'Why not?' he repeated. 'Why can't you raise him?' He addressed the words to the ceiling. If the man failed to pick up his words, they would be repeated by the radio operator. He wished to remain detached.
But why did the countdown clock intrude at the very edge of his peripheral vision? It had nothing to do with the American. He could not ignore it. Thirteen minutes thirty. It was three-forty in the morning, his eyes were gritty with tiredness, his body stale and beginning to acquire an odor within its uniform. Yet his brain refused to be weary; it leaped and jumped with electricity.
He turned his back completely on the countdown clock.
'Well?' he demanded.
… no idea, comrade Colonel,' he caught by way of reply.
'And there were two aircraft in that hangar?'
'Yes, comrade—'
He interrupted: 'You were certain they were unusable?'
'The chief engineer explained—'
'What did he say — exactly?' Three forty-one. Time seemed to be accelerating. His mind obeyed the diminishing time, not with anxiety or fear but with a sense of keeping pace, even overtaking. His body itched for action. 'Exactly.'
All the checks, all the calls they had made, and only one failure to respond — this one a GRU private guarding two aircraft.
'One of them was stripped right down. We could see that for ourselves.'
'And the second one?' His tone was at one level of intensity, the volume of his words raised but constant; as if addressing a large crowd.
'… battery on charge ready to—' he caught, but his mind had plucked up his attention. He was ahead of the explanation outrunning the passing moments.
'Then it is only the battery!' he bellowed at the ceiling, his head spinning, the windows now completely black and opaque. 'If the battery were replaced in the aircraft it could fly!'
'Comrade Colonel, I don't—'
'Idiot!' he yelled. There was a triumph in his voice, large and unarticulated. But even as he shouted the single word, he felt that foilure had gripped his throat, constricting it. He could already, he could — dear God, the American had an aircraft! The windows no longer seemed opaque. The whole of mission control's huge extent rushed against the glass, clearly visible. He could at once pick out Rodin on the far side of the room, behind a glass panel similar to the one that divided him from the main room. Opponent. 'Idiot!' he choked. 'And now we can't raise your companion. Do you think by any remote chance he might be dead?' He waved his hand. 'Cut that clown off. Get me the collective's chief engineer — whoever knows about that plane. Hurry.'
He paused on some mental outcrop. He glanced at the upright toap, its violent colors shifting and blending and then standing out starkly like lights at evening. What should he—? What decision? A wrong move and—
What, what,
Serov dimly felt his nails digging into his palm. He was aware of mission control, aware of the countdown clock, which now seemed to have raced ahead of him. What should he do?
Voice of the radio operator calling the collective. No one would be attending to the radio at this time in the morning. Mistake—
'Cancel that call,' he yelled, surprising them and himself. Their faces turned to him, expectant, even demanding.
American… aircraft that needed only a battery… three forty-three in the morning… the temperature of the room, his mind a vast darkness lit with fires… his collar tight, faces looking in his direction, looking for direction.
Noise from the radio, another radio, a gunship calling in — map, colors flowing, then solid for a moment, white like a star. Gunship—
'Order — order,' he repeated more clearly, growling his throat free, 'that gunship to pick me up — now. Order the nearest gunship to pick me up. Order the others to rendezvous at, at the collectives hangar. Immediately.' He sounded breathless, young and somehow absurd. But they obeyed. 'Ask how long rendezvous will take, how long it will take to pick me up here.' His hands waved like those of a conductor, drawing sense from the chaos in his own head. 'At the collective, wait until I get there. Hurry.'
He grabbed up his overcoat and cap, even his gloves, from the chair against the windows where he had left them a long time before. Saw Priabin, who was at that moment looking up at him. From his hand of cards.
Serov almost raised his hand, almost clenched his fist at the KGB colonel, to threaten, to crush all in a single gesture. But did not. Priabin. His time was close. The American first.
'Hurry.'
Three forty-four. Ten minutes to launch time.
Ten minutes to launch time. Dimly, Priabin could make out Serov's bulk, his saturnine features beyond the tinted glass. Three forty-four on half the clocks in the room, ten minutes to launch on the other half. And the countdown ringing mechanically through the whole vast area. Cards in his hand — ridiculous, crazy. Serov's image more real at the glass for a moment than anything else. Then the man disappeared. Something of the urgency with which his shadow vanished communicated itself to Priabin, and his voice faltered in his bid. Bridge. Himself, surprisingly the guard — patronizing thought — and two computer technicians whose tasks were completed. At a loose end, like many others; catered for by a rest area in one corner of the huge room, marked off only by a ring of chairs. Cards, tobacco — no drink, naturally — the atmosphere of some company's staff club. Ludicrous.
Serov's sudden urgency worried Priabin.
'What was that, Colonel?' the guard asked almost affably. His tone suggesting Priabin wasn't a prisoner. 'What did you bid?'
'Two clubs,' he replied automatically. Serov's purpose — himself or Gant? It had to be one or the other. Immediately, his bruises ached again, his face a mask of dull pain. 'Two clubs,' he repeated like a spell.
'No bid,' one of the technicians murmured, tapping ash from his cigarette, after pausing for a moment to regard the magnified voice of the countdown.
'Nine minutes thirty and counting.'
The room murmured, called, moved around them like a tropical forest, its noises and activities lush and dense. Unreal. If he turned his head even slightly Priabin could see, through the glass panels of the command booth, Rodin and his senior staff grouped like visiting dignitaries. He felt anesthetized. The room worked on him like a strange new drug, inducing a pleased, satisfied tiredness. The guilt had left him; even the heap of coats under which he had buried Katya was no longer clear in his imagination. Anna and Valery Rodin had retreated to an even greater distance. There was only the room and the lunacy of playing bridge with his captors while the countdown rushed toward launch time.
'T minus nine minutes and counting.'
Serov emerged from the door below the tinted glass windows of the security room. Hurrying, urgent, almost possessed. And yet he spared a glance for Priabin. And a quick, greedy smile. Priabin's head cleared. It could only be Gant.
Serov strode toward one of the control room's doors, pursued by two of his team. Overcoat over his arm, cap in hand, hurrying as if tate for an appointment. Priabin turned to where Rodin stood amid his staff officers. He hadn't noticed Serov's departure.
Serov had found Gant, at least knew where he could lay his hands on him. And seemed assured of doing so. The grin of success. Priabin was shaken out of his lassitude. Rodin — Rodin had simply walked away from him at the top of the steps, after his confidences regarding his wife. Simply walked away and had addressed no word to him since then. Obsessed with the countdown, the launch.
And now Serov, too, was preoccupied. Rodin would launch and Serov would capture Gant.
Gant released the brake. It seemed a massive effort. The Antonov struggled forward, unleashed and awkward, then bumped and rolled across the sand and straggling grass toward the flattened, undulating runway. The wind was light, less than five knots, and blowing at an angle across the runway. No problem.
He increased the engine power. The Antonov bucked over the uneven ground. Its power was feeble, yet it was enough for him. The din of the engine banged like hammers in the cockpit and echoed down the narrowing
