"Then you think I'm right, sir?"
"Naturally," Hawk said gruffly. It might be the middle of the night, but he was still in top form. "Silver Dove… Knights of the White Camelia… the White League… the Pale Faces… all names for various versions of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1860s. I should've made the connection before. An organization that started as a social club and grew into one of the strongest underground hatred movements in the world."
"The name Silver Dove seemed familiar to me, too," Carter said, "but I didn't put it together until Colonel ffolkes mentioned the protests against the sleeper's racist personnel policies."
"We're getting somewhere at last," Hawk mused, puffing on his cigar. "Good work, N3. Serebryanyi Golub — Silver Dove. Russia's modern version of racial and moral supremacy. I'll check it out. Meanwhile, our most direct link is obviously the missing flyer Rocky Diamond. We must find out what that Russian group is doing. You'll of course retrace Diamond's flight."
"It'll have to be a guess, sir. The flight plan is still missing. Colonel ffolkes suspects that the Soviet sleeper used connections to find it. And then destroyed it."
"Unfortunate," Hawk said, not surprised. In espionage, a well-placed sleeper has years to develop the connections and skills necessary to accomplish any task. "Don't forget warm clothes, N3. Better yet, I'll come down there and see that you're outfitted properly."
"Sir?" Hawk had many facets, but this sudden motherliness startled Carter.
"Blenkochev is in New Zealand." Hawk's voice was impatient again… and full of vigor. "Do you expect me to stay behind a desk in Washington?"
Carter lit one of his cigarettes in the back seat of the limo and smiled. It would be a difficult but interesting hunt.
Colonel ffolkes's wiry body was sprawled on the floor next to the scarred coffee table. Carter checked the room, then knelt beside him. Unconsciousness had turned the New Zealander's ruddy face ashen. The china teapot was shattered. The colonel's folding chair was knocked onto its side.
The secret report of Charlie Smith-deal's testimony, Rocky Diamond's flight, and the sleeper's background lay on the intelligence chief's chest. It had been tossed or dropped there.
Someone else now knew that Rocky Diamond's destination had been the South Pole and Stanley.
Carter considered this new piece of information as he lifted the colonel's eyelids and checked his pulse. The colonel's heartbeat was strong and regular. A lump the size of a goose egg had formed on the back of his head. Carter wet his handkerchief and wiped the unconscious man's face.
When the secret service director's eyes fluttered, Carter spoke gently.
"Did you see them?" he asked.
"Dammee, no," ffolkes replied. His hand reached toward the lump. "Sneaked up on me. But it was only one. Light-footed. Here." He unfolded the fingers on the other hand. An ordinary olive-green button lay on the palm. "Guess I still have a bit of the old agent in me."
Carter picked up the button. It had only two holes.
"Mind if I keep it a while."
"It's the least I can do." Colonel ffolkes smiled wryly.
Eleven
The nuclear submarine skimmed just beneath the surface of the Pacific. Wind-blown and chilled from his ride in the open trawler, Carter watched the crewmen work and listened to the hollow sound of conversation, the bleeping sonar, and the quiet clicking of computerized equipment as he followed the lieutenant through the smoothly efficient work area and down a narrow corridor.
"Can you swim?" the pale lieutenant asked Carter cheerfully as they walked.
"Some."
"Don't ask for a submarine assignment then," the lieutenant advised. "It's a wasted skill. We go down, doesn't matter whether you're wearing pajamas or a wetsuit, you won't have a chance to swim for it. Not a damned thing you can do."
"Except make sure it doesn't happen in the first place."
"That's it," the lieutenant said and beamed. He liked the challenge of his job.
"Career Navy?" Carter asked.
"Is there any other way?"
David Hawk, chief of AXE, was waiting in a cloud of cigar smoke in small private sleeping quarters. Air conditioning sucked futilely at the gray haze.
"It's about time, Nick," Hawk growled. "Come in. You'll have to sit on the bunk. Good God, you've grown a beard!"
The AXE director nodded a silent dismissal at the young lieutenant. The lieutenant saluted smartly and closed the door.
"Good officer," Hawk said, then turned his attention to Carter "You'll be glad for that beard where you're going. We've got a fine mess on our hands with this Silver Dose business."
David Hawk had the kind of nondcscript wide face and stocky body that lent itself well to disguise and adaptation. He was of medium height, the still-strong muscles not obvious under his three-piece Washington suit. Only the muscles in his forceful jaw showed as he worked on his cigar. His only outstanding feature was a shock of white hair.
With padding, he could be disguised as a well-to-do European businessman. With the right kind of loose clothes, he could be a down-and-out vagrant. With makeup, tinted lenses, and dyed hair, he could blend into almost any culture. He could do those things even today. Instantly.
He had teen a chameleon as a field agent. And now, in his sixties, as he smoked his cigar in the small submarine cubicle, Nick Carter had the feeling that the AXE director wanted that again.
For the moment, Hawk once more wanted to be the premier Killmaster. The best agent, not the best agency head. He didn't want to be the mastermind sending Carter or someone else out to do the job. He wanted to do the job himself. He wanted to take on Blenkochev, and settle once and for all his superiority in the war of wits and nerve.
There's a communications flurry from Soviet embassies all over the world to the Kremlin," Hawk said grimly.
He sat at the small desk, his face stem and impassive. He exuded power like a woman docs perfume. The power came from deep within him, honed by experience and intellect It was so much a part of him that he was unaware of it. But anyone nearby felt it like a cold wind.
"What are they saying?" Carter asked.
"We haven't broken the code yet. They're using top emergency communications. Reserved only for worst-case situations… such as war."
"Silver Dove?" Carter said from the bunk, and lit a cigarette.
"There's nothing else unusual going on. It's got to be Silver Dove they're talking about. Right now we're assuming the Dove group is one of the KGB's 'unofficial' terrorist organizations. I have people in Moscow checking it out."
"What does Silver Dove have to do with Rocky Diamond and the dead embassy attaché in Wellington?"
Hawk allowed himself a brief smile.
"That's your assignment, Nick," Hawk said. "Find out what Silver Dove is doing. And that means the Antarctic. By backchecking, we've discovered that the 'business' trip the Soviet attaché was on included Paris, Rome, Moscow, Hong Kong, Sydney, and somewhere in Antarctica before he returned to the embassy. Antarctica wasn't scheduled. We think that whatever's going on down there is influencing the Soviet uproar."
"I see."
"I thought you might." Hawk puffed thoughtfully on his cigar. "Silver Dove appears to be a large organization. And old and well established enough to have at least one sleeper agent who waited for his assignment a good fifteen years. It wouldn't be unusual for an embassy to not know about one of the KGB's undergroups. When their attaché died, they acted innocently to save him. And then Blenkochev arrived, and he hasn't gone home. Something is happening with Silver Dove that he has to direct or keep on top of."
"Something that has other Soviet embassies interested," Carter said. "Or worried."