Winter Hawk (68 page)

Gant moved slowly, cautiously around the airframe. His inspection had taken him perhaps fifteen minutes, a period of deliberate delay. The flashlight had picked out the litde peaks of hopelessness as it setded on the skeletal airframe, the dismembered engine, the discarded flaps. Yet he had remained with the Polish-built Antonov biplane, fearing to move farther back into the darkness, back toward—

—metal blades, leading edges of wings, struts, flaps, the flank of a second fuselage. He was deeply afraid of inspecting the second biplane. It might prove even more skeletal and useless than this first one. So he waited for the tide of defeat to ebb. He knew it would. It was just a matter of time. His father snickered cruelly at the back of his mind, and Charley's voices rusded in the darkness like the scurrying of rats. As long as he encountered no new and greater blow, his sense of survival would reemerge.

Gant flicked the flashlight's beam at his watch. Ten-thirty. He poised himself, breathing quickly and deeply to calm himself. Flicked the beam out in front of him, washing it weakly over the propeller blades, then engine cowling;
engine cowling
—the
words
reverberated like the echoes of thunder among mountains. He saw, with a great sigh of relief, the oily gleam of exposed valve gear— fuselage, tail plane almost out of reach of the beam; then the concrete floor, sweeping the flashlight back and forth, back and
forth,
looking frantically for signs of dismantling, disemboweling.

Clear, clear!

Moonlight.

The darkness had held for almost half an hour, and he had been grateful for that. Now that the clouds had released the moon once more and faint, sheening light grew in a row of pale squares along one side of the building, he was as startled as if the main light switch had been thrown. The second Antonov An-2 was ghostly in the moonlight, unreal. He moved toward it with a reluctant lurch.

Stopped. Turned back, searching along the fuselage of the first airframe. Pulled the shrouded inspection lamp, and its trailing lead with him, heading back toward the second Antonov. The noise of the shroud as he slid it across the lamp tinkled in the chill, dead air. He switched off his flashlight, its beam beginning to fail now, and turned on the lamp. Its diffused glow glided along the Antonov s side.

Engine. Fourteen hundred horsepower, turboprop. Entire, intact. He moved along the fuselage. Ducked down, thrusting the lamp in front of him, then stared into the main cabin. It was the agricultural variant, just like the other biplane. Two crop-dusting airplanes wintering in this hangar, undergoing their major servicing before the spring. The metal of the chemical tank gleamed in the darkness of the cabin. He moved on.

The open inspection panel and the gap of darkness behind it made him shiver, as if newly aware of the cold. It had been too good to be true, too good. The battery was missing. His fist banged the tail of the Antonov, hard. A hollow, booming noise, as if the whole airframe was empty.

"Shit," he breathed, "shit, shit." Over and over; its ordinariness recovered him, as if the expletive could only be applied to what was remediable. Find the battery, it has to be here, refit the battery after you find it. But that was sufficiently far into the future to open the perspective of his awareness, and he clamped down on the idea. His fathers snickering ceased in his head; it was the scurry of a rat somewhere in the hangar.

Tour of inspection. He turned, gathering and coiling the lamp's lead as he followed it back to the first airframe. His step was careful hut quick. He sensed himself moving across experiences rather than within them.

He passed the engineless biplane and moved toward the door through which he had first entered from the lean-to. He passed the diffused light over what was evidently a workbench. Spiders web. A white powder that was not dust covered everything except the sur-of the bench. DDT? Residue of some dry chemical they'd been Using to dust. A copper tank rested on trestles, its filler lid opened.

He passed it, paying out the coiled lead. He was hungry. He felt in the parka's pockets until he found a bar of chocolate from the emergency rations. Unwrapped it with clumsy fingers, broke off a large piece, and filled his mouth as completely as a child might have done. He chewed awkwardly. The sweetness assailed his teeth as he reached the door to the lean-to.

He realized it formed a suite of offices; if they could be called offices. He checked the first one, the off-duty room. Dirty cups. He moved to the table, rubbing with a gloved finger at the rings left by coffee mugs, dabbing at the grains of spilled sugar. He picked up the sugar bag with a snatching movement, shining the lamp into its crumpled, open neck, and softly squeezed the base of the bag. The sugar moved and altered like a tiny landslide. It hadn't been here for weeks, not even days. The coffee stains erased easily. He heard his own harsh breathing. They were servicing the two Antonovs now, each day, each daylight.

His gaze swung along the fine of moonlit windows, then down to the face of his watch. Ten-forty. Daylight would be—? Seven-thirty, but they might not come until . . . The future intruded and he angrily shut it out. Where did they sleep? Not here, they would have heard him by now, there would be heaters working—at the collective? The lamp revealed the ancient stove in the corner and a pile of chopped logs near it. Easy chairs, stuffing and springs gaping, grease drums, a calendar on one wall. He turned and left the room, obeying a new urgency that was not panic, rather familiarity. This was the kind of place he knew.

The next room was perhaps three times the size of the off-duty room. An opened crate contained a new nine-cylinder engine. Why hadn't they installed it already? A lathe, crated propellers, an air compressor.

The third room was locked. A faded, stenciled notice claimed it was the Radio Room.
He
did not bother to force the lock. The
fourth
room was unlocked; the door opened with a creak. Something
scut-
ded away in the moonlit shadows. Shelves in the lamplight; manuals, sheaves of documents, ring binders, box folders. A
battered
desk, an in tray visible; even its companion, the out tray.
He flicked
the light across the papers they contained. There were other
ques
tions wearing like blown sand at his apparent calm. It wasn't just the battery, it was whether the second Antonov was airworthy,
whether
it would take him . . . stop it!

The lamp opened his perspective rather than kept it closed
and narrow.
The papers—their headings, their insignia and crests, their information—threatened his present stability. He did not want to remain in what he realized was the chief engineer s office, but the search for the Antonov's missing battery was futile unless these documents answered the questions that he could no longer avoid. He passed the lamp over a row of clipboards hanging from a series of nails and screws. One of the more official-looking letters in the out tray had authorized an air test and was dated six days previously. No, no . . . the third clipboard revealed two freshly made out cards, one labeled "Compass Correction," the other "Airspeed Correction." They were both initialed twice and dated two days earlier. The box file on the desk revealed a sheaf of papers and their unsepa-rated carbons. The sheets itemized every aspect of the Antonov, its faults and their repair. It had to be the second Antonov, let it be the second.

His hand flicked feverishly through the papers on the desk. He was a burglar become a vandal, no longer caring to preserve any sense that he had not been there. Yes—? No, no, no, no—yes! Reference numbers tallying—he found the reference number of the Antonov without its engine. The repairs and the air test both referred to the other airframe, the one that was intact.

He slammed the box file shut and tucked it beneath his arm as he left the office. The place was once more familiar, even when the moonlight disappeared and the lamp was the place s only light. He crossed the hangar with confidence. He felt the dust of the DDT or whatever it was on his fingertips, noticed it on the toes of his boots in the swinging light of the lamp.

As he reached the second Antonov, the moonlight returned. He Hurried now, as if the pale window squares revealed some inkling of daylight. Ten forty-five. There were small fabric flags attached to various components, each one accompanied by a card that was rubber-stamped and detailed the repair effected. Except for the battery compartment. Only the flag bearing the Cyrillic legend
attention.
Kneeling, he flicked through the sheaf of forms and reports in the box file. Found—

battery time expired and u/s
. It was dated the previous ^V—? He flicked the lamp's glow toward the undercarriage. New but they bore evidence of at least one takeoff and landing. The *** test must have been done—then they'd used the battery from ^ke other Antonov, the one that needed a new engine.

Where was it then? He saw his quickened breathing as puffs of distress in the lamplight. Where was it? The lamp remained on the undercarriage. Mud, a few blades of grass—where was the battery? He hugged the box file like a life jacket. It had been air-tested; then the battery had been removed. Why? Was it faulty? Christ, don't let it be faulty. He stood up slowly, weighing his strength as much as his mood. Then he moved to the far side of the hangar, paying out the coiled lead of the lamp once more. He stepped over the bonding wire that grounded the airframe, feeding the lamp underneath it, then continued. He moved along the far wall until he found a door labeled Battery Room. He swallowed noisily, even though his mouth seemed dry.

The door was unlocked. He played the lamplight over the bench, over the charger, which hummed and seemed to stare at him with a single red eye. He moved closer, afraid to study the dials along the charger's top. There were two batteries, both connected. One of them was brand-new, the other was used, but it wasn't covered with the fine white powder that coated everything that had been left lying in the hangar for any length of time. He touched it, inspected his finger, to make sure.

Looked.

The new battery had only just been put on charge. The quivering needle on the dial was still way up. The second, the second— the needle was a litde over halfway to its stop. The second battery was half charged.

Not enough. It would be hours, whole hours yet, before the battery was able to start the Antonov. Three, four hours perhaps, too long, far too long . . .

He saw that the lamplight seemed to be trembling,
as
if
on
the point of collapse; quivering like ice about to crack open. He
could
not stop his hand from shaking.

Telescope. Rodin's features, his questions
and
even the
concerns
that dimly lay behind them, all seemed as if viewed from the
wrong
end of
a
telescope; made tiny and out of focus and
unimportant.
Where is the American? What information does he possess? What does he intend to do, where is he hiding now? Where is he heading'/
The questions were all so predictable.
What have you told him
Lightning—
what does he know?
As if it mattered.

As he looked at Rodin's face, Priabin felt his own bruised tures, his swollen lips, the dried blood, the puffy dough his skin become. The clock with its strutting red second hand showed

eleven
-fifty. It was almost two hours since Serov had beaten him. It was the tiredness, the detachment that surprised Priabin. He could not give a damn for any of it anymore. Not even for this old mans hesitant, uncomfortable probing with regard to the death of his son.
What—was his—mood when you spoke to him? You must be re
sponsible
—
you frightened him. What did he tell you, how did he seem to you?
Not one atom of it mattered to'Priabin. He looked down at the loosely cupped hands resting in his lap. There were things he could grasp, hold on to, if he could make the effort to reach out to them; important things. Serov's interrogation whirled in his head like sparks from a windblown fire. There had been no more violence, only questions and a mounting impatience. Eventually, while he sat on in front of the computerized, shifting map, without answers, Rodin had arrived.

What did you learn?
he'd asked when he saw Priabin's face.
This wasnt interrogation, this was gratuitous
, Serov had answered mockingly.
Comrade General, the American would not have told him.

Get out, Serov, leave him with me, get your people out of here— get out!

The questions had dripped slowly, hesitantly onto Priabin's mind, which, like a sloping roof bearing rainwater, could not hold them. They ran away somewhere, out of his consciousness. After some time had passed, he realized most of them related to Valery Rodin.

The screens in the room reflected Rodin's state of mind quite clearly. The launch pad, the slow, ponderous approach of the
Raketoplan
on its transporter, the waiting erector cage, the glare of lights. Now that the erector cage was around the shuttle craft, they
^w
ere about to use the express hoist to raise the spacecraft atop the booster stages. Rodin was preoccupied, obsessively so, his son's death forgotten now.