Firefox Down

by Craig Thomas

  He strained to hear, but there was only the wind. Which direction? Over there? Near the shore. Between him and the shore -

  He slid around the tree with exaggerated caution. He craned forward, staring towards the rushing white wall beyond the trees. White, white, white. He could see nothing other than the snow. Then someone moved. A white lump raised itself into a hunched back, then settled again. He could hear no words, no sound of voices. Once the lump stopped moving, it could no longer be distinguished from the ground, the trees, the white storm. Gunnar shivered.

  What to do. what to do? He was unarmed. He turned his back to the tree once more. Had he already passed any of them? Was he surrounded and didn't yet know it?

  It was some moments before he was able to think clearly. Then, minutes later, he moved away from the tree, scuttling as swiftly and cautiously as he could back the way he had come. He heard his own breathing, his heartbeat in his ears, the wind; imagined pursuit. He turned to his right before he reached the clearing, only then realising that they had not discovered the two helicopters, that his trail must not lead anyone to the clearing…

  He reached the shore. Beyond him, his original tracks had been erased. The Lynxes were safe for the moment. He felt chilled and frightened by the rushing wall of snow, which was closer now. He had crossed the lake to the clearing only an hour before, but now…

  It was as if he had dived slowly, grotesquely out of the trees into a different and alien element. The wall enveloped him, made him blind and breathless. He pulled his hood around his face, then kept his arms about his head, as if running from a fire. He was buffeted and bullied, flung off-balance seven or eight times. Even when he fell to the ice, or onto small ridges and drifts of snow, he felt the wind dragging or pushing him; inflating his parka like a balloon in order to move him on his back or stomach across the ice. Because of the Russians, because of the distance yet to travel, because of the utter isolation he felt in that wind and flying snow, Gunnar was deeply, acutely frightened. He was lost, completely lost.

  He sat on a wind-cleared patch of ice, hunched over his compass. It was only a few hundred metres, metres, hundreds of metres, hundreds - a few hundred metres, only a few hundred metres, to the shore. He got onto all fours, having removed his snowshoes, and began to crawl.

  He met a low hard ridge of snow and climbed it until he was half-upright. With a huge effort, the wind charging against his side like an attacker, a bullying ice-hockey opponent, he stood fully upright -

  And ran. Floundering, charging, slipping. Ice-hockey opponent. It reduced the wind to something he knew, something he could combat. He blundered on, as if skating the barrier, charged again and again by his opponents. They blundered and bulled into him, but he kept going, arms round his head, hood pulled over his numbed face, lips spread in a mirthless grin. Another and another charged him, but he kept going. Slipped, recovered, almost tripped over softer snow, skidded on cleaned ice, knowing he was being blown like a small yacht on a curving course across the lake.

  Then the shore. He blundered onto it, and fell. He could hear the very, very distant hum of one of the chain-saws. He had made it. Quickly, before the elation deserted him, he crawled towards the trees on all fours, scampering like a dog through the snow. His hands climbed the trunk of a tree until he was standing pressed against its solidity, its unmoving, snow-coated strength. His body was shuddering with effort. Then he turned his back to it.

  Jesus Christ, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…

  His mind chanted the word over and over until his breathing slowed and quietened. Then he listened, heard the chain-saws stop, and the crack of a falling tree followed by its dull concussion into the snow. He walked towards the sounds, nodding almost casually to the men clearing the fallen trunk. One of them - his companion pilot? - waved. Gunnar waved back. He hurried, then, along the cleared shoreline but just inside the remaining trees, towards the main clearing and Waterford. He forgot his R/T. Crossing the lake had somehow stripped him of any sense of technology, of being able to do more than speak face to face with anyone.

  Waterford was talking to Buckholz. The Firefox was beyond them, as sheltered and camouflaged as it possibly could be in the circumstances. Men swarmed ovei it, lay upon the airframe, busied themselves beneath it. Gunnar was aware of the nakedness of the clearing, of eyes behind him. He turned to look. Nothing. Only the rushing white wall passing the clearing. Had they seen - ?

  Must have seen -

  'Major Waterford!' he called, realising only when he spoke how small and ridiculous his voice sounded. It was like an echo of the past minutes. He coughed. 'Major Waterford!' he called more strongly, hurrying forward. Waterford turned to him, quickly alert. Even Buckholz's features mirrored the concern he evidently saw on Gunnar's face.

  'What is it? What's wrong with the choppers?' Waterford snapped.

  'Nothing, nothing,' Gunnar blurted out. He could hear Moresby cursing something, above the noise of the wind.

  'Then what is it?'

  Gunnar was aware of the arm he pointed across the lake, as if it would be seen by the Russians. He snatched it back to his side, but Buckholz and Waterford were already staring into the snow, in the direction he had indicated.

  'Russians - '

  'What?'

  'Russian soldiers - I don't know what unit… I heard only two voices, saw movement from one man - '

  'Where?'

  'The other side of the lake - ' They had all three turned now to face towards the blind western shore of the lake. 'On the shore. They must be - '

  'Watching us? Yes.' Waterford's face had already absorbed shock, and closed again into grim lines. 'How many?'

  'I don't know-'

  'Did you look?'

  'I thought I should get back as quickly - '

  'Damn! Damn it!'

  Buckholz said, 'We have to know how many.'

  'We have to eliminate them,' Waterford replied.

  'What-'

  'Work it out! If there were enough of them, they'd be sitting in our laps by now. No, there aren't very many of them. They're a recce party, keeping tabs on us.'

  'Where have they come from?'

  'Those bloody choppers that crossed the border before the weather closed in! They've backtracked along bloody Gant's hike - and found us! They'll have a radio and they'll have told Moscow by now.'

  'Could they have seen us?'

  'They must have done! Christ, don't count on them sitting there just because it's snowing and they don't like the weather!' Waterford stared at Buckholz. 'Get Moresby and his people working as fast as they can - no, faster than that. If Moscow knows, then they'll be dropping in for tea if that weather-window arrives. Oh, shit - '

  'And you?'

  'I'm going to find out who's over there. Invite them over for a quiet game of bridge. Gunnar, you come with me!'

  Gunnar glanced around at the rushing snow, and then nodded silently at Waterford's back. The soldier was already speaking softly and swiftly into his R/T, summoning marines and SBS men. Gunnar hurried after his determined footsteps.

  Buckholz moved towards the back of the clearing, into the false shelter of the remaining camouflage netting and the windbreaks. Like a stage, he thought. Lit, peopled, props and furniture set out. Now, they had an audience.

  Welding torches flared around that area of the fuselage which had been damaged in the dogfight with the second Firefox; beneath the ruptures in the skin, the fuel-lines had been punctured, bringing the airplane here. Moresby was standing up, waist-deep in the cockpit, a conductor in a white parka directing a noiseless orchestra. His arm movements appeared like semaphore, signalling for help.

  They wouldn't do it, Buckholz thought. No way would they do it now, with the Russians knowing everything.

  Aubrey watched the storm through the running window. The winds, turned and channelled by the fjords and mountains, flicked the snow towards the hut and away again. For moments, the town of Kirkenes on a headland above the Langfjord which separated it f
rom the airfield, was almost entirely visible. The roots of the peaks on Skogeroya could be seen, as could the creased grey surface of the Korsfjord. Then, for longer, gloomier periods, nothing, except the snow lying heavily on the grass, and the gleam of the nftiway. A yellow snowplough moved across his line of sight, hurling the latest snow aside, preparing for the Harrier's attempt to land.

  Aubrey was no longer even certain that Gant would arrive, would share this room with himself and Curtin and the radio operator. He turned from the window, his eye passing over the rucked sheets and blankets of the camp beds on which they had spent some of the long night. He crossed to the table and its heaps of paper. Beneath a rough-hewn paperweight, beside the maps and charts and other implements of their desperation, lay the sheaf of transcribed signals he had received since setting up his headquarters at Kirkenes. He lifted the paperweight in a gingerly fashion. The last two signals, one from Eastoe and the other from Buckholz, were little short of unbearable. Yet he was drawn to re-read them, as if to punish himself for his mistakes and his pride. Mortification by coded transmission.

  Eastoe reported troop movements, in extreme weather conditions, along the Soviet border with Finland, near the southern end of Lake Inari. Buckholz confirmed that a reconnaissance party had reached the lake's western shore, and had been identified as Russian. Waterford had taken a party of marines to intercept them. Now, Aubrey waited for the report of that intervention.

  No, he told himself. He was not waiting for that. He already knew what would be learned. A party of Russians had discovered the location of the Firefox, had discovered that it had been retrieved from the lake - in effect, had cancelled his every advantage. He and whoever controlled the operation in Moscow were now on level terms. Utterly level terms.

  His rage of self-recrimination had passed, leaving him spent and tired. If the window in the weather appeared at all over the lake, then it would appear over those gathering Russian troops at the border no more than thirty minutes later. Thirty minutes…

  Ridiculous. He was beaten. When Buckholz asked him to make a decision, he would accept defeat with ill-grace and snapping, waspish irony, but he would accept it nevertheless. He would instruct Buckholz to rip out the choicest pieces from the cockpit and airframe and try to get them away in the Lynx helicopters. Yes, he would do that. A Chinook would never get to the lake from Bardufoss before the Russians. His party at the lake would be outnumbered, captured, but probably not harmed. He would order them to display no resistance.

  Perhaps he should tell Waterford not to engage the reconnaissance party?

  Too late to interfere.

  Very well. They must salvage what they could. Something of the MiG-31's secrets, at any rate.

  'He's coming in now!' Curtin announced from the other side of the room. Both he and the operator were wearing headsets. They were listening to the dialogue between Thorne, the Harrier pilot, and Kirkenes Tower. Instinctively, like a man opening his own door sensing that he has been burgled, Aubrey-glanced at the window. Skogeroya, barely visible, the town almost hidden. The snow flying -

  No! he wanted to say. Don't take any chances now -

  But he said nothing, merely nodded at Curtin, who stared strangely at him. Watching the lead of his headset, the American moved towards the window. The radio operator, too, had turned in his seat for a better view. Aubrey put the signals back on the table and banged down the paperweight. Then he joined Curtin.

  The Harrier seemed to appear suddenly, a darker dot against the wet greyness of the mountains. It was there, a moment after there had been nothing to see except a few wind-flung gulls. It seemed to rush towards the airfield and its single runway, directly towards them. Behind it, the weather seemed to hurry in pursuit, closing around the mountains and the grey water of the Korsfjord. Aubrey could hear the chatter of voices dimly from the headset clamped over Curtin's ears. He did not wish to listen, and stepped away. He felt his body tense, his hands clench.

  The aircraft raced the weather in from the fjord. The dot of the Harrier became something winged, something steady which then wobbled dangerously, as light and naked as one of the gulls being swept about.

  Curtin audibly drew in his breath through his teeth. A high eerie whistling sound full of anxiety. Aubrey wanted to tell him to stop. The noise hurt his ears like fingernails drawn down a blackboard. The Harrier enlarged, racing towards them. The runway stretched out like a grey, wet finger towards the approaching aircraft and its pursuing storm. The wings waggled again, uncertain.

  Again, Curtin drew in his breath. The runway lights shone feebly in the gloom. There was nothing except the Harrier, poised against the oncoming darkness. Then it dropped, almost as if falling, towards the end of the runway. It touched, seemed to bounce, then rolled across their line of sight. The weather swept over the aircraft, obscuring it, blanking out the entire scene.

  'It's OK, it's OK,' Curtin repeated. 'He's OK… he's slowing, yes, he's OK - Christ!' He was grinning.

  THIRTEEN

  Outside the Rock Pool

  Waterford exhaled audibly through his teeth. Brooke, lying next to him on the crest of the rise, waited for his description of what he could see through the MEL thermal imager.

  He continued to traverse the area below them, his face pressed behind the curving grey box of the imager, its rifle-like grip clenched in his mittened hand. Eventually, he appeared satisfied, and rolled onto his back.

  'Want a look?'

  'You tell me,' Brooke replied.

  'I count twelve of them… you can even see the sap in the trees with this toy. It's warmer than the bark.' Brooke grinned. 'Shame of it is, you can't see what weapons they're carrying.'

  They had rounded the southern end of the lake, well wide of the shore, then turned to encounter the rising ground between the two lakes. Waterford and his men were now above and behind the Russians. The surrounding trees were all but stripped of snow. The wind hurled itself between the massed trunks, flinging the snow horizontally before it. It was impossible to obtain any sighting of the Russians without the use of the thermal imager which was capable, on its narrowest field of view, of picking up a human body's emissions of warmth at a range of a thousand metres.

  'We're going to have to get closer,' Waterford continued with a seeming lack of enthusiasm. 'You and me. Brief your men to stay put. I'll wait for you, ducky.'

  Brooke slipped off into the murky, snow-blown light, crouching just below the crest of the rise as he hurried from tree to tree. The shore of the lake was two hundred yards away. Visibility was little more than fifty - yes, Brooke had already vanished, after pausing to speak to the first two-man SBS unit.

  Grenade launcher, he thought. Or mortar. Even an RPG-7 rocket launcher. If they had all or any of those, and they well might, coupled with a laser rangefinder, then at the first sign of trouble they could put the Firefox on the scrap-heap. Their weaponry was more important than their numbers, their knowledge, even the radio with which they had undoubtedly communicated with Moscow.

  He waited for seven minutes, then saw Brooke emerge from the snow-haze between the firs, and move towards him in a crouch. He slid into a prostrate position next to Waterford.

  'Well?'

  'OK. Sergeant Dawson's got our friends on the other imager. His count is thirteen, of course.' Brooke smiled. His breath was still hurrying from him. 'They're to give us fifteen minutes, no more. Dawson's doing some pinpointing for the others. I told them I wanted the radio operator alive, if possible. OK?'

  Waterford nodded. 'That's about it. He's more likely to talk than the officer or the sergeants. OK, let's go.'

  Waterford raised his head, and closed the thermal imager to his face once more. Satisfied, he slung the device at his back and moved the Heckler & Koch caseless rifle to greater accessibility across his chest. He gripped its bulky, almost shapeless form with both hands, climbed over the crest of the rise and began to descend. Brooke moved a few paces behind and to his left. They slipped from tree to tree as
quickly and silently as they could. Waterford counted the yards they gained towards the shore, waiting for the moment of visibility. Twice he stopped to check the images revealed through the MEL device. Strange, firelit, patchy ghosts, forms that danced and wavered and changed shape.

  He was suspicious of a small group hunched around each other, but not around any central image. No fire, no heater brewing coffee or tea - that was fifty yards away to the left of the group on which he focused. The radio might be there. In the freezing air around each body, each patch of warmth, each heater and cigarette, produced an image. But, in the middle of the group that attracted his attention, there was nothing.

  Waterford believed that a grenade launcher or mortar sat, barrel elevated, in the centre of the three shifting flame-shapes he could see through the imager. If such a weapon was there, then it wouid have to be destroyed; its operators killed.

  He motioned Brooke forward, pointing out his exact direction. Then he followed. They had covered perhaps a hundred yards of forward movement. Within another forty or fifty yards at the most, he would be able to see them. They would be able to see him. Ahead, Brooke moved with greater caution, with something almost comic in the way he lifted and placed his feet, held his rifle, hunched his shoulders. A cartoon robber. Waterford followed the same pattern of movement. Then Brooke suddenly stopped and whirled behind the trunk of a fir, rifle almost vertical, hand extended to warn Waterford. Waterford ducked behind the nearest tree.

  Lower down the slope, the trees were heavy with snow. The wind was less fierce and insistent. Each time he exhaled, his breath moved upwards for almost a second before it was whipped away. He peered round the trunk. Brooke waved him forward. He scampered the few yards separating them.

  'Well?'

  'Laughter from the tea-party,' Brooke replied. 'Didn't you hear it?' Waterford shook his head. 'Trick of the wind. Catching the noise, I looked. Saw one figure at least. Off over there.' He indicated the gloom to their left and ahead of them with the barrel of his Armalite rifle. Waterford strained to see further into the soft, shifting fuzziness caused by the light and the blowing snow. Something moved, less distinct than the flame-shapes he could see through the imager. He put the MEL against his face. Yes. Two-no, three soldiers, at a brew-up. The thermal image of the heater was clear between them. The mugs of tea or coffee moved like lumps of burning coal. Blue, red, yellow. He swung the imager. A single figure, almost directly ahead, then two more, then the group of three around a cold, empty space, then paler, more distant images. One figure moving, corning closer. Probably the officer.