The Killing Ground

Eleven

It was a few minutes after noon when the Soviet jet transport landed at the military airstrip in Marzahn on the outskirts of East Berlin. It had come on a direct flight from Moscow. Normally there would have been a lot of military fanfare, but this time only a limousine was waiting. The big car raced out to the transport, which had taxied to a stop in an isolated parking area.

The aircraft’s door popped open, boarding stairs were brought up, and Nikolai Fedor Kobelev, dressed in civilian clothes, stepped down to the tarmac. He was alone, and he looked very angry.

He strode across to the limo as the driver leaped out, raced around to the rear door, and opened it.

“Welcome to Berlin, comrade...” the driver started, but the look on Kobelev’s face stopped him in mid-sentence.

Kobelev climbed into the car. Arkadi Ganin sat on the opposite side, his eyes hollow, his complexion somewhat pale.

“Comrade General,” Ganin said softly. There was no fear in his eyes, something Kobelev had been concerned about.

“How did this happen?” Kobelev barked.

The driver had gotten in behind the wheel, and they moved off the airstrip.

“He came up the outside of the tower,” Ganin said. “It was incredible. I looked down, and there he was.”

“Had your silly bomb gone off... then what, Arkadi Konstantinovich? Or had Carter been a split second earlier — and his shot done more than simply give you a flesh wound — then what?”

“It did not happen, comrade. And now he is wanted by the police—”

“Already their State Department has calmed the French, who are claiming they were looking for the wrong man,” Kobelev cut in.

Ganin sat forward in surprise.

“Yes, Nick Carter has his own ‘puppet master.’ David Hawk. He is very good. He has caused me trouble before.”

“Eliminate him.”

“Impossible, let me tell you.”

Ganin sank back in the seat. “Where is Carter now?”

“Presumably on his way to Bonn, although he has not yet been spotted. But our people there will find him.”

Ganin kept silent.

“And when they do, you will leave him alone,” Kobelev said with feeling. “You will not go to Bonn.”

“I do not understand...”

“No, you do not!” Kobelev exploded. “In Paris your simple job was to get the girl. You were to have lured Carter out of his hotel, and then gone in for her. There would have been time later for you to meet with him. Your little trick nearly cost us the entire operation. You badly underestimated Carter. The next time he will kill you. And if he does not, I will.”

Ganin, chastised, said nothing. There was nothing he could say. Kobelev was an awesome power in Moscow. An angry Kobelev was ten thousand times more dangerous.

Kobelev forced himself to calm down. He had done a lot of thinking about this problem on the flight from Moscow, and he had come to a number of conclusions. More than ever before he wanted Carter dead. Only now he realized he had gone at the assignment with blinders on. He had gone ahead forgetting just how dangerous Carter and his boss, David Hawk, were.

There would be no more playing around. He would dislodge Carter from Bonn as soon as possible and either recapture or kill the girl. And, in the end, he would make sure Carter was killed. At the very first opportunity, no matter how crude, how abrupt, or how messy it was. There would be no more games with N3. He was going to be a dead man the moment he stepped outside of Bonn.

There were too many delicate operations going on in Bonn at the moment, with the regular KBG, to go after Carter there. It would upset the Presidium. He had been told that, in no uncertain terms, just before he had left Moscow: “Wrap this up, Comrade General. Soon, but not in Bonn. There can be no involvement by yourself or Ganin in Bonn.”

Kobelev turned to Ganin.

“Tonight you will go and make sure everything is in readiness,” he said. “There will be no mistakes this time. The moment he steps into your sights, I want him dead.”

A hard look had come into Ganin’s eyes. He nodded. “It is a change in plans, then, Comrade General? I am to kill him at the first opportunity?”

“At the very first opportunity!”

“And the girl?”

Kobelev smiled. “The girl will be taken care of in Bonn. Rest assured.”

It was cold, overcast, and raining when the train from Metz pulled into the station in downtown Bonn. There had been no trouble at the border crossings, nor were there any delays in the West German capital.

Outside the station they got a cab, and Carter ordered the driver to take them out to the Köln-Bonn airport a few miles northwest of the city. Lydia was surprised, but she said nothing.

It bothered Carter that beyond the announcement of Borodin’s pending “assignment” to Bonn, Kobelev had done nothing else to spotlight this as the next location.

There was the possibility that Ganin’s wound was severe enough to take him out of the picture. In that case the puppet master would be regrouping somewhere. Rethinking his next objective. But Carter doubted that was the case. There had not been enough blood on the roof of the observation room. Carter was betting that Ganin’s wound was nothing more than a superficial one.

Kobelev’s real concern at the moment, he suspected, would be Lydia’s continued freedom. Perhaps they were going to use Bonn as nothing more than the place where they’d attempt to get her back. Or kill her.

He glanced at her. She was very frightened. She was not a stupid woman. Most likely she had come to the same conclusion herself. Now Carter wanted to buy them an escape hole before they were spotted in Bonn, which he had no doubt they would be. In fact he wanted to be spotted by Kobelev’s people. Perhaps it would force their hand.

At the airport an hour later, Carter bought two first-class tickets — Bonn to Frankfurt, then Frankfurt direct to New York — under their cover names on the flight that left the following morning at eight o’clock.

At first Lydia thought they were actually going back to the States, but in the café where they had a late lunch, he dashed her hopes.

“They’ll know we’re here by this afternoon at the latest,” he said.

“So we keep under cover until morning, and then leave?” she inquired hopefully.

Carter shook his head. “Kobelev hasn’t set up anything here in Bonn for us. He’ll know we’re here. I’m merely forcing his hand. He’ll know about our reservations, which will give him until eight tomorrow morning to do something.”

Lydia looked at him incredulously. “You love this, don’t you?”

“It’s my job,” Carter said flatly. “Before it’s over, Ganin and Kobelev will be dead.”

“Either that, or you and I will be dead,” she said softly. She raised her head. “I don’t want to play this game any longer.”

“You have no choice now.”

Lydia sucked in her breath and lowered her eyes. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

“Until he’s dead, he won’t rest with you out there on the loose. You know that.”

She nodded. “I know.”

“There will be an attempt here in Bonn to grab you.”

“Or kill me,” she said.

Carter nodded. At this stage of the game nothing would be gained by lying to her. “I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Another thought dawned on her. “My God, you’re going to use me as bait!”

“You’re as safe here, Lydia, as you would be anywhere else. At least here we have a fair idea of what to expect. With the reservations for the flight tomorrow morning, we even know the time frame. It’ll force Kobelev’s hand. Whatever happens here will lead to him and to Ganin. And then it will truly be finished. Once and for all you will be free without fear of reprisal.”

“They’ll keep coming after me.”

“No. Once Kobelev is dead, the Kremlin will want no further part of this thing. They’ll back off, lick their wounds, and try something different somewhere else. Once Kobelev and Ganin are eliminated, the book will be closed.”

“I wish I could believe that.”

“Believe it, Lydia, because there is nothing else.”

They rented a Mercedes 190, a small sedan, at the Hertz counter and drove back into Bonn, checking in at the Königshof Hotel on Adenauerallee just off the Munsterplatz in the heart of the downtown area. It was a fine old hotel with a good wine cellar and a particularly good restaurant. Carter picked the hotel because it was a favorite for visiting businessmen, and it would be a place where he and Lydia would be fairly visible.

They could do nothing until Kobelev made his next move, which would not happen if they went deep.

After they cleaned up and changed they went down to the bar, where they had a couple of drinks, and then went into the dining room for an excellent dinner.

“When this is over I’d like to live in New York. Manhattan,” Lydia said over coffee.

“Why is that?” Carter asked, smiling.

“It is an exciting city. Like Moscow, only a lot brighter. There are many places there for me to work. I could be a translator.”

“Perhaps we will offer you a job.”

Lydia was startled. “You mean with the CIA or something?”

“Or something.”

She shook her head. “No. When this is over I think I will have had enough of that sort of business. You must remember I was raised on this sort of thing, living in the Soviet Union.”

“I understand,” Carter said, and he did. “Whatever it is you want, we’ll help you with it. I promise.”

She looked deeply into his eyes. For the first time in twenty-four hours, she didn’t seem to be in abject terror. “You are a good man, Nick Carter, even though you have a blind spot concerning Nikolai Fedor.”

Carter’s jaw tightened. “He’s a ruthless, dangerous man.”

She agreed. “And so are you, I think.”

Carter lit a cigarette and looked away. Sigourney seemed so terribly far away. It scared him to think how fast her memory was fading.

The waiter brought their check, Carter paid it, and he and Lydia went outside, across toward the university. The rain had let up for the moment, although it was bitterly cold. Traffic was light. Carter paid very strict attention to every car or truck or van that passed them. Something would come, perhaps early this evening. More likely in the middle of the night.

They took a turn through the university grounds, but then Lydia became cold, and she asked if they couldn’t return to the hotel.

“What happens if he makes no move between now and eight in the morning?” she asked on the way back.

“That’s not likely.”

“Tonight, then?”

Carter nodded. The same blue Ford Cortina that had passed them on their way up from the hotel drifted slowly by. There were two men in the car. Carter managed to get a fairly good look at both of them as the car passed beneath a streetlight. Neither of them was Ganin; of that he was absolutely certain. In fact neither of them had looked like Russian KGB.

The hotel doorman opened the double glass doors for them, and they crossed the lobby and took the elevator up. Something didn’t feel right to Carter, so he punched the button for the second floor, and they got off there.

Carter and Lydia watched from an alcove around the corner from the main ballroom as the elevator continued up to the eighth floor, then was recalled to the lobby.

The car stayed on the ground floor for half a minute, then started up. Carter reached inside his jacket for his Luger to make sure it was ready.

The elevator doors opened, and two husky men, guns drawn, stepped out. Another two inside the elevator continued up.

There was no doubt in the Killmaster’s mind who and what they were after, but they just didn’t look like Russians to Carter, and that bothered him. Who the hell were they?

Carter turned, and holding Lydia by the elbow, he hustled her silently down the corridor, into the ballroom, and across the dance floor to the rear exits, where they took the back stairs two at a time.

At the bottom they ducked through the kitchen, through the loading dock area, and out the back way, pulling up short as a pair of headlights turned the corner into the alley and came their way.

There would be someone out front, Carter supposed, as well as this car, and the four men upstairs.

They turned and hurried back through the loading dock and supply area, where at the rear they found a heavy steel door that opened onto a set of stairs that led down into the darkness.

Carter found the light switch and flipped it on, and they headed down into the bowels of the hotel where he supposed the heating plant was located, and which contained the plumbing and sewage lines.

This was a service entrance. At the bottom of the stairs they found themselves in a long tunnel lined with a maze of pipes, some of them wrapped in asbestos cloth, some equipped with huge valves.

Lights were strung at fifty-foot intervals down the long tunnel, which ran parallel with the street and apparently ran at least the length of the block beneath all the buildings above.

Carter and Lydia hurried along the tunnel, their heels echoing in the narrow confines, until they came to another stairwell up.

The stairwell door at the hotel, back the way they had just come, clattered. Careful not to grab hold of a live steam pipe, Carter quickly scrambled up the pipes along the wall, pulled out his stiletto, and at the top reached out and cut through the electrical wires connecting all the tunnel lights.

There were several large sparks, and the tunnel was suddenly plunged into darkness.

Carter jumped down, groped for and found Lydia, and the two of them made their way to the stairwell and softly went up.

At the top, Carter listened at the door. There were no sounds from the other side, although he could hear someone coming down the tunnel behind them.

Unlatching the steel door, Carter eased it open onto a plain corridor with cement walls. No one was there.

He and Lydia slipped out into the corridor, then rushed to the back door, which opened onto the same alley as the hotel, but up a hundred yards, and around a slight bend.

They slipped outside, and keeping an eye on the alley for any pursuers, they walked up to the street, then turned right toward the river.

“They were not Russians,” Lydia said breathlessly.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure!” she snapped. “What the hell is going on?”

Carter glanced back over his shoulder, but no one was coming after them. They had made a clean break. “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”

They walked up toward the Kennedy Bridge, and a couple of blocks later, Carter hailed a passing cab. He ordered the driver to take them to a small hotel near the railway station. Once, many years ago, he had stayed there. It was one of the lesser establishments in Bonn, and the clerks asked no questions.

The cabby smiled smugly, sure that he was bringing a couple to an illicit rendezvous.

He dropped them off in front of the seedy hotel, and Carter tipped him well.

Inside, the clerk grinned as Carter rented the room under the name Herr Schmidt, and upstairs Carter made sure Lydia understood where the fire escape was located so that if the need arose she had a bolt-hole.

“We’re leaving first thing in the morning, no matter what does or doesn’t happen,” Carter said.

Lydia’s eyes were wide. She looked up at him. “And if you don’t come for me...?”

“I will,” Carter said with more confidence than he actually felt. Kobelev had been ahead of them all the way. “Seven o’clock sharp, I’ll pick you up in front of the train station.”

“In the Mercedes?”

Carter nodded. “But listen to me, Lydia,” he said. “No matter what happens, no matter what, stay here. Don’t leave the room for anyone or anything until morning.”

She nodded.

For a moment a twinge of real fear and guilt crossed his mind. The instructions he was giving her were much the same as the fatal instructions he had given to Sigourney a thousand years ago.

“What is it?” Lydia asked, reading something of that in his eyes.

“Just stay here until morning. I’ll see you at seven.”

She nodded again, and Carter turned and left the room.

It had started to drizzle again. Carter pulled up his coat collar and walked over to the station, where he got a cab that took him across town to within a block of the Köngishof Hotel. He went the rest of the way on foot.

The desk cleric looked up in surprise as Carter walked into the lobby, but then he smiled and nodded.

Something was up. But it was something that the desk cleric knew about. Carter doubted that Kobelev would be so open about stalking him, so it meant something else was in store.

He took the elevator to the eighth floor and walked down the corridor to their room. He opened the door and stepped inside, directly into two husky men with drawn pistols.

He stopped short and slowly raised his hands. These were not Russians. They were definitely not Russians.

A third man, dressed in a plain dark suit, came around the corner and frisked Carter, coming up only with Wilhelmina. He looked at the Luger, shook his head, and pocketed it.

“Where is she?” he said in English.

“Who?” Carter replied. The man was German. Obviously a cop.

“The woman you checked in with.”

“Her.”

“Yes, Mr. Scott. Your wife. Elizabeth Scott... also known as Lydia Borasova.”

“Never heard of her,” Carter said. Kobelev had done his work well.

“She is wanted for the murder of a Soviet diplomat in New York City. Petr Lashkin. They were lovers. Were you aware of that?”

Carter said nothing.

The German patted Carter’s Luger in his coat pocket. “Have you any idea of the penalty in West Germany for carrying a concealed weapon? An unregistered concealed weapon?”

“I am sorry, Hen...” Carter said.

“My name is of no importance. Only your name is. And I am sure it is not Scott. Would you care to enlighten me?”

“If I gave you a telephone number, Officer — a number that would clear up any questions you might have — would you call it?”

The German cop stared at Carter, a very hard expression in his eyes. Finally he shook his head and stepped a little closer. “I think not. You know, I believe you are a spy. Perhaps for the Russians, since you are traveling with a Russian murderess... whom we will find, by the way.” He shook his head again. “No, I think I would rather have the chance to talk with you. Just you and me, you know, for a day or two. Perhaps longer. However long it takes.”

The other two cops heard none of that.

The German cop pulled Carter’s Luger out of his pocket and examined it closely this time. He looked up. “An interesting weapon,” he said. “No serial numbers.”

“How much has the KGB paid you to help out, comrade?” Carter asked quietly.

A flinty expression came into the German’s eyes the moment before he stepped forward and swung.

Carter feinted back, blocked the punch, and hit the cop with every ounce of his strength in the solar plexus.

The man grunted once and went to his knees.

The other two leaped forward as Carter grabbed Wilhelmina, then the Killmaster jumped back and slammed the door in their faces.

He spun around and raced down the corridor toward the stairs. Kobelev was good. Damned good. But now, at last, Carter felt he was beginning to have the man’s measure.