Target 5 (13 page)

*
Soviet security jargon for must not be allowed outside the borders of the Soviet Union under any circumstances. Presumably two hundred million Soviet citizens are members of this exclusive club.

'This place isn't going to last long,' he remarked.

Unlike American research bases - where the airstrip is always well clear of the camp area - the prefabricated huts on North Pole 17, their flat roofs layered with snow, were
barely thirty metres from the improvised runway. A radar
mast dominated the little colony, spearing one hundred feet
up to a wing-like ear which revolved to face any point of the
compass. The Siberian gave brief instructions to Kramer
and then faced Minsky who had run back over the ice.

'Hardly a pinpoint on the radar,' Minsky panted, his goggles steamed up. 'When the American plane saw you he
flew straight back to Greenland!' He made it sound like a
triumph. Papanin reached out a. hand, pushed the goggles
up over Minsky's forehead.

'You don't need these on a night like this - or did you think you were in a blizzard? Have the helicopters found Gorov? Have you brought him back? Have you sent out the Sno-Cats? Have you done anything worthwhile?'

'Gorov hasn't been found . . .' Minsky sounded nervous.
'They are still searching . . .'

'Disembark!'

Papanin roared the command up to the aircraft exit and strode long-legged across the airstrip towards the camp.
Now there was no danger of an American aircraft observing
what came out of the Bison he didn't even bother to look
back at the armed men filing down the ladder. And now
he was outside Russia the Siberian was feeling free again: he had full control, could take instant decisions without
Syrtov peering over his shoulder and making damnfool
suggestions.

The precise date when the Special Security Service was
formed is not known, but sometime in 1968 Brezhnev
decided that for overseas work the KGB was a broken reed. Demoralization set in with the death of Stalin - the most re
pressive organization in the world, the KGB found itself
repressed. Physical torture was banned, was replaced by
such devices as the Serbsky Institute in Moscow,* and soon
top KGB officials were vying with each other to keep within
the law. This change of heart fitted in beautifully with Khrushchev's new liberal policy inside Russia, but it didn't
work overseas. A terrorist organization without terror is like
an impotent man trying to make love. So a new organiza
tion was formed.

*
The Serbsky Institute specializes in certifying those who don't conform as
insane. The threat of a visit to this place is enough to make many people toe the
Party line.

The Special Security Service can operate only outside
Soviet Russia - it has no power within its own borders. It
can use any method to attain its objectives, and because it is
confined to overseas operations there is no danger that it
may grow into the Frankenstein monster the KGB once
became. Brezhnev made only one exception to this rule -because of the Jewish problem Papanin had certain powers
inside the city limits of Leningrad. But once he left Mur
mansk the Siberian controlled the game.

'Those machines - why aren't they in the air?' Papanin
snapped. He gestured towards six helicopters standing be
yond the airstrip where they had been parked to let the
Bison come in. Beside him the short-legged Minsky was dog-
trotting to keep up.

'They have just arrived from the
Gorki .. .'

'They should be in the air - searching! What about the
latest met report?'

'The fog over Target-5 is expected to continue. It is
making the search more difficult...'

'That's where you're wrong again! While the fog lasts the
Americans can't airlift Gorov back to the States.' They were
coming close to the group of huts where metre-long icicles hung from the rooftops, icicles which wouldn't melt again
until spring. 'They'll try and get him out over the ice -
make for the Greenland coast,' Papanin said, half-thinking aloud. 'We'll scatter a screen of men over the ice west of
Target-5. We'll keep a screen of helicopters in the air above
them. We'll grab him whoever is there to protect him.'

'Might that not be dangerous?'

'We have the perfect excuse. Gorov is a madman, a murderer - he killed Marov, one of our oceanographers. Gorov
has been in the Arctic so long he's gone round the bend.'

'I don't understand,' Minsky began. 'Marov was a
security man ...'

'You're so thick it's hardly credible,' Papanin barked.
'Marov has just become an oceanographer - Gorov is a
criminal who killed one of his own colleagues and we have to apprehend him. That changes it from a political case into
a police affair.' There was a savage, jaunty note in Papanin's
voice. Here, out in the open, he was in his element. This
was the Siberian who, ten years ago, had been told to speed
up the removal of the Russian missiles from Cuba. His
method had been characteristically direct: he had threat
ened to explode the missiles over the island if the Cubans didn't cooperate. Ten years older, he had not lost his quick,
savage touch.

'A police affair?' Minsky said thoughtfully as they came up to the huts. 'That makes a difference?'

'Yes! It means that if we want to we are justified in shoot
ing at Gorov and anyone with him - after all, Michael
Gorov is a dangerous maniac.' Papanin smashed an icicle from the roof with his gloved hand. 'You see, Minsky, we
are starting a manhunt.'

Within minutes of meeting Beaumont at Curtis Field Dawes
was in the air again, this time as a passenger aboard a two-
man Cessna aircraft which took off along the runway ending
at the cliff brink. The pilot, Arnold Schumacher, who hated
flying top brass, wheeled the plane away from Greenland
and headed out to sea. The icecap below merged with the polar pack glued to the mainland as the plane flew like a
dart due east.

'You're not expected to find Target-5,' Dawes growled, 'so just pretend you're looking for it. I'm checking conditions.'

'Terrible.' The pilot paused. 'Sir,' he added. 'I can't see
anyone getting to the base over the ice. When the fog clears
we'll have to fly in. The usual way.' He transferred his chew
ing gum to the other cheek, the cheek away from Dawes.

'That's the trouble with you people up here. All you think
of is engines and machines. You can't imagine anyone
fighting their way in over the pack. We're getting soft,
Schumacher - if Pan Am can't take us we don't go.'

'I'm not Pan Am . . .'

'And take that gum out of your mouth when you're talk
ing to me.'

Screw you, chum. But the pilot preferred this type: at least they didn't try to fraternize, kidding you up they were just one of the boys - with their pay ten times your own. The plane flew on through the cold, moonlit night at two thousand feet, a wisp of metal over the Arctic. The altitude flattened out the pressure ridges, made the pack look like a sheet of opaque glass, crazed and splintered glass. Conditions were bloody terrible. Thirty minutes later Dawes was half out of his seat, peering down into the grey murk below, a solid sea of rolling fog which masked the solid ice under it. A squat globular bug with a whizz of rotor-driven air above it was cruising towards them, barely skimming the fog bank. 'See that?' Dawes rapped out.

'Chopper. Russian.' The pilot was thinking about the pad
of gum stuck under his seat.

'Submarine killer?'

'Yes,' said Schumacher.

'Must be off that Soviet carrier south of the ice. I want a
closer look. Dive!'

Schumacher was irked about his lost chewing gum.
Screw all generals: they ought to be abolished. Like state
taxes. So he dived, dropped like a bomb. But Dawes,
braced in his seat, was ready. The Russian helicopter was no
more than half a mile away, floating towards them on the
fog sea as the Cessna went down and down and the fog
swept up. Schumacher pulled out of the dive with a jerk
which could have knocked out Dawes, but again he was
ready for the impact. They were now about three hundred
feet above the helicopter. Then it vanished, fell into the fog.

'Hell!' Dawes was annoyed. 'I wonder why she's such a shy girl? Seen any of them about here before, Schumacher?'

'Never this far west - not that model. We've passed over
Target-5,' the pilot added, 'somewhere down there in the
oatmeal.' The edge of the fog bank was in sight and the
polar pack loomed as a mellow crystal sheen beyond. 'Com
ing close to the Russian base, North Pole 17, sir.
'

Schumacher's access of politeness intrigued Dawes. 'I want to see what they're up to. Does it Worry you?'

'They buzz us - send a machine up and fly close. I nearly collided with one somewhere about here. They don't like us playing good neighbours with them. So we still keep on, sir? There they are.'

Twinkles of green phosphorescence glowing on the ice showed the landing strip on the ice island, showed that the
airstrip was in imminent use. The buildings couldn't be seen yet, but something else could be seen, was just coming into
view. Dawes leaned forward, his eyes narrowed. 'Perfect
timing! You almost deserve a medal...' A small - at that
range - Satanic-looking shadow was drifting down out of the
sky, trailing pencil-thin vapour as it pointed its nose down.
A Bison bomber was landing at North Pole 17.

'Go back, sir?'

'Not yet!'

A Bison bomber. That was interesting. The Russians
didn't use the Bison as an Arctic taxi, but they might in an emergency use it to get here fast from Murmansk, to bring
in a man - or a lot of men. The Bison swept down to ground level, swept along between the lights, and Dawes could see
the buildings now, a tiny cluster of dark smudges. The
moving smudge between the lights came to a stop, the green
pinpoints faded, vanished.

"They've hooked us on their radar,' Schumacher warned.
'Now they'll send up a plane.'

'Not with their lights doused. Look below us.'

From seven hundred feet they could see them clearly, tiny turtles crawling over the ice. Sno-Cats, six of them, and they
were west of the Soviet ice island - heading direct towards Target-5- They scarcely seemed to move, but behind them their caterpillar tracks left tell-tale furrows in the snow, furrows leading from North Pole 17. That - and the Bison
bomber - decided Dawes.

'Home,' he said, and Schumacher reacted instantly, turn
ing at speed as he gained altitude. 'Get through on your
radio to Curtis Field ...'

'There's bad static .. .'

'Get through. Go on until you do get through. Send one
word time and time again. Nitrogen. Got it? Nitrogen . . .'
It was the code-signal Beaumont was waiting for, the signal
for him to leave for Target-5.

Sunday, 20 February: 4PM - Monday, 21 February: Midnight

The two Sikorsky helicopters came down vertically as
though suspended from a cable, dropping towards the ice over a hundred miles from the Greenland coast. It was a
critical moment - any landing on unknown ice is critical.
For one thing you can never be sure from the air that you are
coming down on firm ice; it may look quite solid and then the skids land, the ice cracks and you are going down into
the ocean. For another thing, if the machine doesn't settle on a flat surface it can keel over, topple, and the whirling
rotors hit the ice first. One moment the men inside are pre
paring to disembark, the next moment steel blades are
mincing them to pieces - unless the fuel tanks detonate, in
which case they are incinerated.