Winter Hawk

He heard the incoming surf of Garcia's breathing; faster, more ^gged. Shit.

He clenched the control column more tightly, altered the collective pitch lever, climbing out of the valley into the dark sky. His head was turned, to watch Garcia follow him.

Mac said: 'Skipper, shouldn't you call Langley—?'

'The hell I will!' he snapped back. He was listening to the tenor of Garcia's breathing as if with a stethoscope.

Break.

Garcia's voice yelped in his headset, and the tanker helicopter lifted sharply, nose up, out of the valley. The falling star of the MiG dropped more quickly, as if alerted. It banked fiercely around behind them, leveling off. When the pilot spoke, his voice was tightened by G forces.

'Maintain your former heading — climb to four thousand meters and wait for your escort. Repeat, climb to four thousand on your former heading. Do you copy? Over.'

Garcia flipped out of sight. Gant climbed more rapidly until he could look down on the scene. He saw the two pursuing MiLs also climb and begin to divert. Saw the MiG-23 racing from behind and below. Had he picked up Garcia after his turn?

'Garcia — for Christ's sake get back here!' Gant yelled into the transceiver. Ether replied, and hoarse but more relieved breathing. Excited murmurs he could not make out. The MiG swept up toward Gant, past him, and locked onto the tail of Garcia's MiL. Garcia had increased his speed to perhaps one fifty; not nearly enough. The MiG pilot was flashy, but good. Good enough. Gant felt his stomach lurch. Mac's voice protested.

'Return to your former heading and maintain. Abandon your present heading. Reduce your speed. Wait for your escort. Do you copy? Over.'

The two aircraft raced away from Gant, diminishing in size. Garcia was already another half mile away from Gant in the split seconds that had passed since he broke — cover, formation, and nerve. The MiG coursed behind him. The two MiLs were hurrying, panicked into movement, toward the point of disobedience. They could smell blood. Ahead of Garcia were hills that might hide him. He might have taken the decision based on surprise and the nearness of that covering terrain. No. He had panicked himself into risk, into confidence.

And was wrong.

Gant increased his own speed, rushing across the mile-wide valley, his head moving from side to side like that of an animal at bay, seeking cover. He knew what would happen, with a sick certainty, and he was already on the other side of the experience, considering only his own survival and escape.

'Skipper—' Mac protested.

'No,' he replied without emotion.

All three Soviet aircraft were distracted by Garcia, forgetting him for the moment.

Where?

A solid wall of snow-streaked rock on either side of the valley. No avenue of escape, no narrow cleft that would keep out the MiG. Its pilot's voice pursued Garcia; commanded, ordered, threatened—

— threat. Only a matter of seconds now.

'Garcia — for Christ's sake slow down!' Gant yelled, knowing it would be useless, but somehow satisfying Mac, and some small part of himself.

In a moment, all their screens would be blind. He had time—

— hung in the air in the middle of the valley, watching the helicopters and the MiG and the tiny speck that was Garcia's Hind. Could not help but watch.

He scanned blank cliffs.

'Find somewhere, for Christ's sake,' he murmured to Mac.

Threat. Challenge.

He could hardly think ahead now. There was only survival. He had been caught, and he had to survive this situation in any way he could. Look, look—

Final warning.

A spurt of flame, from an igniting rocket motor, no bigger than that of a flaring match. An AA-8 missile, infrared homing, had been launched by the Flogger. Even though Gant anticipated it, was sure it would happen, he felt stunned.

1 am authorized to open fire if you do not obey my instructions, lingered in Gant's head. You are in restricted airspace. 1 will open fire unless you—

One of the few Russian phrases Garcia had ever bothered to learn hung on the ether and in his mind for a moment — the moment of the missile's spurting, glowing flight. Go fuck yourself. Garcia's voice was high-pitched.

Look, look for an escape, don't be distracted, look.

The Mil spun in the hover in the deserted, blank valley. There was no hiding place. Gant had to watch Garcia's Hind as the AA fissile hurried after it like a burning arrow. It hunted just for a moment for a warm, electrically alive object above cold, unmoving rock. Then it struck.

The whole sky seemed to become orange and white at the moment of impact. Burning fuel washed like a waterfall the few hundred feet toward the flank of a hill. Garcia groaned through the transceiver and began a scream he did not complete or even understand. The Hind, shattered, spilling burning fuel, tumbled against the hillside, split further, opened, and crumpled. Gant had snatched up the night glasses from their pocket in the cockpit door. The scene was enlarged, clear, horrific. Rotors flew like separate metal sycamore leaves, great half-molten pieces of fuselage bounced and tumbled. Fuel ran like lava down the hillside.

His fuel, his fuel—

He could think of nothing else, having ignored the fact until the moment of the explosion. Not Garcia's death, not the deaths of Lane and Kooper, not even his own immediate danger. He thought of nothing except the fact that his reserve of fuel had burned up. Now he could not reach Baikonur, despite his own auxiliary tank. He could never get back.

Even as he heard Mac whisper 'Oh, sweet Jesus Christ' in the transceiver, he knew that the MiG pilot had aborted Winter Hawk. He was surrounded, unable to escape, there was no point in even trying to evade capture.

He hovered, stunned.

8: Oasis

A hole in the cliff.

Gant flicked switches, knowing that it did not matter now, knowing that he was below the shield-edge of the valley walls, knowing that their screens would be blinded by the nova of the explosion and burning of Garcia s Mil — knowing that unless he explored, analyzed, found a hole in the rocks in the next few moments, it was finished anyway. He felt relief as the helicopter s main panel and principal screens sprang to life, stuttering to green and red, lights and LEDs winking, systems coming on-line.

The infrared display glowed like a sunrise. The green of the radar screen was still awash with flying metal and fuel and confused images; Garcia's helicopter continued to explode on his screens.

Hole in the rocks.

Blackness amid moon-washed cliff. Less than half a mile away, the readouts proclaimed. Was it a retinal image from staring into the explosion?

He dropped the Hind like a huge stone toward the floor of the valley; as familiar as if lowering into Nevada or New Mexico, because it represented safety — at least, for the next few minutes. His attention was mesmerized by the sense of the two Soviet MiLs and the Flogger grouping like dogs around a quarry already torn.

He saw and sensed Mac in the gunner s cockpit, but he hardly impinged. He was saving himself and the machine. Nothing mattered beside the reality of the gaping black hole that now grew larger. Not a retinal image, then… a cave, a cavern, a cleft. Safety.

Qualification. Dead end. He was running like a sheep into a pen.

Imperative. Get out of sight.