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Dawes. 'This thing is a mess - and I don't like the sound of that security leak up at Thule. I have to go there first to pick up Grayson and Langer and get equipment before we fly on to Curtis Field.' He stabbed a finger at the nearest airfield to Target-5- 'So that leak is dangerous.'
    'The FBI man, Callard, says they may have located Crocodile within hours. Any advance instructions we can radio direct to Tillotson - he's the security chief up there.'
    'I still don't like it. Let me see that met report again.' Dawes handed him the faked weather report with a wooden face while Adams studied his fingernails. Beaumont read the report and shook his head. 'It means the three of us have to fly in to the edge of the fog bank from Curtis Field. Then we sled our way to Target-5 - if we can ever find it. We pick up Gorov - assuming he ever makes it across twenty-five miles of broken ice - then we have to sled our way back across one hundred and twenty miles of moving ice, probably with the Russian security people on our tails . . .'
    'We could pick you up off the ice once you get clear of the fog and fly you back,' Adams suggested.
    'You could,' Beaumont agreed, 'if you ever found us, which you wouldn't. Have you any idea what it's like trying to find four men and two sled-teams from the air at this time of year? No, obviously you haven't...'
    'People do get rescued by air,' Adams persisted.
    'That's right,' Beaumont growled, 'they do. Something else you obviously don't know is that usually it's by accident - a plane that wasn't looking for them just happens to see them. Another thing I don't like,' he continued, 'is that we don't yet know when he's coming.' He waved the met report in Dawes's direction. 'Send an urgent signal to the Elroy - she's to turn round at once and head back due north for the icefield. This may be a rendezvous point .. .' Beaumont took out a pencil and marked a thick cross on the wall map.
    'That's deep inside the ice,' Adams protested.
    'So she has to ram her way in. I want to be on a plane for Greenland within two hours,' he told Dawes, 'a fast machine that can get me there non-stop.'
    'There's a Boeing waiting for you now,' Dawes said.
    Beaumont raised an eyebrow. 'You were confident, weren't you? American organization - sometimes it frightens me. Now, let's go quickly over this dangerous business of when we'll know Michael Gorov is coming.'
    Adams began talking in a quick competent voice. 'We're waiting for a man to come back from Leningrad - to Hel sinki. He's contacting a relative of Michael Gorov's and he'll bring out the date when Michael Gorov is leaving North Pole 17. We do know that it will be within the next few days - and when our man gets out we'll know the exact day.'
    'Supposing he never leaves Leningrad alive?' Beaumont demanded.
    'He should make it,' Adams said confidently. 'He's never been behind the Iron Curtain before - that's why he was chosen. But he's a very experienced man. When he reaches Helsinki he goes straight to our embassy and they'll signal us.'
    'The whole thing depends on one man inside Russia,' Beaumont said grimly.
    'A first-class man,' Adams assured him. 'We'll know at the latest by one o'clock Sunday morning, our time. As soon as we hear we'll signal you at Curtis Field.' Adams's optimism was carrying him along on a cloud. 'You don't have to worry. You'll see - it will be a very simple operation.'
    'It won't,' Beaumont rumbled.'That's the one and only thing I can predict - it won't be a simple operation.'

    Friday, 18 February

    A man was killed on Nevsky Prospekt in Leningrad at exactly five minutes past three in the afternoon of Friday, 18 February.
    At three in the afternoon in Leningrad it is still only 7 am in Washington. Beaumont had not yet even boarded the Florida Express he was to be taken off so unceremoniously seventeen hours later. But it was almost three in the afternoon when an American tourist, Harvey Winthrop, walked carefully down the five icy steps which