Operation Petrograd

by Nick Carter

  He turned and went back to a window in the rear wall of the hangar. Forcing it open, he climbed inside, and almost immediately the strong odor of gasoline hit him. The hangar was filled with gas fumes. One spark, one match, and the entire place would go up.

  The big service doors at the front of the hangar were partially open, but the wind was coming from that direction, trapping the fumes inside.

  From where he stood, Carter could make out something on the concrete floor a few feet in from the door.

  Suddenly it dawned on him what he was seeing, and why the hangar was filled with gas fumes. He stepped away from the window and hurried across the hangar to where a man in a leather flying jacket lay facedown in the middle of a big pool of gasoline that had spilled out of the five-gallon jerry can he had been carrying. The back of his head had been shot off. Carter guessed a high-caliber handgun… probably a Graz Buyra, the Russian's favorite weapon of assassination.

  He was probably the pilot Kazuka had arranged to take Carter up to Hokkaido. But why had they shot him? And what had they done with Kazuka?

  Carter stepped around the gasoline and looked outside, toward the rear of the terminal building across the broad taxiway. The building was quiet and dark. It meant nothing. They could be watching from inside, waiting for him to show himself… unless Kazuka had managed not to tell them whom she was waiting for. In that case they wouldn't be expecting anyone else.

  Steeling himself for the shot, Carter slipped out of the hangar and dashed across the taxiway to Kazuka's Datsun.

  Nothing happened. No alarms were raised. No shots were fired. No one had come running.

  Carefully Carter looked up over the edge of the door at the building. Still there was no movement. Kazuka's keys dangled from the ignition.

  Carter moved around behind the car and, keeping low, hurried the last few feet to the terminal where he flattened himself against the wall.

  He had to duck beneath the windows to make it to the edge of the building, and he looked around the corner toward the Cessna parked out front.

  No one was in the plane. He could see the cockpit clearly from where he crouched. The fuel filler access hatches on both wings were open. Kazuka's pilot had evidently come in, opened the flaps, and was going for fuel to top the tanks when he had been hit.

  But what about Kazuka?

  Carter made his way to the front of the building, where again he hesitated a moment before he looked around the corner. The gray Mercedes from the airport was parked by the front door a few yards away from the tail of the Cessna. Carter hadn't been able to see the car when he drove up because it was around the corner from the access road. But it also meant that if anyone was in or near the car, or was looking out the front windows, they would not have seen him approach without headlights.

  There was still a fair chance they weren't expecting him.

  Carter started to step out of the shadows, when someone came out of the terminal, walked around the front of the Mercedes, and crossed to the Cessna.

  From his vantage point, Carter could see that the man was probably Russian; he was big and bulky, his features, even from that distance, dark and Slavic.

  The Russian climbed up onto the Cessna's wing with some difficulty because of his size, opened the door, and looked inside.

  Carter stepped around the corner, and keeping low, he raced across the apron and around the tip of the Cessna's wing. The Russian, sensing someone was behind him, started to turn, when Carter grabbed a handful of his coat and hauled him off the wing, down onto the ground.

  The Russian grunted like a pig when his head bounced off the hard ground. He started to reach for his gun, when Carter brought the point of his stiletto up to the man's throat.

  "You will lose a lot of blood, comrade, once your throat is cut," Carter said in Russian.

  The KGB operative's eyes widened. For a long moment it seemed as if he would try for his gun despite the blade a quarter inch from his carotid artery, but then he sank back, a deep sigh escaping from his lips.

  "A wise decision, believe me," Carter continued in Russian. "Who else is in the building?"

  The Russian just stared at him.

  "I'm disappointed. You have killed my pilot. I found his body. Now I will need a very good reason not to kill you."

  The first hint of fear began to show in the Russian's eyes.

  "Who else is in the terminal, and exactly where are they?"

  "Just my partner and the woman," the man said, his voice low.

  "What woman?"

  The Russian's eyes narrowed. "The wire services editor. Your friend."

  "You were the ones from the airport?"

  The Russian nodded.

  "Why were you following her around?"

  The Russian held his silence.

  Carter flicked the blade to the right, opening a small cut in the Russian's chin. The man jerked violently, a small trickle of blood running down his neck.

  "I have no patience, comrade," Carter hissed. "I will kill you at this moment unless you answer my questions…"

  The Russian, apparently more frightened of the consequences of answering questions than of Carter's blade, heaved to the right, shoving Carter off-balance. Carter tried to bring his knife arm around, when the Russian's meaty fist clamped onto his wrist, bending it backward toward the breaking point. At the last moment, Carter willed his arm to go limp, while he brought his knee around sharply into the Russian's ribs.

  Carter's stiletto fell to the ground. The Russian rolled over and jumped to his feet, clawing inside his jacket for his gun.

  There was no time for niceties. Carter rolled back and kicked up with both feet, catching the Russian in the groin. The bigger man went down with a grunt, but he had his gun out.

  Carter looked up as the Russian was pulling back the hammer, trying to steady his aim. Desperately Carter reached out, his fingers curling around the stiletto's handle. In one smooth motion he flipped the blade toward the Russian with every ounce of his strength, the blade burying itself to the hilt in the KGB agent's chest.

  The Russian seemed confused. He could no longer hold up his gun. He looked at the knife jutting from his chest, then back to Carter. He started to shake his head, but he couldn't, and he fell forward on his face. Dead.

  Carter looked over toward the terminal as he got to his feet. No one had come out to investigate. Yet.

  Quickly he turned the Russian over onto his back, pulled out the stiletto, and wiped the blade clean on the man's shirt.

  The Russian had come out to look inside the Cessna. Why? Carter climbed up on the wing and looked inside. The charts were scattered over the passenger seat. The Russian was trying to find out where the plane was headed. One of the charts clearly showed Hokkaido. Once the Russians found out that someone from Tokyo would be flying to the north island — someone connected with the search for the Petrograd chip — they would probably put two and two together and realize that someone was going to make a try for Svetlaya.

  Carter turned and climbed down off the wing. Whoever else was inside was going to have to be stopped. At all costs.

  Across the taxiway, Carter flattened himself against the wall next to the front door. There were no sounds or lights from within.

  He eased the door open, looked down the long corridor, and then stepped inside, ducking low behind a service counter to the right.

  A light shone from beneath a door halfway down the corridor. No light was visible from outside. Evidently it was an inside room without windows.

  The building was old, constructed in the Western style. Carter suspected it had been used as an American postwar occupation forces air operations center. It was unusual for the Japanese to waste such a field and building.

  Quietly Carter made his way down the corridor and put his ear to the door. At first he could not hear a thing. But then he began to make out a soft whimpering sound, as if some hurt animal was cornered inside.

  The hair stood up on the nape of his neck,
and his muscles bunched up. It was Kazuka!

  Carter reared back and slammed his shoulder into the thin wooden door, putting all his weight behind it. The door burst open, half off its hinges.

  He took in the scene in an instant.

  The room had once been an office. It was in shambles. Kazuka, nude, was lied roughly to a wooden swivel chair whose spring was broken so that it lay back against the wall.

  Blood had trickled down her breasts from a series of small cuts, and high on the inside of her thighs were a dozen angry red marks from the tip of a cigarette.

  A hand towel had been stuffed in her mouth and taped in place.

  "Kazuka," Carter said softly.

  She looked up, and desperately nodded to Carter's right as something very hard slammed into the side of his head.

  He went down, his knees giving way, and crashed into the desk. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a thick-soled shoe coming down toward his face, and he managed to scramble aside.

  His ears were ringing, and he was seeing a faint double image. The Russian above him was much larger than the one outside by the plane. His coat was off, his tie was loose, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up. He was sweating. He was the one who had tortured Kazuka. And he had worked up a sweat doing it.

  The thought galvanized Carter. He leaped up on one knee as the Russian stepped back so that he could take another swing with a heavy coat tree.

  Carter was too fast for him, though, leaping to the man's inside, the coat tree crashing harmlessly on the desk, splintering the top. Carter hit him twice in the face, the Russian's nose splitting, blood flying.

  The Russian was an incredibly strong man. He reared back and shoved Carter away as a giant might swat an irritating fly.

  When Carter charged again, the Russian hammered four fast flows into Carter's chest. The Killmaster thought his heart would stop; the room seemed to be filling with a blood-red haze. Still the Russian came after him, hammering his stomach, his chest, and the side of his head.

  The Russian lifted Carter off his feet and threw him against the wall. The entire building shook.

  Carter fell to his knees. He needed just a second or two to catch his breath, to stop the spinning in his head, the sick, broken feeling in his chest.

  He looked up as the Russian turned to pick up the coat tree. The man's image seemed to be wavering back and forth.

  Carter managed to get to his feet. The Russian started to turn at the same moment Carter leaped onto his back, grabbing the man's head in both arms and twisting with everything he had left.

  The Russian bellowed like a wounded bull. He dropped the coat tree and reared back, slamming Carter against the wall again. Still Carter held on, tightening his grip, pulling the Russian's head farther around.

  Now it became a desperate life-and-death struggle. The Russian kept slamming Carter's body against the wall, and Carter kept pulling his head around.

  The last thing Carter remembered was looking into Kazuka's fear-widened eyes, and then the room began to go soft, and he was falling.

  What seemed like hours later. Carter became aware of a deep pain in his chest, and of the same crying sound as before. Painfully he pushed himself over and opened his eyes.

  For a long time he was having trouble focusing on anything, but then it all came back to him in a big rush, and he was able to get to his feet.

  The big Russian lay dead on the floor, his neck broken, his head at a terribly unreal angle. When he had died he had lost control of his muscles, and had voided his bowels. He didn't look or smell very pretty.

  Carter stumbled over to Kazuka, where with care he removed the tape from her face and the gag from her mouth. She took deep gulps of air as Carter got his stiletto and cut the bonds at her arms and legs.

  "Are you all right?" he rasped, barely able to hold himself together.

  "I thought you were dead, Nicholas. I didn't know…" Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  "Are you all right, Kazuka?" Carter insisted, helping Her to her feet.

  "They didn't break anything," she said, but it was obvious that she was in pain. "What about you? Is your chest all right?"

  "A couple of broken ribs, I think. But we've got to get out of here."

  "As soon as their bodies are discovered, they'll know at the embassy where we're headed."

  "Someone from the office will have to come out and clean up this mess. They can dump the bodies in the river."

  "What about Koji?" Kazuka cried, suddenly remembering the pilot.

  "He's dead. They killed him."

  "I can't fly…"

  "I can," Carter said. "But we've got to get out of here — and right now!"

  Five

  The small airstrip at Haboro on the west coast of the island of Hokkaido was about sixty miles south of the fishing village where their AXE contact maintained radio operations.

  It was nearly three in the morning before Carter and Kazuka managed to get everything straightened up at the airstrip outside Tokyo, get themselves cleaned up, and make arrangements for the special suitcase coming from Washington to be delivered.

  The sun was just edging into the eastern mountain valleys when they spotted the field a half mile inland from the sea. It looked cold down there. Sometime during the night the island had had a dusting of snow. A few hundred miles across the Sea of Japan, Svetlaya would be even colder, backed by the Sikhote-Alin Mountains through whose passes roared blizzard winds.

  Kazuka had managed to get some sleep on the way up, though she was in pain. Her wounds were mostly superficial, but they had been designed to inflict the maximum pain.

  Carter had wanted her to remain in Tokyo, but in the end she had convinced him that he would need an introduction up here with the suspicious north island fishermen. He was tall, he was Caucasian, he would be an outsider.

  He wasn't in very good shape himself. His ribs had been taped up, and it was impossible for him to take a deep breath without causing a sharp stitch of pain. And he figured he was probably suffering from a slight concussion. He hadn't said anything to Kazuka, but twice during the six-hundred-mile flight he had begun to see double. The spells lasted only a second or two each time, but they were bothersome.

  The airstrip was maintained by the local fish processing companies who brought some of their catch fresh to the Tokyo market.

  Kazuka got on the radio and secured permission for them to land, and Carter lined up smoothly with the broad runway.

  The wind was gusting, but the 310 was a heavy airplane, and she sank nicely, at a slight crab, for a perfect landing.

  Five minutes later they had taxied across to one of the private hangars used by a Tokyo air tour service, had shut off the engines and secured the plane, and had walked across to the operations office and small tearoom.

  Kazuka made the necessary arrangements for the plane to be serviced and stored, and got them transportation in the form of a battered but clean fifteen-year-old Chevrolet Impala with power everything, none of which worked very well.

  Haboro was a good-sued city of more than thirty thousand. Carter had been concerned that their arrival would be noticed.

  "There is a lot of traffic in and out of Haboro," Kazuka said. "Besides the fishing industry, they think oil may have been discovered. So right now there are a lot of Western geologists coming and going."

  "Doesn't it make the Russians nervous?"

  "I don't think so, Nicholas. No more so than the Alaskans are nervous that the Soviet Union is only twenty miles across the Bering Strait from the mainland. We can't change the facts of geography."

  The narrow highway followed the jagged shoreline north. The region was heavily forested. Inland, hills rose up toward the snow-capped mountains. Along the coast were quaint little fishing villages, each incredibly neat and each nearly a carbon copy of its neighbors with thatched roofs and tiny courtyards.

  Carter had been to Japan on many occasions. Always he was struck by the contrast between the cities and the rural are
as. In Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto, life was very Western and went on at a furious pace just like any other big city around the world. But in the countryside, the Japan of old was still evident. Life was well ordered and moved at a very steady pace. The people here lived by the day and the night, and by the seasons, not by the day of the week or the month of the year. In Japan's countryside. Carter always felt a certain peace, yet just a few miles across the sea — no matter what the locals thought to the contrary — was a weapons system that could embroil the entire world in nuclear war.

  * * *

  AXE's contact in Hokkaido was Heidonara Ishino-mari, a tough old man, according to Kazuka, who lived with his five sturdy daughters who worked the fishing boat for him and worshipped the ground he walked on. His wife and only son had been killed ten years earlier in an accident at sea involving a Soviet fishing trawler. He wouldn't say exactly what had happened, but since then he and his daughters provided a listening post for AXE and reported on Soviet ship movements in the area.

  His friends called him Heido, and in addition to Japanese he spoke passable Russian and horribly mispronounced English. His house was nestled in the hills outside of Wakkanai, overlooking the Sea of Japan to the west and to the north, the La Pérouse Strait that separated Hokkaido from Soviet-owned Sakhalin Island.

  Two of his daughters came out of the main house when Carter and Kazuka drove up the steep road, and directed them to park the Chevrolet in the low shed around back.

  Kazuka got out first and went up to the house to speak with Heido while Carter parked the car and got their bags out of the back seat.

  The two girls took the suitcases from Carter and with little bows and shy smiles motioned that he should lead the way up to the house. They did not speak English.

  "You have a very beautiful island here," Carter said in a fairly good imitation of Ainu, which was the local dialect of the peasants.