Winter Hawk

gloating, even though he appeared to he Priabin's prisoner, Gant realized with slow, painful thought.

Where's your girlfriend, mm? It's not happening quickly enough, Priabin.'

'Serov, be quiet — you're boring me,' Priabin replied, moving toward Gant. His nose wrinkled at the food stains, at the dirt on

Gant's hands; his eyes were concerned at the features he studied, at the defeat and weariness Gant knew his own eyes proclaimed. He shook his head, not knowing what he intended by the gesture. 'Are you OK?' Priabin asked in heavily accented English.

'Maybe,' Gant replied in Russian. Priabin nodded at the word, as if remembering Gant more clearly. 'What gives here?' he added, gesturing at Serov, who watched them both.

'You are now my prisoner once more,' Priabin replied.

An exchange of prisons? The room's atmosphere was wrong, there was something else here — as if Serov were the prisoner, though he couldn't be.

He watched the emotions of Priabin's face; hate, yes, but purpose, too — fear, desperation, the wild excitement of overcoming something. What had happened in this room?

'You said pilot,' Gant observed, turning to Serov. 'Why are you handing me over to this guy? He wants to kill me.'

'We all want to kill you, my dear fellow, in our own good time and our own way, but Colonel Priabin' — he lit and drew on a cigarette; blue smoke rolled above his head—'Colonel Priabin has a use for you before he kills you. And make no mistake, he still wants to do that. You are able to see that quite clearly for yourself, I imagine?'

Gant had turned back to Priabin. Yes, he still wanted it. Gant felt his body coming back to life, prickling with cramps and heightened nerves. There was a prison here, but he was no longer sure on which side of the bars he stood. He slowly, innocuously flexed his hands, shifted his feet.

'So?' he asked Priabin.

'Not if you help me, Gant — not then.'

'No, I don't believe you,' Gant replied. He might even want to mean it, but the woman's death would make him do it in the end.

'I'm your only way out, Gant,' Priabin snapped, with an anger that seemed to have been suppressed for a long time. 'You'll do as I say.'

'What?'

'Fly me out of here — with the good Colonel here, of course, for company. Wonderful conversationalist.'

'Why? Why do you need me?'

'Tell him, Priabin, why don't you?' Serov scoffed quietly.

Priabin's face expressed urgency. He glanced at his watch, as he had done repeatedly, ever since Gant had been brought there.

'All right. I can't get out because of the security surrounding the launch — yes, the laser weapon. Your people were right to be worried. They've done it — we've done it. We have one, and it will be loaded aboard the shuttle tonight. I have to get out of Baikonur, to another KGB office a hundred miles away — do you see?'

Gant shook his head. 'Who's stopping you?'

'I am,' Serov announced quite calmly.

'Why?'

'Because I have to try to stop the launch, that's why!' Priabin yelled, looking once more at his watch. One minute past three. The sunlight was pale now, sliding down the far wall of the room like splashed paint. 'Don't you understand?'

'Of course he doesn't, Priabin. You could hardly expect him to, now could you?'

Priabin seemed at a loss; then his face brightened. 'Lightning— of course, you don't know. Our precious army here intends to use the weapon!'

'How?' Gant asked after a long silence.

'Against your shuttle craft now in orbit. Atlantis will be vaporized on Friday — unless you get me out of here. I have to talk to Moscow. Is that enough explanation for you?'

Gant felt his jaw slacken, his mouth open. Confirmation lay exposed in Serov's smile, his glittering, watchful eyes. Wakeman, the shuttle commander, and the others, just — gone.

'I don't have time for your shock and recovery, Gant,' Priabin snapped. 'You'll obey my orders and fly our surveillance helicopter from here to Aral'sk, as secretly as the way you got in. Understand?'

Gant nodded. The man was giving him the pilot's seat in a Mil — a hand reaching down, two, three, four hands, into the vile water, and pulling at his numb hands and arms until they lifted him from the pit and he lay weak and exhausted and crying on the earth beside it. Fires burned all around, rotor noise howling about him, rifles on automatic… This Russian was going to give him control of a Mil helicopter, help him escape. He fought to prevent his relief appearing in his eyes, around his mouth. Clenched his hands behind his back.

'He's already thinking furiously how to turn all this to his advantage, Priabin,' Serov remarked.

'That makes two of you,' Priabin shot back, looking again at his watch. Three after three. 'We'll make it, Serov — won't that annoy you.'

ideas whirled in Gant's head. The laser weapon itself, the weapon being used, the shuttle and Wakeman, whom he knew, the treaty, distances, the promise of the MiL. Priabin must be used, for his safety; Priabin had to succeed. An aftershock ran through him like an icy chill. Using the battle station — Wakeman, Atlantis, the Soviet shuttle, that night, orbit, the treaty, the army, the distance to the nearest border…

… climb, turn, loop, roll, spin, dive… the key to the prison was in his hand, that was his most immediate and recurrent image. Escape.

There was a knock on the door. Priabin, startled, turned the aim of his pistol toward the noise. Serov sat immediately more upright, as if about to spring.

'Watch him,' Priabin demanded.

Gant moved toward the desk, hearing a voice from beyond the door. A woman's voice.

'Colonel?' Then: 'Dmitri?'

Priabin hurried to open the door, almost pulled Katya into the room, slammed the door behind her. In her arms was a uniform. Serov's breath hissed between his clenched teeth. Gant caught the letter opener Priabin threw in his direction. The Russian was elated by the woman's arrival. Her wide eyes were taking in the room, its tensions and reliefs, its promised dangers for her, for all of them except perhaps Serov. Her hand touched Priabin's arm proprietarially, concerned. He seemed to be unaware of the contact as he turned to Gant.

'Get into this KGB uniform, Gant. It should be about your size — quickly.' He turned to the woman. 'Katya — the helicopter?'

She nodded. 'They grumbled a lot, said you couldn't get permission to take off, they didn't want to be shot down. But it's ready for your arrival. I told them it was urgent, you'd come with the right papers.'

'Good girl. I'll have the right authority, all right — him.' He pointed at Serov with the pistol; he was euphoric, almost drunk with the jigsaw puzzle he had successfully put together. Gant distrusted his mood. 'What's happening outside this room?' he asked, still animated. 'Did you have trouble getting in?'

'Back stairs — poor security from the clodhoppers. I didn't see a soul. We could use—'

'Front stairs — the elevator for us down to his car in the basement garage. A nice little party on urgent business. Come on, Gant. Hurry, man.'

'What about the guy I came for — don't we need him?'

'He's heavily sedated. Too hard to move him. They'll just have to take my word for it, won't they?' His face seemed struck by light. 'No, they bloody well won't, will they, Serov?' Priabin crossed to Serov's desk, tugged open a drawer, rummaged in it, tried a lower drawer, rummaged, then held up three cassette tapes. ''The ones we used — even neatly labeled by Mikhail.' His gaiety was dangerous, consuming all caution; in his own mind, he had already won the game. He threw the cassettes to Katya. 'Look after these with your life,' he quipped. 'Gant, are you ready?'

'Yes.' He stood to attention in the corporal's uniform to be inspected. Priabin studied him for a moment, then nodded.

'You'll do. OK, let's go. Serov, you'll walk beside me in our little party, with Gant and Katya behind us. Both armed. One false step — but you know how the dialogue goes. Don't worry about Gant, Katya, he has a vested