The Killing Ground

Thirteen

It took an hour and a half to circle around Munich, then to drive south to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. During the trip down, Carter listened on the car radio to the first news reports of the explosion at the Soviet compound. A Soviet spokesman from Berlin said it was his understanding that the act may have been one of aggression by certain members of the West German Air Force.

The reaction had come a lot sooner and was much harsher than Carter had expected. Once the dust had settled, and it was discovered that the explosion had come not from the West Germans but had been an act of sabotage by unknown parties, it would not set well on Kobelev’s record. It wouldn’t take the KGB long to understand just who had engineered the raid. And then they would naturally turn to Comrade General Kobelev for an explanation: “Why wasn’t Carter stopped sooner? Why wasn’t he eliminated in the Caribbean when you had the opportunity and the means?” Carter could almost hear the outrage from Moscow, and he smiled.

Jealousy. Fear. Vengeance. Carter wondered which litany Kobelev would be willing to recite.

But then, he thought, all of that speculation was moot. By then Kobelev and his handmaiden Ganin would be dead if Carter had his way.

In the resort town, quiet now because it was between the summer season and the winter skiing season, Carter parked his car a block from the big hotel and with bag in hand went the rest of the way on foot.

He was checked in by an obsequious clerk. “Welcome to the Alpina, Herr Carter,” the man gushed. “If there is anything at all we can do to make your stay more pleasant...”

“Are there any messages for me?” Carter asked irritably.

“No, sir.”

“I wish to be awakened with breakfast at six o’clock sharp. Afterward I will be going to the Zugspitze. I wish to see it first thing in the morning.”

“But, Herr Carter, the weather forecast for tomorrow is for continued rain and perhaps snow. You will not be able to see much...”

Carter just glared at the little man, who backed down.

“Ja, mein Herr. Six o’clock.”

Upstairs in his room, Carter positioned himself on a straight-backed chair between the large double windows and the door, his Luger in hand, the safety off, a round in the firing chamber. It would be simpler if Ganin were to come through the door then and there.

But his message downstairs was clear. In the morning Carter would be atop the tallest mountain in Germany. There would be very few people there at that hour of the morning. It would be a perfect place. Carter’s killing ground.

It was exactly six in the morning when room service arrived with a Continental breakfast of coffee, rolls, butter, and preserves, and the morning newspapers from Munich as well as a local paper from Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

Carter tipped the man, then settled down to his coffee.

The papers made only small mention of the Soviet compound explosion, which was not really surprising to Carter. The German government would be trying to suppress the story as much as possible. It was only natural considering the always strained relationship between the two countries.

On the back pages, however, there was the report of still two more deaths in avalanches near Innsbruck. Kobelev would continue killing people there until Carter came to him. It didn’t matter to the madman how many innocent people were killed in the process. But he was going to get to Carter.

After breakfast, Carter took a shower, got dressed, and left the hotel. The overcast had deepened, and the temperature had plunged overnight. It was probably snowing in the mountains, Carter figured, a harsh contrast to the Caribbean of the previous week.

All through the night Carter’s thoughts had alternated between Lydia and Sigourney. One was beyond his help, and it was possible the other was already dead as well.

In both instances he felt responsible. He felt that by making the mistake of allowing himself to get that one crucial step behind Kobelev, he had caused the end of at least one innocent life.

Mindful now that a bullet could be coming at any moment from any direction, Carter made his way from the hotel to where he had parked his rental car. Only a few early risers were up and about.

He got the engine started and let the car warm up for a couple of minutes before he eased out of the parking lot and slowly headed out of town, southwest toward the Zugspitze.

The highway wound its way up into the cloud-shrouded mountains toward the Austrian border just a mile away. The Zugspitze was right on the border. The enclosed cable car that ran to the restaurant and observation platform atop the mountain was at the end of a broad access road.

At the height of the summer season, this was normally a very busy spot. Germans as well as foreigners flocked here by the thousands on clear days when the views from the top were spectacular.

Carter turned off the highway and drove slowly down the access road to the parking lot beside the tourist shop and cable car boarding building.

A battered Volkswagen van was parked behind the tourist shop, and just beyond it a VW beetle was pulled up beneath the broad overhang of the roof.

Those belonged to the staff, Carter assumed. The only other vehicle in the large parking lot was a sleek, gunmetal gray Porsche 911, with Austrian plates. Probably a rental car.

Slowly he circled the Porsche, making reasonably sure that no one was inside before he parked beside it, his car pointed out toward the exit.

Leaving the keys in the ignition, he withdrew Wilhelmina, got out of his car, and slowly approached the Porsche. He stopped a couple of feet away, and glanced up toward the mountain. The cables rose at a sharp angle and disappeared into the mist within a hundred feet or so.

No one was in the Porsche. Inside, on the steering column, the registration slip showed that the car was from Innsbruck and belonged to Inter-Rent, an Austrian car rental agency.

Again Carter glanced up toward the mist-shrouded peak. The car was driven here by Arkadi Ganin. He knew it. He could feel the man’s presence very strongly.

He holstered his Luger and withdrew his stiletto. Working very fast, he punctured all four tires on the sportscar, the Porsche settling to the pavement.

Back in his own car, he started it and slowly drove over to the tourist shop, where he parked it behind the van so that it was just barely visible from the parking lot.

He walked around to the front of the building, went up the steep concrete stairs below the cable car exit, and went inside. The room was very tall and narrow. Access to the cable car platform was through a tall canvas and plastic curtain. A huge section of that side of the building was open, the gigantic motors and cable pullies at the rear.

On the opposite side of the main room was a tourist counter and the ticket desk.

An old woman sat at the desk. She was writing something in a ledger. Beside her, piled on the counter, were various slips and receipts.

She looked up. “Guten Morgen,” she said, her Bavarian accent thick.

“Guten Morgen, gnädige Frau,” Carter said. “Is the cable car operating this morning?”

“Yes, of course. If I am here, then the car is working. You wish to go up... with the other strange one?”

“Someone else has gone up this morning?”

The old woman nodded. “A strange man.”

“In what way was he strange?”

She shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. But let me tell you, I think he is a Russian, even though his German was very good.”

Carter smiled. “And me?”

“You’re an American, of course...” she started, and then she cut herself off and looked up toward the mountain. “Oh,” she said.

Carter handed her money for the ride, and the old woman took it and handed him his ticket. “The restaurant will not open today. Not until Monday.”

“Danke,” Carter said. He went across to the heavy plastic curtain, pushed aside the flap, and climbed aboard the bright red cable car. The cabin was quite big and could probably hold a dozen or more people.

As soon as he had the door closed and latched, the car jerked on its cables and lifted free of the boarding platform. Carter glanced back toward the counter. The old woman had gone back to her ledger book, and then he was outside the building, being lifted up into the clouds.

On a clear day the ride up to the top of the Zugspitze was breathtaking. That morning the visibility was zero. Within a hundred feet of the cable house, the car was enveloped in a thick cloud, making it impossible to see anything but the gray, swirling mist.

A thousand feet up it began to snow, lightly, but in large flakes. If this kept up, Carter suspected they would close the lift. Too much snow made operating the cable car dangerous.

It was very cold at this altitude. Carter could see his breath.

A large tower suddenly loomed up, and they passed beside it, the pullies bumping on the tower’s tracks, then it was gone.

Carter lit a cigarette, then pulled out Wilhelmina and checked to make sure a round was in the firing chamber. He clicked the safety off as they passed another tower, and suddenly the mountain top came into view, a lone man standing on the broad veranda of the closed restaurant.

It was Ganin!

Carter looked for the latch that would open the cable car’s window, noting Ganin’s hand coming up. The Killmaster fell back into the corner of the car as the window glass was shattered. Two other shots whined off the side of the car before it slid into the upper terminal building.

For a few moments Ganin was out of sight. Carter leaped up on the inside handrails, flipped open the car’s rooftop access hatch, and quickly pulled himself up, closing the hatch behind him.

He lay on his stomach as the car bumped to a halt. A second later Ganin came across the broad lobby from the veranda, and Carter snapped off two shots just as the car jerked beneath him. Both shots went wide and Ganin spun to the left, diving out of sight around the corner.

Carter rolled off the edge of the car, jumped down to the concrete platform, and leaped behind a steel support column, a single shot ricocheting off the steel inches from his head.

It was quiet in the building. Carter could hear the rising wind beginning to hum through the cables outside.

“You’re not going to leave this mountain alive, Nick Carter!” Ganin called from around the corner.

“In that case you won’t mind telling me where Lydia Borasova is being kept,” Carter shouted.

Ganin laughed. “Are you in love... again, Carter? Haven’t you learned your lesson?”

Carter said nothing.

“She is with Kobelev, in Innsbruck,” Ganin said.

“Where in Innsbruck?”

“It does not matter, Carter.”

“It matters to me, because after I kill you, I’m going to kill Kobelev,” Carter said. He peered around the edge of the steel beam. There was a door at the rear of the cable car terminal that probably led back into the restaurant, or perhaps a storeroom.

There was silence in the lobby.

“Ganin?” Carter shouted. “It cannot hurt to tell me.”

“They are staying in a chalet.”

“Where?” Carter asked. He edged around the beam.

“At Axamer Lizum.”

“Where the winter Olympics were held?”

“Yes, that is the place,” Ganin said.

“Who else is with them?” Carter shouted, almost smiling; Ganin was so sure he would get Carter, he didn’t think twice about giving him the information. He stepped around the beam and, keeping on the balls of his feet, raced to the rear door. It was unlocked.

“They are alone...” Ganin was saying as Carter slipped into a storeroom for the kitchen.

He raced down a narrow aisle, then through a set of swinging doors into the kitchen itself. From there he went out into the dining room, then hurried around to the front, and to the lobby.

Ganin was not there.

It took just a split second for Carter to realize that the Russian had probably come right behind him. He spun around the corner, bringing his Luger up, as Ganin came from the kitchen, the Russian’s gun aimed at Carter’s chest.

Carter fired first, catching Ganin in the shoulder, shoving him backward into the kitchen.

Ganin fired twice as he fell, a hot stitch lacing into Carter’s side, causing him to drop back.

The shot had been impossible, yet Ganin had missed killing Carter by less than two inches.

Carter watched the kitchen doors swing on their hinges for several moments before he slipped around the corner, and keeping low, he zigzagged to the wall beside the doorway.

There were no sounds from within the kitchen. Carter eased around the edge and looked through the window. The kitchen was empty. A trail of blood led across the white tile floor to a door on the opposite side of the room.

That was the sucker’s route. Ganin most likely would be waiting just beyond the far door, covering the entire kitchen, waiting for Carter to barge through.

Carter turned on his heel, and more cautiously now than before, he hurried back to the lobby, which wrapped around the front and two sides of the restaurant complex perched on the peak. Outside was the veranda, which afforded a magnificent view on clear days. Now it was snowing in earnest, and the wind was beginning to rise.

Hugging the inner wall, Carter hurried around to the left. Just around the corner he pulled up short. A tall husky man lay on his side, his eyes open. He was dead. A small puddle of blood had formed on the floor just below the back of his head.

Carter guessed the dead man had been in charge of that end of the cable car run. Ganin had killed him.

A gust of cold wind suddenly blasted down the lobby and then was cut off.

Ganin was outside. Evidently he had made his way from the kitchen to the lobby, and then out onto the veranda.

Carter turned back and ran to the cable car terminal, where he opened the outside door and eased out onto the veranda.

A bullet whined off the concrete, and Carter snapped off a shot at Ganin’s fleeing figure as it darted around the far corner.

Keeping low, Carter raced to the corner, then flattened against the wall before he peered around the edge.

The veranda was empty. Carter stepped around and walked to the far side, which ended abruptly at a stone wall, the drop further protected by a tall wire mesh fence.

Carter spotted the ladder that led up to the roof of the restaurant at the same moment he heard the distinctive snap of a pistol’s hammer dropping on either an empty chamber or a defective shell.

He looked up, bringing Wilhelmina around as Ganin disappeared over the peak of the roof. Carter scrambled up the ladder, and at the edge he cautiously looked up. Ganin was nowhere in sight, but a trail of blood went from the edge to the peak above.

“Ganin!” Carter shouted.

There was no reply, only the wind.

“Ganin, give up! I won’t kill you if you give up.”

Ganin appeared at the roof’s peak twenty feet to the left, and he pulled the trigger of his gun, but nothing happened.

Carter held back from firing. Ganin’s gun had jammed. He holstered Wilhelmina and withdrew his stiletto, then climbed up onto the roof, making his way to the peak.

Just over the edge he looked down in time to see Ganin on the far side of the building, very near the edge, below which was a sheer drop of more than a thousand feet.

“No!” Carter shouted.

Ganin looked back and grinned.

Carter suddenly realized that the Russian knew what he was doing. Evidently below the roof was another part of the veranda.

Ganin scrambled for the eaves, intending to swing over the edge and drop down.

Carter brought his knife arm back and threw his stiletto with every ounce of his strength. The blade caught Ganin high in the shoulder just as he was heaving himself over the edge.

He let out a short, sharp cry and then was gone.

Carter slid down to the edge of the roof and looked over. Below and to the right was a ten-foot-square platform, evidently used as an access for several electrical cables coming up the side of the mountain.

Straight down was a sheer cliff, the distance lost in the snow and mist.

There was some blood on the edge of the platform’s rail, but not on the platform itself.

Ganin had tried to make the platform but had just missed. He was dead now. Far below on the rocks.

Carter eased back away from the edge and clambered up over the peak and down the other side, where he descended the ladder back to the veranda.

Inside, he found a back corridor and maintenance area that led to a door that opened onto the platform.

He stepped out onto it and leaned over the edge to look down. There was nothing. Only the blood on the rail.

It was truly over. Ganin was dead. Now it was time for Innsbruck and Kobelev.

Carter turned, went back inside, and then followed the lobby back around to the cable car terminal. Aboard the car he picked up the telephone and called down to the woman in the terminal.

“Hello?” she shouted.

“The maintenance man for the car is busy. Would you please bring me down?” Carter said.

“What about the... other one?”

“He will be staying a while longer.”

“Yes, all right,” the woman said. And a moment later the car lurched and headed down.

Arkadi Ganin waited a full ten minutes after Carter had left, and then he painfully climbed back up the metal support struts that held the platform in place.

Two of his fingers were broken from the fall, and he was bleeding quite a bit from the stiletto wound.

It had been a very close call for him this time, all because of a jammed pistol and his own pride. Once again he had underestimated Carter. Only now he was at the advantage. Carter was convinced he was dead. The American would not think to look over his shoulder.

Ganin carefully climbed up the iron strut, then reached out for the edge of the platform. Slowly he managed to haul himself up beneath the rail, where he rolled over and lay on his back for a long time.

After the pain began to subside in his hand and in his shoulder, Ganin got shakily to his feet and tried the door. It was locked.

He looked up. Without hesitation he climbed carefully up on the rail, reached up, and caught the eaves of the roof with his fingers.

Pushing off with his feet, he managed to get a better grip, and with iron muscles and a will to match, he pulled himself up onto the roof.

A couple of minutes later he was climbing down the ladder to the veranda.

Inside, he located the restaurant’s office, where he searched for and found a first aid kit. He bandaged up his fingers, binding them around a pencil, and then awkwardly cleaned and bandaged his shoulder wound.

In the kitchen he jimmied open one of the refrigerators, where he found makings for a sandwich.

In another refrigerator he found the beer. Bringing his food and drink out to the main dining room, he sat down, put his feet up and took a deep drink.

He would give Carter a full hour to get away before he called for the cable car. He would have to take care of the woman below and then telephone Kobelev to tell him what had happened. The drive down to Innsbruck would take only an hour.

He could see Carter in his sights. He could almost feel the satisfaction it would give him to see the back of Carter’s head being blown off.

This time there would be no mistakes. This time pride would not get in the way. No matter what, Carter was a dead man.