Eastoe reported troop movements, in extreme weather conditions, along the Soviet border with Finland, near the southern end of Lake Inari. Buckholz confirmed that a reconnaissance party had reached the lake's western shore, and had been identified as Russian. Waterford had taken a party of marines to intercept them. Now, Aubrey waited for the report of that intervention.
No, he told himself. He was not waiting for that. He already knew what would be learned. A party of Russians had discovered the location of the Firefox, had discovered that it had been retrieved from the lake — in effect, had cancelled his every advantage. He and whoever controlled the operation in Moscow were now on level terms. Utterly level terms.
His rage of self-recrimination had passed, leaving him spent and tired. If the window in the weather appeared at all over the lake, then it would appear over those gathering Russian troops at the border no more than thirty minutes later. Thirty minutes…
Ridiculous. He was beaten. When Buckholz asked him to make a decision, he would accept defeat with ill- grace and snapping, waspish irony, but he would accept it nevertheless. He would instruct Buckholz to rip out the choicest pieces from the cockpit and airframe and try to get them away in the Lynx helicopters. Yes, he would do that. A Chinook would never get to the lake from Bardufoss before the Russians. His party at the lake would be outnumbered, captured, but probably not harmed. He would order them to display no resistance.
Perhaps he should tell Waterford not to engage the reconnaissance party?
Too late to interfere.
Very well. They must salvage what they could. Something of the MiG-31's secrets, at any rate.
'He's coming in now!' Curtin announced from the other side of the room. Both he and the operator were wearing headsets. They were listening to the dialogue between Thorne, the Harrier pilot, and Kirkenes Tower. Instinctively, like a man opening his own door sensing that he has been burgled, Aubrey-glanced at the window. Skogeroya, barely visible, the town almost hidden. The snow flying -
No! he wanted to say. Don't take any chances now -
But he said nothing, merely nodded at Curtin, who stared strangely at him. Watching the lead of his headset, the American moved towards the window. The radio operator, too, had turned in his seat for a better view. Aubrey put the signals back on the table and banged down the paperweight. Then he joined Curtin.
The Harrier seemed to appear suddenly, a darker dot against the wet greyness of the mountains. It was there, a moment after there had been nothing to see except a few wind-flung gulls. It seemed to rush towards the airfield and its single runway, directly towards them. Behind it, the weather seemed to hurry in pursuit, closing around the mountains and the grey water of the Korsfjord. Aubrey could hear the chatter of voices dimly from the headset clamped over Curtin's ears. He did not wish to listen, and stepped away. He felt his body tense, his hands clench.
The aircraft raced the weather in from the fjord. The dot of the Harrier became something winged, something steady which then wobbled dangerously, as light and naked as one of the gulls being swept about.
Curtin audibly drew in his breath through his teeth. A high eerie whistling sound full of anxiety. Aubrey wanted to tell him to stop. The noise hurt his ears like fingernails drawn down a blackboard. The Harrier enlarged, racing towards them. The runway stretched out like a grey, wet finger towards the approaching aircraft and its pursuing storm. The wings waggled again, uncertain.
Again, Curtin drew in his breath. The runway lights shone feebly in the gloom. There was nothing except the Harrier, poised against the oncoming darkness. Then it dropped, almost as if falling, towards the end of the runway. It touched, seemed to bounce, then rolled across their line of sight. The weather swept over the aircraft, obscuring it, blanking out the entire scene.
'It's OK, it's OK,' Curtin repeated. 'He's OK… he's slowing, yes, he's OK —
THIRTEEN:
Outside the Rock Pool
Waterford exhaled audibly through his teeth. Brooke, lying next to him on the crest of the rise, waited for his description of what he could see through the MEL thermal imager.
He continued to traverse the area below them, his face pressed behind the curving grey box of the imager, its rifle-like grip clenched in his mittened hand. Eventually, he appeared satisfied, and rolled onto his back.
'Want a look?'
'You tell me,' Brooke replied.
'I count twelve of them… you can even see the sap in the trees with this toy. It's warmer than the bark.' Brooke grinned. 'Shame of it is, you can't see what weapons they're carrying.'
They had rounded the southern end of the lake, well wide of the shore, then turned to encounter the rising ground between the two lakes. Waterford and his men were now above and behind the Russians. The surrounding trees were all but stripped of snow. The wind hurled itself between the massed trunks, flinging the snow horizontally before it. It was impossible to obtain any sighting of the Russians without the use of the thermal imager which was capable, on its narrowest field of view, of picking up a human body's emissions of warmth at a range of a thousand metres.
'We're going to have to get closer,' Waterford continued with a seeming lack of enthusiasm. 'You and me. Brief your men to stay put. I'll wait for you, ducky.'
Brooke slipped off into the murky, snow-blown light, crouching just below the crest of the rise as he hurried from tree to tree. The shore of the lake was two hundred yards away. Visibility was little more than fifty — yes, Brooke had already vanished, after pausing to speak to the first two-man SBS unit.
Grenade launcher, he thought. Or mortar. Even an RPG-7 rocket launcher. If they had all or any of those, and they well might, coupled with a laser rangefinder, then at the first sign of trouble they could put the Firefox on the scrap-heap. Their weaponry was more important than their numbers, their knowledge, even the radio with which they had undoubtedly communicated with Moscow.
He waited for seven minutes, then saw Brooke emerge from the snow-haze between the firs, and move towards him in a crouch. He slid into a prostrate position next to Waterford.
'Well?'
'OK. Sergeant Dawson's got our friends on the other imager. His count is thirteen, of course.' Brooke smiled. His breath was still hurrying from him. 'They're to give us fifteen minutes, no more. Dawson's doing some pinpointing for the others. I told them I wanted the radio operator alive, if possible. OK?'
Waterford nodded. 'That's about it. He's more likely to talk than the officer or the sergeants. OK, let's go.'
Waterford raised his head, and closed the thermal imager to his face once more. Satisfied, he slung the device at his back and moved the Heckler & Koch caseless rifle to greater accessibility across his chest. He gripped its bulky, almost shapeless form with both hands, climbed over the crest of the rise and began to descend. Brooke moved a few paces behind and to his left. They slipped from tree to tree as quickly and silently as they could. Waterford counted the yards they gained towards the shore, waiting for the moment of visibility. Twice he stopped to check the images revealed through the MEL device. Strange, firelit, patchy ghosts, forms that danced and wavered and changed shape.
He was suspicious of a small group hunched around each other, but not around any central image. No fire, no heater brewing coffee or tea — that was fifty yards away to the left of the group on which he focused. The radio might be there. In the freezing air around each body, each patch of warmth, each heater and cigarette, produced an image. But, in the middle of the group that attracted his attention, there was nothing.
Waterford believed that a grenade launcher or mortar sat, barrel elevated, in the centre of the three shifting flame-shapes he could see through the imager. If such a weapon was there, then it wouid have to be destroyed; its operators killed.
He motioned Brooke forward, pointing out his exact direction. Then he followed. They had covered perhaps a hundred yards of forward movement. Within another forty or fifty yards at the most, he would be able to see them. They would be able to see him. Ahead, Brooke moved with greater caution, with something almost comic in the
