There was only one advantage in the weather. Nothing could fly in it — nothing Russian. They couldn't have moved a single helicopter, a single platoon, even if they knew where the Firefox was…
He was colder now, and he tried to move more quickly.
A freak of the wind brought him the voices. A piece of good luck he appreciated only when he dismissed the idea that the wind had snatched the sounds from the other side of the lake and flung them in his direction. These voices were close to him. Russian voices.
Cold, he distinguished. Fed up… the Major… balls to …
Then no more. He leaned against the bole of a tree. He was shaking, almost gripping the tree for support. His hands spread inside his mittens as if to locate and tear at the bark beneath the snow. Fingers twitching -
Russian voices. Soldiers, grumbling about their location, their duties, their officer. They'd been there for some time, they had a purpose which was already beginning to bore them — surveillance without action, his mind supplied — a major was in command. There might be a dozen, two dozen, three.
He turned, his back pressed against the trunk. He saw his breath curdle before it was whipped away by the wind. He was emitting signals as he breathed — where were they? He studied the darkness beneath the trees around him, studied the snow for footprints… the big tennis-racquet patterns of his own were already being covered. Where — ?
He strained to hear, but there was only the wind. Which direction? Over there? Near the shore. Between him and the shore -
He slid around the tree with exaggerated caution. He craned forward, staring towards the rushing white wall beyond the trees. White, white, white. He could see nothing other than the snow. Then someone moved. A white lump raised itself into a hunched back, then settled again. He could hear no words, no sound of voices. Once the lump stopped moving, it could no longer be distinguished from the ground, the trees, the white storm. Gunnar shivered.
What to do. what to do? He was unarmed. He turned his back to the tree once more. Had he already passed any of them? Was he surrounded and didn't yet know it?
It was some moments before he was able to think clearly. Then, minutes later, he moved away from the tree, scuttling as swiftly and cautiously as he could back the way he had come. He heard his own breathing, his heartbeat in his ears, the wind; imagined pursuit. He turned to his right before he reached the clearing, only then realising that they had not discovered the two helicopters, that his trail must not lead anyone to the clearing…
He reached the shore. Beyond him, his original tracks had been erased. The Lynxes were safe for the moment. He felt chilled and frightened by the rushing wall of snow, which was closer now. He had crossed the lake to the clearing only an hour before, but now…
It was as if he had dived slowly, grotesquely out of the trees into a different and alien element. The wall enveloped him, made him blind and breathless. He pulled his hood around his face, then kept his arms about his head, as if running from a fire. He was buffeted and bullied, flung off-balance seven or eight times. Even when he fell to the ice, or onto small ridges and drifts of snow, he felt the wind dragging or pushing him; inflating his parka like a balloon in order to move him on his back or stomach across the ice. Because of the Russians, because of the distance yet to travel, because of the utter isolation he felt in that wind and flying snow, Gunnar was deeply, acutely frightened. He was lost, completely lost.
He sat on a wind-cleared patch of ice, hunched over his compass. It was only a few hundred metres, metres, hundreds of metres, hundreds — a few hundred metres, only a few hundred metres, to the shore. He got onto all fours, having removed his snowshoes, and began to crawl.
He met a low hard ridge of snow and climbed it until he was half-upright. With a huge effort, the wind charging against his side like an attacker, a bullying ice-hockey opponent, he stood fully upright -
And ran. Floundering, charging, slipping. Ice-hockey opponent. It reduced the wind to something he knew, something he could combat. He blundered on, as if skating the barrier, charged again and again by his opponents. They blundered and bulled into him, but he kept going, arms round his head, hood pulled over his numbed face, lips spread in a mirthless grin. Another and another charged him, but he kept going. Slipped, recovered, almost tripped over softer snow, skidded on cleaned ice, knowing he was being blown like a small yacht on a curving course across the lake.
Then the shore. He blundered onto it, and fell. He could hear the very, very distant hum of one of the chain-saws. He had made it. Quickly, before the elation deserted him, he crawled towards the trees on all fours, scampering like a dog through the snow. His hands climbed the trunk of a tree until he was standing pressed against its solidity, its unmoving, snow-coated strength. His body was shuddering with effort. Then he turned his back to it.
Jesus Christ, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…
His mind chanted the word over and over until his breathing slowed and quietened. Then he listened, heard the chain-saws stop, and the crack of a falling tree followed by its dull concussion into the snow. He walked towards the sounds, nodding almost casually to the men clearing the fallen trunk. One of them — his companion pilot? — waved. Gunnar waved back. He hurried, then, along the cleared shoreline but just inside the remaining trees, towards the main clearing and Waterford. He forgot his R/T. Crossing the lake had somehow stripped him of any sense of technology, of being able to do more than speak face to face with anyone.
Waterford was talking to Buckholz. The Firefox was beyond them, as sheltered and camouflaged as it possibly could be in the circumstances. Men swarmed ovei it, lay upon the airframe, busied themselves beneath it. Gunnar was aware of the nakedness of the clearing, of eyes behind him. He turned to look. Nothing. Only the rushing white wall passing the clearing. Had they seen — ?
Must have seen -
'Major Waterford!' he called, realising only when he spoke how small and ridiculous his voice sounded. It was like an echo of the past minutes. He coughed. 'Major Waterford!' he called more strongly, hurrying forward. Waterford turned to him, quickly alert. Even Buckholz's features mirrored the concern he evidently saw on Gunnar's face.
'What is it? What's wrong with the choppers?' Waterford snapped.
'Nothing, nothing,' Gunnar blurted out. He could hear Moresby cursing something, above the noise of the wind.
'Then what is it?'
Gunnar was aware of the arm he pointed across the lake, as if it would be seen by the Russians. He snatched it back to his side, but Buckholz and Waterford were already staring into the snow, in the direction he had indicated.
'Russians — '
'What?'
'Russian soldiers — I don't know what unit… I heard only two voices, saw movement from one man — '
'Where?'
'The other side of the lake — ' They had all three turned now to face towards the blind western shore of the lake. 'On the shore. They must be — '
'Watching us? Yes.' Waterford's face had already absorbed shock, and closed again into grim lines. 'How many?'
'I don't know-'
'Did you look?'
'I thought I should get back as quickly — '
'Damn! Damn it!'
Buckholz said, 'We have to know how many.'
'We have to eliminate them,' Waterford replied.
'What-'
'Work it out! If there were enough of them, they'd be sitting in our laps by now. No, there aren't very many of them. They're a recce party, keeping tabs on us.'