White Death

Eight

Consistent with a city founded by nineteenth-century English gentlemen, Christchurch was tweedy rather than trendy. Formal flower gardens decorated the manor houses of the rich, while tidy flower beds of snapdragons and posies dotted working class bungalows. Storybook swans swam in streams and ponds. Picture-postcard schoolchildren wore loden green blazers and carried traditional field hockey sticks.

Christchurch's pace was slow, almost casual. It was a reflection of upbringing that emphasized good taste, not how many cars were sold today, not how much money would be made tomorrow. Business flourished without frenzy. Financial success was admired but not flaunted in the most English city outside Great Britain.

Nick Carter thought about this as he spent the next two days quietly working his way across the city of more than 300,000. There were more restaurants than bars. Christchurch was a city of shopkeepers, all with small eccentricities in the English way to set their establishments apart.

He went to Grimsby's Restaurant housed in a converted medieval-style church. To the gaudy Shangri-La, which promised in plastic what the movies had provided in celluloid. To the Oxford Victualling Company decorated with old wooden booths and iron gooseneck lamps. To the Waimairi Lounge where young marrieds on the way up talked rugby and politics. And to various Chinese, Mexican, Italian, American, English, German, and any other kind of ethnic bar or restaurant the fertile mind can contrive.

It made him tired and gave him indigestion, but he continued. Even in a city of 300,000 individualists. Carter knew that it was only a matter of time until perseverance would pay off. With luck.

It was dusk of the second day. Rosy-checked youngsters of European descent rode bicycles through Christchurch's Cathedral Square.

The town hall and the Anglican cathedral dominated the parklike area. Seagulls circled and called overhead. Unemployed teen-age Maori hoys stood on the corner, their shoulders hunched, smoking cigarettes. Their dark Polynesian faces with the handsome flat bones were sullen and discouraged in the fading light. All was not perfect in this English inspired paradise.

Carter strode past them, past the square, past the Savoy Hotel to continue his methodical search. He wore a Fleet Street suit imported from London and a jaunty attitude that covered his growing discouragement. His beard was beginning to look like the affectation of a monied businessman rather than the sloppiness of a penniless derelict.

The next stop was the Wyndham Club, a posh three-story hotel hewn of fieldstone. There were heavy brocaded drapes at the arched windows and an obsolete footman at the front door. The footman bowed and touched the brim of his cap as Carter mounted the steps. Proper clothes and the right attitude bought you respect, if not peace of mind.

The smells of expensive whiskey, brandy, port, and old wood perfumed the air of the first-floor paneled bar. The bartender wiped a white cloth across the shining bar and smiled appraisingly at Carter.

"London?" he asked. Carter stood at the bar, put a foot up on the rail, and nodded.

"Just got in."

Tell a person what they expect to hear, and you confirm their intelligence. Instant rapport.

"Went to London once," the bartender went on.

He had pale blue eyes and thin silvery hair swept back close to his head. His dignified posture suited the hushed bar.

"Did you like it?"

"I was disappointed, sir. I'd expected the fogs. You know, the thick pea-soup fogs of Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper?" The bartender of the high-class establishment had a taste for adventure. "But when I got there, they told me that the fog was really smog, just air pollution, and that London had new ordinances against it. There hadn't been a thick pea-souper since the sixties. Very disappointing."

"I can imagine," Carter said.

The bartender stopped polishing and looked at his only customer.

"What would you like to drink, sir?"

"Martini with a dash of Pernod."

"Unusual drink," the bartender said as he went to work.

"Serve it to anyone else lately?"

"No, sir."

The barkeep dropped ice cubes into the shaker one at a time, clinking. He poured in Boodles gin, nipping up the mouth of the bottle at just the right moment. His hands moved with the flourish and drama of a concert pianist. He held up a bottle of Cinzano vermouth.

"Twelve to one?" he asked.

"That's it," Carter nodded, continued. "He would've been a tall man, rangy. About my size. English accent. A pilot."

The silvery-haired bartender worked without pause. He added the quality vermouth and stirred the mixture cold. He splashed Pernod into a stemmed glass, poured in the martini, twisted a lemon peel over it, and with a flick of the fingers dropped the peel into the concoction.

He stood back, crossed his arms. He was a general awaiting the outcome of an important battle.

Carter sipped thoughtfully.

"Excellent," he announced. "Tender, not bruised."

The bartender beamed. Carter had made his day.

To show his appreciation, Carter drank.

As he cleaned up, the bartender watched his customer enjoy the fruits of his talent.

"You have a new bottle of Pernod, I see," Carter said at last.

The bartender hesitated, and looked at the bottle as he returned it to its shell.

"Indeed. We don't open bottles often. Even in the summer."

Pernod was a summer drink, usually served over shaved ice. Green from the bottle, it turned milky yellow when it hit the ice. The liquor was prized for its faint licorice flavor.

"Wonder who had the last drink from it," Carter said casually.

The bartender said nothing. He mopped the bar. He rinsed glasses. He dusted bottles.

"You could call," Carter suggested, sipping. "Ask them."

The bartender who enjoyed his work but still yearned for the adventures of Sherlock Holmes's London fogs nodded, look off his apron, and left the room.

Carter hoped that this was the luck he'd been waiting for.

The bartender was phoning his fellow Wyndham bartenders to inquire whether any gentleman lately had asked for a martini with a dash of Pernod.

He was gone twenty minutes. When he returned, Carter had finished the martini.

"An interesting situation," the bartender confided as he retied the apron.

Carter waited patiently. It was the bartender's moment of glory. Still, he had the urge to throttle him. It'd been a long two days.

"You had success?" he asked.

"I believe so," the bartender said solemnly. "There was a gentleman here, a guest of the hotel, named Shelton Philips. Handsome man. Even dashing, or so the ladies seemed to think."

Carter smiled. Rocky Diamond's birth name was Philip Shelton.

"Last week?" Carter said. "Do you still have the charge slips?"

"His room, sir. Of course you'd want that."

The obliging bartender went through the bar's copy of receipts. When luck happened, it was often abundant. But while you're doggedly, hopelessly pursuing elusive information, you forgot that.

The room number was 203.

When Nick Carter stuffed twenty dollars in her pocket, the second-floor maid of the Wyndham Club remembered Shelton Philips.

Philips was still renting the expensive room, she recalled. She was a short brunette with bright eyes and a mobile mouth. He'd paid up until next week.

With another twenty dollars, the maid unlocked the door, blew Carter a kiss, and disappeared to assault the next room with lemon wax.

Rocky Diamond's room at the Wyndham Club was decorated with hand-painted china plates, brass fixtures, heavy mahogany furniture, a hardwood floor, and a hand-knotted Oriental rug that started just inside the door and extended the length of the oblong room to beneath the high four-poster bed.

Rocky Diamond liked to spend money. Was it his…or someone else's?

Carter started with the drawers in the bureau, found the usual assortment of socks, underwear, and handkerchiefs. The closet contained two business suits — a dark blue and a gray pin-striped — and shoes and leisure clothes.

Wherever Diamond had gone, he hadn't taken much with him. An austerity trip, or perhaps he'd simply been kidnapped, killed, and his body chopped into shark bait.

Carter checked the linings and pockets of the clothes, tipped over and shook the shoes, then went through the rest of the drawers in the room.

He found Wyndham Club stationery, a Gideon's Bible, a woman's brassiere and bikini underpants, tissues, and a case of men's jewelry. He worked with precision, carefully replacing everything as he'd found it.

But his luck had run out again. There were no financial records No checkbooks, credit cards, or even local shop receipts or matchbooks.

It was almost as if Diamond had expected his room to be searched His belongings were personal but revealed nothing of his true identity or his intentions in Christchurch or New Zealand.

Except that he planned to return.

With practiced eyes, Carter's gaze swept the room. What had he not checked?

The walls, ceiling, and floor.

Again he went to work, checking behind and beneath the furniture, the floor heater, the floor of the closet, under the rug, the plates behind the light fixtures, the vent grate. Nothing.

Then he heard the sound at the door.

A small sound, trying to be silent.

There were no other doors. Carter was trapped.

Swiftly he crossed the room and pushed up the window.

There was a narrow ledge, about twenty-four inches wide, and then the two-story drop straight down.

Not an enormous distance, but enough to break a leg… or a spine. And there were no fall-breaking awnings or trees between him and the concrete below.

Carter slipped out the window and onto the ledge. Beneath him, pedestrians window-shopped and cars spumed exhaust into the air.

With luck, no one would notice him, would call him to the attention of others, to the attention of the police. Or Silver Dove.

As he closed the window, the door to the hotel room opened and closed.

The man was slight, quick. He slid skeleton keys back into his pants pocket.

Carter smiled to himself. In a way, he'd been expecting him.

It was the same man who'd left the CB radio and first aid kit for Mike on North Island. The same man who'd returned Carter to his hotel in Wellington after the attack by the Russians. The man who drove the yellow Mazda, wore the tam-o'-shanter cap pulled low to his ears, and had small features.

His movements were careful, experienced. He followed a similar pattern of search to Carter's. He wasn't looking for Carter this time, and he wasn't a burglar. He was a professional agent.

Carter watched from high up in the window, his feet firmly planted on the two-foot-wide ledge. His body was out of sight. Only his head could be seen, if the other agent were quick enough.

Wind whistled around him. Periodically he ducked out of view as the searcher, growing frustrated, would stop to survey the room and think.

It was at one of those times that Carter's own gaze saw the scrap of paper. It was a piece of notepaper, folded small to fit in a wallet or key case, resting at the top of the bottom pane of window-glass inside the room. It could easily have dropped when two hands — rather than the expected single hand — were required to reach up to unlock the double-paned window. (It was a stiff window.) And the scrap would go unnoticed by maids who cleaned only what was visible.

Carter smiled broadly, patient as the agent completed his methodical search of the room. The man spent a good hour at it, even removing the plates that covered the light switches and electrical outlets. He w as after Rocky Diamond too. But what was his reason… and for whom was he working?

At last, discouraged and disgusted, the agent pressed his car against the door. When the sounds outside told him it was safe, he opened the door and slipped out.

Carter reopened his window, grabbed the folded paper, and followed.

The agent strolled past the House of Natural Health Foods Sanatorium, the New Market Butcherym Reynolds Chemists, Woolworth's Variety, and back into Christchurch's Cathedral Square.

He was a slender man wearing nubby tan slacks, a London Fog windbreaker, and the jaunty tam-o'-shanter. He strolled with his hands in his pockets, his shoulders relaxed, giving no indication he was concerned about being followed. That in itself was enough to make Carter suspicious.

An agent as good as this one appeared to be would be crossing streets, dipping in and out of stores, backtracking — because if he's on an assignment, he's a marked man. By somebody he often doesn't know.

He's also always on the lookout for unusual amounts of interest in him or what he's doing. That could lead him to information he needs. With Carter, careful use of a city's streets was second nature. Seldom was he tailed without his knowledge. He d lost at least one tail in Christchurch yesterday. And two in Wellington. Part of the job.

As they entered the square, Carter hung back farther.

The strange agent blended in with the European New Zealanders, his very English clothes like the very English clothes of the other inhabitants in the square.

Carter had never heard the stranger's voice, wondered whether there'd be a Scotch accent to fit the tam-o'-shanter, or another accent — Eastern European. American, Russian — that the tam-o'-shanter was worn to deflect.

The agent turned toward the flower stand in front of the big brick and stone post office. He had a strange gait, very idiosyncratic. If Carter had enough time to study it…

Instead, Carter ambled off, apparently heading for the men's rest room.

The agent selected a bouquet of yellow, white, and blue daisies from the flower woman. It was a simple, conversation-filled transaction, and Carter scanned the square, bored.

Until he saw Blenkochev.

The chief of the dreaded K-GOL was coming through the big double doors of the post office as casually as if it were the Kremlin.

The old agent was dressed in a dowdy, rumpled suit. Very English. He was shuffling through a stack of overseas envelopes as if looking for a remittance check.

It was a good cover, and Blenkochev was hardly recognizable as the polished Soviet official in Mike's photograph.

He was there to meet the man in the tam-o'-shanter.

Despite the enormity of the implications of having the world's top KGB man working once again in the field, Carter had to smile.

Blenkochev was good. The hands trembled ever so slightly. The nose was made up floridly red to suggest too much drink. And then just the right touch — the look of need on Blenkochev's face brightened into greed when he found the right envelope and ripped it open. He beamed as he read the amount on the fake check. Then he walked as if looking for a bar.

Meanwhile, the young agent in the tam-o'-shanter was busying himself at the flower stand, still engaging the flower woman in small talk. As the agent watched Blenkochev from the comer of his eye, he rotated the bouquet in his hand, cradled it a moment in his arms, then dropped it to his side to tap it against his thigh. He didn't know what to do with the thing.

At last, finishing the chat, the young man said thank you and turned.

Bumped into Blenkochev.

The envelopes flew into the air.

The bouquet dropped.

Both men bent to retrieve their belongings, and Carter saw the brief conversation that occurred without either man actually looking at the other. The young agent was reporting in. Carter lip-read. The old agent was disgusted with the message, then issued orders. They exchanged no looks or packages.

The two stood, shook hands, once again polite strangers. Apologies were given.

They walked off in directions ninety degrees apart.

Carter followed Blenkochev, giving him plenty of room.

Blenkochev walked at a brisk pace through the square, circled back, took advantage of the men's rest room, paused on a park bench to rest, then ambled around the post office to the street.

At some point he'd spotted Carter. But the AXE agent stayed with him. The KGB man didn't try very hard to lose the Killmaster.

Back at the street, the yellow Mazda was at the curb, and Blenkochev strode toward it. His too-long suit jacket flapped against the baggy pants.

The young agent reached across the front scat and opened Blenkochev's door. Impatient, he gunned the motor.

Blenkochev hopped in, turned, and looked back through the window.

As the Mazda sped away, the old fox gave Carter a small, impish smile and a tiny wave. It was a salute, one pro to Mother.

Grinning, Carter watched the Mazda weave into the Christchurch traffic. There was no point in following Blenkochev. Carter had found what Blenkochev had sent the young agent in the tam-o'-shanter for.

He took the small folded notepaper from his pocket, opened it, reread the address, and hailed a taxi.

Carter's destination was southwest, beyond Christchurch's city limits, in a sparsely populated area near Wigram Aerodrome. Willows and oaks dotted the dry landscape. Abandoned farm implements were rusty reminders of the original purpose the English gentlemen had had in mind for the land.

Now the area was partitioned into vacant lots, waiting for sale or foreclosure. A Maori family stood on a sagging porch as Carter drove by in the rented car. They were quiet people, exhausted by life. They didn't wave, but they watched Carter turn down the road that led to Charlie Smith-deal's address. His passing was their day's entertainment.

Carter parked the rented car in the shade of a willow whose branches brushed the ground. The summer afternoon had grown hot; it was almost eighty degrees. New Zealand's weather was not only dramatic, it was unpredictable.

He got out of the car and looked around. Smith-deal's house was little more than a shack. Tin cans, tires, a roll of barbed wire jumbled on the ground around it. Weeds sprouted limp from thirst. A metal flap from a broken reaper banged as a light breeze stirred dust into the air. It had been a good, sturdy house once. The foundation was even of stone. A dirt trail led to the sagging front porch. Carter walked up it.

He knocked.

"Smith-deal!"

No answer. He knocked again, called again, circled around to the back. No one there either.

He returned to the front, his hand on the doorknob, when he saw the old jeep lurching along the country road toward the shack.

The driver was having trouble deciding whether he preferred the accelerator or the brake. The vehicle would rush forward, skid almost to a stop, then would leap ahead like a jackrabbit with a shotgun at its tail.

Carter watched the jeep's erratic progress and smiled.

When the jeep at last ground to a dusty stop in the jumbled yard, he walked toward it.

"Charlie Smith-deal?"

"Betcha!" the driver said, exhaling a cloud of whiskey.

His eyes were red and bleary. He jerked his baseball cap around so the flap was over the back of his neck. He raised his fool, aimed it outside the jeep, and set it deliberately on the ground. He grinned at Carter.

"Do I know you?"

"Don't think so," Carter said, grabbing Smith-deal's arm to steady him.

He followed Smith-deal up the path to the shack's porch. Smith deal never wavered, a dog on a scent. There was probably a bottle in the shack.

"I'm looking for a friend," Carter went on. "Name's Rocky Diamond. You might know him as Philip Shelton, or Shelton Philips."

"Oh?" Smith-deal's interest was waning. He opened the door. "Need a drink."

There was a faint, plastic click.

Carter tackled Smith-deal's legs Hurled them off the porch. Rolled them next to the stone foundation.

The shack exploded.