Winter Hawk mg-3

by Thomas Craig

  At some moments, he looked quite rationally at his watch— they'd left him that — and smelled the dried urine on the gray blanket he had flung into the corner; he could even smell the spiced gruel that had stained his overalls and hands. The afternoon was halfway to darkness, almost three o'clock, local time. The last time zone.

  It had been like a fever, that first flight. Each loop and spin and dive and climb — the engine popping only a little more loudly than his mother's sewing machine — was a rise in temperature, the fever taking firm hold of him. Ciarkville as he looked down on it was Nothing; dotted buildings, a few narrow streets, scattered farms, the corn everywhere, the gently rolling landscape that from the air seemed endlessly flat»… his father shrank to insignificance. He knew, with a fierce delight, that he had broken out, escaped; loop, turn, dive, climb, spin, upside down, roll; free movements. The fever had never left him.

  Almost three o'clock. His mind returned to Vietnam, toward the third dawn and the terrible numbness throughout his body, the collapse of will and the awful loneliness amid the bustle of the village; his past was better than his future. In memory, he was close to being rescued—

  — door, startling as it was meant to do by being flung open. He looked up, frightened. Now, it began.

  "Get up!" an officer barked at him, posed with his hands on his hips in the doorway. One armed guard behind him was as much as Gant could see. "Get up!" the officer almost screamed. Yes, now it would begin, the drugs or the beating.

  He rose slowly, shakily, to his feet, unable to ignore the weakness that seemed to have drained everything from his frame, even the blood.

  Loop, roll, turn, dive, climb.

  "Quickly — this way!" the officer bellowed. Everything he said was shouted, had exactly the same volume and tone. The guard outside, carrying his rifle across his chest, stepped back to allow Gant into the corridor, keeping a precise distance between them. "Upstairs, you! To the elevator — quickly, the elevator!" It was the voice of a machine. The officer had drawn his pistol. Gant moved at a shamble that he could not improve or disguise; like the numbness that had made him stumble and fall when they had hoisted him out of the pit. Marines, the rattle of gunfire, the noise of helicopter rotors… loop, turn, dive, roll, climb, spin.

  The officer's gun was thrust into his back. The guard's rifle had its stock folded. An AKMS, something in him identified. The guard was jammed into the corner of the elevator behind him, next to the officer. Gant faced the elevator's closed doors. He took no notice of the numbers illuminating and flicking off as they ascended. Then the doors opened on to,a carpeted corridor. He was pushed along it. The guard was allowed to swing the barrel of the rifle against him in encouragement, but he hardly felt the blows; numbness was something he required now. He encouraged it.

  "Halt!" the officer cried like a parody of authority. He knocked at the door at the end of the corridor, listened, opened it. "In here—* wait!"

  There was no one, no secretary, in the outer office. The officer seemed surprised, but knocked at the inner door. Gant heard a voice he might have recognized had he not been sinking into himself, then the officer opened the door.

  'The prisoner, Colonel, as you ordered!" he snapped out robotically. Then he turned to wave Gant forward. The guard buffeted him almost casually in the back with the AKMS. Gant stumbled toward the voice that announced:

  "Thank you, Lieutenant. That will be all. Return to your duties."

  "Should your outer office be manned—?" the officer began.

  "Its not your concern, Lieutenant. That will be all."

  Gant had passed the officer, shuffling into the office where he saw Serov outlined against the light from the window. He was still squinting after the darkness of the cell. The light hurt his eyes as much as the blue sky had done over the Vietcong village. There was a second officer in the room, he noticed as the door was closed behind him.

  Closed. Change of atmosphere, of tension; excitement here, even rage. But not directed at him, he sensed, like an animal exploring some outbuilding at night. Alert, led on by hopeful scents, aware of danger, confused by contradictory sensations. What was it about this room, these two? Who was—?

  "Gant."

  Priabin, he realized — and the KGB colonel had a pistol drawn. Priabin, who wanted to kill him. He stared at the man, unable to move or speak, as if exactly repeating their previous encounter.

  "Thank God," he heard then. Serov? No, Priabin.

  Serov slumped noisily into his chair, hands raised. His voice betrayed nervousness, suppressed or burned-out rage.

  "So you've got your pilot. What now? It's three already. I've been shut up alone with you for a long time. We've refused two urgent calls, and other, more routine ones must be piling up at the switchboard." He sighed theatrically, lowering his hands slowly onto the desk, fingers spread. Gant was baffled; kept turning his gaze to Priabin, to Serov, to Priabin. Serov added, with greater mockery, "I even sent my secretary on a pointless errand, but he will be back soon. Anyone could walk in here, at any moment. What are you going to do?" He was all but gloating, even though he appeared to he Priabin's prisoner, Gant realized with slow, painful thought.

  Where's your girlfriend, mm? It's not happening quickly enough, Priabin."

  "Serov, be quiet — you're boring me," Priabin replied, moving toward Gant. His nose wrinkled at the food stains, at the dirt on

  Gant's hands; his eyes were concerned at the features he studied, at the defeat and weariness Gant knew his own eyes proclaimed. He shook his head, not knowing what he intended by the gesture. "Are you OK?" Priabin asked in heavily accented English.

  "Maybe," Gant replied in Russian. Priabin nodded at the word, as if remembering Gant more clearly. "What gives here?" he added, gesturing at Serov, who watched them both.

  "You are now my prisoner once more," Priabin replied.

  An exchange of prisons? The room's atmosphere was wrong, there was something else here — as if Serov were the prisoner, though he couldn't be.

  He watched the emotions of Priabin's face; hate, yes, but purpose, too — fear, desperation, the wild excitement of overcoming something. What had happened in this room?

  "You said pilot," Gant observed, turning to Serov. "Why are you handing me over to this guy? He wants to kill me."

  "We all want to kill you, my dear fellow, in our own good time and our own way, but Colonel Priabin" — he lit and drew on a cigarette; blue smoke rolled above his head—"Colonel Priabin has a use for you before he kills you. And make no mistake, he still wants to do that. You are able to see that quite clearly for yourself, I imagine?"

  Gant had turned back to Priabin. Yes, he still wanted it. Gant felt his body coming back to life, prickling with cramps and heightened nerves. There was a prison here, but he was no longer sure on which side of the bars he stood. He slowly, innocuously flexed his hands, shifted his feet.

  "So?" he asked Priabin.

  "Not if you help me, Gant — not then."

  "No, I don't believe you," Gant replied. He might even want to mean it, but the woman's death would make him do it in the end.

  "I'm your only way out, Gant," Priabin snapped, with an anger that seemed to have been suppressed for a long time. "You'll do as I say."

  "What?"

  "Fly me out of here — with the good Colonel here, of course, for company. Wonderful conversationalist."

  "Why? Why do you need me?"

  'Tell him, Priabin, why don't you?" Serov scoffed quietly.

  Priabin's face expressed urgency. He glanced at his watch, as he had done repeatedly, ever since Gant had been brought there.

  "All right. I can't get out because of the security surrounding the launch — yes, the laser weapon. Your people were right to be worried. They've done it — we've done it. We have one, and it will be loaded aboard the shuttle tonight. I have to get out of Baikonur, to another KGB office a hundred miles away — do you see?"

  Gant shook his head. "Who's stopping you?"


  "I am," Serov announced quite calmly.

  "Why?"

  "Because I have to try to stop the launch, that's why!" Priabin yelled, looking once more at his watch. One minute past three. The sunlight was pale now, sliding down the far wall of the room like splashed paint. "Don't you understand?"

  "Of course he doesn't, Priabin. You could hardly expect him to, now could you?"

  Priabin seemed at a loss; then his face brightened. "Lightning— of course, you don't know. Our precious army here intends to use the weapon!"

  "How?" Gant asked after a long silence.

  "Against your shuttle craft now in orbit. Atlantis will be vaporized on Friday — unless you get me out of here. I have to talk to Moscow. Is that enough explanation for you?"

  Gant felt his jaw slacken, his mouth open. Confirmation lay exposed in Serov's smile, his glittering, watchful eyes. Wakeman, the shuttle commander, and the others, just — gone.

  "I don't have time for your shock and recovery, Gant," Priabin snapped. "You'll obey my orders and fly our surveillance helicopter from here to Aral'sk, as secretly as the way you got in. Understand?"

  Gant nodded. The man was giving him the pilot's seat in a Mil — a hand reaching down, two, three, four hands, into the vile water, and pulling at his numb hands and arms until they lifted him from the pit and he lay weak and exhausted and crying on the earth beside it. Fires burned all around, rotor noise howling about him, rifles on automatic… This Russian was going to give him control of a Mil helicopter, help him escape. He fought to prevent his relief appearing in his eyes, around his mouth. Clenched his hands behind his back.

  "He's already thinking furiously how to turn all this to his advantage, Priabin," Serov remarked.

  "That makes two of you," Priabin shot back, looking again at his watch. Three after three. "We'll make it, Serov — won't that annoy you."

  ideas whirled in Gant's head. The laser weapon itself, the weapon being used, the shuttle and Wakeman, whom he knew, the treaty, distances, the promise of the MiL. Priabin must be used, for his safety; Priabin had to succeed. An aftershock ran through him like an icy chill. Using the battle station — Wakeman, Atlantis, the Soviet shuttle, that night, orbit, the treaty, the army, the distance to the nearest border…

  … climb, turn, loop, roll, spin, dive… the key to the prison was in his hand, that was his most immediate and recurrent image. Escape.

  There was a knock on the door. Priabin, startled, turned the aim of his pistol toward the noise. Serov sat immediately more upright, as if about to spring.

  "Watch him," Priabin demanded.

  Gant moved toward the desk, hearing a voice from beyond the door. A woman's voice.

  "Colonel?" Then: "Dmitri?"

  Priabin hurried to open the door, almost pulled Katya into the room, slammed the door behind her. In her arms was a uniform. Serov's breath hissed between his clenched teeth. Gant caught the letter opener Priabin threw in his direction. The Russian was elated by the woman's arrival. Her wide eyes were taking in the room, its tensions and reliefs, its promised dangers for her, for all of them except perhaps Serov. Her hand touched Priabin's arm proprietarially, concerned. He seemed to be unaware of the contact as he turned to Gant.

  "Get into this KGB uniform, Gant. It should be about your size — quickly." He turned to the woman. "Katya — the helicopter?"

  She nodded. "They grumbled a lot, said you couldn't get permission to take off, they didn't want to be shot down. But it's ready for your arrival. I told them it was urgent, you'd come with the right papers."

  "Good girl. I'll have the right authority, all right — him." He pointed at Serov with the pistol; he was euphoric, almost drunk with the jigsaw puzzle he had successfully put together. Gant distrusted his mood. "What's happening outside this room?" he asked, still animated. "Did you have trouble getting in?"

  "Back stairs — poor security from the clodhoppers. I didn't see a soul. We could use—"

  "Front stairs — the elevator for us down to his car in the basement garage. A nice little party on urgent business. Come on, Gant. Hurry, man."

  "What about the guy I came for — don't we need him?"

  "He's heavily sedated. Too hard to move him. They'll just have to take my word for it, won't they?" His face seemed struck by light. "No, they bloody well won't, will they, Serov?" Priabin crossed to Serov's desk, tugged open a drawer, rummaged in it, tried a lower drawer, rummaged, then held up three cassette tapes. '"The ones we used — even neatly labeled by Mikhail." His gaiety was dangerous, consuming all caution; in his own mind, he had already won the game. He threw the cassettes to Katya. "Look after these with your life," he quipped. "Gant, are you ready?"

  "Yes." He stood to attention in the corporal's uniform to be inspected. Priabin studied him for a moment, then nodded.

  "You'll do. OK, let's go. Serov, you'll walk beside me in our little party, with Gant and Katya behind us. Both armed. One false step — but you know how the dialogue goes. Don't worry about Gant, Katya, he has a vested interest in helping us. We're giving him a chance to go on living. Just in case, take the pistol from him as soon as we reach the helicopter. OK?"

  "Yes, Colonel."

  "I think this farce has run for long enough, don't you?" Serov drawled, smiling.

  "Get up," Priabin snapped at him.

  Gant saw no movement of Serov's hand, only him rising from his chair. Then an alarm howled outside the window, answered by the baying of other alarms in the retreating distance of the corridors beyond Serov's office; all over GRU headquarters. Priabin was stunned by the noise. Gant thrust Serov aside and felt for the alarm button that had to be in one of the desk drawers Priabin had opened; found it, but was unable to stop the noise.

  Serov shut the drawer on Gant's left hand. He yelled in pain and struck Serov across the temple with the gun Priabin had handed him.

  "No!" Priabin wailed. His look of triumph had vanished.

  Gant winced at the pain in his hand and continued to fumble clumsily around the drawer's interior. His mind was filled with the prospect of broken skin, broken bones, the uselessness of the hand … it touched another button. Silence.

  Then he examined his hand, cuddling it, testing it. Broken skin.

  The fingers bent slowly, in turn. No broken bones. Just bruising. The silence in the room, in the whole building, thudded against his ears like noise. His hand would have to be good enough to fly the MiL. Serov was satisfyingly slumped in his chair, blood seeping down his cheek from the cut on his temple.

  "No," Priabin breathed. This time it was a plea.

  Furniture of the room. A hurried impression as Gant's eyes roved like a quick, unfocused camera. Serving tray, glasses, chairs, wastebasket, papers, papers!

  Cigarette smoke, lighter.

  "Help me," he yelled at Priabin.

  "What?" came the dazed reply.

  Gant flicked the desk lighter, crumpled paper into the waste-basket. Katya, eyes concentrated and squinting, watched him, then snatched vodka bottles from the tray. Handed one to Priabin, unscrewed the tight cork from her bottle, twisting and tugging at it with almost comic desperation. Priabin, understanding, tugged the cork of the other bottle with his teeth.

  "Drinking bastard — spilled the stuff, lit a cigarette, we sounded the alarm, but put out….."He did not concern himself with other explanation. They doused the wastebasket, then the surface of the desk. Gant flicked the lighter. Priabin soaked the front of Serov's uniform. The man's eyes cringed at the sight of the stain and the flickering lighter flame.

  "Now!" Gant shouted, almost throwing the hghter at the vodka. Flames licked over the desk, dribbled to the carpet, flared in the wastebasket. "Get him on his feet."

  He bundled Serov's frame out of his chair. "Move it," he bellowed. "Use the extinguisher, for Christ's sake."

  Katya snatched it from the wall, inverted it, banged it on the arm of a chair, and foam sprayed wildly. Gant glared at Priabin.

  "Help me get this guy to
the door." Priabin was watching the foam as if mesmerized. "Damn you, Priabin, move your ass."

  He threw Priabin the pistol and bundled the half-conscious Serov across the room. The man seemed unwilling to protest or resist. Gant watched the door, then opened it.

  Two guards spilling into the outer office, rifles awry, curiosity as much as threat in their expressions, their eyes already glimpsing the flames and smoke beyond their colonel and the uniformed man who held him. Gant's hand ached. His was a KGB uniform, so was Priabin's and the woman's — three of them and the semi-conscious Serov.

  "Drunk!" he yelled. "Started a fucking fire in his own office— cigarette!" The men were nodding. Gant turned. The woman had doused the flames. Acrid smoke filled his nostrils. "All right, get out of our way, the colonel needs medical attention. Quick, move it."

  They began to back away from Gant and the muttering bundle in his arms, from Priabin as he pressed behind Gant, from the woman completing the group. Moved out of the outer doorway into the corridor. Gant thrust Serov forward, his feet dragging. Smoke seeped after them, stinking and choking.

  The lieutenant was in the corridor beyond them, emerging from the staircase, running—

  — saw the group they made, his retreating men, his slumped superior officer. Suspected. He'd questioned Serov about the manning of the outer office; he'd come expecting something to be wrong, but not a fire.

  "Wait!" he shouted, still running. "What's going on here? Wait! What is the matter with—?" He stopped, mouth opening at the sight of Priabin's face — that of a prisoner — and Priabin's gun, impossible in an arrested man's hand. Recognitions flickered. He raised his gun.

  "Do it and this bastard's a dead man!" Gant yelled at him. The two guards were slowly beginning to understand. Gant saw the narrowness of the corridor, the elevator doors at the end of it, the lieutenant and the two guards. It was never going to work.

  He coughed in the rolling smoke and pushed Serov toward them like a shield. Priabin thrust the muzzle of his pistol against Serov's forehead. Gant felt the man in his arms become rigid with his sense of danger.