Operation Petrograd

by Nick Carter

  Scott tossed him a set of keys. "My Toyota Supra. I'm going to have to stick around to keep a lid on things here."

  "Don't say anything to the others except that I had to leave for a few hours to take care of something that relates directly to our mission. I'll be back on time to rendezvous with the sub."

  "And if you're not?"

  "Scrap the project. Hawk will be in touch."

  "Hansen will give us trouble…" Scott started to say.

  "I don't think so," Carter interrupted, and then he slipped out of the room, hurried to the end of the corridor, and took the stairs down.

  It was very cold. The wind off the sea was raw. Toward the east the sky was just beginning to lighten with the coming dawn. Carter drove up the main access road, the Korean guard opening the gate for him, and he headed back into the big city, pushing the car for all it was worth.

  Kazuka was a big girl and head of a major AXE office, he kept telling himself. She did not have a Killmaster designations but she was damned good at what she did. Still, even the best could not defend against overwhelming odds. If the opposition had you targeted either for the kill or for the grab, they would get you sooner or later. Evidently Kazuka had been targeted.

  * * *

  But where had they taken her, what had they done to her, and how much had they already learned? Someone from her office would be able to help, but the office itself had been targeted. If someone from Amalgamated Press began snooping around in too professional a manner, not only would Kazuka's life be forfeit, but so would future AXE operations in Tokyo.

  It was well after seven, and the morning rush-hour traffic was very heavy as Carter pulled off the super highway into a gas station/cafeteria on the outskirts of Tokyo. He parked in front of the Western-style truck stop and found a pay phone around the side near the rest rooms.

  He could not go the AXE office to make a call, nor did he trust the CIA compound's communications center. If he knew Major Rishiri, the Japanese had a monitor on all communications from the compound.

  It took the operator a couple of minutes to make the trans-Pacific connection, and Hawk answered on the first ring. He had been waiting for the call.

  "What did you tell Barber and the others?"

  "Nothing, sir. Scott is out there now. He'll explain what he can. What can you tell me?"

  "Roger Dhalgren was acting as her backup. He's the number-three man in the office there."

  Carter vaguely knew him as a young but pretty good operative.

  "Apparently she was trying to get things back to normal, so she attended a news conference at the Diet. Routine. As a wire service bureau chief."

  "Was Dhalgren inside with her?"

  "No. He was watching the approaches. He didn't see a thing until she came out with two Russians, got into a gray Mercedes, and left. He tried to follow them, of course, but he was working under the handicap that he couldn't afford to be spotted himself."

  "So they got away."

  "She's been missing since four o'clock yesterday afternoon your time."

  "Why wasn't I called earlier, sir?"

  "Dhalgren and the others wanted to see if they could come up with anything first."

  "Nothing?"

  "The Mercedes and her two abductors showed up early this morning back at the Russian embassy. Without Kazuka."

  Carter sighed deeply. "That means they either stashed her someplace safe, or they killed her and disposed of her body." He paused. "Have we got a license number on the Mercedes?"

  "Yes," Hawk said, and gave it to him. "But it'll be too dangerous for you to go ahead with the mission if she isn't found. You could all be walking into a big trap."

  "I understand, sir. I'll find her. But we're probably going to have some trouble with the Japanese; with Major Rishiri, to be more specific. He's suspicious about the coffin Arnold shipped back to Washington."

  "I know. We got a call from the State Department. His name was mentioned. He wanted confirmation of your death."

  "What did they tell him?"

  "Nothing, yet," Hawk said. "And it's going to have to stay that way, Which means you're going to have to keep out of his way."

  "I may have to upset the apple cart here in Tokyo in the next few hours, sir. In fact I can almost guarantee it."

  "Just find Kazuka, Nick. Let me worry about the major."

  "Yes, sir," Carter said, and he hung up.

  * * *

  It was warmer in Tokyo than it had been in the country, but a pall of smog hung over the great city. People were everywhere; streets were choked with traffic, sidewalks were wall-to-wall pedestrians, cafeterias were filling with the morning crowd, and in another hour the department stores would be opening to the daily onslaught of housewives.

  Carter drove out to the airport, parked Scott's car in a long-term parking lot, and rented a Ford Mustang that he took back into the city. Major Rishiri knew Scott's car, and it was a safe bet the Russians did too.

  On the way back into the city, Carter's thoughts turned to Kazuka. The Russians had already grabbed her once and tortured her. Despite her pain, she had operated up on Hokkaido and back here in Tokyo as if nothing had happened. Carter found his respect and admiration for her growing, and he had the crazy urge to race to the Soviet embassy, rush inside, and begin shooting up the place.

  The commuter rush was finished by the time Carter made his way into Kojimachi-ku, where he parked half a block from the Soviet embassy. Traffic was normal for this time of day.

  He adjusted his sideview mirror and slouched down a little lower in his seat. In the mirror he could see the front gate of the embassy without being obvious to observers inside the building.

  The Soviets employed no Japanese in their embassy, but many of their diplomats and lower-level bureaucrats lived off embassy grounds. There was a rush of these people coming into the embassy at around nine, with only an occasional night-shift employee coming out.

  Shortly after ten, a convoy of a half-dozen cars, all big Mercedes limousines, little Soviet flags fluttering on their fenders, emerged from the compound, picked up a Tokyo city police honor guard, and screamed off toward the Imperial Palace.

  Not much happened until around noon when several cars and at least a dozen people on foot left the embassy. Probably for lunch dates in the city, he thought. He was beginning to get concerned about the time. It would take at least an hour to make it back up to Mito, and they were due to rendezvous with the sub at eight o'clock. It meant they'd have to leave the compound by seven at the latest.

  He was running out of time.

  The limousines returned a few minutes before one, sirens screaming as before, and in the confusion Carter almost missed the gray Mercedes slipping out of the gate and heading in the opposite direction from where he was parked. He just caught a glimpse of the German car in his rearview mirror as it turned the corner at the end of the block.

  Carter started his Mustang, waited for a break in traffic, and then made a U-turn and sped off after the Mercedes, causing a couple of the policemen who had escorted the Russian diplomats to look his way.

  Around the corner there was no sign of the Mercedes. Carter sped up past the first intersection, and at the second he saw the car to the left. He ran a red light and nearly hit a bus. horns blaring and people shouting.

  If he were picked up by a traffic cop now, the mission, Kazuka's life, everything would be finished. The Mercedes would get away, and his presence would be reported to Major Rishiri. If the Japanese did not bring him up on charges for murder, at the very least they would send him home.

  No police came, however, and after a few more blocks he had settled down, driving well behind the Mercedes but close enough to see that the license number matched the one Hawk had given him.

  They headed north through Kanda and then wound their way up into the Tokyo hills, which were not very high but provided some relief from the monotonously flat landscape downtown. In the distance to the southwest, Mt. Fuji was visible in the m
orning haze.

  The number of houses began to thin out in this district. This was a wealthy section of Tokyo. Many well-to-do executives lived there, and the houses were much larger — some of them built in the Western style — than those closer to the city's center. The lots were fairly big, many with elaborate rock gardens behind high walls.

  Traffic was much sparser as well, and Carter had to hang back even farther lest they spot him. He almost missed the Mercedes. The road had curved up and to the left. For thirty seconds the German car was out of sight, and when Carter came around the corner, the street ahead was empty. He sped up, and just happened to look toward the right as he passed a particularly large, Japanese-style home. An automatic garage door was just closing on the Mercedes. Had he been two seconds later he would never have seen them.

  He drove the rest of the way up the block, turned to the right, and drove to the next avenue farther up the hill as it switched back and forth. There were a lot of trees and brush and rock here. Except for the individual home sites, the land had been left in a nearly pristine state. It could have been a touch of wilderness only minutes from downtown Tokyo. Only the very wealthy could afford such space.

  A tall concrete wall, capped with red roofing tiles, enclosed the garden directly above what Carter was assuming was a Soviet safe house below. He parked his Mustang and got out.

  It was very quiet here. There was absolutely no traffic, and the nearest house was half a block up the street, half hidden around a curve behind a grove of trees.

  Carter hurried to the far corner of the wall and looked down the steeply sloping hill. The barrier ran all the way down to the street below, which meant it enclosed one piece of property. The Soviets owned the entire area between the two roads.

  Looking back to make sure no one was coming, he stepped off the road and worked his way down through the woods along the wall until he was at a point where he could not be seen from above.

  It would be much easier, he told himself, if he could wait until night to go inside. But that was impossible; he was running against the clock.

  About eighty yards down from the road, Carter climbed up into a tree near the wall and looked into the Soviet compound. The house below was very large and mostly hidden in the thick woods. Carter could just see the roof line and a section of the second-story back wall. Behind the house was an extensive rock garden with a little waterfall and large goldfish ponds. Closer up the hill, the property was steep, heavily wooded, and untouched.

  Carter remained motionless for several minutes as he studied what he could see of the house and the area below for any sign of activity. But there was nothing. The place could have been deserted.

  He worked his way farther out on the limb, and as it bent dangerously with his weight, he stepped out on top of the wall. Several red tiles broke loose and crashed down on the rocks. A moment later a bell began ringing somewhere toward the house.

  Carter swore, angry at his carelessness. The missing tiles exposed a thin red wire. The wall had been alarmed.

  He jumped down inside the compound, waited there for just a moment to make sure he had not been spotted coming in, then grabbed a dead tree branch and flipped it up on top of the wall. It almost went all the way over, but then it balanced on the tiles.

  Carter turned and worked his way back into the woods a little farther up the hill. He crouched behind a pile of rocks from where he could see the roof line of the house below and a section of the wall where he had come over.

  Two heavyset men armed with handguns came into view. They stopped to examine the broken tiles. One of them pointed up at the branch and said something that Carter couldn't quite make out.

  The other one looked up, shook his head, and then turned and scanned the woods in the direction Carter had gone. Carter ducked down behind the rocks and looked over his shoulder for a way out. Straight up the hill was out of the question; they would spot him before he got ten feet. The same was true for downhill. Directly behind him, several large boulders blocked his way. He was stuck.

  He looked over the edge of the rocks. The two Russians were heading directly toward him. He ducked back. If any noise were made up here, it would alert whoever else was below in the house. If Kazuka were down there, still alive, they would use her as a hostage.

  Carter reached inside his trousers and pulled out Pierre, his gas bomb. He set the firing timer for a two-second delay so that it would go off in the air, spraying the oncoming Russians as it came down.

  He glanced up over the rocks again. The Russians were barely twenty feet away. They spotted Carter and started to bring up their weapons at the same moment he keyed Pierre and lobbed it overhand at them.

  They ducked instinctively as the tiny object came at them. It went off with a slight pop, and Carter ducked behind the rocks, held his breath, and counted very slowly to thirty.

  When he looked back down the hill, the Russians were sprawled on the ground. He hurried over to them and checked their pulses. They were alive, but just barely; their eyes were bulging, their tongues swelling from the effects of the powerful gas.

  The thought crossed his mind to finish the job with his stiletto. It would be so easy now to slit their throats and let them choke to death on their own blood. They had not given Paul Tibbet much of a chance. And it was very possible that these two had tortured Kazuka like the others had at the airfield.

  His hand shook with the temptation. But he stepped back. That was the way they did things. He was not the same. They would be unconscious for another ten or twelve hours. It would be cold tonight, and chances were, they wouldn't survive anyway. He would not help or hinder the process. Even if they did survive, they would be in no shape to answer questions for days afterward.

  Carter took out Wilhelmina, checked to make sure a live round was in the firing chamber, then clicked off the safety as he started down the hill.

  Carter came out of the woods to the edge of the goldfish pond at the same time a tall, intense-looking man armed with a machine pistol stepped onto the veranda.

  Carter was standing in the shadows. For the first few moments the Russian didn't see him; he was looking up the hill toward the wall.

  Suddenly he spotted Carter. "You!" he shouted in Russian. He brought his gun up.

  Carter fired once, the shot taking off most of the Russian's forehead, blood, bone, and brain tissue spraying the rice-paper door behind him.

  The Russian's body was still thrashing on the deck as Carter splashed across the goldfish pond. Two large Dobermans came around the corner in a dead run. He shot them both, their bodies somersaulting backward, then he was up on the veranda. He scooped up the Russian's weapon and kicked out the bloody rice-paper door just as two armed men came down a long corridor.

  Their eyes went wide when they saw Carter, who raised the Russian's gun and fired a long burst, raking the hall, shoving the two men backward, blood flying everywhere.

  "Kazuka!" he shouted, charging down the corridor.

  He slammed open the next door, but the room was empty. He kicked in another door, which opened onto a kitchen. He thought he heard a noise, and sprayed the room with automatic fire, one bullet hitting the gas line. A huge jet of flame leaped out of the stove, and immediately one wall and the ceiling burst into flame.

  Carter stepped back. Within a minute or so the entire place would be an inferno.

  "Kazuka!" he shouted again.

  "Nicholas!" Kazuka's voice came from the front of the house.

  Carter raced through the corridor and into the entry foyer as a thick-necked Russian stepped into view. He held Kazuka by the neck, a Graz Buyra in his right fist, the barrel of the big handgun at Kazuka's temple.

  "Throw down your weapon or she…" the Russian started to say.

  Carter fired from the hip, at least two slugs hitting the Russian in the side of the head, taking off most of his skull.

  His big body was flipped violently backward and he pulled Kazuka with him.

  Carter was o
n top of the man a split second later, pulling Kazuka away and firing a bullet into his chest.

  In the distance he could hear sirens, Kazuka lay half unconscious at his feet, blood oozing from cuts that had been made with a knife on her chest and stomach.

  Two Russians came through the front door. Carter fired the last of the machine pistol's ammunition into them, shoving them back outside as flames began to roar up the corridor.

  Ten

  "Can you walk?" Carter asked, helping Kazuka to her feet. She was in pretty bad shape this time. It appeared as if she had lost a lot of blood; her complexion was deathly pale and her lips were blue.

  "I don't know," she said weakly.

  Carter put his coat around her bare shoulders, then picked her up and carried her down a short corridor he figured led into the garage.

  The gray Mercedes was parked inside, along with a small Honda. Keys were in both cars. Carter hurriedly placed Kazuka in the Mercedes's passenger seat, then climbed behind the wheel and stared the motor.

  Police and fire engine sirens were very close when Carter slammed the car in reverse and burst through the closed garage door, flames already eating through the rear wall of the house. He spun around in the street and headed down the block at a normal pace.

  The first of the police cars screamed around the corner at the bottom of the hill, but they took no notice of the Mercedes as they raced up to the burning house.

  Carter kept off the main thoroughfares and highways as he worked his way back around through the city above Kanda until he picked up the highway that went to Yoshida, the small town at the base of Mt. Fuji. Kazuka's uncle's house was in the foothills of the mountain.

  "They didn't get anything, Nicholas," Kazuka said.

  He glanced over at her. She seemed very weak, but she was holding herself together.

  "Is someone at the house for you?" he asked.

  She nodded. "My uncle's house staff. They will know what to do."