Winter Hawk

Midday, Thursday. The bald fact emerged and grew, looming in the Oval Office like a shadow. Clouds had removed the pale gleam of sunlight. The presidential seal on the carpet was dulled, and the images on the screen blazed out. A fool's errand, a fool's journey on which he must set out before midnight, so that he could sign away America before the weekend.

He sighed. And he could no longer keep the pain and distress from his features as he listened to Giordello's voice. He was beaten and he knew it.

Katya remembered her father, almost like childhood prayers. It is my litany because I am afraid, she told herself. Nothing more than that. She remembered the factory workers face in the local party newspaper, on a huge billboard that gazed across the cobbled square of the town. Her fathers eyes had been apologetic, asking almost Why am I here, what have I done to deserve this? As if he Were a criminal, photographically displayed to a shocked public.

In the darkness, the icebound marsh possessed a sheen from the moon. Frozen sedge scraped against her waders. She moved forward gently, her slow pace seeming to lend an extra cold to the frozen night. A thin wind cried across the marsh. Some bird honked in the dark. Ahead of her, she could discern a thin vertical line of dim light. And another, horizontal line that joined it. Like heated, magnetized iron filings, glimpses of light shone through gaps in the rotting planking of the houseboat.

This is my litany, she recited once more. The first new Moskvitch, for which they had waited another three years after her father's output at the boot factory qualified him for one — output and Party loyalty, of course. An example to his fellow workers. What am I doing here? Her father's bemused, even fearful features looking out from the billboard had rendered him less than a hero; once and for all.

Bare, utilitarian, unreliable; blue. The Moskvitch. Hard to start from the autumn to late spring. Impossible to use from November to March. Its wipers stolen two days after it was delivered. The spare tire a week later. Her father's pride and joy. What have 1 done to deserve this? Why me? As always, overwhelmed by the generosity of the Party.

She glanced at her watch, the memories not interfering with her alertness. Eleven. The leaking light from the houseboat drew her on. Sedge scraped and snapped and brittlely rustled, rattled too by the dog, who panted and shivered alongside her. The boat was less than fifty yards away now. Again, a bird honked. The dog growled, and she soothed it to quiet. She descended the knoll of reeds she had climbed, one of the many tiny islets dotting the marshes. To the east, the sky had a pale, chilly glow; the thousand arc lights around the cosmodrome and the occupied launch pad. There were farther, dimmer gleams from the science city, from villages, from watch-towers and silos. Yet here, above the thin mourning of the wind, she could hear the mutter of nocturnal animals disturbing the sleep of Waterfowl.

Katya shuddered in her coat, her face chilled inside its upturned for collar, her beret seeming to do little to keep the aching cold from her head.

On her way to school, she had passed her father's bemused glance from the billboard every day for a month. School friends sometimes mocked, or were silent out of envy or contempt. He was, and remained, only a factory worker and had no right up there alongside teachers, scientists, engineers, officials of the ministries. The cold wind of March had rattled the portraits, making their heads turn this way and that, ever vigilant. Her father had seemed cold and uncomfortable up there, as if he, too, knew his place. Memory invaded her, radiating warmth, calm.

She slapped her arms across her chest, pausing so that one foot could test the ice, then moved her weight onto it, followed by the other foot. The dog slithered, then regained his balance. His great tail banged against her waders. She must get even closer, to make sure — though she knew that Kedrov was in there… Kedrov the spy.

She glanced the flashlight's beam across the thick ice. Moved gingerly. As if to demonstrate its safety, the dog skittered ahead of her. Nothing to fear.

The ice seemed to strike coldly through the soles of the waders, through both pairs of thick socks. The iron- filing pattern of the leaking light beckoned her. She stepped more confidently toward the houseboat, its outline low and huddled against the faint-glowing night. Ice groaned, but quietly, as if disturbed in its sleep. The wind insinuated and moaned, her noises were indecipherable. Kedrov would not be alerted.

She reached the mooring and wiped the flashlight beam over its rotting wood above her head, over the plank crossing from jetty to deck. The boat's movements in the wind and the water had reduced the ice around the hull to a soupy, treacherous slush that groaned and slopped. How deep was it? Could she wade in it?

The wooden jetty would be noisier, but in the wind, with the noises of the boat's rotten wood…? Gingerly, she reached out and touched each step of the jetty. Then she climbed, moving slowly, very slowly. Creaks, the night glasses banging once before she pressed them against her breasts. Her breathing was ragged in a sudden hush of wind. Then, once more, the wind struck through her gloves and clothing, urging her on. The dog's big feet scampered beside her, increasing their noise. His breathing was louder than hers. She knelt at the top of the steps, halfway along the jetty, the boat directly ahead of her, and shushed the dog, made him lie down. Then she straightened. The dog's tail slid back and forth in the beam of the flashlight, but he did not attempt to rise.

'Good boy,' she murmured. His tail increased its speed. Then she began creeping toward the houseboat. Her gun was in her gloved hand, her gloves almost too thick for her forefinger to fit into the trigger guard of the Makarov. The pattern of light from the gaps in the boat's planking was clearer, more inviting.

This is my litany because I am afraid, her mind whispered. The memories were random now, flying like sparks.

A plank creaked. The past vanished. She shifted her weight gently and released the wood; it groaned with relief. The dog still lay where she had left him. She moved forward on tiptoe. She was no more than a dozen yards from the boat. Some of the gaps in the planking were wide enough for her to discern a shadow moving inside. Her heart banged.

When she reached the boat, her heart slowed. She knelt down on the jetty to bring her eyes level with a wide, jagged crack of light where the shadow had moved, then settled. She squinted into the crack, half poised like a runner on blocks. Her waders squeaked against one another. Her gun rested on the rotting wood, clutched unregarded in her left hand.

Kedrov.

Her heart began to thump once more. He was holding a mug. Beyond his shoulder, a haversack. A transistor radio lay on the small, bare section of table she could see.

She had found him!

Self-satisfaction warmed her like scalding coffee. She seemed to touch his features with her intent, squinting look. Nose, mouth, profile, thinning hair. The features matched those of the photograph clearly in her mind.

She was very aware of her quick, light breathing and of the gun in her gloved hand.

And of Priabin.

She sighed, but the warmth of pleasure remained; pride was like a blanket into which she snuggled. She checked once more — radio, mug, Kedrov, radio, coffee mug, Kedrov—

— then straightened up, feeling light-headed with success. She tiptoed back toward the dog. Her body urged her to hurry the first yards of the mile or so back to the car and the radio mike.

Kedrov—

She ruffled the dog's fur and laughed softly, luxuriously, at her own success.

The bare, scoured landscape flowed slowly beneath the belly of the Hind. Gant was vividly aware of the fragility of the machine that enclosed him, that kept out the freezing night temperature and the cut and noise of the wind; aware of its power to kill him. Perhaps within minutes now. Just like his father's life-support machine: tubes, a tent, a mask covering the resented face. The doctor, his sister, her husband the trucker, all approaching the moment in different ways. He in his uniform, cap beneath his arm, body stiffly at attention. He'd decided for all of them and switched off the life support. The opaqueness of the tent pitched over his father's shrunken form had slowly cleared. A small, old body without the capacity to evoke feeling of any kind had gradually been revealed.

He squeezed the thought from his mind. Now, over this bleak, cold desert, this machine was keeping him alive — and it would switch itself off and kill him when the last drops of fuel drained from the reserve tank. Like the MiG-31 over the North Sea, the Hind would make an attempt on his life.

Icy perspiration. The dunes slid beneath the Hind's black shadow. Sand flew off their crests at the helicopter's passage. Distance to Baikonur, a little less than four hundred miles; location, Soviet Central Asia,