and outcrops. He bounced, dreading the weakness of his ankles, the proximity of the rock, anticipating injury, and the quick, certain fall that would follow. He paused, straining to recover his breath, his hands waking to a shriek of pain and heat. He looked down. Forty feet below him, the end of the rope twisted and wriggled like an injured snake.
He dropped down farther, gathering momentum once more. The gleam of polished track, the rock enlarging and blurring close to his face, the thud and ache of his feet and legs — the end of the rope-He slithered to a sitting position. It was another hundred feet to the railway line and the highway, but it did not matter, the slope was shallower now.
It was only a moment before ropes whistled and rattled down beside him. The noise of distant rotors picked up, quickening and nearing. He glanced at the sky above the canyon. A dot, beating up the twists of the river toward him. Frantically he weaved through the jagged outcrops, jumping, sliding, dodging. Shots had to be ignored until he was hit… he wasn't hit, not hit, not yet, not hit…
He slithered the last yards, now perhaps a hundred feet away from the fall of the stream. The railway track and the road ran due south, down toward the enlarging gunship driving up the canyon. Its noise had begun to echo from the cliffs. He reached the railway. Bullets struck near him. The tunnel was a hundred, two hundred yards away—
One fifty, he decided, already running. He adjusted his step to the gaps between the ties, more and more assuredly landing on those that fell between each stride. Concentrating his attention on his leading leg, counting, marking off, selecting the next tie. The river was below and to his right; he heard the gunships noise. He dismissed the shots, those he heard… not hit, not yet, not hit…
The tunnel, wobbling in his vision as he glanced up, was closer. The gunship, barely recognizable through his fear and effort, was much closer, moving at a terrifying speed that made his legs seem leaden, his body exhausted. He was slowing down, almost still, out of energy. The gunship came on, the tunnel hardly neared, the ties were blurred, gray concrete lines drawn like trip wires across his path He felt light-headed, off-balance; the tunnel was receding now, indefinite, illusory.
The gunship swung away to his right, but he could not follow it, he had to concentrate on the blurred ties. The rotor noise and engine note changed. It was transforming itself into a stable firing platform.
The mouth of the railway tunnel, carved through the rock of the canyon, was illuminated in a glare. Rocket fire. Rock groaned and split in the midst of the noise of the explosion. Dust surrounded him as the shock wave knocked him off his feet, against the side of the tunnel.
'Then you don't know!' It was a childish wail of disappointment from Priabin. He banged his fist against the thin wall and the noise seemed to echo in the empty place. Kedrov flinched and backed slightly across the room. There was a bare wooden table between them. 'You don't know!'
Priabin's fist banged against the wall once more. The greasy, faded wallpaper showed two smeared marks. The kitchen still smelled of stale cooking, though the place had been empty for days. He could sense the fear that remained. He had had to kick the padlocked door open. The UAZ was parked in the cobbled lane behind the yard. Priabin had been unable to think of anywhere else to hide except the kitchen behind Orlov s shop.
Sugar was smeared on the table; rings from cups and bottles. His breath clouded in the cold. Kedrov's white, apprehensive face enraged Priabin. He looked at his watch. One-eighteen. At most, he had no more than fifty minutes.
'Where?' he pleaded with Kedrov. 'Just give me some idea where to look.' Kedrov's pasty skin seemed anxious to please, his mouth and eyes mobile with the search for some answer. But he could only shrug, then grin wanly. 'Oh, for God's sake, sit down,' Priabin bellowed at the technician, who then shuffled a chair from the table and perched himself upon it like some prim, maidenly visitor uncertain of the moral uprightness of the household.
Priabin sat down heavily opposite Kedrov. His head whirled with futility, with a sense of irrevocable steps taken to no purpose. He seemed to have used up whatever energy he normally possessed. He placed his hands on the table, as if clasping some invisible cup or mug. He looked tiredly at Kedrov.
'Listen, Filip, we have to think. There has to be something.' Kedrov screwed up his features helpfully, but said nothing. Priabin sighed. One forefinger began shunting the hard, sticky grains of spilled sugar across the table, as if he were moving chess pieces. A lethargy of defeat held him in his chair. He struggled to continue what he knew he must say. 'It has to be secret, doesn't it?' Kedrov nodded, his head wagging with as much significance as a puppy's tail. He was abstracted in dreams of America and wealth, which worked on him like the aftereffects of the drugs they had administered. 'They would have to hide their secret control center, wouldn't they — however big or small, whatever it contained?' Again, Kedrov nodded. But his eyes seemed clearer, as if he had more fully awakened.
'Yes, they would.'
Priabin continued: 'Then let's think along those lines once more, mm?' His voice was filled with a false bonhomie. 'They have to have a transmitter, and it has to be one they don't have to account for, doesn't it? I mean, Rodin can't just use the main control room if he intends firing the weapon, can he?'
'No.'
'Then there you are. An underground site, separate — well away from the control complex… and the transmitter would have to be hidden, too. So, that's underground until the moment it's needed— wouldn't it be?' Kedrov's hand was tapping the table, his interest aroused just as Priabin felt the energy of his questions drain away and his leaden body drag at his thoughts. He was angry, too — angry with Gant. Why did the bastard have to die? 'So — where is it?' he growled. He had asked these questions, all of them, so many times.
'They… /' Kedrov began, but seemed abashed by Priabin's sullen glare.
'Go on.'
'They'd need… well, Colonel, I think they'd need something like a missile silo…..' Again, his voice faltered. Priabin's waving hands encouraged him. 'That would be the easiest way to get the transmitter up and down when they needed it. It would come up out of the silo just at the right moment, then disappear as soon a> they'd — finished?' He shrugged again, a gesture that irritated Priabin unreasonably.
He applauded ironically, his face sneering.
'Christ, you're a bloody genius, Filip — you really are. Do you know how many silos there are around here? Do you? Hundreds— probably thousands!' His despairing hands slapped down hard on the table. 'Christ!'
'It's all I can think of,' Kedrov muttered placatingly after a while. Priabin glanced at his watch. One-thirty. They'd already been in Orlov's kitchen for half an hour. He pushed at stubborn grains of sugar that had adhered to the table. His face was distorted with concentration on the task. They'd discussed, argued, refined, dismissed, reiterated — all for nothing. Of course it had to be a silo, but there really were hundreds of the bloody things! The discussion had gone round and round. 'It would have to be one of the abandoned sites, wouldn't it — like the one I hid in?'
'What?' Priabin snapped, as he arranged the grains of sugar into a neat little heap. He did not look up.
They'd be looking for them by now. The corporal, whose body was still slumped on the floor of his booth when they came out of the elevator, would have recovered by now and raised the alarm. The bedclothes would have been pulled back on Kedrov's bed to reveal the guard It was less than forty minutes before target acquisition was completed and the weapon fired. The American shuttle would disintegrate. An act of war would have been committed. The whole bloody treaty and everything else would be down the toilet, and people like Rodin would be in charge, finally and for good. Priabin realized he was shaking his head. It didn't bear thinking about — the army, the fucking army in charge of everything. Oh shit.
'It would have to be an abandoned site, and probably a remote one — out near the edge of the security area — they would have to have had work done, a lot of work, and they wouldn't have wanted anyone to see what they were up to.' Kedrov's voice had an air of discovery about it, an excitement. Priabin looked up at him, glowering, and Kedrov faltered. 'Wouldn't it?' he asked plaintively.
Priabin sighed. He noticed that his left foot was tapping restlessly The lethargy seemed to have evaporated, leaving him tired but fidgety and unsettled. He studied the technician's too-young, half-matured features. No sign of the aftereffects of the drugs now
'Go on,' he said heavily. 'I'm listening.'
Kedrov waved his hands over the table like a magician, to em phasize the quickening babble of his words.
