A beam of light flicked down from the MIL-24 ahead, bathing the tree tops in white light. They glistened with ice and snow. It was an affecting scene, brilliant and harmless. Ilya shook it off.

'What happens when they find out we have no troops to put down ?' Maxim asked.

'We'll have buggered off, won't we!' He prodded the gun into the neck again. 'Time to go!' he snarled. 'We have a long way to go before any of us gets to sleep tonight.'

'Where?'

'Murmansk, brother! All the way, no stops!'

'What?'

'You heard. After all,' he added turning to Maxim, 'we have a star witness here, haven't we ? After what we've just seen, together with what they can get out of him at the Centre . . .' He chuckled. 'We're home and dry, eh ?' He laughed, infected with the same excitement they had heard in the pilot's voice a little earlier. A pendulum of success had swung in their direction now.

'And what is going on ? 'I don't care to think about that,' Ilya said flatly. 'Someone else can find that out. I don't think it bears thinking about, do you?'

'I agree.'

'Right, alter course, Comrade Pilot! Take us just a little south of your HQ - and fly very very low! Understand ?'

The pilot nodded. The chopper banked, sliding across the trees to retrace their outward course.

When they were settled on course, Maxim said, 'And what are we going to do to make sure that we aren't followed and overtaken by those gunships - or the other two I spotted at HQ ? Those aren't fireworks they carry under those silly little wings, you know.'

'We're going to fake a forced landing - give our position, and then get the hell out of there while they spend their time looking for us!' Ilya spoke in an intense whisper, his face gleaming with pleasure. He tapped his forehead with the forefinger of his left hand.

'Mm. Do you know, I actually approve,' Maxim said, his face breaking into a rare smile. He was a man not without humour, but who often appeared to lack the necessary facial muscles to smile or laugh.

'I knew you would you dear old thing,' Ilya said.

They flew just to the south of the village, and crossed the border at an unmanned point. They reached the first trees on the Russian side, the MIL flying barely twenty feet above them. They were travelling fast, over a hundred miles an hour perhaps.

He said, 'Now, comrade, a little fault is about to develop. Radio in a convincing fault that will mean you have to force-land. And radio a position...' He reached forward and picked up the pilot's map which lay on a tiny folding rest at his side. He glanced at it, then:'. . . a position on the other side of the wire. Understand ? Be very careful of what you say.'

The pilot nodded, opened the channel, and said, 'North Star 86 - North Star 86 to base. I have developed turbine surge. I have to set down quick. Repeat - turbine surge, am forced to land. My position is -' The gun pressed more attentively against his stiff neck. He gave the position, and repeated it quickly. Ilya strained to read the coordinates on the pilot's map, gave up the attempt, and nodded to Maxim as if he had checked the position. Neither of them knew that the pilot, who was beginning to sweat with relief, had given their present position.

'Down there!' Ilya snapped, motioning towards a small white patch in the darkness.

'What for, man ?' Maxim asked. 'We've sent them the wrong way. Let's get going 1'

'No! Just in case we're spotted going the wrong way. Sit tight for a little bit, then up and away.' Maxim looked doubtful, and Ilya shouted, 'We can't afford to cock it up now! As you said, those gunships don't carry fireworks. We can't afford to be seen, from the air or the ground!'

Maxim looked down. The chopper was circling the tiny clearing, and its landing light had flicked on. The snow appeared rutted, lunar, beneath them.

'All right. We don't move until they're looking the other way.'

'Down!'

The chopper settled slowly, nose slightly up. Snow began to blow in the downdraught, fanning out beneath them, whirling up alongside the cabin as they sank lower. Gently, the MIL seemed to be coming to rest. Fifteen feet, twelve, ten The pilot moved the stick suddenly, and the tail boom of the helicopter dropped. It thumped into the surface snow, and there was a tearing sound, the magnified noise of a pencil snapping as the whole tail boom broke away under the impact.

The incident happened so swiftly that Ilya and Maxim were entirely its victims. They were not observers, but sufferers. The pilot, seizing his one opportunity, had sabotaged the helicopter.

The fuselage immediately began to wobble from side to side without the appropriate balancing effect of the tail rotor, in the half-second before it, too, hit the ground at an angle. The undercarriage buckled, and the cabin began to tilt. Then the rotor struck the frozen snow and earth.

The cabin felt like a barrel which was being kicked once a second. The rotor blades churned against and into the ground, hurling up snow and earth as the cabin tilted ever more crazily over on to its side. Then one blade snapped, then another, then a third. The vibration was incredible, seeming to rattle the brains in their skulls, possess their whole bodies.

Maxim felt his whole spine jar against the metal frame of the webbed seat. Then the cabin was completely on its side, and there was a silence. The churned cloud of snow settled, audibly, like a snowstorm, on the perspex.

Ilya sat stunned, head hanging over towards the ground, the straps of his seat restraining him from rolling against the perspex which had now become the floor of the cabin. Only the single thought that he was still alive filled his mind. He moved, almost by instinct, fingers, arms, legs. All of them flexed and stretched as they should. Only the pain of bruises.

He watched, without moving, as the pilot killed the switches in front of him, then threw off his straps, and began sliding back the canopy above him. He reached up, and pulled himself out of the window. The cold air rushed in, chilling Ilya. The pilot's legs dangled for a moment, then he was smearing the settled snow over Ilya's head as he crawled across the perspex. Ilya heard him drop to the ground.

Then, and only then, did he move, galvanised as if by electric shock. He clambered on the back of the pilot's seat, lifting his head out of the cabin. The pilot was standing, looking back, only ten yards away. It was as if he felt no urgency, or was perhaps stunned like Ilya. Then they saw one another.

The Makarov was stiff in Ilya's grip, as if the impact of the crash had moulded it to his flesh and bone. He shifted it to a two-handed grip, and leaned his elbows on the perspex.

'Back inside,' he said. He heard Maxim groan below him. 'Inside, you clever bastard! You did that on purpose!' His finger tightened on the trigger. His next words were strangely high, almost falsetto. 'Get back in this bloody deathtrap before I blow you to pieces!'

The pilot hesitated, and then he turned and began to run through the deep snow, stumbling over the frozen surface, floundering into small drifts where the surface ice gave way.

Ilya felt very tired. He could not run through that. And he felt lightheaded. He aimed, feeling sorry that the pilot was having so much difficulty moving away.

He fired twice, while Maxim's second outburst of moaning drove up his emotional temperature and he hated the pilot.

He watched the sprawled figure on the snow for a moment or two, and when it did not move, he dropped awkwardly back inside the cabin of the MIL, pulling the window shut above him.

Maxim's face was white with strain. His eyes were filled with terror at guessed injuries, and they closed with two spasms of pain even as Ilya watched. Ilya could see each wave leave him weak and terrified, his eyes darting from side to side as if seeking some escape from the next assault.

'What is it ? he asked gently.

'I can't feel my legs. Not at all. Can't feel anything below my waist. Can't move anything . . .' A further spasm crossed his face, crumpling like a discarded ball of paper. He groaned, teeth clenched. When it passed, he opened his eyes only to see the depth of Ilya's concern. He wanted to avoid the information on the face above his own, and he tried to smile. 'Tell me - has my dick dropped off?' As he laughed, the pain came again and he screwed up his eyes.

Ilya winced. Maxim had an impacted spine. He touched the seat-belt. He hadn't been strapped in very securely, and the base of the spine must have been jolted against the metal bar at the back of the seat. He couldn't move him.

He said, feeling the nausea sharp in his throat, 'I found it on the floor by your seat. I threw it away.'

'Just as well,' Maxim muttered through clenched teeth. 'Bloody thing only ever got me into trouble . . .'He almost fainted as the next wave of pain took him. 'Like having bloody labour!' he groaned as it passed, Ilya moved away, rooting in the first-aid box which had remained secure on the wall behind their seats during the crash. He found the flask of vodka and unstoppered it.

Kneeling over Maxim, he poured the liquid against his lips. They opened gratefully, and he swallowed. He coughed once, then motioned to be settled on the floor of the cabin. Ilya released the slack belts, then moved the stiff form awkwardly. By the time he had stretched Maxim on the curving floor of perspex, he saw he had fainted.

'Sorry,' he murmured. 'Sorry, sorry, sorry . . .'

When Maxim recovered consciousness, he said, 'Why haven't you gone ?'

'Where?'

'Anywhere! They will come, won't they?'

'I expect so. I'm not very good at reading pilots' maps. I expect he gave our present position.'