Firefox Down (25 page)

'Back off!' he snapped. 'Out! Move!' He waggled the gun in their direction.

The doctor was flat against the wall. He slid along it and slipped through the doors behind the two guards. Gant turned to the male nurse, who was groaning softly, still clutching his genitals, and prodded him through the doors -

Alarm, hand reaching for it -

Gant moved, bringing the pistol's barrel down on the extended wrist of one of the guards as he reached towards the wall at the side of the door. The man groaned as something cracked. The violence thrilled Gant, made him feel stronger. As the guard slumped against the wall, Gant kicked his legs away and the man sat in a moaning, untidy heap. Gant waggled the gun at the remaining guard and the doctor.

What to do - ?

Guide them - but what about the alarms - ? Guide - alarms…

'Move!' he said. 'Go on - move! Get out of here!' There did not seem to be any other alarms down the corridor. 'Take him - get out.' He indicated the guard sitting against the wall, eyes malevolent, one hand clutching the other like a precious, damaged possession. The second guard bent, helped the injured man to his feet, and then the two of them began to hurry down the corridor, the doctor following them, casting occasional glances over his shoulder.

Gant held the nurse against the wall, arm across the man's throat. The girl had not emerged from the ward, but he knew she would sound the alarm the moment the corridor was clear - he knew, too, that the guards were hurrying to the nearest alarm… the male nurse understood. His eyes anticipated what he might be able to inflict on Gant before the doctors and interrogators ordered him to desist.

Which way - ?

He gripped the nurse's shoulder, pressing his forearm against the man's windpipe. Which way - ? His feet were cold on the linoleum. He was aware of his bare legs.

The alarm sounded above their heads. Someone had triggered every alarm in the building; overlapping, continuous ringing.

'Which way up?' he barked. 'Up to the top of the house? Which way?'

He released his grip on the man. The alarm just above their heads was deafening. The nurse hesitated - then shrugged. It was no more than a postponement of his intentions towards the American. He pointed along the corridor, his body adopting a submissive stance. Gant motioned him forward with the pistol. At first, Gant's legs moved reluctantly, and then he was running, his bare feet slapping on the linoleum, the gun clutched in both hands.

At the end of the corridor, the nurse turned left. The ether-smell and the cream walls they had left behind suddenly clashed with ornamental urns and carpets and upright chairs against the panelled walls. A short gallery overlooking the main hall - the clatter of boots on the tiles below - and then they were climbing a steep wooden staircase that twisted back on itself, then climbed again. Gant glimpsed another corridor, wide and panelled. Heavy, unrestored oil paintings retreated along the walls. Snow-bound hunting scenes, a rich, faded carpet, a frowning, heavy Tsarist face, then more stairs. Bare walls, old plain wallpaper swollen with damp. Colder. His feet resented the uncarpeted, dirty floor of the next corridor.

The nurse halted. The gun prodded his back. He half-turned. Gant struck his shoulder with the pistol. The man groaned.

'Where?'

The alarms were all distant now. He heard no sounds of pursuit. He caught the musty, warm smell of animal cages. The nurse went ahead of him down the corridor. He opened a door. Ether-smell, overhead lamps, an operating table. A surgery or another interrogation room. They passed into a pharmacy, then into a room from which the animal-straw scent emerged strongly. Monkeys chattered as the lights were switched on - Gant realised the man was leaving a trail of turned-on lights for others to follow, but ignored the danger.

Rats in cages, an operating table, loudspeakers, instruments. Monkeys. In one cage, a cat mewed pitifully. An electrode emerged from its shaved, plastered head. Gant shuddered with the cold of the sight. The room itself was warm, the smell overpowering. Straw and urine and food. A bird chirped somewhere.

'Undress!' Gant ordered. The nurse watched him, weighed him. Gant felt himself swaying on his feet, his breath coming heavily, raggedly. 'Undress - clothes on the floor!' Still the man hesitated. 'Do it! I don't give a shit whether you live or die, I just want your clothes!'

The man's resolve snapped and he undressed swiftly. At a movement of the pistol, he kicked the little heap of clothes towards Gant. Gant watched him. The cat mewed again. Gant glanced at it, its protruding electrode touching the wire of the cage. Its food was uneaten. The nurse moved. Gant struck out with the barrel of the Makarov, hardly moving his eyes from the cat's gaze. The nurse held his head and stumbled against a cage of white mice, spilling them onto the floor. They scattered-and clambered over his underclothed body, making for the room's corners. The nurse lay still, blood seeping from his temple down the side of his face. Hurriedly, Gant climbed into the jeans, then the shirt. He leaned against a table as he put on the shoes that were at least a size too large. Then he buttoned the white coat. He brushed dust from the uniform. Still the nurse did not move. A mouse emerged from behind him, sniffed the air and the body, then skittered away beneath one of the tables.

Gant turned swiftly and left the room, switching off the lights. As he closed the door, he heard the monkey chatter die, heard the scamper of mice-paws. He switched off the pharmacy lights, then the lights of the interrogation room-surgery. As he closed the door behind him, at the moment when he wanted only to pause and recover his breath, someone turned into the corridor. Booted feet. He looked round wildly.

A uniformed KGB man strode towards him. The Kalashnikov in his hands hesitated to draw a bead on a white hospital coat.

'Anything up here?' he asked.

Gant shook his head. 'Only the mice,' he managed to say.

The guard laughed. 'The bloody American's loose,' he said. 'You know?' Gant nodded. The guard was already reaching into his breast pocket. The packet of cigarettes emerged before Gant could react. 'Smoke?' Gant shook his head. He was sufficiently aware to keep his bruised temple out of the guard's direct line of sight. The man struck a match, the cigarette's acrid smoke was pungent in the bare corridor. The man smoked secretively, as if at every moment he expected the appearance of one of his officers. Seconds extended to a half-minute, three-quarters…

'I'd better get back down,' Gant explained.

'Plenty down there rushing around - say you heard a noise up here… thorough search.' He grinned, his stony face opening as if a rock had cracked apart. 'They like that, officers - ' He spat, without malice, more out of habit.

'I'd better go -' Gant said.

The guard shrugged. 'I'll take a couple of minutes more,' he said.

Gant hesitated. If he left the man here - ? The cigarette had not burned halfway to its cardboard tube. Two, three minutes - ? The nurse…

'You all right?' the guard asked. Gant turned directly to him. Immediately, he realised the guard was staring at his bruised temple and swollen lip. Something slow but certain began to form behind the man's eyes.

'Yes, sure,' Gant said, then struck at the man's face. The guard half-stepped, half-fell backwards against the wall. There had seemed no strength in the blow. Gant moved inside the rifle and struck again, and again, his fists beginning to flail at the man because he felt he would be unable to overpower him.

The guard slid down the wall to end in a slumped crouch, rifle between his knees. Gant ran, clattered down the first flight of stairs, glimpsed the ranks of oil paintings again, took the second flight as quickly as he could in the slopping shoes, and reached the gallery overlooking the main hall. He almost collided with a man in uniform. Lieutenant. KGB.

'What is it?' the officer asked. Someone else in uniform emerged from another room. The alarms were loud. Gant shook his head.

'I thought I saw him - ' he began.

'Where? Up there?'

'No, coming down this way… it was just a glimpse. I could have been wrong…'

'Very well.'

There were four people on the gallery now, two in uniform, one in a white coat, one in a suit. Gant did not recognise any of the faces, but he knew he could not be certain. He did not know how many people had seen him since his arrival.

'Are you the one he escaped from?' the officer asked.

Gant nodded, shamefaced. 'Yes.'

'I thought so,' the lieutenant sneered, nodding at the livid bruise. 'Serves you right. God help you if they don't catch up with him - your mother won't know you!' He turned, motioning to the guard in uniform. 'Up these stairs -
he
might have missed him!' Laughing, the officer followed the guard up the stairs.

Gant looked over the gallery, down into the main hall. Two men in white coats were moving up the sweep of the marble staircase to the first floor. Someone who might have been the American general during his interrogation followed behind them. He moved slowly and angrily.

Gant walked swiftly along the gallery, opened a door at the end of it, and found himself at the head of a flight of narrow stairs. He clattered down them, one hand bracing himself against the bare plaster of the wall because he was increasingly afraid to make demands upon his body. It seemed like the fuel leak in the Firefox, the gauges in the red, waiting for the first, hesitant sound of the engines dying. He felt he might suddenly seize up, be unable to move.

The stairs twisted to the right, then descended again. Ground level - ? A narrow corridor, quarry-tiled. He opened the door at the end of it. A room that might once have been a vast kitchen was now dotted with armchairs, a television set, radio, a still-smoking cigarette which had fallen onto the carpet from the ashtray where it had been left. He stepped on it, grinding it into the carpet -

They wouldn't rescue the monkeys and the cat if the place caught fire…

He left the room by a door at the far end of it, knocking over a half-full glass of beer as he brushed past a small table, then he crossed a narrow passage. Through frosted glass, moonlight shone; almost impossibly, it was an outside door. A shudder ran through his body. Coats, uniform greatcoats, scarves and hats hung from pegs inside the door. He shuffled through them, found a donkey jacket, snatched at a bright scarf, and tried the outside door.

It opened. He slipped through, closed it softly behind him. The alarms were still loud. Outside alarms -

He judged himself to be at the rear of the house. Blocks of sombre flats marched away from him. Lights from the house spilled onto the gravel that surrounded the building. Here, the dark hedges were replaced by a high stone wall, against which a car was parked. Gant ran to it.

The wind was cold once he moved out of the lee of the house. He shrugged on the coat and wrapped the scarf around his face. He thrust the pistol into his right-hand pocket. He tried each door of the car. All of them were locked.

The door opened behind him. He turned slowly, attempting to deflect suspicion. Two men - no, a third armed man behind them, in uniform. More lights flickered on in the ground floor rooms, throwing their glow at him.

Vladimirov stepped forward, the guard moving swiftly to his side, his rifle raised to his shoulder and aimed directly at Gant. Vladimirov's face was chilled by the wind and half in shadow, but Gant saw his smile of undiluted pleasure. Hopelessly, he tugged at the door handle behind him. Locked.

Two men at one corner of the building, rounding it, slowing, then moving forward. A solitary figure at the other end of the building. The wall behind him, Vladimirov in front -

Vladimirov moved forward, closing on Gant. The guard kept his rifle at his shoulder. His aim did not waver. Two white-coated doctors, emerging from the doorway, shivered with the raw cold. Two plainclothed KGB men followed them.

He turned, then, and mounted the bonnet of the car, feeling the weakness of his legs as he clambered onto the car's roof. The thin metal flexed beneath his weight. A bullet smacked flatly into the wall, inches from his face.

Vladimirov screamed at the guard. 'His
legs
! His legs - don't
kill him'

He turned to the wall, elated as if by alcohol or drugs. He jumped, scrabbled, his fingers clutching then being skinned by the rough stone as he slid back to the roof of the car.

'Stop him!'

Footsteps running on the gravel. He did not bother to look, knowing there was time for only one more effort. He stood up, swayed - heard footsteps skidding only feet away and heavy shoes striking the metal of the car's bonnet - and jumped.

Clung, heaved, felt the weakness again, heaved once more, his face sliding inch by inch up the stone, then the wind hitting into his face as it cleared the wall. Something touched, then grabbed at his left leg. He lashed out. Two bullets smacked against the stone near his left hand, then he heaved himself astride the wall. Looking down, he blanched at the drop. Two more bullets, the heat of one of the rounds searing his leg below the knee. He swung both legs over the wall, and dropped towards the pavement. A car passed, headlights on. A quiet side street -

He crumpled as he hit the pavement, sitting down hard. He questioned his ankles, waiting for the pain of a sprain or twist.

Then he stood up. Looked up. A face appeared. He drew the Makarov and fired at it. The bullet chipped dust from the capping stone. The head disappeared. He glanced up and down the street. Ill-lit canyons opened between blocks of flats. The street lamps were dim and few. He ran across the street, sensing the moment he reached deep shadow.

Sensing, too, the opening of gates, the switching on of engines, the beginnings of pursuit. His leg ached but he thought the flesh only scorched. He had escaped. He did not consider the alien city, not yet - only the concealing night as he ran.

'The Hercules flies south along the airway - my people drop by parachute, the Hercules drops off the Russian radars as if landing at Ivalo, then doubles back below the radar net and makes a low-level pass - booting these five pallets out of the cargo door as it goes…' Waterford broke off, and turned from Aubrey to the pilot. 'One smoke flare enough of a marker for you?' he asked. The pilot nodded. Waterford returned his gaze to Aubrey. 'Buckholz and the non-parachutists will come in on the two Lynx helicopters we've got here.' Without even the trace of a smile, he added, 'Simple.'