The wind picked up, and he took a deep breath. The pine and the damp earth still smelled good, its essence, at least, untainted by the deadly man-made miasma. He felt a slight nausea and an odd tingling sensation on his skin. He heard a man cry out briefly in the distance, then another one moaned. He wondered how the gas was killing the Russians downwind of him before it had killed him.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he heard a steady flapping sound, like the wings of dark angels, he thought, coming to lift his soul away. The wind picked up and he opened his eyes. The sky was pitch black above him, and he saw the darkness descending on him like some palpable thing. Then he saw the wings of the angel whirling in the night sky and understood that it was no gas-induced apparition but a helicopter, clearing the air around him, creating a small pocket of life in the dead zone.
Hollis shook his head. “No! Go away!” Haiphong harbor was his second chance. He deserved that one, but he didn’t deserve this one. “Go away!”
The helicopter slipped to the side, and he saw her kneeling in the open door, ten feet above him, her hand extended toward him. Beside her was Brennan, and in the window was Mills. In the pilot’s seat O’Shea was flying with far more skill than he was capable of.
Hollis shook his head and waved them off.
“Sam! Please!” She leaned farther out the door, and Brennan pulled her back, then threw a looped line down to him.
The helicopter hovered a moment, and Hollis saw it was being buffeted by its own downdraft. He realized that O’Shea would sit there until he either crashed or was killed by the gas. Hollis drew the looped line under his arms and felt his body leave the ground, swinging through the air, then he felt nothing.
42
Sam Hollis felt his body swinging through the black void. The sensations of weightlessness and motion were soothing and pleasant, and he wanted it to last, but by stages he realized he was not floating but sitting still.
He opened his eyes to blackness and stared at distant lights until they came closer and took the familiar form of a cockpit instrument panel. He focused on a clock in front of him and saw it was nearly six. He assumed it was A.M. He turned his head and looked at O’Shea, sitting in the pilot’s seat beside him. “Where the hell are you going?”
O’Shea glanced at him. “Hello. Feeling all right?”
“I feel fine. Answer my question, Captain.”
Lisa leaned between the seats and kissed him on the cheek. She took his hand. “Hello, Sam.”
“Hello to you. Hello to everyone back there. Where the hell are we going? The embassy is only twenty minutes—”
Bert Mills, sitting behind him, said, “We can’t go to the embassy with this load, General. Captain O’Shea, Bill, and I are officially in Helsinki. You and Lisa are officially dead. Dodson died almost twenty years ago, and Burov is a major complication.”
Hollis nodded. He knew all that. “We’re going to the gulf.”
O’Shea replied, “Yes, sir. Gulf of Finland. To rendezvous with a ship.” O’Shea added, “Congratulations on your promotion.”
Typical military, Hollis thought. No congratulations on being alive, but promotions were important. He grunted. “Thanks.”
Mills asked, “How do you feel physically?”
Hollis moved his legs, then his arms, but didn’t feel any lack of coordination. His vision was good, and his other senses seemed all right. He smelled a faint odor of vomit and realized it was coming from his sweat shirt. He hadn’t voided his bladder or bowels, which was good. He realized the right side of his face was numb and put his fingers to his cheek, feeling a gauze pad over the area where Burov’s teeth had ripped his flesh. The numbness, he assumed, was caused by a local anesthetic and not the effects of nerve gas. “I’m all right.” He turned in his seat and stared at Mills. “You administered pralidoxime?”
Mills nodded, acknowledging that what they were discussing was the antidote for nerve gas, not sleeping gas.
“Did I convulse?”
“Slight. But if you feel all right, then you’re all right. That’s how that stuff is.”
Lisa said, “I didn’t think sleeping gas could make you so sick.”
No one replied.
Hollis turned and looked around the dark cabin. Lisa was kneeling on the floor between the seats, Mills was directly behind Hollis, and Brennan was sleeping peacefully in the seat behind O’Shea. In the two rear seats were Dodson and Burov, odd seating companions, he thought. They both were held upright by shoulder harnesses.
Mills said, “Dodson will be okay. He just needs a few square meals. Burov… well, he needs his face rebuilt. I hope there’s no brain damage.”
“He started with brain damage,” Hollis replied. Hollis felt Lisa squeeze his hand, and remembering his one regret, squeezed it in return. He said, “Good to see you.”
She said, “We waited for you, but…”
“You weren’t supposed to wait, and you weren’t supposed to come back and risk everything.”
Mills said, “We took a vote, and I lost. Nothing personal, General. Just for the record.” Mills added, “Also for the record, you and Seth shouldn’t have waited for me. But thanks.”
Hollis turned back to the front and scanned the instrument panel, his eyes resting on the fuel gauge. “How far are we from the gulf?”
O’Shea replied, “Based on average airspeed and elapsed traveling time, I estimate about a hundred and fifty klicks. I have a land navigation chart, but I can’t see any landmarks below. We’re on a heading for Leningrad. When we see the lights of the city, we’ll take a new heading.”
Hollis looked at the airspeed indicator and the altimeter. They were traveling at 150 kph at 1,600 meters. He read the torque gauge and tachometer gauges, then checked the oil pressure and oil temperature, battery temperature, and the turbine outlet temperature. Considering the load weight and the distance already traveled, the helicopter was performing well. The only problem he could see was with the fueclass="underline" there didn’t seem to be enough of it. He tapped the fuel gauge to see if the needle moved.
O’Shea thought Hollis was drawing attention to the problem and said softly, “I don’t know.” He forced a smile and using an old pilot’s joke said, “We might have to swim the last hundred yards.”
Hollis replied, “You burned some fuel coming back for me.”
O’Shea didn’t reply.
No one spoke for some time, and Hollis noted that for all the euphoria they must have felt over a narrow escape, the mood in the cabin was anything but jubilant. He suspected that everyone’s thoughts were flashing back to the Charm School and forward to the Gulf of Finland. The here and now, as Brennan was demonstrating, was irrelevant. He said to Mills, “If I understand you correctly, you, Brennan, and my former aide here are still in Helsinki and most probably will not be returning to Moscow to resume your duties, diplomatic or otherwise.”
Mills replied, “That’s a safe assumption.”
“And Burov and Major Dodson will disappear into the American Charm School.”
Mills nodded tentatively.
“And Lisa and I will get a ticker tape parade in New York.”
Mills stayed silent for a moment, then said, “Well… did Seth speak to you?”
“Yes. I know that Lisa and I were not supposed to be on this helicopter. But now that we are…”
“Well… I suppose we can say your helicopter accident was a case of mistaken identity. I guess we can work out your resurrection.”
“Thank you. You worked out our death real well.”
Mills smiled with embarrassment.
Lisa looked from one to the other. “I’m not completely following this, as usual.”