Firefox Down

throat. 'I don't need to remind you that possession of the intact airframe by the Soviet Union — despite the deaths of Baranovitch and the others at Bilyarsk — will mean that the Firefox project continues. We shall be where we were last year, before we ever thought of this — this escapade.' Aubrey paused for effect. Pyott's face expressed vivid uncertainty. JIC and the Cabinet Office had left the decision, the final decision, to Aubrey and Pyott. 'Our people are waiting to embark. Waterford and his SBS people are gathered at Kirkenes…' Aubrey soothed. 'We are only hours away — '

'And the Russians may be only minutes away!' Pyott snapped.

'Nothing is happening at the moment,' Aubrey countered.

'As you say,' Pyott replied with heavy irony. 'At the moment, nothing is happening.'

'Giles!' Aubrey exclaimed. 'Giles, for God's sake, commit. This aircraft is still the threat it was yesterday and last year. It is invisible to radar, its electronic systems are a generation ahead of ours, it flies twice as fast as our fastest fighter! It is a threat. Commit, Giles — one way or the other, commit.'

In the heavy ensuing silence, Buckholz cleared his throat. Curtin's chair scraped on the floor as he shifted his weight. Pyott stared at his knuckles. Aubrey's left hand made futile, uncertain sweeps over the plot table.

Then Pyott looked up. 'Very well — very well. Talk to Hanni Vitsula in Helsinki. Tell him we're on our way!'

'Giles!' Aubrey exclaimed with the excitement of a child. 'Giles — well done!'

'Kenneth!' Giles Pyott replied in an offended tone. 'It is not a matter of congratulation. Damn your scheme and damn that aeroplane!' He stretched his arms wide. 'I hope to God we never find out whether or not it holds the balance of terror — and I hope to God we don't find out it's a dud.'

'You know as well as I do — '

'Don't lecture me! I know what that anti-radar system would do if it were used on a Cruise missile or an ICBM or a MIRV–I know where thought-guided weaponry could take the Russians in five years or less… I've heard your arguments, I've heard the Pentagon on the subject — I don't need to be reminded!'

'Don't be such a sore loser, Giles,' Buckholz grumbled. Pyott turned to the American, 'I sometimes think the profession of arms is as morally delectable as the oldest profession itself,' announced freezingly.

'Don't despise we night-soil men, Giles,' Aubrey soothed. 'Better this way- '

Pyott banged the plot table with his fist. 'Let's get on with it, shall we? Charles, you'll be on-site, but Waterford has military command- you understand?' Buckholz nodded. 'I must stay here — '

'And I shall set up HQ in Kirkenes!' Aubrey announced brightly. 'Shall we go?'

* * *

He seemed to be lying down. He concluded, very slowly, that he must be in bed. The ceiling was chalk-white. It reminded him of other familiar ceilings. People were whispering out of his sight, like mice in a corner of the room… it had to be a room, there was a white ceiling and the beginnings of white walls. His head felt very heavy. He could not be bothered to move it to check. There was the ether-smell — it was a hospital room. A bedside light shone in his peripheral vision, and cast a glow on the ceiling. It must be night.

Whispering — ?

Whispering in English, he thought. Why did that matter? What else would they talk in…?

He had once known the answer to that question, had known the alternative, strange, indecipherable language they might have spoken… but not in a hospital room.

In a bamboo cage -

They poked him with long sticks like goads. Then the little girl had burned, dissolved in napalm fire…

He shuddered and groaned. He remembered. Remembered, too, why he was in hospital. His body remembered resentment, even hatred, and he tried to move. His arms were restrained. Or too tired and heavy to lift.

A face appeared above him, floating below the ceiling. A starched cap on dark hair. A nurse. She examined his eyes — a man did, too — and there was more murmuring…

He tried to listen. It seemed to concern him. American — ? His mind formed the word very slowly, as if he were in class, learning to spell a new and difficult word. American…

A strong face floated above him. It wobbled — no, someone was shaking his head. He heard the American voice again as soon as the head whisked out of sight.

'Poor bastard. What the hell did he go through, Aubrey?' He heard the words quite distinctly now, though the effort of eavesdropping made him sweat. 'My God, those injuries — !'

Injuries? Heavy unmoving arms, the answer came back. Legs he could not feel… yes, they prickled with sweat, but he could not move them. He did not try to move his head. Perhaps it did not move. He was stretched out -

He listened, terrified. 'The doctors are doing their best for him,' the English voice replied. 'We have the best surgeons for him…'

'And?'

'Who can say? He may walk again — '

Gant gagged on self-pity. It enveloped him, filled his mouth as though he were drowning.

'And he never told them anything… not a damn word. Even when they started to break him to pieces, he never told them a damn thing!'

'He's a very brave man,' Aubrey replied. Aubrey — yes, it was Aubrey… the self-pity welled in his eyes, bubbled in his throat as soon as he opened his mouth. He was drowning in it; only the unwilled and even unwanted pride kept him afloat, like a life-jacket.

His eyes were wet. The ceiling was pale and unclear, the glow of the lamp fuzzy, like a light shining down through deep, clear water. The voices appeared to have stopped, as if they wished him to hear no more. Aubrey and an American…

He had been asleep. Or they had given him something. Chillingly, he remembered himself screaming. It was the nightmare. The litle girl erupting in flame, her form dissolving. Yes, that was it. Yet he remembered water, too, as his mind tried to understand what he had overheard. He remembered water, and drowning — ? It was hard to think of it, difficult to concentrate, but he made the effort because he could not bear to allow any other thoughts to return. Deep water, dark… fire down there, too-? Water, drowning, his left hand trapped, but his right hand moving…

A shape retreating into the dark water, like a huge fish. Black. Airframe…

He shouted then. Just once.

'No-!'

Two faces hovered over him. He did not recognise them. The nurse mopped his forehead soothed him with clucking noises. He was injured, yes…'

No.

Yes…

Someone was speaking now. To him.

Explaining.

He listened avidly and in terror. 'You ejected, Mitchell.' It was the American voice. 'You ejected from the MiG-31 when it was on fire… at least, that's what we conclude from your — your burns…' He gasped and swallowed. Burns — ? 'It exploded — '

He moved his head very slowly, wondering whether they would realise it was a negative sign. He did not trust himself to speak. His throat and mouth were full of water which he could not swallow. His father would hit him if he spat in the house…

No one seemed to have noticed. The American voice continued.

'On the ball to the last…' He must have been addressing Aubrey again. Gant strained to hear, holding his breath. 'They must have found him unconscious and airlifted him direct to Moscow.' Gant tried to remember. He could not remember the ejection from the aircraft or the explosion. Then he could. But that was — was Vietnam, where the cage and the little girl had been… he shook his head very slowly. Someone quickly held his face, checked