The Russians, too, were inside Norwegian airspace.
The Firefox twisted, banked, flicked like a dart through the unseen mountains. Gant felt as if he were watching a grey blank screen ahead, through the haze of. snow swept aside by the slipstream. There was nothing. Except the sense of the mountains of the Finnmark around him intruding, seeping like a gas. He could not help but feel their solidity, their massive obstruction. They were a maze through which the TFR and the autopilot flung him. He was like a runner off-balance on a treacherous surface. So long as his flight was headlong, arms flailing, he kept upright, leaping from foot to uncertain foot. TFR — autopilot. Keeping him alive. He felt, too, the constant, chilly quivering of the fuselage as it met the impact of the storm outside. It was as if his own body was growing colder and colder; shivering violently.
The three Russian interceptors followed, but they were slowly dropping back. They might have been MiG- 25s, or even MiG-27s. They were not the Firefox. They were confused by ground-clutter, they had to trail him at an altitude above the mountains, they had to employ their manual skills. With each change of course, he gained upon them. He glanced at the map strapped to the thigh of his suit. His finger traced his course. Over the mountains east of the Lyngenfjord — flicking through that valley there, wings trembling as the aircraft banked and banked again through the turbulent air, following the valley's turns and twists…
A hundred miles from Bardufoss
The Firefox banked steeply, almost turning into a roll, then changed course again to follow a valley before lifting over an unseen ridge and then dropping lower into another fold of the land. Rock faces on either side crowded upon the slim black fuselage. He could not avoid imagining the landscape or tracing his course on the map. He knew it was reaction; reaction to everything — the MiGs that were dropping further and further behind him, the MiL helicopter that had filled the whole of his vision, the steep climb, even the hours before the take-off.
And it was Bardufoss. If the weather closed in, clamped down with high winds and nil visibility — a blizzard, close to white-out — he would never be able to land.
The thoughts unrolled like the images flicking upon the TFR screen; the blurs and lumps and flashing glimpses of radar-imaged mountains, rock faces, valleys -
The TFR screen went black. Grey. Empty. The aircraft was halfway into a steep turn, following -
No time! Much too late, a row of warning lights had rippled across the autopilot panel. No time -
The Firefox seemed to hang. Grey screen, grey beyond the perspex of the cockpit. Without instructions from the autopilot, the column did not move, the engine note did not change, the angle of bank remained. The two Turmanskys were driving him towards a terrain he could not see. Into it -
He sensed the storm outside the aircraft more vividly. The fuselage seemed to shudder, as if anticipating impact. He imagined the noise of the wind, felt he would be tumbled from the cockpit when the aircraft struck and would hear the wind — before…
Still his hands hesitated, clenched almost into claws.
He levelled the aircraft, pushed the throttles forward, cancelled the autopilot by pressing the button on the column, then pulled it towards him. Grey ahead of him, nothing, nothing, nothing…
The nose came up, the Firefox climbed. Four thousand feet. Four-and-a-half, five -
He was above the mountains. Sweat ran from beneath his arms. His facemask was fogged. On the radar, the MiGs seemed to have surged forward, away from the bottom of the screen towards its centre. They could see him clearly now; a target upon which to home. Gant shuddered uncontrollably, gripping the column as he levelled the aircraft at six thousand feet. He forced himself to look at the map on his knee, at the tiny printed heights of the peaks. Then he pulled back on the stick once more, lifting to eight thousand feet as quickly as he could.
The MiGs closed. He demanded a read-out from the computer. Contact time, fourteen seconds. He pushed the throttles forward, forcing the Mach-meter past Mach 2; flying blind.
He flicked on the UHF set. He would be over Bardufoss in minutes now. He had to know.
'Bardufoss Approach — this is Firefox. Over.' He listened. Checked the frequency. Listened. The UHF set was on, it should be working. 'Bardufoss Approach — come in, Bardufoss. This is Firefox. Over.'
The MiGs seemed to have halted, dropped back to near the bottom of the screen. He knew they would be listening. It was not a high-security channel. They were waiting. He shivered. They were waiting until he made hisapproach, slowed down, presented himself to them helplessly as he went in to land.
The UHF set crackled. A distant voice with a Scandinavian accent spoke to him. His hands jumped on the column, as if it had been a Russian voice. But he recognised the word 'Bardufoss'.
'Repeat, Bardufoss. Say again your message. I wish for landing instructions. Over.'
He waited, the aircraft at Mach 2. His positional read-out from the inertial navigator showed him sixty miles from Bardufoss. He was aware of the turbulence outside the aircraft, almost as if it was a warning.
'… is closed, repeat closed,' he heard. 'Estimated ceiling fifty feet in heavy snow. Runway visual range twenty yards with eighty-degree crosswind gusting to forty-five knots.' Then, in something of a more human tone. 'I am sorry, Firefox, but a landing at Bardufoss is impossible. We have blizzard conditions.'
And they would have heard.
'Thank you, Bardufoss — '
'Good — ' He cut off the hope, turning at once to the Soviet Tac-channel. Immediately, he heard the Russian chatter, the almost-glee, the agreement, the request for instructions, the decision, the tactics -
The MiGs surged towards the centre of the screen. He stared numbly at their advance upon him. They were at more than Mach 2, closing rapidly.
He was locked out by the storm. Already, other pursuing Soviet fighters were at the lower edge of his scope. But these three, closing so quickly — missile launch time, seven seconds — knew he was locked out. They were closing for the kill. He hesitated, expecting the leap of bright infra-red dots towards him as they fired their first missiles.
He moved his hands slowly, almost finding,
He groaned aloud. As he lifted his head, he drew the column towards him and thrust the throttles forward. The nose of the Firefox lifted, wobbling in the increasing turbulence. He had ignored it, ignored the weather worsening around him, because he had not wanted to understand, had not wished to admit that Bardufoss would be closed down.
The Mach-meter passed 2, then 2.2, 3, 7… The altimeter mounted through fifteen, then seventeen thousand. The MiGs below him altered course, striving to catch him. The Firefox raced up wards.
He broke out of the turbulent, snow-filled clouds at twenty-six thousand feet, into a searing eye-hurting blue sky. In the mirror, the cloud was massed and unbroken beneath him. The sun was low to the west. He climbed through forty thousand feet. Fifty-
The first of the Soviet fighters broke out of the cloud, a gleaming dot far below; a white blip at the lower edge of the scope. Then another gleaming spot joined it in the mirror, then a lagging third.
Gant levelled the Firefox at seventy thousand feet, and accelerated. The Mach-meter passed 4.5. The gleaming dots faded from the scope. The cloud lay unbroken over the Lofoten Islands. He crossed the Arctic Circle. Almost idly, he listened to the last fading chatter from the UHF. Within minutes, he would change the frequency to the principal NATO secure Tac-channel, so that he could identify himself to RAF Strike Command and obtain clearance to land at Scampton, his original destination. He altered course in order to gain a visual sighting over Shetland, still five hundred miles to the south — eight minutes' flying time. He grinned. He was a blur, a meteor, travelling a thousand miles an hour faster than any other aircraft in the world. He would have crossed the North Sea in another seven minutes; he would be over Shetland. Mach 5.1. Almost four thousand miles an hour.
It was over. He felt exhilarated. The radio chatter faded. He heard — what was it? Rostock? Whatever that meant… It didn't matter. Radar clear. Empty. He was alone. The Soviet exchanges faded and were gone.
Anna -
No. He put her carefully aside. The others were paler ghosts. They no longer troubled him. He was alive. He was in the Firefox. He had done it -
He looked down through a tear in the cloud. He was high over the North Sea. He was too high to see the flares burning off on the rigs. More gaps in the cloud. He was suspended above the flat, calm-looking sea. Elite;
