'What is happening?' the First Secretary asked accusingly, looking at each of them in turn. The bodyguards loitered. 'I rang the command centre, only to be told that you had gone for a walk.'
'It is all decided — everything has been worked out,' Andropov replied calmly, indicating Vladimirov. The First Secretary appeared to make an immediate pact with the Chairman of the KGB. His face darkened when he turned to Vladimirov, ready to accuse.
'Well, General-well?'
'Comrade Chairman Andropov and myself have made our decisions, First Secretary. We were on our way to inform you privately.'
Andropov's glasses caught the sun, and glinted. It was like a surrogate smile, a small signal of congratulation. 'Yes,' he agreed. 'We differ in some essentials, however.'
'I will tell you what is to happen,' the Soviet leader announced, walking on down the path, careful of his footing, waiting for them to fall into step at either side of him. Vladimirov clenched his fists for a moment, then caught up with the older man. Andropov was already to his left.
'We would value your opinion, of course — ' Andropov began.
'You will listen to your orders.'
'First Secretary, I have to say that you are not — '
The gleam in the First Secretary's eyes silenced Vladimirov. It was more eloquent than the threats which followed. 'Orders. Do you really want me to produce the Minister and Deputy Ministers, the Military Council in force, the General Staff, the Commander-in-Chief of Warsaw Pact Forces, members of the Politburo — more than enough to form a quorum — half the Central Committee…?' The Soviet leader waved his arms in the air, as if conjuring his supporters. 'All of them will tell you that I am right, even before I say anything! What is it you want, Vladimirov? What proof do you require before you realise that this business — all.of it — falls under my control? I have allowed you to lead. Now, you will follow. Do you understand me?'
Vladimirov stared over the trilby hat, towards the Archangel Cathedral and the great bell-tower of Ivan the Terrible. He fought to control his features; to prevent his lips from twisting in ugly, frightening contempt, to prevent a blush of anger and shame entering his skin. Eventually, without meeting the Soviet leader's gaze, he nodded stiffly. 'I understand you, First Secretary.'
'Good.' Clouds moved swiftly behind the trilby hat, behind the bell-tower and the cathedral's domes. Shadow for a moment or two, then cold sunlight again. 'Good.'
'What is it you wish to be done?' Vladimirov asked. It was evident that the First Secretary had been in consultation with members of the General Staff and the Military Council. He was certain of himself. He had a scenario prepared. A consensus had been reached.
'You have one attempt — just one — to recapture the MiG-31. If that fails, then the aircraft is to be destroyed where it stands. Do you comprehend?'
Vladimirov nodded miserably. The First Secretary had ensured his backing for such a decision. The wasted billions, the wasted high technology, the wasted lives, did not matter. Safety first. The General Staff and the Council had accepted the wisdom of erasure. Better no one than the Americans. Obviously, he already had given guarantees that the project would be continued, and that continuity of funding was assured. In exchange, the General Staff had agreed that no one be held responsible for the theft of the MiG. A fresh start would be made. The matter would be forgotten.
Vladimirov wondered who had been on his side. The Minister of Defence — Kutuzov, certainly, but who else? He still had some influential allies, otherwise he would never have been granted even one chance to recover the aircraft. Someone would have ordered a small, powerful bomb to be dropped, or a stand-off missile to be fired -
And then he saw the trap, opening up at his feet. Realisation raced like the clouds beyond the domes of the cathedral. He was expected to fail. He would be disgraced, and removed. The First Secretary — perhaps even Andropov, too — would be revenged upon the insubordinate soldier. A warning to others. He dropped his gaze and met the Soviet leader's eyes. And saw that his insight was a true one. This man wanted his head.
Summoning as much bravado as he could, he said, 'One chance, First Secretary? Then I shall take it, gladly. We'll capture the aircraft and our friend, the American!'
The MO-MAT creaked with frozen snow as a great bale of it was slowly unrolled along the cleared shoreline. The trees there had been cut down and the bases and roots grubbed out to make an open flat area which stretched away to a point where the ice would bear the weight of the Firefox. The portable runway covered rutted mud, pockmark holes, frozen slush.
Buckholz stood on the shore, his back to the soupy, refreezing water beneath which the aircraft had lain. He could hear the creaking of the MO-MAT, and the noise disturbed him. At that distance, he should not have been able to hear it. The wind must be dropping. He turned his face into it, and his cheeks were numbed almost instantly. But he could hear the MO-MAT, hear distinctly the chain-saws, even hear the voices of the mechanics and engineers who swarmed over the airframe. There should be nothing else but the wind. He pulled back the cuff of his parka, and looked at his watch. According to updated reports, they had another hour.
Runway, he told himself. Runway. He would need Moresby to check that. They needed upwards of four thousand feet of clear ice, and God alone knew what lay out on the lake. He had an image of Gunnar stumbling, tripping and falling against small ridges of drift that had frozen. The aircraft could never achieve its take-off speed, maintain its heading or preserve its undercarriage intact if the obstacles were too numerous, too solid…
He moved towards the aircraft. It was like entering a warm and familiar room. Cannon ammunition was being fed into the huge drum aft of the cockpit. Two AA-6 missiles had already been fitted beneath the wings. The ammunition was NATO in origin, but fitted the drum and the calibre of cannon aboard the MiG-31. The two missiles were a bonus, Buckholz admitted. Salvaged from a MiG which had crashed, killing the pilot, on the Varanger-Halvoya while trying to get back to its Kola Peninsula base with an electrical fire on board. The wreckage had been returned, together with the pilot's remains. The missiles had ended up at Bardufoss with the RNAF Tactical Supply Squadron.
Beneath the aircraft lay a crude timber support and a deflated black airbag. They had been used to lift the airframe off the ground to test the undercarriage. To one side, the hot-air blowers lay waiting for re-use. Much of the MiG's airframe was covered by temporary shrouding when operations began, and the air blown around the airframe to dry it. The shrouds remained around the engine intakes. One engineer had only minutes before completed his slow, patient journey around the aircraft with a smaller, more portable blower, drying off every hinge, flap, and lock on the airframe.
The fuselage had been patched where it had been torn by cannon fire. The fuel lines had been repaired. Oxygen had been loaded aboard. The aircraft looked like an expensive model, as far as Buckholz was concerned. Somehow, it no longer seemed designed to fly. Sinister yes, beautiful in a dangerous way. But — a copy. A fake. He could not believe that the avionics, the hydraulics, the instruments, the engine itself, even the flaps and rudders — would operate. More than seven hours after the drop, after work had begun on the Firefox, Buckholz could not believe.
He signalled to Moresby, who seemed reluctantly to detach himself from a conversation with two of his team leaders. Yet the Englishman hurried the short distance between them.