The Istanbul Decision

by Nick Carter

  And it all centered on this new girl on the third floor.

  Russian, they'd told her. Hah! From an aristocratic émigré family in Paris. This girl was no more an aristocrat than Joan of Arc. Sister Marie-Therese had known aristocrats when she was a girl, barons and baronesses, counts and countesses, and this girl had none of their sense of responsibility to the aristocracy. She was a bore, with her penchant for American cigarettes and her nervousness she tried so hard to disguise. She spoke French like a schoolgirl and Russian like a peasant.

  And yet, all in all, it wasn't the girl who worried her. It was the men who'd preceded her.

  Two of them in long tweed coats, the hair along their ears and necks badly cut. They had come the day before she arrived, keeping their hands in their pockets always, the way men will do when they have something to hide. They wanted to inspect the hospital, they said. They represented a wealthy industrialist who would be paying a visit and who would need the best accommodations, especially seclusion. They'd chosen St. Denis because of it. He was a German, this master of theirs, and under a great deal of pressure, but it wasn't German with which they mangled the tongue of holy St. Augustine. It was.something more guttural, with origins further to the east.

  One of them wore a gun under his coat. She'd seen it when he reached in to get a pad for making notes: a small, coal black gun that glinted in the sunlight. That was when she knew they were coming again, the killers who killed for money or country or some other false god, and she knew she could not fight them again. She was too old; she'd grown too accustomed to peace.

  A pair of headlights swept the wall of the tiny chapel. Who could it be at this hour? she wondered. Then her old nun's heart began to beat wildly in her chest. It was them! The girl had been here less than a day, and they were here already! She grabbed the back of the pew with a gasp and tottered to her feet. She must stop them! She must bolt the door!

  * * *

  Cynthia Barnes watched the headlights break into a pattern and run across the wall. Nick! she thought excitedly.

  She pulled on her robe and slid into the wheelchair. It was about time he'd got back. She had a list of complaints about this place as long as your arm, starting with that hoary old nun who badgered her night and day, and he was going to have to listen to every one of them.

  She rolled to the window as the car stopped with a crunch on the gravel courtyard below. The sound gave her pause. It wasn't the sound made by a car making a leisurely call. There was an urgency in it she didn't like. It signaled danger.

  Two sets of footsteps, one to the door, the other off down the drive. Around to the back? she thought. Why is Nick sending someone around to cover the back?

  A second pair of headlights appeared on the wall as she heard the insistent knocking of the man at the door. Her heart leaped into her mouth. It wasn't Nick at all! The baited trap was being sprung too soon. Much too soon.

  The nun at the door told the man to go away. Everyone was sleeping. The man growled something in Russian, too indistinct to hear.

  Cynthia rolled to the nightstand and picked up the pack of Benson & Hedges, pulled one out, and lit it. What was she to do? Wait?

  The impossibility of successfully impersonating anyone's daughter suddenly came home to her, along with all she knew of Kobelev, his ruthlessness, his wild unpredictable temper… The cigarette began to shake uncontrollably.

  A soft rapping sounded at the door. "Mademoiselle, mademoiselle," came a woman's voice in a hoarse whisper.

  "Who is it?"

  "Sister Marie-Therese."

  "Come in. Come in."

  The old nun lumbered into the room. "They've come," she announced sternly.

  "Who?"

  "Whoever it is you're running from. They have caught up with you and you must go quietly. We cannot have any violence at the clinic. We have our other patients of which to think."

  "Have I asked you for protection?" Cynthia asked coldly.

  "No, you have not. But nevertheless, we want these men off the premises as soon as possible. I'll help you pack your things." She turned with the slow calculation of a battleship and began pulling clothes out of the dresser.

  "You mean you'd hand me over to them even if you knew they had every intention of killing me?" Cynthia asked incredulously.

  "That's no concern of mine or the clinic's. Our patients' outside lives are their own affair. There are times when even a sister of the Church must look the other way."

  "Thanks a lot," mumbled Cynthia, snuffing out what was left of her cigarette.

  The commotion at the front door had ceased. Now footsteps too numerous to count came tramping up the marble stairs toward the third floor.

  "What if I told you they plan to kill me?"

  The old woman stopped and stood still for a moment, a stack of underwear in her hand. "I would not want to know." She dropped the clothes, then bent and pulled out the lowest drawer.

  "A man is with them. A Russian. A man who wants to be head of their secret police. He has killed a good many in his time, and I'm sure he won't hesitate to kill me either."

  The woman stopped again, this time more briefly. "It is none of my concern," she said emphatically.

  "I have friends who were going to protect me. They'll be back. You must tell them."

  The old woman shook her head. "I cannot. You must not ask me."

  The footsteps were in the hall.

  "Dammit it, old woman, they didn't leave me a weapon."

  The old nun threw the last of the clothes on the bed and glared down at Cynthia. Then her eyes softened and her lips pursed in a mass of wrinkles as though she were weighing something in her mind. A loud banging at the door made her jump.

  "You're my only hope," Cynthia whispered as the old woman labored across the room to open it.

  Two burly men pushed their way in, almost knocking the sister down. They wore identical black turtlenecks, and their heads had been shaved to an even stubble. One held a machine pistol on the old woman while the other quickly searched the room.

  A few seconds later a third man came in and stood just inside the doorway. He was taller than the other two, his bearing more regal. His snow white hair was swept back off his forehead in a sharp widow's peak, and from beneath his arched brows his dark eyes darted, taking in everything at a glance.

  Cynthia didn't need an introduction. The mad glint in those eyes was unmistakable. It could only be Nikolai Fedorovich Kobelev himself.

  "Tatiana!" he exclaimed when those eyes finally lit upon her.

  She tried to force a smile.

  "I cannot let you take her," said the old nun, stepping forward.

  "What?" asked Kobelev in French, turning to her in bemused amazement.

  "She is a ward of the hospital. She must remain here until the doctor has signed her letters of discharge. I am sorry, but these are the rules."

  "I don't care about your rules. This is my daughter."

  "I am sorry, but I cannot allow it." She pushed herself between the goon with the gun and situated herself squarely between Kobelev and Cynthia. She was being foolish, thought Cynthia, but brave. "You have no right to barge in here and take one of my patients!" the old woman snapped. "We have procedures to follow and they simply cannot be ignored."

  Kobelev snorted a short laugh, then turned to Cynthia. "Such is the security with which the Americans provide you," he said to her in Russian. Then he motioned to one of his men, who took the old woman forcibly by the arm and pulled her out of the way.

  "You must not take her!" the old nun shouted, stamping her foot on the toe of the man who held her. He raised his foot in pain, and she pulled away and hobbled toward Kobelev. "In the name of the Church and all that is holy to man and God, I demand you leave these premises immediately!"

  She reached him and grabbed him by the arm, although whether to restrain him or support herself was not altogether clear. Kobelev s eyes flashed angrily, and with a quick jerk of his head, he signaled the man with the gun
. A short burst of gunfire and the nun collapsed against the bed.

  "Sister!" Cynthia shouted mournfully, and Kobelev swung around to her wide-eyed. And in mat brief instant the weeks of work by the team of plastic surgeons, the hours of studying films of Tatiana, the way she moved, tossed her head, held herself in her wheelchair, of memorizing every known fact of her background, and of imitating her voice until every intonation and nuance was honed to perfection, were lost. For that anguished moment, she was Cynthia Barnes, not Tatiana Kobelev.

  Five

  Carter peeked out from a darkened doorway in the headquarters of the Freie Deutsche Jugend, the Communist youth organization. The street was deserted in either direction except for a car parked against the opposite curb. Whether it was private or official was impossible to tell through the curtain of falling rain, but it was occupied. A trail of exhaust rose from its tailpipe.

  So far he'd been lucky. In the two hours he'd spent in the Eastern Sector he'd encountered no one. Unlike its western counterpart, East Berlin is virtually deserted at night. Except for a few main thoroughfares, even the streetlights are turned off. He'd managed to walk the mile and a half to the Brandenburg Gate, slip in a side door, ascend the wrought-iron staircase to the roof, stash his cylinder, then slip away without being seen. The only person who might have noticed him, the guard stationed atop the gate to watch the wall, which was only a few hundred yards away, never stopped chewing his sandwich.

  Now all that remained was to find Mariendorfstrasse, assess the security, then maybe get a few hours of sleep on a bench somewhere before the actual confrontation with Kobelev. According to Kliest, Mariendorfstrasse lay only two blocks north of his present position. He could walk it in a minute, except he had no wish to be seen, and his coal-stained clothes and blackened hands and face would certainly arouse suspicion.

  A door opened in a building across the way, and an oblong of light spilled into the rain. Two men and a woman, singing a drinking song and laughing, staggered over to a car, pulled open its doors, and got in. Then the driver rolled the car into the center of the street, turned left, and disappeared. Carter waited until he heard them shifting into third in the next block before he pulled his coat collar up and started down the street.

  No doubt a trap had been laid for him in Mariendorfstrasse. He expected it. He'd have lost respect for Kobelev if one hadn't. The trick was to reconnoiter early, figure a way to spring the trap without getting caught, and in the process get close enough to Kobelev to get off a shot.

  It was a good bet Kobelev would show. If the information about his slipping prestige was accurate, it would mean he couldn't entrust killing Carter to a mere minion. He'd have to come himself to make sure the job was done right. And when he did show, Carter would kill him. This time there would be no mistake.

  Mariendorfstrasse was dark, darker even than the other streets he'd passed through. It was after four-thirty by this time, and in other streets lights were coming on as people began to make ready to leave for work on the early shifts in the factories along Friedrichstrasse and Unter den Linden that opened at six. There were no such lights here, though. Here everything was black as ink.

  Even the house numbers were invisible. If it weren't for the street sign at the corner indicating this was the unit block, he'd have no way of knowing where to find number fourteen. Carter assumed number one began on the south side and number two on the north as it did in most cities, and he began counting off the numbers as he walked.

  There was something strangely quiet about this street. His footsteps sounded hollow against the pavement, and the houses themselves, which were little more than black outlines against the slightly grayer background of the night sky, seemed to float like ghost ships in a sea of black.

  "Eight… ten," he counted, then his foot struck something on the sidewalk. He bent down. A stone or rather, as he examined it, a brick, broken in half. Odd, he thought, in a country that was normally so clean to find a broken brick lying out in the street. Then a trickling of realization began to pass through him, coupled with a premonition of disaster.

  He ran to number fourteen. He got a few steps up the walk, then fell headlong into a pile of bricks and boards and chunks of plaster.

  Bricks and boards and chunks of plaster — rubble! From his hands and knees he saw the house windows were nothing more than gaping holes with gray sky behind them.

  Kobelev had tricked him! There was no safe house here. The whole street was nothing but a graveyard of bombed-out shells that hadn't been cleared since the end of World War II!

  But why? Why send him on a wild-goose chase to East Berlin? To keep him out of the way while Kobelev ran an operation somewhere else? That had to be it. But where?

  Dijon! The thought hit him with such certainty, he knew it had to be true. Somewhere there was a hole in the dam. Somehow, through some source no one had ferreted out yet, Kobelev had tumbled to where they were moving his "daughter," and he'd decided to snatch the bait before they could spring the trap. Security there wouldn't be battened down for another twenty-four hours. If he moved now, he could waltz in and waltz out without firing a shot.

  Carter scrambled to his feet and started running, his mouth dry with fear. He had to get back as quickly as possible, because it wouldn't be long before Kobelev found out it wasn't Tatiana he'd snatched.

  He rounded the comer into Friedrichstrasse, which was lit up like Fifth Avenue at Christmas, and flattened himself against a building. The city was starting to come alive. A few yards away a baker was unloading his truck, and at the next intersection cars were passing. He couldn't use the main thoroughfares any longer; he'd have to stick to the back streets and hope he wasn't seen.

  He doubled back into Mariendorfstrasse and scaled a mound of rubble between two of the houses. In the next street three houses had lights on, and in front of one a man was trying to grind a battered BMW to life. He cut between two houses that were still dark and started to scale a chain-link fence. He was poised on top of it, about to jump into the adjoining yard, when a fierce barking sent a jolt of adrenaline to his already racing heart.

  He let himself down cautiously, pulling the Luger from its holster. The barking hushed to a low menacing growl. The dog was somewhere in the shadows, and although it was impossible to see it, the animal sounded big. Carter inched to his left, hoping to draw the beast into the light, but it held its ground.

  As nearly as he could make out, he was in a narrow courtyard, the two long sides of which were brick walls. The ends, one leading to the alley and the other to the street, were fenced. The dog stood between him and the street end. He could always retreat the way he'd come, he thought, but there was no guarantee he wouldn't get half his leg torn off trying to climb the fence, and if he were going to have his pant leg and God-only-knew-what-else shredded, he might as well be going forward.

  He began to move in that direction, hoping the low rumbling growl he was hearing was more threat man bite, when a light flashed on in a window overhead. The lock snapped open and someone began struggling to pull open the sash.

  Carter dashed for the opposite fence. He'd mounted it and was about to pull his leg over when sharp teeth grabbed his ankle and wouldn't let go. By this time the window had been pulled open and the outline of a large woman loomed behind it. "Wer ist da?" she shouted.

  Carter slammed the butt of the gun against the dog's head and the animal fell back.

  Carter jumped and fell into a line of refuse containers mat scattered and rolled, clanging in all directions. Another light snapped on in the house next door. He scrambled to his feet and began running headlong down the sidewalk.

  A sharp pain in his left leg forced him to limp, slowing him down, but this didn't worry him particularly. In a few minutes that dog's owner would realize her pet was knocked out. Then the alarm would be raised and the border immediately closed. He had a plan for getting over the wall, but it depended on reaching Brandenburg and the cylinder before dawn. A police dragnet between
here and the gate might hinder him considerably. His only hope, then, was to cover the ground before the police could mobilize to stop him.

  He turned into Friedrichstrasse, this time heedless of the lights, passed the kiosks and empty shops, and headed for Unter den Linden, at the end of which was the Brandenburg Gate. He wondered if there were such things as joggers in East Germany. He must be quite a spectacle, he thought, limping along, his hands and face blackened with soot from the coal car, but he hadn't time to let it bother him.

  The bus and truck traffic had greatly increased even in this short time, and private cars had begun to appear. The clock on the side of the Ministerium für Aussenhandel und Innerdeutschen Handel read five o'clock.

  He reached Unter den Linden, the street Frederick the Great had hoped to turn into a showcase of the Prussian Empire by planting four rows of lime trees up its middle, and turned left. The leaves had all fled, and the lime trees looked like scrawny black hands clawing the night sky. He rushed off the curb just as a heavy, freight-laden truck rounded the comer. Its horn blared, and for an instant Carter froze in midstride, not knowing which way to jump. The eight huge back wheels clattered against the pavement as the driver tried to get it stopped. He couldn't and swerved, running the truck into a park bench and uprooting a tree.

  Carter watched, slightly dazed, as clouds of steam rose from the truck's massive radiator and became lost in the gray mist. The driver's door opened, and a big man with his shirt-sleeves rolled tightly across his biceps climbed out.

  "Du…!"he began.

  Carter took off again. Behind him someone shouted, "Halten Sie!" and a shot sounded. A second shot, and a white streak suddenly appeared on the pavement just in front of him. Up ahead Brandenburg loomed in the mist, not more than two blocks away.

  A truck with a conveyor on its rear bumper churning a steady stream of vegetable crates into a store blocked the sidewalk just ahead. To go around meant swinging wide into the street and giving whoever was behind him a clear shot. Carter elected to go under and dove headfirst, but before he could pull himself up on the other side, a strong pair of hands grabbed his shoulders. He came up fighting, about to slam his fist into the man's belly, when the man quickly said. "Ich bin ein Freund." Their eyes met, and Carter made an instant decision to trust him.