Snow Falcon

When there was no need. That is unforgiveable.'

'Yes, sir,' Galakhov acknowledged, and found himself the immediate subject of a keen stare from the old man. The heavily furnished lounge, lit only by the soft glow of one standard lamp in a corner, seemed to menace him.

'Very well. You were deceived, Ilarion Vikentich. I accept that.' Galakhov could not restrain the sense of relief he knew must show on his face. The old man smiled in satisfaction. 'As for your task — the arrangements are made. Your flight to London is booked, under your new cover-name. You know what you are to do at Heathrow — I need not reiterate it. However, understand me clearly. You must kill the traitor Khamovkhin in Helsinki. There can be no failure, no excuses. The present First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party must not — must not — be allowed to survive our operation. On the 24th, kill him.'

Galakhov nodded.

'Yes, sir. It will be done.'

'Good. Now find Vrubel, and dispose of him.'

The MIL helicopter beat overhead, low enough to shower him with snow disturbed from the pine-tops. They had used a helicopter after all- and in the bright moonlight followed his ski-tracks as easily as following motorway signs. There was nothing he could do, he realised, except wait for the helicopter to go away — and it would not do that because it knew his general location, and was acting as a spotter for a pursuit.

Folley was deadly weary; only as the helicopter moved away a few hundred yards to the west did he realise how ragged his breathing had become, and sense more clearly that the shivering of his body had nothing to do with the throb of the rotors over his head.

He was not going to get away. Not going to — no chance.

'Christ!' he muttered, his face lifted to the branches above him, dark now that the snow had been blown from them. There was nothing he could do, nothing.

Except go on, run until they ran him down, cornered him. He was in a forest of pines now, in a deep valley, and the helicopter was bund. His ski-tracks had entered the trees, then disappeared. It could only wait until he re- emerged. Soon it would begin to skirt the edges of the forest, anxious not to miss him, anxious to prevent his having a head-start on the pursuers.

The helicopter was useless now, he told himself. Useless, useless. It did not matter about the veracity of the idea, only its efficacy, a nostrum of power for the nagging body, the eroded will. Useless. He had the rest of the long night in which to run.

The helicopter's noise died away, and its threat diminished. It was searching — needle in haystack, spy in forest, it couldn't find him Silence. He strained to catch a sound, any sound. Nothing. He could move again. He unzipped his combat suit, and pulled out a folded map protected by a polythene jacket. Then he flicked on a small torch, focusing its pencil of light on the map, nodding to himself as he understood the contours of the land lying ahead of him. He checked the compass on his wrist, then flicked off the light, stowing the torch and map quickly as if they had already betrayed his whereabouts.

All night to run.

He moved two paces from the tree, and the rifle rang out from away to his left. He felt a searing pain across his ribs, and groaned aloud, stifling the noise almost as it began, blundering head-down towards the nearest trees as two other shots bellowed after him. Night-sight, he thought, unslinging his own rifle, tugging at the canvas sleeve as he jolted his arm against the safety of a trunk, breathing shallowly with fear and the pain in his flesh- wound. Then he whipped round the trunk, and fired three shots in the general direction of the Russian who had found him.

How many? Care, care. He brought the rifle to his shoulder, and traversed the area, squinting into his own infra-red sight. Hollow dark spaces, lit as if by a dull fire. Nothing moving — and the growing, creeping sensation that someone was watching him, searching for him, through an identical night-sight. His finger curled on the trigger and he had to consciously stop himself loosing off any more betraying shots; whistling in the dark.

Then the voice. Finnish first, which he barely understood. Then, after a pause in which admission was decided, English.

'You can't go any further. Give up. It's impossible for you.' Distortion of a loud-hailer, metallic voice wearing him down with its magnified confidence. He had to stop himself firing. 'Give yourself up. We'll make sure your wound is treated.'

He winced at the reminder, dare not look at his side now. They had him. Traverse, traverse he told himself. This is a bluff, they're moving in Shadow of a winter uniform, red-lit by the sight. He squeezed off two shots, pulled back behind the tree as fire was returned from at least half a dozen Kalashnikovs.

All from the same general direction. Perhaps a half-circle, only a crescent yet; move! He pushed away from the tree, crouching as if under the weight of the skis and pack, rifle banging against his thigh, left hand pressing for the first time against the burning side. Shots, ragged as they searched for a target. He began to weave and dodge, still hunched, breath labouring almost at once as he galloped awkwardly in the snow, great heaving steps like a wild, but tiring, horse.

He turned, shielded by a tree, and raised the rifle. He waited for the first ghost to shimmer in the red circle, until the crosshairs settled on the middle of the carefully moving bundle of winter uniform — then fired once, and immediately struck off to the left as fire was returned.

Breath ragged, side hurting like hell — noise of the helicopter returning from the north — strength running out, and the day still ahead of him. He itemised his hopelessness as he kept running, knowing that he would never tell anyone what he had seen, that he had failed already.

After Galakhov had left him, the old man took his dog for a walk in the small triangular park which had once been known as the 'Field of Virgins'. He passed on the east side of the park a bust of Frunze, hero of the civil war, one of the founders of the Red Army, and almost raised his hat to the stern face as he passed. An unhabitually comic notion; perhaps his decision regarding Vrubel had lightened his mood, he thought. He paused for a moment, while the big old hound capered like a pup on the frost-sparkling grass, and looked back at the Frunze Military Academy. He could even see the low-relief hammer and-sickles decorating the stern concrete facade; not given to admitting, or indulging, moments of nostalgia, he allowed himself to remember his own training there, soon after it was built in 1936 — an over-age cadet who had temporarily rejected the political life. The war, too — that time came back in brief, flickering images.

Then the dog rubbed against his trousers, and his mood was disturbed. The lines in the face hardened again, became stern with anticipated business. He kept to the glinting path, his footsteps loud and clear, his stick tapping almost in a marching rhythm; the noises of the dog on the stiff grass were the only other sounds, as if all traffic had stopped outside the park. The park itself was empty of other people.

The eccentricities he had cultivated for years, the apparent harmlessness and geniality that age seemed to have lent him, now served him well; he had not been tailed from his house, as he was sure other, less apparently loyal, members of the Politburo had been that night, and on other nights.

There was a twist of contempt in the smile on his lips. A smile which vanished again as he stood before Merkurov's giant bronze statue of Tolstoy. Immediately, he felt the size of the statue as an expression of power — his own, or that of Tolstoy, he was uncertain, even indifferent. He shivered slightly, with anticipation rather than cold. The dog continued to scamper, and his thoughts were suddenly stronger, imitative of a younger man, not the respectable, waned figure he had chosen to become.

Party man. Peel away the layers. Party man. Yes, he was that; except that now the Party was in the hands of the sweepings of the Revolution. Non-Party men. Compromisers. Schoolmasters, economic experts, balance- sheet men — men interested only in personal power. Khamovkhin and his crew. The anger coursed through him, mesmerising his attention; his litany.

Khamovkhin the clown had tried to panic his unknown enemy by his vague denunciations in the meeting of the full Politburo. Khamovkhin and his hyena, Andropov, had caught some whiff of Group 1917 — nothing more. They were the ones dose to panic. And he was safe — on the safe list, no doubt; unsuspected.

When he had been silent, as if in homage, before the statue for perhaps ten minutes, he said, softly but dearly, 'Well, my friend. What have you to tell me?'