Winter Hawk

Priabin knew he had been monumentally stupid. The general would be angry at any interruption, four days from the launch. He shook his head. Monumentally stupid.

'Well?' Rodin asked. His jacket was buttoned and smoothed, his cap in his hand.

Priabin rubbed a hand through his dark hair. Nodded.

'You still refuse to tell me?'

'I have nothing to say.' A mere formality of a reply.

'Very well.' Priabin sighed, waving a dismissive hand.

Immediately, Rodin stood up. Smiled. Walked across the carpet with what might have been a strut of pleasure, with an authority that made his movements more masculine. He grinned into Priabin's face, his eyes no longer tired, his mouth continuing to sneer.

Dmitri Priabin ignored him, staring out of the window. Beyond the giant assembly building and the glowing hangar, the lights of a dormitory town threw a faint stain on the clouds. The lights of the old town, Tyuratam, illuminated the sky to the south. He could just make out the skeletal gantries of the nearest launch pads against the glow. Across the flat country, toward the eastern horizon, groups of lights appeared like the encampments of units in some vast, invisible army. Missile silos, watch towers, factories, railway yards, power stations, the airport, towns, villages. The vast settlement of Baikonur; the army's Baikonur.

Now he wished he had let Rodin go at once; never even arrested him. He was angry with his former mood of bravado. He did want to keep his nose clean, keep his cushy billet until — until he used the tool that had been given him to ensure his return to Moscow Center with some sort of small triumph. Now he might need Kedrov's arrest just to fend off the general's anger… Shit.

'Just keep looking through your window,' Rodin purred close to his ear. 'You'll have plenty to look at in the next four days. It should keep you occupied.' Priabin glanced at him. He seemed inebriated with release and his sense of superiority over the KGB colonel. His mood seemed excessive, but promised trouble for Priabin. 'You can watch Lightning get under way.'

Because the words seemed choked, bitten off, Priabin looked up.

'Lightning? What's that?'

'I—' Hesitation? Confusion? Rodin seemed regretful, nervous; emotions pursued a hurried course across his narrow face. Concluding in a tight-mouthed self-assurance and a glance around the office as if to dismiss any authority that might reside within it. 'I meant Linchpin—the launch… Linchpin.'

'Linchpin,' Priabin echoed dubiously. 'The launch of the laser battle station?'

'Yes. Just that.' His face was close to Priabin s eyes. Priabin could smell the meat from the sandwiches on his breath, scent the last whiff of the boy's heavy cologne. 'I said nothing else — understand? Nothing.' He moved away, then drawled affectedly and without real conviction: 'I can go now?'

'Yes.'

Rodin nodded, placed his cap on his pale hair, clicked his boot heels in an ironic gesture, and left the room. Priabin heard him whistling in the outer office. The noise faded in the corridor.

Why had he been threatened? Rodin had forgotten everything else, even his petty revenge, because of that one word, his slip of the tongue. Lightning? Rodin had quite evidently and deliberately threatened him, told him to forget the slip.

Lightning? What the devil was Lightning?

It was important, and it was a secret…

He was startled by the opening of the door, having failed to register the polite knock. Viktor Zhikin, his second-in-command, appeared relieved.

Tm glad you — dropped the matter,' he said at once.

'What? Oh.' Priabin attempted a broad, dismissive smile. 'Why try to buck the system, Viktor? who wants the heartache, mm?'

Zhikin moved his hand almost as if to pat Priabin s shoulder. Priabin grinned unconvincingly. His awareness returned to—

— Lightning. Not Linchpin, as the first of the laser weapons was code-named. Lightning.

'What?' he mumbled, aware that Zhikin was speaking once more.

'Sorry — are we going to pull Kedrov and the cycle-shop owner in for questioning? The surveillance teams want to know. You said tonight.' Zhikin's voice was firm, even parental. It reminded Priabin of his responsibilities. It reminded him, too, that the spy was perhaps the key to his own future, now that he had made an enemy of Rodin, even of the boy's father. 'They want to know if they should go in and try to find the transmitter. It doesn't look as if Kedrov is going to go back there since he was spooked by those clods following him.' Zhikin was angry, self- critical.

'Not your fault, Viktor — they should never have been spotted by an amateur like him. Idiots.' He rubbed his chin.

'Where's the dog?'

'What? Oh, Grechkova's taken him for his walk. Now, what do we do about Kedrov?'

'Where is he?'

'Still in his flat.'

'And Orlov?'

'In bed above the shop.'

Priabin looked at his watch. Midnight. Rodin had been there since early evening. He wouldn't have liked that, he'd want some revenge for the — the inconvenience he'd been put to. Yes, it would be better to have the agent and his transmitter man in the bag before the shit hit the fan.

Priabin nodded. 'OK. It's a bit late in the day to let him go on running around. Time to chop off that particular chicken's head. We'll go in at dawn — warn the teams. You and I will supervise Orlov's arrest. I want that transmitter, and no cock-ups.'

Zhikin smiled. 'Great,' he said. 'Fine — sir.'

'Sure.'

Threat, insolence, superiority, arrogance, contempt — he'd seen all those on Rodin's face. And fear, too, together with concern, self-accusation, anxiety — and a clear sense of danger.

Lightning. It meant something, something vitally important concerning the laser weapon. Lightning.

What the hell did it mean?

Snow was blowing across the tinted green windows, making their color colder, almost repellent. The illuminated spike of the Washington Monument looked even more than ever like some spacecraft waiting to be launched. Anders felt uncomfortable in the Oval Office. He wanted to loosen his tie, relax his sitting posture. It wasn't awe, or even tension. It was the weight of events.

New Year's, he thought. Just New Year's — and now this. He looked down at the sheet covered with his own handwriting. Come for me at once, before they find me. I must go into hiding, the agreed rendezvous. Hurryy come immediately.

Kedrov's panic button, his cry for help. He was terrified. Of something he referred to as Lightning, though he didn't explain. 1 know about Lightning, and they know I know. Hurry. The desperation was clearly there. Kedrov had gone into the undergrowth. Gant and his people were stalled at Nellis in Nevada. It was coming unglued, the whole operation.

Kedrov might even have been picked up by now

Because of the tension, Anders felt cut off from the outside. Langley, across the Potomac, was separated from him by a vast gulf. He was there to report, at the director's insistence, as mission officer for Winter Hawk. But there was nothing to report. The Galaxy transport aircraft was still sitting in its hangar at Nellis AFB in Nevada, two hours after the mission was activated. Three hours now. Winter Hawk was stalled.

As if rebuffing the tension, the defeat in the room's air, Calvin was rehearsing old speeches, old hopes.

'We fell for it — we were suckered into this treaty, Dick. We thought they were so frightened they had to