Winter Hawk

A pillar of fire ascended to starboard, to the north. It was as if some gigantic mirror caught the light from the bonfire of the gunship. The column of flame rose hundreds of feet into the night and went on climbing. Its cloudy base spread, roiled and then faded. The pillar of smoke and flame continued to rise. He knew what it was.

It surged thousands of feet, whole miles, into the sky. He knew.

Lift-off. Launch commit. Lift-off.

He was alive, but he had already lost. They'd launched the shut-tie, and the laser weapon was aboard. Lightning. They'd begun it.

A fireworks display. But the analogy diminished the event. The huge map with its winking lights representing radar stations and the wiggling course of the American shuttle seemed shrunken. Instead, Priabin's gaze and that of everyone in the control room had become fixed on the large-screen projection against a distant wall. The column of smoke, lit from within, the falling aside of the skeletal structure of the launch gantry, the boiling fumes, the huge, enveloping, frightening roar of fire were all somehow slowed, so that he could sense the great forces, the huge weight to be thrown into the sky. The needle of the vast missile, the fragile toy of the Raketoplan perched on it as if impaled by the great steel spear. He found it hard to breathe, and then only shallowly. The whole room seemed not to be breathing.

There was only the magnified voice of the countdown. Booster ignition… we have a launch commit… shuttle craft Kutuzov has cleared the tower…

Cheering beginning like the slow opening of one great mouth. The sound elongated like the slow-moving film he could see on the screen. His chest felt tight.

… principal stage engines look good… T plus four seconds…

A jolt to the image on the screen as the rocket motors of the principal stage of the booster passed out of the camera's field, to be replaced by the image from a more distant camera. The pillar of cloud was glowing from the fire within it as it rose above the launch pad, climbing into the night; extinguishing darkness. Little else could be seen. The cameras peered into the dark, but the weather-cock-like shuttle riding on top of the hundred meter-high needle was invisible. The cameras swung upward, as if raised by the cheering and self-congratulatory voices in mission control. Atlantis' orbit writhed like a long white worm on the principal map, which winked now with new lights; telemetry stations tracking the launch.

The noise of success went on and on. T plus fifty seconds. Mach 1. One minute and twenty seconds to first stage separation… Kutuzov, you're still looking good. Strange that the very jargon of the launch was so American, so much an imitation of what happened in Florida and Texas. Kedrov, he thought, Kedrov with his foolish dreams of America would have been wounded by the ironies of mission control's single voice.

Thinking of Kedrov and realizing that the man was probably dead already, Priabin glanced up at the row of tinted windows behind which lay the security room. And what Serov had left behind of his team.

Gesticulating hands and arms. Signals of anger, surprise. A uniformed officer was standing close to the windows, and Priabin could see him quite clearly. The noises of mission control were becoming more routine, less excited, as if they, too, were intrigued by the scene in the security room. Two men facing each other now, shouting silently; like a domestic quarrel behind glass.

… altitude fifteen miles and looking good, Kutuzov. On the big projection screen, the pillar of cloud was thin and without the power to impress, the orange flame at its tip hardly visible. T plus two minutes, first-stage separation… Control, this is Kutuzov—ready for first-stage separation…first-stage burnout, we have first stage burnout. Priabin glanced again at the tinted windows. They were still arguing, hands being rubbed almost desperately through untidy hair. The projection screen showed the tiny flick of light and smoke as the giant first stage of the booster fell away and the second stage motors ignited. Ignition of second stage successful… Roger, Kutuzov, we can see that. You are negative return, Kutuzov… Roger, mission control, we are negative return…

They could no longer return to Baikonur, they were too high and too far into the flight. Priabin turned away from the screen and ignored the voices because there was no possibility of doing anything… but that — argument? Why were they shocked and panicking up there in the security room? Gant?

They moved away from the windows. The officer had been staring in Rodin's direction for some seconds before turning away. What was it?

He turned to his guard, lounging in his chair, idly watching the projection screen and the fiber-optic map. Winking telemetry, the worm of the American shuttle's plotted orbit, the new red stripe that revealed the course of the Kutuzov.

'I want to go up to the security room,' he announced.

The guard shrugged, and seemed to study Priabin's bruised and swollen features. 'OK,' he said. 'I'll have to come, Colonel.' Priabin nodded and turned toward the tinted windows. What was it? They were frightened. He could tell that almost as easily as if he had been in the room. A peculiar sensation plucked at his chest as he climbed the concrete steps. The corridor was chill and unfinished. It had been little more than a gray blur when he followed Rodin along it, having been rescued from Serov's malevolence. Had something happened to—? Pray God it has, he replied to his own silent question. The guard's boots pursued with leisurely clicks and echoes. He opened the door of the security room.

A high voice strained and shouting from the radio. A still panicked reception of the words.'… still burning. No, there's no bloody hope of anyone being alive in that mess! Burned to a crisp, the whole bloody crew! What would you expect, you prick?'

'Calm down!' the lieutenant cried back at the microphone that abused him. Sweat was a gray sheen on his pale forehead, his narrow, dark features were lopsided with indecision and imagined pain; someone else's agony. What had—?

'What the hell's going on?' Priabin asked the nearest member of Serov's team, a corporal with radio operator's flashes on his sleeve. He shook him excitedly. 'What is it?'

The corporal ran thick fingers over cropped fair hair. His eyes were blank with shock. 'American bastard got the colonel,' was the one thing Priabin heard with clarity.

A fierce, even shameful delight spread through him. He grasped the fact, the implications immediately. And was glad. Serov was dead. Gant had killed Serov?

'How? How, man, how?' He was shaking the corporal by the upper arms. The lieutenant's eyes were narrow with suspicion.

From a wall speaker, the voice of mission control continued; seemingly incongruous now.

… second-stage separation complete — looking goody Kutuzov. Altitude, eighty miles, speed eighteen thousand kilometers per hour…

The distances and speeds were hard to grasp, the dialogue flip and stagy — Serov was dead! He felt his body shiver with relief.

The lieutenant snapped: 'Your American friend blew up a fuel dump — incinerated the colonels helicopter. That's how.' There was awe, and shock, but the respect implied by the use of Serov's rank seemed imposed only by death.

'And Gant — the American?' Priabin returned.

'Gone. Taken off. Certainly not destroyed.'

The lieutenant's hand waved toward the room's fiber-optic map and the console operator beside it who was feeding in the search coordinates. He alone seemed unaffected by the incineration of the gunship.

On the map, the elements of the search buzzed like frantic fireflies, small lights maddened by an insecticide. Gunships, other aerial units, ground units. Small lights, but giant, awkward, lumbering attempts to form a net. Gant, he knew, was already gone. The rat in the corner did not panic — it bit the weakest ankle, then fled as it was hunted with increasing desperation. That was Gant. His survival was his only priority.

They'd lost him anyway. That was already obvious. So Priabin began to consider the video cassettes that Gant had with him and Gant's eventual destination. Turkey or Pakistan. With an aircraft, Gant would attempt to make a complete escape. All one thousand miles of it.

The lieutenant was in contact with Rodin. For an instant, Priabin began to reach out a restraining hand. The lieutenant's eyes were instantly alarmed, and he barked at the guard lounging near the door:

'This man is your prisoner — guard him.' He glared at Priabin Shock had been replaced by activity, and by a