is expected to continue. It is making the search more difficult...'
'That's where you're wrong again! While the fog lasts the Americans can't airlift Gorov back to the States.' They were coming close to the group of huts where metre-long icicles hung from the rooftops, icicles which wouldn't melt again until spring. 'They'll try and get him out over the ice - make for the Greenland coast,' Papanin said, half-thinking aloud. 'We'll scatter a screen of men over the ice west of Target-5. We'll keep a screen of helicopters in the air above them. We'll grab him whoever is there to protect him.'
'Might that not be dangerous?'
'We have the perfect excuse. Gorov is a madman, a murderer - he killed Marov, one of our oceanographers. Gorov has been in the Arctic so long he's gone round the bend.'
'I don't understand,' Minsky began. 'Marov was a security man ...'
'You're so thick it's hardly credible,' Papanin barked. 'Marov has just become an oceanographer - Gorov is a criminal who killed one of his own colleagues and we have to apprehend him. That changes it from a political case into a police affair.' There was a savage, jaunty note in Papanin's voice. Here, out in the open, he was in his element. This was the Siberian who, ten years ago, had been told to speed up the removal of the Russian missiles from Cuba. His method had been characteristically direct: he had threat ened to explode the missiles over the island if the Cubans didn't cooperate. Ten years older, he had not lost his quick, savage touch.
'A police affair?' Minsky said thoughtfully as they came up to the huts. 'That makes a difference?'
'Yes! It means that if we want to we are justified in shoot ing at Gorov and anyone with him - after all, Michael Gorov is a dangerous maniac.' Papanin smashed an icicle from the roof with his gloved hand. 'You see, Minsky, we are starting a manhunt.'
Within minutes of meeting Beaumont at Curtis Field Dawes was in the air again, this time as a passenger aboard a two- man Cessna aircraft which took off along the runway ending at the cliff brink. The pilot, Arnold Schumacher, who hated flying top brass, wheeled the plane away from Greenland and headed out to sea. The icecap below merged with the polar pack glued to the mainland as the plane flew like a dart due east.
'You're not expected to find Target-5,' Dawes growled, 'so just pretend you're looking for it. I'm checking conditions.'
'Terrible.' The pilot paused. 'Sir,' he added. 'I can't see anyone getting to the base over the ice. When the fog clears we'll have to fly in. The usual way.' He transferred his chew ing gum to the other cheek, the cheek away from Dawes.
'That's the trouble with you people up here. All you think of is engines and machines. You can't imagine anyone fighting their way in over the pack. We're getting soft, Schumacher - if Pan Am can't take us we don't go.'
'I'm not Pan Am . . .'
'And take that gum out of your mouth when you're talk ing to me.'
Screw you, chum. But the pilot preferred this type: at least they didn't try to fraternize, kidding you up they were just one of the boys - with their pay ten times your own. The plane flew on through the cold, moonlit night at two thousand feet, a wisp of metal over the Arctic. The altitude flattened out the pressure ridges, made the pack look like a sheet of opaque glass, crazed and splintered glass. Conditions were bloody terrible. Thirty minutes later Dawes was half out of his seat, peering down into the grey murk below, a solid sea of rolling fog which masked the solid ice under it. A squat globular bug with a whizz of rotor-driven air above it was cruising towards them, barely skimming the fog bank. 'See that?' Dawes rapped out.
'Chopper. Russian.' The pilot was thinking about the pad of gum stuck under his seat.
'Submarine killer?'
'Yes,' said Schumacher.
'Must be off that Soviet carrier south of the ice. I want a closer look. Dive!'
Schumacher was irked about his lost chewing gum. Screw all
'That's where you're wrong again! While the fog lasts the Americans can't airlift Gorov back to the States.' They were coming close to the group of huts where metre-long icicles hung from the rooftops, icicles which wouldn't melt again until spring. 'They'll try and get him out over the ice - make for the Greenland coast,' Papanin said, half-thinking aloud. 'We'll scatter a screen of men over the ice west of Target-5. We'll keep a screen of helicopters in the air above them. We'll grab him whoever is there to protect him.'
'Might that not be dangerous?'
'We have the perfect excuse. Gorov is a madman, a murderer - he killed Marov, one of our oceanographers. Gorov has been in the Arctic so long he's gone round the bend.'
'I don't understand,' Minsky began. 'Marov was a security man ...'
'You're so thick it's hardly credible,' Papanin barked. 'Marov has just become an oceanographer - Gorov is a criminal who killed one of his own colleagues and we have to apprehend him. That changes it from a political case into a police affair.' There was a savage, jaunty note in Papanin's voice. Here, out in the open, he was in his element. This was the Siberian who, ten years ago, had been told to speed up the removal of the Russian missiles from Cuba. His method had been characteristically direct: he had threat ened to explode the missiles over the island if the Cubans didn't cooperate. Ten years older, he had not lost his quick, savage touch.
'A police affair?' Minsky said thoughtfully as they came up to the huts. 'That makes a difference?'
'Yes! It means that if we want to we are justified in shoot ing at Gorov and anyone with him - after all, Michael Gorov is a dangerous maniac.' Papanin smashed an icicle from the roof with his gloved hand. 'You see, Minsky, we are starting a manhunt.'
Within minutes of meeting Beaumont at Curtis Field Dawes was in the air again, this time as a passenger aboard a two- man Cessna aircraft which took off along the runway ending at the cliff brink. The pilot, Arnold Schumacher, who hated flying top brass, wheeled the plane away from Greenland and headed out to sea. The icecap below merged with the polar pack glued to the mainland as the plane flew like a dart due east.
'You're not expected to find Target-5,' Dawes growled, 'so just pretend you're looking for it. I'm checking conditions.'
'Terrible.' The pilot paused. 'Sir,' he added. 'I can't see anyone getting to the base over the ice. When the fog clears we'll have to fly in. The usual way.' He transferred his chew ing gum to the other cheek, the cheek away from Dawes.
'That's the trouble with you people up here. All you think of is engines and machines. You can't imagine anyone fighting their way in over the pack. We're getting soft, Schumacher - if Pan Am can't take us we don't go.'
'I'm not Pan Am . . .'
'And take that gum out of your mouth when you're talk ing to me.'
Screw you, chum. But the pilot preferred this type: at least they didn't try to fraternize, kidding you up they were just one of the boys - with their pay ten times your own. The plane flew on through the cold, moonlit night at two thousand feet, a wisp of metal over the Arctic. The altitude flattened out the pressure ridges, made the pack look like a sheet of opaque glass, crazed and splintered glass. Conditions were bloody terrible. Thirty minutes later Dawes was half out of his seat, peering down into the grey murk below, a solid sea of rolling fog which masked the solid ice under it. A squat globular bug with a whizz of rotor-driven air above it was cruising towards them, barely skimming the fog bank. 'See that?' Dawes rapped out.
'Chopper. Russian.' The pilot was thinking about the pad of gum stuck under his seat.
'Submarine killer?'
'Yes,' said Schumacher.
'Must be off that Soviet carrier south of the ice. I want a closer look. Dive!'
Schumacher was irked about his lost chewing gum. Screw all
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