by Craig Thomas
A black, crooked line, like a tree growing in hideous fast-motion, moved away across the ice. Branches grew from it. The Firefox lurched again, this time to port, and settled unsurely. Other black trees grew out across the ice around and behind him.
Horrified, he looked over the fuselage. He could see water behind the starboard wing, water behind and in front of the port wing. Water beyond the tail. Huge jagged plates and slabs of ice bobbed and rubbed one another around the Firefox, which now floated on its belly, buoyed up for the moment by the empty fuel tanks in the wings and fuselage. Gant knew that as soon as the engine outlets and tailpipes filled, the aircraft would sink steadily into the lake.
TWO:
Deeper
The tail of the Firefox slid deeper into the water as the tailpipes and inlets flooded and the undercarriage sought the pebbled floor of the lake where it sloped steeply from the bank. The nose of the aircraft jutted into the lower branches of the nearest firs but it, too, was slowly sinking. Gant did not understand. The ice was thin and weak at the neck of the lake, even though the stream that provided the lake's outlet was evidently frozen between its banks. Everything was frozen - yet the Firefox was sinking.
He felt panic mount, rising like a thermometer. He could not control it because he had used all his reserves of energy and self-control to reach the lake with the aircraft intact, and this disaster had struck at the moment of his release, his greatest relief. The panic rose in waves through him, and his hands gripped the side of the cockpit, numb with the pressure he exerted; a mad, dazed ship's captain waiting for the end.
Floor of the lake steep - draining water leaving a pocket of air under the ice, making it thin - engine weight will roll her back into the lake, further out - she'll drown, drown…
The jagged plates of ice touched, rubbed, moved apart. He could easily make it to the shore, even though the overhead branches were already out of reach. It was the airplane, the Firefox -
There was nothing he could do. His frame shuddered with tension and futility. He was weary, and his limbs seemed very heavy. He had nothing left. Water lapped up the fuselage, very slowly moving higher - the branches over the cockpit were now over the up-jutting nose. The huge weight of the engines and the airframe was slowly dragging the Firefox deeper and further out into the lake. The long nose section thrust from the water like the snout of a creature that had breached the flimsy ice.
The cracks had stopped. They branched perhaps fifty or sixty yards out into the lake behind the aircraft. The loose plates of ice had floated away from the fuselage to gather like a motiveless crowd where the ice remained deceptively firm. To his left, the snow-covered shore of the lake was still within jumping distance.
Gant climbed onto the lip of the cockpit, poising himself, his hands gripping the edge of the cockpit tightly. He looked back down at the still-lit instruments, the fallen helmet, the pilot's couch…
The Firefox lurched backwards, out from beneath the shelter of the trees, the water lapping the fuselage. Now, it was little more than a foot from the edge of the cockpit; another movement, and the first icy ripples would spill into it - fusing, shorting, damaging everything. The panic in his stomach and chest would not subside. There was no nightmare of Vietnam, not in this cold, not with the smoky grey shoreline and the omnipresence of show. But he was as bereft of purpose as if he were suffering one of his bouts of paralysis.
The aircraft was steady now, tilting backwards on the sloping bed of the lake. Perhaps only for seconds… The water was ten inches from the lip of the cockpit… the tail was half-submerged, the huge engines already under water…
He dropped, in his apelike crouch, back into the cockpit, his hands nerveless and numb as he tried to make them operate small, delicate switches and buttons. Thought-guidance - shut down… come on… weapons-systems - shut down… radio, radar, auto-pilot, ECM systems - shut down… His hands seemed warmer now, no longer lumps at the ends of his arms but active, moving with a trained, automatic precision and speed. In seconds, he shut down the aircraft, killing it, rendering it lifeless. Then he climbed over the lip of the cockpit. He was still wearing his parachute. Clipped to his life-jacket were his inflatable dinghy and his survival pack. Icy water touched his heel, and he withdrew his foot. Awkwardly, he moved over the cockpit sill, his toes feeling clumsily for the spring-loaded steps. When he found them, and balanced himself, he pulled out the cockpit canopy hand crank from its compartment below the cockpit sill. He cranked down the cockpit canopy until it closed tightly. Then he closed the manual, exterior locks.
A moment of pain, of acute failure, and then he poised and leapt. He landed in soft snow, paining his hand on a buried tree root, rolling over and scrabbling for a hold on frozen grass and icy rocks beneath the snow. His survival pack and the dinghy lay beneath him. Snow filled his mouth and eyes, even his ears, though they were still alive to the terrible scraping lurch that meant the Firefox was moving further out, further under the surface.
Yes. He turned to look. The water had reached the cockpit - thank God he'd remembered to close and lock it - and the nose pointed to the grey sky at a more acute angle than before. He drew his knees up to his chest - the cold of the snow seeping through the pressure suit and the thin underclothing beneath - and dropped his head. He could not move. He felt it was like waiting by a deathbed - but not his father's, for that had been an impatient wait with release and the throwing off of hatred at the end of the tunnel.
It would be no more than a minute now -
He laughed; high and crazy. The noise was like the call of a rook in the thick cold air. He could not prevent it; a cackle of survival and defeat. He'd certainly hidden the Firefox, hidden it good -
He could not stop the laughter. Tears rolled down his blanched, cold cheeks, down the creases of his pained face. He cackled like a madman. He'd really, really hidden it -
Another grating lurch - some part of him remained surprised that the undercarriage had withstood the pressure upon it - and he looked up to see the cockpit now half-submerged, the water lapping towards the nose of the Firefox.
And the laughter stopped.
The locked and shut down aircraft was twenty yards from him, the black nose jutting, the cockpit half-submerged. Everything - everything electronic, every means of communication, was locked beneath the canopy, locked inside the airframe. Radio, radio, radio…
Gant swallowed, savagely wiped his mouth. The aircraft was steady again, one of the wheels, perhaps, halted against the chock of a boulder or sunk in softer mud. Tantalisingly steady -
There was nothing -
'Nothing, dammit!' he exploded, banging his clenched fists on his thighs. A bird replied in a hoarse voice from one of the trees. 'Nothing - !' He could do nothing. He couldn't sit in the Firefox until help came, he couldn't dismantle the radio and rescue it, he couldn't, couldn't couldn't -
Strangely, he heard the voice of Aubrey then. The soft, self-deprecating, insinuating tones. His final briefing, the fake transistor radio that was a homing receiver which had saved his life, listening as it had done for signals from 'Mother One', the submarine that had refuelled the Firefox. It was attached by a single adhesive strip to one corner of the instrument panel.
Receiver - ?
Transmitter, too… Aubrey had been reluctant to mention it, hovered over the words like a choosily-feeding pet until he had uttered them. In case of some - final emergency, my dear fellow… not likely, of course… but, it has an emergency signal facility if you - have to… you understand…?
Gant was on his feet, still nodding at the remembered words as he had nodded when he first heard them. Aubrey didn't want to mention crashing, injury, death, but Gant had understood.
And he had left it in the cockpit!
He slipped and scrambled down the steep bank. He undipped his survival pack, his parachute harness, the dinghy. The dinghy - ! A fringe of ice cracked beneath his weight, and he slid into the icy water. He cried out with shock. He stepped back - peb
bles and larger boulders on the bed of the lake, so he moved carefully - and the water retreated. He dragged the dinghy towards him, and inflated it. It boiled and enlarged and groaned, then bobbed on the water. His teeth chattered, his whole body shuddered. A bird croaked, as if in mockery. The nose of the Firefox tilted upwards like a snub, a dismissal of his frantic efforts. He climbed into the dinghy, and paddled furiously towards the aircraft. His head bobbed up at every frantic stroke to study the unmoving nose of the plane. His body temperature continued to drop. His heartbeat raced with tension, with the sense of time lost and almost run out, with the fight to keep the blood warm and circulating.
His hand touched the fuselage, and he withdrew it as if shocked, in case the pressure of fingertips might be enough to thrust it beneath the water. He juggled and bumped the dinghy slowly along the fuselage until it was beneath the cockpit tilted crazily high above him. His hands felt for the spring-loaded steps up the side of the fuselage.
Felt, fumbled, found… He tested his chilly weight against the strength of his arms, and then heaved his body out of the dinghy, feet scrabbling - careful, don't kick, don't struggle - until they, too, discovered toe-holds. He hung there for a moment, sensing the steadiness of the airframe. It was holding. He began climbing, hand over hand, feet following with exaggerated caution, slipping more than once.
Lip of the cockpit, smoothness of the canopy…
He rested, aware of the airframe now as a see-saw. He waited for it to move. It remained still. The water covered the rear section of the canopy. Water would spill into the cockpit when he opened it. It wouldn't have to matter.
Left-hand side of the instrument panel. He unlocked the canopy, then cranked it slowly open. Water gurgled into the cockpit, splashing down instruments, becoming a pool in the well of the pilot's couch. He eased the canopy open sufficiently to insert his gloved hands, and scrabbled blindly, leaning forward, touching along the instrument panel, across dials and read-outs and displays and buttons and switches, until he felt the edge of the homing device. Like a black cigarette-case, slightly larger than that, same shape…
He tugged at it. The adhesive held it. With both hands he heaved and it detached itself from the panel. With a chilly, sodden, shivering triumph, he drew it out and clutched it against his side, hugging it to him like a prize. Still the airframe remained motionless, rock-steady. He began to crank down the canopy once more
The Firefox shuddered, and the entire airframe lurched away from him towards deeper water. The huge tailplanes sank almost to their tips. The Firefox continued to slide away. With the instinct to preserve himself and the aircraft, he cranked more furiously and grabbed with his other hand at the handhold just below the edge of the cockpit. A tremor ran through him as he heard the homing device slide down the fuselage with a clatter, then drop. He cranked furiously, closing the canopy. He dropped the cranking-handle then, in order to hang on with both hands. He knew the Firefox was going under…
He would float away. He looked around frantically for the homing device, and for the dinghy, already ten yards away. Surely he had heard the impact of the plastic on ice, not the slight splash of its falling into the water - but he could not locate it. The water mounted the canopy towards him. The airframe was steadily rolling backwards now. It would stop only when the slope of the lake-bed levelled. The water was only inches away - he would float off.
He released the grip of his right hand, then made to move his left. He unclenched his fingers from the handhold, and tried to move his arm. Water touched his fingers, embraced his thighs. The canopy was almost submerged, the nose was sinking. The tips of the tailplane were still visible, the leading edges of the wings protruded from the dark water. He could not move his left arm.
He had trapped the sleeve of the pressure suit in the canopy when he cranked it shut. Without the cranking-handle he could not open it again. As the water reached his waist, he tugged frantically, attempting with all his strength to rip the suit.
Clinging to the canopy of the Firefox, he began to slip beneath the water with the airframe. Waist, chest, neck, mouth. He could not free his sleeve…
Above the noise of his blood and breathing, he again heard the bird croak mockingly. Then he disappeared beneath the water.
'There were two explosions - two distinct explosions… you're certain of that?'
Aubrey waited. The underground Operations Room of RAF Scampton had shrunk to a microphone, two revolving tape reels, and the console and its operator controlling the highspeed, scrambled communications between himself and the captain of an AWACS Nimrod aircraft over the Norwegian Finnmark. Beyond the glass, down on the main floor of the room, Buckholz and Curtin stood beside the huge plot-table, staring at the model that represented the Nimrod. Buckholz wore a headset clamped on his short, grey hair. His shoulders were stiff with the tension generated by the transmission and reception delays of Aubrey's conversation.
The tapes rolled swiftly, halted, rewound, then Aubrey heard Squadron Leader Eastoe's voice, mechanical and distant, but clear.
'There were two, almost in the same spot, but distinct. A small time and distance gap, At…' A slight pause while Eastoe consulted something, then: 'Sixty-nine-forty North, twenty-seven-fifty East. That's no more than twenty-two nautical miles from the nearest point on the Soviet border - about the same from the Norwegian side…'
Eastoe seemed to have paused once more, rather than to have concluded his message. Aubrey lifted his head. Someone pushed a futuristic model into position on the plot-table. It was old-fashioned - on one wall of the Operations Room was a fibre-optic, computer-operated plot-map where aircraft, ships and missiles were registered by moving lights - and yet Aubrey found the plot-table comfortingly familiar. It had a wartime association. It was out-of-date, superannuated. He could see, quite clearly, that Gant was deemed by Eastoe to have met his death in a narrow neck of Finland between the Soviet Union and Norway. The model of the Firefox, placed in position, was in the nature of a memorial. Curtin and Buckholz gazed fixedly at the table - except for a brief upward glance by the senior CIA officer. His face was grim. Aubrey, almost furtively and in shame, lowered his head to the tape-reels and the microphone. Eastoe had not added to his statement.
'You conclude that one of the MiG-25s was successful?' he, snapped. The tapes spun, then waited. Spun again, rewound, played.
'Yes,' Eastoe replied. Aubrey watched Buckholz's shoulders hunch, shrug. Curtin's face was abstracted. The naval officer seemed fascinated by the small black model of the Firefox. The plotters near them hovered like deferential servants, or like the policeman bringing news of a road accident. 'They tried to shepherd him, he shook them off, took out the first of them - the second must have pursued at ground-level, and they got each other. We couldn't see the MiG-31, of course, so we don't know whether it was damaged earlier. Since the explosions, nothing. The area's filling up with MiGs now, but their activity suggests they can't locate anything.' Eastoe's voice paused, then: 'Mr. Aubrey - what do you want me to do?'
Aubrey rubbed his chin vigorously, as if conjuring the answer from a lamp. The tape-reels waited for him to speak. Alongside him, the staff of the Operations Room sat behind their consoles and radios and radars and screens. The plotters hovered. The huge wall map gleamed with moving lights. The walls of the Ops. Room displayed other maps crowded with pins and scribbled legends, coloured tapes. Blackboards revealed information regarding the serviceability of aircraft. Large meteorological maps were heavily marked, garlanded with satellite weather photographs. A long row of pale blue headsets, together with a single red telephone, stretched away on either side of him. A multiplicity of technical devices were at his disposal. He dragged his hands through the hair above his ears. His fingers touched the back of his head. He heard old bones and muscles crack and stretch reluctantly. He replaced his hands in his lap, hunching forward. He did not know what to say to Eastoe. He did not know how to begin to use the people and equipment that lay at his disposal.
&
nbsp; Not once, not once… his thoughts murmured hesitantly. Not once, not once -
Until now, he answered himself. Until now. Not once had he doubted, truly doubted, not once had he thought the game lost, the aircraft or the pilot lost…
Until now.
Now he believed it. It had been forced upon him. Gant was dead, the aircraft scattered over the landscape like sooty dots on the carpet of snow. Nothing, nothing left of it.
Despair was an unfamiliar companion. A sometime acquaintance, away elsewhere for long periods; older and leaner at each unexpected return. Yet it was despair Aubrey felt. He had failed. The whole operation had failed. Delicate, complex, devious - brilliant and his own, it had failed. Aubrey's despair dressed in a sober suit and carried a briefcase. It was an entirely professional emotion, and bottomless.
He saw an image, then, of civilian air disasters. Newsreel film. Flight-recorders being searched for by the experts who did not concern themselves with the search for the living and the dead. Black boxes. Cockpit voice-recorders, flight recorders. The secrets of the dead.
In his mind, he could see a recent piece of newsfilm. The joggling camera registering the walking legs of a man and the two heavy, black, flame-scarred boxes he carried, one on either side of him. Walking legs, black boxes -
He rubbed his eyes. Voice-activated, the tape-reels moved.
'Remain on-station, Eastoe;' he ordered, his voice clearing and strengthening as he spoke. 'Fly up and down that piece of border until you hear something!'
A pause. Eastoe's reply returned, was rewound, then became audible. 'Please repeat, Mr. Aubrey.'
Aubrey slapped his forehead. He had not explained. 'I wish to be certain,' he said. Buckholz, one hand holding the earphone of his headset, looked up towards the glass-fronted gallery where Aubrey was sitting. 'If the aircraft has crashed or been destroyed, then there may be nothing. If Gant is alive - if the aircraft is still intact - then you may pick up a signal from his homing device. You have the equipment to activate and receive it.'
