They curtsied and sidled as they hovered near the Firefox, before dropping slowly like fat black spiders at the ends of invisible threads. With Gunnar's helicopter in the leading position, they moved slowly away up the lake. Snow billowed around them in the downdraught, rolling like dust thrown up by a scything, horizontal wind. When it cleared there were ridges of frozen snow amid the smoother, cleaned expanse of ice.
'It's working,' Moresby commented.
'Annunciator panel and warning lights — test,' Gant prompted.
He pushed switches on the panel. The noise of the helicopters drummed and echoed around the lake. Royal Engineers were already using hot-air hoses and shovels to flatten and disperse the low, sword-edged dunes of frozen snow. He saw that most of them were already marked with something that might have been red paint.
The check lights on the panel glowed in the correct sequence.
Eventually, Gant said, 'Anti-G control — on… and check.'
'Now the UHF,' Moresby announced. 'Select the Soviet Tac-channel. Then we can listen to what our friends are up to. No transmission test yet.'
'OK — then what day is it?'
'Thursday.'
Gant removed a small card from its holder on the radio control box. He required the sequencing code to lock onto the secure Soviet Tac-channel, since the pattern of frequencies was altered each day.
'Got it,' he announced.
He switched on the radio, then slipped the Russian flying helmet onto his head. He plugged in the communications and thought-guidance jackplug at the side of the couch. Then he pressed the selector buttons, keying in the sequencing code, and almost at once the two red dots locked on, stuttering as they followed the changes of frequency. Moresby was looking at him. He concentrated on the crackling lash of voices in his ear. Activity, activity, he waited, hardly breathing. The stopwatch informed him that eighteen minutes had passed. Nothing was airborne. Everything was, however, fuelled and ready, awaiting the order to take off. Repeated references to the location of the lake, of tactics, of the pattern of overflights, selected squadron altitudes and search areas…
He switched off. 'It's OK,' he announced. It wasn't. He felt a creeping numbness, a reluctance to go on. They would be waiting for him. Perhaps ten or fifteen aircraft, expecting him to be visible only on infra-red, waiting in specific, clever patterns, as if they held nets between them and would cast for him the moment they saw the heat of his exhaust as he lifted from the lake.
The cloud of snow was retreating. Ridges and drifts were being smoothed and erased. The two Lynx helicopters were distant, unreal black dots at the far end of the lake.
He would have no chance.
There was no other way. He swallowed, and in a dry voice, he said, 'Repeat.'
'I asked you about the anti-radar and the thought-guidance. We don't know how they work so we can't reassure you as to whether they will work or not. Was there anything on the panel in connection with the anti-radar?'
Gant shook his head. 'There was no electrical or mechanical action to be taken.' He looked at Moresby. 'I don't know — '
The Lynxes were lost again in the cloud that was now moving slowly down the lake towards them.
'Damn,' Moresby muttered. Then he punched one mittened hand into the other. 'Got it!' He bent his head, placing his lips close to his R/T. Thorne — Thorne?' His voice was eager and querulous. Gant glanced across at the Harrier. He could see Thorne's hand wave in acknowledgement.
'Yes, sir,' he replied punctiliously.
'Be a good chap and see if you can see us, will you?' Moresby asked with affected casualness. 'On your radar, naturally.'
'But-'
'No buts. Just do it, my boy.'
'Sir.'
'Meanwhile,' Moresby said to Gant, 'you can check out pressurisation and air conditioning.'
'OK,' Moresby climbed down the pilot's steps as Gant closed the cockpit. He heard Moresby attach a lead to the landline. socket on the fuselage, so that they could communicate. He locked the canopy. He was isolated in the Firefox. He connected his oxygen supply. The oxygen content and pressure were satisfactory. All that remained was to check the warning systems for pressurisation, since cockpit pressure could only be checked at altitude. The lights all glowed comfortingly as soon as he summoned them. He could not check heating and demisting until the engines were ignited and running. Again, he checked the warning lights. They, too, glowed instantly. 'All check,' he said.
'Good. Now, wait a minute while we unload these missiles, then you can check the thought-guidance system. I'll give you the word…' Gant felt the two jolts as the AA-6 missiles were removed from their wing pylons. Then Moresby's face appeared outside the cockpit hood, his thumb erect in front of his features. Gant hesitated, then gave a mental command in Russian to fire a port wing missile. The sequence of lights stuttered across the panel. He counted them, remembered them. It appeared to work.
He opened the canopy. 'OK,' he said, removing the helmet.
'Right. Get those missiles back on their pylons,' Moresby called down to his technicians. 'Life-support?'
'OK.'
'Thorne here, sir,' they both heard from Moresby's R/T.
Gant's hand twitched on the sill of the cockpit.
'Yes?' Moresby snapped.
'It's difficult, sir-hard still object on a hard still surface against a cluttered background — '
'But?' Moresby said sombrely.
'I shouldn't be able to pick up anything, should I, sir?'
'No,' Gant said heavily.
'I — it's… I do have an image on radar, sir. Of the — Firefox. In flight, on the moving target display, I'd expect a strong reading…Sorry, sir.'
Moresby stared at Gant. 'That's it, then.' Gant felt a shudder run through his body. 'That's sodding it!' Moresby shouted. 'The anti-radar's been damaged — it doesn't work! You'll be a sitting duck as soon as you're airborne.'
'But-'
'No buts! I can't repair it — I don't know how it works!'
Aubrey turned away from the communications console. Eastoe, already supplying reports on all signs of movement along the border, especially at Nikel, and at the closest Kola Peninsula fighter bases, had relayed to Aubrey Moresby's discovery of the failure of the anti-radar system.
Curtin thought Aubrey looked ashen. He did not know what to say to the Englishman. He was relieved when Aubrey moved away towards the farthest corner of the room. It was as if he wished to hide. But the corner seemed to repulse him, for he backed away from it. When he turned, his face was determined.
'Thorne must get him out of there!' he said, coming back towards the console. He glanced up at the clock. Twenty-three minutes since the weather had begun to clear. The window must be close to the Russian units at Nikel by now. The interceptor bases on the Kola Peninsula would be free of the foul weather later than Nikel, but there, within minutes, the first helicopters would be airborne, carrying the first wave of commandos. They would take less than twenty minutes at top speed to reach the lake. Less than thirty minutes, then, before there was absolutely no possibility of rescue for Gant. What could they salvage of the aircraft in that time, prior to destroying the airfrarne…?
And getting the people out.
Waterford would have to organise a retreat on foot, to some prearranged point where they could be picked up when the weather cleared. Vital personnel land equipment must come out aboard the two Lynx helicopters -
'He must get him out of there,' tie, repeated, grimacing. 'Get "Fisherman" at once.'
The radio operator swivelled in his chair and faced the smaller rack of radio equipment which they used to communicate with the lake. He repeated Buckholz's call-sign, and was answered. Aubrey muttered and paced while Buckholz was summoned to the radio. As soon as he heard the American's voice, Aubrey snatched the microphone with a trembling hand.