White Death

by Nick Carter

  Angry, Anna stared at her father, but the flicker of his eyelashes warned her to be silent. They had a job to do. No time to right petty injustices. She compressed her lips and folded her hands in her lap. Two bright spots flamed on her cheeks. She looked at Carter, and he saw the depth of her sense of injustice. She was a passionate woman.

  Skobelev didn't notice. He picked up his cup and sipped daintily. His gestures were like his clothes, tidy and perfect. A man to whom perfection was perhaps a god.

  "It's simple, really," he said. "Only the best men should rule the world. Why do we have so many problems? So many wars? Because the wrong kind of people get into leadership roles. They're fooled into trusting nonexistent gods. Genetically and hormonally they're incapable of making intelligent decisions that will benefit everyone."

  "And you are?" Anna said quietly, her face a brilliant red.

  Skobelev didn't even glance at her. But Blenkochev did. Again the warning look. She dropped her eyelashes.

  "Of course!" Skobelev said confidently, his chest pushing against the while silk suit. "And that brings us to the issue of Carter."

  He gazed at Blenkochev. He was issuing a challenge. What was to be done with the American spy?

  Blenkochev looked coldly at Carter, and in that moment the AXE agent knew his usefulness to Blenkochev was over. He was abandoned.

  "Do whatever you like," the KGB man said. He'd achieved his reputation for ruthlessness by crawling up over the corpses of his no-longer-useful comrades. "He knows little about your operation. And that means Hawk knows next to nothing." By abandoning Carter, he strengthened his position with Skobelev and Silver Dove.

  "Then you're shortsighted," Carter said.

  Everyone in the room turned to stare at Carter. Until he'd spoken, he was a piece of furniture. Now they remembered that he had a life and will of his own. A reputation. It made them edgy, even more eager to be rid of him, just as they would any potentially dangerous animal. Only Anna looked at him sympathetically. And she was as powerless as he.

  "Take him away," Skobelev said, his fingers flicking with distaste at the AXE agent. "Kill him."

  Sixteen

  The heater in the corner across from Nick Carter hissed. The warm, stuffy office air stank of Leon Blenkochev's perfume. The hot eyes of the Soviet guards were focused on Carter, burning with the delightful prospect of killing him.

  Two of the Silver Doves grabbed his arms.

  Casually Carter shrugged, stepping between them.

  Carter still didn't have the information he needed. His weapons were gone. It was too early to fight.

  He wasn't surprised by Blenkochev's abandonment. When it was time, he'd have to figure a way to escape, but it wasn't time yet. His gaze swept the Soviets and settled on General Skobelev.

  "You're planning some kind of biological warfare," Carter said. "But it won't do you any good. We've almost got the serum to combat it."

  It was Skobelev's turn to shrug.

  "I'm not impressed," the Silver Dove general said, "unless you have proof of your serum."

  "No proof here, but I can tell you that the New Zealand doctors who treated the attaché and the Chilean soldier are working with our medical people. There'll be a breakthrough soon." Carter smiled, almost believing the lie. "Another miracle of modern medicine. By the end of the week."

  Skobelev studied Carter only a moment. Confidence surged through the general. His pastel, dandyish figure vibrated with it.

  "Nonsense," the Silver Dove leader decided. "Take him!"

  "The guards' grip on Carter's arms tightened and they walked him to the door.

  "When the entire world laughs at your threats you won't believe it's nonsense," Carter said.

  He allowed a sneer into his voice.

  A flush rose up the general's checks. He didn't want to be made a fool of. Still, he motioned to the guards, and they shoved Carter closer to the door.

  "They'll say, 'The stupid Silver Dove… as out of date as a dinosaur! " Carter laughed. " 'So behind the times they couldn't even win a mud-wrestling match! Do you think anyone will listen to threats of biological warfare when the United States will share the serum freely with everyone?"

  "Enough!" the general snapped.

  Skobelev stood. He was ramrod straight, dignified against Carter's impossible accusations. He believed in himself so thoroughly that the disbelief of others only strengthened him.

  He wasn't insane, not yet, but his unwillingness to reason had pushed him into fanaticism.

  "Americans all have one common malady," the general observed hotly. They think they're invincible. It will destroy them in the end!"

  He opened the door behind his desk. His movements bristled with pride. He was totally involved with himself as he strode through the dour and motioned to the guards to follow with their charge.

  "I'll show you, Nick Carter!" he proclaimed. "Great Killmaster. Great fool!"

  Carter smiled, a slow deep smile of satisfaction. Now perhaps he'd find out what was going on in the Silver Dove installation so well hidden inside the Antarctic mountain.

  * * *

  The laboratory on the other side of General Skobelev's office was another enormous room. The air temperature was controlled, thermometers placed strategically over lab tables and equipment.

  Glass and steel glistened under fluorescent lights. Culture dishes, bunsen burners, rows and rows of tubes and vials, electronic instruments, recorders, and white-smocked doctors and lab technicians — all males — filled the busy room. Carter had yet to see any other woman but Anna in the Silver Dove installation. Against the far wall, bright lights on computer consoles flashed on and off.

  In the heart of the room's scientific array was a thick glass cage about ten feet by ten feet. Scientists worked outside the glass cage, their hands inside gloves. Each of their minute hand movements was copied exactly by the hand movements of corresponding robots inside the glass cage. The robots carried, poured, heated, and slid samples under microscopes — whatever the hands of the working scientists demanded.

  "Very professional," Carter observed.

  He stood inside the door with Skobelev, Blenkochev, Anna, and the guards. After glancing over their shoulders at the visitors, the scientists went on working.

  Full of pride, Skobelev gazed at the scene.

  "Of course," Skobelev said arrogantly. "This is where we developed the strain. SD-Forty-two."

  "Silver Dove Forty-two," Anna murmured.

  Skobelev looked at her briefly, then dismissed her from his mind. The presence of her sex was an irritation, a reminder of worldwide imperfection.

  "And the original bacterium?" Carter said. "Was it found here?"

  Skobelev waved his arm to encompass the mountain.

  "Mutated and grown here," he said. "Soon we'll be ready! One of our cosmonauts stumbled on it in outer space. He kept it under sterile conditions until we had the lab here operating. It was easy to hide such a find in the layers of Russia's overweight bureaucracy."

  "I suppose Rocky Diamond proved useful to you," Carter said grimly, imagining Diamond's painful death.

  "The American aviator?" Skobelev said. "Yes. Such stamina. Still, he succumbed in twenty-four hours. That seems to be the maximum time needed for the bacteria to work. It was unfortunate for him that he had to land near here with engine trouble, and then that he saw my men. We grabbed him just as he was radioing our."

  "And now?" Blenkochev asked. "Now that everything is ready, when do we move?"

  The KGB leader appeared eager, as if he were truly a member of Silver Dove shaping a new future. Perhaps Blenkochev's joining hadn't been a ruse.

  Carter looked at him carefully.

  "Soon," Skobelev smiled. "Very soon, dear Blenkochev, we'll tell Chernenko and the others what we have here. Bacteriological warfare that will wipe out all the human lives it touches! They'll scream and complain, but they'll have no choice. They'll hand over control of Mother Russia. And with you and me joined, we'l
l rule Russia! I'll take the military, and you the government. Then, quickly, we'll force the nations of the world to the peace table, and great Mother Russia will benevolently rule the earth forever!"

  "Ah!" said Blenkochev, beaming.

  "I'm not convinced." Carter said. "Do you think the people who've struggled to power in their nations will capitulate so easily? Fighting for what they believe in is second nature. As soon as our serum is developed, your plan is dead."

  Skobelev threw back his head and laughed. His pastel figure shook with merriment. At last he pulled the crimson handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his eyes.

  "Your serum is based on the Chilean soldier and the New Zealand attaché?" the Silver Dove leader asked, chuckling.

  "Yes," Carter said.

  "Then it's worthless!" Skobelev said. "Those two died of the old bacterial strain! The new one is the one that killed Diamond. He stumbled into our hands just in time to be our first human guinea pig. It worked so well that we've discarded the others. The new strain is the one that we'll use to win the world. Your so-called serum is worthless!"

  * * *

  The cell Nick Carter was thrown in was cold and damp. It was a hole, blasted out of the granite mountain. The heavy steel door clanged shut, and he was in a semidarkness lit only by a hallway light through bars high on the door. Somewhere in the underground cells he heard women's voices, low, subdued, beaten.

  He stood, stamped his feet, and walked around the cell. He had no equipment. His weapons and radio were gone. He needed to escape now, to inform Hawk of what he'd learned.

  He paced the cell. It was furnished with a narrow cot, sink, and toilet. The smell of women lingered in it. He'd passed their cells as he was brought here.

  Women weren't good enough in the Silver Dove compound for anything but sex. In the distance, one of them sang a keening song of sadness and betrayal. Locked in until called, kept on birth control powders mixed in with their food, they were here only for the Silver Doves' physical pleasure.

  That pleasure was the women's single purpose in a life shortened by captivity and hopelessness. The Silver Doves' own women — their legal wives — would be home in Russia raising children and waiting for their heroic men.

  Carter walked the length of the cell, then back again. The women talked. Water dripped somewhere. He could almost hear the motors of the vehicles in the warehouse entrance overhead. He could almost feel the cold fresh air of the Antarctic summer. For one brief moment he thought of trout jumping in high New Zealand lakes.

  His gaze roamed the cell as if it, too, were a verdant wilderness humming with life and he were a man free to enjoy it.

  Then his eyes stopped. In the granite wall to the left of the cell door one of the women had scratched "God save me. God save us all."

  * * *

  Footsteps echoed in the corridor outside Carter's cell. He walked to the door and stared out between the high bar. It was Anna. Limp. Unconscious. Her blond hair streamed down her blue snow suit almost to the floor.

  Two Silver Dove guards supported her under the armpits at they dragged her down the hall past Carter's cell.

  "Where do we put her?" one of the guards said to the other in Russian.

  "Anywhere there's room," said the other.

  The second man was the Russian with the square face and the bushy black mustache. The man with whom — perhaps — Blenkochev had exchanged a silent sign of recognition when the group had first entered the Silver Dove installation.

  "Skobelev wants her for himself," the first one said. "After the first time, she'll have her own cell."

  "You can put her in here until then," Carter said from between his bars.

  The two looked up over their shoulders and frowned.

  "Blenkochev would like that," Carter went on. "His assistant. She'll have privacy here."

  His gaze drifted to the mustachioed guard. Carter thought he saw a moment of thoughtful hesitation, a willingness to please Blenkochev. It might be the key out of the Silver Dove installation.

  "And now that Blenkochev and Skobelev are partners," Carter continued, "well… I'm sure you can see why it s best to please both of the future rulers of the world."

  The appeal to vanity and self-rereservation worked on their thick faces.

  "It might be best," the mustachioed guard said.

  The other shrugged indifferently. The two wheeled Anna around and dragged her back to Carter's cell.

  The door opened noisily, letting in the sad sounds of the distant captive women.

  The men gestured Carter against the wall, then dropped Anna on the cot. As they turned to leave, their boots noisy on the granite floor, Carter stepped forward.

  "What about first aid for her?" he said.

  The first guard laughed and headed for the door, the other guard with the mustache close behind.

  "She's more than Blenkochev's assistant," Carter said softly behind the second guard's back.

  The mustachioed guard's boots worked noisily across the floor, hiding Carter's voice from the first guard. The man's shoulders tightened, but he didn't turn around.

  "She's his daughter," Carter said. "Tell him where she is."

  * * *

  The bruise on Anna's forehead was big and red, enough to knock out a man twice her size. Carter held her in his arms, keeping her warm as he lay protectively on the cot with her. He didn't like to think of her joining the doomed women in the cells along the corridor.

  From the size of her pupils, he believed she'd escaped a concussion. He would wait, and hope she awoke on her own. If she did, he would be more certain she was all right. There was nothing more he could do now.

  She was a small woman, fitting comfortably against him. His body encircled hers as if they'd been together often. He thought about the way she'd looked at him before he'd gone into his tent on the flat, snowy land. He remembered the veiled desire, and then the thickening in his throat as he admired her blond beauty.

  Her heartbeat was regular, her breath sweet. He brushed his lips against the fragrant silky hair and closed his eyes. She moaned and moved against him, a small hurt animal, sensuous without knowing it.

  * * *

  The kisses under his chin were light and feathery. The fingers traced the outlines of his ear. The lips moved up his neck, and deep warmth spread through him.

  "Nick," she murmured.

  "Anna, you're all right…?"

  Her lips fell on his mouth. Hungry. Demanding.

  He pulled her into him. Her body melted, heated him with desire.

  He swallowed the moisture in her mouth. Her tongue darted between his teeth, explored. Shivers of power coursed through him.

  He stood her up and pulled off her parka. She pulled off his.

  They undressed one another, standing, touching, feeling in the cold cell.

  She was small-waisted with high large breasts glowing like ivory in the dim light. A beautiful woman all over.

  Her lips parted, swollen with desire.

  He cupped the perfect breasts, kissed the nipples. She threw back her head and arched her back.

  "Oh. God!" she moaned.

  He picked her up, feeling the promise of her hot in his arms.

  She bit his neck and growled. Panting, Carter placed her on the cot.

  She pulled him down, and he entered her.

  They rocked together, as men and women have always joined, locked in the inescapable power of desire.

  * * *

  Later they lay entwined on the narrow cot, their clothes piled on them for warmth. She was a rough-and-tumble agent, believable disguised as a man, but in bed she was soft and fragrant, wearing her own kind of perfume that made Carter think of French wildflowers.

  He kissed around the lump on her forehead.

  "Still hurt?" he murmured.

  "It's the only place that does." She smiled. "I feel so good. All over. I'm not even angry anymore."

  "At Skobelev?"

  "At all of them. The way th
ey treat women, other minorities. The damned Silver Doves!"

  "And your father?"

  She was quiet a moment, then shrugged.

  "He doesn't know I'm here. He went to lunch with Skobelev. 'Man talk. " She sneered, clenching her fists.

  " 'A female wouldn't understand. So I went to the canteen. Some of the men… wanted me. There was a fight. I… got a couple. Then someone got me."

  "One of the doves who brought you said that Skobelev wanted you."

  She looked at him.

  "Skobelev?" she said, lips curling. "Me?"

  "I take it you'd rather pass."

  The edges of her mouth curled in a smile. Then she laughed.

  "He's ridiculous! How could anyone want him?"

  "He doesn't think he's ridiculous. He thinks he's going to run the world. With the help of your father."

  She was silent. She gazed around the granite cell.

  "We don't have any equipment," she said shortly. "How are we going to get out?"

  "You don't know whether your father's turned," he said, watching her beautiful regular features.

  Her expression didn't change.

  "He's not my father here," she said. "He's Leon Blenkochev, the great head of the feared KGB agency K-GOL. He gives me orders, and I don't question him."

  "He could have fooled us both, and betrayed his country. Your country."

  She closed her eyes.

  "I don't know what to do," she admitted.

  He stroked the long pale hair. She sighed, resting her forehead against his neck. Her breath was warm against his skin.

  "There's nothing more we can do now," he said. "Only wait."

  She tipped hack her head and gazed deep into his eyes.

  "I wanted you the first time I saw you," she said softly. "Back in New Zealand."

  She took his hand and moved it to her round breast. He cupped it, touched the nipple, and it rose erect.