Winter Hawk

'There are lots of abandoned sites, I agree, but there would be signs of recent work — silo repairs, heavy vehicles, fresh tunneling, that sort of thing.' He reminded Priabin of a faulty streetlamp, flickering, glowing red, but never quite blooming into full light. Priabin willed him to be precise. 'They'd need all kinds of people to help — scientists, technicians, computer people — a whole team to set it up.'

'A bloody pity you weren't one of them,' Priabin snapped at Kedrov, making him shy backward in his chair. 'Think, man— think.' Anger fueled his curiosity. His fist banged the table in repeated soft blows of emphasis. 'Didn't you hear anything? Wasn't there gossip, rumor, while they were building whatever they built? Listen, Kedrov — you're talking about a million dollars here — your million dollars. The Americans would be fucking overjoyed to give you that kind of money if you save their precious shuttle. A home overlooking Central Park, a big car, a pile of money — now bloody work for it!'

'There's so much secrecy in this country — especially in this place—'

'Don't give me politics.'

'You're the policeman. Why can't you answer the question for yourself?' Kedrov's face had reddened, become more animated. He resented Priabin's bullying. 'The stuff they would need — where did they get it? How did they cover up what they — diverted?'

'All right, all right,' Priabin said. 'Who worked on it?'

'I don't—'

'Yes you do.' He brushed his hands across the table, as if to remove the evidence of wasted time, the grains of sugar. Patterns vanished. 'People going on — on unexpected leave, or being transferred all of a sudden, without warning.' He looked up from the table. 'There must have been some strange comings and goings?'

Kedrov screwed his features into concentration. Priabin tried to think Diversion of resources? The army couldn't simply requisition what it wanted, not for Lightning. It would have to — appropriate what it required. Rodin would have to falsify the records, sign bogus requisitions, even pinch the stuff from storeroom shelves.

'What — sort of thing do you mean?' Kedrov asked eventually, his face blank of inspiration. Priabin felt anger rise unreasonably into his throat.

'There must have been people you knew who worked on the project!' he shouted, angry in a new and momentary sense, because Kedrov flinched away from him like a frightened child. He shouted more loudly, desperately: 'For Christ's sake, you stupid bugger! People working on Linchpin had to be working on Lightning at the same time! There aren't enough clever sods in the whole bloody country to have two different teams at work — especially not in the army. So think of someone you know who went missing, or went on a long and unexpected leave — holiday that wasn't due, a sudden illness you knew nothing about, caught the pox when he was a queer or AIDS when he lived like a monk — think, you silly little sod, we're running out of time.'

He stood up, exasperation and a premonition of utter failure making his body intolerably hot and uncontrollable. He walked away from Kedrov, not wishing to see the child's pretense to helpfulness on the tortured face. He ought to be sucking a pencil, just to add the final touch! Kedrov's silence seemed to extend into minutes to press like a heavy weight of cloth around Priabin s head until the pressure of the situation threatened a further explosion of temper, of utter rage.

He heard Kedrov saying: 'I suppose there's old Grisha Budin. He wasn't really an alcoholic — it never interfered with his work. Just a piss artist like the rest of us.'

Priabin wanted to squeeze the throat that was uttering such incredible rubbish. Instead, he turned with a mannequin's slowness and poise, and said almost sweetly: 'What did you say?'

Kedrov looked hopefully up at him, glad as a dog that he seemed no longer angry.

'Grisha Budin — computer programmer… my friend.'

'What about him?' The effort to control his anger seemed impossible to maintain. His bland, blank, stupid face.

'So?' he said.

'I was just saying — he was transferred to secret duties for a whole two months before they sent him away.'

'In Baikonur?'

'They said not, he said yes, when he came back. Nudge and wink, that was all. He didn't really say anything except that he'd been working right next door. That's the way he put it — right next door.'

'Does it help us? When was it?'

'Three months ago. I can recall other people now, people I didn't know — going on holiday, just like you said, or being transferred without warning. Computer people, telemetry experts, that sort of person.'

Priabin slapped the table with his open palm.

'There was fiddling,' he admitted, nodding his head. 'I remember now. Viktor and Katya' — he paused for a moment, then continued in a hoarser voice, which he kept having to clear—'were in charge of the investigation. Central Electronic Stores was the major target. Stuff disappearing at an alarming rate over a period of six or eight months. The bloody army wasn't very helpful, even though they were blaming civilians. We found some of the pilfered stuff for sale on the black market, but there was bigger stuff that vanished without trace. We weren't getting anywhere, so I ordered it dropped.' He rubbed his face with his hands. 'It's all circumstantial and too vague.' He sighed. 'It could mean something or nothing— and it still goes nowhere near telling us where.'

Priabin reached into the overcoat and drew out the large-scale map of Baikonur he had removed from the UAZ. It cracked an^ rustled as he unfolded it. His finger dabbed at the map. 'There, there, even there. There are abandoned silos everywhere.'

Kedrov turned the map so that he could study it more easily. One of them is too distant — we couldn't get there. Two others are too exposed, too close to new roads. That one's the most isolated in terms of what else is in the vicinity.' His finger tapped at the map. 'They were abandoned in the early sixties. A^ small group of silos, I think.'

'Come on, then,' Priabin snapped, suddenly getting to his feet, tucking the map untidily under his arm like a newspaper. 'We've got thirty minutes!'

20: Tunnels

He was propped against the wall of the tunnel like an abandoned doll, legs splayed and numb, head drumming with the blow of the shock wave. The downdraft whirled up dust and brick rubble, which stung his face and filled his nose and eyes. Nausea welled in his throat. He clutched the rifle tightly in his hands.

Then the ugly nose of the gunship drifted into view, dropping like a spider into the arching gap of daylight that was just clearing of dust. Gun, rockets, missiles slung beneath its stubby wings.

It can't see you it can't, can't…

He struggled to convince himself, his body running the tape loop over and over, prompting an effort at survival. He struggled to his feet, his weight resting heavily against the icy, wet stonework. The nose of the Mil intruded like that of a hungry cat into a mouse hole. Snuffling and eager, violence assured.

The walls of the tunnel were splashed with bright, crude light. Rails gleamed. Gant cringed back farther into the shadows of a narrow archway that was too cramped to conceal him more than momentarily; but for now the light washed just in front of him.

If only his legs would regain some kind of mobility, if only his head would clear, if only the noise would stop dinning off the walls. He kept his gaze away from the dust-hazed light.

The Mil rumbled a few feet closer, as close as it dared. There's only a single track, he heard some distant part of his mind confirm, the rotor span is sixty feet, it can't come in after you. It would wait, just so long as he didn't move, until troops had abseiled down from the waterfall or came up in trucks along the military highway. Or until it dropped its own troops, if it had any aboard. It was only a moment's pause.

Its ugly snout continued to swivel and sniff at the tunnel's mouth. Dust and debris seemed as if lifted and flung by a hurricane. The light of the lamp was foggy. Water splashed on his face and hands in large, uprooted