Mikk Laas crawled away across the concrete floor. He knew Holly would be in the compound. His ears told him that the lorries were bringing troops to Barashevo, that the helicopters were swarming down to Barashevo.
The Colonel General sat easily on the corner of Kypov's desk. He was a youngish man, assured and certain. A good-looking man beneath his steel battle-helmet. Kypov warmed to him, because this man did not sneer. The Colonel General talked briefly, factually, alternating the direction of his remarks between Kypov and his Political Officer.
'They're big beasts, the helicopters. Weil bring them down to three, four metres and nobody will be standing under them. You get blown flat. We'll give them a minute or so, then in with the troops. We'll split them into groups of thirty, forty, then I'll have your force in… shouldn't be a problem.'
The competence of the Colonel General encouraged Yuri Rudakov.
'I'm told there are divisions within whatever leadership they have, there is a faction that believes the thing has already gone too far. They know that the helicopters will come, I think the majority of them are scared half out of their minds.'
'What sort of prisoners does the camp hold?'
'Scum,' said Kypov decisively.
'Criminals, pretty low intelligence,' said Rudakov.
There was a knock at Kypov's door. News from the Adjutant. All four helicopters had now landed in the vehicle park. The perimeter of the tamp was secure. The storm-squad was in position behind the gates. Marksmen were in place on the Administration block roof.
'Will you be flying yourself, Colonel General?' Kypov asked.
'Of course.'
They were experienced men, the pilots of the helicopters.
They accepted this mission with an amused resignation.
They were accustomed to flying into actual or simulated machine-gun fire. They were familiar with the evasion techniques necessary against ground-to-air missiles. Their machines carried armour-plating a centimetre thick to protect the soft belly beneath their seats. Apart from his co-pilot each captain carried two machine- gunners. And they were to be used as fly-swatters. The pilots talked to each other by radio, they livened their engines, the Colonel General climbed on board. The helicopters rolled, as a drunkard on ice, and lifted.
Holly stood white-lipped in the centre of the compound.
Beyond the high wooden fence the bedlam of the helicop ters was growing. He could see Byrkin fifty yards to his right and close to the wire. Chernayev was behind him, further than fifty yards. And there were men whose names he did not know and whose faces he might not recall, and they too were beyond reach.
He was the talisman of the compound. All the men watched him. If he broke they would all break. The zeks were spread out across the Zone, as he had wished. Their posture was aimless. When the helicopters rose and peeped for the first time over the high wooden fence they would see only confusion. Let the bastards come…
Anatoly Feldstein was beside Holly. if it works, your plan, will men die?'
'Not necessarily… '
'And if you win this time, what of the next time?'
'I have not won this time, not yet,' Holly yelled brutally.
The nose of the lead helicopter sidled above the fence, a monster that had crawled from a cave and now flexed itself.
'We're not reading your bloody samizdat in a Moscow flat, we're not having wet dreams over a Solzhenitsyn typescript…'
Three more helicopters creeping into close formation above the first, clawing into the dull sky, climbing for altitude.
'… We're not sending telegrams to Ronald bloody Reagan. Nobody outside this camp gives a hell for us. We're on our own, understand that.'
Holly craned his head, following the grey undercarriages of the helicopters. They'd rise to a thousand feet, then drop.
A controlled fall down onto the compound, down onto men who had nothing but nine coils of table-leg, wire, rope, and blanket.
Feldstein held Holly's head, shouted in his ear. 'Can you know what it is to read samizdat? It's wonderful. It is true freedom to read samizdat
'Shut up and watch. Watch and I'll show you freedom.
Watch the helicopters.'
He pushed Feldstein away.
The sky darkened, the noise of the rotors pounded, thrashed the air. Holly saw the machine-gunners, saw them grinning as they peered from their opened doors, leaning out safe on the tether of their lifelines. Let the bastards come
… He depended on nine men, the nerve of nine men.
The zeks began to run, began to form into four concentrations as Holly had dictated. Snow swept into the void, a white and blurring confetti, and he lost sight of Byrkin, and when he spun round Chernayev also was gone. God… the noise, the blasting sound. Holly and Feldstein were alone, and ignored by the pilots. The pilots had greater riches. Four man masses to occupy them. The snow swirls lay like a fog, low and held down by the rotor- blades. The helicopters sat on the white mist, and the engines roared and screamed and howled.
'Now Byrkin… now Chernayev… now… now… '
A stick was thrown in the air. Holly watched, cold and fascinated. A stick was caught by a rotor blade and swept from his sight, and a wire and a rope and two knotted blankets flew in pursuit of a tossed table-leg. Beautiful Chernayev… beautiful Byrkin… beautiful all of you.
Look at the Captain, Holly. Look at his face roving over his instruments, his hands fighting the controls. Press the panic-button. Why won't the bloody thing respond, Comrade Captain?… Holly heard the cry of a failing engine. He flung his arms round Feldstein.
'We might have won…' he yelled.
The zeks knew, the zeks had heard the swing of the engine pitch from the high roar to the failing whine. Wire and rope and blankets were wrapped tight, bandaged, around the delicate free running spool between helicopter cabin and rotors. The zeks ran, broke and spread.
One machine bellyflopped in the compound.
The zeks would be at it like thieves at a Christmas party.
Another machine scraped over the Administration block, and disappeared for a few short seconds before there was an explosion and the answering sweep of dark smoke.
The third machine cleared Hut 3 and took the outer telephone lines from the poles. It keeled against a watch-tower, and fell beyond the high wooden fence.
Almost on the ground, the fourth helicopter seemed to give up the fight for height and settle only for distance. It careered between Hut 6 and the Bath house, scattering its way through fences. Screaming wire, ripping wood, the howl of the engine. Holly saw it go, a great wounded bird fluttering to a defeated landfall. Byrkin was bellowing at him, hanging on his arm for attention.
'I have a Colonel General… I have two pilots, two crew.
We have two machine-guns and ammunition.'
Holly shook himself, tried to rid his head of the echoing noise. 'Get the guns under Huts 3 and 6. Get the crew into the Kitchen.'
God… they had won! The zeks ran round him, dazed, overwhelmed, hysterical.
Holly went towards the Administration block. So quiet without the rotors spinning above him. He walked past the huge downed beast. The zeks were in it, hyenas at a carcase.
He walked tall.
The marksmen would be locked on him.
Twenty metres in front of the Administration block he stopped.
'Tell Major Kypov that we have a Colonel General and two pilots and two crew alive and in our care. Tell him also that we have machine-guns intact.'
