Snow Falcon

himself, rather than of the rejection Vorontsyev proffered.

'No, he would not, Alexei.'

'He would, he would!' Vorontsyev was no longer conscious of his grotesque approximation to the voice and manner of a child. He crowed: 'My father was a hero! He would have despised you for what you're doing. You're a traitor!' The cliches comforted and strengthened him. They gave him a sense of existence to some purpose. An armour against Gorochenko's words.

'Alexei!' It was a command. Vorontsyev watched him, shamefaced. Gorochenko seemed engaged in some silent debate, then to relent to some inner decision. 'Very well,' he said. 'Very well. I swore — perhaps an oath as the one I took every day of the Stalin years — never to tell you this. But I will.'

'What? More bogeymen?' Vorontsyev sneered.

'If you like.' The old man's face was ancient now, filled with bitter wisdom. He reached into a breast pocket. Vorontsyev watched the hand carefully. It came out holding a letter — an old, stained letter with fluff in the creases where it had been folded for years.

'Read this,' Gorochenko said carefully. 'It's from your father.'

'Where is he now?9 Aubrey flipped the transmitter's switch, and heard the crackle of the radio in the spotter helicopter.

'A couple of miles outside Heinola, still moving fast.'

'You're experiencing no difficulty in keeping track of him 'None at all, sir.' Philipson was up in the Finnish Police helicopter which had picked up the fleeing Volvo less than ten miles north-east of Lahti only minutes before. The helicopter had been based in Lahti — a piece of good fortune for which Aubrey was grateful. He glanced at his own map.

'Where can he go when he gets there?'

'North again.'

'Very well. Alert ground units — talk direct to the Police Chief via their channel. No interference.' Aubrey switched the set to receive, and turned round in the operator's swivel chair to face Anders. He appeared like an abandoned, betrayed child, or a worried parent. Aubrey could not decide which, but his concern for Buckholz was evident.

Anders was staring at the set. 'You want to try Moscow again, sir?'

'Not after the last little snub, thank you, Anders. If Chairman Andropov is unavailable, he will remain so. Hell tell us soon enough if he's succeeded in finding Gorochenko.'

'He hasn't succeeded, has he?'

'No Anders, — I'm afraid he hasn't. All we can do is hope the coup will fizzle out — or he's got Druzhinin or somebody to order other units into defensive positions — ' Anders was scowling. 'I agree, Anders. It does seem unlikely.'

'So — what the hell does Khamovkhin matter?'

'He is the elected head of the government of the USSR,' Aubrey said with no trace of irony. 'He must be kept alive. We simply cannot afford to let him be killed. Your President has made that more than dear.' He looked at his watch. Four-forty.

'The more he runs, the more that guy is going to realise he has nowhere to go,' Anders observed.

'I know that, Anders!' Aubrey snapped. He studied the map. 'Now, where can he go? Get my driver in here.'

The smile on the driver's face was inappropriate, but Aubrey recognised it not as self-importance or amusement, but derived from the experience they had shared escaping from the ambush in Helsinki — when Waterford had been killed.

'Quickly, Fisher — tell me where they could go. They're here at the moment.'

Fisher bent over the map, studied it briefly, then said, 'If you let him get beyond Heinola, to here — ' His finger traced a minor road. 'This cross-roads gives him choice again — and if you let him go either left or right, then he's into deeper forest, and you might lose him.'

'Are you sure?'

'I spent a holiday up there, fishing and walking. Very private country.' Fisher grinned with memory. 'It would take hours, maybe days, to root him out. And who's going to be alive by then, I wonder!

'Yes — thank you, Fisher. One other thing — is Philipson anything of a shot?'

'Handgun, not bad. Never fired it in anger, I don't think. Rifle — ?' Aubrey nodded. 'Nowhere near good enough, sir.'

When Fisher had been dismissed, Aubrey looked directly at Anders, his hand raised to signal the police helicopter.

'I have little or no choice in the matter.'

'I realise that, sir. I just hope that helicopter has a marksman in it.'

Aubrey flipped the switch.

'He might stop in Heinola. We must hope that he does.' He bent to the microphone. 'Philipson, come in, Philipson.'

'Sir.' The voice seemed very far away, and unreal. And it was hot again in the radio room, just as it had been in the corridor, earlier. Just hot flushes, he thought.

'Is there a trained marksman among the helicopter crew?'

'Pardon, sir?'

'Have you a trained marksman on board?'

A protracted silence, then: 'Yes, sir. Just the one, and he's out of practice-'

Aubrey looked at the map, measuring distances with his finger and thumb, shaking his head.

'No car could get far enough ahead of them — do we know what's out there, Anders?1 He stabbed his finger north of Heinola.

'Some cars, but keeping out of sight — local police from Heinola. We haven't got anything out that far by chopper, and nothing from Helsinki.'

'Then he will have to do,' Aubrey commented. His finger went on tapping the map, as if he were trying to influence something in the place to which he was pointing, trying to cast some spell over it by mental suggestion. Then he said into the transmitter, 'Very well — fly ahead of the car. Warn local units hi Heinola to keep clear of it, but to keep an eye on it. You find a good vantage point for the marksman. Then set down.'

'What — do you want him to do, sir?'

The usual — engine-block, tyres — ' He glanced at Anders.

'And the car must be stopped dead — understand? You must place police near the road, and they must get to the car in time to prevent any retaliation whatsoever. Is that clear?'

'Jesus Christ,' Anders breathed.

'You do not need to be told that the driver must not, repeat not, be killed. Understand?' Anders appeared relieved. 'You use Vehicle Arrest, Method D, Philipson — understand?'

'But-'

'Understand, Philipson?'

'Sir.'

'Leave this channel open from now on.'

'Sir.'

Aubrey stared at Anders. The man was evidently concerned, but Aubrey had checked the anger and disgust that had been welling in him when he thought Aubrey intended killing Buckholz. Aubrey smiled slightly. Method D of Vehicle Arrest called for the wounding of the driver — death if the quality of marksmanship was not sufficiently high — in stopping of any fleeing vehicle. But Anders, not privy to the Marksmanship Manual of SIS, did not know it.

'Let's hope this policeman spends a lot of time hunting, shall we?'

He looked at the crackling radio.

It was simply an old letter. There was no dramatic dried and faded blood, it seemed stained by time rather than tears or despair. It was almost falling apart, of course, Vorontsyev saw as he tried to consider it forensically, detached from its words. Heavy creases full of pocket-fluff, the writing faded — done in pencil that must have been