Winter Hawk

robe, to the racks of LPs, cassettes, and videotapes. He looked back once at Priabin, then began pulling tape boxes from the shelving. Priabin's body was taut with anticipation. Anna was still absent, Kedrov was much farther than ten miles away, one in the morning was an early hour.

Rodin was breaking open like a watermelon dropped from a tall building.

Rodin brandished a videotape box, neatly labeled, in his hand. His face was shining, eyes gleaming. 'You want to know? You really want to know why? Look.'

Vanity, secret knowledge, cleverness all conspired to rescue Rodin from his self-pity and isolation at that moment. They all delivered him to Priabin. Perhaps it was an act of revenge against his father. For the murder of Sacha, perhaps? Whatever it was, Rodin seemed compelled to speak. Soon he would know.

Rodin pressed the video cassette into the recorder beneath the television set. He flicked on the set, then began to run the recording on the tape. Priabin did not understand, but his tension was extreme, excitement was making his head spin.

The first images emerged. He was sharply, deeply disappointed. He did not understand. A swirling whirlpool slowly cleared into an image of the earth seen from space. Rodin stood beside the television like an eager, insistent teacher, watching him, one hand resting on the set. Then the Americans' latest space shuttle floated into view, gradually filling the screen. It floated like a white bird above tresses of cloud that partly masked a vivid, utterly beautiful blue expanse. The Pacific Ocean. He still did not understand. This was nothing, a cheat. These pictures had been on television, worldwide, for the past week or more. There was nothing here for him.

It was a test, he told himself. But he was failing the examination miserably. He glanced at Rodin's face.

The shuttle drifted, hanging like some great albatross over the ocean.

'What is it?' he asked eventually, almost mesmerized by the images on the screen, angry with himself; afraid that there was nothing to know — that was his deepest worry: that Rodin knew nothing.

'That's Lightning, you bloody stupid policeman,' Rodin mocked. 'Can't you even hazard a guess?'

'Find him, Serov — find him tonight.'

Gennadi Serov's features indicated nothing more than the recognition of General Lieutenant Rodin's seniority and the order he had issued. There was no evident response, however momentary, to the insulting ten minutes of cross-questioning, the almost manic reawakened concern with the escaped Kedrov. He was no more than a computer technician, he just might know a little about Lightning.

Yet Rodin had kept him standing in this icy wind, which blew into his face so that he had to squint into it, while he pummeled him with questions. The general seemed impervious to the temperature as they stood together at the top of the short flight of steps outside the principal senior officers' mess. Rodin's breath smelled of cognac. When they encountered each other — Serov coming to report on overall security, as ordered — Rodin had not asked him inside. He had been made to report just there, like an errand boy.

'Yes, comrade General Lieutenant,' Serov replied in a neutral tone. 'Everything possible will be done.' Of course, Rodin and the others were paranoid about the security surrounding Lightning, were unnerved by the idea of Kedrov running around loose; and the job of tidying up had been delegated to him. Serov seethed beneath his adopted calm.

'I don't think that Kedrov represents a danger to our — enterprise,' he added deferentially. Your son does, he thought, but not Kedrov.

'That isn't for you to decide, Serov,' Rodin snapped back, tugging his gloves smooth on his hands, as if before a mirror. 'You maintain he isn't a danger. Anyone who knows and who can't be relied upon, accounted for, trusted, is a danger. Shut him up before the KGB find him.'

'I don't think they have any idea—'

'I don't want to hear that they have. But they're looking for him. You find him first. Tonight.'

'Yes, comrade General.' And your son — isn't he a danger? his anger added silently. You don't realize how much of a danger. Shall 1 do something about him, too? There was a fierce, dark satisfaction in the mocking defiance of his thoughts. The superiority of secret power; not as grandiose as that which Rodin enjoyed, but — ah, welcome in the icy wind and in the humiliating position he found himself, one step down from the general's tall, forbidding figure.

'Good, good,' Rodin murmured. 'We are too close to the time, our time.' He sighed. The portentousness of the words were ridiculous to Serov; it was the old man's way, making a mission, some kind of holy war, out of whatever he was doing. Then his words became precise once more. 'Use extra helicopter patrols, put more men on the task.'

'Yes, General.'

Rodin leaned over him. His face appeared to have aged quickly. It was narrow and pale from the wind, but it seemed drained and weary, too. Serov enjoyed the old man's moment of weakness. The light above the door of the mess hollowed Rodin's cheeks and created large stains beneath his eyes.

'Listen to me, Serov,' he commanded, and his gloved hand gripped Serov's arm roughly, squeezing. 'My son' — Serov controlled a sudden intake of breath; it was as if the old man had read his mind—'my son is to return to Moscow today. He will there enroll at the Frunze Academy. Today. You understand me?' The hand shook his arm. It was a gesture of strength, yet it seemed at the same moment like a plea. 'He will travel under surveillance, of course. He will talk to no one.' He broke off for a moment, as if the tone he was using were some strange flavor on his tongue that must be carefully tested. Then he blurted out: 'He is not to be harmed, Serov.' His hand dropped Serov's arm.

Serov saluted formally, crisply.

'Comrade General, there was never any danger—'

'Good. I believe you, but the boy — will be better placed in Moscow.' Then the moment of weakness, of something approaching ordinary humanity, passed from Rodin as quickly as the wind plucked away his smoky breath. 'Meanwhile, concentrate on this man Kedrov,' he added sharply.

'General, I assure you that everything—'

Rodin merely turned his back on Serov and walked through the door of the mess. Serov's face clenched, into rage. His mind was filled with images of Valery Rodin rather than the general. Something had to be done about the boy. Priabin was back there, talking to him; he had had him under surveillance since the actor was killed. Priabin was no fool.

Serov descended the steps. He rubbed his numb cheeks to life as he walked to his car. Valery Rodin certainly knew about Lightning. What were he and Priabin talking about? Rodin had not left his flat, there had been no opportunity to place bugs. Priabin had the advantage there, but if Priabin learned of Lightning, what would he do?

His driver opened the door of the Zil, but Serov remained deep in thought, one hand resting on the roof of the car, the coldness of the metal seeping through his glove. His other hand rubbed his chin repeatedly, as if to conjure something from it.

What would Priabin do? Talk to Moscow Center? Yes, he would. He'd enough brains to grasp the enormity of the whole thing, and realize he couldn't handle it without the Center s help — without the backing of Nikitin and his gang in the Politburo, come to think of it. So Priabin might try to call, or radio, even fly out.

Serov was appalled. Priabin could have everything out of that weak, queer little bitch if he were any good at all. And that, that must be prevented — at any cost.

'Get them on the radio,' he snapped.

'Who, sir?' the driver asked, bemused, startled by the sudden emergence of the colonel from his abstraction.

'That damned team watching the general's son — who else, you idiot?' he roared. 'And quickly!'

'What does it mean?' Priabin asked slowly, hesitantly. 'I — don't understand what you mean by it.'

Rodin's young, vulnerable face was angry. He was important, his secret was important — but only if Priabin understood. Knowing his father's most profound secret—Lightning—had helped fill some of the hollows he had found in himself since they rendered him incommunicado. He wanted to boast again now, as he must have done to Sacha and to others.

'What does it mean?' Rodin mocked him in a squeaking, schoolgirl's voice. His hand banged the television set in frustration, but the American shuttle craft remained unaffected by the blow. It continued to float above the