Winter Hawk (69 page)

Priabin heard Rodin's breathing, magnified by the silence in the
^r
oom. He sensed the man's sheen of success; yet there was some °oscure sense of unrest, even unease. He shook his head and loaned at the lurching pain. Rodin looked around quickly, his features registering distaste as he saw Priabin's damaged face. Self-con-
Jciously,
Priabin touched his jaw, his swollen, awkward lips, before
^he
spoke.

. All
going according to plan, then?" he sneered. The words were ^distinct, pathetic.

Rodin's eyes gleamed. He cupped his sharp chin in one hand. The other waved dismissively at the room, at the screens; at Priabin. Yet there still seemed that unease.

"Quite so, Colonel—quite so," his voice remarked coolly. Perhaps Priabin was mistaken. This was the hour of the mans success. Yet... ? His questions regarding his son had been asked as if at the behest of someone else, like a favor. Valery's mother?

Priabin did not wish the questions to intrude. He wanted only to be detached, indifferent. It was all over anyway, young Rodin, Katya, Anna—even Gant, wherever he was—all over. So stop being
a
policeman, he told himself. The questions insisted.

"You re mad," he goaded. His aching face reminded him of physical punishment as Rodin's eyes glared. But he continued: "It will all come out, comrade General. Even in our deaf-and-dumb society, it'll come out. Fifty years' worth of priceless propaganda you'll have handed the Yankees on a plate, General." His attempt at laughter became a racking cough that doubled him over on his chair. When he looked up again through wet eyes, he saw the disdain on Rodin's face.

"Your body has the strength of your opinions," the general observed quietly, again turning to the television screen, which absorbed his attention.

In a glare of arc lights, the vast trelliswork of the erector cage was lifting the shuttle as delicately as a toy from the flatcars on which it had rested. It was being tilted through ninety degrees so that it would point skyward before the cranes raised it atop the boosters. Somehow, to Priabin, it was strangely primitive; a poor, out-of-date copy of the high technology of the American shuttle
and
its vast external fuel tank and the two solid rocket boosters; gleaming and sleek and filled with power on a sunny Florida morning. He'd seen countless launches of the American shuttle. The
Raketoplan
, smaller and riding on top of a huge missile, seemed like some vulgar, dubious imitation. Nevertheless, he watched, as fascinated as Rodin himself appeared to be. The shuttle swung
through
forty degrees like the elevation of some enormous gun from an old war.

New war.

Priabin swallowed dryly.

"He killed your son," he murmured. Rodin appeared half disturbed from his concentration, then he whirled to face Priabin, his features ashen. Rodin's hatred made Priabin blanch, but he swallowed once more, then added: "Serov killed your son, or had him killed. You know, though, don't you? At least you—"

"Be silent!" Rodin stormed, his cheeks white, his hps faintly blue. He made as if to move toward Priabin, but then forced himself to remain still. Then he shouted: "You do not understand, Colonel, you simply do not begin to understand!"

"But you know, or suspect?" he insisted. •

"And why should you care, Colonel?" The shuttle s nose pointed at perhaps sixty degrees into the glare of the lights and the night beyond them. "To save your own miserable life? To place me like a barrier between yourself and Serov?" He snorted with contempt. "Serov intends to have you shot."

"With respect, that's obvious, General."

"And you would like to take the mad dog down with you?" Then Rodin added in a quieter voice: "The woman was your mistress, I suppose?"

Priabin shook his head, ignoring the surge of heavy pain between his temples. "No. I just liked her," he said tiredly.

"Then—what do you hope to gain by your accusations against Serov?"

The shuttle's nose was traveling through seventy degrees to the horizontal, locked in its cage. Priabin sensed the vast hydraulic forces, the sheer size and mass and effort of the silent, diminished scene. The express hoist would move the
Raketoplan
up the side of the launch gantry like an outside elevator rising past the floors of some ultra-modern hotel. Then the craft would be settled on the booster stages. His stomach felt hollow as he realized that they would launch in perhaps as little as four hours. It was twelve. Midnight. He felt the need to make his words count, have effect, though he had little sense of objective. Did he just want to needle Rodin?

"I don't give a shit about Serov," he said, shrugging with studied casualness.

"Then what? Assuming I believe your indifference to Serov."

"Just the truth." Again, Rodin snorted in derision. His attention returned to the screen.

Surprised at himself, Priabin wondered why and how he had become reinvolved. Why did he want Gant to escape, make it to somewhere? Where? A KGB office? Ludicrous. It didn't matter, the future was too vague to consider, his mind too weary. But if Rodin acted against Serov, then the hunt for Gant would lose its edge— might lose its edge, he corrected himself. Serov was the slave driver. If someone else took command, it might just leave a door ajar through which Gant could slip.

He doubted it all. Its slender contact with reality, with that happening inexorably on the screen, mocked him. Yet he persisted simply because he was no longer totally absorbed with guilt and self-pity. He did not wish it to leave him, he still desired the embrace of guilt. He still wanted to go on paying, even after the beating, but guilt had lost its strength. Katya, Valery Rodin, Viktor, Anna—all of them were slipping back into the dark. The immediate insisted on its presence.

"Just the truth," he repeated, afraid he had lost Rodin, who was staring at the screen. The shuttle craft did not appear to be tilting any farther skyward. A delay?

"What?" Rodin murmured absently; irritated.

"He had your son killed!" Priabin shouted. "What are you going to do about it?"

"What did you—?" Rodin turned, his features enraged.

"He killed your son like he killed your son's friend, the actor. Do you want me to spell it out? K-i-l-l-e-d, killed. He's a mad dog, you said it. Rabid. Your son let slip your precious secret. Your son was going to Moscow, wasn't he?"

"Yes."

"Never mind. I was going with him. He'd agreed to talk. Serov knew that, or suspected it, and got rid of him. Like tipping rubbish down a disposal chute. Just got rid of him and made it look like suicide. Now will you do something about it?"

Rodin was still, but his body seemed to sway minutely.

Adopt revenge as the motive, Priabin told himself coldly. Just get rid of Serov, you can't control anything more than that. Get rid of Serov.

The door opened. Serov entered, his features impassive. Rodin turned toward him, with the clockwork movement of an
automaton.
Had Serov heard? The man's face betrayed nothing but urgency, his own security concerns.

"Comrade General," he said deferentially, "we must have these operating consoles, the computer map. The search is being hampered while we are excluded from this room, comrade General."

The silence thudded in Priabin's ears. Rodin stared at Serov without moving. Then he turned his face toward Priabin. His eyes were bleak gray pebbles, his lips compressed into a straight,
expres
sionless line. Priabin saw the turmoil for an instant, reflected in a tic at the corner of Rodin's mouth. Then it seemed his will was able to still that involuntary reaction, because it ceased almost as soon as it

appeared.

Eventually, he looked at
Serov
and said:
"Very
well.
Find
him— find that
American."

"We will, General, we will."

"Be certain you do, Serov." Rodin turned suddenly to Priabin and snapped: "Colonel Priabin, come with me now."

"But, General—

"Be silent, Serov. The colonel is now my prisoner."

Gant waved the shrouded lamp over his wrist. Midnight. Then, once more, he dipped the lamp into the blackness of the chemical tank in the Antonov's cabin. Dry, clean, no residual scent of the crop-dusting chemicals they had used the previous season. He nodded vigorously. It would work, just so long as he could fuel up the airplane. It would work, he reiterated to convince himself. The chemical tank had about a three hundred-gallon capacity; greater than the Antonov's upper-wing fuel tanks. He assessed the aircraft's range at perhaps as much as five hundred miles. With the chemical tank filled with aviation fuel, he would more than double that range.

Eleven hundred miles. Pakistan or Turkey. Across the border. His chest was tight with excitement as he once more recited the figures. His body felt warmed by self-satisfaction.

The wing tanks were full. All he required was to find the fuel store. It must be outside the hangar. He hadn't seen it on his approach. It had to be behind the hangar, out in the dark where the dirt runway undoubtedly was. His imagination reached out, and faltered. He couldn't get the airplane out of the hangar unless he started up the engine. That noise might bring—

—and he wouldn't have time to fuel up the chemical tank if he aroused interest.

He stood up in a crouch and climbed out of the cabin, the lead for the lamp dropping noisily onto the concrete as he jumped down. He couldn't check the flaps because they operated electrically. He'd checked everything that worked by cable, mechanically—the rud-^er, the ailerons, the flying controls. Checked the oil levels, the
^m
aps in the cockpit. Sat in the pilot's seat, sensing the separate, ^familiar life of the Antonov; sensing, too, its resemblance to that nrst crop duster. Familiarity had been a small victory. He had jettisoned as much from the cabin as he could—most of the cabin lining, stowed equipment, the noise-reducing plywood of the fuselage walls. He had checked each of the repair cards. The Antonov would fly, but only for five hundred miles until he found extra fuel. Half the way home.

. . . like repairing a bicycle, kid.

The memory made him grin involuntarily. He'd said that twenty-five years ago as he let Gant help him service the crop duster, after their first flight together. Gant had checked the pressure in the Antonov's tires and remembered the words.
Like repairing a bicycle , kid.

He switched off the lamp, and crossed the now-familiar hangar in pale moonlight. He opened the judas door and stepped through it. He shivered in the icy cold, came more awake. He hunched into the folds of the parka, its hood dragged over his head, and rounded the side of the hangar. The wind howled in pursuit. He ran.

The battery needed perhaps two, three more hours to be fully charged. He could not cut it finer, dare not. If he drained the battery trying to start the engine, he was lost. Fuel was the necessity.

Wire, a small compound, tarpaulin. He sucked in air greedily, his teeth set in what might have been a grin. He rattled the lock. He needed something to cut the chain or snap the lock—have to go back. He bent down and studied the anonymous, heaped shape that was the outline of the tarpaulin. It was loosely fixed, great gusts of wind rippling it like the back of an aggressive animal. Flaps of it flew and cracked. He waited, the tension coming back into his frame.

turbine fuel
... He held his breath and waited for the wind to reveal the drum once more, reveal the stenciled Cyrillic lettering stamped on it. Eventually,
turbine fuel
appeared. By the size of the tarpaulin, there had to be in the region of thirty drums beneath its cover. He rose and looked at the wire fence. Pointless to
climb,
he had to open the gates. Smash the lock. The thought of the small violence satisfied him.

He had found the fuel he needed. If he employed the pump on the chemical tank to feed the fuel via a hose to the wing tanks, the whole jury-rig would work; it
would
work. He turned away from the rattling tarpaulin toward the hangar. Twelve-ten. By four, then, with luck . . .

He listened intently, saliva filling his mouth. He wasn't mis* taken. He knew the wind was carrying the noise of an approaching engine. He cocked his head to one side. Small vehicle by the noise-Coming closer. He ran scuttling toward the side of the hangar. As the moon slid behind a great billow of cloud, he saw headlights bouncing crazily as the vehicle followed the undulating dirt track from the collective. Light splashed on the firs, on the hangar. He crouched in the shadows.

The engine noise died. He heard the brake cranking on. Heard voices, two of them, even one man's luxurious yawn, the others comment on the chill of the night. One of the men rattled the doors of the hangar, the others voice disappeared into a muffled dis tance—Christ, as if he were going to walk right around the hangar! The rifle was in the hangar—Gant grabbed at his pockets frantically. Found the Makarov pistol he'd snatched up in the MiL's cabin, eased a round into the chamber, holding his breath at the magnified noise of the action. Christ—

. . aircraft in here?" he heard.