the two minutes' freedom had passed. In the gunships, APUs were already warming up, rotors waited to turn, hands were poised near throttle levers, final flight checks were made, orders poured into headsets. He dismissed the crowding thoughts and switched off his radar. The solitary patrolling gunship was not in pursuit; it was waiting for new orders, for the pack. The tiny Mil drifted no more than forty feet above scrubby, frozen fields, scattered wooden buildings.
Gant studied the helicopter's main instrument panel. A PR adaptation, familiar enough; cameras, low-light TV, infrared, neither defensive nor offensive systems, just recording instruments. The moving map slid with him, repeatedly throwing up details that suggested safety, soon dismissed and ignored. Tyuratam's lights glowed against the darkness to port and to the southeast. In his mirrors, the Baikonur complex was a haze of white light.
They had nothing now, only Priabin's wild story. What they needed — what they had had with Serov as their prisoner — was proof, corroboration. This—
Survival dictated other priorities. He watched the moving map record his increasing distance from the hangar and the airfield-Sixty-two seconds of the two minutes had vanished, slipped from him. He felt weary, hungry, still numb in parts of his body and mind from the shock of escape. Hope had drained him of adrenaline.
'Gant? Gant, are you there?' he heard.
'Yes,' he snapped.
'She's unconscious. I, I think she's dying. For God's sake, turn back and land. I'll show you the hospital complex — turn back before it's too late.' Priabin's voice was strange, as if a.recording of a long-past crisis. Gant remembered the Finnish border, the woman's body cradled in Priabin's arms beside the car. The woman in there, evidently dying, was Anna, not the junior KGB officer with whom he worked — maybe even slept.
'No,' he said carefully, firmly.
'Yes, damn you!' Priabin almost screamed in his head.
Gant flicked on the radar. Nothing ahead of him. Against the town's haze, he could see power lines, radio masts. He threaded a course dictated by the details of the map, designed specifically to assist low-altitude, even night, flying. He flicked off the set again.
'No. She's dying — you said it. You can't save her — or yourself, that way. She's on your conscience, Priabin,' he added without pity in his voice. 'You messed up back there. She got shot. It happens.' Better to finish it quickly, encourage the rage, burn it off like gas from a well. He needed Priabin's brain, not his feverish, guilty imagination.
And Priabin raged; cursing, blaming, pleading. The Mil drifted south slowly, hidden by folds and dips, masked by ground clutter. Gant poised his hand over the radio, waiting to tune to the principal military frequency. He would need to know when they began the hunt, how they began it. Priabin's anger slid into incoherence, into harsh breathing, sobs, then a soothing murmuring to the unconscious woman.
Gant exhaled carefully, deeply. The haze of the town was closer, the road and railway and river no more than a few miles ahead. Lights from a scattering of homes, headlights on a minor road to the west of him, bouncing and imitating searchlights; the image made him shiver with anticipation. Yet, with only the haze ahead and in his mirrors, the scattered lights, the last strip of orange-gold mark-the always indistinct desert horizon to the west, the murmuring voice of Priabin — it was all unreal; deadening, like a sedative. The ZiL was comfortable now, like a familiar car. He flicked on the radio, tuning it.
A roar of voices after the swish of static. Like a great anger. Command, commands, commanding — eventually a voice emerged, and it did not seem to be that of Serov, even distorted by rage and distance. An older voice. Snapping out orders, giving advice, directions. The hunt was on.
Literally. Airborne, the first two gunships, heading south at close to maximum speed. They wouldn't care if at first they overran him.
Priabin's voice was silent. Just an occasional movement, the scraping of a boot on metal, the whispers of a shivering body in his ears. A small, weak, unconscious groan. He listened instead to the retuned radio.
Positions, speed, altitude, pattern, all immediately supplied, as if they were reporting to him. Once the pattern was established, they might go to another channel or into code, but it was all too diffuse as yet for the controller to resign the authority and success of the search to his units. He wouldn't be able to see most of them on radar because they were keeping low now, rushing through the early night, eager and assured. Positions, visual scan, IR traces, ground clutter—
'Priabin.'
'What?' A man startled from sleep or reverie. His voice was dull with misery.
'We — we need proof! Proof they can't mistake or misunderstand. Real proof — not like those tapes. Real.' The idea was still formless. 'Right. Like — pictures.' He clenched on the thought, grinding his teeth, forcing its birth. 'TV, infrared — cameras, right? Transmission, video recording — range?'
'What?'
'What's the range of this damn transmitter?' he bellowed.
'I–I'm not sure. A hundred miles, fifty — I don't know.'
'Then you'd better hope.'
'Why?'
'You use it, to transmit PR pictures direct?'
'Sometimes.'
He lifted the Mil over power cables. The road was ahead, cars moving along it, lights rising and falling, spraying out into the dark countryside. Scattered houses, the early moon, stars. The darkness appeared unsafe.
Nothing in his mirrors. The two minutes had come and gone. Two minutes thirty seconds. At high speed, they wouldn't be more than a minute behind. Maybe a minute and- a half. Then use the time!
'Aral'sk — the nearest KGB office… receive the pictures?' He was incoherent in his struggle to shape the idea. 'Uuuhn,' he groaned, as if the notion resisted and he were grappling with it. 'Damn it.'
'I don't know.'
'Talk to them!' he yelled. 'You talk to them. Is there a radio back there?'
'Yes — what pictures? Gant, what—?'
'Maybe some…..' His voice was soft now, his breathing stertorous but relieved. IR, TV — low-light TV, transmitter, recorder, cameras of different kinds in the main cabin, Priabin would have to describe them — Christ, Priabin was going to have to use them!
His voice gabbled. The idea was loose, slippery. He held on to it only by bellowing the fragments.
He had slowed the Mil almost to a hover, twenty feet above a darkened and dilapidated wooden building. Barn or warehouse. Its bulk — he dropped alongside it, but kept his undercarriage perhaps six feet above the ground — disguised his radar image. Lights streamed along the road. Headlight beams washed over sand, over the ditch alongside the road, caught the gleam of icy railway track, all as if seeing him rather than simply moving across his sight. His head rang and whirled, his voice was breathy, threatening to crack.
No more than a minute now, the clock in his head insisted.
'Assembly building… shuttle vehicle — laser weapon aboard?' He did not pause for a reply. 'Pictures — pictures! From the doors … roof — shuttle and weapon, all we need… transmit to KGB receiver — proof, other people know, Moscow — everyone… otherwise we don't survive, this could keep us alive… once their secret's blown, we might be safe — assembly building…'
His voice failed.
'Gant? Gant?'
'What?'
'It's madness — you realize that? I can't do it.'
'Forget her!' he roared back. 'Forget the woman — she's dead, Priabin. Were all dead unless we get some
