The Killing Ground

Two

Arkadi Ganin stepped out of the diplomatic exit of the United Nations Building, nodded to the security guard as he passed, then walked the few blocks up 42nd Street to the Grand Hyatt Hotel.

It was raining and blustery, but heedless of the weather, Ganin reviewed in his mind the preparations he had completed here in New York, and elsewhere. The plan that Kobelev had worked out in painstaking detail was as bold and dangerous as it was faultlessly brilliant.

Ganin had been on a lot of assignments in his distinguished career, but none could ever compare to this one. It was the sort of thing he liked most. This time there would be no flabby, unaware politician for him to kill, no military leader, no general, no diplomat. This time he was going after a much more interesting target. A target that certainly could and most assuredly would fight back. It would come to a one-on-one fight.

At the luxury hotel next to Grand Central Station, he took the elevator up to his twelfth-floor room and finished packing the rest of his things in his black leather Gucci suitcase and carry-on bag.

The Western world, he felt, for all its supposed openness and freedom, was like a fast-running horse with blinders on. People saw what they wanted to see. A man such as Arkadi, traveling under the name Bruno Hildebrandt, a wealthy West German businessman who dressed well and carried expensive luggage, could not be a Soviet operative. Soviet operatives were shambling, ugly monsters who wore baggy suits.

He glanced at his gold Rolex, and grinned. “Stupid bastards,” he mumbled. He went to the window that looked down on 42nd Street, noting its traffic and its clogged sidewalks. There was no order here. No organization. Everything seemed to be in chaos. This was nothing, however, to the chaos he was going to wreak on a certain member of the American intelligence community.

After checking to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything, Ganin left a tip for the maid, then took his bags downstairs, where he checked out, paying for his stay with his American Express card. Outside, he got a cab and ordered the driver to take him out to Kennedy, then he settled back with his thoughts for the long ride.

Nikolai Kobelev was a man of great power and intelligence who nevertheless had one fault: his all-consuming hatred for the AXE Killmaster, Nick Carter. Ganin wasn’t sure of all the details, but he knew it had something to do with Kobelev’s daughter, now dead, and some series of operations in which Kobelev himself had very nearly been killed.

There was an obsessive, almost blind rage in the new master of Komodel that would not go away until Carter was killed. It was dangerous, but Ganin, who had languished in a lot of petty little assignments recently, was glad for the challenge.

“I want him dead, Arkadi,” Kobelev had said, pacing in his office in Moscow. “But first I want him to suffer, as I have. I want him to feel the same losses I have felt. I want him to understand that nothing he can do will alter the outcome. I want him to know real fear.”

Ganin was seated across the desk from Kobelev, the wound in his thigh throbbing. There was a metal plate, silver and shiny, covering much of the back of Kobelev’s head.

“In the end he will beg us to kill him, Arkadi. He will beg us, this you must understand.”

Ganin nodded.

Kobelev stopped his pacing and leaned over his desk, his dark eyes boring into Ganin’s.

“There will be no mistakes. Your own life will depend upon it. Do you understand that as well?”

Again Ganin nodded. “It will be as you ask, Comrade General. There will be no escape for Carter. In the end he will be glad of his death.”

Kobelev straightened up and rubbed his hands together. “Oh, yes,” he said, smiling, his eyes bright. “Oh, yes, I am going to enjoy this very much.”

Preparations in Moscow had taken only forty-eight hours. A further five days in Western Europe completed the arrangements there, and Ganin had flown the day before to New York City to complete the last of the business.

The opening move, according to Kobelev’s plan, would come as suddenly as lightning. “A bolt from out of the heavens!”

Ganin was in time for his flight down to Washington, D.C., where he connected with the 12:45 p.m. Cubana Airlines flight direct to Havana, Cuba. The plane was a Tupolev TU-154, filled to capacity mostly with wild-looking Cuban characters on their way home from some sort of a function in Washington. All the way down they drank and argued and screamed their notions of the people’s revolution.

Ganin thought his fellow passengers ridiculous and annoying. He kept to himself as much as he could, but by the time they landed in Havana and went through the customs check, he was in a foul mood.

A staff car from the Soviet embassy was waiting for him outside the airport terminal. He threw his bags in the front seat and climbed in the back. The KGB’s Havana rezident, Viktor Chaikin, sat in the comer, a worried expression on his face.

“Arkadi Konstantinovich,” he said softly.

They shook hands. “You’re looking well, Viktor,” Ganin said.

The driver got in, and they headed into the city, the glass partition between the front and back seats giving them soundproof privacy.

“You had a pleasant flight down, I trust,” the KGB man said. He and Ganin had worked together out of Lisbon some years back. Ganin had respect for the man, but he had heard that Chaikin had been hitting the bottle pretty heavily. There had been talk about his recall from Havana, a move that would sound the death knell for his career.

“Absolutely rotten. Goddamned revolutionaries and their prattle.”

Chaikin laughed. “You ought to be living down here with them. It’s a wonder they ever could have mounted a revolution, let alone win it.”

They rode in silence for a few minutes, until Ganin glanced over at his old comrade.

“I didn’t come this way for small talk about the Cuban mentality.”

“No,” Chaikin said. “I understand that, Arkadi.”

“The preparations have been made?”

Chaikin nodded heavily. “In fact two of the rabble who came down on the plane with you will be assigned to the team.” He shook his head. He looked like a trapped man. “Arkadi, this will create a lot of trouble just when things were beginning to settle down.”

“You don’t know the trouble,” Ganin said. “But it will be done. You can’t imagine the trouble if we fail.”

“I know. They say he’s... crazy.”

“Don’t ever say that!” Ganin shouted. “Unless you want to be put up against a wall and shot! He’d do it himself!”

Chaikin seemed to gather himself up. “Right,” he said. “Tonight or tomorrow night, your choice, Arkadi.”

Ganin looked out at the landscape they were passing. Palm trees waved in the gentle tropical breezes. Peace, of a sort, had come to this island. It wouldn’t last long, though. Nothing ever lasted long. He turned back to Chaikin.

“Tonight,” he said.

Chaikin nodded. “The helicopter is ready. We’ll have you and your team over the drop zone no later than one in the morning. From there you should make it ashore by two, do your business, and get the hell out of there within an hour. The chopper will be back over the pickup point at three A.M. But it won’t stay for more than five minutes, so your timing will have to be tight. All that without practice.”

“It’ll work out,” Ganin said. “The men all understand the target?”

“Yes, they do, Arkadi.”

The night was almost unbelievably beautiful. Ten billion stars seemed to have been flung on a velvet backdrop from horizon to horizon, lending a fairy-tale atmosphere to an already enchanted scene.

Nick Carter could not remember the last time he had felt so good, so relaxed, so at ease. The ten days he and Sigourney had been on St. Anne’s had gone by in a flash. But they had twenty more glorious days left. He had been sure that after this long, he would have begun to get bored. But it hadn’t happened that way. Not with her.

He was seated alone on the broad veranda of the main house. They had finished dinner a little while ago, and Sigourney had gone inside to fetch them some brandy and coffee while he smoked a cigarette.

His leg was much better, the headaches had gone, and Carter was rested; he was fit. Not Hawk’s 110 percent, perhaps, but getting there.

He sighed deeply and sat back.

“Oh, my, that sounded positively lazy,” Sigourney called from the door. She came out onto the veranda with a tray that she set down on the wicker table. She came to him, snuggling into his lap, and kissed his ear.

“Bored yet?” she asked at length.

“No. You?”

“I never want to go back,” she answered. “I have everything I want or need right here.”

They both wore shorts, she wore one of his T-shirts, and he was bare-chested. She intertwined her fingers in the hair on his chest, then bent down and kissed his nipples.

Carter laughed. “The coffee will get cold,” he said.

“Screw the coffee,” Sigourney replied breathlessly. She got up, took his hands in hers, and started to pull him up when the marine telephone in the back beeped twice.

They both looked toward the door. The phone, which was hooked via single-sideband radio to the main island, beeped again.

“Damn,” Sigourney swore.

“Is Arthur inside?” Carter asked.

“He’s with Maria,” Sigourney said. “I told all of them to take the rest of the night off.”

The phone beeped a third time, and Carter got to his feet and went inside. He flipped the switch on the console and picked up the handset. There was only one person who would be calling him here.

“Yes?” he said, his heartbeat quickening.

“Nick, I’m sorry to bother you like this,” David Hawk, his voice distorted by the SSB transmission, said over the line.

“It’s all right, sir,” Carter said. “Is there a problem?”

“There might be, Nick. We’re just not sure. But I figured I’d better let you know.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Remember our conversation about a certain friend from the other side. An expert?”

Hawk meant Ganin, of course. “Yes, sir, I remember. Is there more news?”

“Perhaps. Our people in Havana seem to think he’s there. In Cuba. Right at this moment.”

On assignment? Carter asked himself. To do what?

“He is very close to you, Nick. A couple of hundred miles. I thought you’d better know. Just be a little careful.”

“Yes, sir,” Carter said, his mind racing. “Thanks for calling me.”

“Are you... all right? How do you feel?”

“Never felt better, sir,” Carter said. “Never felt better.”

“I’m glad to hear it, Nick. When you get back we’ll have to do something about our mutual friend. He makes me nervous being this close.”

“I thought no one knew what he looked like,” Carter said.

“He wasn’t actually seen. One of the. Company boys working in the Soviet embassy overheard mention that he was there. That’s it. Nothing more substantial than that to go on.”

An alarm bell rang in Carter’s head. It was a mistake, perhaps? But Ganin was a man with the reputation of never making a mistake. Or was there something else to it?

“Thank you again, sir. We’ll be on our guard here.”

“Say hello to Sigourney for me, and enjoy the rest of your vacation,” Hawk said, and he clicked off.

Carter put down the handset and flipped the switch. He turned. Sigourney had come to the door. She was looking at him.

“Trouble?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Carter said. Quickly he told her what Hawk had said. When he was finished she shivered.

“Do you think he’ll come here? Could he know you’re here?”

“I don’t know, Sigourney. I just don’t know. But it’s damned coincidental that he’d be in Cuba the same time as we’re here.”

“What are you going to do, Nick?”

“Nothing much,” he said. “We’ll just keep our eyes and ears open. I’ll talk to the staff in the morning. If anyone approaches the island, they can sound the alarm. We’ll be all right.”

Sigourney was silent for several long seconds, but then she beckoned. “There’s some unfinished business out here,” she said, smiling.

“I’ll be right there,” Carter said, and abruptly he turned and went into the back bedroom where his suitcase with his street clothes and other things was stored.

She followed him inside and stood at the doorway as he opened the suitcase and pulled out his weapons, checking each to make sure it was ready for instant action should the need arise.

Wilhelmina, his perfectly balanced 9mm Luger. Hugo, his thin, razor-sharp stiletto in its chamois sheath. And Pierre, an AXE-designed gas bomb, about the size of a large marble, that could permanently incapacitate a room filled with people within seconds. Old friends, all of them. Companions who never failed him and who had saved his life on countless occasions. But old friends, nevertheless, that were and would continue to be well bloodied.

Carter levered a round into the Luger’s firing chamber, made sure the safety was on, and stuffed the weapon into the waistband of his shorts.

“Let’s go for a little walk,” he said, taking Sigourney’s hand and leading her outside to the veranda and then down the short path to the beach.

Away from the house they could see the glow of the lights from the town on the big island. There was only a light breeze, the tiny wavelets lapping softly on the white beach. Something jumped out in the water.

“Should I be frightened, Nick?” Sigourney asked, her voice hushed.

Carter looked at her and smiled. “I don’t think so. We’ll watch what’s happening, but I don’t think there’s really anything to worry about.”

For a long time they stared out across the water. Then Sigourney shrugged. “The coffee by now is certainly cold,” she said.

“Screw the coffee,” Carter replied, and laughing, they went hand in hand back to the house.

It was after eleven o’clock. The night was very warm and humid. The steady chop of the slowly spinning rotors of the big Sikorsky helicopter warming up on the pad was nearly deafening.

Seven men, all of them dressed in black, their faces and hands darkened, stood in a rigid line at attention. Each carried a small but heavy pack that contained explosives as well as their own personal ammunition. Uzi submachine guns were slung over their shoulders. Chaikin thought using the Israeli weapon was somehow a fitting touch.

The embassy limousine pulled up, and Ganin, also dressed in black and carrying a bag and an Uzi, jumped out. A moment later Chaikin followed.

“The pilot has his orders,” Chaikin was saying. “They’ve all been briefed. Nothing should go wrong.”

“I don’t suspect it will, Viktor,” Ganin said, a hard edge to his voice. In the middle of an assignment he never had time for chatter.

He strode across the tarmac toward the waiting helicopter where the seven men were lined up. One by one he inspected them, their weapons, and their kits, making sure everything was in order. When he was finished he stepped back.

“You all understand your orders?” he shouted in Spanish. Ganin was fluent in ten languages.

“Si, señor,” all seven replied in unison.

Chaikin had come up from the car. Ganin turned to him.

“They are ready?” the KGB rezident asked.

Ganin nodded. Another car had come onto the tarmac. Ganin glanced toward it. “What is his name?”

“Ortega,” Chaikin said, following his gaze. “He works in Translation.”

“You’re sure he’s the one?”

“Absolutely. He was set up. There is no doubt he heard that you were coming.”

“He passed on the word?”

“His case officer is Charles Knell. We photographed their meeting.”

“But you didn’t interfere with it?”

“No, Arkadi, of that you have my complete assurance. Ortega knew you were coming, he passed on the information to his case officer, and then he returned to us.”

“What has he been told about tonight?”

“He understands he was to come here to help interrogate a few Mexicans. That’s all,” Chaikin said. He waved toward the car.

“Fine,” Ganin said.

“But, Arkadi, I think it is a very dangerous thing to have brought him here. He may see you, provide a description. We cannot be sure he won’t slip away from us.”

Ganin smiled grimly. “Oh, yes, we can be sure, Viktor. Very sure.” Ganin reached inside his black jump suit, withdrew a 9mm Beretta automatic, and concealing it at his side, he quickly strode across the parking ramp to where the car was waiting.

Viktor Chaikin started after him but then thought better of it. The seven troops remained stiffly at attention.

At the car Ganin tapped on the opaque window, which was powered down. A man of about thirty-five, his eyes wide, looked out.

“We know about Charles Knell,” Ganin said, and he raised the Beretta and fired two shots in quick order, the first catching Ortega in the face just to the right of his nose, and the second blowing the top of the man’s forehead off, blood, bits of bone, and white matter flying across the inside of the car, Ortega’s body driven back against the opposite door.

Ganin made sure the Beretta’s safety was on, holstered the weapon, then searched for and found the two spent shell casings, which he pocketed.

He went back to Chaikin, who had paled.

“I want his body held until three o’clock, and then I want it flown down to the U.S. naval station at Guantanamo Bay, where I want it dumped on their doorstep.”

Chaikin swallowed hard.

“Do you understand my simple instructions, Viktor?”

Chaikin nodded. “There will be a lot of trouble over this, Arkadi.”

“Yes, there will be,” Ganin agreed. “Perhaps we will have some vodka together when I return in the morning. That would be nice.”

Again Chaikin swallowed hard and nodded.

Ganin motioned for the troops to board the helicopter, and when they were safely strapped in, he climbed up with the pilot and copilot and gave them the thumbs-up sign to take off.

The big helicopter shuddered, then rose up into the night sky, countless stars twinkling overhead, the lights of the airport and Havana spread along the coast below, and the dark Caribbean Sea toward Florida to the north.

Ganin had donned a helmet with built-in headset and microphone. The copilot showed him where it plugged in, and suddenly he could hear the Havana control tower operators chattering. They were a commercial flight, supposedly on their way down to Santiago de Cuba, the major city on the far southeastern end of the island.

From there, they would drop down to within fifty feet of the water and head across to Great Inagua Island, staying well north of Matthew Town.

That was the halfway point; if they had not been detected by then, if there were no stray U.S. naval vessels around, they would continue. Ganin could almost smell the start of the hunt. Carter would never know what hit him.

“I want you to be close enough to see his face, Arkadi Konstantinovich,” Kobelev had instructed him. “I want you to be able to tell me exactly what it was you saw in his eyes.”