the southeast of him. He could see the clump of trees standing up like frightened hair from the knoll's scalp. Half a mile.
Searchlights—
— leaping onto the ice in front of him, cutting off his glimpse of both knoll and trees. As the belly of the Mil-8 lumbered into view, he pressed against the fuselage of the Hind.
Two hundred yards away, the transport helicopter moved across his sight, walking on its searchlight legs, something like an umbilical cord dragging from its belly and tossed by the wind — a ladder, a rope ladder. He heard a dog bark, more than one dog, and glanced Wildly around him, the noise of the rotors beating in his head. The noise had come from within the MiL. The dogs were still aboard, but the cabin door was wide now; light spilled from it outlining a human form. Dogs, men, guns.
The transport moved away, oblivious of him. He saw a bulky shadow starting to descend the rope ladder a quarter of a mile away. They were beginning to drop men and dogs in their prescribed places. They were looking for Kedrov — go.
He could not move, not for a long moment, not until the Mil-8 had moved farther off and its noises were less insistent. Then compass, sketch, night glasses, visual sighting of the knoll and islet where the jetty was, then—
He clambered down the slight incline, onto the first stretch of ice, sedge and reeds scraping like steel against his legs. His hand on the pistol—
— Kalashnikov. He turned, scrambled back up the slope, breathing already harsh, and opened the cabin door. Adamov's white face resented him. He climbed in, took down one of the rifles from its clips, checked its magazine, its weight in his hands, looking only once at Adamov, forcing himself to wink, tossing his head to emphasize a gesture he did not feel. He shut the cabin door behind him. Jogged more easily, familiarly, down the incline onto the ice. Continued to jog, leaning into the wind, head down, rifle clutched across his chest. Half a mile. Three-fifty.
Be there
Gennadi Serovs imagination prickled with points of information just as the night sky, seen through the window of the speeding car, seemed alive with the cold, separate lights of stars. There was a comfort in the analogy, just as there was exhilaration about the details of the report rendered by the team leader and the doctor. They were now seated in silence in the rear of the car, Serov preferring to ride next to his driver. He felt light- headed — yes, that was apt— with the risk he had taken and was still running. It had been a dangerous, even a challenging, move to have young Rodin killed, but therein lay its greatest satisfaction. When the body was discovered, the general would be deeply wounded. And if he became suspicious, asked for causes, occasions, reasons, Serov would plant evidence of KGB surveillance in the empty flat across the street from Rodin's apartment. After all, they had been there.
Routine reports, issuing from the radio, washed over him like the sensation of a warm bath. The helicopter search, the cars, and the troops on foot had not yet located Kedrov. They would do so; and if they did not, General Lieutenant Pyotr Rodin would have enough to distract him when the body of his son was discovered.
Apparently, Valery Rodin had subsided quite easily, even strangely. Given up, as if his heart or will had surrendered. The tranquilizers had been administered via the tube. It had all been over in a few minutes; they had left Rodin so deeply unconscious he would never recover.
The car coursed through the traffic-less streets of Leninsk-Kuznetskiy, the science city of Baikonur, heading southeast from Tyuratam toward GRU headquarters, a complex of white buildings close to the Cosmonaut Hotel. Out of Baikonur itself, there was something commercial about it, business rather than army or science. Serov enjoyed the separation of the GRU from army headquarters — detachment implied independence. To the north of them, the complex was bathed in light from a hundred sources, the sky softened by its glow. To the south, over the darkened city, the stars burned. The car was passing an ornamental fountain at the entrance to a leisure park. The wind had shaped the spray into a peacock's tail before the temperature had frozen it, despite the antifreeze they mixed with the water.
Radio reports, radio noise. He sighed. Kedrov was unimportant, only the general's anxiety made him otherwise. A dozen helicopters, a hundred men or more, all looking for this one pathetic little shit. Even out as far as the marshes. Perchik might have a good idea there, might not…
He closed his eyes. Details of the reports sparkled like jewels in the darkness behind his lids.
Snapped open. He sat upright. His driver was looking at him expecting to receive a change of orders.
'What?' he asked.
His driver handed him the radio mike. Serov depressed the Transmit button and demanded: 'Repeat that last information, Unit?' He turned to his driver, clicking his fingers impatiently.
Unit Air-7,' he added when given the designation. The driver steered the car to the curb, and they slowed to a halt. The hand brake rasped on. 'Unit Air-7, what was your report?' Serov barked.
This is Serov, understand? Your report.'
His fingers drummed on the dashboard. Through the window, listing a little with his sudden tension, he could see a war memorial doming at the end of the wide thoroughfare. They were no more than two minutes from the office. Yet the driver had been correct to stop until this matter was dealt with — had he misheard?
… helicopter we can't account for, just sitting under some trees. Engines stopped, no sign of the pilot,' the report continued. When the pilot of Air-7 had finished, Serov was silent for a few moments. Why had it awakened him? It was strange, but not sinister or threatening. In the silence, the pilot added: 'A gunship, sir. And it's not a member of our
'What markings is it carrying?' he asked. 'Can you see?' He forgot to add 'Over,' but the pilot of Air-7 seemed to divine that he had finished; or was, perhaps, simply frightened into efficiency. An unidentified gunship? From outside Baikonur? picked up the engine heat on IR,' the pilot explained, his voice distant and unreal, but somehow enlarging the significance of the abandoned Mil-24.'… see it now on low-light TV… army, sir, not ours or KGB. Joyrider, comrade Colonel?'
'Don't be stupid.' It was possible, however, in a place like Baikonur — studentlike stunts and stupid acts of indiscipline; boredom. Most of the GRU's work had to do with things like that. But in a gunship? Nevertheless, he added: 'If you can't see his white arse going up and down in the reeds, then it may not be a joyride. Get down there and check it out — now, sonny.'
He threw the radio mike toward his driver and rubbed his chin. Intuition was pressing at the back of his thoughts, attempting to bully its way in. Why? How much significance should he attach to this?
'Very well, Vassily, drive on.' He banged the dashboard as if to startle a horse into motion. The driver started the engine, put the car into gear, and pulled away. The war memorial, sword uplifted in threat rather than reconciliation or sorrow, loomed closer. It was a huge shadow against the lights of the square behind it. Should he order the Mil surrounded, as intuition seemed to demand? No, wait.
The car rounded the dark memorial, crossed the square. The empty ether hissed from the radio. What was it? Why did he still feel it important?
'Sir — Colonel, sir.' A different voice, perhaps the copilot.
'What?' This time he remembered. 'Over.'
'Sir, an officer — one our ours, GRU, tied up in the cabin. Sir, he's claiming he was kidnapped.'
Serov wanted to laugh, especially as the car skidded rounding a corner as Vassily's surprise transmitted itself to the steering.
'What kind of joke—?' Instinct pressed: he added urgently: 'Get his story. Better still, get him to the radio. And get help to stake out that helicopter. Do it now! Get that idiot, whoever he is, to the microphone.'
Vassily whistled through his teeth. Serov could feel the mystified excitement of the two in the back prickle the hair on his neck. What in hell was going on? His fingers drummed on the dashboard with an increased urgency as the car drew into the courtyard, then beneath the archway of GRU headquarters. Serov did not even spare a glance toward the hotel or the windows of General Rodin's suite. The square was nakedly empty, as was the inner courtyard of the building.
'Where is that idiot?' Serov bellowed into the mike.
The trunk of the dwarf fir seemed to collide with his back, so violently did he lean against it to conceal himself. A helicopter's shadowy belly slid above the ice between him and the rotting jetty. He forced himself to observe it through the night glasses. The fleecy lining of his jacket, near the collar, was icily damp from his exerted breathing. It numbed his cheek as he leaned back, lowering the tiny pair of binoculars. The helicopter passed
