Firefox

understand that. You won't just be shitting on yourself or your service record! And you stay rigged for silent running — we're going to be making enough noise up here for all of you, so keep it quiet. You guys on the plane — just keep it de-iced and ready to roll the minute you get the word. Mr. Peck is in charge of the shore-party to work on the ridge, and I'll let him tell you who's volunteered, and what equipment he wants out here. Just a minute — Doc?' There was a pause, then:

'Yes, skipper?'

'What about our casualties?'

'Harper's concussed — hit that hard head of his on the deckplates. Smith lost a couple of teeth fighting the ice, and I'm putting four stitches in the back of Riley's skull. Anything else is less dramatic than that.'

'Thanks Doc. Tell Riley it should improve his brain — and Smith's looks will definitely have improved! O.K., here's Mr. Peck, you guys. Hear him good.'

He switched off and pocketed his own handset, and left Peck calling out his list of names, the catalogue of brawn that the Pequod was able to muster.

Seerbacker joined Gant. He stared at him for a moment, then said: 'You are sure?'

Gant nodded.

'Don't worry — Peck doesn't get to me. I can get out through thirty feet of clear ice.'

'In visibility like this?'

'In worse.'

'Hell, man — O.K., but it's your funeral.'

There was a silence, then Gant said: 'Thanks, Seerbacker — for the hour.'

Seerbacker felt awkward. Gant, he sensed, was making a real effort, meant what he was saying.

'Yeah — sure. I wouldn't do it for just anybody, though,' he said, and grinned.

'I–I'll go take a look at the plane.'

'Sure, you do that.'

Gant nodded, and walked away. Near the Pequod, he could see figures hurrying through the grey curtain of the mist, wrapped in the white breath of their effort Peck, he thought without rancour, was a taskmaster, and when he said jump, they jumped. It wasn't his business. Peck knew what he was doing.

It had been his suggestion, from the beginning. The crude hacking out of a section of the ridge, then the smoothing process to follow, the former accomplished by brute force and axes, the latter by spraying the broken section of the ridge with the superheated steam that drove the turbines of the submarine, directed onto the ice by pressure hoses.

The Firefox was clear of ice. Alongside, looking as if it had strayed from some gigantic toolshed, was a ten- foot piece of equipment resembling nothing so much as a garden-spray. This was linked by a hose to a fluid tank in the sail of the Pequod, and from it, pumped by a small electric motor, gushed a stream of alcohol-based anti-icing fluid — the 'booze' as Seerbacker's crew referred to it. This kept the wings and fuselage free of ice. Four men operated the sprayer — two men pushed it on its undercarriage, and two others directed the fine, pressurised spray from two small hoses tucked beneath their arms. They went about their task with a mechanical, unthinking precision, and Gant could see the light indentations of the wheels beneath the sprayer where they had ceaselessly circumnavigated the plane.

Gant stood and watched the Firefox for a long time, as if drawn to the machine, as if feeding through his eyes. He had had no time until now, no moment of being outside the plane with time to absorb its lines, its design, its functional wickedness of appearance. The first time — there had only been the confused impression of noise, and light, and the fire at the far end of the hangar, and Baranovich's white-coated figure lumped on the concrete… Now he watched in silence, taking in the slim fuselage, the bulging air-intakes in front of the massive engines, larger than anything Turmansky had ever thought of fitting to an interceptor-attack plane, the seemingly impossible stubbiness of the wings, with the advanced Anab missiles slung in position beneath them. He saw the scorch marks where he had fired two of them — one to bring down the Badger, the other to goad the captain of the Riga into premature action. He walked closer. The two missiles had been replaced, making up his complement of four.

This didn't really surprise him. A Mig-25 had been captured from the Syrians in the dummy-run for this operation. Presumably, it had been armed and its missiles, Anabs, had been assigned to Seerbacker, for delivery. Buckholz, Gant realised, missed nothing.

The refuelling had been completed even while he, Seerbacker and Peck had discussed the ridge. The hoses had been withdrawn, the bonding wire removed from the nose-wheel strut Presumably, the refuelling crew were now taking their turn at the ridge.

He walked away with reluctance, then, as the distance increased, and the Firefox became a shadowy, insubstantial bulk in the mist, he lengthened his stride.

It took him almost half-an-hour to walk from the Firefox to the southerly end of the floe and then to traverse the floe from south to north, along the line of his visualised runway. The collision of the floes had not damaged the runway, other than by the ridge. He was returning from the northern edge of the floe when the handset that Fleischer had issued him bleeped in his pocket.

'Yes?'

'Gant?' Seerbacker's voice sounded laboured, out of breath. 'Listen to me, mister. We've got three sonar contacts to the south of us, along your flight-path.'

Gant was silent for a moment, then he said: 'Yes — it has to be the cruiser and her two escorts — hunter- killer subs.'

'Jesus — you know how to make trouble for me, Gant — you really, really do!'

'How long before they get here?'

'Forty — maybe forty-five minutes.'

'Then that's enough time.'

'Fuck you, mister! Enough time for you to get the hell out of here — what about my ship? What about its gallant crew who are at this moment working their tails off to get you a runway you can use?'

'I–I'm sorry, Seerbacker — I didn't think…'

Almost as if he were winning a point, Seerbacker replied:

'Anyway — it'll take longer than we thought. It seems Mr. Peck was a little optimistic in his estimates. We'll need almost the same time to get you out of here as they'll need to catch up on us!'

Gant was silent. Eventually, Seerbacker said: 'You still there, Gant?'

'Uh — yeah. You sure they're heading this way?'

'Maybe, maybe not. They weren't, that's for sure.'

'Weren't?'

'They were steaming west, across the track of the floe, but sure as hell is hot, Gant, if we can see them, then they can damn well see us!'

Ten THE DUEL

Vladimirov confronted the First Secretary, a renewed sense of purpose doing little to contradict or overcome the tension he felt. He knew, with a sickening certainty, that he did not want to throw his career away, that he wanted Kutuzov's rank and post when the old man was put out to grass. Yet he was contained within a dilemma. Even if he managed to quell the rising doubts and proceed as ordered, there was still the chance that, if Gant succeeded in escaping with the Mig-31 intact, he himself would be blamed for the Soviet failure to recapture or destroy. It was that knowledge finally that persuaded him to demand that action be taken with regard to the sonar-contact reported by the Riga a minute before.

'In my estimation, First Secretary,' he began, keeping his voice neutral, level, with a vast effort of will, 'this contact, though confused by the presence of icefloes, is worth investigation.'

His words seemed to be swallowed in the silence of the War Command Centre. Vladinurov was aware that