Firefox Down

planted…?'

Aubrey glared at him, his nostrils pinched and white, his lips bloodless. 'Adult? Childish?' he repeated scathingly. 'Do you think, when we play our suburban, late-century version of the Great Game, we are ever being adult?'

'Kenneth — ' Pyott warned quietly.

'It was not adult — it was not the behaviour of a gentleman — to throw prisoners under interrogation from helicopters or encourage murder in south-east Asia!'

'Kenneth be quiet!' Pyott snapped. 'It was not civilised to sacrifice people for metal, lives for avionics — as you did, as we all have done with this operation.' Pyott's face was white, highlighting the dark smudges beneath his eyes. Aubrey appeared abashed, even ashamed.

'Forgive me, Charles — I apologise for that remark,' he said.

'It's long ago and far away-another country,' Buckholz replied.

'Thank you.' Aubrey turned to Pyott immediately. The soldier saw that four hours' sleep had done nothing to improve Aubrey's temper or patience. He was the pestering, gifted child of SIS, and his impatience had become habitual, even incessant. Like the highly intelligent children he somehow suggested, he was solitary, frustrated, intolerantly and urgently alive inside his own mind. He could handle people with suavity and aplomb when he chose, but for the most part he regarded the world as a stumbling-block, no more, placed between himself and his goal. Aubrey was simply too clever.

'Kenneth, you are silently pleading with me,' Pyott said with heavy humour. 'What is it?'

'I — ' Aubrey waved his hands over the table like a hypnotist. 'I've seen airframes transported on motorways-in this country. Their wings are folded, or they are absent. What I need is someone to take the wings off this poor butterfly.'

Pyott nodded to the Americans, requiring them to answer. Curtin, grinning suddenly and rubbing his hand through his hair once more, said, 'You may have seen them here-but you won't get trucks to move far enough and fast enough in Finnish Lapland at this time of year. You don't even have roads they could use, always supposing they could move!'

Aubrey's face was taut with disappointed anger. 'I see,' he managed to utter.

'What you need is a chopper — a very big chopper,' Curtin added. Aubrey's face brightened.

'Which one?' He immediately placed a small, gold-bound notebook beside his plate, and touched the tip of a pencil to his tongue. 'Pray, what is the name of this marvellous beast?'

'You need the new Sikorsky. Skyhook — it could lift fifty thousand pounds in a sling load with no trouble.'

'And — this helicopter could transport the airframe?'

'It might take it as much as two hours to get the Firefox back into Norway from the lake. The problem is — the closest one is probably in Germany, as far south as Wiesbaden.'

'But it could transport it, in a single lift, all the way out of Finland?'

'Yes.'

'Christ, Gene-you're getting as crazy as he is!' Buckholz exclaimed. 'Have you seen the met. forecasts for that area? You'd be real lucky to get the Skyhook up there, never mind operating!'

'I'm afraid that's true, Mr. Aubrey,' Curtin reluctantly agreed.

'Could it lift it straight out of the lake?' Aubrey persisted.

Curtin nodded. 'But, I suggest you have winches as a back-up, to haul that airplane's ass out of the water onto dry land. The Skyhook would like that — and the weather wouldn't help a straight lift, either.' He watched Aubrey scribbling furiously in his tiny notebook, and added, as if dictating: 'From Waterford's report, it must have run backwards into deep water — you could winch it out, up the slope, along a portable roadway…'

'Just a moment!' Pyott snapped. 'I'm going to put-a hypothetical case, shall we say? — to the RAF's Field Recovery Unit at Abingdon. I want an expert opinion — with apologies to Captain Curtin — on all this speculation.' He stood up, dabbing his lips, then dropped his napkin on the table. 'I shan't be long,' he offered in a cheery voice.

When the door had closed behind him, Buckholz leaned over the table and whispered fiercely at Aubrey: 'We know men and machines can do anything you want them to — but what about politicians, Kenneth? You haven't got a dime's worth of change out of the Finns since yesterday. Even your buddy in Helsinki isn't too crazy about more interference from us — '

'Or from the Russians.'

'Don't count on that,' Buckholz said abruptly. Ignoring him, Aubrey addressed Curtin. 'What else do I need?'

'I agree with Director Buckholz, Mr. Aubrey — you need the politicians to say yes to you. But, if you're asking me, I'd think about maybe even dismantling the airplane and taking it away in pieces — in case you haven't gotten a Skyhook to the lake. You could hide the pieces and go back later…?' Curtin shrugged. 'So,' he continued, 'you need technicians, equipment, winches and pulleys, cutting tools, airframe experts, and a hell of a lot more besides, all gathered around your lake, and you need the utmost secrecy and you need time.'

'How much time?'

'From beginning to end — a lot of days.'

'And Gant isn't going to be able to give you that time, Kenneth,' Buckholz supplied, staring at his fingertips as he spread them on either side of his cup of coffee. They drummed pointlessly, without discernible rhythm. 'Gant hasn't got any time left, so neither do we.' He looked up from the table, shaking his head. 'This whole conversation's pointless.'

'Don't say that- '

'I have to, Kenneth. All right, you're the guy, the main man, the one who dreamed up this crazy scheme — and almost made it work — but it hasn't worked. Blow the damned airframe into little pieces!'

Aubrey stood up. 'And that is your considered, your expert, opinion, Charles?' he asked.

Buckholz nodded. 'That's it.'

'Then I beg to disagree.' He looked at his plate with an old man's reluctance to leave food uneaten, then shook his head. 'I must talk to London — to Helsinki via London, to be exact. You gentlemen will excuse me.'

He closed the door of the small dining-room in the Mess behind him. A secure line direct to Shelley at Queen Anne's Gate had been installed in the bedroom he had been allocated. He went heavily up the staircase, his mind whirling with the possibilities of his scheme. Pride stung him into desire. He wanted action, activity, organisation, a scenario. He would not let the aircraft go; could not bring himself to destroy the airframe. Guilt, too, hounded him now; had awoken him in the short night when he had tried to sleep. Guilt for Fenton, who had been tricked to his brutal murder on the bank of the Moskva after doing good work trail-blazing for Gant; guilt for Pavel Upenskoy, guilt for Baranovich and Semelovsky and Kreshin, all of whom had died at his orders, or had been considered no more than expendable in promoting the success of the operation. It was a heavy toll of good people; best people.

To destroy the airframe now, scatter it over the bed of the frozen lake, would be more criminal than creating the circumstances of those deaths. Gant was lost. Strangely, he did not feel any acute guilt at the American's loss… but the others…

He closed the door behind him and crossed to the telephone. He felt the physical sensation of weight between his shoulder-blades, slowing him, wearing him down. He felt he would only rid himself of it if he recovered the Firefox; would only reduce and lighten it if he tried for such a recovery.

He dialled Shelley's number.

'Peter?'

'Yes, sir. Good morning.'

'What news?'

'As far as we can tell, he hasn't arrived yet… sorry.'

'Put me through immediately to Hanni Vitsula, Peter, I must talk to him. I'll wait until you call me back.'

He replaced the receiver, and rubbed his hands on his thighs. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he recaptured