Snow Falcon

tail rotor, in the half-second before it, too, hit the ground at an angle. The undercarriage buckled, and the cabin began to tilt. Then the rotor struck the frozen snow and earth.

The cabin felt like a barrel which was being kicked once a second. The rotor blades churned against and into the ground, hurling up snow and earth as the cabin tilted ever more crazily over on to its side. Then one blade snapped, then another, then a third. The vibration was incredible, seeming to rattle the brains in their skulls, possess their whole bodies.

Maxim felt his whole spine jar against the metal frame of the webbed seat. Then the cabin was completely on its side, and there was a silence. The churned cloud of snow settled, audibly, like a snowstorm, on the perspex.

Ilya sat stunned, head hanging over towards the ground, the straps of his seat restraining him from rolling against the perspex which had now become the floor of the cabin. Only the single thought that he was still alive filled his mind. He moved, almost by instinct, fingers, arms, legs. All of them flexed and stretched as they should. Only the pain of bruises.

He watched, without moving, as the pilot killed the switches in front of him, then threw off his straps, and began sliding back the canopy above him. He reached up, and pulled himself out of the window. The cold air rushed in, chilling Ilya. The pilot's legs dangled for a moment, then he was smearing the settled snow over Ilya's head as he crawled across the perspex. Ilya heard him drop to the ground.

Then, and only then, did he move, galvanised as if by electric shock. He clambered on the back of the pilot's seat, lifting his head out of the cabin. The pilot was standing, looking back, only ten yards away. It was as if he felt no urgency, or was perhaps stunned like Ilya. Then they saw one another.

The Makarov was stiff in Ilya's grip, as if the impact of the crash had moulded it to his flesh and bone. He shifted it to a two-handed grip, and leaned his elbows on the perspex.

'Back inside,' he said. He heard Maxim groan below him. 'Inside, you clever bastard! You did that on purpose!' His finger tightened on the trigger. His next words were strangely high, almost falsetto. 'Get back in this bloody deathtrap before I blow you to pieces!'

The pilot hesitated, and then he turned and began to run through the deep snow, stumbling over the frozen surface, floundering into small drifts where the surface ice gave way.

Ilya felt very tired. He could not run through that. And he felt lightheaded. He aimed, feeling sorry that the pilot was having so much difficulty moving away.

He fired twice, while Maxim's second outburst of moaning drove up his emotional temperature and he hated the pilot.

He watched the sprawled figure on the snow for a moment or two, and when it did not move, he dropped awkwardly back inside the cabin of the MIL, pulling the window shut above him.

Maxim's face was white with strain. His eyes were filled with terror at guessed injuries, and they closed with two spasms of pain even as Ilya watched. Ilya could see each wave leave him weak and terrified, his eyes darting from side to side as if seeking some escape from the next assault.

'What is it? he asked gently.

'I can't feel my legs. Not at all. Can't feel anything below my waist. Can't move anything…' A further spasm crossed his face, crumpling like a discarded ball of paper. He groaned, teeth clenched. When it passed, he opened his eyes only to see the depth of Ilya's concern. He wanted to avoid the information on the face above his own, and he tried to smile. 'Tell me — has my dick dropped off?' As he laughed, the pain came again and he screwed up his eyes.

Ilya winced. Maxim had an impacted spine. He touched the seat-belt. He hadn't been strapped in very securely, and the base of the spine must have been jolted against the metal bar at the back of the seat. He couldn't move him.

He said, feeling the nausea sharp in his throat, 'I found it on the floor by your seat. I threw it away.'

'Just as well,' Maxim muttered through clenched teeth. 'Bloody thing only ever got me into trouble…'He almost fainted as the next wave of pain took him. 'Like having bloody labour!' he groaned as it passed, Ilya moved away, rooting in the first-aid box which had remained secure on the wall behind their seats during the crash. He found the flask of vodka and unstoppered it.

Kneeling over Maxim, he poured the liquid against his lips. They opened gratefully, and he swallowed. He coughed once, then motioned to be settled on the floor of the cabin. Ilya released the slack belts, then moved the stiff form awkwardly. By the time he had stretched Maxim on the curving floor of perspex, he saw he had fainted.

'Sorry,' he murmured. 'Sorry, sorry, sorry…'

When Maxim recovered consciousness, he said, 'Why haven't you gone?'

'Where?'

'Anywhere! They will come, won't they?'

'I expect so. I'm not very good at reading pilots' maps. I expect he gave our present position.'

'You've — got to go, then!' Maxim moved an arm with difficulty, gripped Ilya's sleeve. Ilya shook his head.

'Not bloody likely! I might as well freeze with you as out there by myself!' And he added a silent prayer that they would come soon, and get Maxim to a hospital.

'Get going! You have to report to the Major — to someone!'

'Bugger the Major! Bugger someone? He poured vodka against Maxim's lips, and he swallowed with the instinctive guzzling of a baby. 'I got you into this, finessing the bloody idea until it didn't work out any more! So — who the hell cares? When they find us, then I'll think about getting out of it…' He laughed. 'Besides, I need a vehicle — they've got them!'

They talked then, for perhaps an hour or more — Maxim slipped in and out of consciousness, and his lucid moments became fewer. Ilya subsided into a dull monotone which scrabbled for subject-matter to distract Maxim. The only thing, he began to believe, was to distract Maxim from the pain he had caused him.

His first awareness that others had arrived was of the dull concussion of a 122 mm gun mounted on a T-62 battle tank. Its infra-red sighting equipment had picked out the two figures in the now-clear perspex, the snow having slid away to reveal them. As soon as it was determined that both SID men were in the chopper, the order came from the regimental commander, acting on instructions from Murmansk, to open fire.

Ilya's world exploded an instant after his head lifted in response to the noise of the fin-stabilised shell. He did not hear the second and third rounds being fired.

When the chopper had been reduced to smouldering rubbish, the T-62 retreated again into the forest.

Nine: Safe Return

'Charles — all I wish to ascertain at this time, before my people get back with what I hope will be proof, is this: if I can offer evidence, concrete evidence, of a Soviet incursion into Finland, what will you do with the information?'

Aubrey and Buckholz, Deputy Director of the CIA, had sat in the second-floor office of the American Consulate in Helsinki, overlooking the rock-strewn park of the Kaivopuisto, for almost two hours longer than the American had expected, while Aubrey explained the business he had called Snow Falcon. Buckholz, his back to the window, settled deep in his armchair behind the big desk, had said little, rubbing occasionally at the white hair he still wore cropped close to his skull, though now pink skin showed through. Aubrey sensed, almost from the beginning, that he was disturbed, even half-convinced — but that his concern rested on his respect for the teller and not the potentialities of the tale.

Now, in the silence that Aubrey had anticipated after he posed the question, he saw Buckholz as uncomfortable, restless, perhaps even at a loss.

'Kenneth — my standing. That's the problem. I'm going out to grass this year. The Admiral's made that more than clear.' Aubrey nodded, unhelpfully silent. 'I'm a cold war warrior who embarrasses the Company. Y'know, three Senators have spoken to the President personally, asking he demand my resignation?' There was something affronted, and amused, in Buckholz's voice. 'Three liberal Democrats, sure — believers in the Kennedy myth, who've