Firefox Down (55 page)

The MiL rushed forward anticipating his action, prepared for suicide. Missiles armed. He pulled the column back almost against his chest. The Firefox seemed to stand erect on its exhaust and stagger into the air as if tearing free of a swamp rather than a frozen lake. The MiL was huge in his vision. He retracted the undercarriage as the helicopter seemed to move its nose in, so that he almost expected a shark-mouth to open and tear at the belly of the Firefox. The aircraft leapt at the low cloud. The MiL had vanished; become no more than a wide dot on his scope. A missile's infra-red trail pursued him for a moment, then fell away, unable to match his rate of climb. It would have been wire-guided, for use against ground targets.

He was at ten thousand feet, climbing at the rate of five hundred feet a second. The airframe quivered and shuddered, like a human body that was chilled and growing rapidly colder, as the storm thrust and battered outside the aircraft. His fingers trembled on the control column. The throttles were all the way forward, through the detent and into reheat. The Mach-meter clicked rapidly upwards. Mach .8, .9, 1.0, Mach 1.2…

Eleven thousand feet. He studied the radar. Three glowing dots were moving towards the scope's centre. He demanded contact time from the computer, and the read-out appeared almost immediately. Twenty seconds. They were at fifty thousand feet, and they could see him on radar -

He would break through the cloud ceiling at twenty-four thousand feet, into a searing blue sky, and he would be under a roof of interceptors. Already other, paler dots were appearing at the edge of the screen. His body was still shaking from the aftermath of the almost-collision. Had he kept the Firefox beneath the MiL, he would have ploughed into the shore and the trees and exploded…

He tried to dismiss the past.

Don't think about it, don't think about it, his mind kept repeating. Don't think about it…

He pulled back on the throttles and scanned the instrument panel. No warning lights. Fuel-flow, rpm, radar, avionics, inertial navigator, armaments. The airplane functioned. It
was
an airplane again, not salvage.

Altitude, eighteen thousand feet and climbing. The grey cloud slid and writhed past the cockpit. The bright white blips on the screen were nearer. Ten seconds to contact.

No anti-radar. They can see you, he reminded himself.

Remember that -

The MiGs were too close to outclimb. Stand-off missiles, heat-seeking, would overtake him even if the fighters that launched them could not. Six aircraft, all closing. All of them could see him. Already, they would have reported that fact, and would have deduced the failure of the anti-radar. The adrenalin would begin to flow, now that they knew. They would consider it easy, consider it already accomplished…

Hide.

Ground-clutter -

Dive.

Course - Bardufoss.

Twenty-one thousand feet. Contact time six seconds. Feverishly, he punched in the co-ordinates to the inertial navigator, and began to alter course. Hide - ground-clutter. Deceive the radars. Five seconds, four-and-a-half, three.

He saw the infra-red flare. A missile launched at Mach 3, then a second and a third. He banked savagely, flinging the aircraft into a steep dive, twisting into a roll so that the thicker, heavier grey cloud was now beneath his canopy. Then he completed the roll and the nose of the Firefox was driving through the cloud, the altimeter unrolling, the streaks of the missile exhausts still pursuing him across the screen. The white blips behind them had altered course and were following him down.

He banked savagely again, feeling the G-pressure build until it was painful. The suit he was wearing, not tailored for him or the aircraft, was slow to adapt to the abilities of the Firefox. His head hurt, his vision was hazy for a moment. Ten thousand feet. The missiles were pursuing a different course, dropping away towards the ground because they had lost his infra-red scent. The effects of the savage turn drained away. He eased the aircraft into a steeper dive. The three closest white blips still pursued him.

Five thousand feet. He began to pull out of the dive, slowly and easily. Four thousand feet. Three, and the aircraft was beginning to level out. Two-five, two, one-five, then he was flying level. He flicked on the terrain-following radar, then the autopilot. The inertial navigator altered the aircraft's course immediately, directing it towards Bardufoss. From the readout, he knew he was already in Norwegian airspace. Somewhere over the Finnmark, inland of the Porsangerfjord.

The Russians, too, were inside Norwegian airspace.

The Firefox twisted, banked, flicked like a dart through the unseen mountains. Gant felt as if he were watching a grey blank screen ahead, through the haze of. snow swept aside by the slipstream. There was nothing. Except the sense of the mountains of the Finnmark around him intruding, seeping like a gas. He could not help but feel their solidity, their massive obstruction. They were a maze through which the TFR and the autopilot flung him. He was like a runner off-balance on a treacherous surface. So long as his flight was headlong, arms flailing, he kept upright, leaping from foot to uncertain foot. TFR - autopilot. Keeping him alive. He felt, too, the constant, chilly quivering of the fuselage as it met the impact of the storm outside. It was as if his own body was growing colder and colder; shivering violently.

The three Russian interceptors followed, but they were slowly dropping back. They might have been MiG-25s, or even MiG-27s. They were not the Firefox. They were confused by ground-clutter, they had to trail him at an altitude above the mountains, they had to employ their manual skills. With each change of course, he gained upon them. He glanced at the map strapped to the thigh of his suit. His finger traced his course. Over the mountains east of the Lyngenfjord - flicking through that valley there, wings trembling as the aircraft banked and banked again through the turbulent air, following the valley's turns and twists…

A hundred miles from Bardufoss

The Firefox banked steeply, almost turning into a roll, then changed course again to follow a valley before lifting over an unseen ridge and then dropping lower into another fold of the land. Rock faces on either side crowded upon the slim black fuselage. He could not avoid imagining the landscape or tracing his course on the map. He knew it was reaction; reaction to everything - the MiGs that were dropping further and further behind him, the MiL helicopter that had filled the whole of his vision, the steep climb, even the hours before the take-off.

And it was Bardufoss. If the weather closed in, clamped down with high winds and nil visibility - a blizzard, close to white-out - he would never be able to land.

The thoughts unrolled like the images flicking upon the TFR screen; the blurs and lumps and flashing glimpses of radar-imaged mountains, rock faces, valleys -

The TFR screen went black. Grey. Empty. The aircraft was halfway into a steep turn, following -

No time! Much too late, a row of warning lights had rippled across the autopilot panel. No time -

The Firefox seemed to hang. Grey screen, grey beyond the perspex of the cockpit. Without instructions from the autopilot, the column did not move, the engine note did not change, the angle of bank remained. The two Turmanskys were driving him towards a terrain he could not see. Into it -

He sensed the storm outside the aircraft more vividly. The fuselage seemed to shudder, as if anticipating impact. He imagined the noise of the wind, felt he would be tumbled from the cockpit when the aircraft struck and would hear the wind - before…

Still his hands hesitated, clenched almost into claws.
Choose -
He couldn't. The Firefox maintained the steep change of course the autopilot had initiated on the instructions of the TFR. Where-?

Valley! Lift-

He levelled the aircraft, pushed the throttles forward, cancelled the autopilot by pressing the button on the column, then pulled it towards him. Grey ahead of him, nothing, nothing, nothing…

The nose came up, the Firefox climbed. Four thousand feet. Four-and-a-half, five -

He was above the mountains. Sweat ran from beneath his arms. His facemask was fogged. On the radar, the MiGs seemed to have surged forward, away from the bottom of the screen towards its centre. They could see him clearly now; a target upon which to home. Gant shuddered uncontrollably, gripping the column as he levelled the aircraft at six thousand feet. He forced himself to look at the map on his knee, at the tiny printed heights of the peaks. Then he pulled back on the stick once more, lifting to eight thousand feet as quickly as he could.
Now
he was above them; the mountains no longer threatened him.

The MiGs closed. He demanded a read-out from the computer. Contact time, fourteen seconds. He pushed the throttles forward, forcing the Mach-meter past Mach 2; flying blind.

He flicked on the UHF set. He would be over Bardufoss in minutes now. He had to know.

'Bardufoss Approach - this is Firefox. Over.' He listened. Checked the frequency. Listened. The UHF set was on, it should be working. 'Bardufoss Approach - come in, Bardufoss. This is Firefox. Over.'

The MiGs seemed to have halted, dropped back to near the bottom of the screen. He knew they would be listening. It was not a high-security channel. They were waiting. He shivered. They were waiting until he made hisapproach, slowed down, presented himself to them helplessly as he went in to land.

The UHF set crackled. A distant voice with a Scandinavian accent spoke to him. His hands jumped on the column, as if it had been a Russian voice. But he recognised the word 'Bardufoss'.

'Repeat, Bardufoss. Say again your message. I wish for landing instructions. Over.'

He waited, the aircraft at Mach 2. His positional read-out from the inertial navigator showed him sixty miles from Bardufoss. He was aware of the turbulence outside the aircraft, almost as if it was a warning.

'… is closed, repeat closed,' he heard. 'Estimated ceiling fifty feet in heavy snow. Runway visual range twenty yards with eighty-degree crosswind gusting to forty-five knots.' Then, in something of a more human tone. 'I am sorry, Firefox, but a landing at Bardufoss is impossible. We have blizzard conditions.'

And they would have heard.

'Thank you, Bardufoss - '

'Good - ' He cut off the hope, turning at once to the Soviet Tac-channel. Immediately, he heard the Russian chatter, the almost-glee, the agreement, the request for instructions, the decision, the tactics -

The MiGs surged towards the centre of the screen. He stared numbly at their advance upon him. They were at more than Mach 2, closing rapidly.

He was locked out by the storm. Already, other pursuing Soviet fighters were at the lower edge of his scope. But these three, closing so quickly - missile launch time, seven seconds - knew he was locked out. They were closing for the kill. He hesitated, expecting the leap of bright infra-red dots towards him as they fired their first missiles.
No -

He moved his hands slowly, almost finding,
finding
.

He groaned aloud. As he lifted his head, he drew the column towards him and thrust the throttles forward. The nose of the Firefox lifted, wobbling in the increasing turbulence. He had ignored it, ignored the weather worsening around him, because he had not wanted to understand, had not wished to admit that Bardufoss would be closed down.

The Mach-meter passed 2, then 2.2, .3, .7… The altimeter mounted through fifteen, then seventeen thousand. The MiGs below him altered course, striving to catch him. The Firefox raced up wards.

He broke out of the turbulent, snow-filled clouds at twenty-six thousand feet, into a searing eye-hurting blue sky. In the mirror, the cloud was massed and unbroken beneath him. The sun was low to the west. He climbed through forty thousand feet. Fifty-

The first of the Soviet fighters broke out of the cloud, a gleaming dot far below; a white blip at the lower edge of the scope. Then another gleaming spot joined it in the mirror, then a lagging third.

Gant levelled the Firefox at seventy thousand feet, and accelerated. The Mach-meter passed 4.5. The gleaming dots faded from the scope. The cloud lay unbroken over the Lofoten Islands. He crossed the Arctic Circle. Almost idly, he listened to the last fading chatter from the UHF. Within minutes, he would change the frequency to the principal NATO secure Tac-channel, so that he could identify himself to RAF Strike Command and obtain clearance to land at Scampton, his original destination. He altered course in order to gain a visual sighting over Shetland, still five hundred miles to the south - eight minutes' flying time. He grinned. He was a blur, a meteor, travelling a thousand miles an hour faster than any other aircraft in the world. He would have crossed the North Sea in another seven minutes; he would be over Shetland. Mach 5.1. Almost four thousand miles an hour.

It was over. He felt exhilarated. The radio chatter faded. He heard - what was it? Rostock? Whatever that meant… It didn't matter. Radar clear. Empty. He was alone. The Soviet exchanges faded and were gone.

Anna -

No. He put her carefully aside. The others were paler ghosts. They no longer troubled him. He was alive. He was in the Firefox. He had done it -

He looked down through a tear in the cloud. He was high over the North Sea. He was too high to see the flares burning off on the rigs. More gaps in the cloud. He was suspended above the flat, calm-looking sea. Elite; alone. Alone he had meant to think - alone. Not elite, alone…

He would be over Shetland in no more than three minutes.

Time to open the Tac-channel. It wouldn't be much of an ending, getting shot down…

Rostock? Who was Rostock…?

Fuel-flow, check. Altimeter, radar Mach-meter -

Radar - nothing…

He felt light-headed. He reached forward to retune the UHF. He was alone; elitely alone. Drifting at four thousand miles an hour.

Rostock - ?

Radar - nothing… Glow - ?

He leaned forward. He felt even more light-headed; almost delirious. He screwed up his eyes, trying to focus. Flickering glow on the - panel - ? He was floating. The nose of the Firefox dipped and the aircraft began to dive. He leaned forward against the control column, gripping the wheel but unaware of the pressure of his body pushing the column forward. He couldn't see clearly, and leaned further towards the panel. His eyesight was misty. He clutched the control column to his chest like a drunken man seeking support. As the nose of the Firefox dipped, the steepness of the dive was controlled only by his one-armed grip on the column and the straps restraining the forward movement of his body beyond a certain point.