Firefox

'What about my route — what's the lay-out of the hangar area?' he said bluntly.

Baranovich watched the American's face for a moment with keen eyes, then nodded as if satisfied, and stood up, gesturing Gant to where a large-scale drawing hung like the edge of a white tablecloth from the small dining-table. Kreshin had left it there after Gant had finished eating.

Baranovich fussily straightened and smoothed the pencil-drawn map of the huge compound, and began to point out its features to Gant.

'We are here,' he said, 'almost in the centre of the living-area — and all technical and scientific staff enter the hangar and factory complex through this gate…' His finger traced a route along the streets until it stopped at a line marked in red, further marked by red crosses at intervals. 'Yes,' Baranovich continued, 'there is another fence, electric, and guarded by these watch-towers…' his finger tapped at the red crosses, 'inside the perimeter fence, which keeps us and the project divided from the village. There is only one other gate in this fence — over here, on the other side of the airstrip.' Again his finger tapped at the stiff paper. 'That is used only by security personnel — it is the one you will use.'

'How for God's sake?'

Baranovich smiled.

'With bravado, naturally — and a little help from myself and the others. Don't worry about it.' The Russian returned to his pipe, sucked at it energetically, and spilled a thick cloud of smoke from his lips. Gant wrinkled his nose, as if in disapproval. 'Do you smoke?' Baranovich asked.

'No. Not any more.'

Nodding, Baranovich reached into a pocket of his worn, leather-elbowed jacket, and pulled out a packet of American cigarettes.

'Learn again — now,' he said simply.

'Uh?'

'Learn to smoke in the next hour, before you rest.'

Gant pulled a face. 'They're not Russian,' he said.

'A status-symbol? Foreign cigarettes, in the mouth of the person you will be, will prove as convincing as anything else — even your papers.' Baranovich smiled, then returned his attention to the map. Gant picked up the pack of cigarettes from the map, and slipped it into the breast-pocket of his overalls. 'From this gate, you will make your way to this area here, on the far side of the runway.' The long finger tapped. Gant watched, as if fascinated, the mottled, thick-veined hand as it lay on the white background of the map. 'This building is the main hangar, where both prototypes are stored. We will be working here through the night, preparing the airplane that is to take part in the trials. Attached to the hangar are the security offices, right on the spot, and also the pilots' rooms. You see that?' Gant nodded. 'Good. You have to go upstairs, and along this corridor…' Baranovich's finger was now tracing the direction on a second-storey plan of the buildings attached to the huge main hangar. 'The other buildings — they are merely the laboratories, wind-tunnels, test-houses, and the like. Waste no time with them. Get yourself to the pilots' dressing-room as soon as you can. Red Air Force Lieutenant-Colonel Yuri Voskov will arrive some hours before the flight. You must be ready for him.'

'What about visitors?' Gant asked. 'I could be there for three, four hours.'

Baranovich explained patiently, as if to a child: 'Conceal the body — there are a number of lockers, metal ones, all with good locks.' He smiled. 'The pilots complained of a great deal of pilfering of the Western luxury items supplied them for being well-behaved and well-adjusted… the locks are good. As for yourself, since you do not appear to be very much like Voskov, except in general build — you will be taking a shower.'

'For three hours?'

'You will appear to be taking a shower. Once it nears the time for our little — diversion to occur, you will dress and the visor of the helmet will conceal your features. We on the weapons-guidance system request the pilots to wear the helmets until removed in the laboratory. It will not seem strange that you are wearing it even an hour or more before the flight.'

Gant nodded. 'What about this diversion?'

'You need not worry. I have a very small radio device which will tell you when to come down from your room to the hangar area. What you will see there will enable you to enter the cockpit and roll the aircraft out of the hangar, without anyone being in the least suspicious.'

Gant's eyes widened again. He was thoughtful for a moment, and then he said: 'What happens to you guys, after I lift out of there?' His voice was quiet, breathy, as if he already knew the answer.

'It does not matter,' Baranovich said softly. His expression betrayed a sympathy for his visitor that the American could not comprehend.

'The hell it doesn't!' Gant said, stepping back, his arms raised at his sides. 'Hell!' He turned away from the Russian, his shoulders hunched, then turned back and said, waving his arm before him: 'You guys, all of you — you're so damn willing to die, I don't understand! Don't you resent those guys in London, ordering your deaths?'

Baranovich was silent for a long time, then he said: 'It is easy for you to feel indignant, Mr. Gant. You are an American. Any order that you are given is a source of resentment, is that not so? You are a free man…' Gant smiled cynically, and Baranovich seemed angered by his expression. 'You are free! I am not. There is a difference. If I resent the men in London who are ordering me to die, then it is a small thing when compared with my — resentment of the KGB!' Baranovich was staring down at the map with unseeing eyes, his features strained, his hands knuckled on the table, so that the heavy blue veins stood out like ropes. It was a long time before he straightened, and was able to smile at Gant.

'I'm sorry…' Gant began.

'Nonsense. Why should you be aware of — our little problems? Now, shall we go over the armament of the plane again. Luckily, for your purposes at least, they will be concerned to use air-to-air missiles in the first trial, not ground-attack weapons.'

He waved Gant back to his chair. 'Please smoke,' he said. 'We don't want you coughing amateurishly at the gate, do we?' His eyes had recovered their smile.

* * *

The beat of the rotors over his head had become almost inaudible to Kontarsky during the flight time from Moscow. Now, at ten o'clock, they were more than half way to Bilyarsk, flowing over the moonlit, silvered country below, marked by the lights of the scattered villages and collective farms, sliced by the beams of the occasional truck or car on the road between Gorky and Kazan, which they were, at that point, paralleling. The helicopter seat was comfortable in the interior of the MIL MI-8. Behind Kontarsky as he sat behind the pilot and co-pilot, were seats for twenty-eight more passengers. Only four of the seats were occupied, by Kontarsky's personal guard, a male secretary and a classified radio operator — all of them were KGB staff.

Kontarsky was sleepy, despite the tension within him. He had delayed leaving for as long as possible, in order that he could arrive in Bilyarsk with at least some information concerning the identity, and therefore the mission, of the man who had passed through traffic controls at Moscow, Gorky, and Kazan as Glazunov. The result of Priabin's investigations was — nothing. True, they had found the tail-car, a few miles beyond the turn-off to Bilyarsk; true, also, that they had found the overturned truck and the crushed body of Pavel Upenskoy ten miles further down the road to Kuybyshev. There was no sign of the second man. Therefore, with a nauseous, logical certainty, Kontarsky and Priabin had been faced with the knowledge that the second man was on his way, on foot, or by some alternative transport, to Bilyarsk. The old man at the warehouse had died almost as soon as they began to beat his knowledge out of him. Frail, weak heart. Kontarsky was still angry at such unfastidious waste.

The man's photograph had been transmitted to Bilyarsk, and the security guard alerted. Kontarsky had panicked himself into flying at once to Bilyarsk, to take personal charge of the counter-measures.

He lit yet another cigarette, having glanced over his shoulder, at the radio operator sitting before his console. The man, as if telepathically aware that his chief's eyes were on him, shook his head mournfully. Kontarsky turned back, facing forward in the helicopter again, staring at the helmeted heads in front of him, as if they might provide some inspiration. There was the taste of fear in the back of his throat. He brushed a hand across his eyebrows nervously. He knew there would be no sleep for him until the trials were successfully completed. He felt the common KGB impotence of having to rely upon computers, upon the whole huge unwieldy apparatus of the security service for results.