Firefox

him, suddenly, there was an incandescent flare that paled the sun. He shoved the throttles forward, and the Firefox leapt across the water like a spun stone, skipping the tops of the wrinkled waves, the bows of the cruiser looming above the cockpit in one brief, momentary glance, and then he could see nothing but the grey water as he passed no more than fifty yards from the ship's plates.

Behind him, the tail-unit, releasing a heat-source which, for four seconds burned far hotter than his two Turmansky turbo-jets at low speed, attracted the pair of heat-seeking missiles, and the ball of fire on the screen brightened until it seemed to hurt his eyes, even behind his tinted facemask. Then the bloom died suddenly. On the screen, the cruiser was more than a mile behind him as he went supersonic.

His fuel-gauge registered empty. The Mach-counter showed him steadied at Mach 1.6. The altimeter showed him skipping over the sea at less than fifty feet, still, he hoped, out of sight of the submarines and their infra-red, though by now they would have a transmitted bearing and range from the cruiser.

He watched the screen, saw the two patches of dull orange from the exhausts of a second pair of SA infrared missiles overhauling him. The Soviet captain had been premature. He had been waiting for the better target, the optimum moment, but the trick of the tail-unit must have taken him by surprise. However, he had responded by ordering the release of two more missiles — and…

Gant saw the patch of light at the port edge of the screen as another two remotely launched SA missiles from the submarine nearest to him began to converge on his exhaust.

He checked the read-out on the 'Deaf Aid'. The bearing of the transmitter remained dead ahead of his present course, right on the last course he had fed into the aircraft after leaving the Novaya Zemlya channel. The distance was still one hundred and sixteen miles to its location. The homing signal began to clamour at his brain in the silent aftermath of the split seconds of violent action. He knew it was imperative to slow down.

Easing the throttles back he slowed, so that on the screen the four distant dots of dull orange seemed to draw swiftly nearer. The tail-unit had worked. Gant knew he was gambling, but this time he had an alternative, whereas before he had had none. He could attempt to outrun the pursuing missiles until his fuel ran out.

It was a curious sensation of helplessness, with not even a button to press, as his only link with reality seemed to be the four closing points of orange light. He felt, since he was not looking up from the screen, as if he were a still, helpless point, a kind of sacrifice. He could feel the sweat beneath his arms, running down his sides, chill inside the pressure-suit. He knew that under the weight of the grip he was exerting on the throttles, his hand was shaking fiercely. He waited.

He threw the throttles forward, and the Firefox leapt like a startled animal, flew like a terrified bird. The tail-unit released again and the explosion was almost instantaneous, huge and audible; then the shock-wave rocked the Firefox and he fought to steady the plane. It was like an extra thrust of engine-power. Quickly, he eased back the throttles and the speed dropped to below 170 knots once more.

He ignored the fuel-gauge. His eyes turned to the 'Deaf Aid' his whole attention being to the noise of the homing signal. Less than a hundred miles. In the sudden, almost sexual release after his escape from the coordinated missiles from cruiser and submarine, he didn't see how he could make it.

Ice-floes, larger, more frequent now, passed beneath the belly of the Firefox as he headed north.

* * *

The First Secretary's conversation was brief, and to the point. He wasted no time on an appeal to Major Alexander Tretsov's loyalty as a Russian and as a member of the party, or on specious inspiration. Rather, he used the other weapon which had become synonymous with his name — fear. He told Tretsov what was at stake, and he impressed upon him the price of failure. Tretsov was to head northwards, at top speed, using the phenomenal power of the Mig-31, and to rendezvous with a tanker-aircraft over the northern coastline of Russia. From there, he would head for the current position of the Riga, from which vessel there had, as yet, been no report; here another tanker would be waiting in the event that he required a further refueling. The tankers were already on route to their contact co-ordinates.

Tretsov had been visibly nervous of the weight being thrust upon his shoulders. For a senior test pilot in the Red Air Force, he was young, in his early thirties, and he looked younger than that. Vladimirov had felt for him as the whole crushing weight of the First Secretary's personality acted upon him, and the silent presence of Andropov struck coldly. Yet he was good, his record was a fine one, Vladimirov was forced to admit. Whether, in the unlikely event of his being able to locate Gant, he was good enough to destroy the American, was another matter. Vladimirov was almost sorry for Tretsov that he was to be put to the test. He was technically the junior test pilot on the Bilyarsk project, and had flown fewer hours than his senior, Voskov — but Voskov was dead, killed by Gant. The KGB had found his body in the locker. Rather grotesquely, it had fallen comically out of the locker like a mummy from a sarcophagus.

The atmosphere in the War Command Centre after the departure of the chastened, grim-mouthed Tretsov was, for the First Secretary, more congenial. The exercise of power, and the gratifying obedience tinged with fear that had shown itself in the pilot's eyes, soothed him, reinforced his sense of the overwhelming odds ranged against Gant, the American who had dared… The First Secretary felt his anger rising again, and fought to calm himself. The second Mig-31, cleansed of the foam sprayed on it following the attempted sabotage, and armed to the teeth with AA missiles and cannon-shells, sat at the end of the main runway, waiting for the final clearance from the Tower. In moments, it would pass close to the First Secretary's Tupolev. The Soviet leader positioned himself at one of the small portholes let into the room to observe the take-off.

For Vladimir, the situation was neither so simple, nor so gratifying. For flie Commandant of 'Wolfpack', the period of the conversation of the First Secretary with the almost silent Tretsov had been a period of anxiety. The First Secretary appeared to wish to ignore the minutes ticking away, the time approaching of Gant's expected interception with the course of the missile cruiser and her two subs. The Soviet leader listened, perhaps, to other voices, in other rooms. But Vladimirov knew that the cruiser had to stop, Gant, that it was the last chance; last, because he still didn't know how Gant expected to refuel, but knew that he must. He churned the possibilities in his mind, in an attempt of his own to ignore the clock with its red second-hand sliding round the face.

Carrier… carrier-sub… polar-pack… aircraft… ditch, to be collected by sub?

None of them made any sense. It was almost impossible for a sub to hide itself in the Barents Sea and he had nothing but a wild theory that the Americans could have produced a carrier-sub, especially since the Mig was not adapted for a carrier-landing of any kind. No, it had to be an aircraft. And there wasn't one. Unpalatable though it was, it was the truth. There was no unidentified aircraft in the area, nor likely to be at the time one would be required by Gant.

He considered the possibility of Gant ditching the Mig at sea, hoping for collection by a submarine. The plane would be submerged, and could then be towed behind the submarine back to wherever the CIA had arranged. It was fantastic, but it might be made to work. The plane would be damaged by sea water, but the Americans would learn sufficient from it to remove the Mig-31 completely as a threat to air superiority.

Yet there was no submarine in the area either, and no surface vessel capable of reaching Gant's last position for hours.

Which meant it had to be the polar-pack. Gant must be hoping to use the last of his fuel in as steep a climb as he could muster, and to glide the remainder of the way. It was a desperate idea, but no more desperate than sending one man in the first place to take on the KGB, in order to get out of Moscow and arrive at Bilyarsk. And Gant had done that at the bidding of his masters — why not this? The theory was that an aircraft like the Mig could gain perhaps as much as two miles in a glide for every thousand feet it climbed. Gant could climb high enough, if he had the fuel, to glide to the edge of the permanent pack.

He was on the point of requesting the puzzle be fed to the computer for analysis when he heard the voice of the code-operator. The computer-conceived code in which the message had been transmitted from the Riga had been broken down and it was this that the operator read from his print- out.

'Sir,' he said. 'Message from the Riga …' It was as if the operator were unwilling to proceed with it, feeling the attention of the room drawn to him in an instant.

'What is it?' Vladimirov snapped.

'Contact made with unidentified aircraft. Missiles fired, infra-red type, from cruiser in two groups of two, and from submarine escort in one group of two…'

'Well?'