feet sinking, body elongating so that he threatened to become stretched out, flat on his stomach. His legs refused to push him faster or further. He used his hands, the .22 clogging with snow as he used it as a stick.
Crest. Dark sky above white snow like a close horizon.
He staggered, pushed up from all-fours to try to stand upright. He gasped for breath, saw the legs, saw the Arctic camouflage, shook his head in weary disbelief, saw the next man perhaps fifty yards away, already turning in his direction, saw, saw -
He cried out in a wild yell of protest and used the rifle like a club, striking at the white form on the crest of the slope. The Russian fell away with a grunt, rolling down the steeper slope on the other side. Gant staggered after the rolling body, as if to strike again, then leapt tiredly over it and charged on down the steep slope.
Trees. A patch of black forest, then the flatness of what might be a frozen lake beyond. The ground levelling out. The trees offering cover, the barrel of his rifle clogged with snow -
He careered on, just keeping his balance. Whistles and the noise of dogs behind him, but no shooting. He ran on, floundering with huge strides towards the trees.
FOUR:
Recovery
The Westland Lynx Mk 86 helicopter, its Royal Norwegian Air Force markings concealed, dropped towards the arrowlike shape of the lake. Alan Waterford, sitting in the co-pilot's seat, watched intently as the ghostly ice moved up towards him, and the surface snow became distressed from the downdraught of the rotors. He ignored the noises from the main fuselage as the four-man Royal Marine SBS team prepared to leave the helicopter. Instead, he watched the ice.
'Hold it there,' he ordered the pilot The downdraught was winnowing the surface snow, but there was no billowing effect. Waterford did not want the surface obscured, the snow boiling around the cockpit like steam, as it would if they dropped any lower. Even so, a few crystals were melting on the perspex. Beyond the smear they made, the ice looked unbroken and innocent as it narrowed towards the neck of the lake where Eastoe's infra-red pictures had revealed a patch of dark, exposed water.
The Lynx steadied at its altitude and began to drift slowly over the ice, the faintest of shadows towed behind it like a cloth. Waterford craned ahead and to one side, searching the surface. As with the photographs, he could see no evidence that an airframe had broken up over the lake. There appeared to be only the one patch of clear water and jostling, broken ice right at the end of the lake.
No undercarriage tracks, but he could not count on them. There could have been a light snow shower, or the wind could have covered them as effectively as fresh snow. Had he landed the plane, or ejected before it ever reached the lake? And if he'd landed, how efficient in saving the airframe and the electronics and the rest of the MiG-31's secrets had the American been in his terror of drowning? Or had he left the cockpit before the plane began to break through the ice?
Behind him, the SBS men, all trained divers, were preparing to discover the answers to his questions. It was too late and too dark to assess fire-damage to the trees on the shore. Gant had to be alive — the Russian activity confirmed that — but had he ejected or landed?
The Lynx moved towards the trees. The patch of dull black water was visible now; ominous. Waterford removed his headset and stood in a crouch. His bulk seemed to fill the cockpit like a malevolent shadow. The pilot, a Norwegian lieutenant, glanced up at him.
'I can't put down this side of the trees — I'm not risking the ice. Tell them they'll have to walk.' He grinned.
'They're used to it,' Waterford grunted and clambered back into the main cabin of the helicopter. Four men in Arctic camouflage looked up at him. Beneath the white, loose tunics and trousers, they were wearing their wetsuits. Oxygen tanks, cutting equipment, lamps, rifles lay near the closed main door. 'You're going to have to walk it,' Waterford announced to a concerted groan. 'You know what they want, Brooke — evidence that the airframe is intact — don't give it to the buggers unless it's absolutely true.
'Sir?'
'Make sure you conceal that commpack properly — we won't be the last of our side in and out of here, I'm sure of that, and they'll all want to talk to London as quickly as possible.' Waterford indicated one of the packs near the sergeant's feet. 'This'll give them satellite direct-don't leave it where a reindeer can piss on it and fuse the bloody thing.'
'Certainly not, sir,' the sergeant replied. 'Commpack not to be left where reindeer may piss on it —
'Yes, sergeant?'
'Does the Major know the exact-height to which a reindeer can piss, sir?'
The Lynx drifted slowly downwards. Waterford, smiling at the tension-releasing laughter in the cabin, glanced at the window in the main door. Snow surrounded them like steam. They were almost down. As he observed the fact, the Lynx touched, bounced as if rubber, settled. Immediately, the rotors began to wind down, their noise more throaty, ugly. The sergeant slid back the main cabin door.
'Out you get-quick as you can,' the lieutenant ordered, nodding at Waterford. Packs and equipment were flung out of the door. Through his camouflage parka, the night temperature chilled Waterford. He felt the tip of his nose harden with the cold. When they had dropped to the ground, he moved to the cabin door.
'Good luck. One hour — and I'm counting.' He waved, almost dismissively, and slammed the sliding door closed, locking it. Then he climbed back into the cockpit and regained his seat, rubbing his hands. He slipped on the inertia-reel belt, then his headset. 'OK, Gunnar-let's see if we can find this lost American chap, shall we?'
The Lynx jumped into the air almost at once, the rotors whining up, the blades becoming a dish that caught the moonlight. The four SBS men were already trudging briskly into the trees, laden with their equipment. The helicopter banked out over the lake, and headed north-west. The ice diminished behind them.
There was no nightsight on the folding .22 rifle. There were six rounds, each to be fed separately into the breech. It was a weapon of survival — for Arctic hares for the solid tablet stove or any fire he might have been able to light — but not for defence. Never for offence. Gant had no idea how much stopping-power the slim, toylike rifle possessed, and he hesitated to find out. The nearest of the Russians, white-tunicked, white-legginged, Kalashnikov AKM carried across his chest, was moving with great caution from fir-bole to low bush to fir-bole. The dogs had been kept back, still leashed; perhaps moving with the remainder of the unit to encircle the clump of trees in which they knew he was hiding.
Time had run out. His only advantage was that they wanted him alive. They would have definite, incontrovertible orders not to kill him. Maim him they might, but he would be alive when they reached Murmansk or Moscow or wherever.
The frozen lake was behind him, as clean and smooth as white paper, almost phosphorescent in the moonlight. His breath smoked around him like a scarf; he wondered that the approaching Russian had not yet caught sight of it, not heard the noise of his breathing. Forty yards, he guessed. A glimpse of another white shape, flattening itself behind a fir, farther off. The noise of the dogs.
And, omnipresent and above the trees, the rotors of two of the helicopters. He had glimpsed one of them, its outline clear for a moment before he had been blinded by the searching belly-light. Slim, long-tailed MiL-4s. Frost glittered on the dark trunk of the fir at the fuzzy edge of his vision. He had now recovered his night vision after the searchlight, except for a small, bright spot at the centre of the Russian's chest as he sighted along the seemingly inadequate barrel of the rifle. The man bulked large around the retinal image of the searchlight. Gant could not miss at that range.
