Snow Wolf (37 page)

Stanski lit a cigarette. "Fire
away."

"No matter what happens I don't want
to see her hurt. Either by the KGB, or anyone else."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"She likes you, Alex. I can tell. A
man and woman going on a dangerous mission together are bound to be drawn
close, for comfort if nothing else. But I don't want her Put in any unnecessary
danger on the mission, or hurt by getting too close to you. There's a good
chance she'll make it back. You may not be as lucky." Stanski said
defensively, "You sound like you have a personal interest in Anna."

Massey thought for a moment, choosing his
words carefully. "She's been through more pain than most. Let's just say I
feel protective toward her."

Stanski stood. "It's not my
intention to hurt Anna. But I can't help whatever happens between us, Jake. If
you feel more for Anna than you're saying, and I think maybe you do, then you
should have considered that before this thing began."

Massey was silent for several moments,
and his face looked grim. "Then just promise me one thing. If your backs
are ever to the wall and there's a chance you're going to be caught, and she
can't swallow her pill in time, just make certain those KGB bastards don't get
her alive."

For a moment Stanski didn't reply. He saw
the genuine concern in Massey's face, then said, "Let's hope it never
comes to that."

Anna came down the stairs five minutes
later, dressed in her peasant clothes, the thermal suit underneath making her
look bloated, and carrying her suitcase. There was a bottle of vodka and some
glasses on the table and Stanski went to pour one for each of them. He handed
one to Massey, then Anna.

"Nervous?"

She looked at him, something passing
between them, and said, "I'm shaking."

Stanski smiled and raised his glass.
"Don't worry, it'll be all over before you know it."

Massey nodded to the corner of the room
to where the parachutes, canvas jumpsuits, helmets, goggles and gloves waited.
There was an extra 'chute for Saarinen.

"You can leave those until Janne's
almost ready to go. One more thing. If you somehow separate from each other
after you jump, or your contact who's to meet you at the drop doesn't make it,
the rendezvous will be the main railway station in Tallinn, the waiting room on
the main platform, nine A.M. tomorrow morning. If either one of you or the
contact don't show, go the next day an hour later, taking the precautions I
told you about. If there's no show on the third day, You're each on your own,
I'm afraid. Anything you need to ask?" Anna said, "You never told me
who the contact meeting us is."

"It'll be a member of the Estonian
resistance. Any more than that I'm afraid I can't tell you, Anna, just in case
you're caught." Anna looked back at Massey doubtfully, but said nothing,
and he put a hand gently on her arm. "Just stick close to Stanski and
you'll be fine."

The door opened with a blast of freezing
air and Saarinen appeared carrying a heavy-duty electric flashlight. He wore a
yellow oilskin and scarf over his flying suit, and a pair of thick woollen
gloves.

"Christ, what a night," he
said, closing the door. He shook his clothes and nodded to the vodka bottle.
"One of those would go down nicely." Massey said, "You think
that's wise?"

Saarinen grinned and pulled off his
gloves. "Relax, Jake. I never drink and fly. One limb is penalty enough
without being completely legless."

He checked his watch and looked at Anna
and Stanski. "Ten more minutes, I reckon. You'd better get into those
jumpsuits."

As Anna and Stanski went to put on their
suits, Massey crossed to the Finn. "How's the weather turning out?"

"it seems a bit rougher than
expected, but don't worry, I've seen worse."

Massey nodded. Saarinen came back to the
table, picked up the vodka bottle and filled each of their glasses generously,
then poured himself a tiny drop of spirit.

Stanski and Anna had dressed in the green
canvas suits and helmets and goggles, but left the gloves until last.

Saarinen smiled and raised his glass.
"It looks like I'm breaking the habit of a lifetime. Just enough to wet my
lips in a final toast for luck. Kipiss."

He knocked back the vodka, and the others
did the same.

Massey could feel the growing tension in
the room. It was almost physical. He put down his glass and looked over at Anna
and Stanski, then Saarinen.

"Are we ready?"

Saarinen nodded and smiled. "Onward
and upward."

He picked up the flashlight and his
parachute, and they followed him out of the door.

The tiny office that served as the
operations room of the Finnish Air Force Liaison Unit at Helsinki's Maimi
air-port was bitterly cold, despite a tiled stove going full blast in the
corner. The wing commander had been summoned from a dinner party at the Palace
Hotel and his pinched face showed his irritation as he looked up at the warrant
officer standing in front of the desk.

"They can't be serious, Matti?"

The warrant officer was in his late
twenties, tall and lean. He wore an air force greatcoat and scarf and gloves.

"I'm afraid so, sir. It's Priority
One. If the aircraft manages to get airborne it's to be stopped at all costs
before it reaches Russian airspace."

"They must be out of their tiny
minds at the Defense Ministry wanting us up in this weather. What the hell's
going on?

Where's the authorized signal, the
paperwork?"

The warrant officer shrugged. "I
wish I knew, sir. But you know the Ministry brass."

The wing commander shook his head
doubtfully. "Well, it's damned irregular. And I want the orders
verified."

"I already did, sir. I contacted the
C-in-C by telephone. The order stands."

"Does he realize we'll be risking
the boys' lives'? I wouldn't send up a balloon in weather like this."

The warrant officer shrugged. "The
orders were quite specific, I'm afraid, sir. The aircraft is to be stopped at
all costs."

"What type is it?"

"Possibly a Norseman C-64, though we
can't be absolutely certain. One thing will be, though. It'll be the only light
aircraft flying up there tonight. I have the likely flight projection
here."

The wing commander studied the paper the
warrant officer handed him, then stood and crossed to the window. He sighed.
"Well, I suppose we had better do as we're told. But I'll check with the
Ministry myself, just to be absolutely sure. You're quite certain we're to
blast this thing out of the sky?"

"Those were the orders, sir. No
question."

The commander scratched his chin and
sighed. "I suppose it could be some Russian spy trying to beat a hasty
retreat? It's about all that makes sense on a dog's night like this. If that's
the case, I hope it's worth the risk to get the bastard, that's all I can
say."

He nodded to the warrant officer and
reached for the telephone. "Very well, Matti, give the order to crank up.
We'd better warn the boys to be extra careful, It's going to be pretty damned
rough up there."

The two Fords came off the Espo main road
and turned left. taking the narrow track that led down to Bylandet Island.

Branigan gritted his teeth in
frustration. His watch said 8:10. The visit to the pilot near Spjutsund had
been a waste of time. The man was laid up with a broken leg and hadn't flown in
weeks. The roads had been bad, hard-packed snow and ice all the way. An hour
wasted.

He looked at the SUPO officer
impatiently. "What about the local police near the island? Couldn't we
have got in touch with them?"

Stenlund smiled indulgently. "That
was something I considered, Mr. Branigan. But you did say you wanted this done
discreetly and that the people you're looking for will be armed and possibly
dangerous. The nearest police station to Bylandet Island is over half an hour
away by car, but all the local policemen have are bicycles. In this weather,
we'd probably have passed them on the way."

"Can you go any faster?"

The man was embassy staff and glanced
back nervously. "If I do that we end up in a ditch or Worse. These roads
are treacherous."

"Just put your goddamned foot
down!"

Darkness had swallowed up the sea and the
sky was pitch black.

The wind slashed at their skin and the
four of them shivered as they walked down to the hangar, Saarinen ahead of
them, playing the flashlight beam in front.

A long stretch of electric cable ran from
the generator out onto the ice, and when Massey and Stanski helped open the
hangar doors Saarinen flicked a switch on the wall. A single string of yellow
lights glowed brilliantly out on the ice, and stretched into the gloom for- a
hundred meters.

"Our runway lights. Simple but
effective," Saarinen said to Massey. "You can leave the lights on,
I'll be back in no time."

He removed the blanket from the engine
and took away the chocks from the skis.

"OK, let's move this baby out,"
he said.

They all helped to slide the Norseman out
and down the ramp onto the ice. It kept on sliding for a couple of meters, then
came to a halt. Saarinen told them to move back before he started the engine,
then opened the door and hauled himself into the cockpit.

Moments later the Norseman's engine
erupted into life, exploding the silence as the propeller turned, sounding like
the buzz of a giant angry wasp. As Saarinen checked the instruments and moved
the control surfaces, going through his preflight check, Massey looked up at
the sky.

The storm was obviously getting worse.
Flakes of snow began to fly around them in gusts. Anna and Stanski started to
haul on their parachutes, looking a little absurd in theirjumpsuits, helmets
and goggles with the worn suitcases beside them.

Massey looked back as Saarinen shouted
above the enaine noise, "Whenever you're ready." At that moment he
looked up at the sky and pursed his lips.

There was a tangible tension everyone
could feel. Massey said to Stanski and Anna, "Well, I guess this is
it."

He shook Stanski's hand, then Anna's.
"Good luck."

It seemed as if there was nothing else to
say. For a moment Anna hesitated, then she leaned forward and kissed Massey
full on the lips.

"Do Vvidaniva, Jake."

For a long time Massey looked at her
frozen face, but before he could reply she climbed into the Norseman, Stanski
after her, closing the cockpit door as Massey stood back.

Immediately Saarinen revved up the engine
and the snow gusted around Massey like a blizzard. In the surge of power as the
aircraft strained to move, he looked at the three faces in the cabin, Saarinen
working at the controls, Anna and Stanski in the back. He gave a thumbs-up sign
and Stanski did the same.

There was a crunching sound as the skis
started to move out slowly onto the ice to the right of the string of yellow
lights. Moments later came a sudden harsh growl of power as Saarinen eased
forward the throttle. There was a momentary lag before the propeller bit the air
hard and then the Norseman started to move more rapidly.

It took- only a couple of seconds for the
speed to build up and then the little aircraft was skimming fast over the
uneven surface of the frozen sea, the skis bumping every now and then when she
hit a rough patch of ice.

The sound of the engine faded in the wind
and the plane was sucked up and disappeared into the swirl of snow and
blackness.

At fifteen thousand feet, skimming above
the clouds in darkness, Lieutenant Arcady Barsenko, aged twenty-one, watched
the rush of black and winking stars against the cockpit glass of the Soviet Air
Force Mig-15 and the scene almost put him to sleep. He yawned. The noise of the
Klimov turbojet engine roared in his ears and he rubbed his nose tiredly with
his furlined leather glove.

Shit.

He could have done with being back in the
mess in Tallinn toasting his feet at the stove. A crazy night to be out with
the stolen below, but the commander of' Lenin-rad Air Base had insisted the
patrols go ahead, and warned the crews to be extra vigile.

Crazy.

Barsenko ran his gloved fingertips
lightly over the panel instruments and grinned.

She was a beautiful machine, the
latest-model Mig. A thousand kilometers an hour with an engine that sounded
like a pack of wild animals were fighting in the back of the aircraft. Barsenko
loved the Mig. His one regret was that he had been too young for the war.

Machine and man in perfect harmony in a
battle through icy Baltic skies. And with a machine like this he would have
blasted those fucking Germans out of the blue, no question. His leather thumb playfully
rubbed the smooth red cap at the tip of the control stick. underneath the
hinged cap were the red plastic buttons that fired the twin 23mm and single
37mm cannon.