White Death

Fourteen

Nick Carter hadn't heard a sound, not a sliding ski, not a cough. He looked with respect at Leon Blenkochev.

"The helicopter and jet spotted me?" he said.

The KGB czar waved the question off.

"Throw your gun and knife over here," he said imperiously.

He waited until Carter had tossed the weapons ten feet to his boots, then the K-GOL director skied forward.

His lumpy Slavic face glowed in the sunshine. He wore a blue fiberfill suit like the woman's, a pointed cap, reflecting sunglasses, a backpack, and perfume. The perfume was fragrant. Not too much. The affectation of a man who was powerful enough to not give a damn.

Blenkochev was stout and strong, in his late sixties. Much more than merely active, he exuded a sense of vigorous self-possession and destiny that would attract attention wherever he went.

Here, in Antarctica, with a gun pointed unwaveringly at Carter as he skied easily toward the AXE agent, he certainly had Carter's attention. Blenkochev didn't bluff. He didn't have to.

"At last I meet the great Blenkochev," Carter said and smiled.

"Don't be cute, N3," Blenkochev said. "It doesn't become you."

"You recognize me."

"Notoriety always gets my attention."

"I'm impressed, considering that the KGB's filing system is a hall full of cardboard boxes."

Blenkochev scowled, and his blond comrade quickly hid smile behind her cup of soup. She was good-natured, too.

"I'm hollow, Anna." Blenkochev announced.

He stared pointedly at the soup pot. He'd deal with Carter later. He handed his gun to the agent Anna, and she leveled it at Carter.

"Did you bring food?" Carter asked. "This not the Antarctic Salvation Army."

Blenkochev took off his backpack and dropped it into the snow. He untied an insulated sitting mat.

"No?" he said. "Perhaps it's a version of the 1980 Olympics. You don't want to play? You go home. Hurray U.S.A."

Carter laughed.

"You want a medal for that?" Blenkochev asked and chuckled. "You didn't get any in 1980."

Blenkochev sat on the mat on the snow, and perfume wafted into the air. He extended his legs stiffly in front of him. For a moment a look of pleasure came onto his face, pleasure in where he was, in what he was doing. Then he quickly erased it. He was in control.

"First we eat. Then we talk," the KGB czar said. "Anna, There are supplies in my pack. I'll take my weapon now."

She handed the gun to him, then unzipped his pack. Her flaxen hair flowed over the deep blue of her padded suit. She had a sultry face made even more attractive by intelligence. A dangerous combination for an enemy. A valuable one for a friend. Once more the gun was aimed at Carter.

"Now I know why you weren't concerned when you woke up," Carter told her as she prepared more soup. "You expected Blenkochev."

"It was a possibility," she said.

"Are there more of you?"

"How many do you want?" Blenkochev said. "All this concern for quantity. A pity. It's made quality a thing of the past."

"I suspect the past wasn't all that different from today," Carter said mildly. "Hindsight isn't twenty-twenty."

"And the present isn't all that pretty," Blenkochev said. He crossed his arms, resting the gun on the left, still pointing it at Carter. "When the present is unpleasant and the future worrisome, we tend to retreat into the familiarity of the past."

"And what are you worried about?" Carter asked.

"Quality, obviously," Blenkochev said. A small smile curved at the corners of his mouth as he played with Carter's words. "I'd prefer a fine paella or a hearty bouillabaisse. Instead I get freeze-dried predigested soup that's been rejected by the gourmet palates of our Siberian miners and your television addicts. That makes it good enough for the KGB. But I'm not complaining."

Anna handed a full cup of soup to Blenkochev, and he sipped. His hand shook slightly. Being in the field wasn't as easy for him as it once was, but his ruddy face and eagerness showed that he was enjoying it thoroughly.

"I hear you're a killer," Carter said.

"It's been said," Blenkochev replied over the steaming soup. It would take more than accusations to shock him out of his equilibrium. "That makes two of us, Killmaster."

Within three minutes in the Antarctic air the soup would be cold. Now the old agent drank rapidly.

"Why are you here?" Anna asked Carter while her superior finished his meal.

"It started as a vacation," Carter said, "but no one would believe me."

"Michelle Strange, otherwise known as Mike," Anna said. "I believe you had a sexual interlude with her at a remote mountain jail. Don't you consider that kinky? It is the right word… kinky?"

"It's what you had in mind," Carter said. "Were you there too?"

"I'm not Silver Dove, if that's what you mean." A note of indignation slipped into her voice.

"Killmaster," Blenkochev interrupted, "I require a tent. I have an adequate one strapped to the bottom of my pack. If you would be so kind…"

Blenkochev undid the straps and kicked it across the snow to Carter. It was an order, not a request. He casually rubbed the side of his gun against his check, then handed his empty cup to Anna. She refilled it.

"Shall I get out your toothbrush too?" Carter smiled.

"Thank you, no. I have it in my pocket."

"Clean socks? Undershorts? A battery-run shaver?"

"Unfortunately, there wasn't room to pack them. The next time I decide to go into the field I'll choose my assignment more carefully."

Blenkochev pushed his pack behind his back and leaned back comfortably while Carter went to work.

"Perhaps you'd like to hear an AXE bedtime story?" Carter asked as he unrolled Blenkochev's light one-man tent.

"I have no objection," Blenkochev said. There was just a hint of suspicion in his voice, Again he drank soup.

"The helicopter and jet weren't looking for me," Carter said. "They were looking for you. And you're here alone. No support."

He spread the tent at the other end of the roofed-over flat area and got out stakes. He looked at Blenkochev.

As if unconcerned, the K-GOL chief shrugged.

"At one time Silver Dove must have been one of your most trusted assassination arms," Carter went on. "You recruit from athletes for their physical vigor, from university students for their intellects, and from embassy staffs for their contacts, why not from bigots for the power of their hatreds? A man who hates enough will do anything to keep his haired intact. It's what he lives for. But then something happened. Silver Dove got out of hand. Little by little. Hardly noticeable. Until now you have a full-fledged crisis on your hands. And it is your crisis. The Politburo won't just take your dacha away if Silver Dove accomplishes what it threatens."

"And what does it threaten, my fine young Turk?"

Blenkochev tossed his empty cup to Anna. She caught it with one mittened hand, then pushed it in and out of the snow to wash it. Blenkochev knew that Carter didn't know the threat, and his smile mocked the other deductions Carter had made.

"Whatever it was, it was big and important enough to force the biggest target in Russia out of the safety of the motherland. Burnout or midlife crisis or even longing for the past didn't bring you into the field. Although I think you're glad to be here," Carter added. He pounded tent stakes. "It's fear. Plain, old-fashioned fear."

He looked over his shoulder and saw Blenkochev bristle. The gun weaved ever so slightly. Still, if Carter were to accomplish his mission, he had to go on. Blenkochev had to be shocked into changing his attitude just enough to help him.

"Not only fear of losing your job and maybe your life," Carter continued, "but also fear for the safety of large numbers of people. Maybe even for the world. Your world in particular, and mine by circumstance. So you came to New Zealand with Anna. Only one assistant. Your one concession to age. But a woman so you'd attract less attention. You investigated at the embassy, and she went into the field. Disguised. She heard about our missing flyer and was on her way to look up Mackenzie when by accident she drove past Mike and me after the crash. She recognized me and left the first aid supplies. Already she'd begun to help me. Why?"

Apparently disinterested, the dishes done and repacked, Anna lay back on her pack and lit a cigarette. A calm professional. She blew rings into the cold air.

"Because we weren't fighting," Carter said and popped up light aluminum poles, the tent's skeleton. "Because we were after the same thing, and if she kept tabs on me and I found it first, she could steal it. The only issue was what."

"And you don't know," Blenkochev said, satisfied.

"I can make a close guess. It has to do with biological warfare."

Blenkochev said nothing, pursing his lips. His silence told Carter he was right.

"A new strain of bacteria or virus that's being developed by Silver Dove somewhere down here. Maybe at Novolazarevskaya, although I doubt it because Antarctic nations have to remain open to everyone. But nearby, probably. Near enough so that Diamond — when he had to make an emergency landing — saw something he shouldn't have, and had to be carted away. It puts you in an awkward position. With biological warfare, you can't just rush a place. Someone could break one little vial, and the world is contaminated. If you're dealing with fanatics, an order they find disagreeable will be disobeyed. And people whose main motivation is hatred don't respond to reasoning. So if you can't use force, orders, or reasoning, you have to outmaneuver, outwit, and outflank them."

Carter slipped the skeleton poles inside the tent.

"Go on," Blenkochev said. "I'm listening."

"Which also explains why you didn't kill me" — Carter smiled — "and why you "re holding that ridiculous gun on me. You won't fire it out here. You'd bring the whole damned mountainside down on us. That'll never get you reinstated with Chernenko."

Now it was Blenkochev's turn to smile, and he held up the other hand. In it was a stiletto, the twin of Carter's own.

"I'm not completely unprepared," the wily old agent murmured.

"No, and you've let me ramble like this for a purpose. You want to know how much Hawk knows. How much I guessed. And whether you want me to help. Much better to have me with you than bumbling around maybe making matters worse. The other option, of course, is to kill me."

A deep throaty laugh rumbled from Blenkochev. Anna watched Carter with respect.

"Ah, N3, too bad you can't be bought!" He held his belly and laughed. "I would love to steal you from Hawk. Finally I would get even with the old bastard!"

As the mighty KGB man roared with laughter, Carter snapped the tent skeleton in place, then sat back on his haunches to admire his work.

"Your tent's finished," he said mildly. "Now I'd like to hear your proposal."

"Give Anna back her weapons first," Blenkochev said. He took off his glasses and wiped a sleeve across his eyes. "I know you've got them hidden somewhere."

"And my Luger?"

"Anna," Blenkochev said.

The old agent was tired, and at last comfortable. He wasn't going to move until he had to.

Anna fetched Carter's gun while he took from his backpack the Walther and knife. They exchanged weapons, and Anna gave him a smile of curiosity.

"Did you hear about the Chilean soldier?" Carter asked as he sealed back onto his own insulated snow mat.

"Unfortunately, yes," Blenkochev said. "Another nail in the coffin. A group from Chile visited the Novolazarevskaya area last week. There was no way to keep tabs on all of them, and besides it doesn't look friendly if it's too obvious that they're being watched. One or more must have slipped away. Either they knew what they were doing, or they didn't." The KGB man shrugged. "It's immaterial now. Now that the one's dead."

"If there were survivors, then you must know where they were here."

Blenkochev allowed himself a short smile.

"I have certain information," he admitted.

"Don't bother being modest. Blenkochev. No one believes it."

Again the belly laugh.

"No wonder you're Hawk's favorite," he chuckled.

"So we're going to find this secret installation," Carter said. "The installation that your New Zealand attaché also visited without anyone's knowledge."

"The same," Blenkochev agreed. He stood up and stretched. "Now I must sleep I'm old, but I don't admit it in Moscow. Here I don't give a damn. Here my age can be a hindrance." He checked his watch, his face turning grim. "We leave in four hours. No longer. Rest. I expect you both in top form." He stared north across the mountains as if he could see into the future. "This insanity could destroy my country."

Dignified and powerful as an old seasoned lion, Blenkochev stalked into his tent and dropped the flap. The perfume lingered for a moment, then was swept away in a light breeze.

Carter and Anna were silent, deep in their own worry. "You're standing guard?" Carter said at last, noting Anna's lack of interest in pitching her own tent.

"Silting guard, "she said, relaxed back against her pack.

Her blond hair glowed like gold in the sunshine. Her face was solemn, watchful, its attention directed at Carter. As soon as he retired to his tent, she would focus her alertness on the area around them.

She laid the Walther on her chest and held the knife loosely in her hand. Beautiful, intelligent, good-natured, and a thorough professional. Good reasons for Blenkochev to have chosen her, but there had to be more. A reason why he trusted her more than any of his other agents. Not only was his career and life-style on the line, but also the world he'd helped to shape for the last forty years. He had less compassion for the world than he had pride in the immortality of his work.

"You grew up in Moscow?" Carter asked.

She was waiting for him to leave, wanted to be at her job. Like many agents, she worked better alone. Yet she was interested in him. Couldn't take her eyes off him. One more reason why she wanted him to leave.

"I appreciate your help back in New Zealand," he said and stood. He didn't want to leave, but it was necessary that he, too, keep his distance.

She smiled up at him.

"I was a music student," she said. "Violin. Chamber music. Does that help?"

"Not really. Why did Blenkochev choose you?"

She looked at him, her face now expressionless. She was trying to decide whether to tell him anything and, if she did, whether to tell him the truth. She was a woman worth knowing. At last she cleared her throat.

"He's my father."

The one answer Carter hadn't guessed. She watched him quizzically to see how he'd take the news. It was hard to imagine Blenkochev sexually involved with anyone. But even the most outrageous, the most cold-blooded, the most extensively distracted sometimes committed the grace of physical intimacy. Her mother must have been remarkable. He hoped that Blenkochev had loved her.

"He's a lucky man," Carter said and went into his tent.