Northlight

Zhigalin jerked a look at me across the seat-back.

'Everything's under control,' I told him. 'Don't do anything stupid.' I looked at the nervy green eyes in the driving mirror. 'Liz, how long have you been doubling for the CIA?'

Her eyes flicked upwards to watch mine, and she gave a strange little laugh. 'I've been doubling three years, but not for the CIA. I'm KGB. A defector from the militarist West. I'm working for peace, Clive, and right now the only chance of getting it is the Vienna summit. We've got to make it happen, and this man is the key. You've got to take him across.'

The front wheels hit something in the snow and sent us into a wild slide against a lamp standard before Liz got traction again. The KGB sergeant started moaning and I flicked his earlobe and got his eyes open and said, 'If you make any kind of move I'm going to blow your head off.' I looked back at the mirror but Liz was concentrating on the road again. Only if we are seen as a fellow nation, with worth to offer the world, with goods to trade, with ideas to exchange and with the future to share on an equal footing, can it also be seen that we are ready to go to the conference tables and join with others in drawing the world back from the abyss of war and mutual annihilation that lies in our path.

I had seen, in that hotel room, that she'd believed hi this, but I didn't realize till now that she'd actually written that pamphlet and slipped it under my door.

'Did Fane give your people the whole set-up?' I asked her.

'No. Just the rendezvous. I got it over the radio twenty minutes back when I was still trying to locate you and get you out.'

And then — oh God, this is going to sound so corny — after two pointless marriages I realized I wanted to spend my life with something much more than a man. I wanted to marry a cause.

She switched on her code lights and got the siren going through the next intersection because a work gang had got half the street closed off. 'Which runway is it, Clive?'

'Runway Two, north end.' I could see the airport tower lights through the haze; then they swung out of sight as we turned into a side street and accelerated past a checkpoint with our codes still flashing. 'Clive,' she called over her shoulder, 'we're still not through yet. They're still working on Fane and if he blows the airport set-up that's going to be it, you know that?'

'Yes.'

'If that happens I'll hear it over the radio but they'll close in right away and from that time on you'll be on your own, okay? There won't be anything more I can do.'

'Understood.' The torn wing was screaming on the tyre again and if it burned through the wall we'd have a blow-out. 'If you can pull up for a minute I'll see to that noise.'

'I can't stop, Clive, we've got to chance it.'

We swung into the airport boulevard and the tyre stopped screaming as the weight shifted on the turn. The sergeant half-fell against me and I pushed him back. 'Remember, you'll get your brains blown out if you try anything.' The gun was under the seat and if he tried to reach it he wouldn't make any progress.

Voices were coming through faintly on the radio and Liz turned the volume up as headlights swung across our bows as we went through the airport gates with the figure of a guard jumping out of the way. Another siren had started up somewhere.

We have a report that Captain Zhigalin has been seized and is under arrest… a lot of static as we passed a stationary diesel outside a hangar… confirm the order to call off further action… Then another voice cut in. Major Benedixsen, will you repeat your signal that you have… under arrest and are proceeding… headquarters.

She picked up the mike and responded. The windscreen was misting up and she wound her window down; the freezing night air cut against our faces as we gunned up along a taxiway road that had just been cleared of snow.

The radio came in again.

We have a report that an aircraft waiting for permission to take off on runway number two will attempt to cross the frontier into Norway. Patrols in this area will converge immediately… The static got very bad and we lost him for five or six seconds… Twin-engined Beriev civilian machine and the pilot is alone on board. He is to be seized immediately.

Fane had broken.

The airport authorities are to ensure that this aircraft does not take off.

Somewhere, under a bright light and with the tang of fresh blood on the air, Fane had broken.

The night was filled with sound as sirens began fading in and merged with the whine of jet engines as an aircraft turned into the north end of the runway and a red lamp began flashing from the control tower.

'Clive, I'm going for it.'

But the pilot was already listening to the tower's instructions not to take off and he'd know he was blown. We were late for the rendezvous and he wouldn't wait any longer: this side of the frontier he'd be for the firing squad and the frontier was only thirty minutes' flight. And he'd been briefed to expect a dark blue van.

I leaned forward. 'Liz, do you know Morse?'

'Sure.'

'Switch off your codes and use your headlights. Spell out Potemkin.'

'Like the battleship?'

'Yes.'

She began working the switch. Sand was flying up from the tyres and crackling under the wings. A siren was coming in strongly now and a wash of headlights was filling the car from behind us; then the tyre burst and Liz brought the wheel hard over to counteract the shift in balance, one hand still hitting the headlight switch in a series of jabs. There was no answering light from the aircraft.

'Clive, are you ready?'

'Yes.'

She used the brakes and we went into a full-circle spin as the burst tyre was wrenched off the wheel and we finished broadside on to the aircraft with the doors wrenching open as Zhigalin dropped on to the snow and began running.

'Go for it, dive. Go for it.'

There was ice and I slipped and went down and got up again and went after the Russian as the door of the Beriev came open and a man stood there with a gun raised in the aiming position and it was then that I began yelling the one word, the one name, Potemkin… Potemkin… until the pilot holstered his gun and crouched at the top of the ladder to grab Zhigalin and haul him inside as I got there and started climbing. The aircraft was lit with the dazzle of the militia and KGB cars as they came crowding in from the perimeter track with their code lights flashing and their sirens wailing and the first shot sounding, a thin crack in the medley of louder sounds as the pilot gunned up and let the brakes off with the red lamp still flashing from the tower.

Another shot came as we started rolling but when I looked out of a window I saw it wasn't for us: the leading patrol cars were sliding to a halt with the doors swinging open and I saw Liz fire again at the KGB sergeant as he tried to go for her. Even as he went down she was turning her gun on the uniformed figures spilling out of the cars and running for the plane with their hands at their holsters until one of them turned and took aim and fired and Liz was rocked back, a small doll-like figure in her grey belted uniform and sable hat with one arm flung into the air before she crumpled and went down onto the snow.

The twin jets screamed on full power for takeoff and drowned out the radio as the pilot put the Beriev down the runway with the red lights still flashing him from the tower. All I could see of him in the glow from the instrument panel was a dark hook-nosed face under a balaclava and one hand steady on the control column. Zhigalin was slumped against the pilot's locker with his head back and his eyes shut.

Were you hit?'

He answered but I couldn't hear what he said in the screaming of the jets so I went to him and asked him again and he opened his eyes. 'No. I was not hit.' I suppose he was pining for his bloody motherland again.

'You're doing the right thing,' I told him.