Winter Hawk (35 page)

Civilian.

He sighed audibly with relief. The hours of avoiding radar, other aircraft and helicopters, towns and villages had worn at him like waves at an old cliff. He stood more erect, as if to deny his weariness. The truck drew onto the pavement. The Uzbek made a noise in his throat that might have signaled recognition. The truck pulled to a halt. Gant heard the hand brake scratching on.

The young man who got down almost at once from the passenger side of the canvas-hooded truck was wearing an army uniform. Gant's heart banged in his chest. He was grinning as he stared, hands on his hips, at the Hind drawn up at the pumps.

Uniform? How—?

The canvas covering the back of the truck rattled in the icy breeze. The driver, who wore a sleeveless sheepskin jacket and a cloth cap, got down from the cab. Only the passenger was in uniform.

And was approaching.

Russian, not Uzbek. White skin in the moonlight, white teeth, a white hand raised in greeting. A captain, but young. A yawn, one hand stretching away a cramp. The driver hung back, as if out of respect. The young man grinned again. Gant felt his attention mesmerized by the uniform, the shoulder flashes.

At seven yards, Gant saw that the captain was GRU, military intelligence—

—and went toward the younger man, disarming him with a smile, an extended hand.

The captain took his hand, shook it. Despite the icy wind, the GRU mans hand was still warm from the heated cab. His
features
registered a slight shock at the coldness of Gant's grip. There was a sharp smell of vegetables—cabbages?—in the air; presumably the truck's cargo.

Why was a GRU captain stepping out of that vehicle?

Cabbages, onions, the earthiness of potatoes. Gant's sense of smell was heightened by nerves. The name of the firm on the
truck
was in Uzbek, not Cyrillic. He wrenched his mind away from the
irrelevant.
The captain's scrutiny was inexperienced, but nevertheless there. No hint of suspicion, but questions were forming in his eyes—a military helicopter, there?

Gant's own rank matched that of the captain, but the younger man would assume the precedence of GRU over Aviation Army rank. Gant's attention concentrated, narrowing * every perspective, on the shoulder flashes, the arm badges—the tiny, untwinkling jewels of the man's significance.

"You're a long way from home, comrade," he announced heartily.

"—words out of my mouth," the captain replied. Laughed. Finally released Gant's grip. "A bloody helicopter at a filling station? You must be the squadron joker!"

"Ran out of fuel," Gant complained.

"Long way from home. Not as far as you, man. I'm just hitching a ride to Bukhara, then on to Samarkand." His accent was Moscow, perhaps Ukrainian—Kiev? European Russia. The master race. Gant's own accent—his mother's accent—was distinctive. "You're Georgian, by your accent?" the young captain added.

"Yes," Gant replied. "From Surami—you know it, the thermal resort." His shoulders shrugged.

"Away from the Black Sea?" Gant merely nodded. "Don't know it," the captain continued. "One-horse town, is it?"

"Just about." His voice was easier, lighter. He spun the web of conversation, rank, and comradeship. Then the captain asked:

"Afghanistan, if I'm not mistaken?" His eyes were sharper as he studied Gant. They were alert, as if studying some mental list of explanations. The night and the distances leaped at Gant, reminding him that the Hind was misplaced by hundreds of miles, was suspicious here.

He was suddenly aware of his own cover story. Where was he going? From where? Alma-Ata, army headquarters, was eight hunted miles to the east. His cover was now outdated, an obvious fake.

Beneath their conversation, their camaraderie and humor, the fear continued to flow like a river. Gant shivered. The wind seemed to be strengthening. Yet the two Uzbeks seemed oblivious to it; they
^We
re smoking near the pumps. Gant heard his teeth chattering and ^ the captain grin.

"Adamov," the captain announced.

What is my name? His identity lay in his breast pocket, with his papers.

What is my name?

He had forgotten his cover name.

The captain s eyes glazed with suspicion.

9: Heart of the Matter

"L
et's find ourselves
some coffee. This Uzbek moron can fill the helicopter on his own. My driver can keep him company."

Gant realized that the captain's words, as he gestured toward the low wooden bungalow, were meant to extend the moment of suspicion. Just how long would this pilot take to introduce himself, explain himself? The moment was a rubber band being stretched to breaking.

"What in hell are you doing getting down from a cabbage truck, comrade?" Gant exclaimed, forcing laughter. "A captain in the GRU—not quite the right sort of transport, huh?" His hands came out, palms up. Friend, harmless, they suggested, while his voice asked
who are you, man?

The captain was disconcerted, but it might have been no more than his resentment of the familiarity of Gant's tone. It was the captain who should patronize, if either of them did.

"Just finished a job up-country," he replied, his hand still patting
^a
t Gant's shoulder and turning him toward the wooden building, where a grubby light filtered through thin, unlined curtains. The wind moaned, rattling the corrugated plastic above his head, making drooping rotor blades of the Hind quiver. There was a sense of Mutual cursing in the conversation between the truck driver and the parage owner; racial suspicion and hatred. "Some of these fucking Muslims are giving trouble—don't want to fight their Islamic broth-
^er
s in Afghanistan. You know what they're like. Pigs." He spat ob-
^v
*ously and loudly, turning toward the two Uzbeks as he did so. The
^Wi
nd carried the gobbet of spitde and splashed it against the side of the gas pump, near the bending garage owner's head, which did not ^rn or look up. The truck driver's eyes flickered, but the expression died as easily as a match flame in the wind. "Pigs," the GRU captain repeated, evidently convinced of the manifest truth of his generalization. "We shot a few—a number of the conspirators and mutineers were tried and executed according to military law," he corrected himself solemnly. His eyes were smiling and flinty with satisfaction. Then he belched, and Gant smelled the drink on his breath for the first time. "All done by the book, according to the book, for the book." Captain Adamov grinned. "Bang!" He strutted a few steps, hand curled at the end of his outstretched arm. His trigger finger squeezed perhaps half a dozen times as he paused behind remembered necks, watched remembered corpses.

Gant, controlling the shiver that the mime had induced, watched Adamov as he returned to his side, nudging him. 'The rest of them have been shipped off now," he remarked. "A few more GRU and GLAVPUR people among their officers, of course."

"Where—" Gant cleared his throat, glancing at the dial of the gas pump still spinning as his tanks filled. After the underbelly tanks, the auxiliary tank in the cabin. It would be minutes yet. "Where was this, comrade?" The driver and the garage owner were gabbing rapidly in Uzbek, their words still carrying the strong accent of hatred.

Pig,
pig, Russian pig . . .

The words became a remembered litany in his head. He had heard them often, through the thin, cracked-plaster wall as he lay next to his sisters cot. Only understanding years later what it must have been that his mother was refusing his drunken, demanding father. He shook his head. Adamov seemed confused.

"Where was this little problem?" Gant asked.

"Oh, barracks outside Khiva. Low-grade conscripts. They had some of their officers tied up—full of hashish and threats, the whole lot of them." He grinned. "Making demands—you know them. Cut the balls off one poor sod and shoved them down his throat." He sighed theatrically. "Not a lot of resistance, once we'd explained the position to them and the hashish wore off"

"How come you're here now? Must have been a big operation?' Gant shrugged as convincingly as the cold would allow.

"What do you mean?" Adamov protested, as if he suspected the presence of another policeman.

Gant understood. Adamov had been due some leave, had perhaps wangled or forged the papers granting him a few days off in

Samarkand before he reported back to headquarters. His presence there was a weakness, but the man was still dangerous.

Degree of cover,
training prompted him.
Imagine you're standing there naked, reddening with embarrassment until you can put on some clothes. What can you add to your cover? Remember background, experience, training, anecdote, expertise, rank. Convince them you are who you say you are.

Afghanistan—you're just back from there, Gant instructed himself, and find that Adamov is fighting the good fight right here— Uzbek pigs.

"OK, coffee it is," Gant said. "Borzov, by the way," he added, remembering his cover name easily now. Adamov nodded, relaxed by the identity he felt was emerging.

"Good, good." Adamovs hand came back to Gant's shoulder. They moved together toward the low house, bending slighdy into the increasing wind. Which nagged at Gant's awareness. His mind estimated the wind speed, considered takeoff, flying.

Twelve-twenty, he saw, glancing surreptitiously at his watch. Time wasting. Cover story.

"Cleared your desk early, mm?" he asked with assumed heartiness.

Adamov glanced at him with renewed suspicion, then relaxed.

"Just so, man. Cleared my desk early." He pointed an index finger, then curled it shut in a squeezing gesture. Hero of the slaughter. He laughed. "I like it. Cleared my desk early." His laughter was snatched away by the wind after it had buffeted Gant.

Adamov had enjoyed the killing—perhaps he had even been given his early leave for services rendered? Gant shivered. Adamov said abruptly: "I recognize the unit badges on the MiL, the IDs. Alma-Atas your home base, then?" He hardly paused before he added: "Then you must know old Georgi Karpov? He must have keen posted to Kabul the same time as you were—same flight, or squadron, or whatever you call it in the FAAs. How is he, old Georgi, mm?"

Adamov had paused on the step up to the wooden porch of the bungalow. Dust flew around them. The captain's eyes were bright,
³⁸
bright as the full moon. Only one thought took precedence in Want's mind.

Who was Georgi Karpov?

* * *

The laser battle station, ostensibly the first component of
Linchpin
, in reality the very heart of
Lightning
, had been transferred to the main assembly building still in its component parts. The main mirror, the laser tube, the power source—each provided General Lieutenant Pyotr Rodin with a hard, diamondlike satisfaction. Each component was as evocative as memories of the ranks he had held, the promotions he had received during his years of service.

That very evening, shaving for a second time in order to appear at his most groomed here and now, he had watched his worried face in the mirror and wondered how people viewed his only son. Did they see, as vividly as he did, the weak chin, the full, loose lips, the pale, delicate skin? Did they see his wife, as he did?

No, of course not, he had reasoned; reasoned again now. They could not because they had never seen his wife. Not out here, not in Baikonur. Very few of the high command had met that quiet, mousy woman who hardly left fingerprints, never mind made an impression on anyone's memory.

And who had ruined his only son.

Dismiss—

Staring at the components of the laser weapon, he watched his son's image whirl away into the darkness in his head.

The following night the laser weapon would be lowered into the gaping cargo bay of the shuttle craft, the doors would close on it, the shuttle craft would be drawn out of the building on its short journey to join the booster stages at the launch site. There was nothing else. His son did not concern him—did not deserve his attention at this time.

Even the presence of Serov could not dim the moment, tarnish the hard glint of his pleasure. The GRU commandant was to his right, while to his left an army technician stood beside a television set mounted on a wheeled trolley. Its power lead trailed away through the small knot of aides and scientific staff and out of sight. On the television's screen, the earth glowed blue and white and green, hanging in the blackness of space. Africa lay green and brown beneath his glance.

Then the picture switched to another camera's view. The hold of the American shuttle craft,
Atlantis.
The picture seemed almost in black and white. In the center, two astronauts in pressure suits were working on a satellite they had rescued. They were attached to the hold by twining, snakelike cords. Rodin's fingers plucked at his
lower
lip. His gaze was intent, as if he were deciphering some complex puzzle. It was, however, anticipatory pleasure he experienced, not doubt or confusion.

In less than thirty-six hours' time, the Soviet shuttle would be
launched
into low earth orbit. Nothing could go wrong here, not
with
their schedule. Nothing must go wrong. .