White Death

Thirteen

Nick Carter smoothly slid one ski ahead of the other. It continued to be a beautiful Antarctic day, clear and bright. He followed the skimobile tracks up a gentle snowy grade using cross-country Trek skis, flexible and long, and ski poles for his mittened hands. On his back he carried a backpack and sleeping bag.

In the sunlight, the snow was dazzling. Millions of little light particles glimmered like diamonds. The skimobile tracks were alternately visible and snow-covered. He followed them over the sparkling white carpet in the easy rhythm of the cross-country skier. It was a form of long-stride, slip-slide jogging that stretched the muscles until they sang.

Two wandering albatrosses flew overhead, a sign that the coast was just across the mountains. They were big birds, with eleven-foot wingspans that they rode like magic carpets as they circumnavigated the southern half of the world. Occasionally the two glanced at one another, like humans aware of their loved ones. Wandering albatrosses usually mated for life, and for them that could be more than fifty years.

Carter considered this as he pushed ahead into the isolation of the mountains. Sunlight filtered through a nearby glacier, producing an ethereal blue haze. Many of life's lessons could be learned in this beautiful desolation. Love, loyalty, courage.

Occasional thundering crashes sounded in the distance. It was mountainsides of snow too heavy to cling any longer, or the ends of glaciers sheering off in relief. This was a dramatic land, and not safe.

As he skied along, small mounds of snow slid down crevices and plopped at his feet. He passed through narrow valleys, over ridges, between boulders, always climbing as he followed the tracks. Snow and ice hung to sheer walls on cither side of him. Suspended. Waiting to crash down and fill the valley he crossed. Waiting to smother him in soft wet oblivion.

Alone in the splendid solitude, the sky and sun his only companions, he skied on, occasionally scooping up a handful of snow and letting it melt in his mouth. It was fresh and clean, untainted by salty streets and smog. No wonder people were drawn here. If he weren't on assignment, it could almost be his interrupted vacation.

He stroked his soft beard and looked ahead. The skimobile tracks continued upward, always climbing.

Then he heard the jet.

He skied swiftly into a shadow.

The jet swooped low over the mountains. Carter saw the markings. Soviet markings. The craft made three passes, then soared off toward Molodezhnaya, the Soviet Antarctic headquarters.

Carter resumed his journey, sobered by concern that he'd been discovered.

He had to go on. He had no choice. He concentrated on the task at hand. Soon he was once more caught in the hypnotic rhythm of the cross-country skier. He would continue one more hour, then make camp and rest.

Carter herringboned up a steep snowy slope, his long skis cutting crossmatched steps as he followed the more agile skimobile. Probably a Russian skimobile. Maybe a Silver Dove skimobile. Carrying a helpless American. Diamond. Antarctica was a preserve for wildlife, but not yet a preserve for humanity.

Then Carter smiled. Antarctica's spirit of universal peace and harmony was sufficiently strong that all of the continent's stations were open by treaty agreement to visitors from any nation at any time. He wondered about Novolazarevskaya. The Russian station.

He wasn't about to ski right up to it and ask whether their open-door policy applied to spies. Not with Blenkochev so close.

Sweating, he reached the top of the crest. Accordian pleats of snowy valleys and rocky mountaintops spread before him. He wiped a mitten across his face. His breath was silver steam in the air.

He scanned the majestic and deserted Antarctic mountains. On the other side of them was Novolazarevskaya. Exactly why had Blenkochev left Russia? What did he hope to accomplish in New Zealand?

A new answer to the question was beginning to form in Carter's mind.

Then he heard an intrusion in the white silence.

The helicopter came quietly, its rotors muffled behind a mountainside.

There were no shadows on the crest where Carter stood.

Nowhere for him to hide.

On his skis, Carter plunged back down the slope he'd just climbed. Pain shot through his tired body as he slid and fell.

He dropped deep into the shadow of the ravine.

The helicopter was moving slowly. A Russian helicopter. Obviously looking for someone… or something.

Carter stayed in the darkest part of the shadow, his muscles and bones aching. The observers in the helicopter might spot his ski trail, but they shouldn't be able to see him.

He watched.

The helicopter approached. A head was peering out over the side.

Without pausing, the helicopter slowly moved past.

Carter breathed deeply, waiting.

The helicopter moved on, doing thoroughly once what the Soviet jet had done quickly three times.

Carter allowed himself a small smile of triumph, then he tested his body for bruises and broken bones. He was intact, but very tired. He would make camp as soon as he could find a good sheltered spot.

Once more he slogged up the slope, his remarkable stamina and strength surging new power back into his exhausted body.

At the top again where the mountains spread around him in a rocky panorama, he skied on, dipping in and out of canyons, following the skimobile's trail.

Time passed, the Antarctic sun making little progress. Carter watched for a good campsite.

At last he rounded a bend in layered shadows where boulders and snowslides covered a fiat apron of land.

The snow gave a good level spot, not large, but large enough. The boulders offered good shelter. Some as large as rooms, they'd spilled one on top of the other until a roof formed over part of the flat area.

Carter dropped his backpack beneath the roof.

He'd pitch the tent here, a shelter against another storm. He'd be protected from helicopter surveillance by the boulders above.

Then he saw the shadow move.

Amid the sounds of dropping snow and distant avalanches, he heard the slick noise of a ski sliding.

It was across from him, someone entering the flat area from the other side.

Quickly he pulled on his backpack, took off his mitten, and flipped his stiletto into his hand. In Antarctica, only a madman shot a gun. The noise would cause avalanches and destruction for miles around.

He skied swiftly back out the way he'd come. He was careful to stay in the same tracks.

When he was out of sight of the flat area, he looked over his shoulder and saw his single ski trail. He heard the sounds of the other skier, heard the pause as the skier discovered Carter's trail, then the rapidity of strokes as he pursued Carter.

Carter swung his arms and leaped off the trail, landing on his back in the soft snow.

With his mitten and arm he brushed the snowbank smooth again as he backed off behind an enormous boulder.

With luck, the pursuer would see only the ski trail continuing on with the skimobile tracks.

Carter skied quietly around the boulder to where he could watch the newcomer's pursuit.

The slip-slide of the oncoming skis were muffled sounds in the Antarctic stillness, the noises absorbed by the vast snow.

First Carter saw the peaked blue fiber-fill hat that was fastened beneath the chin, then the thick blue parka and trousers. The skis were Russian.

The man was small, agile, his face bent low as he studied Carter's trail.

As he came in sight of the place where Carter had jumped off, he slowed. He raised his face to scan ahead.

Carter smiled.

It was Blenkochev's comrade, the man with the yellow Mazda.

The expression on the small-featured face was one of puzzlement. Something wasn't right, the expression said, but he wasn't sure exactly what. He skied ahead slowly.

Swiftly Carter returned around the boulder to follow.

The knife glinted in the sun.

The assistant's knife was waiting for Carter where he'd jumped off the trail. It was now Blenkochev's pal's turn to smile. He'd figured out Carter's trick in leaving the trail. He'd doubled back to meet him.

"You shouldn't be here," the Russian agent said softly, the knife pointed at Carter's chin. He spoke in English.

"Why not?" Carter answered in Russian, showing his stiletto.

The stiletto was a diversion.

He threw the other hand up and knocked the Russian's knife flying.

The Russian's toe clips were already released. His boots free, he kicked.

"Because this is none of your business!" he said.

Carter ducked.

The Russian changed targets. His foot unerringly caught the stiletto in Carter's hand, sending Hugo living overhead.

Quickly Carter unsnapped his skis from his feet.

The knife and stiletto were nowhere in sight.

The two agents thrashed through the snow. Circled. Their boots sank six inches into the soft powder.

Again the Russian's foot lashed out.

Carter caught it.

The Russian twisted.

Carter yanked.

Caught by the snow, the two fell forward.

Wrestled.

Suddenly Carter veered back, his eyes wide.

Breasts. The Russian had breasts. A woman. Why the walk was different. Why the tam-o'-shanter was pulled low to the ears.

The woman swung a fist.

Carter spun to the side.

He reached back, unsnapped the chin strap, and whipped up the woman's blue peaked cap.

Long flaxen hair cascaded to the shoulders of the blue parka. The hair was like strands of silk, flying free in the icy Antarctic air. The small-featured face came into perspective. A too-small man turned into a beautifully proportioned woman with full lips, straight nose, and wide eyes bright under the cold sun. She was the blonde in the airport photograph Mike had showed him. The beautiful blonde.

"I'll be damned," Carter murmured.

"Took you long enough," she said, slugging him in the chin. "It works every time."

Taken by surprise, reeling from the blow, Carter slugged back.

She went limp.

He caught her before she hit the ground. He hadn't intended to knock her out.

She was light. Her head fell back, the pale blond hair drifting long to the snow.

He laid her down, then found the knife and the stiletto buried in nearby snowbanks. He put on his skis and picked her up. She moaned, still unconscious. He threw her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, grabbed her skis with his other hand, and skied back to the flat place to make camp.

He was heating soup when she awoke. Four handfuls of snow and a package of dehydrated meat, beans, and vegetable soup mix in a lightweight pot.

"How much longer?" she inquired as she nibbed her chin. "I could eat an elephant."

"Don't you want to fight first?"

"Later. When I have my strength back."

She was gutsy as well as beautiful.

The soup smelled delicious cooking over the solid-fuel pellet. Carter had pitched the one-man tent, scraped and rewaxed both their skis, thrown their sleeping mats and bags into the tent, and searched her backpack. He'd found her Walther in a side pocket and a radio in the other. He'd put both with her knife into his backpack. The rest of her gear was standard for snow camping.

"It's nice to see you don't hold a grudge," he said.

She smiled radiantly and took the cup of hot soup he handed her.

"In Russia we have a saying. Never bite the hand that feeds you."

"Interesting how proverbs cross all lines."

The universality of human nature," she said and shrugged.

They ate.

"Leaving Novolazarevskaya?" he said.

"Maybe."

"Your direction wasn't toward it. But maybe it was toward something else?"

"If you have something to say, speak plainly."

"All right," he said slowly. "What kind of secret work is going on down here that's killing people with diseases your scientists can't control and our scientists don't recognize?"

"Perhaps you're asking the wrong person," the deep, cultured Russian voice said.

Carter looked up.

Leon Blenkochev, the ruthless head of the KGB's powerful K-GOL agency, stood at the edge of the overhanging boulders. He was pointing a Luger at Carter's heart.