leverage — now. Understand me? I can't get us out of here, I'm not Captain Marvel. Can Aral'sk KGB pick up a transmission?'
Priabin was silent for a moment, before he said, 'I'll ask them.' Then, as if uttering a betrayal, he repeated vehemently: 'I'll ask them!'
'Do it now,' Gant said with a sigh he could not prevent. He almost added something more sympathetic about the dying girl, but refrained. Priabin's conscience, his grief, was inconvenient, possibly dangerous.
Gant held the Mil in the hover, seven or eight feet from the ground. Beyond the road, the river caught the first pale moonlight like a winding slug trail. He felt a breeze elbowing against the fuselage, heard Priabin's breathing, his movements in his ears. Let his own body subside.
Not the doors; the booster stages had been moved to the launch pad, the doors would not be open. The roof, then. Skylights.
Holding the Mil occupied his instincts and his limbs. His mind cooled. TV camera and even infrared… Priabin would have to get out of the MiL, use an IR lens on a still camera, unless—
'You got a portable TV or film camera back there?'
'Um — yes, I think so.' Priabin searched. Gant heard the man pause, then sniff audibly. 'Yes. Videotape recording, not TV.'
'OK, use that. I'll take TV—'
'Can you operate the equipment?'
'Pray I can.'
He had been assessing the control panel. Lights, camera, action — yes.
'Gant.' Priabin protested.
'Not now.'
He summoned the sections of moving map he would require. The main assembly building that now housed the shuttle craft and the laser weapon was more than twelve miles to the northeast. He assessed the distance, the obstacles, with a strange detachment. A ring of silos, an intricate web of roads and railway branch lines, test facilities, factories, support areas — danger symbols, restricted areas strung like the constituents of a minefield. His hands were aching and his legs cramped from holding the helicopter still in the now-turbulent breeze. He looked up, seeing navigation lights amid the stars. Nothing yet.
'Is the girl secured?' he asked, as if of a piece of cargo.
'I—'
'You want to save her pain, Priabin, make sure she can't move,' he instructed through clenched teeth.
'Gant!'
'Just do it. You talk to Aral'sk yet?'
'They're standing by for a transmission. It's all right, I explained that our office's receiver was out of commission. They don't know— yet — what it is they're going to see.'
'When they get the pictures, tell them to transmit them direct to Moscow — they can do that?'
'They'll have to use a relay to Guryev or on to Astrakhan, even Baku… to the nearest satellite facility.'
'Warn them to be ready on that. There isn't going to be much time. OK?' He attempted to trust Priabin; but images of the dead woman on the border road defeated him. Priabin would work with him — possibly. Priabin had his own life to save — possibly. But the dead woman and the dying woman — what had they done to him? 'OK?' he insisted. 'You ready?'
'No,' Priabin replied immediately. 'But we're on the same side, Gant. For the moment, and by the strangest accident — but we are. I have to stop them, too, there's nothing standing in my way,' he added as if he divined the source of Gant's doubt. His breathing was harsh, contradicting his statement. Gant let it go.
'OK. Talk to Aral'sk, then get ready to use that video camera.'
Begin.
The Mil rose gently from the shelter of the wooden barn. The wind cuffed the fuselage as it moved out of the shadows, into the betraying moonlight. Bright moon, strong wind. Gant loathed the night.
He scanned the sky, his gaze sliding from the starry darkness toward the wash of the moonlight. Nothing. No lights, no insect silhouettes. The wind struck the fuselage. He glanced down at the moving-map display. Twenty feet above the ground, the Mil began to move northeast, away from the Moscow road, toward the main assembly building of the Baikonur complex.
'I should not have had to come here, Serov. I should not have had to come.'
Serov's broken arm was held in a sling made from someone's Uniform belt. His face was ashen with pain, his whole bulky form somehow diminished by his injury. To Rodin, he appeared — for once — subordinate. Rodin's voice echoed in the empty hangar. GRU officers and men had retired to a respectful, even nervous distance, anticipating some kind of detonation. Rodin slapped one removed glove in his palm, as if weighing a selected target. Serov had become the object of his rage, but more than that; the general felt a desire, almost a need, to vent some deep, anguished wrath on the man who stood in front of him. There were pools of light-rain-bowed gasoline around them where the stolen KGB helicopter had stood.
'I — comrade General, I am sorry that—'
'Be quiet, Serov. Be quiet before you say something that further displays your incompetence.' Rodin's glove slapped into his palm like an anticipation. His staff, too, stood away from the two of them; near the open doors of the hangar — through which the American had flown the Mil and escaped! It hardly bore consideration, it made his body overheat, his collar seem tight. It evoked intense contempt, even hatred, for this, this creature in front of him.
Rodin cleared his throat of angry phlegm. 'They will be found, Serov, within the hour. At liberty, they are an element of the most critical importance. This American, Gant — you seem to have underestimated him just as you did the KGB officer. You let them take you.' The anger was back, and he did little to suppress it. His hand moved, without restraint, slapping the glove hard across Serov's face. 'You—' he snarled.
Rodin knew. Some deep instinct convinced him that Serov was involved in Valery's death. He could not analyze or even continue the idea. His wife was broken, and he could feel pity for her; just as he could feel his hatred of Serov. He knew that Serov, too, understood. His eyes gave that away.
'I will make it my duty to inform Stavka of this day's business, Serov,' he promised. Had Serov killed his son? Impossible. But he had had something to do with it; had he hounded the boy? Showing him his future, in a cracked and distorting mirror? Had he destroyed Valery? 'They will be recaptured,' he proceeded, as if some rehearsed and uninvolved part of him continued with the business of security, and
'Comrade General, my arm—'
Rodin waved a dismissive glove, airily. 'There is not time to have that set and plastered. You will come now. You have control of four gunships and another eight helicopters, as well as GRU and army units. You will use them to find these runaways. Come/'
Rodin turned away from the ashen, carefully neutral features. His stride did not falter. Inside himself, he felt a dark tide moving his heart and stomach. Now, now he could blame others, entirely, for Valery's death. Others would pay. Valery Avould be — avenged. The record put straight.
He reached the tight, expectant knot of staff officers. He waved them ahead of him out into the evening and the icy wind. He looked up at the stars. Somewhere out there, one small helicopter posed a danger. Critical — but it was difficult to believe that the American could evade the hunt for more than an hour or two. Before midnight, before the shuttle and the laser weapon began their journey to the launch pad, he and Priabin would again be in custody — or dead. He felt the wind snatch at his breath. It flew away like smoke. He bent his head to climb into the staff car's rear seat.
Dangerous, but not mortal. He looked out of his window. Serov was cradling his broken arm as he came out of the hangar. A gunship droned overhead. More distantly, lights flashed from other MiLs. Searchlights flooded down from the bellies of two other insect shapes in the distance.
'Mission control,' he snapped. 'Quickly.' Then, as he made to settle back into his seat, his glance turned once more to Serov, waiting in the cold for his own car. He tapped his driver on the shoulder as he heard the gears bite and the engine note strengthen. 'Wait,' he said, and wound down his window. 'Serov,' he called. 'Come here.'
Serov walked the few yards in evident discomfort. He leaned slowly, like an old man, to the open
