He tensed himself for the first visual sighting when he ran out of the cloud.
The ministry car had left the M1 north of Leicester, and they had used the A46 through Newark and Lincoln to reach Scampton by lunchtime. Flat land beneath a cloud-strewn sky, the three honey-coloured towers of Lincoln Cathedral overlooking the red-roofed city, and then they were on a minor road between clipped, weather-strained hedges before arriving at the Guard Room of the RAF station.
Kenneth Aubrey had been voluble during the journey, as excited as a child on an annual holiday. To the two Americans, Buckholz and Curtin, he was tiresome in his complete and impenetrable pleasure at the success of the Firefox operation. Their passes were inspected by the guard, and then they were directed towards the CO's office.
Group Captain Bradnum was on the steps of the main administration building, two stories of red brick, and he hurried to the car as it came to a halt. Aubrey almost bounced out of the rear seat to shake his hand, his smile bordering on something as vulgar and uninhibited as a grin. Bradnum's heavy features reflected the expression he saw on Aubrey's lips. It was all right. Everything was all right.
'Well, Group Captain?' Aubrey asked archly. Buckholz and Curtin left the car with less speed and more dignity, yet with as much pleasurable anticipation.
'He must be safe by now,' Bradnum replied.
Aubrey glanced at his watch. 'The British Airways flight from Stockholm leaves in thirty minutes, I see. I presume Gant's going to be on time — mm, Charles?' He turned to Buckholz, who shrugged, then nodded. 'Oh, my apologies, Group Captain — Charles Buckholz of the the CIA, and Captain Eugene Curtin of the USN Office of Naval Intelligence.' Hands were shaken. When the formalities were over, Aubrey said, 'You said he must be safe by now. Why? Has anything happened?'
Bradnum's face was lugubrious. 'The Nimrod — at your request-was monitoring Gant's advised flight path…'
'Yes, yes,' Aubrey snapped impatiently. 'What of it?'
'Only minutes ago there was nothing in the area except a Russian AWACS plane on the Soviet side of the border with Finland.'
'And — ?'
'Now there are two Foxbat interceptors in that airspace — and a great deal of coded signal traffic, and — ' Bradnum shrugged. His mirroring of Aubrey's smile had been unwarranted, a moment away from the truth. 'Eastoe in the Nimrod claims they were climbing very fast, very positively…'
'On an interception course?'
'They're close enough to spit at the Firefox, Eastoe said.'
'Why weren't we told this?' Buckholz demanded heavily.
'It happened only minutes ago.'
'And in those minutes?'
'Eastoe's reported a great deal of manoeuvring…'
Aubrey turned away, facing south across the still-wet runways. Beyond the hangars and other buildings, beyond the flagpole and the perimeter fence, a sudden gleam of sunlight displayed the distant towers of Lincoln Cathedral on its perch of limestone. Then the towers were dulled as the watery sun disappeared behind a swiftly-moving cloud. He turned back to Bradnum.
The noise of an RAF Vulcan taking off seemed a mocking, unnecessary intrusion into the tense silence.
'I know Eastoe — what's his best guess?' Aubrey asked quietly. 'He would have one and he would have offered it, asked or no.'
Bradnum nodded. 'They've been in the tightest formation and descending very slowly for two minutes or more. He thinks the Firefox is there, too. It's too deliberate to be for no reason.'
Aubrey snapped his fingers in an inadequate expression of anger and urgency.
'We must talk to Eastoe,' he said, addressing Buckholz. 'At once. From your Ops. Room, Group Captain. Lead on, if you please.'
At the edge of eyesight, another shaft of sunlight warmly lit the distant cathedral towers. Aubrey shivered with the cold of the wind.
'What now? What now?' the First Secretary demanded. The Tupolev Tu-144 was cruising at fifty thousand feet, almost a hundred miles of the journey from Bilyarsk to Moscow already accomplished.
Vladimirov leaned heavily on the other side of the map-table, his eyes focused upon the dark-haired wrists that protruded from beneath the Russian leader's shirt cuffs. Grey hairs, too…
The report from the surviving Foxbat confirmed that visual contact with the Firefox had been lost. Gant was hidden somewhere in the twelve or thirteen thousand feet of the cloud layer. On low power, an infra-red trace would be difficult to establish, almost impossible to pinpoint and attack. Because attack would be the next order. Vladimirov knew that. For him the game was up. Deluded by the apparent passivity of the American and the success of his two Foxbat pilots, Vladimirov had fatally delayed the order to the border squadrons on the Kola Peninsula to scramble. Now, he was once more blind, the Firefox's anti-radar concealing the American. Neither the surviving Foxbat nor the AWACS Tupolev 'Moss' could detect his presence.
Vladimirov's own future remained difficult to envisage. His pride was hurt. He had lost to the American once again, and he could not forgive himself. The anger of others failed to interest him.
Eventually, he looked up at the Russian leader. The man's face was dark with habitual anger, habitual power. Threat. The image of the bully. Yet the stupid man had no ideas of his own — had no conception.
The scatter of luminous blips representing the scrambled interceptors, mainly MiG-25s and swing-wing MiG-27 Floggers, moved across the bright map towards the border with Finland. Other dots scurried south-eastwards from the west of North Cape, their contact time still six minutes away. Although no more than a futile gesture, the AWACS Tupolev had changed course to patrol the hundred miles or so of border which contained the point at which Gant would have crossed — had crossed, he reminded himself-into Russia. The single remaining Foxbat's white dot buzzed and twisted in tight little circles on the map, like an insect dying.
'In two minutes we will have eighteen, even twenty-four aircraft in the area,' Vladimirov said calmly. 'Visual contact will be re-established.'
The First Secretary sneered, then compressed his lips above his clenched jaw. When he spoke, all he said was: 'And what will you do if and when he is sighted?'
'I await your orders, Comrade First Secretary…' Vladimirov announced in a quiet, restrained voice. Behind the Russian leader, Air Marshal Kutuzov nodded with the wisdom and cowardice of great age, paining Vladimirov by his assent. Andropov smiled thinly, and flicked a little nod in the direction of the general. The gesture acknowledged the acquisition of good sense, proper caution; the priority of survival. The First Secretary appeared suspicious, then mollified.
'Very well.' He leant more closely over the surface of the map, the colours of the projectedjand mottling his features. It was a parody of knowledge apeing the strategist. The First Secretary had been a Political Commissar during the Great Patriotic War. His reputation suggested, even in the sanitised, history-book version now current, that he had killed many more Russians than he had Nazis. No, no, Vladimirov warned himself, stilling the angry tremor of his hands. You've begun it-play it out. 'Very well,' the First Secretary repeated. 'We — will wait, until our forces are in the area…' He looked to Vladimirov for approval, and the general nodded perfunctorily.
Masterly, Vladimirov announced silently and with irony. Quite masterly. Aloud, he said: 'Contact time of closest squadrons — one minute. Warn them to concentrate on infrared search. Blanket the area. Gant is virtually weaponless, and out of fuel.' Even to himself, his optimism sounded remarkably hollow. It appeared, however, to satisfy Andropov and the First Secretary.