The pilot gently moved a lever to his left, and the rotor blades changed angle. The engine pitch rose as the engines fed more power to the rotors. The chopper moved off its shocks, the wheels for the moment just in contact with the ground. The pilot gently pressed the rudder bar to counteract any rotation of the fuselage, paused to check his instruments again, then moved the left hand lever slightly higher. The MIL lifted from the square of concrete, and the light suddenly increased as they lifted clear of the trees. It was not yet dark The pilot checked the drift caused by the wind, and the chopper swung round towards the border.

'You know the course, don't you,' Ilya said. It was not a question. Suddenly reminded of their presence - and Ilya applied the cold barrel of the Makarov to his jaw at that moment - the pilot merely nodded. He moved the control stick, altering the angle of the rotor disc, and the MIL moved over the wooden huts, towards the open ground, snow-covered, and the huge wire.

They passed over the wire at less than a hundred and fifty feet, then the racecourse-like stretch of open ground, then the lower, unmanned fence on the Finnish side, and a narrower space clear of trees, then the forest that engulfed both sides of the border at that point. There was little danger of being picked up; they were too low for radar detection, and the Finns maintained few watch-towers. They relied instead upon regular helicopter patrols - regular as clockwork, risibly punctual. It was a token to independence, designed not to anger the Soviet Union or give the least provocation for a border incident.

They saw the white, winding line of the single road, a parting in the trees, and the further, icy gleam of the river to the south of them. Maxim tapped Ilya's shoulder, and he leaned back.

'What are we going to do ?' Maxim whispered. Ilya, aware of the pilot, stretched his right hand so that the gun rested against the pilot's neck, just where the hair touched the collar of the flying-jacket.

'Don't get any ideas,' he said. 'Sorry if it makes you nervous!'

'Look, Ilya - you're behaving like a kid! What are we going to do, afterwards V Ilya looked at him, and scowled like a child. The flickering, half-plotted scenario he had felt was in his grasp was not a firm outline. Separate incidents, nothing more, the bulk of his plan already put into operation when the MIL took off.

He said: 'We can't go back there.' Again he glanced at the back of the pilot's head.

Maxim nodded. 'Too bloody true, my son.'

'Look - if we -?' He thought, shook his head. Then: 'This thing can take us back to Murmansk!' His voice was a breathy whisper.

'Oh, yes ? Outrunning those gunships you seem determined to take us towards ?' Maxim turned away, looking ahead, past the pilot. The darkening sky was empty of lights.

Ilya was silent, offering after a while only: 'I'll think of something.'

'You do that. Meanwhile, ask him what is going on.'

Ilya increased the pressure of the gun against the pilot's neck, sufficient to alarm him. He saw the slight spasm of the shoulders, the wrinkling of the neck as if to get rid of a stiffness. The man was frightened.

'Now, what are we doing here ?'

Silence. The steady beat of the rotors over their heads, the dark flow of the forest below, patches of white clearing like baldness, the road like a parting in thick hair. Then, ahead of them, winking red lights, one above and to port, the other to starboard, at about the same height. They were overtaking the two gunships.

'What are they doing?' Maxim snapped.

'Looking,' the pilot offered.

'In Finland ? What do they want - a wolfhead for the mess wall?

'No.'

'Enlighten us.'

A tremor passed through the pilot's frame, as if he were trying to overcome some deep, traumatic block. He was afraid of them, but he was perhaps more afraid of something else. Both Ilya and Maxim, looking at one another for a moment, realised the significance of what the pilot must know.

Then the village whose name they did not know.

'Down!' snapped Ilya, and the pilot pushed the stick forward and the nose of the MIL sagged. Figures moving, light flickering across the snow as torches and lanterns were wobbled in gloved hands - a stream of light from a doorway.

And behind a house, stiff, cold dark spots - too familiar to be anything other than dead bodies.

'What the hell is going en here ?' Maxim barked, grabbing the pilot's arm in his shock. The MIL wobbled, slewed sideways, and as the pilot's arm was released and he righted the chopper, he snapped in a high voice:

'Don't touch me! Do you want to kill yourself, you stupid bastard ?'

Then the intercom crackled in his ears. The cabin speaker had been left on, and the two passengers heard the pilot of one of the MIL-24s ahead of them say:

'North Star 92 to unidentified helicopter - identify yourself, and state mission.'

'North Star 86 to North Star 92 - mission to assist search,' their pilot replied, the gun digging painfully into the back of his neck.

'Acknowledged North Star 86. What in hell's name have they sent you for ?'

'I have troops on board - hi the event. Any sign yet ?

'No. Ground radio claims five of our men dead. It should be a sizeable party, but no sign of anything. Over and out.'

Ilya released the pressure of the gun-barrel, and patted the pilot on the shoulder.

'Good,' he said. 'Nice touch, that, about the troops. Now -what is going on ?'

'Enemy agents, I should think. Firefight of some land, not long ago by the look of it. They're looking for the agents.'

'This is bloody Finland, not Russia!' Ilya exploded.

The pilot turned his head. Ilya could see the humour around the mouth, the contempt displayed in the nostrils, the eyes. The pilot was pitying his ignorance.

He sat back, the gun relaxing from the pilot's head. It was -he could not explain the pilot's moods a frightened man who yet talked as if they were flying over Russia, not a neutral neighbour.

Then, ahead of them, they saw the red lights of one of the MIL-24s dip down below their view.

'Follow him!' Ilya snapped, and pressed the gun back against the neck, which wrinkled with disgust and fear. The cabin seemed to alter its angle suddenly, and the ground moved up to meet them. The road was a ghostly ribbon now, but along it, headlights blazing, an open vehicle was moving at perhaps fifty miles an hour - a suicidal speed.

'What the hell is that?'

'It must be them!' the pilot shouted, his caution swallowed in excitement.

'Who?'

'Enemy agents - the bastards!' It was as if they were no longer with him, or he their prisoner.

Ilya could not believe what happened in the next moment. The MIL-24 which had swept down upon the jeep on the road below them launched two of the small missiles slung beneath its stubby wings, then pulled ahead of the racing jeep.

Flickers of fire beneath the wings, then bright bursts of flame, gouts of snow and packed earth ahead of the jeep -almost in the same instant. It was incredible; his mind refused to countenance what it perceived. He watched the jeep.

It bucked wildly, then swung off the road, leaping like a mad horse across the ditch, and disappeared under the trees. The headlights flickered off. In the moment before it slid under the trees and under the belly of their chopper, Ilya saw a white face looking up, then obscured by something dark held out -and he realised, ludicrously, that the passenger in the jeep was taking photographs of them.

The MIL-24 was flicking round on its course, to make another run at the road. Then the intercom crackled in the cabin.

'You'll have to put your troops down and cut them off!' the pilot said without introduction or call-sign. In his voice there was an aftermath of dangerous elation, and a rising panic. 'Follow me!' The MIL-24 slid away from alongside them, stretching to a lead of two hundred metres, flying less than fifty feet above the trees. It was a dark bulk ahead of them, lights flashing, the carpet of trees below them revealed nothing of the whereabouts of the jeep or its two occupants.