The Istanbul Decision

by Nick Carter

  "You don't know him. He's a man given to dramatic gesture. In Russia when I was posing as a defector who wanted to join his ranks, he wanted to test my loyalty. He could have done it any number of ways — left himself exposed at some critical time, waiting to see what I would do, something subtle to trap me into thinking I could kill him and get away with it. But what does he do? He stages an elaborate fencing match in front of his entire family. You see? He's like a bullfighter working close to the horns. He thrives on danger. Besides, we know the grandmother is important to him. She all but saved him from an overbearing father. And we know he hasn't been out of the Soviet Union for almost a decade, so he can't have seen her lately."

  "All right," said Roberta, her bright eyes flashing. The prospect of being in on the Kobelev kill obviously excited her. "Suppose you're right about the grandmother. What do we do then?"

  "I lay the trap and spring it."

  "What about me?"

  "I want you at the train," Carter said. "No matter what does or does not happen, one of us must be on that train when it pulls out of here. Do you understand?"

  She nodded solemnly, and he reached over and pecked her on the cheek.

  Eleven

  Translated from the Hungarian, the sign in the dirt and stone plot that passed for a courtyard read: "Béla Kun Housing Project. Erected 1968. Western Hungarian People's Housing Collective." Beyond the sign stood six concrete rectangles, seven stories high, each rectangle composed of many smaller rectangles, each smaller rectangle with an iron balcony railing across it, and from each balcony railing a line of wash flapped in the late morning sunlight. It was Sunday, the family day. People milled on the sidewalk, and promenaded up and down the street, laughing and talking with neighbors and pushing baby carriages.

  Carter sat in Roberta's Fiat, parked in a line of cars directly across from Building "A," his eyes sifting the movement on all sides of him, alert for anything unusual.

  The grandmother was definitely here — Judit Konya, age ninety-three, first floor center — and she had received a message earlier in the day that had set up a bucket-brigade conversation between her apartment door and the phone because she was too old to make it to the end of the hall. Carter knew this thanks to a garrulous maintenance man with an acute appreciation of fine Hungarian wine who was not averse to receiving several bottles as a present in exchange for a little information.

  And yet even though remembering the grandmother's name, then finding it in a phone book of thousands of Hungarian names — all of which began to look alike after a few pages — was a small triumph in itself, the mere fact that she was here was no guarantee Kobelev was coming. The longer Carter sat, the more he began to suspect he wasn't, and that in his zeal to find a chink in Kobelev 's armor, he had succeeded only in wasting more time, precious seconds that brought Cynthia closer and closer to the inevitable debriefing and execution deep in the bosom of Mother Russia.

  He folded the newspaper he'd been using to cover his surveillance and got out of the car. A sick feeling in his stomach told him everything was going wrong. He put his hands in his pockets and walked resolutely to a small restaurant at the end of the block. Three old men playing ultimo on an upended crate stopped talking as he walked by, and he realized he was beginning to raise suspicions in the neighborhood, which only increased his uneasiness.

  The owner-manager, a heavyset, round-faced man, was having an animated conversation with a young man at a back table in the otherwise empty room. He looked up as Carter walked in and gestured impatiently. Carter went to the counter to the phone. It was the fourth time this morning he'd made this call, and the ritual with the owner had abbreviated itself into a routine.

  He was slipping, he told himself as his connection went through; he was getting sloppy. The whole block knew he was here, waiting for something, and that wasn't good. If he had any sense, he'd abandon this whole line of action.

  "Nick?" Roberta Stewart was on the line.

  "Anything yet?" he asked in Hungarian.

  "The circus just got off. Isn't it funny how Kobelev thinks? He's kidnapped the entire train, won't let anybody off, yet he still feels he has to keep the passengers entertained. It's almost as if he's apologizing for the inconvenience."

  "He's mad. I just hope his egomania proves his undoing," said Carter.

  "Then there's nothing new on your end either?" she asked, a bit of anxiety spilling into her voice.

  "Nothing."

  "Listen, Nick, I've been thinking. Kobelev doesn't know me from Adam. He's got a whole slew of flower girls lined up here waiting to board. I could get one of those costumes real easy…"

  "Absolutely not," said Carter, cutting her off.

  "But Nick…"

  "No, Commander. You've been outranked. I've changed my mind. You 're not to make any attempt to board that train. Is that clear?"

  "Yes, sir," she said after a long hesitation.

  "I don't want to hear any more of that kind of talk. I'm coming to the conclusion Kobelev is still on board and has no intention… wait a minute."

  The sleek outline of a black Soviet-made Zil limousine with diplomatic tags suddenly appeared in the restaurant's plate-glass window.

  "I think I'm getting a bite. I'll get back to you." Carter hung up and strode out the door. The limousine moved slowly up the street, stopping every few buildings.

  Carter walked briskly back to the Fiat. The Luger was in the glove compartment. He got it out, pulled the ammunition clip from the handle, and began stuffing it with the cartridges he had in his pocket. These shells, along with all other firearm paraphernalia, were forbidden to private citizens of Hungary and finding them early on a Sunday morning had been a tribute to Roberta's seemingly endless connections on this side of the border.

  The limousine jerked to a stop in front of Building «A» just as Carter finished loading the pistol. He pushed it into the holster he still wore at the small of his back, then got out of the car and walked off rapidly in the opposite direction.

  When he reached the middle of the block, he crossed over and started back down the other side. Two men had gotten out of the limo and stood with their hands thrust deep in the pockets of their trench coats. They glanced up and down the sidewalk. The usual KGB goon squad, thought Carter. A moment later a man with an unmistakable mane of snow white hair climbed out of the back seat. It was Kobelev.

  At the corner Carter ducked right and raced across a soccer field to the back of Building "B." The rear door stood ajar. He slipped in and hurried down the basement steps.

  Normally, he would have set this up along the lines of the classic sniper's approach: find a perch with a commanding view of the target, wait until he's in your sights, and fire. Escape percentages soar with even as scant a lead as five hundred yards on your pursuers. Altogether a preferable modus operandi, and he'd spent half the morning wishing Kliest were around with his tripod rifle. But he wasn't, which left only Wilhelmina. And although he knew its every foible, from its hairtrigger to the way it tended to pull to the left when there was a grain too much powder in the cartridges — something he was able to sense by the second firing — he did not trust the Luger at distances greater than one hundred yards. Even fifty was pushing it. To be absolutely certain Kobelev went down and stayed down, he was going to have to get close, close enough to smell the flesh burn.

  At one end of the basement was a door labeled BOILER. This, too, was open, and Carter went in and switched on the light. He had been here earlier with the maintenance man, and it was at that time he'd noticed something peculiar in the construction of these buildings. In the interests of economy the People's Housing Authority had opted for only one central heating system. A massive boiler had been built in the basement of Building "'B," large enough to heat the radiators and provide hot water for every unit in the project. This meant that somewhere in the ground between these buildings ran ducts big enough to hold all the necessary plumbing and big enough for a man to pass through in case something
had to be repaired.

  The boiler room was two stories high, the boiler in the middle taking up almost every inch. Along its bottom, flames danced through the grates of four large furnace doors. It was here Carter had first found the maintenance man. He was gone now, his wheelbarrow and shovel standing in the corner.

  A catwalk ringed the room on the second level, leading to a door that stood next to the tunnel down through which pipes were fed. Carter vaulted the railing, ran up the stairs and down the walkway, but when he reached the door, it was locked. Taking out his wallet, he squeezed a narrow, awl-shaped piece of metal out from along the seam and inserted it into the lock. In a few seconds the door swung open, emitting a blast of scorching hot air.

  He groped for the light switch but found nothing but rough cement. Repairmen apparently carried lanterns. He put one hand on the railing. It was hot. He stepped inside, feeling his way down the narrow walkway between the pipes and the side of the tunnel, trailing the other hand on the wall.

  Something nagged at the back of his mind. Kobelev. How could the man make such a monumental mistake as getting off the train?

  Twelve

  On the other side of the utility tunnel, Carter found himself in a basement room. It was lower and larger than the boiler room, lit by a series of narrow windows at ground level. Against the far wall stood a line of washtubs. Half the floor space was given over to parked bicycles.

  He took the Luger out and screwed on the silencer, then headed up a crude stairway made of two-by-fours. At the top he opened the thin plywood door a crack and peered into the hallway. A single line of fluorescent tubes illuminated the unremarkable milk white walls and a broken linoleum floor. Along one wall, about the height of a man's thigh, ran a grimy hand streak, and a tricycle lay overturned in a corner. Evidence of children, but there were no children, not even the murmur of their voices. Everything was quiet. Too quiet.

  They've cleared the building, Carter thought. Told everyone to either stay in or get out.

  He edged out into the corridor, snapping off the Luger's safety with his thumb. The old woman's apartment would be dead center on the side facing the street. He moved cautiously in that direction, on tiptoe to keep his shoes from scraping the floor.

  He had gone less than fifty feet when a door opened up ahead and two young men stepped into the corridor. Carter quickly ducked into the first available niche and pressed himself against the wall among the mops and buckets.

  "When a man breaks his bones and sprains muscles lime after time, you have to assume he's doing something wrong," one of them was saying. "Either his technique is bad or he's just clumsy. Janosch may be the greatest goalie in the world, but he's no good to anyone if he doesn't play."

  Soccer, Carter thought. At least they aren't security men.

  The voices came closer. Carter's heart began to race. Fresh droplets of sweat formed on his forehead- He pressed himself flatter against the wall, then looking down, he noticed to his horror that he had pushed one mop and bucket onto its edge, and it was about to topple to the floor. He grabbed it by the mop handle and eased it down on his foot to keep it quiet just as a third voice from somewhere behind the two men said. "Stop."

  The two pairs of footsteps suddenly halted, and another set walked a goodly distance down the hall toward them. "This building has been sealed for purposes of state security," the voice said.

  Carter peeked around the comer and saw it was one of the goons from the limousine.

  "But we are members of the maintenance committee. We have work to do," the young man with opinions on Janosch, the soccer goalie, protested.

  "It will not last long," said the KGB man. "Until then, we'd like everyone to stay in and keep these halls clear." His Hungarian was laden with a thick Russian accent. Most likely he was attached to the Soviet embassy, and he and his friend had driven up from Budapest this morning. But where was the other one?

  "State security," grumbled the other young man, speaking for the first time. "That's what they said when my father was killed."

  "We all have painful memories of the sacrifices the State calls on us to make," the KGB man said. "This is not a big sacrifice today. Spend a few hours at home, read the paper, whatever pleases you. Let us not stir coals that are better left to cool."

  Whether it was the reasonableness of the man's tone that convinced them or the familiar bulge in his trench coat pocket, which had not escaped Carter's notice, it was impossible to say, but the three turned and without a further word walked up the hall in the direction from which they'd come, leaving Carter alone in the corridor. A moment later the lights went out, plunging the corridor into darkness, only a small amount of light coming from the end doors.

  He waited a few seconds to make sure they'd really gone, then he began moving again, cautiously but quickly, in the direction of Judit Konya's apartment. The speed with which Kobelev's man had intercepted the two in the hall was disturbing. Obviously, not only were they barring people from entering the building, they were keeping a close watch on the interior as well, probably through the small chicken-wired windows at either end of the hall.

  He pushed along, his back against the wall, casting a small shadow, until he reached what he considered to be the most likely door. There was no name on it, nothing to distinguish it from any other door facing the hall except it was situated where he thought her apartment should be based on what the maintenance man had told him, and there were small marks along the bottom of the jamb, the kind made by the knock of the steel footrests of a wheelchair when it's not turned short enough.

  The door was unlocked. He came through, low and to one side, the Luger in both hands trained on two figures on the other side of the very dark room. One faced him in an old-fashioned wicker wheelchair, the kind used during World War I, a noble-looking woman with features seemingly carved from stone. Her eyes were closed, her head held at an attentive angle as though she were listening, although to what she was listening was not clear except that it was not in this room, or perhaps even of this world. On the wall behind her and to one side hung a crucifix done in the old Hungarian folk style. Myriad votive candles flickered on the table before it, providing what little light there was.

  The other figure kneeled in front of her as though praying, the houndstooth coat stretched across his broad back, over the collar a thatch of snow white hair. Kobelev!

  He fired twice, the shots slamming Kobelev forward and to the left. The old woman's eyes sprang open, the knuckle of her left index finger to her mouth.

  Carter stood slowly and came toward her, keeping the gun on the body sprawled headlong on the floor. There had been something very peculiar about the way it fell.

  He rolled it over with the toe of his shoe. The face was a blank pink cloth stitched in the general proportions of the human countenance. Fleetingly he wondered where the dummy had come from. They certainly hadn't brought it in from the limo.

  A noise forced him to turn around. It was one of those sounds that chill the blood several degrees without ever fully registering in the brain, like the rattle of a snake underfoot or the roar of an engine that's too close for comfort. Only in this case it was more muted: the simple metal-on-metal of a hammer drawn back and a cylinder clicked into position.

  He started toward the right when a silent tongue of fire lashed out from behind the door. Something sharp and extremely precise, like a power-driven needle, struck his left shoulder and sent him spinning against the wall, knocking over the tables and extinguishing the candles, plunging the room into darkness.

  A second silenced shot flashed from the same general location as the first, splintered the table edge, and deflected into the wall a foot or so above Carter's head. Carter fired where he'd seen the light. The bullet whined, glass tinkled, and something heavy hit the floor.

  There was dead silence for ten endless seconds, then the very low, agonized moaning of a human being in pain, regular as breathing, like the yawing of a rusty shutter in the wind.

&nb
sp; "Yuri?" the old woman queried the darkness.

  There was no answer.

  "Yuri?"

  Carter pulled himself to his feet, his shoulder throbbing with a steady, hot pain, and his fingers growing sticky with blood. He picked up a candle, lit it, and held it up. The flame pulsated to life, and the room's interior became dimly visible. A narrow bed was shoved into a corner, a rustic table beside it served as a nightstand, and above it on the wall were religious pictures of every description. To the left was a doorway that Carter assumed led to some sort of bathroom. The moaning came from inside.

  He stepped over with the candle. Lying on the floor, his head supported on one arm draped over the toilet bowl, was one of Kobelev's henchmen. His left eye was a blackened hole from which blood oozed. The other eye stared dumbly at the floor.

  Carter turned abruptly and came back across the room toward the old woman. "Who was he?" he hissed at her in Russian.

  "You've killed him?" she asked tremulously.

  "He's dead."

  "My grandson sent him. He told me I needed protection. A man was coming to kill me. Why would you want to kill an old woman like me?" Her head shook as she spoke, whether from fear or old age. Carter couldn't tell.

  "Your grandson lied. Carter said. His shoulder hurt like hell. "The other man," he went on, "the one outside. Do you know him?"

  "I don't know…"

  "Call him. Now." He started to push her wheelchair toward the door.

  "That's not necessary. You're not Russian."

  He thrust the Luger to within a few inches of her face. "Can you feel this?"

  Her hands flitted over Wilhelmina's barrel like liver-spotted butterflies. "It's a gun."

  "This isn't a matter of choice. You'll do as I say or I'll kill you."

  "I'm ninety-three. What makes you think I'm afraid to die?"