They'd lost him anyway. That was already obvious. So Priabin began to consider the video cassettes that Gant had with him and Gant's eventual destination. Turkey or Pakistan. With an aircraft, Gant would attempt to make a complete escape. All one thousand miles of it.
The lieutenant was in contact with Rodin. For an instant, Priabin began to reach out a restraining hand. The lieutenant's eyes were instantly alarmed, and he barked at the guard lounging near the door:
"This man is your prisoner—guard him." He glared at Priabin Shock had been replaced by activity, and by a common identity of service with Serov. Priabin was KGB, Priabin had been with the American. The corporal slouched beside Priabin, his rifle barrel nudging at his arm as if to mock rather than arrest.
"Sir," the guard murmured with undisguised insolence.
Priabin heard Rodin's voice. The lieutenant's face was satis-fyingly pale. It had taken him whole minutes to interrupt Rodin's unalloyed triumph. Eventually, he lowered the telephone and muttered: "He's coming up."
. . . third-stage separation . . .
Roger
, Kutuzov—
still looking good . . .
The reduced image of the main control room's map showed the red path of the launch moving across the world; on course, undeviat-ing. The shock of Serov's death retreated from Priabin, and he became aware that it was too late, that Gant had too far to go—even if he made it.
Kutuzov,
this is Baikonur control. Go for OMS-one burn . . .
Roger, Baikonur. Going for OMS-one . . .
The shuttle was on the point of employing its own engines, not those of the G-type booster. In another forty minutes or less it would be established in orbit and preparing to launch the laser weapon from its cargo bay. Gant was a thousand miles and hours too late.
Rodin flung open the door. There were others behind him, perhaps four or five staff officers of senior rank, but they were like extras accompanying a star performer. His face was pinched with rage, his eyes pale and gleaming. He hardly noticed Priabin as he crossed to the lieutenant.
"What is this? What has happened?"
"Comrade General, sir, the American—"
"You told me that!" he shouted back. "Where is the American now?"
The lieutenant shook his head falteringly. "He's—he's disappeared, comrade."
Rodin turned to the staff officers who now crowded the room. "1 knew this would happen—didn't I warn you? Didn't I warn him? There were no dissenters. Nor was there anything of Priabin's own strange satisfaction in Rodin's reaction. It was purely a military
and
security matter. For the moment, his son had never existed or
come
into contact with Serov. Priabin glanced at the wall clock.
Almost
ten minutes into the launch. Perhaps six minutes since the
moment
he had first noticed the panic behind the tinted glass. Rodin clenched his fists in impotent fury.
"We're in the middle of nowhere," Priabin said. Rodin's
head
jerked up, as if he had received a blow. Only slowly did he
recog
nize the speaker, and even more slowly did suspicion and dislike clear from his features.
"And he knows it," Rodin replied finally, as he slapped one clenched hand into its companion palm. The looks were puzzled, as if Rodin and himself were two people employing a secret language. "And he damn well knows it," Rodin repeated, and the breathy words might have contained admiration. Then he snapped at the map's operator: "Enlarge the map area—full extent. No, again— again. Smallest scale."
The operator typed frantically at his keyboard. The map, like a rectangle of stained glass upright on a trestle, changed in a series of eye-hurting jolts. Each time, the area covered by the map enlarged. It was the effect of a camera rushing away from a place, a jerky, interrupted view such as the cosmonauts aboard the shuttle might have had, if they ever looked down and back. Finally, when the operator looked up, the blue smear of the Caspian's eastern coastline soiled the left-hand edge of the map, yellow desert filled the bottom half, the Aral Sea was little more than a large puddle, and mountains began to rise in the southeastern corner. Millions of square miles; hundreds of thousands, at the least.
Rodin studied the map, then turned on Priabin.
"You think he's won?" he said. It was hardly a question.
"No," Priabin admitted. "I think he's lost."
As if to confirm some pessimistic hospital diagnosis, the voice of the shuttle commander was suddenly loud in the room.
"Baikonur Control, this is
Kutuzov.
We have OMS cutoff." The voice warmed Rodin's chill features.
"I think you're right," he said, and turned back to the map. "He could still be anywhere in that nowhere," he added in a murmur.
"Flying low and on an erratic course," Priabin replied. Again, they seemed the only two insomniacs in a room of sleepers; the only two who understood each other and the situation. "There's no one out there to see or hear him—hardly a soul, anyway. He's gone." He sensed the pleasure in his voice, but did not regret it. And Serov Was dead.
"You think so?" Rodin asked.
The general had turned to him now, not as to some trusted ad-
v
iser but rather to an opponent who had somehow earned his reject. And who would be beaten and eliminated, Priabin realized.
There
was a cold and malevolent glitter in the old man's eyes. Va-*
e
**y and Serov were both dead. His son was off his conscience.
Priabin, nevertheless, nodded in a studiedly casual way.
"I think so," he repeated, moving closer to Rodin. He pointed at the map. "It will be dark for another three hours and more. Hes amid ground clutter as far as radars concerned, this whole area is uninhabited for the most part. He's the best pilot they have—we know that only too well. He's gone, General. He's gone, all right."
Rodin paused, then his fingers clicked and he snapped out: "Fuel! He exploded the fuel store, you said. How much fuel did he take on board—any? Well, do you know?"
Voices leaking from the radio, as depressing as continuous rain against summer windows.
Not here, gone to earth, no trace, not here, gone ...
Their content never varied. Gant had, to all intents and purposes, disappeared. Almost, Priabin thought with an irony that he savored, as if the aircraft he flew were invisible.
"Sir—I have an answer," the lieutenant announced breathlessly.
"Well?"
"Most of the store was destroyed. Some empty drums were away from the fire—the aircraft would have been fueled up, anyway, comrade General, sir. So what—?"
"What has he done? I don't know, lieutenant, but I am willing to stake that he has more than enough fuel for his journey. Wouldn't you, Priabin?"
Rodin nodded. "Oh, yes, this American is trying to make it all the way home."
"Which means," Priabin realized, blurting out the words as if they were a cry of pleasure, "you have to stop, cancel
Lightning
until you catch him."
"I shall cancel nothing."
"Unless you catch him it doesn't matter if it takes him a month to get home. He has the proof."
"Then he must be found."
"You have to stop it."
"No!" Rodin thundered. 'The American has to be found!"
"You won't be able to do that, General."
Rodin studied Priabin with a malevolence that distorted his features. He rubbed his chin feverishly. His eyes gleamed.
"You think not? That's some old agricultural variant of an Antonov he's flying—a crop-spraying aircraft. Wherever he is headed, south or west—and however deviously—he can't travel fast
enough-
He's racing daylight, and he can't win." He turned his back to study the enlarged area shown on the map. His left hand waved vaguely yet repeatedly, as if he were conjuring something from the computer image. In the center of the display, the maddened insects ot the search continued to buzz and jerk and twist in their separate courses. Rodin continued speaking, addressing no one other than Priabin. "I calculate he will have to run for a full hour in daylight, whichever route he takes." He turned back to Priabin. "Which means we shall set a trap for our friend. Using every aircraft and helicopter we can lay our hands on. West and south—slam the doors in his face. Mm?" His confidence had become amused. "Well, Colonel?"
After a long silence, Priabin said: "I see. You'll be waiting for him. However—"
"However nothing. We'll find him—and kill him. Meanwhile, there's work to do." He glanced at the men in the room as if for the first time. "Lieutenant—you will continue the search within the Baikonur perimeter. His aircraft may have been damaged in the— explosion." There was only the merest hesitation in his voice. "Responsibility for coordinating the larger search will pass to me."
"Sir," the lieutenant snapped out.
Rodin turned to his staff officers, who became animated, full of small, impatient movements.
"Gentlemen, we have a laser weapon to place in orbit. Shall we go?" Heartiness answered by smiles and the bright eyes of younger men than they were. Rodin was blithe. He had no doubt that Gant would be caught, Priabin thought, no doubt at all.
I
'm in no doubt, either, he was forced to confess. Gant would be running for Turkey, he wouldn't risk Afghanistan again, the way he had come in. He was going west. Where the forces that could be mounted against him were massive, the entire Caucasus and Trans-caucasus military districts. They were frontline, not like Central Asian district. Aircraft, missiles, helicopters. And Gant would be running the gauntlet to the border for a whole hour of daylight. The desperation of their need to destroy him would ensure their success. By the time it was daylight, Rodin would have destroyed the American shuttle. From the moment that happened, the whole country couldn't afford Gant's survival.
Rodin waved his hand; dismissing everything with the gesture except
Lightning
and Gant.
"You will accompany us, Colonel," he snapped, leaving the room.
The hidden light over the bathroom mirror gave his features an unhealthy, exaggerated pallor. He inspected his face minutely, reminding himself to use the eyedrops to clear the red streaks from the whites of his eyes. He tossed his head without amusement. Nikitin and his entourage were waiting until they saw the whites of his eyes. They were in no hurry to open fire. He rubbed his chin. Get rid of the stubble, the shadow, too. If he slept—take the pills— the dark stains beneath his eyes might fade enough. If not, then makeup would do it.
At the banquet given by the president of the Swiss Republic for the visiting dignitaries, he had waltzed with his host's plump wife, her white, smooth arm resting lightly on his shoulder, heavily manacled with diamonds. Their glancing lights had become almost hypnotic. While they danced, he automatically moving and responding to the woman's platitudes, he had recalled the Inauguration Ball and the first dance with Danielle as First Lady. The roars of applause and inebriated and triumphant voices had drowned the quieter whispers and imperatives of the lobbyists and place-seekers and time-servers. Later, Joni Mitchell had sung; people had talked of another Camelot. Ridiculous, but possible to believe then, that first night.
Invitation to the dance; of folly. He had tripped as lightly as Dorothy down a yellow brick road of his own devising. It was in reality a Soviet illusion, dazzling him like the diamonds on the wrist of the Swiss President's wife. The prize had been peace and a place in history. He had made a greedy snatch at both of them; and lost both.
He shook his head. No, you haven't lost your place in history, he instructed himself. Just switched roles, hero-into-villain. You'll be remembered, boy, and how ...
The sun had come up, clear and cold, that morning after the Inauguration Ball. On the White House lawn, heavy, clean snow. The Washington Monument like an inverted icicle, the Lincoln Memorial, distant, clean and massive against the pale sky. He'd breathed deeply, and he could hear, as if in his blood, Martin Luther King's speech from the steps of the memorial and the vast murmur of the crowds. Portentously, he had murmured, clutching his arms across his chest because of the cold, I have a dream, too .
. . . not anymore you don't, he told the now-haggard image in the mirror that was tiredly cleaning its teeth. Not anymore.
The satellites and the shuttles were obsolete. As from
tonight,
with the launch of the Soviet
Raketoplan.
The U.S. was ten
years
behind, however much money Congress and the administration approved once the truth came out. From tonight, while he had waltzed with a platitudinous, plump Swiss wife with too many diamonds on her throat and wrist, they could do anything they wanted—shoot down satellites, shoot down
Atlantis
or any of the shuttles, anything they wanted. He couldn't call their bluff. He had no proof, there was no proof.
Dick Gunther had whispered in his ear, during the fish course, that the Soviets had confirmed the launch from Baikonur.
A historic occasion ... a glimpse of the future
—was there an irony in that statement? Nikitin had joked about the rendezvous in orbit with
Atlantis.
Exchanging comic books and chocolate bars, was that what he had said? Yes, adding
while we make the real exchange here, my friend.