Firefox Down

It looked like the house of a dream, but it was real. He recollected the steps, the door opening — nurse's uniform, guard's uniforms-and two flights of marble staircase. His father had disappeared into one of the ground floor rooms, he thought. It did not matter. Each time he retraced his journey, his father reappeared to hold the memories together.

It was important to remember the journey. To remember the black limousine, the pressure of the two bodyguards' frames on either side of him; to remember the Mira Prospekt and to remember the house, the steps, the door, the marble staircase, the columns and doorways and ornamental urns and pots, the old furniture, the white room and its smells, the doctors, guards, Vladimirov. Vital to remember the hard chair, the straps about his wrists and ankles, the needle… held up, spurt of colourless fluid, hovering, moving closer, skin pinched up, needle inserted…

In his dream, he was sweating profusely with the effort of memory — but he had done it! He had remembered it all while the dream still contained him…

Remembered everything, everything that informed him that he was under interrogation, that he was drugged and prepared — probably sodium pentothal followed by benzadrine, or some other two drugs in harness. He was only dreaming now while they waited for the first drug to take effect, he was certain of it… then the stimulant would jolt him into wakefulness, dreamy and slow or hyperactive he did not know, but when it happened the questions would begin -

And he had to remember everything! He knew where he was, he knew why he was there. He knew they would ask him questions about — about…?

Gant panicked in his dream, felt himself chilled and burned by his fear. He could not remember why he was there!

Don't, he told himself, don't… I have to … don't, secret, don't…

He had remembered everything — he had remembered enough.

Pinprick — ?

His skin crawled. Pinprick? He was instantly wary…

Something else — quickly, something else, quickly… just before the needle, as he looked down at the needle, as his skin was pinched into a little hillock and the needle went in, something else…?

Watch, watch, watch -

They hadn't taken off his watch, he had been staring at it as his eyes snapped shut and he was suddenly in darkness. He had told himself to remember the time, to look when he awoke again. Time -

It was getting light. Murmur of voices that was more than the dream-traffic on the Mira Prospekt. People constructing sentences, discussing, arguing… waiting for him to awaken.

Light — his head was lifted, eyelid plucked at, a blurred form moved away, and a fuzzy light was revealed which did not seem to hurt his eyes.

Pinprick again. A few moments, and he was able to see more clearly. Doctors, nurses, uniforms. White room. It's starting, he told himself with great difficulty. He seemed to be trapped in a heavy, translucent oil, his thoughts moving with extreme difficulty. It wasn't like a dream — he had swum easily through the dream, raced with it. Now, his body — he was aware of it quite clearly — was laden, his eyes focused slowly and he could almost feel them moving in his head as he transferred his gaze from face to face. He saw a doctor nod, slowed-down like a failing movie-reel.

He remembered the watch. Focused with exaggerated slowness. Read the time. It did not seem meaningful. Thirty minutes had passed. It did not seem to matter. Father on the street outside, a long gallery on the second floor lined by tall ornamental urns. It did not matter. None of it mattered. He was trapped in his body which was trapped in the translucent oil. He watched the faces around his chair, as dull and unmoving as a fish on the watery side of an aquarium's tank. He stared out at the human faces, unthinking.

Vladimirov watched Gant carefully. The doctor assured him that the man was prepared. He could be interrogated immediately. He was now capable of suggestion. Vladimirov savoured the helplessness of the American strapped in the chair which was itself bolted to the floor of the clinical room. More than the bruising on the face, the swollen lip he had himself inflicted even before the bodyguards had operated upon the American, he enjoyed the man's present helplessness. It satisfied his craving for superiority, his desire for the restoration of his self-esteem. This — thing — in the chair, drugged and animal-like, could never have succeeded against him. Now, indeed, the thing in the chair was about to tell them everything it knew -

Where he had hidden the MiG-31. After that-his life preserved only for the length of time required to locate the aircraft-he would be disposed of together with the other rubbish that accumulated in such a place; in a Forensic Psychiatry Unit of the KGB.

He turned to the plainclothed KGB officer who had been assigned by Andropov. He and his two fellow-officers were experts in interrogation by the use of drugs. Most of their work was performed at this Unit on the Mira Prospekt. The man probably had a research degree in psychiatric medicine or clinical psychology.

Vladimirov suppressed the contempt he felt for the tall, angular, harmless-seeming man next to him. The man is only doing what you wish of him. He smiled and turned to the tape deck that rested on a metal-legged table behind them. Wires trailed across the floor to speakers arranged on either side of Gant.

'These haven't been edited-I have only the flimsiest acquaintance with them, Comrade General — ' the interrogator complained.

'But you approve their use?' Vladimirov asked firmly. 'Comrade Colonel Doctor,' he added to emphasise the politeness and formality of their circumstances.

The interrogator nodded. 'To begin with, yes,' he replied. 'But the man outside may be of more use. This form of induced regression often has no more than a limited application. We must use it to warm him up, perhaps, make him familiar with the area we want to investigate — but sooner or later, he must be more fully regressed, as himself, not someone else.' The interrogator smiled. 'He must be debriefed, and believe me he is being debriefed.' When Vladimirov did not return his pale-lipped smile, he rubbed a long-fingered hand through sparse sandy hair, and added, 'We will retrieve what you have lost in his head, Comrade General. Don't worry about it.' It was a stiff, formal insult; an assertion of authority, too. Vladimirov nodded thoughtfully by way of reply. The interrogator glanced at Gant, then nodded to one of his senior assistants, who switched on the tape deck. He watched the leader tape move between the reels, then said to Vladimirov, 'He speaks Russian sufficiently well to understand this?'

Vladimirov glanced at Gant, as if to assure himself that the American was not eavesdropping, then nodded. 'He does.'

'Very well, then. Let us see what occurs.'

Gant heard the static, the mechanised voices, the clicks and bleeps of communication; recognising them, knowing them as well as he knew his own past. UHF communication between a pilot and his ground control. The sound seemed all around him, enveloping him as if he were wearing a headset, as if he were the pilot. He listened, his eyeballs moving slowly, rustily; unfocused. He absorbed the conversation, his awareness pricked and heated and engaged by the brief exchanges. His hands hung heavily at the ends of his wrists, and his body seemed a great way below him. His attention seemed like a little peak rising above dense jungle foliage which nothing could penetrate. He listened. The words enveloped him. He was back in the cockpit of the Firefox.

'I've got him!.. vapour-trail, climbing through sixty thousand… must get into the tail-cone to avoid his infra- red:' Whose infra-red — ? 'I'll have to slot in quickly behind him… climbing past me now… contrail still visible… seventy-thousand now, climbing up past me… come on, come on — please confirm orders…'

'Kill,' Gant heard.

'Two missiles launched… he's seen them, the American's seen them, come on— he's got the nose-up, he's into a climb, rolling to the right… missed… Bilyarsk control, I'm reporting both missiles failed to make contact…'

Gant listened. It was him, and yet he remembered what was being described… his violent, evasive action… it was strange, inexplicable. It was in Russian, it was a MiG- 31, yet not him. There was a pressure, almost too strong to resist, which suggested he was the pilot, the speaker… yet somehow he knew it was the test pilot he had killed, flying the second prototype Firefox. It enfolded him after that moment of lucidity. He was back in the cockpit.

'Missed him again…! Wait, he's going into a spin, he's got himself caught in a spin. he's losing altitude, going