The Istanbul Decision (19 page)

The land flattened, and the tracks ran like knife edges toward the horizon. He kept his altitude low, rising only for bridges and overhead wires.

Within half an hour he had reached Szolnok on the Tisza River. He skirted the town and continued south, the steady beat of the rotors almost lulling him to sleep. It seemed as if he had been flying forever, toward a goal he would never reach…out of touch with the world and with his own past, Kobelev the only thought that mattered any longer.

Carter crossed into Rumania in the twilight just before dawn. The ground elevation had risen sharply in the last hour and a half, and as the first shafts of light struck the terrain, it wasn't sand and grass that turned pink, it was snow. This was mountain country. To the east and south stood the Carpathians and the Transylvanian Alps, floating on the horizon like huge ships. Towering in the center, old Moldoveanu herself, rising to a height of over eight thousand feet, was visible even though the peak was more than seventy miles away.

The track began to rise, too, winding in and out of valleys, hugging the mountainsides, a speckled band of black dirt and gleaming steel against the whitened rock. Carter followed it relentlessly. His arm ached terribly, and he estimated he'd come almost two hundred miles, but there was still no sign of the kidnapped train.

Worried thoughts began to haunt him: maybe he'd taken the wrong set of tracks; maybe they'd stopped somewhere along the way and he'd missed them; or maybe they'd gone south from Budapest to Belgrade instead.

His fuel was getting low. If he went much further, he'd crash out here and be stranded in the snow and wind.

He'd almost convinced himself to give up and turn around when he saw a telltale plume of black smoke hanging in the air opposite a curve. He rounded the breast of land and there she was, steaming for all she was worth, engine black as night, pushrods pumping, billows of coal smoke streaming out of her stack. Behind her followed the fifteen antique cars, each painted slightly differently, making her look at first glance like some sort of a show train.

He swung to the right and pulled back around the edge of the mountain, not wanting to be seen. This was going to take some strategy. He pulled up on the collective pitch and immediately gained altitude, although he realized there was a limit as to how high he could go. The air here was colder and drier than it had been the night before, which meant it wouldn't work as well in the rotors. Also, he was going to have to consume more fuel to go the same distance.

He flew over a low peak and descended into the valley on the other side, then found the track again and followed it for another two miles. By this time he figured he'd gained fifteen minutes on the train and began to circle, searching the mountain for a particular type of snow formation, one that bulged conspicuously at the bottom of its shelf.

He found what he was looking for hanging well above the track, and he made a pass at it, coming in very close, the sharp
chop-chop
of the rotor blades reverberating within the narrow cut of the valley.

A clot of coal smoke appeared around the curve below.

Carter made a second pass, the sweat beginning to bead on his forehead as he cranked the throttle full forward. Again the tremendous din of the helicopter engine and rotors hammering at the snow shelf.

The train steamed into view at the bottom of the long grade as Carter maneuvered the helicopter up and around in a gut-wrenching tight curve, and the snow began to slide off the side of the mountain, slowly at first, then faster and faster, covering the tracks.

The train was already slowing down as Carter lifted the stick and disappeared over the summit. He flew down into the preceding valley, found a convenient flat spot, and landed.

In the nose he found a heavy parka and a medical kit. He stripped off his shirt and looked at his wound. The doctor had done a pretty good job. The stitches looked as though they'd hold, except liquid had begun to form around the ends of the black thread, a bad sign. Fortunately it had gotten so cold during the course of the night that it was too numb to hurt much.

He rebandaged the wound, then put his shirt back on. He pulled on the parka and checked Wilhelmina. There were only nine cartridges left in the Luger. He stuffed it into one of the coat's big side pockets and climbed out into the snow. The sun was just coming over the horizon.

Carter trotted up the tracks. Ahead, a cloud of vapor billowed from around the curve, and the air was full of the hiss of escaping steam. He ducked behind a series of boulders alongside the track and proceeded from one to the next until he was able to see the rear of the train.

Two of Kobelev's guards stood on the small railed platform at the end of the last car, each with a light machine gun slung over his shoulder. They were dressed in furs and leather like two Sherpa mountain guides and were laughing. The words were garbled, but the tone was unmistakable. Obviously, they'd come prepared for the weather.

Carter was going to have to take them both out, but in such a way that neither of them fired a shot. One burst from those machine guns and the whole train would come running. The last thing he needed at this point was a shoot-out.

He moved up behind another boulder until he was within fifty yards, the furthest he could be and still be dead certain of his marksmanship. Then he leaned forward, screwed the silencer on the end of the barrel, steadied his hand on the rock, and waited.

The two men continued to talk and laugh. One seemed to be telling the other a story. Occasionally, disjointed shouts floated to Carter from the front of the train, and every so often he had to put his gun down and blow on his fingers to keep them from freezing.

Finally the one guard reached the punchline, and the other man laughed heartily while the first turned his head out of the wind to light a cigarette.

This was the moment Carter had been waiting for. He aimed at the laughing man, gently squeezed, and put the bullet into the back of his throat. The guard's head slammed against the back of the car, bounced forward, and he ended up folded over the low railing.

The second man looked up, the cigarette falling from his mouth. In his astonishment the whites of his eyes were visible even at fifty yards. Carter put his second shot in the man's neck behind his left ear. The bullet blew out part of the man's head, spraying blood for several feet. He fell onto the first man, then slumped to the floor, his body twitching.

Carter ran to the train, relieved both men of their machine guns, flinging one as far as he could into the valley below and shouldering the other, then he entered the car. It was empty. These were servants' quarters, tight little berths with no more than a pull-down bed and a window, but none of the beds was pulled down, and each of the narrow sliding doors stood open. There was no sign anyone had been in here recently.

He went on to the next car — a sleeping car with old-fashioned upholstered seats. It was empty as well. A small heater at the end of the aisle was blowing out warm air. He stooped to warm his hands, listening. There wasn't a sound; the train seemed deserted. He wondered if the passengers hadn't gotten off somewhere along the way.

He went on to the next car. More berths, although these were for the paying customers, bigger than those earlier and better appointed, with tasseled curtains and small porcelain basins for washing along one wall. Carter eased up the passageway, looking into each compartment with the machine gun at the ready, no longer sure what to expect.

"Nick?" someone whispered behind him. He spun around. Roberta, her hair disheveled, her eyes brimming with relief, ran to him and buried her face in his good shoulder.

He let her cry for a moment, then pulled away. "Get yourself together," he told her.

"I could have taken him," she said with sudden force. "But my gun jammed.

"They kicked all the passengers and crew off in Budapest. Not that any of them were too sorry to leave. But Tatiana is back!"

"I saw her getting on the train at Györ. Where's Cynthia?"

"Up front. Second car back from the engine."

"She's still alive?"

Roberta nodded. "I was just so relieved to see you. When they stopped because of the avalanche, I thought I'd die here. And then it occurred to me that it might be you. I didn't believe it, but thank God I was right. What the hell happened to your arm?"

"Little problem in Györ. Our friend Kobelev is always thinking. He figured I might remember his grandmother, so he laid a trap for me. Damn near worked."

She unzipped the parka and unbuttoned his shirt. "Oh, Nick!" she exclaimed when she saw it. "You need help."

"Later."

Her eyes danced away from his, out across the car, the lids batting back tears. "I made a mistake, Nick. I'm sorry. I guess because you 're a man you get to be the big hero. At any rate, when I got here I realized there wasn't much I could do, so I lay low. Last night when everyone was asleep, I thought I'd take a chance. I crept into the salon car up front and found Kobelev sleeping, unguarded for the moment. I had the drop on him, but then my damn gun jammed. I just made it out of there."

"You were lucky you weren't captured, too."

"You know something, Carter?" she asked indignantly, her shame turning to anger at last. "Throughout our entire association you have given me absolutely no credit whatsoever. When you first met me, you mistook me for a whore, then you shuffled me down to the train station to wait like a little girl while you went to intercept Kobelev at his grandmother's. Now you tell me you don't think I'm capable of a simple operation of the kind I've been trained to do."

"All right," he said, trying to calm her. "I apologize, too. I made a mistake in Austria, and I should have taken you with me in Györ. I could have used you. So now we're even. Let's bury the hatchet. We don't have time to squabble among ourselves."

"I'll forgive you if you promise an apology in full when all this is over."

"Done. Now let's go find Kobelev."

They worked their way through the remaining cars of the train, the pullmans, the sleeping cars, a shower car, the dining car, and the kitchen where Nick had fought Shurin; all were deserted. When they reached the small salon car where Carter had had his initial confrontation with Kobelev, they conferred quietly outside the door.

"Last time I was here," Carter whispered, "there were two guards, one at this end and one at the other."

"Same as last night," Roberta said.

"Then we'll have to assume they're still in there. You go back a car, get off the train, then walk up to the other end of this car, being careful not to let anybody see you. Then we go in together. I'll rush this door and take out the first guard. You rush the other door and draw the second's attention. With the first guard out of the way, we'll have him in a crossfire. But don't shoot unless you absolutely have to. We still don't know if Kobelev is in there, and I'd rather not advertise the fact his support troops have dwindled down to almost nothing."

Roberta nodded, taking the light machine gun Carter offered her. They synchronized watches. "Five minutes," he said.

"You sure you trust me not to screw this up?" she asked.

"Get out of here! Let's not start that whole thing again!" She turned and slipped out of the car.

Carter watched the digital display on his wrist until the five minutes had elapsed, then burst in the door at the exact moment Roberta shouldered her way in at the other side. The car was empty.

"They've been here," said Roberta. "Here's Kobelev's pipe. It's still warm."

"And Cynthia's wheelchair. At least they're letting her up. But where the hell is everybody?"

"Outside I heard voices at the front of the train."

"Let's have a look."

They went through a club car similar to the one they'd just left, except it had no bar. It, too, was empty, although it had been recently occupied. The following car was the coal tender, which they climbed over to get to the engine compartment. This was also deserted, even though the fire doors stood open and a fierce coal fire glowed inside.

The voices were clearly audible now, and Carter thought he recognized Kobelev's. He leaned out the engineer's window and saw the Russian standing in front of the engine, his hands on his hips, his white hair pressed down by a thick fur
addyel.
He was watching two of his guards, the engineer, and the fireman all plying coal shovels to the mound of snow that blocked the track. He was shouting orders, admonishing them to dig faster. Beside him stood a slender woman with black hair. She looked at first like Tatiana, but he guessed it must be Cynthia because under the man's overcoat that hung from her shoulders like a tent, she seemed to be wearing nothing more than a robe and nightgown.

He leaned a little further out the opening and leveled the Luger at the Russian.

He was just about to pull the trigger when a bullet ricocheted off the side of the engine, inches from his hand.

Carter ducked back out of sight, Roberta by his side. "Where is he?" she asked.

"Above us. Somewhere forward."

She popped up, took a quick look, and fired a short burst from the machine gun. Her shots were quickly answered with an equally short burst that sent bullets whining off the walls of the compartment.

"You all right?" she asked, crouching down again and looking at Carter's hand, which he was shaking as though he'd been stung.

"Just metal splinters. Dammit! I should have realized. He posted guards in the rear because he thought I had something to do with the avalanche. Of course he d post another above the train to keep an eye on the whole thing in case I got by the first two."

There were more shots, this time from the other side and lower, coming up through the space between the coal tender and the engine, putting deep silver marks in the boilerplate just over their heads.