Winter Hawk (84 page)

Then the ugly nose of the gunship drifted into view, dropping like a spider into the arching gap of daylight that was just clearing of dust. Gun, rockets, missiles slung beneath its stubby wings.

It can't see you it can't, can't . . .

He struggled to convince himself, his body running the tape loop over and over, prompting an effort at survival. He struggled to his feet, his weight resting heavily against the icy, wet stonework. The nose of the MiL intruded like that of a hungry cat into a mouse hole. Snuffling and eager, violence assured.

The walls of the tunnel were splashed with bright, crude light. Rails gleamed. Gant cringed back farther into the shadows of a narrow archway that was too cramped to conceal him more than momentarily; but for now the light washed just in front of him.

If only his legs would regain some kind of mobility, if only his head would clear, if only the noise would stop dinning off the walls. He kept his gaze away from the dust-hazed light.

The MiL rumbled a few feet closer, as close as it dared. There's only a single track, he heard some distant part of his mind confirm, the rotor span is sixty feet, it can't come in after you. It would wait, just so long as he didn't move, until troops had abseiled down from the waterfall or came up in trucks along the military highway. Or until it dropped its own troops, if it had any aboard. It was only a moment's pause.

Its ugly snout continued to swivel and sniff at the tunnel's
mouth.
Dust and debris seemed as if lifted and flung by a hurricane. The light of the lamp was foggy. Water splashed on his face and hands in large, uprooted droplets. The force of the downdraft thrust at him like a hand.

He was perhaps fifteen yards from the entrance. He glanced to his left, down the length of the tunnel. He was «two miles from the border. He could see no blob or even prick of light—the tunnel must curve in its passage under the mountains as it followed the course of the river. He must run.

The MiL's cabin door was open. The wheels of the helicopter were no more than feet above the rails. Shapes dropped quickly. Gant felt the gravel under his feet shivering as at the first tremors of an earthquake. Three of them, and more coming behind, down the cliffs or up the road. Then, above the din, a voice bellowed through the distortion of a loudspeaker.

"You can't escape, Major—we know what you have. There's no way you can get out of here."

The first of the men had entered the tunnel, and was clearly silhouetted. He restrained the curl of his finger on the rifle's trigger. He fumbled instead for the kit bag, tugging open its drawn-tight neck, and pulled something out. It was the right shape, what he wanted. The first soldier moved cautiously closer, the MiL's nose snuffled with what seemed an increased appetite. Flashlights flicked on, weak fireworks beside the glare of the lamp.

Lamp, infrared, low-light TV—

He raised the flare pistol from the kit bag and fired, turning his head away, clenching his eyelids shut. The cartridge struck the opposite wall of the tunnel, exploding against the brickwork, hissing like a cauldron before it glared brighter than the lamp. Smoke made him cough, the light was white beyond his eyelids, even though he had crooked his arm across his eyes. The noise of the rotors was distanced by the adrenaline that surged through his body.

Run, run—

He stumbled, still not daring to open his eyes, his left hand guiding him by scraping along the tunnel, so that the rope burns began to pain him once more. Fear for his ankles, his footing, grew in his mind as he stumbled on. The glare was still evident, even through his eyelids. The loudspeaker bellowed. He felt lightheaded. He was becoming careless of his footing. He opened his eyes into slits. Light, still lurid on the wall, hurt the backs of his eyes.

Wild shooting behind him. He heard no ricochets. He paused. Watched his shadow dying on the rock. Far ahead of him, he could see a tiny speck of daylight. The tunnel was clear and the exit was at least half a mile away. The light from the flare was dying now. Within seconds, their retinas and infrared would recover. He breathed in deeply and thrust the flare pistol back into the kit bag. The MiL was out of sight around the bend of the tunnel. His heart was large and painful in his chest as he ran on. He could hear his own footsteps echoing off the walls, as if pursuing him. The noise of the rotors had almost gone now.

The patch of daylight, recognizable now as the mouth of the tunnel, darkened. Was filled by something. Cutting off his escape.

"Yes, comrade General, all systems are functioning properly."

"When can we cut the links with central control?"

"In ten minutes, comrade General, target acquisition will be completed and we'll be locked on here."

"Ten minutes . . . and how long before—?"

Two minutes after the platform is raised to the surface, the tiansmitter will be aligned and locked on."

"Twelve minutes. Good. You have my order to proceed with
Lightning
—to its conclusion."

"Very good, comrade General Rodin. Countdown at—eleven minutes, fifty seconds—mark and counting."

"In the tunnel? How can they be sure?"

"Mr. President, we're monitoring their radio traffic. It's being screamed all over their Tac channel."

"How many troops do they have on the ground—close to him?"

"Maybe as many as a dozen
spetsnaz
units in the
immediate
area—a lot more in reserve. A dozen or so gunships, and there are whole convoys of troop trucks on the main highway."

"Then he has to have something decisive."

"That's our thinking, Mr. President."

"Then we have to get him out."

"I don't think we can."

"Listen to me. The Turkish government has pushed army units right up to the border. They have air cover, all we asked for. The price we're having to pay doesn't matter. The Turks have been co operative. Now we have to do more than they're doing."

"Mr. President, we can't afford an incident, not now, not today."

"Dick, all of you—we can't afford not to have an incident!"

"What do you want, Mr. President?"

"Small, fast, light helicopters. How many do we have in the area—us, not the Turks?"

"I'd have to check that, Mr.—
^v

"Then do it!"

"Mr. President—John, have you thought of—?"

"Consequences, Dick? Yes, I've thought of very little else. I can assure you on that. But understand me, Dick—Gant is alone. We thought we'd lost him when he went underground. He's still alive, and their efforts to make sure he doesn't stay that way means he has something that could help us get out from under. I can't afford to lose that."

"He's in the tunnel—they're stopping the trains. They 11 go in after him even if they haven't already done so. Sir, what can helicopters do for him?"

"I don't know. Christ Almighty, Dick, I'm supposed to be the President of the United States. That ought to count for something— it obliges me to try!"

"They'll shoot anything down that's carrying the stars and stripes—maybe anything with a red cross on it, for all I know. They're down to the wire on this, just as we are, sir. John, think about it, please."

"The guy's a mile and a half from the border, Dick. What's to think about?"

"The next war?"

"Starting from this? If we don't have what Gant has, then we'll lose the next war!"

"What chance do they have of finding him?"

"How the hell would I know, Dick?"

"You'll be killing anyone you send into that—that hornet's nest over there."

"Dick, I know that. I don't need reminding."

"What about the Turks?"

"Who's to know? They'll back up anyone coming back across. While they're protesting about what we're doing, Gant will either be back here—or he won't."

"Mr. President, sir—"

"What is it?"

"We have two small Hughes Defender helicopters, observing along that stretch of the border. They could be in the area of that tunnel in—two minutes, maximum. So Fm guaranteed. From the time you give a direct order for them to cross, Mr. President."

"John—"

"Thank you. Look, Dick, the Turks are already screaming at the Soviets here in Geneva and in Moscow about the provocative troop movements' on the Armenian border. If the Defenders can find him, it might work."

"John, think about this, please."

"The time for thinking is over. General—give them the order to go in. Give them anvthing they need, but get them in!"

Tyuratam was little more than a smudge to the southeast. Priabin looked back along the narrow, potholed road. It was empty, like the clean and dangerous sky. He slung the rifle across his back, shifting it to comfort, then wrenched the toolbox out of the UAZ with an angry yet purposeless strength. It had taken them twenty minutes to get here, to this God-forsaken place. What would he need? What would he do?

"Come on," he growled, and began climbing the long, gentle slope in front of them.

The wind strengthened, sighing across empty country. There had been the frozen, rutted tracks of heavy trucks after they had turned off the highway. Did they mean anything? Kedrov scuttled beside him like a dog being taken for a walk, grating on Priabin's raw nerves. There was no hint of optimism in his hurried stride.

They reached the crest of the slope. The sticks and trellises of the main telemetry complex were only slightly closer than the haze of the old town. He glanced around him wildly. The country was not utterly flat, but undulated gently, pockmarked with dips and hillocks. It looked like some piece of ground that had been heavily shelled. No-man's-land.

"New wire," Kedrov murmured, his hand touching the
bright
barbed wire at which they had halted. A warning notice, two
more
farther off. Death to all intruders, or something of the kind. They put notices like that outside every officers' pisshouse. There were no guards, no dogs, nothing.

"Christ!" he cried out. "Look at it. There's nothing here except the old silos."

"New wire," Kedrov persisted.

"That's what we came out here to find?"

"No—signs of recent work," Kedrov snapped back at his cynicism.

Priabin scanned the landscape in front of him. Heavy tires, rubble heaped and scattered, but nothing, nothing real. He bent down and scrabbled in the toolbox. Found the heavy-duty pliers, checked their edges.

"Watch out," Priabin ordered. "I'm not climbing through this mess. Let's see if these will cut—" He grunted with effort, struggling and twisting the wire, attempting to cut through it. Even in the icy wind, sweat prickled on his forehead and was damp inside his shirt. The wire would not cut. Furiously, he kicked at one of the wooden posts holding the wire taut. Then kicked again and again. It struggled out of the grip of the frozen earth and leaned drunkenly, dragging the four strands of wire toward the ground.

He stepped across the sagging wire.

"Come on—and bring the toolbox." Which is no bloody use whatsoever, he told himself.

The earth and the icy puddles cracked and ripped as they hurried across the empty landscape.

"What should we look for?" he demanded.

"Signs of repair—lack of rust ..." Kedrov's voice faded into uncertainty.

More ruts from heavy tires, even the tracks of a bulldozer. A hundred yards and more from the new wire, they reached a silo shaft's steel doors, which were pitted and rusting. Priabin stood on them, stamping a din from the metal, as he gazed around him. He could distinguish as many as forty—well, thirty—of these silo entrances scattered over the ground and looking like giant antipersonnel mines. They rose only a few feet above the surface, while the shafts beneath them descended hundreds of feet into the earth.

"Don't waste time. We'll split up—check as many as you can. Oh, Christ, all right, I'll take the toolbox." He bared his teeth. "Get moving."

There was a moment of pathetic doubt on Kedrov's face, and the afterdrug vacancy returned; then he turned to scan the landscape, oicking out the closest silos

"I'll shout," he offered, "and wave if I find anything." It was as if he had patted Priabin's forearm to comfort him. He seemed to draw on some reserve of optimism, and smiled encouragingly.

Priabin scuttled toward another shaft, turning only once to see Kedrov blown like a brown rag across the landscape. The second and third sets of silo doors were dirt-encrusted, with stiff blades of grass appearing to spring from the metal. He hurried on.

Four now, all of them unused for years. Six, and still nothing but pitted doors and the mouths of air ducts with rusty wire gratings across them, but tire tracks and caterpillar-track indentations going everywhere and nowhere. He transferred the toolbox once more from his left hand to his right. He seemed to be staggering along now, buffeted by the icy wind. If he so much as thought for a moment about his task, it would be like colliding with a solid wall.

The wind shouted, faintly.

Groggily, he looked up. A brown scarecrow was waving its outstretched arms.