It was a good gimmick. Every twenty-or-so yards, a single man jumped up to walk a few feet with her. None of them scored, but it fit for Carter to do the same when she hit his space.
"May I buy you a drink, comrade?"
"Nyet, comrade, but I would like a cigarette," she said with fluttering eyelashes and glossy lips.
He shook one from his pack, and they both cupped their hands over the match and her lips.
"We go early," she whispered.
"Why?"
"One of Kokolev's people got a message to me. They are checking out of the dacha at midnight. They have ordered a car.
"Then the woman has the information she wants."
"It would seem so. Eight o'clock, same place."
"Did Kokolev find out who the woman is?"
"Yes. The name isn't familiar to me… it's Anna Palmitkov." Her eyes darted up long enough to see the startled and then grim look on Carter's face. "You know her?"
"I know her."
"Eight o'clock," Ludmilla said, and walked away without questioning his sudden change of mood.
Carter flopped back on his towel and shielded the sun from his eyes with dark glasses and a forearm.
Ah, yes, he knew Anna Palmitkov. She was good, very good, a specialist on Germany. She had gone deep cover into Berlin several times. One of those times, Carter had gone up against her and her agent lover of the moment.
Carter had gotten the agent lover, but not Anna Palmitkov. In fact, the jagged, purplish scar that ran from his breastbone down to his right hip had been Anna's gift to him that time in Berlin.
No, he would never forget Anna Palmitkov.
A slight smile curved his lips as he relaxed and let the sun warm him.
It promised to be an interesting and exciting evening.
They checked out bicycles from the recreation pool fifteen minutes apart, and left the camp in separate directions. At precisely seven, they met again several miles down the beach.
"Anyone following?"
"No, I'm positive," Carter growled.
"Very well. I will lead."
Ludmilla led the way down to a lane that ran along the beach between the sand and the cliffs. Another two miles and she stopped. They hid the bicycles among the rocks and began to climb. Halfway up, she slipped into the mouth of a cave that Carter would have missed had he been alone.
"Back here!" came a guttural voice.
Carter stumbled after her, and then a hand grasped his. He was pulled into a low, cell-like stone room, and a candle was lit.
"Congratulations, you have arrived," Kokolev said, attempting the first bit of humor Carter had seen evidenced by the man.
"Where are we?" Carter asked.
"Three kilometers west of the compound line, and we will have to swim at least two kilometers out to sea in order to avoid the security nets. Here!"
Before pulling on the wet suit. Carter passed his papers to Ludmilla. She would change the photos, and Kokolev himself would ride the second bicycle back to the workers' compound and spend the night there as Mikhail Assalov.
Kokolev had already donned his own wet suit, the one that Boris Simonov would evidently wear. He had a silenced 9mm Makarov PM in a watertight oilskin holster strapped around him.
He handed its twin to Carter.
"Are your two men set?"
Kokolev nodded. "The party has already started in the guard room. As soon as the depressant takes effect, my two men, in uniform, will become the two-man roving patrol."
"How did they get in?"
"Earlier this afternoon in the garbage truck. Let us be off."
Kokolev extinguished the candle and moved into the night, with Carter behind him and Ludmilla bringing up the rear. At the mouth of the cave, she grasped his elbow. He turned, and she moved into his arms.
The kiss bespoke genuine warmth rather than passion. It was also short and to the point.
"Good-bye," she murmured, and moved away to climb an outcropping of rocks.
Carter watched her until she was gone. She was quite a lady, he thought, and moved on down to the beach.
"We go in here," Kokolev whispered.
Carter pulled on a set of flippers, adjusted his mask, and slipped into the water right behind the man.
They swam straight out for what seemed like an eternity before Kokolev made a left turn. Then they swam parallel to the shore for another fifteen minutes, until the man called a halt.
"We wait here!"
They treaded water for another fifteen minutes, and then a tiny flash from a penlight ashore told them that their own set of roving guards was in place.
As they started to swim ashore. Carter was thankful they had chosen the plan. A rock shelf lay beneath the water where they swam, making a calm mirror out of the bay.
A lone, unfriendly man on the beach with an AK-47 could spot them surfacing from a good distance. Add to it thirty yards of pure white, moonlit sand ashore, and they would be cut down in ten feet.
The moonlight knifing through the clear water created an eerie, ominous aura around them as they crawled out onto the sand.
They sprinted across the beach, thankful once again that no AK rifles were pointed their way. At a low stone wall they practically crashed into a uniformed man lounging against the stone, a rifle over his shoulder.
"It is a beautiful night," he grunted.
"They are still there?" Kokolev asked.
The man nodded. "The woman is in the dacha. The man has gone to the administration building, I would guess to sign the departure forms."
Carter slid the flippers from his feet, unzipped the holster, and vaulted over the wall. As he did so, he saw out of the corner of his eye Kokolev already climbing out of his wet suit and the uniform moving down the beach on the guards' usual rounds.
Bending low. Carter duck walked the width of two beach houses and dropped into the rear garden of the only one with lights glowing.
The air was sweet with blooming flowers and buzzing with insects. The only other sound as he wound his way through scrub and low citrus trees was a radio playing something maudlin from one of the nearby rooms.
He headed in that direction and carefully brought his eyes up over the window ledge.
He was just in time. It was the bedroom of the dacha, and Anna was just emerging from the bathroom, stark naked. He watched her pull on a pair of sheer panties and encase her voluptuous breasts in a lacy, very unproletariat bra.
Over that went a tight sweater and slim skirt, an outfit that should have made the hair on the back of his neck and inner thighs tingle.
It didn't.
It made the scar across his chest itch and ache.
He scanned the room. A half-packed suitcase lay open on the bed. Two closed cases sat by the door. He couldn't see a phone, and there was no sign of a weapon.
Anna went to work on her dark hair, and Carter took a turn around the whole house. He ended up back at the sliding glass doors that led from the garden into a large sitting room.
The room and its decor was about as far removed from the hovel where he and Ludmilla had spent the night as Washington was from Moscow.
The party elite and their favored people didn't suffer.
The room was done well, in soft tones, and the furniture was modern and expensive. Chrome-framed prints and antique tapestries somehow worked together on the walls. The prints were French Impressionist paintings and, strangely enough, were mostly Renoir nudes.
The sliding doors opened easily, and he moved into the room. He finally located the phone and cut the cord. When the intercom on the wall was jammed, he moved to a well-stocked portable bar.