The helicopter required two minutes to bring its instruments and systems on-line. If they'd fueled up, if no one had had the foresight to disconnect, damage—
He had to know, yet he could not force his body into motion. Serov seemed to sense his indecision, but could take no satisfaction from it. What Gant had said had struck him forcibly. He might, at any moment, become a victim himself, as much a target as his captors.
'Got to go,' Gant said softly, as if to himself. 'In the cabin. I need another two minutes. You have to watch and listen for me, understand?'
Priabin nodded. 'Two minutes.' He was pale. Katya was shivering with cold, perhaps with reaction now that she was no longer driving.
Facing the entrance, they moved slowly away from the car, toward the fuselage of the silent Mil-2. Its metal was cold against Gant's backward-stretched hand. He fumbled for the handle to the hinged door of the main cabin, his legs against the undercarriage wheel.
'Get in.'
Then he moved quickly, forgetting them, aware only of his own unarmed vulnerability. He slid back the pilot's door and clambered in — knowing his back was turned to a dozen or more Kalashnikovs for two, three seconds — then he slid the door savagely shut; as if it rendered him immune.
Polish-made, at Swidnik, under exclusive license. A cramped single cockpit, instrumentation and systems — familiar enough. A sophisticated helicopter. Two minutes. Electrics, hydraulics — on, on, on, on—
He glanced to his left, toward the hangar doors. If they blocked them—? Trucks could be used, they had two trucks out there. The instrument panel glowed, the hydraulic systems sighed as the pressure increased to operating level. They'd be bound to think of it.
Nonretractable tricycle undercarriage — height of the aircraft perhaps thirteen feet, height of a truck maybe ten, twelve feet, height of the doors no more than twenty-eight, thirty feet… just—
— unless they closed the doors… closed the doors!
Ignition.
He could not avoid watching the doors. They would think of it, had to — just as soon as the rotors began to turn, proved he was a pilot, could fly the machine. Had to.
Ignition of the second Isotov turboshaft. Throttles. The tail rotor had begun to turn, and above his head the three-bladed main rotor moved heavily, slowly, as if through a great pressure of deep water. Then quicker.
Soldiers became purposeful, hurrying. No trucks, just the sliding shut of the heavy doors. Unarmed helicopter. The rotors whirled, became a dish, roared. The Mil bucked against its brakes. Holding his breath, Gant gripped the control column with his left hand, closing it gently. It ached, was stiff, but would suffice. Satisfied, he moved the throttles above his head, nudged the column, touched at the pitch lever. Released the brakes. The Mil bobbed above the concrete floor of the hangar. The doors began to slide ponderously toward each other, like hands closing on a butterfly. He looked up through the Plexiglas at the disk of the rotors and was intensely aware of their fragility.
'Gant! They're closing the doors!' he heard in his headset. Prion's voice, rising in panic.
The gap of fading daylight narrowed measurably. The air beyond the doors was as unknown and dangerous as the lightless cave into which he had shuffled the Hind. The rotor diameter of the Mil-2 was close to fifty feet, fifty—
He thrust the column forward with a burning hand and raised the pitch lever. The helicopter leaped toward the daylight like a startled animal.
The wheels skimmed the concrete, the gap of daylight narrowed, the doors shuddered closer together, grabbing at his anticipated path. His awareness was totally concentrated on the doors, on his measurement of the shrinking air. Priabin's voice was a wordless, continuous cry of protest and warning, which he ignored.
Slowly moving soldiers, slowly gesticulating officers, the now hardly altering gap of darkening air, the blur of things to either side of him—
— so that he hardly heard the noise of shots in his headset, the shocked cry of protest, the banging of the cabin's hinged door — all of them loud, but hardly impinging, hardly real.
Not even Priabin's terrible, sobbing cry was real.
As he corrected the Mil with the gentlest touch, he saw in his mirror a figure rolling on the hangar floor, but could not identify him. The rotors, the gap, fifty feet, fifty, fifty, fifty, fifty… the scene was frozen now, the Mil its only moving part. The corrugated ribbing of the doors, their heavy bolts, the patches of rust, the rotors, the rotors, fifty feet, fifty, fifty—
— left hand, right, left, right, fifty — his breath suspended, everything about his body tensed and still in anticipation of the first wild lurch and the tearing noise of a rotor blade — fifty, fifty, fifty—
Air.
Fading daylight, level flight for a moment, and the rushing blur beside him cold and empty. The doors in the mirror—
He banked the Mil savagely, then climbed as rapidly as he could as they began shooting. His body was bathed in sweat as it returned from shock. His hand began to burn with pain. His mind, no longer icy with judgments, knew they could not escape, not in this small, unarmed helicopter. He was merely alive, but not safe.
He heard—
'That bastard's shot her — shot her.'
14: Last Ditch
Time itself was limited to the next two minutes. A clock had begun to register in his head, second after second. He could see no further than the two minutes' advantage he had over any organized helicopter pursuit. Eight seconds had already passed. He was becoming accustomed to the lightness, the individuality of this MiL, a type he had never flown before.
He eased the column forward, ignoring the wail of protest and horror that gathered in the tiny cockpit. Yet he could not isolate Priabin and the moans that must be the woman by switching off his headset. The ground beneath him diminished in the last of the daylight. He flicked on the radar, studying it at once, his mind closed to the sounds in his ears.
At six hundred feet — where they can see you, he told himself angrily — he slowed the climb until the Mil entered the hover; then, using the controls with new deftness and certainty, he made a 360-degree turn Eyes flickering from the radar to the scene darkening outside the Plexiglas, to the radar, to—
— the blip of a patrolling gunship already changing course, summoned back toward him. There was nothing else in the air as yet He lowered the pitch lever, and the Mil began to drop back toward the ground. He heard in his ears Priabin's plaintive cry.
'Gant — you must land the helicopter. I can't staunch the bleeding.' Then something about
'Serov got away!' Gant growled in accusation. He had intended a question, but it became an accusation 'You let him get away — we have nothing.'
'Shut up.'
'Listen to me. There's no way out of here, Priabin. This airplane has no weapons. It can't outfly a crow, damn you!'
The Mil moved steadily away from the airfield, crossing boundary lights strung below like a warning. Gant flicked on the moving-map display, which glowed to life on the photo-reconnaissance main screen. The section of map surprised him with its detail. Getting lost would be easier with this much information.
For how long? For what purpose? Pessimism insisted, elbowing hope aside. Priabin still protested and demanded in his ears — almost inside his head now. He continued to head the Mil south, toward the old town, the Moscow road, the shelter of the river. Anywhere he could find ground clutter to confuse their radars, low cover, even a place of concealment. Because he had no alternative. It was simply a matter of time; thirty-eight seconds of
