Teleman squirmed through the flaps and in a crouching run started south. After two hundred yards he flung himself flat in the snow and wriggled around to see if Gadsen had spotted him running from the tent. Gadsen had not and was now coming around the far side of the tent, almost a mile away from where he lay. Teleman decided to stay put until Gadsen had completed that part of the circle and started around again to the east. In his white parka he would be invisible at half the distance. So he lay unmoving in the snow, watching as the distant figure traveled farther around in his wide orbit. What chain of reasoning had prompted him to leave his companions and strike out on his own he did not quite understand.
He realized that he was carrying extremely vital information the American state-of-the-art in electronic countermeasures, aircraft and engine design and sensor technology. He also knew that this information locked away in his brain could easily be unlocked by the Soviets, and, therefore, he was much too valuable to let himself fall into their hands. Folsom, McPherson, Gadsen — all, or one, meant to kill him. Only that factor was ice clear in his drug-crazed mind.
What Teleman had endured in the past seventy-two hours might easily have killed a lesser man. Instead of recovering in the special-care unit of a military hospital, he was staggering around the North Cape of Norway in the midst of the century’s worst Arctic storm. His body still contained microresidues of the various psychic and-physical energizers and, without the compensating PCMS, was on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown. The momentary hysteria hours before, which had sent him into a shallow coma that Folsom and Gadsen had mistaken for sleep, had been the beginning. The deepening cold endured since then was affecting the action of the drug residues, changing and catalyzing their effects to an extent never before tested. As a result Teleman’s mind burned with the steady intensity of an arc lamp. As he lay in the snow his mind was busy collating drug-affected impressions, misunderstood facts, and skewed extrapolations, all of which only served to reinforce his conviction that those helping him were actually his assassins. Forgotten was the intense effort, at the risk of their own lives, that had already been expended to aid him.
As Gadsen disappeared around the far side of the tent, Teleman got shakily to his feet and began to run at little more than a half trot due south. He had no firm plan in mind for his escape. The sudden awakening minutes before had brought only the galvanizing need for escape. Somewhere deep in his mind was the idea of heading south for several miles, then turning east into a shallow arc that would bring him to the naval base from the southeast at an angle great enough to pass unseen by Folsom and the others. If they had already arrived at the base he would simply denounce them as his would-be killers and claim asylum.
Teleman trotted on for several more minutes under the wavering streamers of electrons decorating the sky. The weird light made seeing difficult and twice he tripped and fell headlong. The third time he fell he found that he could not immediately get up. Stunned more by the lack of movement in his legs than by the force of the fall, Teleman lay prone, able to move only his head. The few minutes of running had taken him well away from the vicinity of the tent. He lay now in a blank white desert where the only movement was the aurora borealis dancing solemnly overhead. After several minutes during which the cold penetrated his furs with ice-fingers, he was able to get to his knees and, using the carbine as a crutch, pull himself to his feet.
Teleman staggered forward again at a shuffle, leaning heavily on the carbine. But to his mind’s eye he was running as swiftly as an arrow. Only a few more hours, he thought happily to himself, and he would reach the naval station — well ahead of the others. Once there, he would tell them all that had happened in the past two days, tell them that both Americans and Russians had violated their territory. Maybe they would even let him go along when they went out to round up the intruders.
Now he was strong and fresh again. The territory unreeled beneath his feet as he bounded over the snow. On the horizon was the low bulk of the naval base and the slender stems of gun barrels thrusting out toward the sea. He was so close, he thought, that he could stop and rest awhile, for there was no sense in arriving so out of breath that he could not tell his story. He stopped and sank down in the snow. Only a few minutes rest and then he would finish the last half mile. The brilliantly lit base area was now clearly visible, even if it was a few feet above the ground. That would make no difference. He could jump that high. Funny, these Norwegians, that they should paint the buildings and the compound a bright green. It was a naval base… it should be blue…. Folsom came completely awake the instant Gadsen burst through the tent flaps.
“Off to the west, about a dozen men… a mile out.” Folsom was already shrugging into his parka as McPherson grabbed up his pack and twisted to wake Teleman. “Goddamn,” he bellowed.
Folsom swung around and stared at the empty sleeping bag. “For Christ’s sake, where the hell has he gone?” he roared. Gadsen popped his head outside and then back in again.
“Wherever it is, we ain’t got much time to look for him. It’s going to take these bastards about ten minutes to get here.”
Folsom stood stock-still in the center of the tent, his mind churning furiously as he tried to decide what had to be done next. “All right, leave everything here but the carbines and ammunition. Outside and keep low so they can’t see us.” The three men crawled quickly outside into the bitter air and huddled close to the ground. Folsom pulled the binoculars to his eyes and examined the approaching Russians. There were six men spread out into a skirmish line almost half a mile long, both ends beginning to curl around to flank the tent. Quickly he swept the horizon north and then south. Turning to the east, he scanned the snow carefully to the horizon, but saw no sign of any second party closing from that direction.
In the meantime McPherson had been searching the snow around the tent. He raised an arm and motioned the others to join him, then pointed at a line of tracks leading south.
“I’ll lay odds that’s our boy.”
“Okay, south is as good a direction as any now. We go get him,” Folsom ordered, his angry voice gritting through clenched teeth. “What the hell do you suppose got into him anyway?”
Neither Gadsen nor McPherson replied, and in moments, hunching low to the ground, they were running south along the line of tracks. McPherson had unslung his pack and was dragging it after him in a vain effort to wipe away the trail they were leaving. If anything, the temperature had fallen even lower in the past five hours. As the men ran they left long streamers of frozen breath hanging in the crystal air. Above them the multicolored aurora borealis glimmered and writhed across the northern sky and Folsom again felt the strange, nagging sensation that he had forgotten some vital point. But as his body began to tire after the insufficient three hours of sleep, he found himself concentrating to the exclusion of all else, on running.
They stopped after ten minutes and threw themselves prone in the snow to rest and check on the Soviets. Through the glasses Folsom could see that the Russian troops were less than a hundred yards from the tent. The northern and southern ends of the line had circled until the tent was in the center. They were lying prone in the snow while two soldiers were crawling up to the tent. Folsom rolled over on his back and waited for his ragged breathing to smooth. In the ten minutes the three had been running they had covered perhaps one mile at a half trot, half run. All three were severely winded, but at least, Folsom thought, they had put enough distance between themselves and the tent so that they could now go on without being spotted in the fitful light.