Snow Falcon

Finland was defensible.

He heard someone cough, and his ears, adjusted to distance, knew that the noise came from the tower. Shadows bulked beyond the swing of light across the snow, but they were un-threatening He yawned. The inevitability of routine had captured him.

He slid back over the lip of his outcrop, the snow slithering under him, and brewed coffee out of the small wind, out of sight. He sipped, tracing the warmth to his stomach. He began to wonder at the vacuousness of his own thoughts — to smile at the idea that he was being reduced in IQ with every hour he spent in that place. As if his brain were vaporising in the cold air.

When he finally slid back over the lip to take up his position again, it had already begun.

He picked up the night-vision glasses, focusing anew for something to do, and saw that the searchlight had ceased to slide across the snow. And the watch-tower was darkened, and silent. It was as if the glasses were not working. He could see nothing. He swept across the space of snow, ghostly now, for some sign of movement, a light.

Then he saw them. Tanks. He experienced a moment of total disbelief; then a moment of pure terror. Tanks. Even as everything in him rejected the information of the eye, he went through a trained process of identification — T-72 tanks, frontline, latest model. He identified them by the 115 mm cannon, the six road wheels, the turret similarity to the older T-62. '

Coming through the border wires that were no longer there — across a minefield he knew had to be there. He could not understand it; cold had invaded the brain, clogging it like thick oil.

Tanks, in single file down the one narrow road, were crossing the border into neutral Finland. He refused to believe it. He began to count them, his mind fumbling over instructions, cold fingers turning the huge, clumsy pages of some manual. He was shivering. The village below had been emptied — in prep aration for this.

He could not use the transmitter, not now. He had to reduce himself to the role of spectator. The first of the tanks rolled beneath him, and he had somehow got the camera sighted, with its infra-red attachment like the barrel of a weapon. He began to photograph, the film winding on automatically, silently. He held his breath.

He watched the tanks pass away through Rontaluumi, and he knew the lights would not come on, doors would not open to the sound of engines, and the strange squeaking of the tracks on the iron-hard snow.

No lights; the tiny hamlet was deserted. It added to the quality of nightmare the scene possessed.

He counted a regiment of tanks, and after the first few he did not bother to reload the camera. A regiment. Then what was obviously a motor rifle battalion, a support for the armoured column. In Finland.

His thoughts circled the inadmissible. Invasion. And then perhaps, after an hour, two hours — he had not looked at his watch once, and did not do so now — the road was empty again. He saw the lights go on again in the tower, and the searchlight take up its pacing gleam. The wire on the Soviet side was closing, a great hinged section of gate which crossed the road — the Finnish fence was magically already reconstituted.

It was a massive effort to stand up, to move strange limbs as if under water, to strike camp. He went through the routine with leaden hands in thick gloves, fumbling over the tasks.

He had to follow. He had to find the destination. The column had passed out of sight and sound into the fir forest beyond the hamlet, still following the single narrow road. He had to follow.

He kept returning to one idea — it wasn't like an invasion. It was orderly, swift, silent — but it was… transport. Yes, that was it. He had been watching troop movements, and only he knew they were Red Army, and the terrain they crossed was that of Finland.

Otherwise it was normal. One hundred and twenty tanks, BMP combat vehicles, mortars — and the silent troops in winter combat clothing, riding the tanks and the transports. It was no attack formation, no indication of a front along which the column was advancing, deploying. A movement between two circled points on a map, along the single possible road. No one would attack Finland with a single regiment of tanks and one support battalion.

He pulled the pack to comfort on his back, felt the balance of the long skis strapped to his body, and then moved off cautiously. He picked out his trail with great care, down the slope of the outcrop. He had to follow the road, to overtake the armoured column; to discover its purpose.

Two: Evidence of Circumstances

It was a cold, bitter morning in Moscow, the Moskva like a sheet of opaque, slaty glass under a sky threatening more snow. Only the previous day had the Frunze Quay been cleared of the last snowfall. Vorontsyev had again taken up what threatened to become an habitual position at the window of his office. His back was to the two other men in the room as he listened to a tape-recording from the hotel suite of Colonel-General Ossipov, obtained by a bug and recorded in an adjoining room. The two SID officers with him were responsible for the recording. Ossipov had demanded, as was his right as commandant of a Military District, a suite free from bugs; only the SID was permitted to override such a demand.

There was something actively unpleasant, depressing, in listening to Ossipov's old-fashioned seduction of a high-class call-girl. It was out of place, and clashed with the vigour, and vulgarity, of his engagement in the physical act, Vorontsyev did not turn round as the girl, well coached, achieved her climax in a way most calculated to flatter the ageing General; he did not want to meet the eyes of the two young men, to know what they thought of the animal noises from the tape.

Glasses clinked, after a long silence which seemed still impregnated with sexual release — Vorontsyev could almost smell the semen; the girl had miscalculated, the General had suffered a premature ejaculation… Vorontsyev formed the pseudo-medical description of the old man's failure with a feline pleasure. The girl had been apologetic, the General gentlemanly in his reply. The scene, it appeared, had drawn to a satisfactory conclusion.

'That was two nights ago,' Vorontsyev said. 'Is there any more of it?'

'You don't think the General…' The words cut off.

One man had nudged the other, more sensitive to Vorontsyev's mood. 'No — he is alone for the rest of the night, and sleeps quite well.'

'OK.' Vorontsyev turned as he heard the tape switched off. 'Let's have a look at the pictures.'

Maxim, the younger of the two junior officers, switched off the light and drew down the blind. Pyotr, his partner, operated the small projector on Vorontsyev's desk, and a monochrome image of the Colonel-General appeared on the screen against one wall of the office, walking down the corridor of an hotel with a girl. Vorontsyev stared hard at the girl, then the slide-cartridge clicked. Entering the General's suite, then later, the girl coming out again.

'We took film through the two-way,' Pyotr offered. Vorontsyev shook his head.

'Offer it to Tretchikhin downstairs. He collects that sort of thing since his wife left him.' He winced, as if his tongue had returned to an abscessed tooth. He attempted to smile, and added, 'Send in the duty-team from yesterday — let's see if they have anything slightly more out of the ordinary.'

'I would have thought this was pretty…' Maxim began, but Pyotr dug him in the ribs with his elbow. They took with them the cartridge of slides and the recorder.

Vorontsyev knew the girl. She was often used for the amusement of high-ranking officials or officers like Ossipov. Strict medical and security checks — one of a small, exclusive coterie of professional tarts, unlike the enthusiastic amateurs such as Natalia Grasnetskaya.

The second duty-team was also young — Ilya and Alevtina; he called all his juniors by their first names. He had begun to suspect that his tone had changed, become slightly ingratiating, not preserving the distinction in rank.

'Well?' he snapped, at the young man and die girl, recent transfers and still much in awe of their new power. 'What have you two to report?'

Ilya, ostentatiously consulted a black notebook. 'Do you want the lot, Major — or just the edited highlights?'

'Thoroughly, whatever you do.' He turned again to the window.