A bullet whined off the metal armrest beside Carter, and he lurched to the left.
A lone skier below and to the left had a rifle up to his shoulder. Carter violently swung the chair to the right as a second shot snapped by so close that Carter could feel the wind of its passage.
He yanked out his Luger and snapped off a single shot despite the impossible distance.
The gunman lowered the rifle and took off, skiing down the slopes.
Carter looked up a moment later in time to see a helicopter appear out of the mists from the west. The passenger door was open, and someone was hanging half out of the machine, a rifle in his hands.
The chair was fifty feet off the ground at this point. The helicopter was closing in fast.
Without hesitation Carter shoved himself off, ducking low as he fell. For the first moment or two he was in danger of losing his balance, and tumbling, but he managed to straighten out and twist his body around so that he was facing down the slope, and he leaned way out as if he had just launched himself from a tall ski jump scaffold.
He was being fired at from the helicopter as well as from the ground, which was racing up at him with incredible suddenness.
Carter braced himself for the tremendous shock of landing, and when he hit he nearly lost it. An instant later he had his balance and was schussing down the extremely steep slope in excess of seventy miles per hour, the moguls driving his bent knees nearly to his chest, his injured leg threatening to collapse beneath him at any moment.
Slowly, cautiously he began to have better control and began making a wide, arcing turn to the east toward a broad stand of pine, his speed slowing, a huge rooster tail of snow carved by the fantastic accelerations rising high.
The helicopter was directly above him as Carter came to a full stop, falling sideways, end over end, Wilhelmina still in hand.
He looked up at the machine, the howling gale from the rotors so close overhead making it all but impossible to see much of anything.
Carter caught a glimpse of Kobelev himself strapped on the passenger side, hanging half out of the doorway, an automatic rifle at his shoulder. Bullets were spraying everywhere around Carter, but he calmly raised his Luger and began firing slowly, one careful shot at a time into the blinding snow. The first went wide, but Carter was sure he hit Kobelev with the second. The third hit the engine and the fourth a rotor.
The machine suddenly lurched downslope and turned over on its side, Kobelev still hanging half out of the open doorway, and finally disappeared into a broad copse of trees. Seconds later a ball of flame rose from the trees, followed by the harsh crump of a big explosion.
Carter got to his feet, the sounds of distant avalanches set off by the explosion rumbling all around, and spotted a lone skier coming down the slopes from above.
It was Ganin!
Carter dropped back to one knee, brought Wilhelmina up, and took careful aim at the figure speeding toward him. His finger was on the trigger, Ganin was lined up perfectly in his sights, but a moment later Carter lowered his gun.
Not that way, he told himself.
He got up, took off his skis, and stepped aside, the Luger pointed down.
When Ganin got to within a dozen yards of where Carter stood waiting, he pulled up short in a burst of snow and stepped sideways. He pulled off his gloves and tossed them aside.
“Under the balcony?” Carter asked.
“It was very difficult. I nearly missed,” Ganin said. He held up his left hand. Two of his fingers were bandaged. “Broken.”
Carter nodded. The man was indeed incredible. “Kobelev is dead.”
Ganin glanced beyond Carter, where a few hundred yards down the slope flames rose from the trees. He nodded. “This time you should check to make sure he is actually dead. See the body. Remember Bulgaria.”
“First there is you,” Carter said.
Ganin shook his head. “I have no quarrel with you, Carter. In fact I have a great deal of respect for you.”
“I can’t let you walk away from here.”
“You will shoot me down in cold blood?”
“If need be. There is still the business of the poor Frenchman in Borodin’s apartment building. And the caretaker at Zugspitze.”
Ganin shrugged. “Casualties of war.”
“No,” Carter said.
“I see,” Ganin replied. But then he leaped on his skis and suddenly flashed downslope. “Here!” he shouted.
Carter’s own stiletto came out of nowhere, burying itself to the hilt in his gun arm. Carter fell back, shifting Wilhelmina to his left, and snapped off two shots, both of them hitting Ganin before he got another ten yards, and the Russian went down in a heap, tumbling end over end, for another thirty yards before he lay still.
For a long time Carter remained crouched where he was in the snow, his Luger wavering between the flames still rising from the trees and Ganin’s body.
Was it over? At long last was it finished?
At length Carter painfully got to his feet, stepped into his skis, and unsteadily skied down to Ganin. He pocketed his Luger as he pulled up, and released his skis.
For a second Carter just stared at the Russian. Suddenly he realized Ganin’s boots were out of his ski bindings.
He started to reach for his Luger, when Ganin reared up like some enraged animal, leaping onto Carter, both of them falling back into the snow.
Ganin was extraordinarily strong despite his injuries, despite two 9mm Luger bullets in his back; his fingers curled powerfully around Carter’s neck, cutting off the air.
They rolled over, and as the world began to go dark, Carter gave one last mighty heave, getting his left arm free. He reached around, yanked the stiletto out of his right arm, and plunged it into Ganin’s back.
The Russian bellowed and rose up as Carter yanked out the razor-sharp blade.
Ganin swung his fist just at the moment that Carter drove the blade into the Russian’s throat, then pulled with every ounce of his waning strength to the left.
A huge gush of bright red arterial blood spurted out of Ganin’s neck. He clutched at his throat, and before he fell back, dead, he looked down at Carter, his nostrils flared.
You have won, my friend, he seemed to say. Despite my best, you have won.
Carter lay back in the snow, his eyes closed, his world spinning around. Ganin had been good. The very best he had ever gone up against. But it still was incredible to him to think that Kobelev could have survived the impact on the train so long ago. He had watched the bridge hit the Russian in the back of the head. He had seen Kobelev’s body fall off the train, bounce off the rocks below, and then be swept away in the river.
But the man had survived. His power was awesome.
Another vision came to Carter, this one more recent — Kobelev hanging out the side of the helicopter as it went down.
Was it possible? Had Kobelev survived again?
Carter opened his eyes, and the shock of what he saw was nearly physical. Kobelev, blood seeping from a wound in his chest, a gash at his forehead, and a maniacal look in his eyes, stood there. He held an American made Thompson submachine gun in his hands, pointed at Carter, and his hands were shaking so badly the weapon was likely to go off at any moment.
“Yes, it’s me,” the Russian screamed. He laughed.
Carter held very still. His Luger was out of reach in his coat pocket, and his stiletto was half a foot away from his left hand, lying blade up in the bloody snow.
“This time you won’t get away from me,” Kobelev said. “This will be for my daughter, Tatiana, and most of all for Istanbul.”
The Thompson’s safety was off. Carter could see it from where he lay. Kobelev’s finger was curled around the trigger. One squeeze and it would be impossible to miss. There would be no chance of survival.