Snow Falcon

'I was making a joke,' Ilya said, looking directly ahead. 'Isn't that what they're for — Finland. So it's a Finland station — uh?' He simulated huge amusement; rather well, he considered.

The helicopter drove towards the trees, and Ilya concentrated, as he had been instructed. He could see nothing. Only a single clearing, and two figures in heavy coats and fur caps — and perhaps netting.

The pilot said, as they lifted away again, 'Finland station? That's good, that is. Do you think Comrade Lenin would have laughed?' Now he too, was smiling. The rapport of humour seemed to have returned to the flight- cabin.

'I doubt it,' Ilya said, relaxing now that the helicopter was flying a level course once more. 'No sense of humour!' He laughed.

And you, you bastard, grinning away, Ilya thought. You've heard that before — Finland Station. I wonder what it means to you?

They had staked out the ground as clearly as they could; tape and stakes, a weird pattern of parking spaces where they had discovered the traces of vehicles. Or where temporary wooden huts had been erected, or tents put up. And they had amassed their evidence — pitifully labelled and stored in plastic bags — cigarette-ends, oil-stained snow — this in a freezer box in the jeep — splinters of wood, empty cigarette packets.

And the photographs — roll after roll of film.

When they reported back to Aubrey, he would authorise a angle low-level photo recce flight over the area. Then the hard evidence would be presented to the government of Finland, and to NATO, and to America and the Soviet Union.

Davenhill had slept an exhausted sleep, and resented it when roused by Waterford, though it was mid- morning by the time he awoke. When they had eaten, they set off down the last miles of the one road to Rontaluumi and the border.

By afternoon they were on a rise above the village looking down on the back of the few houses that clustered around the main street and square of the village. They had been there for two hours, and they had seen nothing.

As the glasses passed between them once more, and Waterford pulled his flask before handing it, too, to Davenhill, the Foreign Office adviser said, 'It is deserted, I suppose?'

'Could be full of vampires,' Waterford observed. 'Sleeping off the daylight and the peculiar diet.'

'What are they using for victims?' Davenhill said, feeling the long monotony thaw, resolve itself in grudging humour. He rolled on to his back, drinking the brandy, handing the glasses back to the soldier.

'How about a tank regiment of the Red Army?'

'A nice solution to our problem. Is it deserted 'Christ knows. It certainly looks it.' Waterford scanned the silent village once more through the glasses, then put them at his side, and stretched himself, shifting his prone body. 'We are going to have to find out. Fancy volunteering?' There was no longer a sneer in the voice, and Davenhill felt no offence. Their relationship had become anaesthetised in work; they were part of the same mission, and that sufficed for both of them. They relied upon each other now. Davenhill nodded.

'Come on then. I don't fancy this place after dark. We'd better go in now.' Davenhill was still smiling when his tone darkened and he added: 'Softly, softly is the word, Alex. You keep close to me, you take the safety-catch off your gun, and you keep your eyes swivelling like those on a bloody chameleon. Savvy?'

'OK. You're the expert. What do you expect?'

'The dead lying on their beds, hands across the chest,'

Waterford said. 'Or mere emptiness. I don't know. What I don't expect is to find Russian soldiers — but then, I don't want to be surprised.' He lifted his head, raised the glasses, scanned, then said, 'The big house — village headman that will be. We'll make for that. Just follow me.' He looked at Davenhill, and the younger man saw the features tauten, the eyes seem to become shallow yet intent. It was as if he were looking at a sharp monochrome picture of the man, without shadows or highlights. Something etched, yet flat.

'Watch yourself,' Waterford said quietly. 'No heroics, and no panic. If — if there's anyone nasty down there, it'll be the time to remain normal in the abnormal situation. That's what it's about, son — being ordinary when the world goes mad.'

'I'll try.'

Waterford nodded, seemingly satisfied; yet Davenhill thought he caught something in the twitch of the lips that might have been pity, or disappointment. Then the bigger man got up, into a crouch, and dusted off his waterproof trousers.

'Ready?'

'Ready.'

Davenhill followed him down the slope, keeping to a crease in the land as to a path, his body balanced inwards towards the slope, his eyes on the path Waterford was making through the restraining, glutinous snow. Waterford, he knew, was ceaselessly scanning the village as their viewpoint dropped lower, to the level of the ground floor of the house that steadily, jerkily seemed to move towards them.

Beneath them then was what must be the garden, or at least the strip of land belonging to the house. There were no footprints in the snow, but it had snowed that previous night, and Davenhill dismissed the relief that threatened to bubble up in him. He felt the tension, withdrawing into himself, unaware of Waterford except when he touched the body in front of him whenever the man stopped, or as he watched the sunken footprints. A little narrow frightened world that was Alex Davenhill.

Ordinary.

He understood what Waterford meant. Like entering the club, or the new bar, this should be.

No, not even that. Like the washing-up, or mowing a lawn.

Christ, he wondered, how does he manage it, to be like that when a bullet might tear the life out of him at any moment?

Davenhill tried breathing deeply, regularly.

'Do your exercises later,' Waterford snapped in a whisper. They were almost at the rear door of the house, and Davenhill saw, as Waterford pointed, the chipped whiteness against the door and the frame around it; the absence of a lock. He said nothing, however, moving instead to the window to the left of the door. He rubbed at the frost, and peered in.

'Well?' Davenhill asked after what seemed like minutes of Waterford craning and bobbing his head.

'It's very tidy,' Waterford observed. 'Very houseproud. And not what you might expect from someone having to leave their home suddenly.' He moved back to the door, abstracted, and Davenhill felt more than ever outside what was taking place. This was a celluloid reconstruction of events — a demonstration film.

Waterford touched the handle of the door with a mittened hand. Then he suddenly had the Parabellum in his hand, and Davenhill clutched inside his pocket for the Walther. It was an instinctive, clumsy gesture. It was years since he had fired a gun, and never in anger. Unless grouse counted. He almost laughed at the idea, and hated the nerves that bubbled dose to hysteria. Ignoring them for something like a minute had only made them multiply, like ameoba.

The door swung open soundlessly. Waterford glanced at him, shrugged, and put the gun to his lips for silence. Then he opened the door suddenly wide, and ducked inside. Davenhill waited for a moment, as if forgetting a cue, and feeling foolish. Then he went through the door.

Waterford was already in the big main room of the house where Folley had sat. It was empty, tidy, clean. Waterford wiped his ringers over a mirror, then along the edge of a table.

There was no dust. His face was creased into a dramatic, abstracted frown.

'There is no one here,' Davenhill said, and his voice was very loud.

'Possibly. But the evacuation is recent, and perhaps temporary. I wonder — ?'

Swiftly, he checked the bedrooms, all on the one floor. Then he paused before the cellar door.

'Is that the cellar?' Davenhill asked. 'What — do you expect?' He was suddenly assailed by a Gothic imagining which was stupid, and only served to emphasise the unhealthy state of his nerves.

'Not the corpses — I hope.' He pushed open the door, which creaked, and reached for the light. There was only the usual slight mustiness of a cellar, and the smell of stored animal fodder. He went down the steps. Davenhill waited, again with the foolishness not so much of reluctance but of incompetence. In this water, he could not swim. And he knew it before he dipped his toe.

He joined Waterford at the bottom of the steps.