Firefox Down

down fast, falling like a leaf… I'm diving, right on his tail…' Gant heard his own breathing accelerate, become more violent, as if the white room — dimly seen — were hot and airless. His blood pumped wildly, he could hear his heart racing. He sweated. 'I'm right on his tail — he can't pull out of the spin — he's going to fall straight into the sea, he can't do anything about it-!' Gant groaned, hearing the noise at a great distance. 'Thirty thousand feet now, he's falling like a stone-he's dumped the undercarriage… wait… the nose-down's getting steeper, twenty thousand feet now… he's levelling out, he's got her back under control… I'm right on his tail…' Gant was groaning now, stirring his hands and legs against the straps, moving his head slowly, heavily back and forth like a wounded animal. He might have been protesting, repeating No, no, no over and over, but he could not be sure of that. He knew the end of the story, the climax. He knew what was going to happen to him as he followed the American down and levelled out behind him, the cold Arctic Ocean below them — he knew.

'Careful, careful… I'm on his tail… careful… he's doing nothing, he's given up… nothing — he's beaten and he knows it… I've got — ' Gant was minutely, vividly alive to the change of tone, the terror that replaced excitement. He knew what would happen… he could see the other Firefox ahead of him, knew what the American was going to do, knew he hadn't given up… 'Oh, God — !'

Gant, too, screamed out the words, then his head lolled forward as if he had lost consciousness. The tape ran on, hissing with static. Tretsov was dead. Vladimirov was watching Gant with a look almost of awe on his face. He shuddered at the identification of the American with the dead Tretsov. The manner in which the American had played Tretsov's role, acted as if he, too, were suddenly going to kill, then die — uncanny. Unnerving. Gant was nobody now, or anybody they cared to suggest. Perhaps he could believe himself anyone at all, anywhere they said?

'Mm,' the interrogator said beside him. 'Perhaps not quite the effect you wished for… but, from his file, I suggest the effect is not without merit.'

'How?'

'He has his own nightmares — his delayed stress syndrome. I think he will be sufficiently easy to convince that it was his own nightmare he experienced…' He smiled. 'When I heard your tape, I projected we might make such an impression on him.' One of his assistants nodded obsequiously as the interrogator glanced at him. 'Illness,' he continued, 'shock. We can work on this now. Very well — bring him round again, to the same level of awareness, no lower… and bring in our mimic.' He looked at Vladimirov. 'I hope the voice is good enough. We have tapes of the Englishman, of course — innocuous material, mostly gathered at long range in outdoor situations. The imitation seems to me sufficient.' He smiled again, studying the unconscious Gant and the white-coated doctor bending over him, pointing the needle down towards Gant's bared arm. 'He'll probably accept the man whatever he sounds like…'

The light, the resolving faces and the familiar voice all came to Gant in the same moment. White room… He was sitting up-why had he expected to be lying down? Yes, nurse's uniform, he was in hospital… nightmare? He listened to the voice; familiar — changed, somehow foreign-tinted, but familiar. He listened to Kenneth Aubrey as he spoke slowly and soothingly. His eyes concentrated on the only two figures he could see, a nurse and a doctor. They stood directly in front of him… Aubrey must be behind him as he murmured gently, confidentially in his ear. Nurse, doctor — where was he? What had happened to him? His body felt dull, heavy, but without pain. What had happened?

The voice explained.

'You're recuperating very quickly, very fully, Mitchell,' Aubrey said soothingly. 'We're very pleased with you… but time presses us. You're the only one who can help us… time is pressing, you must try to remember-'

Remember?

There were things to remember, yes…

What?

Street, shambling figure, black car -

Who? Where?

Aubrey continued, frightening him, making him cling to the familiar voice. Crash, he thought. Crash? Dead. 'You seem to have been suffering from some sort of local amnesia, Mitchell. Even from delusions… You've been very ill, my boy, very ill. But, you're getting better now. If only you could remember — if only you could tell us where the aircraft is!'

Street, shambling figure, father… black car, gates, corridors, white room… remember -

'Do you remember, Mitchell?' Aubrey asked soothingly.

Gant felt his head nod, as distant a signal as another's head or hand might have made. 'Yes.' he heard himself reply, but the voice was thick with phlegm, strangely flat. 'Yes…'

A murmur of voices, then, before Aubrey said, 'You remember exactly what happened after you destroyed the second MiG-31 — the second Firefox?' Aubrey's voice was silky, soothing, gentle. Gant nodded again. He remembered. There had been things to remember. These things — ?

Street — blank — car — figure ahead-huge sculpture of a rocket's exhaust — street — blank — figure, catch up with the figure, see his face — blank — house — steps — corridor — blank — watch — blank — watch — blank -

It was a series of pictures, but the cartridge of slides had been improperly loaded. There were gaps, frequent large gaps. Blank — car — blank… remember…

'What do you remember, Mitchell?' Aubrey asked once more. 'After you destroyed the second Firefox, what happened then? We know that you destroyed the two MiG-25Fs-you remembered that much. Do you still remember?' Gant nodded. 'Good. The first one you took out in the clouds, and the second one almost got you… but you survived and the aircraft survived… What did you do next? What did you do, Mitchell? Time is of the essence. We haven't much time to prevent it falling into their hands. What did you do with it, Mitchell?' The voice insisted. Yet it soothed, too. It was almost hypnotic. There seemed to be a window behind the doctor and the nurse, through which Gant could see… what was it? London. Big Ben? Yes, Big Ben. There seemed to be a bright patch of colour at the corner of his vision, perhaps flowers in a vase? He could see Big Ben — he was almost home — he was safe…

And Aubrey's voice went on, seductively soft, hypnotic, comforting.

'Where, Mitchell, where? Where did you land the aircraft? You can remember, Mitchell!.. try — please try to remember…?

'Ye — ess…' he breathed slowly, painfully.

'Good, Mitchell, good. You can remember!'

'Yes,' he enunciated more clearly. He was feeling better. Whatever had happened to him, he was on the mend. His memory had come back. Aubrey would be delighted, they might yet rescue the airframe from the bottom of the lake -

Lake-

No!

'No!' his voice cried an instant after his mind. 'No-!'

He was drowning and burning in the lake. His drug-confused memory had jolted awake against his utter terror of drowning. Wrapped in icy water, then in the same instant wrapped in burning fire -

His nightmare engulfed him.

'No-!'

Vladimirov stared at the interrogator, at the mimic bending near Gant, whose earpiece picked up every question suggested by the interrogator and the general, then he stared at the nurse, the doctor bending towards Gant, at Gant himself -

'What's happening?' he asked, then, more loudly: 'What the hell's happening to him?'

Vladimirov found himself staring at the slide projected on one of the white walls, the one opposite Gant. A London scene, looking across the Thames towards the Palace of Westminster and Big Ben. Now that Gant was screaming, over and over, that single denying word, the illusion seemed pathetic, totally unreal. Like the flowers someone had placed against the wall. Who would be fooled by such things, even under drugs? Gant was evading him again, evading him — !