would be back within ten minutes, perhaps a little more. As far as he knew, the telephones — the 'social lines', as they were called — in the off-duty rest-rooms on the second floor would not be monitored at that time of night. He would have to risk it. He had to call Edgecliffe, before Tortyev received any information from the informants in the British Embassy. He closed the door of the office noiselessly behind him.
At the direct order of the Head of Intelligence, 'C, Kenneth de Vere Aubrey had condescended to temporarily vacate the usual offices of SO-4, his own section of the SIS's Special Operations Function, and to take up residence in a specially prepared and utterly secure room within the complex of the Ministry of Defence. Aubrey did not like M.O.D. He and his number two, Shelley, had occupied the room with its wireprint and secure telephones for most of the day and evening, preparing it with the maps that now covered the walls — European Russia, the Barents Sea and north into the Arctic Ocean, the Moscow Metro system, a Moscow street plan. All the necessary landscapes and seascapes of his operation. Now the room had acquired two other occupants, the Americans Buckholz and Anders, his aide. They had commandeered two of the small desks that had been moved in, scorning, apparently, the trestle-tables that Aubrey had drafted in with the original furniture. Shelley, returning to the room from a journey to the kitchens, saw Buckholz talking on one red telephone, and Anders up the step-ladder, pinning a satellite weather photograph of the Arctic region on the wall next to the map of the same region. That map, like the others of European Russia and the North Sea, was ringed by satellite weather-pictures. It was not those, however, that especially caught Shelley's eye. His gaze was drawn to the map of European Russia that Buckholz had begun working on when he had left with the supper dishes for the kitchens. Aubrey had allowed no one inside the room except himself, Shelley, and the two Americans who had arrived a little after eight. It was now one o'clock in the morning in London, two hours ahead of Moscow time.
Shelley walked over to Aubrey and stood beneath the huge map, looking up. Facing him now, instead of the clean unmarked map, was something that made him, thousands of miles away, frightened and dubious. He had a sudden image of Gant standing belligerently before him in his hotel room — and he regretted his stupid, petty dislike of the American. What Shelley was staring at was Buckholz's breakdown, in graphic form, of the Russian defence system which Gant would have to penetrate, even if he got the Firefox off the ground at Bilyarsk. Much of what was on the map Shelley already knew, but to see it, indicated in coloured pins and ribbons, shocked him thoroughly.
Near the top of the map, extending deep into the polar pack at the neck of the conical orthomorphic projection map, was a yellow ribbon, in great loops reaching upwards. This signified the effective extent of the Russian DEW-line, the least of Gant's worries. What really attracted his gaze, riveted his attention, were the sweeps of small pins that marked the fighter bases, those known or guessed, and the missile sites. The fighter stations, all of which would be manned in a twenty-four-hour readiness manner, would possess at least a dozen aircraft that could be scrambled within minutes. These bases were marked in blue and extended along the northern coast of the Soviet Union from Murmansk and Archangelsk in the west to the Taimyr Peninsula fifteen hundred miles to the east. The bases were a little more than one hundred miles apart.
Below these pins were two sweeps of red circles, showing the missile sites. These were slightly less than a hundred miles apart, and extended over the same area of the map, its total east-west projection. Each missile site was semi-fixed, and possessed perhaps a dozen or more surface-to-air proximity and infra-red missiles, launched from concrete pads. Between each pair in both chains, though unmarked, Shelley nevertheless knew there would be mobile, truck-borne missiles, perhaps half-a-dozen to each convoy. The radar system would be located at each of the missile bases, linked to the central radar-control which processed the information supplied by the DEW- line.
Shelley felt mesmerised by the two sweeps of red circles, one along the coast, the second another three hundred miles or more inland, following the same path. It looked like a plan of a classic battle, an army drawn up in two parallel lines — an army of missiles, in this case, linked to radar that scanned every cubic foot of air over the Soviet Union. Gant would have to cross each line, and avoid the fighter-scramble that would follow hard upon his theft of the Firefox.
And, thought Shelley, Buckholz hasn't yet filled in the positions of Soviet spy trawlers, missile cruisers of the Red Banner Northern Fleet, and submarine activity in the Arctic Ocean and the Barents Sea.
He saw that Aubrey was looking at him, quizzically, perhaps even vulnerably. 'There are a lot of them — eh, Shelley?' he said softly.
'Too many,' Shelley blurted out. 'Too bloody many by half! He hasn't got a chance!' He dropped his eyes, seeing Aubrey's anger at his impolitic display of emotion. 'Poor sod,' he muttered.
Four
THE CONCEALMENT
Gant was tired, yet his mind refused to stop racing. Baranovich and the woman, Kreshin's mistress, fussed round him fitting his disguise. Kreshin himself sat in one of the room's low, inexpensive armchairs, watching intently, as if studying the American, expecting to learn something from the way he moved, the way he stood still.
Gant despised the building tension and excitement within himself. It was the wrong way to be, he knew. Yet however he strove to control his feelings, he could not avoid hanging over the edge, staring into the abyss of the hours ahead.
The disguise was, when he considered it, inevitable. There was only one way to walk through a tight security net which was on the look-out for the least unfamiliar thing — to be a part of that net. Baranovich got up from his knees and stood back, hands on hips, in the posture of a couturier inspecting his creation. Gant self-consciously pulled the uniform jacket straight at the hips, adjusted the belt, and looked across at himself in the mirror. The cap he now wore hid his newly-cropped hair, cut close to his head, so that the contacts inside his flying helmet that would control the weapons-system would function, picking up his brain patterns, transmitting them to radar, missiles, or cannon.
Underneath the dark peak, the face that stared at him was cold, narrow, lined and tired. It was the face of a stranger, despite the fact that nothing in the way of disguise had been done to it. In the wall-mirror, all he could see of himself besides was the collar of the brown shirt, the dark uniform tie, and the bright tabs on the laps of his uniform jacket.
'That is — good,' Baranovich pronounced at last. 'It is a good fit now that Natalia has made the little alterations.' He smiled over Gant's shoulder at the woman, who was sitting on the arm of Kreshin's chair, her arm about his neck, as if seeking warmth. Something about the uniform seemed to disturb her, make her seek physical contact with her lover.
'Captain Grigory Chekhov, attached to the Security Support Unit of the GRU, at present assigned under the command of…'
'Major Tsernik, KGB officer responsible for security of the Mikoyan project, Bilyarsk,' Gant finished for Baranovich, a slight smile at the corner of his mouth.
Baranovich nodded. 'What do you think of him, Ilya?'
'Very — convincing,' Ilya Kreshin offered, holding the girl's hand at his shoulder.
'At least, he frightens Natalia — doesn't he?' He was smiling at the girl as he looked into her face, and she tried to smile back. 'You see?' he added, turning back to Gant and Baranovich. 'She takes you for the real thing, and she helped you into the disguise!' He laughed loudly, reassuringly, patting the girl's hand as he did so.
'You recall the rest of your operational background?' Baranovich asked. Gant nodded. 'Good. Now, sit down, or walk about — let that uniform become comfortable — strut a little!' There was an almost malicious humour in Baranovich's blue eyes. Gant smiled, and began to walk up and down the room. Baranovich watched him, and then said: 'No — with the thumbs tucked into the belt — so…' He demonstrated by hooking his thumbs into his trousers. Gant copied him. 'That is good. You must always remember — you will only give yourself away if you fail to be what the guards at the gate expect. And they will expect to see a captain who is arrogant, detached — who means business. If you get the chance, reprimand at least one or two of them, for minor things — their uniform, for example, or anyone who is smoking.' Again Gant nodded. This was an expert talking, one who knew the
