Snow Falcon

shaking his head with puzzlement, and excitement, all the time.

Outside, Greaves pointed out Ozeroff's retreating back.

'He's probably heading somewhere he can read that,' Philipson remarked. 'Unless he already knows what's in it. Let's go.'

As he went gingerly down the frozen steps, he considered the addressee of the letter with the Russian stamps. There was something familiar about the name, but he could not remember what it was. And it had nothing to do with espionage — he had a ridiculous idea that it had something to do with sixth- form history lessons. Ridiculous, of course.

'Fanny Kaplan — '

'What?' Greaves said, stepping carefully alongside him, a hundred yards behind Ozeroff.

'Look, I'll report this over the radio. Aubrey might as well know at once. You follow our chum, and I'll pick you up in the car.'

'Don't be long, then,' was all Greaves said by way of reply.

As he crossed the Mannerheimintie, Philipson tried to remember where he had heard the name before — but all he could think of was getting drunk after the school fifteen had beaten the old boy's strongest side in his last year. The history master had played at wing-forward, being an old boy. Fanny Kaplan — he could almost hear him saying it now.

Praporovich stared down from the gallery at the huge map table. He had come out of the glass booth where the computer-operators were feeding in movement reports and dispositions, because the atmosphere seemed unreal in there. The glass had become that of a soundless fish tank, and the events registering down there on the board of no more interest that gawping faces staring into the tank. Out on the gallery, there was still little noise. Each of the staff-officers round the table wore headphones and throat-mikes, and their murmurs were indistinct and desultory. But it was more real — the lights glowed I more brightly, and he could see through them to the tanks and I guns and ships they represented.

Pnin was across the border, taking up concealed position I prior to the attack on Ivalo and the capture of the airfield. He I thought of Pnin because of the trouble his rehearsals had I almost caused — the other Finland Stations were also in pos ition. Attack Force One was massed on the Kirkenes road, right up against the border with Norway. Dolohov's Red Banner Fleet units were putting to sea from ice-free Murmansk — troop-carriers and their submarine and destroyer escorts. And the submarines — the big ones, were in position at the mouths of the principal fjords all the way to Tromso. Further to the east on the map, well inside the Soviet Union, GSFN airborne troops were being moved up to forward positions; they were less than an hour behind schedule, well within the tolerances they had set.

The size of it — the reality — ran through him with the effect of an electric shock. He could not help his features assuming a fierce smile, as if he had been confronted with some massive present in childhood, or some anticipated sexual joy as a young man. There, there Ships, tanks, APCs — the chemical platoons, because Ossipov had got it right in time and the computer programme for the use of the VX gas on each of the target areas had been transmitted to GSFN HQ. Ships, tanks, guns, men; regiments, battalions, divisions, armies; concepts, words, little pictures from old army exercises rolled through his mind in the humbled image of a dreamer. Tomorrow 'Very well — Kapustin, order the eliminations to be carried out! You have the list.'

Andropov watched Kapustin's back until the Deputy Chairman had closed the door behind him. Then, just as clearly, he seemed to watch his own features, though there was no mirror before him and no reflection from the polished surface of his desk. Something was happening to his face, and he could see it clearly, as if each muscular twitch and movement was a brush-stroke on the wall in front of him. His face was collapsing into a mirror of fear.

It was like a nightmare — he put up his hand to remove his glasses, because he was sweating around the eyes, then put his hand hastily away because that nakedness would have further reduced his face to a frightened blob. He remembered his trick of making the light catch his spectacles, so that his eyes disappeared into two moons of light — but there was no one to see the trick, so it would not work. His hand, then Trembling. He put it away, silting on it with his thigh; and he could feel the quiver in his thigh.

Yuri Andropov, Chairman of the KGB, sat on his hands, his body hunched forward in his chair, as if he had been caned at school and was trying to still the throbbing. Yuri Andropov's face was out of control, sliding into an expression of terror at what he ordered, and its now undoubted consequences. He had just ordered the deaths of a dozen men, Yuri Andropov hated himself.

When the man died, the invasion would be stopped. It would begin. He had used the only weapon he had, murder, and it was insufficient. Just as his face was insufficiently endowed with muscular control to present another look than the one of terror he knew it was assuming.

The coup would go ahead — they knew nothing, nothing.

Vorontsyev — Major Vorontsyev. A few men, raiding a house in Leningrad. How could that stop anything? He, as Chairman, could stop nothing by ordering the deaths of Praporovich and Dolohov and a dozen generals It could not come to good. They had left it too late. Too late. He realised, as his body calmed, and the persistent image of his collapsing features went away, that he was a fatalist. They had played and they had lost. Temerity, poor investigative technique, over-confidence — it did not matter what the reason was. They had lost.

In accepting that fact, he told himself, there is a kind of strength. Certainly, he felt calmer, stronger 'Sir — a message from your daughter.'

'What — now?'

'Yes, Admiral.'

'Very well. What is it?' Dolohov could not resist being amused, even on the point of leaving for Praporovich's headquarters. His own work was done — the units of the Fleet were at sea — and, yes, there was time for his only child to ask him what he would like for his birthday, or to tell him that she would be staying for supper so what did he want her to cook for him — ?

He would be sorry to tell her that he would not be home for the next forty-eight hours.

'It's your wife, sir. Apparently, she's been taken to hospital.'

'What? When?'

'Your daughter found her, in the kitchen, sir. She had collapsed — '

'How is she, man?'

'Your daughter says she's all right, that you're not to worry, sir-'

'Worry? How can I not worry? Dammit — which hospital?'

'Sir — she's feeling much better, just a dizzy spell — '

'Which hospital? I must go and see her.'

Aubrey stood at the tall window of the study in which Khamovkhin had first received him and Buckholz. There was no warmth from the huge fire behind him, and he was aware of the cold striking through the frosty glass. He wondered why he had come away from the fire at all, except that, he had wanted to see the light of a cigarette from down on the snowbound paths and lawns, the dicker of torchlight from the security team on duty. Silly. But, the news was deeply disturbing. He turning again to Anders, Buckholz's chief aide.

'You're certain of this ident, Anders?'

The tall American was little more than a bulky shadow on the far side of the fireplace.

'Yes, sir. We're sure.' The voice seemed to come out of the firelit shadow, and Aubrey had to force himself to attend to the mere words, not their dramatic delivery.

'And Captain Ozeroff is nowhere to be found, you say 7' 'Sir, Mr Buckholz checked every one of the Russians himself. Our man wasn't one of them — he's gone AWOL, Mr Aubrey.'

'Damn!' He turned to Anders, then as if he felt his back suddenly exposed to the window, turned back again. 'Ilarion Vikentich Galakhov, Lieutenant, GRU. One-time Intelligence Adviser to Cuba — you're sure about that suspicion of attachment to Cuban Intelligence, are you?'

'One of our senior Latin American analysts was on the wrong end of that attachment, sir,' Anders replied without expression. 'Mission curtailed — and his successor in the field.'

Aubrey looked down at the message in his hand. It had been delivered to Lahtilinna over the radio, in a