Winter Hawk

He dropped weakly to his knees, his head bowed. His growl of refusal became more like sobbing. It wouldn't fly, he could never make it fly.

16: Consider the Phoenix

The Botanical Gardens lay blankly white with snow, the panes of glass in its iron-framed hothouses were steamed and dreary like the windows of passing buses. The glass through which he looked was also misting, along the whole length of the gallery. The lake lay beyond the gardens, and beyond that the last of the daylight caught the tips of the Mont Blanc range. The snow-flanked mountains marched into the distance, into other countries. Defense Minister Zaitsev considered them, rubbing his chin with his left hand, cupping his elbow with his right. It was an almost philosophical pose, he realized, but appropriate to the television solemnities taking place in the gallery of Geneva's Palais des Nations.

Then he turned his back on the view. He had been outside the Soviet Union many times, but to the West only perhaps on three or four occasions. He always seemed to look at such places through thick glass.

He gave his attention to the Soviet foreign minister, Vladimir Shiskin, who stood beside him. He had not been as successful as Zaitsev in appearing engrossed by the view. His square, sallow features — Zaitsev had to lower his eyes to the man's face, Shiskin was a short man — were alert like those of a cornered animal. While he appeared to stare across Lake Geneva, Zaitsev's thoughts had not, for a moment, left the subject that had raised itself between them-Shiskin, of course, had had to be briefed. As the most prominent pro-army member of the Politburo, apart from himself, it had been necessary to tell him — unfortunately necessary — of the compressed launch schedule for the laser weapon. It would be Shiskin who would prepare, then mollify, Nikitin.

'You're satisfied, then?' Shiskin repeated. 'This is not a move of desperation?'

'No, it is not a desperate move.' Zaitsev smiled sardonically. 'Is that your question, Vladimir Yurievich, or does it originate with another of our little group? Were you told to ask it?'

'It is — a general feeling, my friend. A general feeling.' Shiskin seemed to acquire stature from his fiction of. consensus. Zaitsev glanced at the television monitor to his left. Farther along the gallery, Nikitin and the American President were reassuring the world; basking in their separate lies. Behind them, the town's miniature image retreated into the evening darkness. The fingertip mountains were purpled, indistinct. Zaitsev glanced through the windows again, then back to the screen. Somehow, the shrunken image of Geneva and its landscapes satisfied him more.

'Very well,' he said. 'And are you sure of our party?' He watched Shiskin's eyes. They were doubtful, as was the group they reflected. Afraid, naturally. But not deserters, not yet.

'Confident.'

'Then assure them Rodin knows exactly what he is doing — and that what he is doing has the full approval of Stavka.'

Rodin was — what? Panicking? Possibly, but that was an easy thing to do, at the eleventh hour. On the brink of Lightning. And destroying the American shuttle as soon as possible would bind their group on the Politburo more closely to Stavka and the army. Nevertheless, Zaitsev wished he had spoken personally to Rodin. What exactly was happening at Baikonur? Was anything amiss?

He rubbed his chin once more, his contemplative gaze directed at the television monitor, from which the voices of Nikitin — speaking in English in honor of the occasion — and Calvin issued like those of distant children, crouched in separate corners of the room, speaking to each other through tin cans connected by string.

'Consider the phoenix,' he murmured. 'What?'

'The phoenix. The army mustn't be allowed to burn to ashes just in order to be reborn — must it, Vladimir Yurievich?'

I don't see—'

'Don't you? We are here, you and I and the others, precisely because the old men were removed. Policies have changed. Nikitin Reamed of a twenty-first-century army, high technology to the fore-'^nt — before he decided to give the people toys to play with. He's reneging on solemn promises made to the army — for the sake of gadgets in the shops. Computer games instead of thinking missiles.' Zaitsev smiled at his own grandiloquence. 'He wants the phoenix to burn itself to death and not rise from its own ashes. We have to prevent that. If we do not, history will judge us.' His tone was calculated, but he found himself impressed by his sentiments. Perhaps it was the proximity of the monitor and the events it foretold, perhaps the distant mountains, perhaps the American entourage or even all the marble from all over the world that decorated this place… anyway, Shiskin was nodding docilely, attempting stature once more.

'I agree, my friend. We all agree.' Shiskin sighed.

'Good, good.' Calvin was speaking from the monitor. Zaitsev looked along the gallery. In reality, it was too confined for the televised press conference, but the backdrop of the city, lake, and mountains was considered too delicious to be omitted. The worlds press representatives were crushed together on a steeply raked dais and seated on narrow chairs; like an audience at an intimate little theater club. The larger settings of the Salle des Pas Perdus and the great Assembly Room were reserved for the climax of the drama the following day. Farce? No, Zaitsev could not quite call it that. The treaty was still dangerous — not quite a farce. All the elements of one, but no one in the theater was laughing yet. He nodded slowly to himself, and realized he was nodding in time to Calvin's portentous phrases as if they were soft, commanding taps upon a military drum.

'Good, good,' he repeated, as if approving Calvin's sentiments. Then he chuckled, a sudden and unnerving noise. 'We won't fail, he announced. The certainty of the words seemed, even to him, clouded with fervor. 'We can't afford to,' he added. 'And failure is impossible.' Yes, he had achieved the right confidence of tone. He slapped his broad hand on Shiskin's shoulder. 'Cheer up, Vladimir Yurievich, cheer up. We're almost at the winning post.'

He glanced from the screen beside them to the misting glass of the huge window. Garish lights from the city, encroaching darkness masking the lake. The mountains glimmering like weary ghosts of themselves. He shivered. He found Geneva an alien place, as if he had no right to be there.

Zaitsev removed his hand from Shiskin's shoulder, sensing that its pressure was no longer reassuring; maybe even threatening.

The press gallery broke into applause. The conference was at an end. The purpled, garishly lit darkness outside the windows seemed to rush headlong against the glass.

Foggily, he saw that it was ten o'clock. He did not understand why the hands of the old-fashioned clock on the wall should impinge quite so vividly, but they did. For a moment they obtruded more than the pain of the blows, more than the fear» of Serov's unbridled rage.

Priabin fell heavily again. Serov's boot struck him in the side, sinking into his ribs. The pain slowly, irresistibly penetrated his dulled, disoriented awareness. No one else touched him. Just Serov. No one asked him questions, not even Serov. There was just the beating. I owe you pain, he'd announced with the voice and manner of a bank clerk; except that his eyes were fierce and greedy. At first, his people had held Priabin, but with the second flurry of blows— he could only use his right hand — and the second bout of kicks while he lay huddled in a fetal position on the floor, Serov's men served only to drag him each time to his feet, then let him go so that Serov could bull against and into him.

No questions, nothing but the beating. He was quite vividly aware he was becoming drunk with pain. He saw Gant drop out of sight from the MiL's main cabin, over and over again like an unending loop of film. Mostly, however, he saw Anna's dead face, Rodin's limbs splayed on his bed, Katya's form disguised by the heap of coats he had thrown over her. Gradually, these recurring images explained the beating. He had deserved it—

— and however horrible, he allowed no part of him to oppose or struggle. It was unimportant that it was Serov administering the blows.

Kick in the head, his hands had not covered it quickly enough — a red mist, his agonized coughing and groaning much too loud his ears, inside his head, huge noises. His body could no longer tense in expectation, he felt his ribs grinding together. Flashes of Pain bloomed, died, spread again, were replaced by others; an artillery bombardment. His hands moved in a slow, lost way down to his groin, clutching at that more fiery area of pain. Red mist—

— slowly, frighteningly slowly, clearing to a wet, gray fog, and [he noises in his ears becoming those in the