Firefox Down

his next movement, the coming hours, were forced to his attention. He was reluctant to leave the Mercedes and the quiet, respectful, reassuring company of the Finns.

A drab-painted trailer was drawn up near the Harrier. It had been towed into position by a Land-Rover. The arrangement of the vehicles and the aircraft disturbed him. It appeared temporary; a beginning.

'Major Gant?' the Finn next to him on the rear seat enquired politely, as if to re-establish some former identity. 'Would you please leave the car now and go to the trailer?' The Mercedes drew up a matter of yards from the trailer with its blank windows and dark-grey, wet flanks. 'Please, Major Gant — '

He gripped the door handle. All three of them were watching him with a patient curiosity. Already distancing themselves.

'Thanks,' he said.

'Our pleasure,' one of them said with an engaging smile. 'Good luck, Major.'

'Sure.'

He got out of the car, hunching his shoulders immediately against the cold sting and splash of the driven sleet. He hurried the few yards of wet concrete to the trailer. The door opened, as if at some electronic signal from himself. He climbed the two steps, wiped his feet on a rough mat, and only then looked up as the door closed behind him.

He recognised neither man in the room. There was a smell of wetness from the olive-green flying suit worn by one of them. He seemed to appraise Gant more quickly, but less expertly, than the one in the fur hat and the leather overcoat. A pilot's helmet lay on a plain wooden table, flanked by two cups.

'Coffee?' the man in the overcoat asked, holding out his hand. 'Forgive me — my name is Vitsula. I am a — friend of Kenneth Aubrey. My men were the ones who met you at the border. Oh, this is Flight Lieutenant Thorne of the British Royal Air Force.' The pilot nodded. 'That is his transport parked next to us.' Vitsula smiled. 'Coffee?' he repeated.

'Uh-oh, yes. Sure.'

Gant remained looming near the doorway, ill at ease. He was assailed by premonitions. Vitsula moved and talked with the ease of seniority. By 'friend' he meant counterpart. Hence the trailer. Vitsula was helping Aubrey, but Finland was neutral. No, there wasn't anything to concern him here. No more than a covert exit from Finland in the second seat of the Harrier trainer. He moved towards the table and sat down. Vitsula, pouring coffee from the percolator's jug, nodded in approval.

As he sat down, the Finn said, 'You realise, of course, Major, why we must have these precautions? I'm sorry it is cold. The heater is not working.' Vitsula sipped at his coffee. 'Apparently, you are required — cigarette? No? Ah — required in Oslo, at NATO Southern Norway headquarters. Your people wish to talk to you urgently. I can understand that.' He smiled, exhaling the blue, acrid smoke. It filled the cramped trailer at once. 'I have been in contact with Kenneth Aubrey — who is in Kirkenes at the moment. They have been trying, very unsuccessfully I gather, to rescue the aircraft.'

Gant appeared shocked. 'How?'

'By winching it out of the lake where you left it, Major.'

'They didn't manage it?'

'Yes, they did. But, they cannot get it out of the area. Their helicopter didn't arrive. The weather — a breakdown.'

'Shit,' Gant breathed, passing from surprise to disappointment in an instant, almost without registering the implied events of the past days. 'It's out, you say?'

'So I am led to believe.' He shrugged, blowing a rolling cloud of smoke at the low ceiling. 'Do the Russians know its location?' Gant glanced at the pilot, who nodded.

'Not from me,' Gant replied slowly.

'That will be welcome news to my minister,' Vitsula sighed. 'Very welcome. Excellent, in fact. Yes, excellent. Of course, we shall inform them in due course — we shall have to…' He held up his hand as Gant's face darkened and his lips moved. 'Kenneth Aubrey and your Mr. Buckholz know all this. It is not my decision. The aircraft will be without certain systems, I imagine, by the time it is handed over. You will not quite have wasted your time, Major.' Vitsula stood up. 'Excuse me, now, I have arrangements to make. When you have finished your coffee, you may leave at your leisure. Do not concern yourself. Major, at the fate of a machine. You, after all, are alive and safe. That should be enough. Good morning. Good morning, Flight Lieutenant.'

Vitsula adjusted the fur hat on his head, opened the door and went out. Gant turned his head from the door towards Thorne.

'What the hell's going on?' he snapped in a tight, angry voice. 'They've got the damn thing out of the lake?'

'So I'm told.'

'Who's Vitsula?'

'Director-General of their intelligence service. The top man.'

'Why a Harrier?' Gant snapped. 'I know what they do. I've flown our AV-8A. Why a Harrier?' He looked around him, then, and added: 'Is this place safe?'

'I think so. Vitsula said it was. I don't think he'd want to listen, anyway.'

'To what?'

'What happens next.' Thorne was smiling. The smile of a young man, his fingers dipped gently, pleasingly, into the waters of covert work. It was evident on his features that he was enjoying himself immensely.

'What happens next?'

'We take off for Oslo — '

'And when we arrive?'

'Just in case — would you like to get changed? I brought a spare suit. Your bonedome is in the cockpit…' Thorne heaved a pressure suit, folded and compressed, onto the wooden table from the floor of the trailer. 'Get into that — then we can talk in the privacy of my aircraft.' It was lightly said, with an English confidence, a sense of joking, of game-playing. The tone angered Gant quite unreasonably, Anna came back. Blue hole, surprise. No anger. She should have been angry -

He leant across the wooden table and grabbed Thorne's forearm, gripping it tightly. Thorne's narrow, dark good looks twisted, became dislike.

'Before we fucking go anywhere, friend — tell me what happens when we get there! I don't give a shit if this trailer's bugged by the Kremlin — answer the question!' He squeezed Thorne's arm. The pilot winced, tried to pull his arm away, groaned.

'All right — all right, you bloody crazy Yank! Let go of my arm, damn you!'

Gant released his grip. Thorne immediately applied himself to rubbing his forearm, beneath the suit's sleeve. He kept his face averted. Eventually, when he had ceased rubbing, he looked up.

'You're not going to Oslo. We drop off the radar as if making an approach, then I turn the Harrier north.' The confusion on the American's face lessened the threat he posed. Thorne appeared to remember other superiors, more pressing priorities. 'Look, I shouldn't be telling you any of this until we're airborne — ' he protested.

'Why only then?' Gant snapped. 'I could still pull the cord and go out on the bang-seat! Tell me now.'

Thorne hesitated. Gant leaned towards him again. Thorne's arm flinched onto his lap like a startled cat. Gant picked up the folded suit and dropped it heavily on the floor.

'All right. But it's your fault if anything goes wrong-!'

'You don't think Vitsula's worked things out? Man, they all know everything that's going on. It's just one big game. The most dangerous game — people get killed. If Vitsula can't make the right guesses about your airplane, then he won't be in his job for long. Even I can guess…but I don't want to. Now, tell me.'

Gant stood at one of the small, blacked-out windows. Peering through it, he could see Vitsula had taken his place in the back of the Mercedes. An old turboprop transport lurched upwards towards the cloud. He listened to Thorne's voice as if to something reiterated and already known.

'We turn north — heading up the Gulf of Bothnia into Lapland. Across the Finnmark to Kirkenes. She's almost fully fuelled — we have the range to make it in one hop.'

'Aubrey's at Kirkenes,' Gant murmured.

'Yes, old man-'