by Thomas Craig
"They'd have to be able to tap into the central control system, use its information for aligning and testing the weapon, and then fire it secretly — or they've got a duplicate of the entire weapon control system, down to tracking radars…?" He could not keep the doubt from his voice. He wasn't telling, after all, he was asking^ Kedrov ought to know if he was on the right track. "Wouldn't they?"
Again, Kedrov nodded slowly, his face brightening. Christ, am I right or not?
"Look, Filip, help me with this and I'll help you get to the West.
God help me, I'll get you to the West. Understand?" He was shaking the man too vigorously now, but could not prevent himself. The room stifled him. It was going down the drain, he was running out of time, and he had no idea what to look for, where to look, or whether his idea was even feasible. Come on, for Christ's sake, come on. "Help me?" he pleaded, no longer whispering. "Help me!"
Hot, tense silence, as if the room were in the tropics, a storm gathering beyond the blinds. He released Kedrov's shoulders. The silence went on, pressing on Priabin. The guard's presence was vivid.
Eventually, Kedrov spoke. Normally, it seemed.
"To the West? To America? All the way to America?" Priabin nodded, stifling the noise and expression of his relief. Trying not to shiver with gratitude. "How will you do it?" The cunning of a simpleton. Kedrov was detached, half awake. Seemed drugged.
"Of course I'll do it. If we can do this, I can use my authority to get us out by car, train, even airplane, if you want. You'll be coming to Moscow with me. From there, it will be easy. Don't you see how grateful the Americans will be? They'll make you a millionaire!" He slapped Kedrov's upper arms in a pretense of delight. Come on, come on… twelve thirty-two. Fourteen minutes in the room, and they hadn't come with lunch for Kedrov and the guard, they could be here at any moment — calm down. Oh, Christ, Kedrov, you fell for the line about America once, do it again.
"A millionaire?"
"If you save their shuttle, yes."
"And you could—?"
"I can."
Strained silence. Priabin listened behind him, to the corridor beyond the door. Nothing. Come on…
"All right, all right, Colonel — I'll come." He had looked at the guard just before he spoke. It must have been the contemptuous hatred in his eyes. Kedrov had shuddered. The guard had pulled down the last remnants of the illusory world of this safe room. "Yes, yes," he continued. "We must hurry."
"Put on this uniform — quickly, Filip." Priabin said, moving at once to the door, the rifle now in his hands, snatched up from the top of a low table. "Put on the uniform and let's get out of here.'
He moved slowly toward the light. It had been coming up through the crack, through other crevices in the rock. Its source was in this cave. He listened through the blood drumming in his ears. Ropes hissed as they uncoiled, radios crackled; all noise was magnified. He looked behind him, but the darkness was still intact back there. He kept to the wall of the ca e, stepping with infinite stealth and care, to avoid being outlined by the light, which now seemed to be slipping toward him from beyond a bend. His breath was visible now, as well as being audible to him.
A shadowy curtain. Just twenty or thirty yards from him — what? The light was diffuse, almost greenish. Puzzling. As he reached it, he removed his glove and touched the wall of dull, solid light. Ice!
It was the stream issuing from above him, masking this opening. A frozen waterfall.
Bullets plucked and stung at the ice near him. He jerked his hand back and turned. The flashes from invisible muzzles were forty or fifty yards behind him He crouched back against the rock, his head turned toward the ice—
— where a shadow dangled and shifted beyond the waterfall, and something banged against the ice as if knocking at a door. He switched the^ Kalashnikov to automatic. Light was leaking more strongly around the edges of the waterfall as if it were no more than a curtain hurriedly drawn across this gap to the outside world. He aimed, then squeezed the trigger, flinching against the thought of ricochets.
The waterfall starred and crazed like a windshield in a highspeed accident. The steel-cored bullets penetrated the ice just where the shadow dangled. At once it became a different outline, somehow heavier and inanimate. Fire increased behind him in response to his own shooting, bullets winging away or lodging in the shattered waterfall. He edged onto the ledge at the side of the ice, its scarred, green surface only inches from his face. Pressing his back against comforting rock, he inched along the ledge, into—
— sunlight hurting his eyes, almost blinding him. Into a plucking wind, rattling the parka and seeking to dislodge him. The shadow he had seen through the waterfall was as diffuse as before, as he tried to focus his wet eyes. The shadow took on substance. Hanging from a nylon rope. Foot and handholds kept the body upright, almost alert. The camouflage jacket was torn by bullets and was wet with melting ice chips and blood.
There was more firing behind him. He looked up. The rope came down from a clifftop perhaps fifty feet above him. It might only be a ledge or outcrop, or the slope of the mountainside. He had been descending steadily. The mountain may have sloped like a roof, following that descent. The rope trailed away down into a canyon. A river rushed past the point where the frozen stream ended. There was a single railway line, and a railway tunnel. Between the track and the river was a broad, four-lane highway. The canyon wound downward toward the plain of Ararat, toward, toward—
A railway junction. The one he had seen through the glasses. The river below met the Araks there. It was the road junction too. A military highway, for certain, wide enough for tank transporters and the heaviest army vehicles. It was the border. Perhaps two or three miles away. Say two…
Safety. He glanced up. Where was the rest of this spetsnaz trooper's unit? What of those behind him? There must be at least three of them still alive, hurrying now toward the waterfall and the cave mouth, knowing he had made an exit that they could still prevent from becoming an escape.
It was automatic, almost. A reflex. He used the folding stock of the Kalashnikov like a hook, catching the rope that dangled freely beneath the body. Pulling it toward him. Touching it with his gloved fingers. The sunlight seemed paler now, his eyes could cope. He gripped the rope. Glanced down, then at the waterfall's close edge. Then tugged on the rope. The body twitched, but the rope was firm. He held it in both hands, after slinging the rifle across his back, and jumped.
His feet came back with a hollow boom against the waterfall like a signal to those inside. He was now the shadow, the easy target.
He abseiled. Hands burning, legs ricocheting like falling sticks off the rocks, off the frozen water, off ledges and outcrops. He bounced, dreading the weakness of his ankles, the proximity of the rock, anticipating injury, and the quick, certain fall that would follow. He paused, straining to recover his breath, his hands waking to a shriek of pain and heat. He looked down. Forty feet below him, the end of the rope twisted and wriggled like an injured snake.
He dropped down farther, gathering momentum once more. The gleam of polished track, the rock enlarging and blurring close to his face, the thud and ache of his feet and legs — the end of the rope-He slithered to a sitting position. It was another hundred feet to the railway line and the highway, but it did not matter, the slope was shallower now.
It was only a moment before ropes whistled and rattled down beside him. The noise of distant rotors picked up, quickening and nearing. He glanced at the sky above the canyon. A dot, beating up the twists of the river toward him. Frantically he weaved through the jagged outcrops, jumping, sliding, dodging. Shots had to be ignored until he was hit… he wasn't hit, not hit, not yet, not hit…
He slithered the last yards, now perhaps a hundred feet away from the fall of the stream. The railway track and the road ran due south, down toward the enlarging gunship driving up the canyon. Its noise had begun to echo from the cliffs. He reached the railway. Bullets struck near him. The tunnel was a hundr
ed, two hundred yards away—
One fifty, he decided, already running. He adjusted his step to the gaps between the ties, more and more assuredly landing on those that fell between each stride. Concentrating his attention on his leading leg, counting, marking off, selecting the next tie. The river was below and to his right; he heard the gunships noise. He dismissed the shots, those he heard… not hit, not yet, not hit…
The tunnel, wobbling in his vision as he glanced up, was closer. The gunship, barely recognizable through his fear and effort, was much closer, moving at a terrifying speed that made his legs seem leaden, his body exhausted. He was slowing down, almost still, out of energy. The gunship came on, the tunnel hardly neared, the ties were blurred, gray concrete lines drawn like trip wires across his path He felt light-headed, off-balance; the tunnel was receding now, indefinite, illusory.
The gunship swung away to his right, but he could not follow it, he had to concentrate on the blurred ties. The rotor noise and engine note changed. It was transforming itself into a stable firing platform.
The mouth of the railway tunnel, carved through the rock of the canyon, was illuminated in a glare. Rocket fire. Rock groaned and split in the midst of the noise of the explosion. Dust surrounded him as the shock wave knocked him off his feet, against the side of the tunnel.
"Then you don't know!" It was a childish wail of disappointment from Priabin. He banged his fist against the thin wall and the noise seemed to echo in the empty place. Kedrov flinched and backed slightly across the room. There was a bare wooden table between them. "You don't know!"
Priabin's fist banged against the wall once more. The greasy, faded wallpaper showed two smeared marks. The kitchen still smelled of stale cooking, though the place had been empty for days. He could sense the fear that remained. He had had to kick the padlocked door open. The UAZ was parked in the cobbled lane behind the yard. Priabin had been unable to think of anywhere else to hide except the kitchen behind Orlov s shop.
Sugar was smeared on the table; rings from cups and bottles. His breath clouded in the cold. Kedrov's white, apprehensive face enraged Priabin. He looked at his watch. One-eighteen. At most, he had no more than fifty minutes.
"Where?" he pleaded with Kedrov. "Just give me some idea where to look." Kedrov's pasty skin seemed anxious to please, his mouth and eyes mobile with the search for some answer. But he could only shrug, then grin wanly. "Oh, for God's sake, sit down," Priabin bellowed at the technician, who then shuffled a chair from the table and perched himself upon it like some prim, maidenly visitor uncertain of the moral uprightness of the household.
Priabin sat down heavily opposite Kedrov. His head whirled with futility, with a sense of irrevocable steps taken to no purpose. He seemed to have used up whatever energy he normally possessed. He placed his hands on the table, as if clasping some invisible cup or mug. He looked tiredly at Kedrov.
"Listen, Filip, we have to think. There has to be something." Kedrov screwed up his features helpfully, but said nothing. Priabin sighed. One forefinger began shunting the hard, sticky grains of spilled sugar across the table, as if he were moving chess pieces. A lethargy of defeat held him in his chair. He struggled to continue what he knew he must say. "It has to be secret, doesn't it?" Kedrov nodded, his head wagging with as much significance as a puppy's tail. He was abstracted in dreams of America and wealth, which worked on him like the aftereffects of the drugs they had administered. "They would have to hide their secret control center, wouldn't they — however big or small, whatever it contained?" Again, Kedrov nodded. But his eyes seemed clearer, as if he had more fully awakened.
"Yes, they would."
Priabin continued: "Then let's think along those lines once more, mm?" His voice was filled with a false bonhomie. "They have to have a transmitter, and it has to be one they don't have to account for, doesn't it? I mean, Rodin can't just use the main control room if he intends firing the weapon, can he?"
"No."
"Then there you are. An underground site, separate — well away from the control complex… and the transmitter would have to be hidden, too. So, that's underground until the moment it's needed— wouldn't it be?" Kedrov's hand was tapping the table, his interest aroused just as Priabin felt the energy of his questions drain away and his leaden body drag at his thoughts. He was angry, too — angry with Gant. Why did the bastard have to die? "So — where is it?" he growled. He had asked these questions, all of them, so many times.
"They… /' Kedrov began, but seemed abashed by Priabin's sullen glare.
"Go on."
"They'd need… well, Colonel, I think they'd need something like a missile silo….." Again, his voice faltered. Priabin's waving hands encouraged him. "That would be the easiest way to get the transmitter up and down when they needed it. It would come up out of the silo just at the right moment, then disappear as soon a> they'd — finished?" He shrugged again, a gesture that irritated Priabin unreasonably.
He applauded ironically, his face sneering.
"Christ, you're a bloody genius, Filip — you really are. Do you know how many silos there are around here? Do you? Hundreds— probably thousands!" His despairing hands slapped down hard on the table. "Christ!"
"It's all I can think of," Kedrov muttered placatingly after a while. Priabin glanced at his watch. One-thirty. They'd already been in Orlov's kitchen for half an hour. He pushed at stubborn grains of sugar that had adhered to the table. His face was distorted with concentration on the task. They'd discussed, argued, refined, dismissed, reiterated — all for nothing. Of course it had to be a silo, but there really were hundreds of the bloody things! The discussion had gone round and round. "It would have to be one of the abandoned sites, wouldn't it — like the one I hid in?"
"What?" Priabin snapped, as he arranged the grains of sugar into a neat little heap. He did not look up.
They'd be looking for them by now. The corporal, whose body was still slumped on the floor of his booth when they came out of the elevator, would have recovered by now and raised the alarm. The bedclothes would have been pulled back on Kedrov's bed to reveal the guard It was less than forty minutes before target acquisition was completed and the weapon fired. The American shuttle would disintegrate. An act of war would have been committed. The whole bloody treaty and everything else would be down the toilet, and people like Rodin would be in charge, finally and for good. Priabin realized he was shaking his head. It didn't bear thinking about — the army, the fucking army in charge of everything. Oh shit.
"It would have to be an abandoned site, and probably a remote one — out near the edge of the security area — they would have to have had work done, a lot of work, and they wouldn't have wanted anyone to see what they were up to." Kedrov's voice had an air of discovery about it, an excitement. Priabin looked up at him, glowering, and Kedrov faltered. "Wouldn't it?" he asked plaintively.
Priabin sighed. He noticed that his left foot was tapping restlessly The lethargy seemed to have evaporated, leaving him tired but fidgety and unsettled. He studied the technician's too-young, half-matured features. No sign of the aftereffects of the drugs now
"Go on," he said heavily. "I'm listening."
Kedrov waved his hands over the table like a magician, to em phasize the quickening babble of his words.
"There are lots of abandoned sites, I agree, but there would be signs of recent work — silo repairs, heavy vehicles, fresh tunneling, that sort of thing." He reminded Priabin of a faulty streetlamp, flickering, glowing red, but never quite blooming into full light. Priabin willed him to be precise. "They'd need all kinds of people to help — scientists, technicians, computer people — a whole team to set it up."
"A bloody pity you weren't one of them," Priabin snapped at Kedrov, making him shy backward in his chair. "Think, man— think." Anger fueled his curiosity. His fist banged the table in repeated soft blows of emphasis. "Didn't you hear anything? Wasn't there gossip, rumor, while they were building whatever they built? Listen, Kedrov — you
're talking about a million dollars here — your million dollars. The Americans would be fucking overjoyed to give you that kind of money if you save their precious shuttle. A home overlooking Central Park, a big car, a pile of money — now bloody work for it!"
'There's so much secrecy in this country — especially in this place—"
"Don't give me politics."
"You're the policeman. Why can't you answer the question for yourself?" Kedrov's face had reddened, become more animated. He resented Priabin's bullying. "The stuff they would need — where did they get it? How did they cover up what they — diverted?"
"All right, all right," Priabin said. "Who worked on it?"
"I don't—"
"Yes you do." He brushed his hands across the table, as if to remove the evidence of wasted time, the grains of sugar. Patterns vanished. "People going on — on unexpected leave, or being transferred all of a sudden, without warning." He looked up from the table. "There must have been some strange comings and goings?"
Kedrov screwed his features into concentration. Priabin tried to think Diversion of resources? The army couldn't simply requisition what it wanted, not for Lightning. It would have to — appropriate what it required. Rodin would have to falsify the records, sign bogus requisitions, even pinch the stuff from storeroom shelves.
"What — sort of thing do you mean?" Kedrov asked eventually, his face blank of inspiration. Priabin felt anger rise unreasonably into his throat.
"There must have been people you knew who worked on the project!" he shouted, angry in a new and momentary sense, because Kedrov flinched away from him like a frightened child. He shouted more loudly, desperately: "For Christ's sake, you stupid bugger! People working on Linchpin had to be working on Lightning at the same time! There aren't enough clever sods in the whole bloody country to have two different teams at work — especially not in the army. So think of someone you know who went missing, or went on a long and unexpected leave — holiday that wasn't due, a sudden illness you knew nothing about, caught the pox when he was a queer or AIDS when he lived like a monk — think, you silly little sod, we're running out of time."
