Firefox Down

her slightness beneath the heavy fur coat. She struggled away from him.

'What is it?' she asked, studying him intently.

He shook his head. 'Nothing — nothing now…'

'Come on, then. The boys will be getting cold — in spite of their hot dogs!' She reached for his hand, like an elder sister, and pulled him towards the arch and the traffic beyond. He matched his step to hers. The flushed lightness of his mood had disappeared, and he blamed Baranovich, the dead Jew. Anna had met him no more than three or four times. He was not a friend, not even a real acquaintance. Instead, he had become some kind of hero to her; even a symbol.

He shook his head, but the train of thought persisted. It was almost six years earlier, from Anna's account, that her role with the Secretariat of the Ministry of Health had brought her into contact with the Jewish scientist. He had developed a prototype wheelchair for the totally disabled, which used thought-guidance via micro-electronics for its motive power and ability to manoeuvre. Anna had taken up the project with an enthusiasm amounting to missionary zeal. After eighteen months, the project had been scrapped.

Correction, he admitted to himself. He could hear the group of boys around the hot-dog stand now, above the rumble of the traffic. The smell of the onions was heavy, almost nauseating. Correction. The Ministry of Defence had acquired the project for its anticipated military applications; acquired Baranovitch, too. The design for the wheelchair which was never built found its way eventually into the MiG-31 as a thought-guided weapons system.

Anna had never forgiven them for that, for creating a means of more efficient destruction; out of the prototype for a wheelchair.

Them — ?

Everyone. The military, the Civil service, the Politburo — even himself. She had never forgiven anyone.

'Come on, come on,' he said with forced enthusiasm as the boys gathered around him, full mouths grinning, feet shuffling, the lights of passing cars playing over the group. The hot-dog seller stamped and rubbed his hands. Onion-breath smoked from the stand. 'Where's your car?' he asked Anna. She gestured down the Lenin Prospekt. 'See you at the apartment, then,' he said. 'Take as many as you can… the rest of us will get the metro.'

She nodded, and smiled encouragingly. He knew his face was dark with memory. He nodded. 'OK — all those for the metro, follow me!' He marched off pompously, making Anna laugh. The boys, except for Maxim and the film star's son, followed in his wake, giggling.

Priabin waved to her without turning round. He envisaged her clearly. Thirty-eight, small-faced, assured, fashionable, ambitious. A senior assistant secretary to the Secretary to the Ministry of Health; a prominent and successful civil servant. Her income was greater than his.

As they clattered down the steps into the Park Kultury metro station, he thought that last night he had begun to understand her. He started fishing for the fare in his trouser pockets, hitching up the skirts of his greatcoat to do so, his gloves clamped between his teeth. Yes, he had at last begun to understand.

It was that damned project. It had always been that damned Bilyarsk project. She had wanted revenge for what they had done, for never developing and mass-producing that bloody wheelchair.

So, she had begun to work for the Americans…

He gripped a handful of change and small denomination notes and heaved them out of his pocket.

She had begun to work for the Americans…

* * *

'We have one chance-just one,' Aubrey said with heavy emphasis. 'If we can get in before this approaching front brings winter's last fling with it — ' He tapped the projected satellite photograph with a pointer. ' — then perhaps we can beat the Russians and the Finns to the Firefox.' Pyott, who was operating the slide projector, flicked backwards and forwards through the satellite pictures as soon as Aubrey paused. They fluttered grey and white on the old man's face as he stood in front of the screen, pointer still raised. Finally, Pyott switched off the projector. Buckholz put on the Ops. Room lights. 'Well?' Aubrey asked. 'Well, Giles?'

Pyott shook his head and fiddled with his moustache. 'This front is producing heavy snow at the moment, and it's bringing a lot more behind it — heavy snow showers, high winds, even the possibility of electrical storms. As you so neatly put it, Kenneth, it's winter's last fling over northern Europe and Scandinavia- I don't know. I really don't know.'

'It won't take us forty-eight hours to arrive on the site, Giles — '

'I realise that, Kenneth. But, the Skyhook's already making very slow time. We shall be very, very lucky if it gets there at all.'

'The winches we have are capable of moving something as heavy as the Firefox. She'll have to be winched out of the lake.'

'And then what do you do with her?'

'The Skyhook will arrive.'

'And if it doesn't?'

'Then we must salvage what we can and destroy the rest!' Aubrey turned his back on Pyott and crossed to the plot table. Curtin, seated on a folding chair, watched him in silence. Buckholz appeared genuinely distressed and firmly in a dilemma. Aubrey glared at the Mack model of the MiG-31, at the map of Finland and northern Norway, at the coloured tapes and symbols.

He turned on his three companions. 'Come on,' he said more pleasantly, 'decide. The Finns don't want the aircraft on their territory. If we removed it before the Russians found out, they'd be delighted with us! Their strong language is bluff — mostly bluff. We have placed them in an awkward spot. In twenty- four hours, perhaps less, no aircraft will be able to fly in that area, there will be no aerial reconnaissance to interrupt us. There will be no detachment of Finnish troops flown in, either. We would be on our own. We — at least our forward detachments — are little more than sixty miles from the lake. We're nearer than anyone else! One full Hercules transport could drop all our requirements and our people on the spot!'

Aubrey paused. He felt like an orator who had come from the wings towards the podiurn and, discovered an extremely thin, utterly disgruntled audience. Buckholz, instead of looking in his direction, seemed to be looking to Pyott for an answer. Curtin was doing no more than acting out his subordinate rank. Pyott was brushing his moustache as vigorously as if attempting to remove a stain from his features.

'I — ' Buckholz began, still not looking at Aubrey. 'My government wants this thing cleared up — I don't mind telling you, gentlemen, Washington is becoming a little impatient…' Aubrey watched Buckholz's face. The Deputy Director of the CIA had said nothing of his last lengthy telephone conversation with Langley. This, apparently, was the burden of it. 'I've argued the weather, the logistics, the lack of a fall-back operation, the political dangers and pitfalls. The White House still wants action…' Now, he turned directly to Aubrey, and added: 'I have my orders, Kenneth. I don't like them, but I have to try to carry them out. I don't have any answers, but I sure want some!' It was evident that Buckholz had been browbeaten by Washington. He had been ordered to mount some kind of recovery operation, however much he rejected any such idea. Buckholz shrugged. 'It has to be done — something has to be done.'

'What about Mitchell Gant, Mr Aubrey?' Curtin asked sharply.

Aubrey glared at him. Then he transferred his gaze to Pyott. 'There is the absolute time-limit, Giles,' he said. 'Gant will be unable to hold out for very long against drugs — my God, they could persuade him he was being debriefed by Charles and he'd be likely to believe it! So the Russians, who will also be watching the weather, will move soon. Or they will wait until the weather clears. It's going to be coming from their direction — they'll have it sooner than we will — it might just give us enough time, it might just persuade them to wait — ' He cleared his throat of its intended, husky sincerity. 'I think it is worth the chance. Don't you?'

Pyott looked up then. His face was clouded by doubts, by a hundred considerations. His features were maplike. He stared at his knuckles as they whitened on the edge of the plot table.

'I agree that the weather is swinging around the low and moving west across Russia — ' he said slowly and at last. 'I agree, too, that they will be hampered, even grounded, before we are. I accept that they may, just may, wait until it clears before they take their first look… But — '

Aubrey harried his opponent. 'We can withdraw, melt back into the landscape, if we find the Russians there. If we find them arriving while we're there, we can do the same…' Again, he cleared his