The Hind-D was swimming slowly through the thin air, operating close to its service ceiling. Perhaps still a mile away, he could see the two Russian helicopters, their shadows moving beneath them across rock and snow; across the peaks and the high glaciers and ice fields. The world seemed shrunken. He could almost believe himself to be in a jet. The Hindu Kush climbed away to the southeast as far as eyesight could reach. A huge army of mountain peaks marching on China through Kashmir. High above him, against the star-filled blackness, he saw the silhouette of something swift — MiG or Sukhoi — crossing his course at perhaps forty thousand feet. He was swimming slowly forward and the hunting fish had caught his scent, his movement.
Come on, figure it out, you bastard. Don't be dumb, his thoughts insisted, their urgency mounting. He willed realization on them. Reach out and grab the answer that's in front of your face. Come on,
A minute of silence.
'Two seven zero four—' He was startled by an unfamiliar voice. 'Are you on a shopping expedition? Over.'
One of the two approaching gunships was now less than five hundred yards away, well within rocket or cannon range. It waggled its stubby little wings. A pleased, waddling dog recognizing another dog. He moved his own column, flicking the Mil slightly from side to side.
'You said it, Lieutenant, I didn't,' he replied with evident relief. That would fit the cover story; it didn't matter if they thought he was scared. 'Glad someone understands, at last. Thanks. Over.'
The closest of the two Russian helicopters passed across his nose, slightly above him. The pilot and the gunner, who would have been listening, Tx)th waved. The gunner raised one fist, his other hand at the elbow of his bent arm, signifying sex. Gant raised his thumb in acknowledgment.
They understood now; he was explained. It was one of the smuggling runs for senior officers. Runs that were frowned upon, then ignored, even encouraged, but were always carried on under a cloak of fictitious secrecy. He might have been on his way to collect sex videos from army HQ, pop records, drink by the case, cigars from Cuba, women — oh, yes, most importantly women. Flown in for parties or changed whenever the local girls, the mistresses, or the last imported batch of whores — top-class, indubitably clean, and expert — became tired or overfamiliar. The gunner in the Russian Mil probably imagined he had six or more girls aboard and was on his way to Alma-Ata to make an exchange. He grinned.
The second of the two Russian helicopters slid nearer, as if to contradict hope. Gant swallowed. The pilot of the second one waved, too, then both of them dropped away toward the mountains. He heard the patrol leader inform the mobile, unit, the AWACS aircraft, and the MiG that had passed overhead of the purpose of his mission. Fantastic detail flew and gossiped over the air. Coarse laughter, envy.
It was working. They were satisfied.
'Christ, Major, you did it — they're going!'
'Can it, Garcia,' he snapped back, hearing the relieved chatter of Garcia and his crew over the transceiver; sensing Mac's relief; his own, too.
'Sorry to have troubled you, 2704,' he heard the original voice murmur, amusement in the operator's tones. 'Good hunting. Over and out.'
'OK,' Gant said into the transceiver. 'Let's ride with the luck while we can. Forty minutes' flying time to the border. But don't count on a free ride all the way.'
'What's wrong?' Garcia asked warily.
'Maybe those pilots have flown sex missions before — they swallowed it. It only needs some suspicious little Party shit on the AWACS aircraft to call Kabul — just to make sure — and we're blown wide open. So look sharp.'
'Uh-huh.'
He watched the two Russian MiLs diminishing below and to port. Heading west, back to Parwan. Even if not at once, or in half an hour, someone was eventually going to suspect — know. Long before he got to Baikonur and back out again, someone would have checked, and they'd be waiting. Looking and waiting. He ground his teeth audibly, then lunged the Mil toward the mountains that stretched away toward the river Oxus where the border lay.
The wind raced almost horizontally across the frozen marshes. Filip Kedrov teetered against its force as he crossed the long, dipping plank of wood from the rotting mooring to the hulk of the houseboat. Thankfully, shivering, he stepped onto the deck of the boat, rubbing his gloved hands together with the cold and genuine relief. He bent his head into the wind as it sliced down the flank of the houseboat, blowing sleet into and through the gaps in the decks planking and the panels of the main cabin.
He shut the door behind him and wedged it with a thick sliver of wood. Then leaned a decrepit old chair against it, too. The door rattled on its hinges with the force of the wind. He flicked on his torch, spraying its feeble light around him until he located the steps. He clattered down them, afraid each time one creaked, afraid of falling, of breaking his neck. The houseboat groaned and sighed and seemed to be made of rotting cardboard. The wind howled.
It was small and low and no one had used it for years. Kedrov could not imagine who might ever have done so. Perhaps some officer's sexual hideaway, perhaps it had belonged to someone before the army came — one of the entrepreneurs the old town used to boast? It did not matter. It suited him. Long, low, bargelike. Just holding together enough to keep most of the weather out. He saw in the pool of yellow light from his flashlight that the blankets on his bed were damp; sleet had been blown through cracks in the peeling woodwork and soaked them. His breath smoked in the light and dark of the room. He washed the flashlight over the main cabin. He was alone.
He unslung his haversack, laying his flashlight alongside it on a cheap wooden table in the center of the boat's one main cabin. The windows were wet, blank squares of darkness. Swiftly, he drew the thin curtains and pinned them together at each of the windows on either side of the cabin; it was a practiced, almost effortless task. His breathing sounded loudly, above the muted noise of the wind. At each window, his breath formed a targetlike circle of fogged glass. When he had finished, he returned to the table, then lit an oil lamp that sat in its center. It smoked and glowed and smelled in the narrow, confined cabin. He coughed.
He needed coffee, some of the canned food he had stored there a week ago, and a check on the transponder, which was his lifeline to the rescue. Don't think about it, he warned himself. Don't
But he knew the thought would return. He had rushed upward, as if on a child's swing of hope, after his escape from the silo complex; he would swing down again, just as certainly.
He drew the transponder from the haversack. It looked like a transistor radio. Cheap, Russian-made, unreliable — thereby attracting even less attention than a Japanese portable would have done. Its cheap look depressed him; as if it foretold the malfunctioning of the thing, indicated that the Americans held him in no great esteem, had spent no money or effort on his rescue — stop it! Oh, stop it.
He was an explorer in a strange new country. All the nervousness, the exhilarating fear and tension of the past weeks of his spying paled into insignificance now, beside these — terrors that leaped out at him. This was territory he had not visited before, and its landscape enclosed him, wore him down.
Tonight was the earliest they could possibly come — but tonight was Tuesday. If they intended rescuing him, if they meant to come, it would be tonight. Had to be, otherwise they would be too late. He understood their schedule, by instinct rather than information. They expected to be able to use the photographs — those he had had to abandon in the paint cans in the garage — on television, in the newspapers, to expose what was intended at Baikonur; to prevent the launch. They had to get him to the West before Thursday; they knew that, so tonight was the earliest and the latest they could come…
… and would not come — oh, stop it, stop it please!
The cheap cabinet of the transponder made it impossible to envisage the complicated microcircuitry inside. If he used it, even then, he would not know whether it worked — a light was supposed to come on, but what would that mean? — and he would hear nothing. It was simply a homing device, sending out a carrier wave that only his rescuers could receive — science fiction! His own expertise, his own technical background availed him nothing. He simply stared at a toy he was certain would not work. It had been given to him just to keep him quiet, keep him working.
He tried to sigh, but the noise became a sob in his throat. His mouth was filled with saliva, which he found
