckholz, as a layman, could not believe in the drama of the auto-destruct. For him, it was easier to imagine a rope breaking, a tree giving way, an undercarriage leg buckling, even snapping under the strain imposed by the winches. And Moresby was doing nothing; there was no atmosphere of tension generated from the cockpit. Expertise disguised danger. A bobbing head in a woollen cap, framed by the thrown-back hood of a white parka. Buckholz could not believe that the Firefox would explode.

The tree holding the winch attached to the port undercarriage leg appeared to quiver as he turned once more to look at it. The men on the winch, backs bent, suggested nothing was wrong by their continued, rhythmical movements. The Royal Engineer captain had his back to the tree, hands on his hips, watching the Firefox labour towards him. The nose of the aircraft was fully level now, the two remaining undercarriage wheels poised to roll over the crown of the slope.

The port line was quivering more exaggeratedly than the other two. Its marker flag dancing. Buckholz turned his gaze to the anchor tree. One of the two winchmen had straightened and was about to turn towards his officer. The tree had begun to tilt forward. He glanced at the aircraft. Moresby's head and shoulders, the two rear undercarriage wheels poised to level the fuselage, the two other lines straining, the port line dancing, seeming to slacken…

He opened his mouth. His words were cut off by a rifle-like crack. The anchor tree filing down its weight of snow, shuddered again, then the cleaning was filled with the noise of tearing roots. Buckholz moved one pace. The engineer captain turned, raising his head as he moved to one side very slowly. The two winchmen abandoned the winch. Pistol-like cracks. The scene consisted, almost solely of sound. Hardly any movement. Monochrome — snow, trees, portable runway, the black aircraft like a creature attempting to return to the water. The roots snapped and broke in a succession of small explosions. The winchmen and the engineer captain flung themselves to either side of the tree as it lurched, then staggered as if entirely free of its roots, and began to fall.

It would miss the Firefox, miss the -

The thought became outdated in the next instant. The two remaining nylon lines began to dance and wave their marker flags as the first one had done. The aircraft was slewing to starboard, turning its nose towards Buckholz. He watched the port line slacken as the tree fell slowly into the clearing. Someone shouted, or perhaps cried out in pain. Everything was slow. Buckholz realised that the tree was moving faster than the men around it. Its dark branches enfolded a man who had hardly begun to run. Buckholz heard his muffled scream. The two lines danced wildly as the Firefox seemed to lurch backwards. He heard the winches groan, sensed the two remaining anchor trees quiver.

The nosewheel was still moving backwards, he was certain of it.

He saw Moresby's head and shoulders, then his upper torso as he stood up in the cockpit, gripping the sill with both mittened hands. Moresby's mouth opened. Some of the overhead netting, caught by the falling tree, ripped and floated downwards like part of a stage backcloth. Snow billowed and fell. Branches were dragged from neighbouring trees, more netting pursued that already torn. The slack line snaked out of the winch and whipped across the clearing. One man fell, another ducked beneath the whiplash. The nylon line slithered to rest across the MO-MAT.

Moresby shouted an order. Buckholz did not hear it. He was aware of Waterford at his shoulder and then the soldier moved towards the Firefox, yelling like Moresby, waving his arms as if to increase his circulation; the two remaining anchor trees shuddered, depositing snow. The engineers were already checking the winches, the trees, the lines; moving as if under water.

Monochrome -

Then terrible colour. Someone screamed, and the noise appeared to conjure up flame. On the far side of the clearing, the camouflage netting had fallen onto the stove that was supplying the relieved winching teams with hot drinks. The nose of the Firefox strained like the head of a roped bull. The nosewheel had slid sideways, but backwards too. The groaning anchor trees were slowly releasing the winches, which in turn released the ropes inch by inch. The fire roared up, catching the matting and setting it alight. A man burned, then doused the flames by rolling over and over in the snow, thrashing about in agony.

Only Waterford seemed to be moving towards the scene.

Then others. Other noises, other orders. The flames roared up in a fountain. Men rolled logs forward, behind the two undercarriage wheels, then behind the nosewheel. The undercarriage resisted the attempt to block its retreat to the water. The lines shuddered, their marker flags waving frenziedly. The anchor trees were almost bare of their weight of snow. Above the yelling, Buckholz listened for the first groan, the first pistol-shots of snapping roots. He knew the aircraft was destined to roll backwards into the lake.

Without realising he had moved forward into the chaos of the scene. Flame gouted, a tiny ineffectual spray of extinguisher foam reached towards it. Buckholz bent and rolled a log behind the starboard wheel. The nose of the Firefox had turned through perhaps thirty degrees, seeming to fight against the restraint of the remaining lines. The tyre began to mount the log — other logs were jammed against his own. The port wheel, too, was being blocked by logs.

'Get another line on the port leg!' he heard Moresby shouting somewhere above him. As he looked beneath the belly of the Firefox, he saw extinguisher foam arcing through the snowy air towards the fire. Then flame retaliated, licking upwards into the overhead netting that remained. Men ran towards the port side of the aircraft, unreeling a nylon line. He heard Moresby directing his men from the cockpit.

'Get that moved!' Waterford cried out. Buckholz could see the soldier outlined by flame, so close to the fire that he appeared to be burning himself. His body was bent, he was dragging a box-like container. Ammunition — the ammunition supplies were stored at the edge of the clearing. Buckholz could not move. He was kneeling beneath, the starboard wing, the tyre trying to surmount the jammed logs acting as chocks. He stared in horrified fascination as the ammunition boxes were slowly — so slowly — dragged clear of the flames. They were doused with foam, the fire was attacked with more foam. The line just above his head quivered, its dance now a shudder, something close to a climax -

He turned to look. The trees were quivering, but did not appear to be tilting forward into the clearing. The crackling of his R/T drew his attention to the babble of orders and responses and reports. The team secured the new line to the port undercarriage leg. The aircraft seemed to sense its imminent restraint, and lurched further, skewing round, lifting the starboard wheel almost over the jam of logs beside Buckholz.

'Here — !' he called. Someone was beside him almost at once. 'Hold on here!'

He stood up, gripping the makeshift wooden lever the other man had placed against the pile of logs. Together, they attempted to hold the pressure of the aircraft's weight, trying to keep the logs from rolling away from the wheel. Immediately, Buckholz was gasping for breath and his arms and back and legs ached. A third and fourth man joined them; another crude braking lever was jammed against the logs. It did not seem to ease the pressure on Buckholz's muscles. He grunted as a substitute for protest.

'Then take the bloody risk with that tree, Captain!' Moresby yelled in the R/T, and was acknowledged immediately. 'Don't slacken the line, you stupid buggers! Pay it out ahead-yes, that's it… take the strain, you silly sods, or we'll all be in the bloody shit!' Beneath the language and the apparent panic, there was expertise. 'Get the two remaining trees anchored before they give way!' Moresby continued. 'Lash each of them to three other trees, nearest ones to them. Come on, before they uproot themselves too!'

'Come on, come on — ' Buckholz recited, finding the words in his grunting breaths. The man beside him took up the words like a chant. The tyre squeaked in protest against the logs. 'Come on, come on, come on — '

The captain ordered his men to attach the winch to the selected tree. Buckholz's leg muscles went into spasm, but they were a great distance from him. The colour of the fire seemed to lessen as it was reflected on the sheen of ice already forming on the aircraft's belly. There was a scorched smell on the snowy wind — netting, canvas, clothing, and something else he did not want to identify…flesh.

The strain became worse. His mittened hands were welded to the wooden lever, his arms welded to his hands, his shoulders locked above his hurting back and buttocks.

'Come on — get on with it, Captain!' Moresby was yelling again.

'Come on, come on, come on…'

'Make sure that the bloody fire's out! Look after — who is it, Henderson? — and get the poor sod out from under that bastard tree!' Waterford's orders bellowed over the R/T.

He heard the two remaining winches yield the nylon lines inch by inch, as the anchor trees bent. The tyre that filled his gaze seemed to lift further, almost mounting the logs. Then a rapid noise in the distance, at the edge of the clearing -

'Oh, Jesus-!' he wailed. Rapid clicks, quiet pistol-shots. He was about to warn the men with him to get out of the way, to save themselves, when he realised it was the chain-winch winding the line through to take up the slack as rapidly as possible. Three lines now, almost three, three in a moment or two -

'Come on, come on, come on…'

'Fuck this for-'

'Come on!' Moresby yelled. 'Have you finished anchoring the other trees?'

Then he saw the line on the port leg snap straight, take up the strain, quiver and remain still. He heard the single winch click and click again and again. The nose of the Firefox steadied, as if the animal it had become sensed a superiority of strength in its captors. He exhaled in a great sigh.

'Is that tree holding?' Moresby shouted.

'For the moment, sir,' the engineer captain replied.

'Anchor it to three secondary trees, then.'

'Sir.'

Someone near Buckholz grunted a cheer. In front of him, the tyre had slid back behind the little barricade of logs. It just rested against them now. He raised his eyes. The port and nosewheel lines were shivering into still tension. The trees — did they still quiver and lean or was it the cold sweat in his eyes, the effort he was making, that gave them the appearance of movement? He lowered his gaze to the starboard wheel. The tyre had moved away from the logs.

The cacophony of orders and responses had become muted. Calm. He waited. His body was numb; even the tremor had gone from his muscles. He felt locked into this posture, into this effort. The captain ordered the new winch to begin once more, slowly. The Firefox protested. Its nose swung slowly round, almost balefully, the wheel protesting on the waffle-like surface of the portable runway. He saw the tension in the line from the starboard leg ease. The marker flag stopped dancing and became a rag flicked by the wind. Buckholz waited.

The port winch stopped. He could not feel his hands around the wooden lever, could hardly feel the next man's body against his.

Then he heard Moresby say, 'One, Two and Three — haul away!' He groaned. Moresby added: 'OK, you lot down there — relax. And thanks. Thanks everyone…' Buckholz tried to unclasp his hands. The starboard wheel moved a few more inches from the heap of logs. They rolled after it from the pressure of the lever. Moresby continued talking, requesting a full damage report. Buckholz's back cried out in protest as he straightened up. His legs felt weak. He staggered a few steps, then bent painfully to chafe them back to usefulness. He groaned softly with every breath.

Then, when he could walk, when his feet began to hurt with reawakened blood, he hobbled as swiftly as he could towards the scene of the fire. A canvas sheet covered something. He glanced back into the clearing. There was something else, uncovered by the tree, being lifted and moved out of the aircraft's resumed path.

Two dead, then -

He looked into Waterford's face. It was blackened by smoke, but the man seemed uninjured, unlike the two SBS men beyond him, whose hands and faces were being salved and bandaged. Hot scraps of camouflage netting dropped like windborne flakes of ash from the trees above them. The ground was slushy, slippery with melted snow and foam. Waterford stared at him.

'Two dead?' he said.

Waterford nodded. 'Two — and two injured… not badly burned.' The man's face seemed to become chalky and vulnerable as he added: 'Thank God.' Then at once he was again his usual persona. 'You can help me,' he ordered Buckholz. 'Make a full damage report. Well, come on — '

Waterford strode off. Buckholz, before following him, watched the taut lines, the inching forward along the MO-MAT of the three undercarriage wheels, all of them now on the level. Moresby was once more seated in the cockpit. Buckholz, on the point of sighing with relief and delayed shock, held his breath. The auto-destruct. They were in as much danger of losing the airframe as ever. Perhaps more. Moresby had been distracted. Time had passed — how much? Minutes… perhaps seven minutes. Seven.

His body was trembling from head to foot. He hurried after Waterford on weak legs, as if hurrying away from the aircraft and the danger it now represented.

The whole clearing smelt of burning.

Priabin began to realise he was cold. He seemed to be floating. At least, part of him was floating. A much smaller part, right at the back of his head, was aware that something was wrong. But, there were no answers, only images; dreams, nightmares, visions, pictures, memories. In most of them, he was apologising to Anna.

He apologised for his work, for his colleagues, for his uniform, for his rank, and for things he knew he had never done; actions never taken, crimes not committed.

He sensed she accused him, though she did not appear in most of the pictures or memories or dreams. Not even her voice. But somehow he knew that she was accusing him, and he understood the nature of the charges. No, he had not beaten up those demonstrators in Red Square, no, he had not had those people shot for black-marketeering, no, he had not had those Jews interrogated and beaten and the one who died had had a weak heart. No, he had not refused that writer a travel visa and passport; no, he had not prevented people from leaving the Soviet Union; no, he had not ensnared those businessmen by using women to sleep with them; no, he had not operated the cameras that filmed them…

Some night-bird moved in the bush… above his head, throwing down a weight of snow ontahis face. He opened his eyes. The snow was in his nose and mouth. He was aware of his entire body, and of its lowered temperature. His fingertips and toes were numb, his arms and legs cold, his torso chilled. He struggled to sit up, and looked around him.

The car had disappeared. He knew no more, for the moment, except that he had expected it to be there. It was a car he had approached, even sat in. His car — ?

His car was further down the road, towards the village…

Anna's car.

Harris's body. Harris? How did he know the man's name? He rubbed his arms with gloved hands, slapped his upper body, then crawled out from the shelter of the bush into the snow that was now falling steadily. The wind appeared to have dropped.

Harris?

Gant-

He remembered. Remembered, too, all the images and visions; the countless apologies to Anna, who had refused to appear in his dreaming, even though she was close at hand. Anna — ?

Gant — Anna.

He knew more; all of it.

He climbed to his feet, and a great weight of ballast appeared to move in his head. He groaned and clutched his temple. The bruise was numb yet tender. He could feel a tiny amount of caked blood, like frost. Anna had gone with Gant. He staggered a few steps. The faint tyre-tracks of the car led out of the lay-by, heading west towards the border.

He knew everything now. Gant and Anna had abandoned him in the lay-by while they made their escape. But the American had made a mistake — he had left Priabin alive. He congratulated himself on Gant's error.

He began to jog, awkwardly at first, his head beginning to pound as soon as he moved. He ran, head down, through the falling snow. Out of the lay-by, onto the deserted main road. He glanced up the road, towards the border. Empty. He bent his head again and began running, chanting over and over in ragged breaths his prayer that Gant had not sabotaged the car he had commandeered from the railway police at Kolpino.

He floundered along the road, arms pumping, chest heaving. He remembered the dreams and realised their significance. Then he slipped and went flying, skidding on his back across the road. The shock woke him as it expelled the breath from his body. He climbed to his feet, brushed down his clothes, and began running again. Not far now, only hundreds of metres, no more.

He passed the telephone box where he had killed Harris. He had intended that. Isolate Gant, he had told himself. Get Anna out then kill Gant — have him killed at the border. Turn back the clock, make it five days earlier, before all this had happened.

He could have done it, but she would not believe him — !

He saw one or two early lights in the village ahead. His car was only a short distance now… yes, there! He slid the last steps, bumping painfully against the side of the vehicle. He fumbled the keys from his pocket while he wrenched open the driver's door with his other hand. He collapsed heavily into the seat, hesitated, then thrust the key into the ignition.

And turned the key, holding his breath.

The ignition chattered. On the third attempt, the engine fired, then stalled. He applied more choke. The engine caught, he revved blue smoke into the snow beyond the rear window. The engine roared healthily.

Just cold.

He eased his foot off the pedal and moved the car slowly out into the middle of the road. The studded tyres bit, and he gradually accelerated. Passing the telephone box, passing the place where the snow was distressed by his skidding body, passing the lay-by. He jooked at his watch, but could not estimate how long he had been unconscious. He stabbed the accelerator, and the back of the car swung wildly. He eased his foot from the pedal, turned the wheel swiftly to straighten the car, and drove on.

He had protected Anna because, in part, it preserved his own self-esteem. He was not a KGB officer, not just a policeman… He understood her clearly; even applauded her motives. He always had.

He would have saved her, got her away, but Gant had changed everything. Gant had placed her in danger. Gant had taken her away, she was in the car with him now. She was ready to cross the border with him -

Priabin wiped something from his eyes with the damp sleeve of his overcoat, then concentrated on the snow rushing towards the headlights. He knew he had peeled the onion a layer too deep.

He knew that he had not trusted Anna. From the moment when he had seen Gant on the train and realised how she was to help him escape, he had believed in his heart that she would go with the American. He had not trusted her to stop short of the border, or return if she did cross.

He wiped his eyes again, savagely. He had not trusted her. He had believed she could, she would leave him.

Gant had held up the mirror, had shown him the vile little heart of himself, beneath the layers of love and protection and self-esteem. He loathed his reflected image.

He had to kill Gant. More than anything, he would kill Gant.

'One, Two and Three, stop winching!'

Buckholz heard Moresby's voice over the R/T, and immediately glanced at Waterford beside him. The soldier seemed unimpressed that the Firefox had now been winched safely to the far end of the clearing. Instead, he continued to stare at the ice beneath their feet. They were fifty or sixty yards out onto the lake. The wind flung snow between them and the well-lit clearing. Fortunately, the arc-lamps hadn't been brought down from the trees with burning camouflage netting.

'Well — what is it you wanted me to see?' Buckholz asked. He wanted coffee, and he needed rest. Reaction had established itself now that their damage report was complete and his work temporarily done. Moresby's danger hardly impinged upon Buckholz's fuddled, slow thoughts. 'Well?'

'Look at the bloody ice, man!' Waterford snapped in return.

'What-?'

'Snow — dammit, snow. Bloody snow!' He waved his arms above his head and kicked at the snow beneath his feet. The weather howled and flew around them in the darkness, Waterford was haloed by the lights from the clearing — where Moresby was working against time, he remembered with difficulty. As Waterford continued in a ranting tone, a break in the wind showed him the aircraft, black and safe, showed him the ragged extension of the clearing along the shore, allowed him to hear the chain-saws at work. 'No bloody aircraft is going to be able to take off from this surface,' Waterford was saying. 'You know how long this lake is. Do you know how much runway that aircraft needs? No? Listen, then — the airspeed won't come up quick enough to give the pilot lift-off with this thickness of snow on the ice. It's as simple as that. So, what are you going to do about it?'

In the silence, which the wind filled, Buckholz heard Moresby's voice issuing from their R/Ts. 'This thing is drying out rapidly, gentlemen…' They had no idea to whom the remark was addressed. Perhaps to all of them. 'Icing up. I hope to God that whatever system they've installed, it isn't water-activated. There's nothing in the cockpit or rigged to any of the systems that looks like an auto-destruct.' Moresby paused, but his next words wiped away Buckholz's momentary sense of relief. 'But, I'll bet there is an auto-destruct, all the same. You'd all better clear the area. Gunnar — ?'

'Yes?'

'Any joy?'

'I don't know. I can't find anything in the Pilot's Notes at first look. And there's nothing marked or stencilled on the fuselage so far.'

The weather had removed them from Buckholz's sight, but he could envisage them clearly. Gunnar, who spoke good Russian, had been given the task of translating the Pilot's Notes which Moresby had found in the cockpit — a leaflet of fifty pages or more. At the same time, he was translating every stencilled word and instruction on the entire fuselage, searching for a clue to the nature and location of the auto-destruct mechanism.

'That's it, then,' Moresby continued. 'Everyone clear the area. Five or six hundred feet back should do it. Go and hide in the trees — '

'Jesus,' Buckholz breathed. 'Is there anything we can do?' he said into the R/T, addressing Moresby.

'You're not helping the situation, Mr. Buckholz,' came back the reply. 'I suggest you hurry along and see a taxidermist, if you would!' Buckholz heard Gunnar's laughter, and beside him Waterford guffawed.

'Jesus.'

'Even we can walk on frozen water,' Waterford said. 'But planes can't take off from this thickness of snow. Even if the bloody thing survives its ordeal at Moresby's hands, it can't take off. You think we'll have a nice warm, sunny day tomorrow?'

'Don't blame me — !' He was aware of the murmurs from the R/T now. Moresby and his technicians. Gunnar's translations. He knew everyone else would be listening, too. The noise of the chain-saws had stopped.

'I don't. You're just another of Aubrey's trained monkeys, just like me. That silly sod has flipped his lid this time and no mistake!'

Without conscious decision, they had begun to walk back towards the clearing. Light blazed out at them as they approached the. shore. The trees along the shore had been cleared. MO-MAT would be laid along the shore, and then the tractor tug would tow the Firefox to a point where thicker ice would bear its weight before pulling the aircraft onto the lake which would become its runway.

Which would not be usable as a runway, he reminded himself.

They trudged along the shore. The snow was blowing almost horizontally yet, in the clearing itself, there was a sense of quiet, urgent desperation. As he saw Moresby, seated in the cockpit, and the technicians gathered around the fuselage, he realised he had no idea how large an explosion there would be. What would happen. Would it be small enough not to be visible until a little black flag of smoke raised itself above the cockpit? Or would it be large enough to open the nose section of the airframe like an exploded trick cigar? Enough to kill Gunnar and Moresby and the technicians…

And himself and Waterford, he thought as they trudged up the MO-MAT towards the aircraft.

There was a film of ice over much of the fuselage and the wing areas. There were great gaps in the camouflage netting which could not be replaced. The fallen tree lay to one side of the clearing, which was empty except for themselves, Moresby's team, and the Firefox. There might have been no chaos only a half-hour earlier. It was as if everything had been no more than a dramatic prelude to the quiet desperation of Moresby's search for the auto-destruct system.

The two bodies had been shrouded in their sleeping bags and removed from the clearing. They lay now like Arctic mummies, waiting for transport to their place of burial; waiting for next-of-kin to be informed. Buckholz shook the thoughts from his head.

Moresby saw them approach, and climbed rapidly out of the cockpit. He waved his arms as if shoo-ing chickens in a yard.

'I told you to fuck off,' he said to Buckholz.

'As a kid I used to haunt accident black-spots,' Buckholz replied without expression. Moresby looked at him curiously, and then nodded, accepting his presence.

Buckholz looked around the clearing. Stores, the commpack, equipment, had all been removed. It was as if they were about to abandon the Firefox, having spent so much time and effort — and two lives — bringing her out of the lake. 'What have you done so far?' he asked.

'There's no magnetic card to activate any auto-destruct,' Moresby snapped. 'No armed micro-switches-nothing that could be set off other than by the removal of the canopy or the ejection of the bang-seat.'

'But — there has to be something else?'

'I'd bet on it. Of course there has to be something — '

'Hell.'

'Excuse me — I'm needed,' Moresby said, and turned away from Buckholz and Waterford. Buckholz let the man go. He had no expertise and could not dissuade Moresby. Instead, he worried about the thickness of the snow that had fallen on the ice. Gant had had snow cleared from the ice-floe when he had refuelled. It would have to be done here, with hot-air blowers. He would talk directly to Bardufoss, as soon -

As soon as they knew whether or not there was a clock ticking somewhere, a clock they could neither see nor hear. Was there anything?

Gunnar had covered almost the whole of the fuselage. He had worked around the airframe, reaching the fuselage below the cockpit once more. He had found nothing other than routine fuelling and inspection points, catches, switches, points, bolts, panels.

'Below this small window, it reads. — "In the event of red placard, cordon off airframe and advise Senior Armaments Officer".' Gunnar recited, then began humming and murmuring to himself over the R/T. Then he added: 'Yes, that's what it says. There is a red placard showing in the window.'

'Let me see,' they heard Moresby say.

Involuntarily. Buckholz started forward. Waterford snorted in derision, but followed him.

'What is it?' Buckholz asked as he reached Moresby, who was craning to look through a tiny perspex window set at eye-level below the cockpit.

'Approximately five millimetres of red-painted tin,' Moresby answered without turning his head. 'It doesn't mean a lot, does it?' He tapped the fuselage alongside the window. 'Access panel — be careful, my lad, as you take it off, won't you?'

He stepped back and allowed the technician to reach the panel and gently begin to move the first four screws.

'Is it anything?' Buckholz insisted.

'Who knows? The instruction is pretty clear. You don't cordon off aircraft for no reason, or tell the armaments people it's all theirs. I wonder… Come on lad, get a move on!' The technician had removed three of the flush screws, and he pivoted the access panel. Moresby immediately moved forward brandishing a torch like a weapon. He craned towards the panel, moving the torch's thin beam as carefully as if he were attempting to skewer something with it. Buckholz listened to his commentary over the R/T, having retreated to his former position. 'Mm. Twqsolenoids, a relay — what's that…? Wiring, a box with a tag… Gunnar, what does it say on the tag — here…" Moresby stepped away.

Gunnar wriggled the beam of the torch into the open panel. 'It says "Battery change due on…" And it gives the date. Next month.'

'Useless!' Moresby snapped. 'Let me have another look. What else have we got here? Mm? Small canister, looks a bit like — what? Old flasher unit I had on my Morris, years ago. Top surface had a thin coating of some kind, wires from the base which couple into solenoids and the relay… and that's it. Might be to run the pilot's model railway, I suppose… Anyone else want a look?'

Moresby passed the torch to one of the technicians, and turned to face Buckholz and Waterford. 'Who knows?' he announced with a shrug. 'It ought to be important, but I can't see why.'

'The red placard?' Buckholz asked.

'If this is the auto-destruct, then it's armed, yes,'

'Thanks.'

'Pleasure.' He turned to his technician. 'Well?'

'It doesn't remind me of a flasher unit sir,' the technician offered.

'Brilliant. And what does it remind you of?'

'Looks like the automatic sprinkler device my old Dad fitted in his greenhouses — down Evesham way… very pleased with them, he was.'

'Fascinating.' Moresby flashed the torch back into the open panel, wriggled its light, sighed over the R/T, glanced at the red placard in the window, then back into the hole. 'How does your father's sprinkler system work, then?' he asked with studied casualness. They heard his muffled voice continue: 'Speak up, laddie, I'm very interested in gardening myself.'

Moresby's massive calm and expertise and exaggerated manner had all conspired to lessen the tension which Buckholz felt was beginning to grow in him again.

'You've warned your men to stay at a safe distance?' he muttered to Waterford.

'I have.' Waterford had called in nine of the eighteen SBS marines who formed his reconnaissance perimeter, to form a guard around the clearing now that the Firefox had been winched out of the lake.

Buckholz knew they should be starting to arrive within the next fifteen minutes. His concern for their safety deflected his fears for himself. The red placard must mean something.

The technician was explaining his father's greenhouse sprinkler system. Buckholz could not accommodate the seeming irrelevance of the information. '… when it dries out turns the sprinkler on… when it's wet by the right amount, it turns it off again.'

'Mm. Must get one for the lawn,' Moresby murmured, his face still pressed to the access panel. Then he stood up, and stretched. 'In the absence of anything more technical than the greenhouse sprinkler system donated by Carter and his father, I think we'll wedge the solenoids, just in case. Carry on, Carter. Let's play safe.' Immediately he walked across to Buckholz, rubbing his hands as if washing them inside his gloves. 'Hurry up, Carter,' he called over his shoulder, 'it's getting pretty dry behind that panel.'

'Do you think that's it?' Buckholz asked, his nerves and tension making him feel ridiculous.

'I should think so — bang,' he added with a tight little smile. He flicked at his moustache, which creaked with his frozen breath. 'I don't know why they wanted a water-activated system. Morbidly security-conscious, though, the Russians.'

'So how did it work?' Buckholz was more and more angry. It was an anti-climax, he had been frightened for nothing.

'With the airframe's immersion, the system became operational,' Moresby replied, almost with relish. 'It was fully armed once it came out of the water. When it dried out completely — bang! At least, I assume that's what would have happened.'

He turned. The technician gave him a thumbs-up sign, and Moresby sighed with satisfaction.

'Safe?' Buckholz asked.

'Hang about for a bit and see, if you wish. I think so — we'll get down to the real work now. I should get your chaps to cut down a few more trees. Major. It's almost three now.' He nodded, and walked away towards the aircraft.

'Christ,' Buckholzbreathed. 'Jesus H. Christ.'

'No, but he's not bad for RAF.' Waterford murmured, placing the R/T against his lips and turning away from the American.

Hoses, Buckholz reminded himseif, masking the fears that he no longer wished to admit to. He felt himself trembling. He had been frightened, really frightened. Now, he had to find an activity, some occupation.

He wondered whether they had sufficient lengths of hose at Bardufoss to steam a runway across the ice for the Firefox, now that it was no longer in danger of being destroyed.

Then he thought of Gant.

And realised that the pilot might hang by more of a thread than the airframe had done.

The guards were bored, then impressed, then efficient. It had been simple. The barbed wire strung on crossed logs and poles was thickened, whitened and made innocent by clinging snow. It stretched away on either side into the hidden landscape. Snow covered the ploughed swathe of earth that marked the border. Lights shone down on the guard post and customs office, and a look-out tower threw a shadow across the road just beyond the red and white pole.

Priabin had not told them, Gant thought to himself once more. He warmed himself with the knowledge. He stood with his back to the long table where Anna was now showing her papers and answering the few deferential questions offered by the Border Guard captain in command of the crossing-point. Gant could see beyond the shadow of the tower, the distant red and white pole on the Finnish side. Lights glowed from the windows of the huts like signals. The Finns who were to meet them would be watching the door of this customs office, waiting for their re-emergence. They would get into the car, the Russian pole would swing up, they would be through. Sixty or seventy yards, and they would be in Finland.

Don't think about it, he told himself, feeling his hands quiver in the pockets of his overcoat The snow that had gathered on his fur hat had melted, and began to trickle down his neck and beneath the collar of his shirt. Don't think about crossing…

If he did dwell on it, his mask would crack in the closing seconds of his performance. It was easy, acting this officious senior diplomat or civil servant. An older man, testy with authority, dry and sharp like a fallen brown holly leaf. These people were half-afraid of him, half-afraid of his power to make telephone calls, speak to superiors, complain, condemn. They had hurried their questions, their examination of his papers. They had not wished to search his luggage. They had accepted his explanation that their Finnish companion, expected to drive them, had fallen ill — too much drink, he had snapped with an acid dislike — but they had important, vital meetings later that same day… planes were grounded in Leningrad, as they knew, thus the car. He was angry at losing sleep, at delay of any kind.

He paced a little now, while Anna answered the brief questions. He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Nerve, he thought. Hold on -

Act.

He glared at the captain over his half-glasses. The captain caught his look, and immediately surrendered Anna's papers, making the most of a polite bow to her.

'Thank you,' Gant said with little grace. 'Now, we may go?'

'Of course, sir-please…' He opened the door for them. Gant preceded Anna out into the snow and the lights. Stepping into the glare, he almost froze, as if he had been exposed and recognised. Then he walked on to the car. Impatiently, he held the passenger door open for Anna, and she climbed in. Then, merely nodding dismissively in the captain's direction, he rounded the bonnet to the driver's door. The captain himself held it open for him.

'A successful conclusion to your business, sir,' he offered.

He bent to climb into the driver's seat. Then he heard the approaching car. Its engine made it clear that it was moving with speed. Stifling a groan, keeping the tremor from his frame, Gant looked up. He saw headlights rounding a bend, dancing towards them. He knew it was Priabin. He hadn't found — hadn't even looked for — the man's car. He should have killed him…

He glanced at Anna's face. She knew, too. The captain was alarmed, then alert and decisive. He waved two guards armed with Kalashnikov rifles forward. They positioned themselves in the headlight beams. The car swayed, then slewed halfway across the road as it stopped in a skid. The door opened.

Gant realised the barrier had been raised. He slammed the door. Already, the pole was beginning to descend. He switched on the engine, revved, put the car into gear. The captain bent to warn him, an arm raised to point at the barrier. His head flicked away as they both heard Priabin shouting. In the mirror, Gant saw Priabin running towards them, waving his ID wallet above his head, calling his rank and name and their identities -

He let out the clutch and accelerated. The barrier was coming down. He skidded, but the car slid forward before it started to swing round — the barrier bounced on the roof, shattering the rear window with its impact. He swung the wheel, grinning at Anna, and let the car accelerate as soon as he came out of the skid.

'Stop them!' Priabin yelled. 'Stop him, stop him!' His ID was thrust under the captain's nose. The man stepped back half a pace, made to salute. The two guards had turned to follow the flight of the car. Priabin bellowed, 'The tyres-the tyres!' The guards opened fire. 'The woman is a hostage!' Priabin yelled, his words drowned by the first rounds fired from the two rifles. Horribly, one of them was on automatic. 'The tyres, only the tyres!' he continued to bellow, his voice little more than a screech, hoarse and unheard. The car slid across the road, spun almost to face them, stalled. The two rifles continued firing, both now on single shot. 'Stop, stop-!'

The Finnish barrier was up, a car was revving. Priabin could see its exhaust rising in the glare of the lights. He was running alongside the captain, who had drawn his gun.

Gant was running. He had got out of the car, hesitated for only a moment, and then had begun running towards the other barrier and the car that was moving forward to protect him.

'Shoot him, shoot him — he's the American pilot! Kill him.'

Gant was alone. Running alone.