Looking back on it, I didn't figure Tanya for an ordinary KGB agent. There had been that attempt to keep the men from beating me and that mention of… some kind of hypnosis. Hypnotic immunity, that was it. I'd never heard the term before. My mind raced through all sorts of possibilities and probabilities and ended up nowhere, and my head throbbed violently. I had just succeeded in thoroughly confusing myself when I heard a sound at the door.
I tensed automatically. The door opened, and the two men who had appeared at Tanya's apartment came in. The fat, bald guy had the same ugly grin on his face. The tall one looked at me impassively.
"Well," the tall one said, "I hope you had a good rest." It was definitely the voice of the man who'd attacked me in Washington.
"It was you with the stocking over your face in Washington." I said.
"Yes, it was I," he said patronizingly. "The man you killed was merely an American who worked for us. He was expendable."
"And you've been keeping an eye on me in Caracas."
"Of course. We did not want to lose contact before Dr. Savitch had a chance to ensnare you."
"Dr. Savitch?"
"You'll see her presently," he said. "On your feet now, Mr. Carter. You have an appointment to keep in our laboratory."
"Laboratory?" I stood up and gauged the distance and position of each man, wondering if I could get past them to the door. "Where am I?"
The tall man smiled. "You're still in Caracas. We just brought you to a new KGB facility, Carter — one set up especially for you."
"You talk too much!" the stocky man growled.
The tall man didn't even look at him. "It does not matter," he said coolly.
I wondered what that meant. If they intended to kill me, why hadn't they already done it? So far, none of it made any sense to me.
"What are you going to do with me?" I asked.
"You will find out soon enough. Come on. And don't give us any trouble."
I walked past them to the door, and they followed close behind. I looked up and down the white corridor, hoping to find a door that looked like an exit. It was a short hallway with a door at each end and a couple of others in the middle. I figured the end doors had to be exits. They were closed, but something told me they wouldn't be locked. For one thing, the Russians didn't have any keys on them.
This might be my only chance to escape. There was no guarantee that I'd be in any condition to try five minutes from now. We turned and walked toward a door near the far end of the corridor. It was then that I made my attempt.
I stopped suddenly and stepped back into the stocky man, the one who had enjoyed the physical part of my capture. I stepped down hard on his left instep and heard a crunch and a loud cry of pain. I rammed an elbow into his broad face and felt his nose flatten. He thudded against the wall beside him.
The tall man was swearing and going for a gun in his jacket. He got the gun out, and it looked like the same one he'd aimed at my head in Washington. The familiarity didn't give me any feeling of comfort. I grabbed at the gun hand and caught it. With the other hand I stabbed at his eyes. He blocked the blow and quickly raised a knee sharply to my groin. As it connected, I felt a hideous pain and an violent attack of nausea. I grunted and lost my hold on the gun hand. My reactions were slower because of the aftereffects of the drug, and that gave him a substantial advantage.
I swung a hand at his throat, and he partially deflected it. But it caught him a glancing blow on the Adam's apple. He gasped and fell against the wall. I turned and made for the door at the end of the corridor. I had to leap over the slumped form of the stocky man, who was just trying to get back on his feet. I hoped the tall man would take a minute to recover, but my expectations were short-lived. I was only halfway to the door when the revolver exploded.
"Stop, Carter. Or the next bullet will go through your brain."
It was a persuasive threat. I stopped and leaned against the wall, not looking back at him. My chance for escape was gone. In a minute the tall man had reached me and pushed the revolver into my ribs.
"You are a very nasty fellow, Carter," he said breathlessly, holding a hand to his throat.
The other KGB agent limped toward us. "If it were not for them," he said in fast Russian, jerking his thumb toward another part of the building, "I would kill him right here and now. Slowly and painfully."
The stocky man drew his own revolver and raised it to strike my head and face.
"No!" the tall man said. "Think of the mission."
The stocky one hesitated, a wild look in his eyes. Blood was running from his nose over his lips to his chin. The nose was already swelling across his face. I looked at him and wished I'd been able to kill him. It would have taken only a minute longer, and it would have given me great satisfaction.
The stocky man lowered the gun.
"Come on," the tall one said. "They are still expecting us in the laboratory."
They had strapped me to a large wooden chair. I was in the lab. It was a large room that reminded me of an operating room in a large American hospital, except there was no operating table in sight. Perhaps the chair I was bound to served an equivalent purpose. There were several pieces of electronic machinery in the room, with colored lights blinking on control panels. Two technicians were working at the machines, but otherwise I was alone. The agents had left the room after tying me to the chair.
That chair was a machine in itself. It looked like an electric chair, but the wiring was much more complicated. There was even a headpiece with electrodes sticking out of it. At first I thought that it was some land of torture device, but that didn't seem to make any sense. Even the Russians didn't go to such lengths just to torture a man, not even to get top secrets. There were more primitive ways, which could do the job just as well as any machine. Anyway, agents aren't keepers of deep state secrets, not in Russia or in the West. I was no exception. In fact, AXE agents had less reason than most to carry classified information, since AXE assignments ran more toward specific physical action against the other side than investigation and collection of data.
While I was still trying to figure it all out, I heard a door open behind me, and three people came into the room. Tanya was one of them. She was wearing a white smock and horn-rimmed glasses. Her hair was pulled back into a bun, and she looked very grim and determined. She met my eyes and looked into them for a long moment before speaking. I think she was trying to tell me she was sorry about all this but that duty came first.
"How are you feeling, Mr. Carter?" she asked impersonally.
"Not bad, considering," I answered.
Two men flanked her. One was familiar to me because I'd just read his file before I left Washington. He was Oleg Dimitrov, the resident operator for the KGB in Caracas and the man in charge of whatever was going on here. He was of average height, with graying hair and a large mole on his right cheek. His eyes were hard and cold.
"So you are the infamous Nick Carter," Dimitrov said.
"I suppose it would be useless to deny it," I answered.
"Yes, useless. I am Oleg Dimitrov, as you probably already know. This lovely girl who helped us capture you is Dr. Tanya Savitch, Russia's most brilliant behaviorist. And this gentleman is her colleague, Dr. Anton Kalinin."
The white-coated, gray-haired man on the other side of Tanya looked at me over his spectacles and nodded. His stare made me feel like an amoeba under a microscope. I looked from him to Tanya.