by Craig Thomas
Waterford watched the sky. The cloud had thinned, the snow had almost stopped; desultory and innocent, as on a greetings card. The window in the weather had arrived. Out on the lake, a huge cross formed from orange marker tape indicated the dropping point. A single smoke flare betrayed the wind direction. It climbed like a plume from the ice, then bent as it reached the wind, straggled and dissipated. There was no sky above, no colour except grey, but the cloudbase was high enough to allow the Hercules's first run to be at a sufficient altitude for the parachutists to jump safely. The lake was strangely silent against the slow, creeping grey dawn that revealed its far shore, the sombre snow-bound country and the pencilled margin of trees.
Then he heard the baritone murmur of the aircraft's four engines. Other heads turned with his, towards the south. He glanced to check the smoke plume, which rose strongly before the wind distressed it like long yellow hair. He turned his face back to the clouds and saw it, at little more than fifteen hundred feet, seeming to drift up from the indistinct horizon, enlarge, then hang above them. The expectant silence around him was all but palpable. The Hercules was a plump, full shape overhead.
Then the parachuting Royal Marines appeared, dots detaching themselves like laid eggs from each side of the bulky fuselage. Parachutes opened, and the black eggs slowed and swayed. Waterford counted them, urging them to be more, wanting to go on counting. Twenty, twenty-one, two, three, four, five, six…
And then he reminded himself that not all of them were soldiers. There were also engineers and technicians from the RNAF Tactical Supply Squadron at Bardufoss. They and the pallets of supplies required had limited the number of marines that could be carried. The Hercules would return to Bardufoss at high speed to attempt to take on a second detachment of marines, but Waterford doubted they would be able to drop. The window in the weather would have closed once more before the Hercules could return.
Thirty-two, three… already, the first jumpers were drifting against the grey horizon like unseasonal dandelion clocks. The Hercules vanished beyond the limit of visibility at the far end of the lake. The drone of its four engines had become a mild hiss; the noise of a distant saw. The first marine landed on his feet, ran after his billowing, closing 'chute, wrapping it into a bundle as he moved. Then the second landed, rolled, came up grabbing the 'chute to himself. Three, four, five…
Perhaps two dozen marines, Waterford thought, assessing the degree of comfort he felt at the figure. Not much. The Hercules would have been tracked on Russian radar. Its run would be too pattern-like, too intended to be mistaken. They would know men and supplies had been dropped into Lapland, and they would know where. The weather window had to be slammed shut against them before they could act on the knowledge, even if its shutting did lock out a second detachment of marines.
Already, every parachutist had landed and was moving quickly off the ice. The air force experts trudged in a hunched, somehow child-like manner, the marines moved more quickly, already identifiable as a group. Everyone was wearing Arctic camouflage or long grey-white parkas. They looked like members of an expedition.
Waterford returned the salute of the captain in command of the marines, then turned away from him. The last stragglers, 'chutes bundled untidily beneath their arms, had moved off the ice. Among marines and technicians and experts alike there was a muted, intense murmuring as they climbed the slope of the shore and confronted the Firefox, now at the rear of the clearing beneath the camouflage netting. The noise of the Hercules's return moved towards them from the northern horizon.
Then the aircraft appeared, a flattened, murky, half-real shape at the far end of the lake. The smoke flare had already bent further, like the unstable stem of a heavy-flowered plant. The wind was picking up. There would be no second drop of marines. The clouds, too, already seemed lower and heavier, and the snowflakes blew sideways into Waterford's face, as if the storm were sidling up to him in some surprise ambush. He shook his head. The Hercules moved slowly and steadily up the lake. Then the pallets emerged in turn from the cargo ramp in the rear of the aircraft. Waterford realised that Moresby was standing beside him. It was as if he had taken no interest in the men who had parachuted, only in the lifeless supplies and equipment now to be unloaded.
The tractor tug was bright yellow. Its pallet thudded distantly into the ice, skidded and ran to a halt. A second pallet with tarpaulined equipment emerged, then a third. Then the fourth, bearing great rolls of MO-MAT, a second pallet of rolled portable runway followed it. The Hercules was almost level with them now. The smoke from the flare streamed out horizontally, a few feet above the ground. The trees on the far shore were shrouded in what might have been a freezing fog. Then shapes like great, tyred undercarriage wheels appeared one after the other from the gaping cargo ramp. Waterford thought he glimpsed the figures bundling them out, even the supervising Air Loadmaster at the mouth of the hard-lit tunnel that was the interior of the Hercules. Then the aircraft was gone, lost beyond the trees around the lake, heading south. He saw a vague, dark shape lift into the clouds, which were lower and thicker than before. The Hercules vanished, leaving Waterford with a momentary sense of isolation.
The black fuel cells bounced awkwardly and rolled strangely, like trick balls weighted with sand. Slowly, they came to a halt, giant woods searching for a jack. The air transportable fuel cells had been landed safely; huge rubber containers filled with the various oils and the vital paraffin required if the Firefox was ever to take off from the lake.
The farthest of the pallets, with its bright yellow tractor tug, was already almost obscured by the driving snow. A window - ? Nothing but a glimpse of something through the storm. At least, Waterford thought, the Russians can't do anything. They won't be able to move.
Nor will we.
He watched as men detailed by Moresby moved out onto the ice to recover the pallets and the fuel cells. It would take no more than half an hour to get everything stowed under cover, camouflaged. Just in case -
'You'd better come with me,' Waterford said. His voice was pinched in his throat. He growled it clear. 'Come on, captain, we've got work to do. Your blokes aren't here to hold spanners for these buggers.'
'No, sir. But - '
Waterford turned to face him. The captain was staring at the Firefox, stranded amid trees and beneath camouflage netting; out of its element.
'What?'
'Hell of an aircraft, sir.'
'One problem with it - it doesn't fly!'
The Russian major tugged the hood of his camouflage blouse further forward, as if to conceal completely the fur hat with its single red star in the centre. He smiled at his nervous gesture, as if he really had been fearful of their being spotted through the weather from the other side of the lake.
His Border Guard reconnaissance party had heard the distant noise of the Hercules transport while they were breakfasting. He was fairly certain it was one of those big turboprop transport aircraft used by the Norwegians and the rest of NATO. His unit had made good time, even with the poor weather. The moment it cleared they had rested, hoping to make a quick, scrappy meal, then push on before the weather closed in again. Of course, once they reached the trees, the weather ceased to matter as much, inconvenient though it was. But the noise of the aircraft, muffled and distant and to the east, alerted them, created fears and prognostications and they had broken camp at once and pushed on with all possible speed. Somehow, each of his men and himself had known that the transport aircraft, even though it had not landed, had business at the two lakes.
The smaller, more westerly of the two had been empty of activity, supplies and people. The plane had made two passes, one at a reasonably high altitude as far as they could discern, the other much lower. The major had his suspicions; they were almost certain enough to report them to Moscow. But, he hesitated. He would be reporting directly to Andropov himself; his ultimate superior, his Chairman. He wanted further evidence before committing himself - yet, he should alert the reconnaissance aircraft
, there should be an investigation. However, the weather had closed in again and he knew that no flights would now be possible to investigate the activities of the transport aircraft. But, surely it had been picked up by the border Tupolev AW ACS plane and reported? Had the weather closed in too quickly?
His party of twelve men moved behind him on the long crosscountry skis across the surface of the smaller lake. Out in the open, the wind was noisy again now; buffeting and yelling around them. The snow drove horizontally across the lake. The clouds were dark and heavy and seemed to hang like a great smothering cushion just above their heads. What was going on at the other lake? What had the transport aircraft been ferrying in? Men, supplies, equipment - why? The questions hurried and blustered in his thoughts, with a cold excitement like that of the wind. He felt on the verge of answers, but would not reach out to grasp them.
They moved off the ice, pausing for a short rest at the edge of the trees. Then they headed across the half-mile that separated the two lakes, climbing slowly and gently through the crowding pines and spruces that were heavy with snow. Birds called from a distance. Snow dropped with dull concussions from the overweighted branches of trees. His men spread out into a curving line of advance with himself at the centre, and began to move more cautiously. He could hear the slither of his skis and those of his sergeants on either side of him. The Kalashnikov rifle in its white canvas sleeve bobbed on his chest.
He crested a ridge, and the trees seemed to straggle more, with brighter snowy spaces between them. The morning was advanced, the light was pale grey. Slowly, he urged his body forward down the slope towards the unseen shore of the larger lake. He felt tense and excited, as if approaching some important promotional interview. He skirted the bole of a fir, glimpsed a stretch of snow-covered ice clear of trees, and came to a halt. He heard the slither of other stopping skis. By hand signals, he urged his men to cover. Rifles were quickly unwrapped and checked, ski-sticks planted like the cross-poles of wigwams for rifle rests. Trees became cover, the hardware of an ambush.
The major raised his binoculars, adjusted their focus, and stared into the flying snow which swept across the lake. Disappointed he could not see the farther shore, he felt he was gazing into a new and unearthly sunrise. He leant against the bole of the tree, a sergeant on the other side of it, and waited. He knew the answers would emerge from that glow, if there was a momentary change or drop in the wind and the snow was moved aside. He was prepared to wait, even though his jumpy, tense body was little more than an impatient net of nerves.
He waited for ten minutes, perhaps twelve. He heard the muffled noises at first. Compressors, a saw, no, two saws, the cracking, thudding fall of trees. The grind and creak of machinery, the whine of drills and what he presumed might be other power tools. He was reminded of his grandfather's hut at the bottom of the garden where the old man enthusiastically concocted gadgets that never worked, or badly repaired household utensils that had been damaged or broken. The tapestry of sounds comforted and excited him, but supplied no answers to his insistent questions. The voices of men, too, were carried faintly towards him by the wind.
Then he saw it. The snow seemed to retreat across the lake like a curtain, and he fine-focused his glasses after raising them quickly to his eyes. He stretched his eyelids, cleared his throat, then saw -
It had to be the MiG-31. It had to be exactly what they had been sent to find. It left him breathless. A black shape at the back of what might have been a stage set. Men half-swallowed by the cockpit or swarming over the tail section and the main fuselage. Great trailing hoses blowing air or supplying something, lay about the aircraft. A wide snail-track of portable runway ran down to the edge of the water - yes, water, where the ice had been broken…
'My God,' he whispered. 'My God, it was in the lake! Do you see, that, sergeant? It was in the lake!'
'Yes, sir. What are they doing to the aircraft, sir?'
'I don't know. They must be dismantling it. Yes, they must be taking it apart, ripping out all the secret stuff, the stuff they want…'
The black shape, the men, the noises and the now visible machinery… he scanned along the shore. Trees being cleared, more huge rolls of portable runway, a yellow - what was that? - yellow. Small tractor… where had he seen those before? Towing aircraft - ? Yes, at airports and airfields. One black - football? - almost hidden in the trees, certainly camouflaged from the air, and other, similar shapes behind it. Then the curtain was drawn once more just as he saw the rifles worn by a handful of the men around and in front of the aircraft. Troops, armed troops -
And then it was gone, the noises now the sole indication that they were not alone on the shore of the frozen lake.
There are too many of them, he thought. Then - do I tell Moscow what I fear?
'Sir?' the sergeant began, his voice seeming to possess a weight of insight.
The major nodded. 'Yes,' he said. 'Get Melnik here with the radio - quickly.' The sergeant turned and moved off, but the major continued speaking softly, as if answering the sergeant's unspoken question. 'Yes, they're going to try to fly that plane out!'
Vladimirov stood before the tall fibre-optic map in the control gallery. His body quivered with excitement. He assessed his appearance as being like that of one of his family's hunting dogs; a luxury' his rank and income had enabled him to resurrect from the family's past. The scent of the game, the dog's rippling excitement which the noise of the gun and the fall of the bird would convert to speed, to capture.
Andropov stood next to him, rubbing his spectacles heavily and repeatedly, as if to re-assess the information on the map and the transmission from the reconnaissance party. Lights and indicators had been bled into the map, and the projection of Finnish Lapland had been altered. Now, an enlargement of the area of the two lakes almost filled the entire surface. The cleared site the major had seen was marked, as was the position of the major's party.
Andropov had not congratulated Vladimirov, but there had been a surprised, almost mocking respect in his pale eyes, before both of them had abandoned their coffee and hurried across the gallery to the map.
As if unable to bear the proximity of the map, the Chairman of the KGB wandered away from Vladimirov. When the general turned to look at him, he realised that Andropov, having replaced his spectacles, was simply looking through the glass down at the main floor of the underground command centre. His gaze was fixed upon the huge map table surrounded by operators; a table displaying the same large-scale images of the two lakes, the position of the major and his party, the location of the MiG-31.
Eventually, as if aware of being observed, Andropov turned to Vladimirov and said, 'Do you agree with the major's prognostication, General Vladimirov?' It was a complex, subtle question asked in a direct, neutral tone. It prompted Vladimirov to accept responsibility, it was genuinely undecided, it hovered on the verge of disbelief.
'Yes,' Vladimirov said. 'I incline to. His descriptions of equipment, of what he saw, even when I questioned him, were too detailed to be misinterpreted. Transportable fuel cells - his black footballs could be nothing else. Compressors and hoses.'
'But, could they do it? Could they possibly do it?'
Vladimirov shook his head. 'I would have thought their attempt likely to end in failure - '
'But not certain to end that way?'
'Are you prepared to be certain?' Vladimirov countered.
Andropov, as if suddenly made aware of the others in the room, the majority of them military personnel, seemed to scuttle across to Vladimirov's side. To create a fiction of competence, he adjusted his glasses to make a renewed study of the map. Its colours palely mottled his features. Eventually, he turned to Vladimirov and said quietly. 'You realise what this means? You realise everything?
'I realise.'
'Very well, then. What do we do?' There was no emphasis on the plural, but it was a commitment from Andropov. Out of necessity, Vladimirov concluded. The man had no idea how to deal with the situation. He w
as no longer seeking a scapegoat; rather, he required a skilled, expert assistant. Vladimirov felt himself burn with purpose, what he would have mocked in a younger officer as crusading zeal. It was at once both ridiculous and gratifying.
'We can do nothing-for the moment,' Vladimirov said calmly, glancing through the sheaf of papers that represented the detailed Met. reports he had requested as soon as the major's report had been relayed to them. Andropov's face was angry, and also he seemed disappointed. 'We can only prepare for action - we cannot act. Unless you wish to bomb the area from high altitude?' Vladimirov added, smiling. Andropov glowered at him.
Vladimirov pondered the map. He could, hopefully even in this foul weather, continue to assemble troops ready to move them into Lapland. In the hours after his first realisation that Gant must have landed on a frozen lake, and as a preliminary to the location of the MiG by the reconnaissance party, he had ordered the Leningrad Military district to place Engineer Troops and desant commandos from one of their advance Airborne Divisions, on alert. Already, some units were at the assembly point, the military airfield near the town of Nikel, at the meeting point of the Soviet, Finnish and Norwegian borders. The facilities at Nikel were adequate, just, for a swift helicopter assault across the border in the required numbers to guarantee success. But, the commandos mobilised and at present at Nikel, were fewer than seventy. They had been intended only as a guard for the more vital Engineer Troops who would salvage, with the assistance of a huge MiL flying crane, the MiG-31 from whichever lake contained it. Now, any salvage operation would necessitate an armed attack; a rescue by force.
Strangely, perhaps because it so closely paralleled his own embryo plan, he had recovered swiftly from the shock of discovering that he had been beaten to the site, beaten to the recovery of the aircraft. He had clenched his fist the moment he received the news, felt his nails digging into his palm until the pain became numbness. Then he realised that the weather had closed upon the lake. They were isolated. They could not be reached. They were locked in, immobile. If they intended to fly the aircraft out, they would need another break in the weather. It was a stalemate…
