North Cape

This time, as Teleman slept, he dreamed that he was back in the A-17, being pursued by a series of Falcons. As each aircraft rose to replace the one ahead it closed quickly and fired a missile.. The ice-sharp clarity of the Asian terrain unreeling before him shifted' with the watery changes of dreams, but somehow the mass of the Himalayas to his right never varied, either in view or intensity. He was passing so close to the bulk of the mountain flanks that he could clearly see a Mongolian sheepherder, mounted on a wiry pony, waving to him. As he watched the man, the A-17 came to bang opposite, so close that the wing tip, fully extended, seemed to brush along the Mongolian's cap. The sheepherder glanced back along the way Teleman had come, and turning himself, Teleman could see through the solid wall of the cockpit the entire valley spread out below. Close behind were two Falcons, so close that rockets emerging in slow motion from the pods on either side of the aircraft's nose were already visible. Both he and the sheepherder turned at the same moment to stare directly at one another. The Mongolian began to wave at the following aircraft, his face suffused with the agony of helplessness. Teleman turned again, and this time the rockets had traveled half the distance and grown in size until they were as wide as freight cars. They traveled in three sets of pairs and seemed to reach out to encompass him. The Mongolian was still waving desperately at his wings. Sittihg in the pilot's couch, face pressed against the glassite of the view port, Teleman could not understand why the A-17 was not moving. The sound of the engines thundered in his ears, yet the aircraft would not budge. The Mongolian vaulted from his horse and ran forward to grasp the extended wing and, with a mighty heave, wrenched it backward. Then Teleman understood. With a last glance back at the rockets reaching out hungry hands for the tail section of the A-17, he threw the switch that swung the wings back. The aircraft vaulted forward, instantly leaving the now smiling face of the sheepherder disappearing in the distance. The crazy patchwork of the dream began to flow backward into a smooth whirlpool that suddenly sprang high and Teleman was sitting both upright and awake. Folsom sprang up, startled by Teleman's sudden movement. "Ye gods, you startled me." Teleman looked around for a moment, not quite sure what was reality and what was dream. "Where are my clothes?" he asked thickly.

Cadsen picked up a pack and crawled over to Teleman's sleeping bag. "The clothes you arrived in are not the kind you want to wear when hiking in the Arctic, my boy." He opened the pack and pulled out a pair of wide-mesh nylon underwear, lined ski pants, a loose nylon sweater, and a quilted dacron parka and hood and pushed them toward Teleman.

"Put these on. I think you'll find them quite a bit warmer than a flight suit."

"Yes, and hurry too. We were just about to wake you." Teleman did as he was told, fumblingly at first as his tired brain sorted out fact from dream fiction. Some of the iron weariness had left him after his long sleep. But not enough, he thought. His body was still sluggish, although he knew he would lose some of that once out into the cold fresh air. But he knew damned well that he would never be able to walk twenty-five miles… why did they have to walk twenty-five miles anyway? He could not remember at first, then gradually, as the cobwebs cleared away, he remembered snatches of conversation they had had earlier. Teleman pulled the parka over his head, found his .22 revolver on top of his pack, and surreptitiously tucked it inside. Then, with the boots in his hand, crawled over to where the other three were clustered around a map.

"Our Red friends," Folsom started without preamble as soon as Teleman joined the circle, "appear to want to welcome us to the land of the midnight sun." In spite of the flippancy of his words, his voice was grim.

"We were informed about twelve hours ago that a suspected Russian submarine had landed a party of eighteen men about twenty-two miles southeast of here in Porsangerfjord. Then the sub withdrew' a few miles and submerged. The landing party headed westward, apparently searching for you," he said glancing up at Teleman. Teleman shook his head in confusion. "How the hell would they know where I was?" Folsom grinned wryly. "I suppose if we could track you down by radar they could too:'

"But that's impossible. The ejection capsule carries its own ECM gear. They would never have been able to track me."

"Could be," Folsom admitted, "but somehow they are onto you. Maybe they just figured that you would have bailed out somewhere along the coast and as a last-ditch measure sent out the landing party in the hopes of picking you up.