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  Firefox

  ( Mitchell Gant - 1 )

  Craig Thomas

  THE MACHINE: The Soviet Mig-31, codenamed Firefox. A thought-controlled, terrifyingly lethal warplane capable of ruling the Western skies.

  THE MAN: His name is Gant, an obsessed renegade American pilot. His Control: Kenneth Aubrey of Great Britain. His plan: infiltrate the shadowy worldwide KGB network and make his way into the Soviet Union. His job: steal Firefox.

  Craig Thomas

  Firefox

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I wish to acknowledge the invaluable help given to me, in time and expertise, by T. R. Jones, with all the technical matters connected with the experimental aircraft that features so prominently in the book.

  I am indebted also for their assistance with matters geographical to Miss Audrey Simmonds and Mr Graham Simms; I would also like to thank Mr. Peter Payne, whose enthusiastic scepticism kept me alert, but hopeful, during the writing of the book.

  I am indebted finally to various publications, particularly to John Barron's highly informative and invaluable book, KGB, and to the admirable series of Jane's publications — particularly to current editions of All the World's Aircraft, Fighting Ships, and Weapons Systems, from each of which I gleaned much valuable technical information.

  Craig Thomas

  Lichfield

  Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,

  Nor public men nor cheering crowds,

  A lonely impulse of delight

  Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

  I balanced all, brought all to mind,

  The years to come seemed waste of breath,

  A waste of breath the years behind

  In balance with this life, this death.

  W. B. Yeats

  The man lay on the bed in his hotel room, his hands raised like claws above his chest, as if reaching for his eyes. His body was stretched out, rigid with tension. A heavy perspiration shone on his brow and darkened the shirt beneath his arms. His eyes were wide open, and he was dreaming.

  The nightmare did not come often now; it was like a fading malaria. He had made it that way — he had, not Buckholz or the psychiatrists at Langley. He despised them. He had done it himself. Yet, when the dream did come, it returned with all its old force, the fossilisation of all memory and all conscience. It was all that was left of Vietnam. Even as he suffered, sweated within its toils, a cold part of his mind observed its images and effects — charting the ravages of the disease.

  In his dream he had become a Vietnamese, Viet-Cong or peasant it did not matter — and he was burning to death, slowly and horribly; the napalm that the searching Phantom had dropped was devouring him. The roar of the retreating jets was drowned in the roar of the flames as he singed, burned, began to melt…

  In the flames, too, other times and other images flickered; flying sparks. Even as his muscles withered, shrivelled in the appalling heat, he saw himself, as if from a point far at the back of his brain, flying the old Mig-21 and frozen in the moment of catching the USAF Phantom in his sights… then the drugs in Saigon, the dope that had led to the time when he had been caught in the sights of a Mig… then there was the breakdown, the months in the Veterans' Hospital and the crying, bleeding minds all around him until he teetered on the verge of madness and wanted to sink into the new darkness where he would not hear the cries of other minds or the new shrieks of his own brain.

  Then there was the work in the hospital, the classic atonement that had turned to a vile taste at the back of his throat. Then there was the Mig, and learning to fly Russian, think Russian, be Russian… Lebedev, the defector with the Georgian accent, they had brought in to coach him, thoroughly — because he had to be fluent…

  Then the training on the American-copied Mig-25, and the study of Belenko's debriefing, Belenko who had flown a Foxbat to Japan years before… and the days and weeks in the simulator, flying a plane he had never seen, that did not exist.

  The napalm and the flames and Saigon…

  The smell of his own burning was heavy in his nostrils, vividly clear, the bluish flame from the melting fat… Mitchell Gant, in his hotel room, burned to death in agony.

  HEAD OF SIS TO PM — EYES ONLY

  4/2/76

  Dear Prime Minister,

  You asked for fuller information concerning the Mikoyan project at Bilyarsk. I therefore enclose the report I received last Autumn from Aubrey, who is controller of the espionage effort there. You will see he has a rather radical suggestion to make! Your comments would be illuminating.

  Sincerely,

  Richard Cunningham

  EYES ONLY — HEAD OF SIS

  18/9/75

  My dear Cunningham,

  You have received the usual digests of my full reports with regard to the espionage effort being made against the secret Mikoyan project at Bilyarsk, which has received the NATO codename 'Firefox'. In asking for my recommendations, I wonder whether you are sufficiently prepared for what I propose.

  You do not need me to outline Soviet hopes of this new aircraft. Something amounting to a defence contingency fund has been set aside, we believe, to cope with eventual mass-production of this aircraft. Work on the two scheduled successors to the current Mig-25, the 'Foxbat, has or is being run down; the Foxbat will remain the principal strike plane of the Soviet Air Force until that service is re-equipped with the Mig-31, the 'Firefox'. At least three new factory-complexes are planned or under construction in European Russia solely, one suspects, to facilitate the production of the Mig-31.

  As to the aircraft itself, I do not need to reiterate its potency. If it fulfils Soviet hopes, then we will have nothing like it before the end of the eighties, if at all. Air supremacy will pass entirely to the Soviet Union. We all know the reasons for SALT talks and defence cuts, and it is too late for recriminations. Suffice it to say that an unacceptable balance of power would result from Russian possession of the production interceptor and strike versions of this aircraft.

  With regard to our own espionage effort, we are fprtunate in having acquired the services of Pyotr Baranovich, who is engaged on the design and development of the weapons-system itself. He has recruited, as you are aware, two other highly-qualified technicians, and David Edgecliffe has supplied the Moscow end of the pipeline — Pavel Upenskoy, his best native Russian agent. However impressive it all sounds — and we both know that it is — it is not sufficient! What we have learned, or are likely to learn will be insufficient to reproduce or neutralise the threat of the Mig-31. Baranovich and his team know little of the aircraft outside their own specialisations, so compartmented is the secrecy of the research.

  Therefore, we must mount, or be preparing to mount within the next five years, an operation against the Bilyarsk project. I am suggesting nothing less than that we should steal one of the aircraft, preferably a full production prototype around the time of its final trials.

  I can conceive your surprise! However, I think it feasible, providing a pilot can be found. I would think it necessary to employ an American, since our own RAF pilots no longer train in aerial combat (I am considering all the possibilities), and an American with combat experience in Vietnam might be best of all. We have the network in Moscow and Bilyarsk which could place pilot and plane in successful proximity.

  Your thoughts on the above should prove enlightening. I look forward to receiving them.

  Sincerely,

  Kenneth Aubrey

  EYES ONLY — PM/'C'

  11/2/76

  My dear Sir Richard,

  I am grateful for your prompt reply to my request. I really wished to know more about the aircraft itself — perhaps you could forward a digest of Aubrey's reports over the past three years? As to his suggestion — I presume he is not in ea
rnest? It is, of course, ridiculous to talk of piracy against the Soviet Union!

  My regards to your wife.

  Sincerely,

  Andrew Gresham

  'C'/KA

  13/2/76

  Kenneth —

  I enclose a copy of the P.M's letter of yesterday. You will see what he thinks of your budding criminality! At least as far as aircraft are concerned. His opinion is also mine — officially. Privately, I'll admit this Bilyarsk think is scaring the pants off me! Therefore, do what you can to find a pilot, and work up a scenario for this proposed operation — just in case! You might try making enquiries of our friend Buckholz in the CIA, who has just got himself promoted Head of the Covert Action Staff — or is his title Director over there? Anyway, the Americans have as much to lose as Europe in this, and are just as interested in Bilyarsk.

  Good hunting. On this, don't call me, I'll call you — if and when!

  Sincerely,

  Richard

  EYES ONLY — PRIME MINISTER

  29/6/76

  My dear Prime Minister,

  You requested Sir Richard Cunningham to supply you with clarification of certain technical matters arising in connection with the aircraft we have codenamed the Firefox' (Mikoyan Mig-31). I suppose that this letter is an opportunity to further plead my cause, but I think it important that you understand the gravity of Russian development in certain fields of military aviation, all of which are to meet in the focal point of this aircraft.

  Our information comes principally from the man Baranovich, who has been responsible for the electronics that make practical the theoretical work of others on a thought-guided weapons system for use in high-technology aircraft. Baranovich cannot supply us with all the information we require even on this area of the Bilyarsk project, and we would be unlikely to successfully remove him from Russia, guarded as they all are in Bilyarsk. Hence my suggestion that we steal one of the later series of production prototypes, which will contain everything the Russians intend to put in the front-line versions.

  Perhaps I should cite at this point an interesting civil development of the idea of thought-guidance — the latest type of invalid chair being studied in the United States. This is intended to enable a completely paralysed and/or immobilised person to control the movements of an invalid carriage by positive thought activity. The chair would be electronically rigged so that sensors attached to the brain (via a 'cap' or headrest of some kind) would transmit the commands of the brain, as electronic impulses, to the mechanics of the wheelchair or invalid carriage. A mental command to move ahead, turn round, to move left or right, shall we say, would come direct from the brain — instead of the command being transmitted to wasted or useless muscles, it would go into the artificial 'limbs' of the wheelchair. There is no projected military development of any such system; whereas the Soviets, it would appear, are close to perfecting just such a system for military use. (And the West has not yet built the wheelchair.)

  The system which we are convinced Baranovich is developing seems designed to couple radar and infra-red, those two standard forms of detection and guidance in modern aircraft — with a thought-guided and — controlled arsenal aboard the plane. Radar, as you are aware, bounces a signal off a solid object, and a screen reveals what is actually there: infra-red reveals on a screen what heat-sources are in the vicinity of the detection equipment. For guidance purposes, either or both these methods can be used to direct missiles and to aim them. The missiles themselves contain one or both of these systems. However, the principal advantage of the thought-guided system is that the pilot retains command of his missiles after firing, as well as having a speeded-up command of their actual release, because his mental commands become translated directly to the firing-sytem, without his physical interference.

  It must be said that we do not have, nor do the Russians we understand, weapons that will exploit such a sophisticated system — such as new kinds of missile or cannon. However, unless we quickly nullify the time advantage of the Russian programme, we will be left too far behind by the undoubted acceleration of missile and cannon technology ever to catch up.

  Therefore, we must possess this system. We must steal a Mig-31, at some time.

  Sincerely,

  Kenneth Aubrey

  PM TO KA

  24/9/76

  My dear Aubrey,

  My thanks for your communication. I appreciate your anxiety, though I reject your solution. And, in view of the recent 'present' brought to the West by Lt. Belenko, namely the 'Foxbat', are you not perhaps worrying unduly? It will take the Russians years, surely, to recover from the loss of the Foxbat's secrets?

  Sincerely,

  Andrew Gresham

  KA TO PM

  30/9/76

  My dear Prime Minister,

  In reply to your query, I am convinced that the Foxbat, the Mig-25, is little more than a toy compared with the projected aircraft which Nato has codenamed the Firefox. We must not be lulled into a false sense of security by the recent accident in Japan — a piece of good fortune we hardly deserve, and which may not prove to our final advantage.

  I should also add that information coming back to our technical experts here from Japan suggests that the Mig-25 is not all that it might be. It is constructed in large part of steel rather than titanium, it has difficulty in obtaining its maximum speed and holding it, and its electronics are by no means as sophisticated as we were led to believe.

  However, we have the opinion of Baranovich in Bilyarsk that the proposed Mig-31 will live up to even extravagant expectations. He is aware of the shortcomings of the Mig-25, by means of scientific gossip — but no one is carping at Bilyarsk about the Firefox.

  Sincerely,

  Kenneth Aubrey

  AUBREY TO PM — EYES ONLY

  3/7/79

  My dear Prime Minister,

  I do not know what anti-radar is, nor how it works, in the case of the Russian system. Reports from Bilyarsk, from our sources who are not privy to its secrets, indicate that it is not mechanical or electronic at all — and therefore cannot be adversely affected by any counter measures. It is therefore totally unlike our own 'Chaff' which is used to confuse radars, or any American developments in terms of electronic confusion of radar. Neither the USAF nor the RAF have anything in mind such as the Russian system would appear to be.

  It is evident now that the Firefox is the most serious threat to the security of the West since the development of nuclear weapons by the Soviet Union and China.

  Sincerely,

  Kenneth Aubrey

  'C'/KA

  0/7/79

  Kenneth —

  You have the go-ahead from the P.M. and from Washington. You will liaise with Bucholz. Your scenario, including pilot (an odd bird, wouldn't you say?), refuelling point, and method of getting pilot to Bilyarsk, are approved. It is understood that the pilot should have some kind of homing-device which he can use to find the refuelling point — one which the Russians will not be aware of, and will therefore be unable to trace. The P.M. realises the urgency, and Farnborough have started work. See a man there called Davies.

  Good luck to you. The ball is now firmly in your court.

  Richard

  Alone in his office, the smell of fresh paint still strong in his nostrils, KGB Colonel Mihail Yurievich Kontarsky, Head of the 'M' Department assigned to security of the Mikoyan project at Bilyarsk, was again a prey to lurid doubts. He had been left alone by his assistant, Dmitri Priabin, and the sense of reassurance he had drawn from the work they had done that afternoon had dissipated in the large room. He sat behind the big, new desk, and willed himself to remain calm.

  It had been going on too long, he realised — this need for the sedative of work. He had lost, he knew, the sense of perspective, now that the date for the final weapons trials on the Mig-31 was so close. It was nothing, it seemed, but a last-minute panic — grabbing up the bits and pieces of his job like scattered luggage. All the time afraid that he had
forgotten something.

  He was afraid to leave his office at that moment, because he knew his body could not yet assume its characteristic arrogance of posture. He would be recognised in the corridors of the Centre as a worried man; and that might prove an irretrievable error on his part.

  He had known about the security leaks at Bilyarsk for years — about Baranovich, Kreshin and Semelovsky — and their courier, Dherkov the grocer. Over such a period of time as the Mig had taken to be developed and built, it was impossible that he should not have known.

  But, he and his department had done nothing about them, nothing more than reduce the flow of information to a trickle by tightening surveillance, preventing meetings, drops, and the like. Because — he suddenly dropped his head into his hands, pressing his palms against his closed eyelids — he had gambled, out of fear. He had been afraid to recommend the removal of vital human components from the project, and afraid that even if he did then the British or the CIA would suborn others whose existence would be unknown to him, or put in new agents and contacts he did not know. Better the devil you know, he had told Priabin when he made the decision, trying to smile; and the young man had gone along with him. Now it seemed an eminently foolish remark.

  The price of failure had been absolute, even then. Disgrace, even execution. He tried to comfort himself by thinking that whatever the British and Americans knew, it was far less than they might have known…

  His narrow, dark features were wan and tired, his grey eyes fearful. He had had to let them continue working, even if they were spies. The words sounded hollowly, as if he were already reciting them to an unbelieving audience, even to Andropov himself…

  PART ONE

  The Theft

  One

  THE MURDER