Winter Hawk (5 page)

Gunther's voice was soothing when he replied, but it rubbed like sandpaper, the implacables of the situation scoured.

"All that's history, Bill, already history. He's delayed as much as he possibly can, but no one can work miracles. We can't get the ring of Nessus surveillance satellites into operation in time to detect the launching of these weapons. Nessus and everything else is going to be at their mercy. That's why Nikitin is hurrying everything forward. The President can't be seen to be dragging his feet now—it's his treaty, dammit. Once the document is signed, there's a two-month ratification period, and by then every ICBM we have left, every satellite—Big Bird, Navstar, Milstar, the whole bag of tricks—will be at the mercy of the laser battle stations. The man is terrified he's going to go down in history as the President who gave his country away on a silver plate. Give him some room to maneuver, Bill—a little elbow room. Work a miracle."

Gunther had perched himself on the edge of the desk, leaning intently toward the director as he spoke. Now he stood up and walked to the window as he continued speaking. The director felt no slackening of the tension and depression throughout his body.

"He blames everyone, Bill—you, me, our agencies, the chiefs of staff, just about everyone—like he's been betrayed." The chill light of the windows palsied Gunther's cheek. "This was his treaty from the beginning. He blames all of us for not guessing what the Soviets were doing at Semipalatinsk. He blames us for advising that he agree to the Soviet suggestion not to bother to include orbiting weapons systems in the treaty. Neither side had them or could have them inside fifteen years, so what the hell, we all said. It was science fiction two years ago, Bill."

"And now its not. It's a reality."

Gunther turned from the window. "Bill, give him something," he pleaded.

Gunther had raised his voice, as to give a theatrical cue, and Calvin reentered the room. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his jeans and walked to the desk. Gunther moved to one side.

"Have you explained?" he asked Gunther, his voice clipped and hard. The winter daylight was again cold on his face.

"I have, Mr. President."

"Well, Bill, well?"

The director nervously and with great reluctance shook his head. Then he said: "We have
Winter Hawk
, Mr. President, and that's all we have. If we initiate now—"

"It won't work!"

"It has to."

The silence was stormy, the director's temples throbbed with the beginnings of a headache. Calvin slapped his hand on his desk, then slumped into his swivel chair. He stared out at the White House lawns, deep in snow, at the pale spike of the monument. Stared into a close and ugly future.

He announced to the window: "I have to have irrefutable photographic evidence that these weapons exist. With that much, I can go to Geneva and denounce the Soviets—get their laser weapons included in the treaty. If I don't have it, world opinion will break me and this country." He turned to face the director. "OK, Bill," he added, raising his palms outward in what might have been surrender. "Do it. Initiate
Winter Hawk
today—now. Get those guys off their butts in Nevada and into the air before this afternoon. Forty-eight hours maximum, you said. Bill, I'm holding you to that. Tuesday, on my desk—proof!"

Sunday nights he was always drunk. Just like now, but not usually here, in his own flat, because he was afraid to go out, or be seen anywhere. Filip Kedrov looked at his shaking hands, quivering in front of his face. His eyes filled with a leaky self-pity, his body was possessed by an ague of terror. Christ! He'd tried not to drink any more after he returned to the flat, because of what he knew lay ahead of him, but it had been no good. He'd had to calm himself down, or try to—he was so frightened! He'd been back an hour and he was still shaking like a leaf. He had literally fled from the officers' club they allowed people like him to use on weekends, fled because of that telemetry officer opening his big mouth in the toilet while Filip was in one of the cubicles. Christ, why had he had to listen? It was terrible, terrible.

His fear was real and deep, in every part of his body like a fever. He clutched the hand he had been inspecting beneath his arm as if he had been caned in school. He folded his arms.

He knocked over his half-filled glass. Beer foamed on the thin carpet, then soaked into it.

Sick with fear, he wandered toward the window, avoiding the low coffee table. It wasn't in a sensible position, but it disguised a threadbare patch in the carpet. He reached for the curtain, knowing he would not pull it aside because of the watchers out there.

He walked away. His eyes scanned the room as if he were making an inventory for some insurance claim. Hi-fi, bottles, a cupboard, cheap dining table and chairs. Some pieces that had belonged to his mother, but mostly standard-issue furniture appropriate to his status. His eyes flitted, unable to settle, like his body. He'd tried not to drink anymore, to keep the remains of a clear head.

Not drunk. Just terrified. Tomorrow he would have had to evade the people outside anyway, so he'd gone out to the club because he always did, so as not to show he knew they were watching him. But he shouldn't have gone. Now he knew he must leave tonight, at once. The big-mouthed officer had seen to that. They'd be looking for him, and when they discovered who he was, they'd be right over to shut his mouth—for good. God, they'd kill him for what he'd overheard.

His stomach cramped agonizingly, and he doubled up, groaning and retching dryly. Why couldn't the drunken pig have kept his big mouth shut? Why had he had to overhear what they were saying while they pissed in the urinal? Why, oh, God, why?

Slowly, the pain retreated. Filip's head cleared a little. His brow felt hot.

There were two men in a car at the front of the block of flats at that moment. A third man was in the shadows at the rear, near the garage. He could place them precisely just by closing his eyes. That's where they'd been when he went out, and to where they'd return after following him back from the club. Closing his eyes made him giddy. There were only three of them, and they still had no orders to close in.

But the army would be looking for him now, not just the KGB. It was awful just thinking about it.

He groaned aloud in desperation. He looked at his watch, then at the clock on the tiled mantelpiece. Eleven o'clock, Sunday evening. The small screen of the television set stared back at him, as blank as his own gaze. Eleven o'clock.

He'd gone to the club after sending the final signal to the Americans, his mood almost euphoric despite the car tailing him. Orlov's shop, he'd called innocently . . . God, he would have to go back there, or call Oriov now, to send another message. God, the look the captain had given him when he emerged from the cubicle and tried to sneak away!

Kedrov rubbed his cheeks as if scouring them. Why had he had to hear? His hands flitted from his cheeks to his ears—unwise monkey. The captain had realized he'd been overheard, almost at once. He had all but moved, almost shouted after him. He had hurried away and out of the club—but they knew.

He whirled his body in an ache of fear around the center of the room, spinning as if to create some spell of invisibility. God, Christ, Hell, God—he had to get out now!

They may not have reported him because they were the ones who'd been insecure, but they'd surely come looking once they found out who he was, where he lived. Christ, it was awful.

Lightning
, he'd called it. Not
Linchpin
, the code name for the launching of the battle station.
Lightning.
It was so awful they would have to kill him to silence him. He shouldn't know what he knew.

Lightning.

He stared at the large, bulkily filled haversack on the dining table. As soon as he'd gotten back, he had feverishly filled it with cans, provisions, spare clothing, aware all the time of the men outside. Especially the one at the back stamping hr feet with cold, breathing out clouds of smoky breath, rubbing his gloved hands as he watched the garages. Filip saw him every time he went into the flat's tiny kitchen.

He'd packed the haversack, ready for flight. And immediately postponed any attempt at escape. He walked stiffly, jerkily toward the dining table and gripped the shoulder straps of the canvas haversack. Then dropped them as if they were charged with a current.

He couldn't risk going to the shop again. He must call Orlov, not on the bugged telephone in the hall, but from a phone booth, and tell him to send the message:
Hurry, come at once, I am in danger, I have the most—most terrible—important news, I know about
Lightning.

Orlov could send the signal, then close down the transmitter; disassemble it, hide the bits. If only he could get out of the flat.

The signal was easy. The rendezvous—he'd decided that long ago, with the Americans. The salt marshes, a pinprick-size island. They had maps, satellite pictures of the exact location. He had confirmed the pickup point in his last signal. All he had to say was
Hurry, please.

If only he could move.

He gripped the shoulder straps of the haversack and did not release them. Hefted the sack, felt the flat's chill and the darkness outside and the three KGB watchers . . . and the captain who had been loose-tongued and was the most dangerous threat of all to his safety, rescue—survival. Hurried, opened the door, checked the empty, cabbage-smelling corridor, closed his door behind him with no sense of finality, only with haste. The lock clicked loudly.

He hurried along the corridor, up the uncarpeted concrete stairs behind the fire door toward the roof. Unlocked the roof door with fumbling hands, opened it, walked through—

—face embraced, arms held—

He struggled blindly, gasping but not crying out, flailing his arms—

—the clothesline collapsed, the shirts stiff with frost, the troupers, the underwear and the sheets, draped along the dirty, ice-pooled, gravel-covered roof. He doubled over, choking back his coughs, sick with fear and relief. Staring at a shirt lying like a spread-eagled upper torso at his feet, arms akimbo in surrender. He heaved, but nothing came. Slowly he stood upright.

He picked up the haversack, listened but heard nothing, no alarm, and went to the roof's edge. Four stories down, the garages. Out of the question. He would have to abandon the car and the rolls of film—most of all, the rolls of film in the paint cans. He wouldn't tell the Americans, definitely not.

He crept along the edge of the roof, aware of the man below, at the corner, in shadow. Aware of the car parked at the front. Aware of the drainpipe. Overhang, gutters, drains, pipes. Explored long before with the bravado of imagination rather than the desperation of necessity. Drainpipe at the side of the building farthest from the streetlamps.

He felt weak. Looked back at the fallen washing. The shirt now looked like a murdered man. He gasped at the image. Fumbled his arms into the haversack's straps, balanced its sudden, new heaviness, then cocked his right leg over the edge of the roof. The concrete alleyway below swam darkly, as if he were suffering from vertigo rather than fear. His hands gripped. He straddled the edge of the roof. Then climbed over, hands icily cold but holding on tightly, feet scrabbling for the ledge and the point of emergence of the drainpipe. The gutter was a channel in the gravelly roof, the drain directly opposite his eyes. His feet found the drainpipe, the tiny ledge, the first clamp. He rested, sweat coldly blinding him for a moment. Then hunched downward into a squatting position, holding on to the thick metal drainpipe. One foot, then the other. Second clamp. He'd even practiced, for God's sake.

Kedrov lowered himself gingerly, fearfully down the drainpipe. His hands were lumps unfeelingly placed at the ends of his aching arms, his feet were numb, so that they hardly sensed the concrete until he had hunched almost into a sitting position in the alleyway. Then he realized and leaned his forehead against the pipe, clinging to it still to prevent himself falling and lying—like the shirt.

He got up slowly, weakly, and pressed into the shadows.

Nothing. Silence. A car passing—jump, then relief—and a television blaring in a ground-floor room. Across the alleyway a block of offices rose six stories. Throwing deep shadow. A ground floor comprising a bookshop, a grocer's, a liquor store. The liquor shop was still open. Just.

Walk now. Quickly.

He stepped out stiffly, as if marching like a bloody soldier. Lessened his stride, tried to appear to be walking easily, without terror's robotism. Held the haversack at his side, almost casually. Turned into the lights, poor as they were they were still bright, and hurried to the door of the liquor shop. Turned for one glance only, then walked past the door and the spilled light that tumbled over him, into further shadow. Passing two people, beginning to hurry °nce in darkness again, listening, listening with all his body, all his
^Se
nses, but hearing nothing.

They had assumed, even if they'd seen him, that he'd already heen inspected and passed by the watcher near the garage. Anyway, he hadn't emerged from the front doors of the block of flats, so to

them he wasn't a resident. Sweat enveloped him, drying now j cold. He bent forward into his hurrying gait. On his own n< alone. Just the call to Orlov, the cry for help.