Firefox Down (47 page)

'Coffee?' the man in the overcoat asked, holding out his hand. 'Forgive me - my name is Vitsula. I am a - friend of Kenneth Aubrey. My men were the ones who met you at the border. Oh, this is Flight Lieutenant Thorne of the British Royal Air Force.' The pilot nodded. 'That is his transport parked next to us.' Vitsula smiled. 'Coffee?' he repeated.

'Uh-oh, yes. Sure.'

Gant remained looming near the doorway, ill at ease. He was assailed by premonitions. Vitsula moved and talked with the ease of seniority. By 'friend' he meant counterpart. Hence the trailer. Vitsula was helping Aubrey, but Finland was neutral. No, there wasn't anything to concern him here. No more than a covert exit from Finland in the second seat of the Harrier trainer. He moved towards the table and sat down. Vitsula, pouring coffee from the percolator's jug, nodded in approval.

As he sat down, the Finn said, 'You realise, of course, Major, why we must have these precautions? I'm sorry it is cold. The heater is not working.' Vitsula sipped at his coffee. 'Apparently, you are required - cigarette? No? Ah - required in Oslo, at NATO Southern Norway headquarters. Your people wish to talk to you urgently. I can understand that.' He smiled, exhaling the blue, acrid smoke. It filled the cramped trailer at once. 'I have been in contact with Kenneth Aubrey - who is in Kirkenes at the moment. They have been trying, very unsuccessfully I gather, to rescue the aircraft.'

Gant appeared shocked. 'How?'

'By winching it out of the lake where you left it, Major.'

'They didn't manage it?'

'Yes, they did. But, they cannot get it out of the area. Their helicopter didn't arrive. The weather - a breakdown.'

'Shit,' Gant breathed, passing from surprise to disappointment in an instant, almost without registering the implied events of the past days. 'It's out, you say ?'

'So I am led to believe.' He shrugged, blowing a rolling cloud of smoke at the low ceiling. 'Do the Russians know its location?' Gant glanced at the pilot, who nodded.

'Not from me,' Gant replied slowly.

'That will be welcome news to my minister,' Vitsula sighed. 'Very welcome. Excellent, in fact. Yes, excellent. Of course, we shall inform them in due course - we shall have to…' He held up his hand as Gant's face darkened and his lips moved. 'Kenneth Aubrey and your Mr. Buckholz know all this. It is not my decision. The aircraft will be without certain systems, I imagine, by the time it is handed over. You will not quite have wasted your time, Major.' Vitsula stood up. 'Excuse me, now, I have arrangements to make. When you have finished your coffee, you may leave at your leisure. Do not concern yourself. Major, at the fate of a machine. You, after all, are alive and safe. That should be enough. Good morning. Good morning, Flight Lieutenant.'

Vitsula adjusted the fur hat on his head, opened the door and went out. Gant turned his head from the door towards Thorne.

'What the hell's going on?' he snapped in a tight, angry voice. 'They've got the damn thing out of the lake?'

'So I'm told.'

'Who's Vitsula?'

'Director-General of their intelligence service. The top man.'

'Why a Harrier?' Gant snapped. 'I know what they do. I've flown our AV-8A. Why a Harrier?' He looked around him, then, and added: 'Is this place safe?'

'I think so. Vitsula said it was. I don't think he'd want to listen, anyway.'

'To what?'

'What happens next.' Thorne was smiling. The smile of a young man, his fingers dipped gently, pleasingly, into the waters of covert work. It was evident on his features that he was enjoying himself immensely.

'What happens next?'

'We take off for Oslo - '

'And when we arrive?'

'Just in case - would you like to get changed? I brought a spare suit. Your bonedome is in the cockpit…' Thorne heaved a pressure suit, folded and compressed, onto the wooden table from the floor of the trailer. 'Get into that - then we can talk in the privacy of my aircraft.' It was lightly said, with an English confidence, a sense of joking, of game-playing. The tone angered Gant quite unreasonably,. Anna came back. Blue hole, surprise. No anger. She should have been angry -

He leant across the wooden table and grabbed Thorne's forearm, gripping it tightly. Thorne's narrow, dark good looks twisted, became dislike.

'Before we fucking go anywhere, friend - tell me what happens when we get there! I don't give a shit if this trailer's bugged by the Kremlin - answer the question!' He squeezed Thorne's arm. The pilot winced, tried to pull his arm away, groaned.

'All right - all right, you bloody crazy Yank! Let go of my arm, damn you!'

Gant released his grip. Thorne immediately applied himself to rubbing his forearm, beneath the suit's sleeve. He kept his face averted. Eventually, when he had ceased rubbing, he looked up.

'You're not going to Oslo. We drop off the radar as if making an approach, then I turn the Harrier north.' The confusion on the American's face lessened the threat he posed. Thorne appeared to remember other superiors, more pressing priorities. 'Look, I shouldn't be telling you any of this until we're airborne - ' he protested.

'Why only then?' Gant snapped. 'I could still pull the cord and go out on the bang-seat! Tell me now.'

Thorne hesitated. Gant leaned towards him again. Thorne's arm flinched onto his lap like a startled cat. Gant picked up the folded suit and dropped it heavily on the floor.

'All right. But it's your fault if anything goes wrong- !'

'You don't think Vitsula's worked things out? Man, they
all
know everything that's going on. It's just one
big game
. The most dangerous game - people get killed. If Vitsula can't make the right guesses about your airplane, then he won't be in his job for long. Even I can guess…but I don't want to. Now, tell me.'

Gant stood at one of the small, blacked-out windows. Peering through it, he could see Vitsula had taken his place in the back of the Mercedes. An old turboprop transport lurched upwards towards the cloud. He listened to Thorne's voice as if to something reiterated and already known.

'We turn north - heading up the Gulf of Bothnia into Lapland. Across the Finnmark to Kirkenes. She's almost fully fuelled - we have the range to make it in one hop.'

'Aubrey's at Kirkenes,' Gant murmured.

'Yes, old man-'

Gant turned from the window, glaring at Thorne. 'What the hell does he want me at Kirkenes for?'

Thorne shrugged, seemingly with a renewed awareness of their surroundings.

'I - look, I'm just the cab driver. Get into the suit, Major, and I can brief you fully when we're airborne. I don't know much more, anyway - '

'The hell you don't! You know and I know. How does he - how can he possibly believe that airplane
can fly
out of there? It's crazy.'

'Maybe. But that's what they want you for.' Thorne's face was pleading. 'Please, Major - get changed. We have a schedule to keep.'

Gant realised that his fists were bunched at his sides. Standing, he was aware of the weariness of his body, the confusion of his thoughts. He wished idly for the movement and warmth of the Mercedes once more, Vitsula knew. Of course he knew.

'What about the Finns?'

'There's a deadline. Midnight tonight.'

'For anything Aubrey might want to try?'

'I don't know. But the weather's very bad up there. There's a small window - a pantry-window, no more - it's expected this afternoon. Before dark. It's the one chance you have.'

'They want me to break out, through a weather-window? If I don't make it?'

'I don't know. They'll destroy the airframe, I imagine. You're the only chance anyone's got. I have to get you to Kirkenes. If the window doesn't open, you won't be stranded when the deadline expires. At least, Aubrey will
have you
. If it does open, I'm to drop you in at the lake. If you say you can't fly it out, then I bring you back. And a Chinook, if one can get in, will bring out the best of the stuff they can salvage. Look, Major, I was told to tell you everything.
Tell him everything
, he said.
Be honest with him. Ask him to do it. Tell him we need him
. Now, you know it all.' Thorne shrugged, staring at the crumpled, stiff heap that was the pressure suit.

'Aubrey wants me to save his ass for him,' Gant growled. 'He's painted himself into a corner and can't get out, so he had this great idea - really great idea. Get Gant to fly the airplane out of Finland, just like he did out of Russia.' Gant's tone was scathingly ironic. Thorne stared-at him as if he had only just realised the identity and recent history of the other occupant of the trailer.

Gant walked to the window, looked out, then returned to the table. 'All right,' he said heavily. 'Get me there, sonny. Get me to that asshole Aubrey!'

As the Harrier T.Mk4 lifted into the scudding, dark cloud, Vitsula leaned back from straining to look upwards through the windscreen, and sighed. He picked up the telephone from the central armrest compartment, and dabbed at the numbers he required. It was time for him to inform his minister of the departure of Gant. Time to suggest that the first advance units of Finnish troops should set out overland from Ivalo and Rovaniemi to rendezvous at the lake.

He would have to inform his minister of his suspicions concerning Gant's eventual destination, of course. Also, he could not avoid the suspicion that the Russians might know, might suspect, or might discover…

It was unlikely Finnish troops would arrive by midnight in any strength. If the Russians knew, if there was an attempt to fly out the Firefox - he must consult air force experts as to its feasibility - if Aubrey's people were stranded at the lake by the weather…?

His minister must be in full possession of the facts before any or all of those things happened.

Yes, he would tell him. He cleared his throat and requested to speak to the minister urgently.

Gunnar rechecked the ropes lashing down the two Lynx helicopters. It was a nervous reaction, checking them again and again. But he could not abandon the tiny clearing, its snow-weighted trees, its stormswept open space, its two huddled, shrouded helicopters. The wind cracked and snapped the shrouds over the two aircraft as if trying to open two parcels with rough, greedy fingers. He worried more than ever now, as the morning wore on. The two Lynxes represented the only means of escape from the lake. They could not be flown in this weather - it would be suicide to try - and they could not fly everyone back. But Gunnar knew that Buckholz would order him, if all else failed, to remove as much as possible of the most secret equipment aboard the Firefox in the two helicopters. He might be asked to fly in impossible conditions. For the moment, he simply had to continually reassure himself that the two Lynxes were safe, lashed down and undamaged.

He let go the taut nylon rope which stretched away to the nearest tree, and thrust his mittened hand back into the pocket of his parka. Reaching the edge of the clearing, he turned back for a last glance. Two grey-white mounds, like igloos. He moved away through the trees, clumping over the snow with broad snow-shoes. As he skirted the shore of the lake, he could see it was little less than a blizzard that was raging across the open ice. Snow rushed as solidly as a white wall seen from a speeding train or car. He would skirt the shore, keeping out of the worst of the storm by staying under the trees.

He settled into the slow momentum of his journey. He was cold, and becoming hungry again. Energy was being used up at a ridiculous speed. The storm thumped and cried at his hunched back as he walked with slow, exaggerated footsteps. Gunnar could not believe that a second weather window would bring the American pilot, or allow them time for escape. They were stranded at the lake. By the time the weather improved, the Finns would have arrived and it would all have been for nothing.

There was only one advantage in the weather. Nothing could fly in it - nothing Russian. They couldn't have moved a single helicopter, a single platoon, even if they knew where the Firefox was…

He was colder now, and he tried to move more quickly.

A freak of the wind brought him the voices. A piece of good luck he appreciated only when he dismissed the idea that the wind had snatched the sounds from the other side of the lake and flung them in his direction. These voices were close to him. Russian voices.

Cold
, he distinguished.
Fed up… the Major… balls to
. . .

Then no more. He leaned against the bole of a tree. He was shaking, almost gripping the tree for support. His hands spread inside his mittens as if to locate and tear at the bark beneath the snow. Fingers twitching -

Russian voices. Soldiers, grumbling about their location, their duties, their officer. They'd been there for some time, they had a purpose which was already beginning to bore them - surveillance without action, his mind supplied - a major was in command. There might be a dozen, two dozen, three.

He turned, his back pressed against the trunk. He saw his breath curdle before it was whipped away by the wind. He was emitting signals as he breathed - where were they? He studied the darkness beneath the trees around him, studied the snow for footprints… the big tennis-racquet patterns of his own were already being covered. Where - ?

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…