Firefox Down by Craig Thomas Page A

RAF officer. He had come quickly down the metal steps from the glass-fronted gallery which contained the communications equipment. All that could be seen from the floor of the Ops. Room was a row of bent heads. The Pilot Officer hurried towards them.
    'Mr. Aubrey - Colonel Pyott, I think you'd better come quickly. Squadron Leader Eastoe wants to speak to Mr. Aibrey urgently.'
    'What is it?'
    'I don't know, sir - the Squadron Leader just said it was very urgent and to get you to the mike at once.'
    Pyott strode after the RAF officer as soon as the young man turned away. Aubrey scuttled after them both, his eye glancing across a litter of paper cups, bent backs in blue uniform shirts, scribbled blackboards and weather charts, before he concentrated his gaze on the metal steps as he clattered up them behind Pyott. Eastoe was waiting for him behind the glass, pausing on tape for a scrambled spit of sound that would be Aubrey's speeded-up reply.
    Aubrey thrust past Pyott and said to the Operator, 'Play it for me.'
    'Mr. Aubrey had better be told at once,' Eastoe began, 'even through the ground-clutter and the intermittent snow we're picking up signs of helicopter activity, moving west and southwest. Our best guess is three of them, and that they're troop-carriers. They're not interested in our lake, as far as we can tell - their course would take them north-west of it. Our ETA for the lake is four minutes two. If you want us to go, that is. Over.'
    The tape stopped. Aubrey rubbed his cheeks furiously. It couldn't be - they couldn't have picked up the carrier wave from the homing device, only Eastoe could do that aboard the Nimrod. What, then?
    'Eastoe, keep track of them if you can. Do whatever you have to…' He merely glanced up at Pyott, whose face was impassive. Aubrey hesitated for a moment, then said firmly, "I'm ordering you to overfly the lake - deceive them as to your object - and obtain the best photographic record you can under the circumstances. And, when you've done that, I want you to take a look at those helicopters. I want to know what they're doing- dammit!' The tape continued to run. Aubrey finally added: 'Good luck. Over and out.' Only then he did return his gaze to Pyott, whose face was gloomy. His eyes were glazed and inward-looking. Evidently, he was weighing the consequences of Aubrey's precipitation. 'I had to,' Aubrey explained. 'Things are beginning to outrun us. I had to have better information, whatever the fuss.'
    'I agree,' Pyott said. 'Even though I don't much like it. Well, we'd better talk to JIC and the Chiefs of Staff - I may have to get down there myself…' He crossed to the door of the communications gallery, then turned to Aubrey. 'I do hope our American friends are obtaining the most hopeful noises from their President, Kenneth - for all our sakes.'
     
    The icicles were like transparent, colourless gloves worn over the dead twigs of the bush behind which Gant crouched. Below him, the noise and movement belonged to a wild hunt: an image of his own pursuit, probably no more than a mile behind him now.
    He had heard the noise of dogs. The helicopters - three he was almost certain - had cast about for signs of him, often appearing as they drove westwards above him or close to one of his hiding places. It was as if they knew his position, and were herding him ahead of or between them. He knew one of the helicopters was west or north-west of him now, its troops probably working back towards him…
    Towards this village, too, this collection of wooden huts below him, beyond which a group of Lapps were penning reindeer. One short, brightly-clothed man was dragged on his stomach behind a galloping bull reindeer, his hands still gripping the lasso. He disappeared within a flurry of hooves and upflung snow, then rolled clear. The images seemed almost to come from within him, as they stirred memory. A rodeo, but now performed by people as alien to him as the Vietnamese. Short, olive-skinned, some