The Killing Ground

Three

Something had awakened Carter. He raised his left arm so that he could see his watch. It was just about two o’clock. The moon had set earlier; now only the light from the stars provided any illumination through the open windows. A light breeze ruffled the curtains, and he could just make out the gentle lapping of the waves on the beach below the house.

“What is it?” Sigourney asked from beside him.

“Did I wake you?”

“No,” she said. “I thought I heard something. But I’m just jumpy.”

Carter sat up, his hand reaching for Wilhelmina on the night table. “What did you hear?”

“Nothing...” she started, but then she sat up. “Hear it?” she asked softly.

He had indeed. And he thought he knew what it was. Carter jumped out of the bed, fingered the Luger’s safety to the off position, and stepped over to the window. He kept well within the shadows so that he provided less of a target from outside.

His eyes scanned the area along the beach, and a few yards offshore, but he couldn’t make out a thing. The noise he thought he heard had sounded very much like a pair of oars dipping into the water.

He stood there by the window for a full five minutes, but there were no further sounds, nor was anything moving below. Yet Hawk’s telephone warning was there. It nagged at him. Some visceral feeling deep in his gut was warning him.

“Anything?” Sigourney asked softly from the bed. The sheet covering her had fallen away, exposing her lovely breasts. Her dark hair was down around her shoulders.

“Get dressed,” Carter whispered. He went around to the bureau along the far wall, got a pair of shorts, and pulled them on as Sigourney was pulling on her shorts and top. He stuffed his sheathed stiletto into the waistband of his shorts, transferred Wilhelmina to his left hand, and picked up Pierre, the deadly gas bomb, with his right. The dull metal casing gleamed in the soft light.

He turned as Sigourney was finishing, then went to her. “Here,” he said, handing her the device.

She looked into his eyes, then took the gas bomb.

“I want you to stay here, in this room, no matter what happens,” he said.

She nodded.

“We may be having some company,” he said. He glanced toward the window. “I’m going out.”

Her eyes widened and her nostrils flared. “Ganin?” she asked.

“Possibly,” Carter said. “Now, listen to me, Sigourney.” He quickly explained exactly what Pierre was and how it worked. “If anyone comes in, twist the case, toss it, and hold your breath. This new gas is active for less than thirty seconds. But during that time it’s extremely deadly.”

Sigourney swallowed hard, but she nodded her understanding. “Be careful, Nick,” she said, and hugged him fiercely.

He kissed her. “Be right back,” he said. He turned and slipped out of the bedroom, across the darkened living room, and out the back way.

If Ganin was involved with the new KGB assassination department, one of his first targets might likely be Carter. Hawk was worried about it, otherwise he would not have called him. With Ganin less than two hundred miles away in Cuba, the call was justified. On the other hand, Carter thought, it was possible they were overreacting. There was no real reason at this particular moment to think Ganin would be after him. Still, the coincidental arrival of the KGB’s master assassin so close was something to think about.

Keeping low, and well in the shadows, Carter crossed behind the house, off the path, and into the thick brush and palmettos that led down to the staff quarters a couple of hundred yards away.

He stopped every few yards to scan the beach and listen for sounds. But there was nothing. One part of him was beginning to feel a bit foolish sneaking around out there, with Sigourney back at the house worried. Yet another, more instinctual, part of him was totally alert, his every sense open for the reception of the smallest sound or movement.

The broad path from the main house swung left, merging with the open area around the four small cottages occupied by the resort island’s staff. No lights shone from any of the cottages, nor had Carter expected to see any. The staff would all be asleep at this hour.

He had emerged from the brush and was starting across behind the cottages, when a tremendous explosion from the other side of the tiny island shattered the night’s silence and lit up the sky.

Carter spun around and looked back the way he had come. For a split second he debated returning for Sigourney, but she was capable, and she had the gas bomb. Instead, he raced toward the path that led up the hill, on the other side of which was the generator shed where he expected the explosion had been set.

Automatic weapons fire sounded from the west, by the boat dock, and as Carter raced toward the crest of the hill he began to feel the first nagging doubts that he may have been set up. The explosion could very well have been a diversion. But for what? To trap him?

Some inner voice reached his consciousness just as he crested the hill, and he rolled left, diving behind a half-dozen palm trees at the same moment as the dry rattle of automatic weapons fire raked the broad path.

He scrambled around the thick bole of one of the trees and stood up as more automatic fire came from below. This time he was able to pinpoint the direction, and in the dim light he could just make out a rubber raft tied up at the dock and two figures racing away from the furiously burning remnants of the generator shed just below him.

Steadying his gun hand against the tree, he squeezed off three shots in rapid succession, the first knocking down the lead figure, the second missing but the third finding its mark, downing the second black-suited attacker.

For several long seconds, Carter remained where he was, in the protection of the hilltop copse, watching for any further movement from below.

Satisfied that the two he had downed would remain down, he raced up over the path and down the hill around the west side of the generator shed.

Reaching the bodies, he scanned the beach area, the dock, and the crest of the hill behind him for any others. A voice at the back of his head was nagging that this had all been too easy. It was some kind of a setup.

He turned the first man over and pulled back the black hood covering his face. A large hole was blown in his chest from Carter’s shot. In the light from the burning generator shed, Carter could see that the dead man was a Latino. Quite possibly a Cuban. The same was true of the second man.

Carter stood up. If they were Cubans, and if Ganin had indeed been spotted in Cuba, he could very well be on the island or had at least mounted this operation.

But there was something else. He could feel it thick in the air.

He raced down to the boat dock to see where the black rubber raft was tied. The resort’s boat used for diving, formerly moored on the other side of the dock, was settling slowly to the bottom. They had been at it. Carter pulled out Hugo and punctured the rubber raft’s four air chambers, which deflated with explosive bangs, then he cut the raft’s fabric into irreparable shreds.

If there was anyone else on the island, anyone who was depending upon this means of escape, they would be cut off.

He turned and started back up the hill. Just at that moment, four explosions came one after the other from the other side of the island, accompanied seconds later by a lot of automatic weapons fire.

It had been a setup! he thought angrily. The action on his side of the island had been a diversion.

“Sigourney!” Carter shouted into the night, redoubling his efforts, his legs driving like pistons up over the hill and headlong down the other side.

All the staff cottages were on fire, as was the main house. Now, in the light from the flames, Carter could see several men scrambling into rubber rafts pulled up on the beach.

As he ran he snapped off several shots, downing at least one of the men. Two of the others turned and laid down a curtain of automatic weapons fire up the hill toward Carter, pinning him down.

The two rafts were off the beach and into the water, and the black-suited figures were clambering aboard, outboard motors popping to life.

Carter jumped up and snapped off another shot, then raced down the hill as the rubber boats disappeared into the dark night.

He angled away from the staff cottages directly toward the main house, the front wall of which had been blown outward by the force of an explosion.

Fifty yards away from the house, Carter had to pull up short as its roof collapsed in a wall of flames and sparks that shot a hundred feet up into the night sky.

“Sigourney!” he shouted again.

A dark figure raced around from the far side of the house, his form silhouetted in the flames. It stopped, raised something, and Carter just managed to hit the ground as the distinctive rattle of an Uzi submachine gun sounded, the slugs kicking up the sand all around Carter. Then the figure disappeared in the trees toward the other side of the island. Toward the rubber raft...

Carter leaped up and tried to get closer to the burning house, but the heat was too intense. For a long second or two he stood there, his gun held limply in his right hand. If Sigourney was inside, she was dead. There would be no saving her. It was possible, he told himself, that she had gotten out. But deep in his heart, he knew it wasn’t so.

A terrible dark rage rose up inside Carter’s breast, all but blinding him to one thought: revenge. Still on the island was one of the attackers. One man remained.

Carter thumbed the Luger’s safety to the on position, stuffed the weapon into the waistband of his shorts, and with a terrible glint in his eyes withdrew Hugo, his pencil-thin, lethal stiletto.

He turned and once again raced up the hill, dropping low at the crest.

The dark-suited figure was just coming around the tip of the island along the beach. He had not yet reached the boat dock when Carter hurried down the hill, past the still-burning generator shed, past the two bodies, and then into the water.

Holding the knife in his teeth, Carter silently swam directly across to the dock where the dive boat had been sunk and where the shreds of the rubber raft floated around the pilings.

In the darkness, his head just above the water, Carter waited patiently for the hooded figure to come up the beach to the rubber raft. The man stopped every few yards or so to look over his shoulder, then look up toward the crest of the hill as if he were expecting his friends to show up.

He was about thirty feet away from the dock when he spotted the wrecked remains of the rubber raft. He stopped, then stepped back a pace, looking around wildly, his Uzi up and at the ready.

A moment later he spotted the two other dark-suited figures lying off toward the generator shed, and he stumbled as he backed up another pace or two.

It was clear he was frightened now. He knew that he was cut off. He knew that the others had left, and he knew that Carter was somewhere on the island. Alive.

Keeping to the nearly pitch-black darkness beneath the dock, Carter moved closer in toward the beach, his eyes never leaving the man on shore. Two visions kept flashing in his mind: the first of Sigourney in the bedroom as he had left her; the second, the furiously burning main house, the flames leaping high into the night sky. It took everything within himself to maintain control.

The attacker stepped away from the water’s edge, hesitated a moment longer, then turned and trotted back along the beach.

Making absolutely no noise, Carter swam to the beach and carefully eased himself out of the water.

The Cuban, now thirty yards away, glanced over his shoulder. Carter dropped flat and froze, and a second later the black-hooded figure continued.

Carter jumped up, and keeping low, the stiletto gripped loosely in his right hand, he raced at full speed toward the retreating figure.

At the last moment, the Cuban, either hearing something or sensing Carter’s presence behind him, started to run. But it was too late. Carter leaped onto the man’s back, driving him forward and down, the air whooshing out of his lungs.

Carter ripped the Uzi out of the man’s grip, tossed it aside, then yanked the man over onto his back. Holding the Cuban’s throat with his left hand, he brought the tip of the stiletto up into the man’s left nostril.

“Move and I drive the blade into your brain,” Carter hissed in perfect Spanish.

The Cuban was well trained enough to realize that if he moved, if he struggled, he would die instantly. His body went slack, his eyes wide, his jaw tight, his lips compressed.

“Was it Ganin?” Carter snapped.

The Cuban said nothing. There was no reaction to the name in his eyes.

“Arkadi Ganin. Was he in on this operation?” Carter shouted.

“I don’t know, señor. I don’t know. I swear it.”

“Who was leading you? Whose operation was this, you bastard?”

“It was the German. Hildebrandt. Colonel Hildebrandt. He came to... Havana. He and the Russian.”

“What Russian?”

“Chaikin. Viktor Chaikin. He is the KGB in Havana. It was he and the German. They planned this operation.”

Carter had heard the name Chaikin. At one time the man had been a fairly good operative working out of East Germany. But the other one. The German. Was it Ganin operating under an alias?

“Did Chaikin and the German come with you — here — tonight?”

“Only the German. He was in charge.”

“Who did the German work for?” Carter asked.

The question, surprisingly, produced a reaction in the Cuban. Carter could read faces very well. Saw the slightest tic. The man knew something.

Carter tightened his grip on the Cuban’s throat and eased the stiletto a millimeter farther up his nose. A slight trickle of blood rolled down the man’s cheek.

“Who did this German work for?” Carter repeated the question. “Where did he get his orders?”

“I don’t know... I swear!”

“You’re lying, and you will die!”

“No... no, señor, please!”

A vision of Sigourney’s face, her smile, her laugh, rose up in Carter’s mind. He flicked the stiletto to one side, laying open the man’s nose. Blood cascaded over the man’s face, gushing into his eyes and mouth.

“No!” the Cuban screamed.

“Who did the German work for, you son of a bitch!” Carter shouted.

The Cuban was struggling wildly. With great effort Carter held the man still and placed the stiletto blade a fraction of an inch above his left eye.

“New York...” the Cuban babbled through bloody lips.

“What about New York?”

“New York... New York, the U.N... I swear to Christ... Mother of God... New York, the U.N...”

“Who at the U.N.?” Carter demanded.

“Lashkin!” the Cuban screamed. Suddenly he had a pistol in his left hand, bringing it around, the hammer cocked, his finger on the trigger, a wild look in his blood-covered eyes.

“Lashkin!” the Cuban screamed again.

At that moment Carter buried the stiletto to its hilt in the man’s eye socket, the tip of the blade grating on the bone for a moment, but then penetrating deep into the brain.

The Cuban gave a mighty heave, shuddered violently as if he were having an epileptic fit, and then slumped back, dead.

Carter withdrew his stiletto and rolled back off the body. He flopped down on his back, his eyes open, staring up at the same stars he and Sigourney had made love under just hours earlier.

He had made the one mistake fatal to any field operative: he had fallen in love. He had become vulnerable. He had presented a weak side to his enemies.

“Lashkin.” He repeated the name out loud. “The United Nations in New York City. Lashkin.”

Everyone on the island was dead except Carter. By first light he had made sure there were no survivors. Shortly after seven he found what he took to be the charred remains of Sigourney’s body in the bedroom of the main house. He had pulled up the mattress where it had been shoved by the force of the explosion, and she had been there, the gas bomb still clutched in her left hand. She had never had the chance to use it.

His head swimming, his stomach churning, pure, raw, venomous hate rising up inside of him, Carter stumbled outside and down to the water’s edge, where he stared out across the sea toward the main island a scant seventeen miles distant. Why hadn’t someone seen something over there? The explosions and fire had to have been visible for miles. Why had no one come?

There was nothing left of the generator, or of the radio in the main house. He was cut off.

For an hour or so Carter toyed with the idea of attempting to raise the dive boat hull, but he gave it up after diving down to it and inspecting the damage. The attack force had been efficient. They had cut or blasted a hole in the hull fully three feet in diameter.

By three that afternoon, however, he had found his means of escape. The staff, on their off-duty hours, had enjoyed boating and diving. Carter went searching on that side of the island and discovered a small catamaran, its sails intact, that the attacking party had missed.

By four he had the boat rigged and ready to go.

Before he left he walked back up to the main house, but he could not bring himself to go inside where Sigourney’s body still lay among the charred timbers. When he got back, AXE would send a team down here; they’d take care of the remains. He supposed, when this was all over, he’d have to talk to her parents. He had met them at some party in Washington. He remembered her mother as a good-looking, classy woman. He did not look forward to facing her. He felt responsible for Sigourney’s death.

But that was later.

The weather had been closing in all day, but mindless of the storm clouds gathering to the northeast along the tradewind belt, and mindless of the rising breeze, Carter raised the cat’s sails and shoved the flimsy boat out past the surf line, scrambling aboard and hauling in the sheets.

The boat took off like a rocket, skipping high across the waves, the windward pontoon on which he was perched rising out of the water, a wide wake hissing behind him.

Spray was flying everywhere as Carter pushed the tiny boat to its absolute limits in the rising winds, but he kept seeing Sigourney’s face. He kept seeing her body, feeling it next to his; he kept hearing her calling to him, excited about one thing or another. Of all the women he had ever known, she had come most nearly to his idea of a perfect companion, a perfect lover, a perfect mate.

As he sailed he kept searching his memory, kept looking for the mistakes he had made, trying to catalogue the people who knew about their relationship.

There was no doubt in his mind now that Ganin was after him, and that the opening blow had been Sigourney’s life. This Lashkin in New York was only another step in some long, complex plan that would sooner or later pit the Soviet master assassin against Carter.

They had never planned on killing him on the island. Ganin had simply been toying with him. Taking his measure.

But the confrontation would come. Of that Carter was certain, and as he sailed, his lips curled into a cruel smile, a smile totally devoid of any humor, of any warmth.

When the time came, Carter decided, he would enjoy very much witnessing Ganin’s death. His very slow, very painful death.

The only thing that bothered him at that moment was why the Soviets were going to these lengths. They could have killed him on the island. Why had they given him a chance? Why were they toying with him?

Whatever the reason, when it was done, Carter swore, Ganin and whoever ran him would rue the day they had conceived their evil plan.