The Istanbul Decision

Nine

Carter's heavy Luger thudded to the floor of the salon car, and was quickly scooped up by one of Kobelev's guards and placed on the bar. He squeezed through the small vent, hung for a moment, then dropped to his feet. The guard immediately grabbed his shoulder and shoved him into a swivel chair. Then the second guard, who had waylaid Carter on the roof, dropped into the car and took up a position by the back door.

Kobelev set his vodka glass on the bar and picked up the Luger. He ejected the clip from the butt, then turned and fired into the wall, the bullet in the firing chamber making a chunk sound as it splintered the paneling.

"You did mean business," he said.

Cynthia sat in front of the bar, her head slumped forward, seemingly unconscious. She was held into her wheelchair with sashes of bedsheet.

"Really, Carter, I 'm rather disappointed. You've taken all this entirely too personally," he went on.

"What have you done to Cynthia?" Carter asked harshly.

"Cynthia?" Kobelev looked over, eyebrows arched, as though he'd forgotten completely she was there. "Is that her name? We hadn't time to administer the usual injections to get any information out of her."

"What did you do to her?"

"No reason to become alarmed, dear boy. She's simply asleep. We find she's a bit easier to handle this way. No need to worry, though. Gregor here is an expert at such things. Isn't that right, Gregor?"

The guard by the door smiled broadly. His hair had been shaved into a brown stubble, as was that of the guard who watched attentively by the bar.

"Do you like my little family?" asked Kobelev. "I found them in a monastery in the Urals. Their order has been fighting Cossacks for centuries. Natural-born assassins, each of them."

"Including…"

"Including Shurin? Yes." Kobelev suddenly switched on what looked to be a shortwave radio that rested on the bar. Immediately sounds of struggle emanated from the speaker, grunts of effort and loud scraping noises, then silence and the voice of the assistant chef: "Mon Dieu,monsieur! We did not think you would live!" Kobelev switched it off. "I always wire each of my men. It allows me to be in many places at the same time. Show him, Gregor."

The guard pulled up his thick turtleneck sweater to reveal a tiny microphone taped to his brawny chest.

"I am a difficult man to surprise."

"I see that," said Carter.

"But there is no reason to steal in here like a thief, Mr. Carter," Kobelev continued, taking his drink and sitting himself across the low cocktail table from Carter. "I've been looking forward to seeing you again. As I said before, you're taking this business entirely too personally. I do my job, you do yours, but there is no reason we can't remain friends. We are alike, you and I, men of action, inclined to be a little ruthless when it comes to something we want."

"You're crazy. Sending your own daughter to kill the President of the United States. What on earth did you hope to accomplish besides World War III?"

"Power, to put it simply. One has to think boldly, act boldly. Have you read Napoleon's memoirs?"

"No."

"You should. He has a wealth of advice for men like us. But you mentioned my daughter."

"We still have her," said Carter, brightening.

"Yes. She's well, I trust?"

"Afraid not. Had to put a bullet in her to keep her from killing the President. Lodged against her spine. Doctors say she'll never walk again."

Kobelev stared darkly into the bottom of his vodka. "That's bitter news," he said. "Bitter news, indeed. I hate the sight of a cripple. I truly do." He abruptly threw down the rest of the clear liquid and set the glass with a sharp clack on the tabletop. "Is that why the wheelchair for the decoy? " he asked.

"We thought it lent a touch of authenticity. We couldn't be sure how much you knew."

"I see. I want her back, Carter. Immediately! If Tatiana is not returned to me, I shall have to torture our little decoy here until she tells me where my daughter is being kept and I will mount a rescue operation of my own."

"What if I told you Cynthia doesn't know where Tatiana is?"

"That would be most unfortunate. Most likely, then, she will not survive the interrogation." Kobelev took up his glass and headed back to the bar. "There will have to be some sort of time limit, of course," he said. "Shall we say, then, that Tatiana must be returned here to me before the train reaches Istanbul, or I cannot be responsible for this young lady's safety?"

The eyes of each of the guards followed Kobelev as he went behind the bar to get the vodka bottle. Carter reached up and yanked the emergency-brake cord that ran through grommets just over the window. There was an ear-piercing screech of metal. Everything pitched forward. Kobelev smashed headlong into the liquor cabinet behind the bar, and the two guards sprawled on the floor. Cynthia, her wheelchair unlocked, rolled against the bar, tipped forward, then came down hard, her head lolling back and forth from the impact.

Carter snatched up his Luger and charged the door. He pulled it open just as a bullet whined off the metal jamb inches from his head. Another shot was fired as he ducked into the passageway between cars.

Two windows took the place of the double Dutch doors he'd found behind the dining car, and although the frames were old, the glass looked new, double plated and heavily insulated. He pulled up one frantically, but it was bolted shut. For a fleeting instant, he considered smashing it, but the thought of jumping through a hole surrounded by jagged pieces of glass held no appeal for him, and he threw open the door into the next car instead.

Everything in here was pandemonium. Most of the passengers had been catapulted from their seats. Several held their heads, and there seemed to be a great deal of blood.

Carter glanced quickly around, trying to find the guard he'd been told was stationed here. A knot of people stood over a figure stretched out in the middle of the aisle. Through the crowd he caught a glimpse of the telltale blue turtleneck and the shaved head. Apparently the guard had been the only one standing when the brakes locked.

Without waiting to find out if the man was seriously injured, Carter mounted the backs of two seats, pushed off the lid of the vent hole, and was in the process of wriggling his way out when someone yelled "Halt!" in Russian. A shot sounded and something solid hit the edge of his shoe.

He pulled out of the hole just as another bullet creased his trouser leg, then he scrambled to his feet, took two quick steps and was over the side, falling for what seemed an eternity. He landed hard, fell forward, and rumbled.

Shouts in German pierced the air. It wasn't the guards. He raised his head a few inches over the top of the weeds. Two flashlight beams moved jerkily down the train, stopping now and then and darting in among the wheels.

It was the brakeman and the Russian engineer. There was nothing wrong with the train, the brakeman said, but he'd heard gunshots. In very bad German the engineer told him they were none of his business.

The two examined the entire length of the train, then came hurriedly up the other side. After a pause the whistle blew, indicating the steam was up, and the big pushrods put the giant steel wheels into motion. A short time later Carter stood alone on the tracks, and the air held nothing but the night wind and the distant pounding of the train as it gathered speed away from him.

Rodya Alexandrovitch Zemin, a stoop-shouldered, paunchy man in a well-cut, custom-tailored suit, handed Tatiana a glass of water, then watched grimly as she drank. He clasped his hands behind his back, a posture that drew apart the panels of his jacket, making his large stomach all the more noticeable.

She studied him over the rim of her glass. He had changed, she mused. The man had helped forge the new KGB from the old Cheka. By sheer force of his will and determination he had risen, along with her father, to the top echelons of power. He had been a veritable living legend at Moscow Center. But now? Hair fashionably styled and blow-dried, sleek like the polished surface of an American automobile. Heavy jowls giving him a prosperous look, complementing his huge middle bulging with good food and fine wines. Well-oiled and fat, she decided, like one of Caesar's generals. In America wealth corrupted everything.

"Feeling better?" he asked, taking the empty glass and placing it on the desk.

"Some, thank you, Comrade. I am tired and weak, but I still have a long way to go."

"I imagine you are most eager to return to the homeland and see your father."

"Yes, I am. I have failed in my mission, but I am sure he will still want to see me."

"Yes," said Zemin, and a nervous silence followed during which he gazed at the floor, still working his hands together behind his back. Finally he pulled a chair across the bare parquet floor and sat down facing her. "Comrade Kobelev, may I speak freely?"

"Address me as Tanya, please. It reminds me of the old days when you tossed me on your knee at my father's dacha."

"Tanya," he began, his hands now resting on the desk in front of him, looking like two pink starfish, "things have changed at home since you have been gone. Your father has, how shall I say it, fallen from grace. They have confiscated his dacha and his Moscow apartment. There have been unfavorable articles in Pravda. Directives have been issued restricting his security clearance. His position, I am afraid, is in grave jeopardy. Even Nerchinsky, his most avid supporter on the Presidium, has been questioned, particularly in regard to this last operation in the United States. Charges may be forthcoming."

"Is this why I was told I was not welcome here in the embassy of my own country?"

"We had to make a quick decision, Tanya. Of course we did not realize how much the Americans themselves wanted to be rid of you. But you must understand our position: turmoil at home over what you and your father have done; our negotiations with the West in a shambles; official Washington turning a very cold shoulder to us. There was a time a few weeks ago when I greatly feared we'd be expelled!"

"You put too much stock in relations with these Western hedonists." Tatiana said sullenly. "They are unimportant. Coexistence itself is unimportant. That is the message my father brings to all the Russian people."

"Perhaps, my dear," said Zemin with a sigh, "but perhaps, too, the Presidium has decided to take a more liberal course."

"Perhaps again," said Tatiana, "but it may also be another ploy of my father's to consolidate his power. It would not be the first time he's acted in secret and in such a way as to keep the entire world, even Moscow Center, guessing. Where is my father now?"

"Aboard a train. The Orient Express. The Americans very much want to see your father dead, it seems. They engineered a trap using an actress impersonating you. He rose to it, took the actress and an entire trainload of people, and is now demanding your release. I might add we would know nothing of this if it weren't for the diligence of the train's engineer who realized your father was acting without Moscow's consent and phoned our contact in Rheims."

"My father is a daring man, is he not? An entire train at gunpoint, across Europe. Imagine! And no less prestigious a train than the Orient Express! All those bourgeois Europeans in their tuxedos and evening gowns! What greater proof of a father's love could a daughter ask for? I must see him! I must!"

"That may be difficult to arrange, Tatiana Nikolaiyevna, although I understand he is keeping the train's original schedule. At least he has some sense of the embarrassment he is causing us, one and all."

"But I must see him! You must arrange it, Comrade."

Zemin's plump features compressed in an unpleasant way.

"But you must! We are old friends, let us not forget that. Surely my father would do as much or more."

Zemin sighed heavily and looked hard at the young woman in front of him. "I will see what I can do," he said at last. "The Americans seem willing to let you go, and the dust at home has not yet cleared. I am not sure where your father stands…"He would have finished, but in her excitement Tatiana had already leaped from her chair and was squeezing him in an affectionate bear hug that made talking difficult.

"Easy, dear child, easy," he said with an indulgent smile, extricating himself from her embrace. "It may very well be I'm cutting my throat by helping you."

"Yes, Rodya Alexandrovitch, I understand. But thank you! Thank you!"

"So," he said, standing, "I will arrange your transportation. But you must leave immediately. I fear any minute a directive will come forbidding me to extend aid in any way." He went behind the desk and picked up the phone. Tatiana watched him dial, but then a thought occurred to her.

"Did they mention if an agent named Nick Carter happened to be involved in any attempt to kill my father?"

Zemin shook his head. "I don't remember the name. Hello?" he said into the phone. "Gregoriev? Do you still have that contact in Havana? Good. I have a job for you…"

Tatiana sat back into her chair, considering. If there'd been a plot to kill her father, it was possible Nick Carter was in on it, she thought pleasantly. And if it had gone awry, he couldn't be too far away. No further, say, than the range of a pistol shot. She smiled at the prospect.

It seemed to Carter that he'd been walking for hours. The grassy embankment below the railroad track had given out onto a vast marshy plain covered by a ground fog, which at times extended no higher than his knees and at other rimes churned around him in the wake of a gust of wind, obscuring his vision altogether. Occasionally, when the fog cleared, he saw the moon dance on a body of water in the distance, and although it was difficult to make out, he guessed it to be rather large. No lights were visible on the opposite shore. There had been lights earlier, however, much closer, and although they'd gone out more than an hour ago, he still walked in that direction, hoping to find some sign of habitation.

He pulled the collar of his chef's jacket up around his ears and fastened the top button of the lapel under his chin. The groundwater was only a few inches deep, but it had soaked his pants to the thighs, and now the wind whipped the wet cloth against his skin, chilling him thoroughly.

As he walked he stuffed his hands in his pockets to keep them warm, and after a few dozen steps he had to wade through a pile of wet weeds. They looked to be the refuse of some sort of dredging operation. They formed a small mound seven or eight feet high. He climbed the mound until he balanced precariously on a perch that afforded him a view of the entire area.

Dead ahead no more than two hundred yards, outlined in dark gray against an even darker background, stood a shack on a cluster of pilings. A pier ran off to the north from which a rickety ladder extended to the water's surface. Next to the ladder a small shallow-draft boat bobbed like a cork.

He hurried down the other side and splashed toward it. The water deepened quickly, and by the time he reached the ladder, it was up to his waist. He climbed until his eyes were level with the weatherbeaten pier, then he stopped, taking in every aspect. Everything seemed quiet. Except for the steady drip of water from his wet clothes and the soft sucking of the waves in the pilings, the night was quiet. An eider duck cooed to its mate in the distance. This place seemed deserted, and yet he was sure this was where he'd seen lights earlier.

He hurried across to the shack and listened at the door. The unmistakable drone of snoring came from within. Back at the pier, he looked down at the little open boat, bobbing in the moonlight.

She looked seaworthy, but there was no way to propel her. He looked around and for the first time noticed two sets of oars attached to the shack's outer wall. He went over and was lifting one down when something scattered over the boards by his feet caught his eye.

He stooped down, picked up some, and rubbed it between his fingers. Sawdust. But what on earth would someone be sawing out here? Then it dawned on him. It had nothing to do with carpentry. It was packing material, the kind used to fill the spaces between bottles and other delicate things during shipment.

Then he looked across to where the moon made stepping-stones on the water. The Neusiedlersee! He should have realized. Austria on one shore, Hungary on the other, and in the middle a hot little traffic in Western goods.

He pulled out his Luger, went around to the front, and boldly kicked in the door. A balding little man sat bolt upright in his makeshift bed on the floor, his eyes wide as saucers. "Wer ist da?" he stammered.

"Amerikaner," Carter answered, making sure the Luger in his hand was clearly visible in the shaft of moonlight from the open door.

The eyes narrowed. "Polizei?"

"Nein."

"Then what is it?" he demanded, indicating the gun.

"The next time you and your friends make a run, there'll be an additional piece of contraband floating across the lake."

"Ja?"

"Me."

Over the course of the next two hours Carter learned a great deal about the man in the shack and his dabbling in illegal exports. His name, he said, was Friedrich Schwetzler, although he'd been christened Ferenc Balassa. He was a Hungarian who'd fled during the uprisings of 1956. He'd crossed the border here by boat, planning to go west to France, or maybe even to the United States, but unforeseen circumstances forced him to leave his wife and small daughter behind, and he hadn't the heart to go any further than eastern Austria. So here he'd stayed, gotten a job as a waiter in the hotel in Bruck, and begun smuggling. His wife had since died, and his daughter now had children of her own. The smuggling allowed him to keep in contact with her and her family. His agent on the other side was his son-in-law.

They smuggled in more than just cases of wine and sought-after Western clothes, he told Carter. There were political items as well; Western newspapers, forbidden manuscripts, even parts of Solzhenitsyn's works had passed through his hands.

As they talked, the fog outside lifted, but Schwetzler said that the moonlight made it too dangerous to attempt a crossing tonight, and his son-in-law would not come. Tomorrow night would be safer. Carter was crestfallen. In his mind's eye the Orient Express steamed off into the night, putting another mile between them for every minute he delayed.

That night he slept on the floor of Schwetzler's tiny apartment in downtown Bruck, and in the morning stood with a line of tourists outside the telephone exchange, waiting to make an overseas call.

He felt much better than he had the night before, even though he'd slept only fitfully. The day had dawned bright and clear, and the weather forecast called for falling temperatures and fog by evening, which meant the son-in-law would definitely appear. He had at last shed his chef's uniform, which after his fighting and tramping through several miles of swamp had become little more than rags, and had donned instead some clothes Schwetzler had lent him: thick corduroy pants, a black wool sweater, and a peasant's cap that gave him a roguish, rural look. So now as the streets began to fill, and workers brushed by him on their way to work, and women in black babushkas and overcoats began to appear, pushing their carts to market. Carter blended right in and began to feel, to his own amazement, that he actually belonged here.

The telephone exchange opened at the stroke of eight, and Carter filed in with the crowd, gave the operator the safe number in Washington, then retired to a corner to wait for his connection to be made. In his borrowed clothes no one paid him any mind, and within a few minutes he was in a booth listening to the impatient voice of David Hawk.

"Our ruse with Cynthia didn't last two minutes with Kobelev. He knew immediately she wasn't his daughter, and now he wants Tatiana back or he's going to kill Cynthia. We need some sort of safe house somewhere along the train route in case we have to make an exchange. And I need Tatiana on this side of the Atlantic. I may have to dangle her under his nose a bit to get Cynthia away from him."

"It's not going to be that easy, Nick," Hawk grumbled.

Carter held his silence. He had a bad feeling.

"We don't have the girl. She escaped. This afternoon."

"She had help?"

"No. She evidently isn't crippled." Hawk quickly explained what had happened, at the hospital and then later.

"Why wasn't she stopped, sir?" Carter asked. This entire thing was starting to go very bad.

Hawk sighed deeply. "Wasn't much we could do about it, really. We covered up the fact she was the one who tried to kill the President. We held her in the hospital. We could hardly let that out now." Hawk was silent for a moment. "There were a lot of reputations on the line. We didn't want another Watergate, with the press all over us and the President. It would have been disastrous. I don't think they wanted her over at her own embassy either. But they took her." Again there was the silence. "In the end she was a defecting spy who'd had a change of heart. No waves."

"Makes things a bit difficult here."

"There was nothing to be done about it, Nick. Nothing."

"Is she still at her embassy?"

"We don't think so. Manville thinks she shipped out in disguise. Probably on the plane to Cuba. From there…?"

"Yes, sir," Carter said. "That means she'll be on her way here."

"I'm assigning you some help. Lieutenant Commander j.g. Stewart. Naval Intelligence."

"Never heard the name."

"Mediterranean fleet. East European Theater expert."

"What's the contact routine?"

"It's all taken care of, Nick. You have the passive role. You know when the time comes. Meanwhile, good luck."

"Thanks," Carter said. He hung up, paid the operator at the desk, and stepped outside. Somehow the sunlight didn't seem nearly as bright and hopeful as it had ten minutes before.