by Thomas Craig
For how long? For what purpose? Pessimism insisted, elbowing hope aside. Priabin still protested and demanded in his ears — almost inside his head now. He continued to head the Mil south, toward the old town, the Moscow road, the shelter of the river. Anywhere he could find ground clutter to confuse their radars, low cover, even a place of concealment. Because he had no alternative. It was simply a matter of time; thirty-eight seconds of the two minutes' freedom had passed. In the gunships, APUs were already warming up, rotors waited to turn, hands were poised near throttle levers, final flight checks were made, orders poured into headsets. He dismissed the crowding thoughts and switched off his radar. The solitary patrolling gunship was not in pursuit; it was waiting for new orders, for the pack. The tiny Mil drifted no more than forty feet above scrubby, frozen fields, scattered wooden buildings.
Gant studied the helicopter's main instrument panel. A PR adaptation, familiar enough; cameras, low-light TV, infrared, neither defensive nor offensive systems, just recording instruments. The moving map slid with him, repeatedly throwing up details that suggested safety, soon dismissed and ignored. Tyuratam's lights glowed against the darkness to port and to the southeast. In his mirrors, the Baikonur complex was a haze of white light.
They had nothing now, only Priabin's wild story. What they needed — what they had had with Serov as their prisoner — was proof, corroboration. This—Lightning… Gant shied away from the thought. They intended it; they would achieve it. Their mad wild card on the table, changing the basis of the game, declaring the eventual winner. Lightning. He could not think of it rationally, thus refused to think of it at all, except to understand that there was nothing he could do to prevent it.
Survival dictated other priorities. He watched the moving map record his increasing distance from the hangar and the airfield-Sixty-two seconds of the two minutes had vanished, slipped from him. He felt weary, hungry, still numb in parts of his body and mind from the shock of escape. Hope had drained him of adrenaline.
"Gant? Gant, are you there?" he heard.
"Yes," he snapped.
"She's unconscious. I, I think she's dying. For God's sake, turn back and land. I'll show you the hospital complex — turn back before it's too late." Priabin's voice was strange, as if a.recording of a long-past crisis. Gant remembered the Finnish border, the woman's body cradled in Priabin's arms beside the car. The woman in there, evidently dying, was Anna, not the junior KGB officer with whom he worked — maybe even slept.
"No," he said carefully, firmly.
"Yes, damn you!" Priabin almost screamed in his head.
Gant flicked on the radar. Nothing ahead of him. Against the town's haze, he could see power lines, radio masts. He threaded a course dictated by the details of the map, designed specifically to assist low-altitude, even night, flying. He flicked off the set again.
"No. She's dying — you said it. You can't save her — or yourself, that way. She's on your conscience, Priabin," he added without pity in his voice. "You messed up back there. She got shot. It happens." Better to finish it quickly, encourage the rage, burn it off like gas from a well. He needed Priabin's brain, not his feverish, guilty imagination.
And Priabin raged; cursing, blaming, pleading. The Mil drifted south slowly, hidden by folds and dips, masked by ground clutter. Gant poised his hand over the radio, waiting to tune to the principal military frequency. He would need to know when they began the hunt, how they began it. Priabin's anger slid into incoherence, into harsh breathing, sobs, then a soothing murmuring to the unconscious woman.
Gant exhaled carefully, deeply. The haze of the town was closer, the road and railway and river no more than a few miles ahead. Lights from a scattering of homes, headlights on a minor road to the west of him, bouncing and imitating searchlights; the image made him shiver with anticipation. Yet, with only the haze ahead and in his mirrors, the scattered lights, the last strip of orange-gold mark-the always indistinct desert horizon to the west, the murmuring voice of Priabin — it was all unreal; deadening, like a sedative. The ZiL was comfortable now, like a familiar car. He flicked on the radio, tuning it.
A roar of voices after the swish of static. Like a great anger. Command, commands, commanding — eventually a voice emerged, and it did not seem to be that of Serov, even distorted by rage and distance. An older voice. Snapping out orders, giving advice, directions. The hunt was on.
Literally. Airborne, the first two gunships, heading south at close to maximum speed. They wouldn't care if at first they overran him. Kill on sight, destroy on contact, end, finish, make certain, no survivors, destroy on contact… the litany unnerved him. He returned the set to its neutral, safe swish of ether. He would not be able to evade them. Fuel gauges registering full; he'd get no more than — what, one fifty, carrying only two other people in the main cabin? One fifty. The western shore of the Aral Sea? Not even that far. He groaned.
Priabin's voice was silent. Just an occasional movement, the scraping of a boot on metal, the whispers of a shivering body in his ears. A small, weak, unconscious groan. He listened instead to the retuned radio.
Positions, speed, altitude, pattern, all immediately supplied, as if they were reporting to him. Once the pattern was established, they might go to another channel or into code, but it was all too diffuse as yet for the controller to resign the authority and success of the search to his units. He wouldn't be able to see most of them on radar because they were keeping low now, rushing through the early night, eager and assured. Positions, visual scan, IR traces, ground clutter—
"Priabin."
"What?" A man startled from sleep or reverie. His voice was dull with misery.
"We — we need proof! Proof they can't mistake or misunderstand. Real proof — not like those tapes. Real." The idea was still formless. "Right. Like — pictures." He clenched on the thought, grinding his teeth, forcing its birth. "TV, infrared — cameras, right? Transmission, video recording — range?"
"What?"
"What's the range of this damn transmitter?" he bellowed.
"I–I'm not sure. A hundred miles, fifty — I don't know."
"Then you'd better hope."
"Why?"
"You use it, to transmit PR pictures direct?"
"Sometimes."
He lifted the Mil over power cables. The road was ahead, cars moving along it, lights rising and falling, spraying out into the dark countryside. Scattered houses, the early moon, stars. The darkness appeared unsafe.
Nothing in his mirrors. The two minutes had come and gone. Two minutes thirty seconds. At high speed, they wouldn't be more than a minute behind. Maybe a minute and- a half. Then use the time!
"Aral'sk — the nearest KGB office… receive the pictures?" He was incoherent in his struggle to shape the idea. "Uuuhn," he groaned, as if the notion resisted and he were grappling with it. "Damn it."
"I don't know."
"Talk to them!" he yelled. "You talk to them. Is there a radio back there?"
"Yes — what pictures? Gant, what—?"
"Maybe some….." His voice was soft now, his breathing stertorous but relieved. IR, TV — low-light TV, transmitter, recorder, cameras of different kinds in the main cabin, Priabin would have to describe them — Christ, Priabin was going to have to use them!
His voice gabbled. The idea was loose, slippery. He held on to it only by bellowing the fragments.
He had slowed the Mil almost to a hover, twenty feet above a darkened and dilapidated wooden building. Barn or warehouse. Its bulk — he dropped alongside it, but kept his undercarriage perhaps six feet above the ground — disguised his radar image. Lights streamed along the road. Headlight beams washed over sand, over the ditch alongside the road, caught the gleam of icy railway track, all as if seeing him rather than simply moving across his sight. His head rang and whirled, his voice was breathy, threatening to crack.
No more than a minute now, the clock in his head insisted.
"Assembly building… shuttle vehicle —
laser weapon aboard?" He did not pause for a reply. "Pictures — pictures! From the doors … roof — shuttle and weapon, all we need… transmit to KGB receiver — proof, other people know, Moscow — everyone… otherwise we don't survive, this could keep us alive… once their secret's blown, we might be safe — assembly building…"
His voice failed.
"Gant? Gant?"
"What?"
"It's madness — you realize that? I can't do it."
"Forget her!" he roared back. "Forget the woman — she's dead, Priabin. Were all dead unless we get some leverage — now. Understand me? I can't get us out of here, I'm not Captain Marvel. Can Aral'sk KGB pick up a transmission?"
Priabin was silent for a moment, before he said, "I'll ask them." Then, as if uttering a betrayal, he repeated vehemently: "I'll ask them!"
"Do it now," Gant said with a sigh he could not prevent. He almost added something more sympathetic about the dying girl, but refrained. Priabin's conscience, his grief, was inconvenient, possibly dangerous.
Gant held the Mil in the hover, seven or eight feet from the ground. Beyond the road, the river caught the first pale moonlight like a winding slug trail. He felt a breeze elbowing against the fuselage, heard Priabin's breathing, his movements in his ears. Let his own body subside.
Not the doors; the booster stages had been moved to the launch pad, the doors would not be open. The roof, then. Skylights.
Holding the Mil occupied his instincts and his limbs. His mind cooled. TV camera and even infrared… Priabin would have to get out of the MiL, use an IR lens on a still camera, unless—
"You got a portable TV or film camera back there?"
"Um — yes, I think so." Priabin searched. Gant heard the man pause, then sniff audibly. "Yes. Videotape recording, not TV."
"OK, use that. I'll take TV—"
"Can you operate the equipment?"
"Pray I can."
He had been assessing the control panel. Lights, camera, action — yes.
"Gant." Priabin protested.
"Not now."
He summoned the sections of moving map he would require. The main assembly building that now housed the shuttle craft and the laser weapon was more than twelve miles to the northeast. He assessed the distance, the obstacles, with a strange detachment. A ring of silos, an intricate web of roads and railway branch lines, test facilities, factories, support areas — danger symbols, restricted areas strung like the constituents of a minefield. His hands were aching and his legs cramped from holding the helicopter still in the now-turbulent breeze. He looked up, seeing navigation lights amid the stars. Nothing yet.
"Is the girl secured?" he asked, as if of a piece of cargo.
"I—"
"You want to save her pain, Priabin, make sure she can't move," he instructed through clenched teeth.
"Gant!"
"Just do it. You talk to Aral'sk yet?"
"They're standing by for a transmission. It's all right, I explained that our office's receiver was out of commission. They don't know— yet — what it is they're going to see."
"When they get the pictures, tell them to transmit them direct to Moscow — they can do that?"
"They'll have to use a relay to Guryev or on to Astrakhan, even Baku… to the nearest satellite facility."
"Warn them to be ready on that. There isn't going to be much time. OK?" He attempted to trust Priabin; but images of the dead woman on the border road defeated him. Priabin would work with him — possibly. Priabin had his own life to save — possibly. But the dead woman and the dying woman — what had they done to him? "OK?" he insisted. "You ready?"
"No," Priabin replied immediately. "But we're on the same side, Gant. For the moment, and by the strangest accident — but we are. I have to stop them, too, there's nothing standing in my way," he added as if he divined the source of Gant's doubt. His breathing was harsh, contradicting his statement. Gant let it go.
"OK. Talk to Aral'sk, then get ready to use that video camera."
Begin.
The Mil rose gently from the shelter of the wooden barn. The wind cuffed the fuselage as it moved out of the shadows, into the betraying moonlight. Bright moon, strong wind. Gant loathed the night.
He scanned the sky, his gaze sliding from the starry darkness toward the wash of the moonlight. Nothing. No lights, no insect silhouettes. The wind struck the fuselage. He glanced down at the moving-map display. Twenty feet above the ground, the Mil began to move northeast, away from the Moscow road, toward the main assembly building of the Baikonur complex.
"I should not have had to come here, Serov. I should not have had to come."
Serov's broken arm was held in a sling made from someone's Uniform belt. His face was ashen with pain, his whole bulky form somehow diminished by his injury. To Rodin, he appeared — for once — subordinate. Rodin's voice echoed in the empty hangar. GRU officers and men had retired to a respectful, even nervous distance, anticipating some kind of detonation. Rodin slapped one removed glove in his palm, as if weighing a selected target. Serov had become the object of his rage, but more than that; the general felt a desire, almost a need, to vent some deep, anguished wrath on the man who stood in front of him. There were pools of light-rain-bowed gasoline around them where the stolen KGB helicopter had stood.
"I — comrade General, I am sorry that—"
"Be quiet, Serov. Be quiet before you say something that further displays your incompetence." Rodin's glove slapped into his palm like an anticipation. His staff, too, stood away from the two of them; near the open doors of the hangar — through which the American had flown the Mil and escaped! It hardly bore consideration, it made his body overheat, his collar seem tight. It evoked intense contempt, even hatred, for this, this creature in front of him.
Rodin cleared his throat of angry phlegm. "They will be found, Serov, within the hour. At liberty, they are an element of the most critical importance. This American, Gant — you seem to have underestimated him just as you did the KGB officer. You let them take you." The anger was back, and he did little to suppress it. His hand moved, without restraint, slapping the glove hard across Serov's face. "You—" he snarled.
Rodin knew. Some deep instinct convinced him that Serov was involved in Valery's death. He could not analyze or even continue the idea. His wife was broken, and he could feel pity for her; just as he could feel his hatred of Serov. He knew that Serov, too, understood. His eyes gave that away.
"I will make it my duty to inform Stavka of this day's business, Serov," he promised. Had Serov killed his son? Impossible. But he had had something to do with it; had he hounded the boy? Showing him his future, in a cracked and distorting mirror? Had he destroyed Valery? "They will be recaptured," he proceeded, as if some rehearsed and uninvolved part of him continued with the business of security, and Lightning. 'The measures taken must not fail. It is being put back into your hands. You'll come with us to mission control and run the search from there. Understand? You will succeed."
"Comrade General, my arm—"
Rodin waved a dismissive glove, airily. 'There is not time to have that set and plastered. You will come now. You have control of four gunships and another eight helicopters, as well as GRU and army units. You will use them to find these runaways. Come/'
Rodin turned away from the ashen, carefully neutral features. His stride did not falter. Inside himself, he felt a dark tide moving his heart and stomach. Now, now he could blame others, entirely, for Valery's death. Others would pay. Valery Avould be — avenged. The record put straight.
He reached the tight, expectant knot of staff officers. He waved them ahead of him out into the evening and the icy wind. He looked up at the stars. Somewhere out there, one small helicopter posed a danger. Critical — but it was difficult to believe that the American could evade the hunt for more than an hour or two. Before midnight, before the shuttle and the laser weapon began their journey to the launch pad, he and Priabin would again be in custody — or dead. He felt th
e wind snatch at his breath. It flew away like smoke. He bent his head to climb into the staff car's rear seat.
Dangerous, but not mortal. He looked out of his window. Serov was cradling his broken arm as he came out of the hangar. A gunship droned overhead. More distantly, lights flashed from other MiLs. Searchlights flooded down from the bellies of two other insect shapes in the distance.
"Mission control," he snapped. "Quickly." Then, as he made to settle back into his seat, his glance turned once more to Serov, waiting in the cold for his own car. He tapped his driver on the shoulder as he heard the gears bite and the engine note strengthen. "Wait," he said, and wound down his window. "Serov," he called. "Come here."
Serov walked the few yards in evident discomfort. He leaned slowly, like an old man, to the open window.
"Comrade General?"
"Where will they make for, Serov? What will they attempt?"
"Telephone — radio?" Serov replied dully. "Priabin will want to talk to Moscow Center."
"Exactly. Where, then?"
"Aral'sk is the closest office with the necessary comm—"
"Then do something about Aral'sk I don't care what it is — close the office, commandeer the equipment, destroy the place if you have to — just make it impossible for them to use Aral'sk KGB. Understand?"
"Yes, comrade General, at once."
"Driver — you can go."
* * *
The lamp set beneath the MiLs belly was on. The black-and-white television picture, four inches square and set above the control panel, showed the uneven ground over which the Mil passed with grainy inexactitude. Gant flicked off the camera. The surveillance equipment was effective in searching for moving figures and vehicles — it would have to be good enough from the roof of the main assembly building. Distance to target, seven miles. Ground speed, less than forty miles an hour.
Ten minutes now. Occasionally, in his headset, their voices barked and called. Areas clear, coordination with ground troops, consultations with the command post. Serov's voice was back, strangely weak and old, but decisive with what Gant sensed was desperation. The other voice had disappeared. They were concentrating the search to the south of him, to the west, too. Looking for a fleeing animal. He was within the net, but they were still casting it and not pulling it tight. He huddled close to the terrain, slipped beneath power cables, nosing like a dog rather than flying— but he had reached the curving rampart of silos, tracking radars and the power grid at the perimeter of the military launch complex to the north of Tyuratam.
