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“Lashkin!” the Cuban screamed again.

At that moment Carter buried the stiletto to its hilt in the man’s eye socket, the tip of the blade grating on the bone for a moment, but then penetrating deep into the brain.

The Cuban gave a mighty heave, shuddered violently as if he were having an epileptic fit, and then slumped back, dead.

Carter withdrew his stiletto and rolled back off the body. He flopped down on his back, his eyes open, staring up at the same stars he and Sigourney had made love under just hours earlier.

He had made the one mistake fatal to any field operative: he had fallen in love. He had become vulnerable. He had presented a weak side to his enemies.

“Lashkin.” He repeated the name out loud. “The United Nations in New York City. Lashkin.”

Everyone on the island was dead except Carter. By first light he had made sure there were no survivors. Shortly after seven he found what he took to be the charred remains of Sigourney’s body in the bedroom of the main house. He had pulled up the mattress where it had been shoved by the force of the explosion, and she had been there, the gas bomb still clutched in her left hand. She had never had the chance to use it.

His head swimming, his stomach churning, pure, raw, venomous hate rising up inside of him, Carter stumbled outside and down to the water’s edge, where he stared out across the sea toward the main island a scant seventeen miles distant. Why hadn’t someone seen something over there? The explosions and fire had to have been visible for miles. Why had no one come?

There was nothing left of the generator, or of the radio in the main house. He was cut off.

For an hour or so Carter toyed with the idea of attempting to raise the dive boat hull, but he gave it up after diving down to it and inspecting the damage. The attack force had been efficient. They had cut or blasted a hole in the hull fully three feet in diameter.

By three that afternoon, however, he had found his means of escape. The staff, on their off-duty hours, had enjoyed boating and diving. Carter went searching on that side of the island and discovered a small catamaran, its sails intact, that the attacking party had missed.

By four he had the boat rigged and ready to go.

Before he left he walked back up to the main house, but he could not bring himself to go inside where Sigourney’s body still lay among the charred timbers. When he got back, AXE would send a team down here; they’d take care of the remains. He supposed, when this was all over, he’d have to talk to her parents. He had met them at some party in Washington. He remembered her mother as a good-looking, classy woman. He did not look forward to facing her. He felt responsible for Sigourney’s death.

But that was later.

The weather had been closing in all day, but mindless of the storm clouds gathering to the northeast along the tradewind belt, and mindless of the rising breeze, Carter raised the cat’s sails and shoved the flimsy boat out past the surf line, scrambling aboard and hauling in the sheets.

The boat took off like a rocket, skipping high across the waves, the windward pontoon on which he was perched rising out of the water, a wide wake hissing behind him.

Spray was flying everywhere as Carter pushed the tiny boat to its absolute limits in the rising winds, but he kept seeing Sigourney’s face. He kept seeing her body, feeling it next to his; he kept hearing her calling to him, excited about one thing or another. Of all the women he had ever known, she had come most nearly to his idea of a perfect companion, a perfect lover, a perfect mate.

As he sailed he kept searching his memory, kept looking for the mistakes he had made, trying to catalogue the people who knew about their relationship.

There was no doubt in his mind now that Ganin was after him, and that the opening blow had been Sigourney’s life. This Lashkin in New York was only another step in some long, complex plan that would sooner or later pit the Soviet master assassin against Carter.

They had never planned on killing him on the island. Ganin had simply been toying with him. Taking his measure.

But the confrontation would come. Of that Carter was certain, and as he sailed, his lips curled into a cruel smile, a smile totally devoid of any humor, of any warmth.

When the time came, Carter decided, he would enjoy very much witnessing Ganin’s death. His very slow, very painful death.

The only thing that bothered him at that moment was why the Soviets were going to these lengths. They could have killed him on the island. Why had they given him a chance? Why were they toying with him?

Whatever the reason, when it was done, Carter swore, Ganin and whoever ran him would rue the day they had conceived their evil plan.

Four

A car and driver were waiting for Carter at Washington’s National Airport. His weapons had arrived an hour earlier in a diplomatic pouch aboard another flight, that matter arranged by the CIA chief of station in Nassau. Carter had also borrowed some of the man’s clothes.

He relaxed in the back seat of the car as it headed into town and let his mind wander, a luxury he had not permitted himself since that night on the island.

No one on the big island had paid any attention to the fireworks on St. Anne’s, because they themselves were having an independence day celebration, or something. Whatever was being celebrated, St. Anne’s Island Resort could have blown sky high and no one would have paid any attention.

It was odd being back in Washington like this without Sigourney, Carter thought as they crossed into the city on the Arlington Memorial Bridge. Traffic was very heavy around the Watergate across from the Lincoln Memorial, but Carter let himself drift back to the island, to the ten days he and Sigourney had had together.

The driver broke into his thoughts.

“Would you care to stop by your apartment first, Mr. Carter?”

Carter looked up and shook his head. “No,” he mumbled.

“Yes, sir,” the driver said.

AXE headquarters occupied a building on Dupont Circle under the cover of Amalgamated Press and Wire Services. They parked in the underground garage beneath the building, and after passing through several security checks, Carter went up to David Hawk’s office. He again was passed through security, Hawk was buzzed, and Carter went in.

David Hawk was a short man in his sixties. A wide head with a thick shock of white hair sat atop a moderately husky frame. In his day he had been a very tough operative. Even now he hadn’t lost much of his edge. He put his ever-present cigar down and got up.

He studied Carter for several long moments in silence, then shook his head and indicated a chair. “I’m sorry, Nick.”

Carter sat down. “Yeah.”

“You had no warning?”

“None other than your call, sir,” Carter said. It was difficult sitting there like that. He wanted to be out chasing down the U.N. lead.

“There was an overflight of two Cuban Air Force helicopters south of our installation at Guantanamo Bay around four in the morning,” Hawk said. He sat down and flipped open a file folder. “One hour before that, the body of a Cuban national who worked in the Soviet embassy in Havana was dumped outside the front gate at Guantanamo. He had been shot twice at close range.”

“So?”

“He was the one who provided us with the information about Ganin.”

One puzzling item in the whole business came suddenly clear to Carter, and he sat forward. “It was Ganin, and he is after me.”

Hawk nodded. “It’s what we figured, Nick. Ganin is too sharp to have made such a mistake. The information was planted. They were taunting us.”

“They had no intention of killing me on St. Anne’s. They were simply after Sigourney.”