“Starting tonight?”
She nodded. “I’ve got most of your things packed, your apartment will be okay, and I’ve checked on your car, extending the storage contract.”
“You really are something. Thanks,” Carter said.
“Oh, yes, one last thing,” she added. “Hawk called this evening, just before I left for the airport. Said he wanted you to call as Soon as you got in.”
Carter sat up. David Hawk was the hard-bitten director of AXE. He had been a power in the old days with the OSS, and when AXE was created by special presidential order, he had been the logical choice to head it. During the years Carter had worked for the man, they had developed a relationship of mutual understanding and respect that at times bordered on a father-son intensity, although they rarely verbalized their deep affection.
When David Hawk called, Carter dropped everything and came running. He was the only man in the world who commanded such loyalty in N3.
“Did he say what it was about?”
Sigourney shook her head. “Not really. Just that it wasn’t something to worry about... for now.”
They drove the rest of the way to Carter’s new Georgetown condo near the university in silence, parked in the back, and walked upstairs.
inside, the table was set for two, white wine was chilling in a bucket, candles were ready to be lit, and the air was full of the aroma of something being kept warm in the kitchen. Carter remembered that in addition to Sigourney’s other attributes, she was an excellent cook.
She fixed him a scotch with one cube, then went into the kitchen while he went to the phone and dialed Hawk’s private number, which was answered on the first ring.
“I’m back, sir,” Carter said.
“I won’t hold you long, Nick. Sigourney tells me you two will be leaving first thing in the morning.”
“Yes, sir. But if there’s something...”
“Nothing to hold you, really. But Caldwell called and said you were pushing yourself. How do you feel?”
Carter’s first instinct was to lie. Tell Hawk he felt fit. But no one ever lied to David Hawk. Not for very long, at any rate. And when the lie was caught, the consequences were always swift and not at all good for the liar.
“I’ve felt better, sir.”
“I’ll bet. I don’t want you pushing yourself again. When you get back, you’re going into the hospital for a complete checkup.”
“Yes, sir.”
Carter could hear Sigourney in the kitchen. She was humming some tune he couldn’t recognize.
“Something has come up, Nick, that you should know about,” Hawk began. “Nothing we can do anything about at the moment, but I suspect before too long we’re going to have some trouble on our hands. So I want you to be on your guard. Don’t back yourself into any comers.”
Carter held his silence, but he was beginning to get a gut feeling that something very bad was coming down.
“We’ve just gotten the first bits about something new in Moscow. There’s been a split, it seems, within the KGB’s hierarchy.”
“Sir?”
“Department Viktor — the assassination department within the Komitet — has apparently been shut down. Lock, stock, and barrel.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Carter muttered.
“On the surface it doesn’t. But we think they’ve started up something new, something much better. From what we can gather it’s called Komodel — short for Komitet Mokrie Dela — the State Committee for Wet Affairs — and deals with terrorism and assassination.”
Sigourney came from the kitchen and placed a large cast-iron pot on a trivet on the table. It was bouillabaisse; he could smell the seafood and the saffron.
“Who is running it, sir? Who is the brains behind it?”
“That’s just it, Nick. We can’t find out. It’s a highly secret, very closed shop. It was only pure luck that we got any information at all. But we do know one thing.”
Carter waited. Sigourney was looking at him, a concerned expression in her wide eyes.
“Arkadi Konstantinovich Ganin is apparently connected with this organization.”
Ganin, Nick thought. He was the Soviet Union’s very best operative, bar none. A very tough and elusive man. No one who could provide his description had ever lived to pass it out. His existence was known through his terrible deeds. But there were no photographs of him anywhere in the West.
“If Ganin is on the loose, there will be trouble,” Carter said.
“You could be a likely target, Nick,” Hawk said evenly. “I want you to watch yourself.”
“Perhaps I should stick around. We’re going to have to go after him.”
“No,” Hawk said sharply. “Not now. Not yet. There will be time. The first move will be theirs. When it happens, we’ll go after them.” Hawk hesitated for a moment. “In the meantime I want you to get yourself back in shape. Against Ganin, if it comes to that, you’re going to have to be whole. No, more than that — you’ll need a hundred and ten percent.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If anything comes up, I’ll be in contact,” Hawk said. “And, Nick?”
“Yes?”
“Have a good vacation.”
“Thanks,” Carter said, and he hung up. He took a sip of his scotch and stood there for a long moment, deep in thought. Ganin. It was a name to command respect. The name of a man who understood deadly force as if he had invented it.
“Bouillabaisse, anyone?” Sigourney called softly.
Carter turned, and managed a slight smile.
“Should I ask?”
He shook his head. “I’m on vacation, starting now,” he said. He tossed back the rest of his drink and came to the table. They would be fairly isolated for the next month. Nothing was going to develop that quickly, and even if it did, they’d be insulated by their distance.
The chill Washington fall seemed a century ago to Nick Carter as their Cayman Airways flight came in on its landing approach to Grand Turk Island in the British West Indies. The intense, multishaded blue water seemed speckled with green jewels of islands in every direction, except due north into the open Atlantic, for as far as the eye could see. From the air it looked like paradise.
His mind was truly at ease for the first time in as long as he could remember. Only the slightest nagging thought lingered about Komodel and Arkadi Ganin, and he suspected that even that errant worry would leave within the next twenty-four hours.
He turned and looked at Sigourney. She wore a silk blouse, a simple wraparound skirt, and sandals. She was watching out the window, as excited as a little girl going to her first party. “Oh, Nick, I’m so happy,” she kept saying, squeezing his hand.
Carter smiled. The night before, after her excellent dinner, they had taken a long, hot, leisurely bath together, and then she had literally put him to bed, he had become so weak, so limp.
“Big tough operative, huh?” she had chided him.
He remembered that he was hardly able to keep his eyes open, let alone reach up for her. The last thing he remembered was her body next to his, holding him tight, cooing in his ear to sleep, to let go, to relax and drift off. Which is what he had done.
In the morning he was still sore and bone-weary, but he felt better than he had for a long time.
Sigourney turned away from the window as the 727’s wheels hit the runway, and the big aircraft lurched as the brakes were applied.
“An entire month?” she said.
Carter had to laugh out loud. “An entire month in which neither of us has to share the other with anyone.”
She pursed her lips, her nose wrinkling. “I just hope I don’t get bored. One man?... Just one?”