Spy Story (29 page)

‘Search and Rescue livery,' said Ferdy.

‘Ship based,' said Schlegel. ‘It could still work out.'

‘Remoziva, you mean?' Ferdy said.

Schlegel shot me a quick glance. ‘Yes, it could be,' said Schlegel. ‘It could be.'

The chopper settled in the great cloud of powdered snow that was lifted by its blades. Only when the snow settled could we see it, sitting a hundred yards from us. It was slab-sided, with twin-boom tailplane. The cabin was no more than a box, with two huge engine pods mounted high on each side. The exhausts glowed red in the darkness. The box-like design was emphasized by stripes of international-orange, calculated to make it conspicuous on either the ice or the dark ocean. There were dimension lights on every corner of it, and even after the blades came to a sticky halt – when the chopper's outlines were no longer easy to see – the lights continued to wink on and off like crazy fireflies on a summer's evening.

Schlegel put a hand on Ferdy's arm. ‘Let them come to us, let them come to us.'

‘Could that be Remoziva?' said Ferdy.

Schlegel only grunted. The man who had got out came from the door on the passenger side. He held on to the side of the airframe as he dropped to the ground. His breath hit the cold air like smoke-signals. He was clearly not a young man, and for the first time I began to believe that it might be on.

‘You'd better go, Pat,' Schlegel said.

‘Why me?'

‘You speak.'

‘Ferdy too.'

‘Ferdy knows what's happening here.'

‘You've got me there,' I said. I got to my feet and walked towards the old fellow. He was easier to see than I was, for he was dressed in a dark-blue naval overcoat but without shoulderboards or insignia. Stok. It was Colonel Stok. He stopped forty yards from me and held up a flat hand to halt me too.

‘We'll need the body,' called Stok.

‘It's here.'

‘The insignia? … Uniform? … Everything?'

‘Everything,' I said.

‘Tell them to bring it to the aircraft.'

‘Your man,' I said. ‘Where is your man?'

‘He's with his assistant in the back seat. It's well. Go back and tell them, it is well.'

I returned to the others. ‘What do you think?' said Schlegel. I was about to tell him that I didn't like anything about it, but we'd more or less agreed that I'd try to believe in fairies until they beat us over the head with exploding copies of
Izvestiia
. ‘He's a very wonderful human being, and you can quote me.'

‘Cut out the shit,' said Schlegel. ‘What do you think?'

‘He says Remoziva is in the back seat with his assistant. They want the body.'

‘I don't get it,' said Ferdy. ‘If they wreck this helicopter with that corpse at the controls, how do they get back?'

‘Do you know something, Ferdy, any time now you're going to find out about Santa Claus.'

‘Hack it, you two! Help me with this goddamn stiff.'

The Russians didn't help us. Stok watched us through light-intensifier glasses hooked up to the chopper's power unit. I suppose they needed such things for Arctic Search and Rescue, but that didn't help me feel any less conspicuous.

When we were about ten yards from the chopper I said to Schlegel, ‘Shouldn't one of us make a positive recognition of Remoziva?'

‘What's the difference? What do we need the stiff for anyway?'

I stopped for a moment. ‘Nothing, but these people might want it as evidence against Remoziva. They might be security police holding your friend Remoziva in custody.'

‘Nice thinking, Pat,' said Schlegel. ‘But if my Admiral friend is in custody, one uniformed body with kidney trouble is not going to matter much, one way or the other.'

‘You're the undertaker,' I said, and we carried the corpse all the way to the doors of the chopper. From behind me I felt a hand grab my leather belt. Almost as if that was a signal, the Russian with Stok hit Ferdy on the face. Ferdy was bending to the body, to help get it feet first into the helicopter doors, and now he straightened. The punch had gone over his shoulder but Ferdy's retaliation landed. The Russian reeled back against the open door, which banged against the fuselage. The Russian's fur hat was knocked off and I recognized him as one of the men who'd been with Stok at my flat.

The pilot had jumped down at the other side of the plane. I stepped over the undercarriage rack but Schlegel pulled me back and then stepped clear. He held a hand above his head and fired a signal pistol. The shot sounded very loud and a great red light appeared high above us, and suffused the world in a soft pink glow.

The two men from the back seat were struggling in the door and they had Ferdy's arm while Stok wrestled with him. It was almost funny, for both Ferdy and the Russian gyrated and overbalanced like a couple of drunken ballet dancers.

The pilot must have climbed back into his seat after Schlegel's signal, for the clutch engaged and the contra-rotating rotors began with a fierce roar. Few helicopters have overhead rotors low enough to wound even the tallest of men, and yet few resist bending when in the vicinity of the blades. As the pilot revved up, Stok crouched away, and then, fearful that the machine would ascend without him, he stretched an arm to be helped inside. Now only one of the men had Ferdy's arm and the machine tottered into the air, swinging as the nervous pilot over-corrected. Ferdy was suspended under it, his legs thrashing trying to find the undercarriage rack.

‘Help me, Pat. Help me.'

I was very close. The corpse had already thudded back upon the ice. I threw my glove off and found Mason's little .22 gun in my pocket. I pulled it clear. Ferdy's feet were now well clear of the ground and I threw my arms round them in a flying tackle. Ferdy twisted one foot to lock under the sole of the other. It was that that enabled me to unwind my gun arm and raise it. The helicopter roared and lifted into the dark Arctic sky.

The helicopter yawed as it ascended. Then, perhaps in an effort to dislodge me, it slewed abruptly and tilted. I glimpsed Schlegel, standing alone on the grey ice, waving his arms frantically, in some vain attempt to keep me under his command. A puff of cloud smothered me and then, looking deceptively close as we roared across the ice, there was the submarine. She wallowed in water that was now grey: a sleek black whale, garlanded by chunks of surface ice, and on her foredeck, a party of seamen about to cut blubber.

Afterwards I realized that I should have fired through the thin alloy fuselage at the pilot, or even in the direction of the rotor linkage. But I could think only of the man gripping Ferdy's arm and I put all my shots in that direction. There was a scream of pain and then I felt myself falling. I hung tight to Ferdy's legs – and tighter still – but that didn't stop me falling.

There was no way to tell whether we'd been there for seconds, for minutes, or for hours. I must have stirred enough to move my arm, for it was the pain of that that brought me to consciousness.

‘Ferdy. Ferdy.'

There was no movement from him. There was blood on his face from a nose-bleed, and his boot was twisted enough for me to suspect that he'd fractured an ankle.

An ankle, it would have to be an ankle, wouldn't it. I didn't fancy my chances of carrying Ferdy more than twenty yards, even if I had known in which direction the submarine was, or whether it was still there.

Schlegel would be searching for us. I was sure of that. Whatever his shortcomings, he did not give up easily.

‘Ferdy.' He moved and groaned.

‘The moon was north-easterly, right, Ferdy?'

Ferdy didn't exactly nod, but he contracted his face muscles as if he wanted to. I looked again at the sky. There was a glimpse of the moon now and again, as the low fast clouds parted. And there was a handful of stars too, but like any handful of stars I had no trouble converting them into a plough and making its handle point north any way I wanted. Ferdy was our only chance of heading in the right direction.

‘The submarine, Ferdy.'

Again there was that movement of his face.

‘Would you say the submarine was thataway?'

He looked at the moonlight, and at the hand I held close to his face. The wind was howling so loudly that I had to hold my head against his mouth to hear his words. ‘More,' it sounded like. I held my hand above him, and turned it until his eyes moved to show me a sort of affirmative. Then I got to my feet very slowly, examined myself and Ferdy too. He was semi-conscious, but his ankle was the only damage I could see. Getting a fireman's lift on Ferdy was a long and difficult process but the pain of his ankle brought him almost back into the world again.

‘Put me down,' whispered Ferdy as I shuffled along, half-carrying him. His arms were clasped round my neck, and only infrequently did his good leg assist our progress.

‘Put me down and let me die,' said Ferdy.

‘Listen, Ferdy,' I said. ‘You'd better pull yourself together, or I'll do exactly that.'

‘Put me down,' said Ferdy, and he gave a long groan of pain and weariness.

‘Left, right, left, right, left, right,' I called loudly. He couldn't do much about the rights, but with a bit more nagging I was able to persuade him to take his weight on his left foot now and again.

I was kidding myself, if I thought that I could get as far as we could see. And there was no submarine nearer than that. I stopped. But just holding Ferdy upright took more of my strength than I could spare.

‘Schlegel will be searching for us,' I said.

Ferdy groaned, as if to indicate that he'd rather be left there than rescued by the dreaded Schlegel.

‘Left, right, left, right, left, right,' I continued.

Sometimes the wet grey mist wrapped itself round us so completely that we had to stop and wait for the wind to find us a path through it.

‘For God's sake, Ferdy, take some of your weight.'

‘Cinnamon toast,' said Ferdy.

‘Damn right,' I said. ‘It's all that bloody cinnamon toast.'

Sometimes I stopped even when the mist did not force us to. I stopped to recover my breath, and, as time went on, the stops became more and more frequent. But at least Ferdy was not demanding to be abandoned in the Arctic wastes. It was a good sign, I thought, perhaps not unconnected with thoughts of cinnamon toast.

It was getting darker and darker all the time and I was frightened of losing my sense of direction as already I had lost all track of time.

Once I thought I heard the sound of whistles. I stopped. ‘Listen Ferdy: whistles.'

But it was just the shriek of the wind, playing the sharp fluted ice.

‘Left, right, left, right.'

By now I was croaking the time for myself, more than for Ferdy. I was commanding my own feet to crunch down into the unending snow. As it got darker I was more and more often blundering into ice ridges that came out of the mist at us, for all the world like ships steaming through a fog. ‘Here's another, Ferdy,' I said. ‘Left, right, left, right, left, right. No slackening of pace. You're doing well, old son.'

And so when I saw the bright-red flares ahead of me, it was just another ship in the convoy. ‘Left, right, left, right, left, right.' And the whistles were just the wind. So Ferdy and I pressed on through them, even when the ice ridges steered two points or more to ram us, or those icy ships were tearing at our clothes. ‘Left, right, left, right. Pick your bloody feet up, Ferdy, you bastard, and take a bit of your two hundred pounds of cinnamon toast on your good ankle, for a change.'

Slabs of up-tilted ice – as big as man – were on every side of us. It was difficult to pick a way through them. I used an outstretched hand to steady myself, as in the half-light the ice seemed to place itself in our path.

‘Not much farther now, Ferdy,' I coaxed him. ‘I can almost smell that damned toast.'

‘Are they both crazy?' It was the Captain's voice.

‘Left, right,' I said, pushing my way past the ice but snagged upon it, I felt myself stamping the same piece of snow.

‘Help me with the big fellow.' It was the voice of the doctor. ‘Dead – done for long since.'

Schlegel's voice said, ‘No goggles – snow blind and concussed. Have you got a needle with you, Doc?'

Somewhere nearby there was another signal flare and I could see that all right. I struggled to get free.

‘Wasted effort,' said the voice of Schlegel. ‘Carrying him all that time – what a state he's in.'

‘Probably wasn't dead when they started.'

‘Maybe not, Doc.'

‘Let go of Foxwell.' It was Schlegel shouting again, and this time his face was only inches from me. ‘You stupid bastard, let go of him, I say!'

PRINT
-
OUT
(pink sheet total) is the end of game. Subordinate, aggregate and continuous play not included in
PRINT
-
OUT
are not part of the game.

RULES
. ‘
TACWARGAME
'.
STUDIES CENTRE
.
LONDON

Several times I had almost awakened into a hazy snow-white world of ether and antiseptic. Through the window bright sun shone on a world of dark-green pine forests, the trees sagging under layers of snow.

Someone lowered the blinds so that the room filled with soft shadowless light. There was a table with fruit, flowers and newspapers on it. The newspapers were in some unreadable script. At the end of the bed sat a man I recognized. He wore a dark suit and his face was elderly and slightly blurred.

‘He's waking up again.'

‘Pat!'

I groaned. And now another figure came into view, looming over the end of the bed like a sun rising over the Arctic wastes. ‘Wake up, sweetheart, we've got other appointments.'

‘I'll pour him some tea,' said Dawlish. ‘There's nothing so reviving as a nice cup of tea. Probably hasn't had a proper one since coming in here.'