Firefox Down

by Craig Thomas

  '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 drown
ing - ? 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, makin
g 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 -