Firefox Down

faced them as they entered a corridor of whitewashed concrete. Steel doors, like the watertight doors of a submarine, confronted them. The bodyguards inserted plastic identity tags into the locks, and the doors opened.

Vladimirov inhaled deeply as he once more prepared to enter what bright, cynical young army officers who had served there called the Fuhrerbunker, beyond what was little more than an airlock, where more identity tags were inserted into computerised locks, examined, and returned, a second steel door opened onto a vast underground room. They stepped into a command centre which mirrored not only that in the Tupolev but also those deep beneath the Moscow Garrison's HQ and his own air force headquarters south-east of the city. He followed the others across the room, then mounted a metal ladder onto a gantry which overlooked the command centre. A long glassed-in gallery formed the control room of the underground complex.

All this, Vladimirov thought, the means of obliterating most of the earth, is being used for no more than a skirmish, a small fuss on the border. The insight increased his sense of well-being. Officers saluted, operators sat more erect and alert as they entered. Vladimirov immediately directed the Soviet leader's attention to the fibre- optic map against one wall; a smaller version of the huge perspex screen erected on the main floor of the underground centre. It was edge-lit, computer-fed like the map-table aboard the Tupolev, and at that moment it displayed Finnish Lapland. There were patches of light on the screen, dotted like growths of luminous fungus across Lapland.

'We've selected these sites, First Secretary-' Vladimirov began, using a light-pen to pick out each of the small glowing points. 'These are the only places where the terrain would allow an aircraft to land.' He was confident now. He'd already spent two or three hours in this control room. Its occupants were military personnel — with a sprinkling of KGB and GRU and GLAVPUR people, of course, but soldiers in the main, soldiers first — and he was at home amid the paraphernalia of electronic warfare and computer strategy. He picked out, too, a line of small red dots. 'This is the American's route, from the point at which the Chairman's Border Guards picked up his trail.' The light-pen's arrow bounced along the row of dots, as if picking out a melody. 'He travelled in the same general direction, and we deduce that he was making directly from the point where he left the aircraft to the Norwegian border at its closest point. Paint in the suggested route, in both directions, please.'

The red dots became a white line, extending roughly northwest to south-east. It crossed lakes, valleys, minor roads, forest tracks, frozen rivers. In the north-west, it terminated at the border, while to the south-east it halted at the shores of Lake Inari.

'Time is crucial here,' Vladimirov continued in the tone of a kindly, expert lecturer of greatly superior intelligence. 'We know when the second MiG-25 was destroyed, we know when we first found traces of Gant. We know how fast he was able to travel and we can deduce distances. This white line is far too extended, of course — therefore, we consider that the MiG-31 must be somewhere in this area…' The arrow of the light-pen described a circle. When the arrow bobbed away, off the map, the computer had traced a circle, as if the pen had drawn on the perspex. It was perhaps twenty miles in diameter.

'Very good,' the First Secretary announced with evident sarcasm. 'Very good-the MiG-31 is in Finnish Lapland!' He turned to Vladimirov. 'We know that, General — we already know that!' It was obvious that the Soviet leader had simply been waiting for this opportunity to harangue and threaten. Now he had an audience, and it was one that pleased him — the military; the despised and feared military. He would humiliate one of their heroes in front of them, show them their idol's feet of clay. Vladimirov steeled himself to control his features and remain silent. 'Find it! You find that aircraft, today. And you, Andropov,' he added in a less hectoring voice, 'find the pilot.' He turned as if to leave, his bodyguards already opening the door of the control room and making room for him to pass. Then he returned his gaze to Vladimirov. 'It must be found,' he said. 'I do not need to remind you of the consequences if it is not found — today.'

He left the control room. Abashed, Andropov immediately wiped his spectacles with his silk handkerchief. There was a sheen of perspiration on his brow. His nostrils were narrow with rage. Vladimirov, feeling the resentment of his body begin to dissipate, realised two things concerning the Chairman of the KGB. He was playing for perhaps higher stakes than Vladimirov himself — and he was uncertain of his allies in the Politburo if he could still be bullied by the present First Secretary. Therefore, Andropov would now become an ally; untrusted and dangerous, but an ally. The Soviet leader had included him in the catalogue of blame should Gant and the MiG-31 not be found.

As if to confirm his thoughts, Andropov moved towards the perspex map, closer to Vladimirov. He smiled, an expression that turned to its habitual ironic shape almost as soon as it formed on his lips.

'If you wish for a more — sympathetic? — audience, I offer myself, General Vladimirov,' he said quietly.

Vladimirov nodded. 'Accepted, Comrade Chairman.'

'Good — now, I understand the logic of your deductions thus far-but, how could he have landed the aircraft? In that terrain — it is snow-bound, surely?'

'Yes, it is. However, we think his best chance would have been a forest track or minor road.'

'Would he have thought of it?'

'I think so. I think he would have felt himself — shall we say — challenged, to do it? He is possessed of a massive certainty of his own worth and talents. He would have tried, I think. He must have tried, because of the parachute. And he was uninjured, which I think means the airframe is virtually undamaged — certainly recoverable, certainly a threat if recovered by the Americans or the British. So, all we have to do, Comrade Chairman, is to find it.'

'A forest track or a minor road — still covered with snow — '

'Out of fuel, with little risk of fire, he might have risked landing on snow. Too deep, and I agree he would turn tail-over-nose and break up. But, with the winds and the weather over the past weeks, we think that at least some of these tracks could have had sufficiently little depth of snow to help rather than destroy the MiG.'

'And there are two of these tracks within your circle also crossed by the white line predicting his route,' Andropov observed. He bent closer to the map, then clicked his fingers. 'You're ignoring these lakes,' he said. 'Might he not have used a frozen lake?'

Vladimirov shook his head. 'We discounted them. Our aerial reconnaissance immediately after the loss of the second Foxbat showed nothing. On a lake, he could not have hidden the MiG.'

Andropov shrugged. 'I see,' he said. 'Very well. What is the scale of this map?'

'We are talking about a matter of fifty or sixty kilometres from our border, at its closest point, to this road, another fifteen to this one here.' The arrow of the light-pen danced like a moth on the surface of the map.

'You have ordered a new aerial reconnaissance?'

Vladimirov shook his head. 'All we could do in this weather is high-altitude infra-red, and that airframe is as cold as the landscape around it by now. We won't have photographs. Any search would have to be on the ground. We should have to cross the border — a small party…'

'But then, your deductions would have to be correct. They would have to be accurate — extremely accurate for a small party.'

'Working back along this white line, into the circle — sufficiently spread out, they could cover a wide area — '

'As long as the weather gets no worse and visibility drops no further — and just so long as the aircraft is not buried under the snow by now!'

Vladimirov shook his head. He enjoyed the Chairman's scepticism. It enlivened the debate and cemented their alliance. 'I think it's under the trees somewhere — he taxied it off a road under the trees.'

'And left it like a parked car?'

'Just like a parked car.'

Andropov looked doubtful. 'Is there any other way?' he asked.

'Your experts have been examining the tapes of Gant's interrogations ever since he escaped, in the hope of finding something, some concrete piece of evidence to indicate what he did with the aircraft.' Vladimirov's features hardened as he remembered. His hand squeezed the material of Andropov's jacket sleeve. The Chairman seemed not to resent the grip on his arm. 'He was about to tell us — on the point of telling, when he knocked himself out. He was within an inch-!' He held up his fingers, almost closed together. 'An inch, no more-'

'But, he didn't-'

Vladimirov shook his head. 'Your people are good, but they seem unable — '