'Drink?' Adamov asked again.
'Sure, why not?' Gant replied, taking the proffered flask and tilting it to his lips, sipping at the apparent generous swallow through clenched teeth. He wiped his hps and handed back the flask, coughing and shaking his head ruefully at the quantity he had Pretended to consume.
He crossed to the window and tugged back the thin curtain. He hatched the garage owner straighten, check the reading, then say something to the truck driver. He removed the extension and the funnel, then clipped the nozzle of the hose to the pump. Finished. Full tanks. It was difficult not to sigh with relief.
The woman returned and put down two tin mugs. The liquid in them was thick and black. She glanced at neither man. Gant realized she was not pretending she didn't exist; it was they who did not exist for her; simply scraps of something blown in by the wind. Adamov cursed her for not handing him his coffee by the fire. She continued to stare at the floorboards as she turned back toward her kitchen. Adamov grimaced at her bodily odor, or perhaps merely at her existence. He rose unsteadily from his chair and lurched toward the table.
The Uzbek who owned the garage was coming toward the house, slouching against the wall of the wind. Adamov joined Gant. The two of them were framed in the square of window.
Rum breath, a hand on his shoulder, a grin near his face, eyes unfocused. The familiar voice.
'Come on, comrade, you can spare the time to give me a lift to Samarkand — nice brothels in Samarkand, good clubs. For the tourists. Clean girls, dirty nights!' He roared with laughter, slapping Gant across the shoulder blades four, five, six, seven times.
'Anyway,' he continued, leaning heavily against Gant, slopping a few drops of the thick black coffee down the front of Gant's flight overalls. 'I reckon you can't refuse me, can you? Can't refuse me, mm? More than your future's worth for HQ to get to know you were all the way up here. What you up to, comrade? What's your game?'
His stubby, thick forefinger, the trigger finger, was prodding against Gant's breastbone, six, seven, eight, nine times, to emphasize the force of his suspicions… twelve, thirteen, fourteen…
Gant caught and twisted the wrist to which the prodding finger was attached. Adamov yelled in pain.
'Don't do that, comrade,' Gant hissed. 'And don't even ask. He released Adamov's wrist. Immediately, the hand made as if to strike, then dropped to the man's side, obeying the gleam in Gant s eyes.
'All right,' Adamov snapped. 'Fuck your business, anyway.' 'He turned away—
— out of the window's well-lit frame, which showed him and Gant like objects in a camera lens to the two Uzbeks. The garage owner was near the window, turning to the steps of the porch. Adamov was pouring more rum into his coffee, his face twisted against the pain in his wrist.
'OK, a lift is what you want — you can have it,' Gant announced, his voice full of mock comradeship and loud enough to be heard—
— movement, quick and sudden, his hand coming down across the back of Adamov's neck, rabbit-punching him even as he turned. Coffee flew at the chair and fireplace, sizzled on the burning dung, splashed on the dirty floorboards. Adamov's eyes glazed at Gant hugged the body against him.
The garage owner entered the room sullenly, staring. Adamov leaned against Gant, his unconscious breathing loud and drunken. Gant glared at the Uzbek. He hefted Adamov's weight against his side and growled: 'He's drunk. Understand? You speak Russian, pig?' He winced inwardly at the obligatory insult. The Uzbek nodded, rubbing his unshaven chin. Then shrugged.
'Pay me,' he announced in a thick, almost indecipherable accent. And held out his hand to underline his demand.
'The army pays,' Gant replied. The man was in the doorway. Adamov's weight bore against him. He wanted to flee.
The Hind was outside with full tanks. Reaction to the blow he had struck at Adamov coursed in him. Two minutes before windup, all systems on-line, takeoff. The empty, clean sky was two and a half minutes away from him.
He flung Adamov into the narrow chair, which squeaked on the bare boards but did not overturn. The GRU captain lay like an abandoned ventriloquist's dummy. The Uzbek's eyes narrowed, and his hands twitched about his belt as if he were searching for a weapon he had mislaid.
Gant reached into the zippered pocket on the breast of his flight overalls. The Uzbek flinched. Perspiration hovered along Gant's hairline. He pulled out a notepad, a pencil held against it with a rubber band. He removed the band and flipped open the pad.
'Come here,' he snapped, and moved to the table. He began writing. Each sheet of the pad was headed with the insignia of the Frontal Aviation Army and the details of his regiment. He made out a receipt, snapping only once at the Uzbek to check the amount of gasoline he had supplied. Then he tore off the sheet and handed it to the Uzbek. 'There — an official receipt. Any complaints?' His hand rested lightly on his hip, just above the holster.
The garage owner shook his head, reluctantly. He folded the recept with an air of resignation and slipped it into the pocket of his haggy trousers. Then he wiped his hands on his coat, as if they had become contaminated.
'Good,' Gant remarked. 'I'm taking this one. Tell your pal, the driver.' He plucked Adamov's frame from the chair with ease and moved with him to the door. 'Open it.' The Uzbek scuttled to do so. Action revived Gant. He lugged the unconscious captain into the corridor, the man's boot toes dragging like fingernails down glass. The Uzbek pressed back against the wall as Gant flung open the outer door and leaned into the wind, clutching Adamov like a shield.
Steps — yes. He counted them, careful of his balance. Dirt, and no noise from Adamov's boots until they reached the concrete and the toes of his boots began to scrape once again. 'Fucking passengers!' Gant yelled to the wind, for the driver's benefit. 'Bastard's drunk as a skunk and passed out!' The driver, leaning out of his cab, smoking, tossed his head and grinned, as much at Gant's struggle with Adamov as with relief that the GRU man had found other company.
Gant turned to the driver. 'You shouldn't have let the officer drink so much,' he barked. The driver was indifferent.
Gant leaned the unconscious Adamov against the fuselage of the Hind and slammed back the door of the main cabin. Then he bundled the body aboard. He glanced at his watch. Twelve thirty-five. He climbed into the main cabin, squeezing close to the auxiliary tank, which occupied most of it, and dragged Adamov to one of the fold-down seats troops used when being transported. He fumbled the straps — excitement now outstripped him, making him clumsy in his furious haste — and strapped Adamov into the seat. He reached for some webbing and used it to bind the captain's hands. Finally, he gagged Adamov with — Mac's scarf, lying on the floor. He removed Adamov's pistol from its holster, dismissed Mac's memory, and turned away. He jumped down and slammed the cabin door shut. If Adamov woke, it wouldn't matter. He was no longer a problem. Dumb, secure, and unarmed.
He climbed into the cockpit. Shivered. The driver watched him from his cab, the garage owner from the porch. He touched at the controls, the panel, other instruments, then began.
His hands reached, gripped or touched, flicked or depressed, bringing the Mil to life. The auxiliary power unit he had left on. He pressed the start button of the first of the Isotov engines, moved the throttle lever above his head from Stop to the ground-idle position. The engine began to wind up from a hum to a grumbling murmur. He pressed the second start button, moved the second throttle lever. The turboshaft hurried in pursuit of the noises from its companion. Slowly, the rotors began to turn, drooping at first, then gradually smoothing into a disk. Gleaming in the wind and moonlight, the Hind began to buck, as if restrained by a trap.
The woman was standing on the porch behind her husband, night pressing around their shadows. Gant reached up and moved the throttles to flight-idle, released the rotor brake, engaged the clutch. His eyes scanned the instruments as they came on-line, especially the fuel gauges; and the temperature, and pressure and output power, he reminded himself. This is gasoline, not kerosene. For the length of his journey, the ordinary automobile gasoline would do no harm to the engines, but its performance had to be watched— closely.
He flicked on the moving map. The rotors flurried dust around the cockpit, and the scene was dimming. Two minutes. The Hind rolled forward as he released the brakes, away from the canopy over the pumps. The place was
