The black fuel cells bounced awkwardly and rolled strangely, like trick balls weighted with sand. Slowly, they came to a halt, giant woods searching for a jack. The air transportable fuel cells had been landed safely; huge rubber containers filled with the various oils and the vital paraffin required if the Firefox was ever to take off from the lake.
The farthest of the pallets, with its bright yellow tractor tug, was already almost obscured by the driving snow. A window — ? Nothing but a glimpse of something through the storm. At least, Waterford thought, the Russians can't do anything. They won't be able to move.
Nor will we.
He watched as men detailed by Moresby moved out onto the ice to recover the pallets and the fuel cells. It would take no more than half an hour to get everything stowed under cover, camouflaged. Just in case -
'You'd better come with me,' Waterford said. His voice was pinched in his throat. He growled it clear. 'Come on, captain, we've got work to do. Your blokes aren't here to hold spanners for these buggers.'
'No, sir. But — '
Waterford turned to face him. The captain was staring at the Firefox, stranded amid trees and beneath camouflage netting; out of its element.
'What?'
'Hell of an aircraft, sir.'
'One problem with it — it doesn't fly!'
The Russian major tugged the hood of his camouflage blouse further forward, as if to conceal completely the fur hat with its single red star in the centre. He smiled at his nervous gesture, as if he really had been fearful of their being spotted through the weather from the other side of the lake.
His Border Guard reconnaissance party had heard the distant noise of the Hercules transport while they were breakfasting. He was fairly certain it was one of those big turboprop transport aircraft used by the Norwegians and the rest of NATO. His unit had made good time, even with the poor weather. The moment it cleared they had rested, hoping to make a quick, scrappy meal, then push on before the weather closed in again. Of course, once they reached the trees, the weather ceased to matter as much, inconvenient though it was. But the noise of the aircraft, muffled and distant and to the east, alerted them, created fears and prognostications and they had broken camp at once and pushed on with all possible speed. Somehow, each of his men and himself had known that the transport aircraft, even though it had not landed, had business at the two lakes.
The smaller, more westerly of the two had been empty of activity, supplies and people. The plane had made two passes, one at a reasonably high altitude as far as they could discern, the other much lower. The major had his suspicions; they were almost certain enough to report them to Moscow. But, he hesitated. He would be reporting directly to Andropov himself; his ultimate superior, his Chairman. He wanted further evidence before committing himself — yet, he should alert the reconnaissance aircraft, there should be an investigation. However, the weather had closed in again and he knew that no flights would now be possible to investigate the activities of the transport aircraft. But, surely it had been picked up by the border Tupolev AW ACS plane and reported? Had the weather closed in too quickly?
His party of twelve men moved behind him on the long crosscountry skis across the surface of the smaller lake. Out in the open, the wind was noisy again now; buffeting and yelling around them. The snow drove horizontally across the lake. The clouds were dark and heavy and seemed to hang like a great smothering cushion just above their heads. What was going on at the other lake? What had the transport aircraft been ferrying in? Men, supplies, equipment — why? The questions hurried and blustered in his thoughts, with a cold excitement like that of the wind. He felt on the verge of answers, but would not reach out to grasp them.
They moved off the ice, pausing for a short rest at the edge of the trees. Then they headed across the half-mile that separated the two lakes, climbing slowly and gently through the crowding pines and spruces that were heavy with snow. Birds called from a distance. Snow dropped with dull concussions from the overweighted branches of trees. His men spread out into a curving line of advance with himself at the centre, and began to move more cautiously. He could hear the slither of his skis and those of his sergeants on either side of him. The Kalashnikov rifle in its white canvas sleeve bobbed on his chest.
He crested a ridge, and the trees seemed to straggle more, with brighter snowy spaces between them. The morning was advanced, the light was pale grey. Slowly, he urged his body forward down the slope towards the unseen shore of the larger lake. He felt tense and excited, as if approaching some important promotional interview. He skirted the bole of a fir, glimpsed a stretch of snow-covered ice clear of trees, and came to a halt. He heard the slither of other stopping skis. By hand signals, he urged his men to cover. Rifles were quickly unwrapped and checked, ski-sticks planted like the cross-poles of wigwams for rifle rests. Trees became cover, the hardware of an ambush.
The major raised his binoculars, adjusted their focus, and stared into the flying snow which swept across the lake. Disappointed he could not see the farther shore, he felt he was gazing into a new and unearthly sunrise. He leant against the bole of the tree, a sergeant on the other side of it, and waited. He knew the answers would emerge from that glow, if there was a momentary change or drop in the wind and the snow was moved aside. He was prepared to wait, even though his jumpy, tense body was little more than an impatient net of nerves.
He waited for ten minutes, perhaps twelve. He heard the muffled noises at first. Compressors, a saw, no, two saws, the cracking, thudding fall of trees. The grind and creak of machinery, the whine of drills and what he presumed might be other power tools. He was reminded of his grandfather's hut at the bottom of the garden where the old man enthusiastically concocted gadgets that never worked, or badly repaired household utensils that had been damaged or broken. The tapestry of sounds comforted and excited him, but supplied no answers to his insistent questions. The voices of men, too, were carried faintly towards him by the wind.
Then he saw it. The snow seemed to retreat across the lake like a curtain, and he fine-focused his glasses after raising them quickly to his eyes. He stretched his eyelids, cleared his throat, then saw -
It had to be the MiG-31. It had to be exactly what they had been sent to find. It left him breathless. A black shape at the back of what might have been a stage set. Men half-swallowed by the cockpit or swarming over the tail section and the main fuselage. Great trailing hoses blowing air or supplying something, lay about the aircraft. A wide snail-track of portable runway ran down to the edge of the water — yes, water, where the ice had been broken…
'My God,' he whispered. 'My God, it was in the lake! Do you see, that, sergeant? It was in the lake!'
'Yes, sir. What are they doing to the aircraft, sir?'
'I don't know. They must be dismantling it. Yes, they must be taking it apart, ripping out all the secret stuff, the stuff they want…'