"Damned if I know."
Carter described the storm that must have disrupted radio contact, and the «night» he'd spent in the helicopter with the blizzard howling outside. Then he told Hawk about Rocky Diamond's jet.
"Interesting," Hawk said, but Carter could hear the edge of excitement in his voice. "Hold on while I take a fix on you."
The butane lighter snapped into life back in McMurdo as Hawk worked. Soon the AXE director exhaled noisily.
"Damn! He's almost on top of Novolazarevskaya!" It was another voice. Colonel Chester ffolkes "Blenkochev'll be breathing down his neck!"
"N3?" Hawk said in the distance. "Did you hear?"
"Yes, sir. Princess Astrid Coast must be over the mountains," he said. "Colonel ffolkes, any word about Mike?"
"Giving them all a bad time at the hospital. Be out soon, bless her," Colonel ffolkes said, his voice relieved. "Jolly good work, Carter. Novolazarevskaya! It's critical we resolve this problem soon."
"You've learned something new?" Carter asked.
He stamped his feet and rubbed his nose with a mittened hand. He would be warmer standing in the sunshine, but now he was concerned about being seen. Shadows were safer.
"Unfortunately," Hawk said. "There's been a second case of the disease that killed the Soviet attaché. Colonel ffolkes sent the doctor who treated the attaché to investigate. A Chilean soldier who was in that country's Antarctic base at Bernardo O'Higgins. This one didn't have the Silver Dove tattoo. The man's dead."
"It reminds me of the deaths in Europe after World War Two," ffolkes said to Hawk. "Remember? Patients dying in hospital for no apparent reason."
"No one could forget," Hawk said grimly. "Penicillin so diluted that it was worse than worthless. Doctors relied on it, a miracle drug, and they didn't bother to treat with anything else."
"It took us a long time to find the bloody sources. The murderers."
"Never did get them all. Finally our U.S. labs solved the problem by producing so much penicillin that the black market demand for it stopped."
"Blenkochev?" Carter said.
"It was rumored that he ran a big black market penicillin business," ffolkes said. "The profits lined his pocket and the Kremlin's depleted war treasury."
"But we couldn't find any conclusive proof," Hawk said.
"Except that he had money, David. And black market connections that were astounding. If anyone needed real penicillin, they could get it through him."
"Remember the beer garden on Konigsallee?" Hawk said to his old friend. "Blenkochev on the tables?"
The two agency heads laughed heartily. It was a joke at Blenkochev's expense that would be treasured until the last witness died. In the short-lived, dangerous business they were in, laughter was a rare commodity. The healthiest members of the community took advantage of it whenever possible.
"So," ffolkes said at last, a smile still in his voice.
"Yes, so," Hawk agreed, puffing cheerfully far away.
From the sound of Hawk's voice, Carter knew the AXE director had once again made peace with his job. There was excitement to he found in sitting behind a desk and planning, an excitement different from the adventures of the field. Still, it was excitement.
"Get on with it, N3," Hawk continued. "Follow the skimobile tracks. Find Diamond if possible. Find out what's going on at the Soviet base at Novolazarevskaya."
"And watch out for that rotter Blenkochev," ffolkes added. "He was once the best and most ruthless killer in the world. Only better than Hawk in the sense that he was so heartless."
There was silence. The two men had nothing more to add, each lost in memories of the past. Carter signed off, put the radio back in his pack, and hiked back to the helicopter for snow-camping supplies. It would lake several days to cross the mountains. He wanted to be prepared.
Thirteen
Nick Carter smoothly slid one ski ahead of the other. It continued to be a beautiful Antarctic day, clear and bright. He followed the skimobile tracks up a gentle snowy grade using cross-country Trek skis, flexible and long, and ski poles for his mittened hands. On his back he carried a backpack and sleeping bag.
In the sunlight, the snow was dazzling. Millions of little light particles glimmered like diamonds. The skimobile tracks were alternately visible and snow-covered. He followed them over the sparkling white carpet in the easy rhythm of the cross-country skier. It was a form of long-stride, slip-slide jogging that stretched the muscles until they sang.
Two wandering albatrosses flew overhead, a sign that the coast was just across the mountains. They were big birds, with eleven-foot wingspans that they rode like magic carpets as they circumnavigated the southern half of the world. Occasionally the two glanced at one another, like humans aware of their loved ones. Wandering albatrosses usually mated for life, and for them that could be more than fifty years.
Carter considered this as he pushed ahead into the isolation of the mountains. Sunlight filtered through a nearby glacier, producing an ethereal blue haze. Many of life's lessons could be learned in this beautiful desolation. Love, loyalty, courage.
Occasional thundering crashes sounded in the distance. It was mountainsides of snow too heavy to cling any longer, or the ends of glaciers sheering off in relief. This was a dramatic land, and not safe.
As he skied along, small mounds of snow slid down crevices and plopped at his feet. He passed through narrow valleys, over ridges, between boulders, always climbing as he followed the tracks. Snow and ice hung to sheer walls on cither side of him. Suspended. Waiting to crash down and fill the valley he crossed. Waiting to smother him in soft wet oblivion.
Alone in the splendid solitude, the sky and sun his only companions, he skied on, occasionally scooping up a handful of snow and letting it melt in his mouth. It was fresh and clean, untainted by salty streets and smog. No wonder people were drawn here. If he weren't on assignment, it could almost be his interrupted vacation.
He stroked his soft beard and looked ahead. The skimobile tracks continued upward, always climbing.
Then he heard the jet.
He skied swiftly into a shadow.
The jet swooped low over the mountains. Carter saw the markings. Soviet markings. The craft made three passes, then soared off toward Molodezhnaya, the Soviet Antarctic headquarters.
Carter resumed his journey, sobered by concern that he'd been discovered.
He had to go on. He had no choice. He concentrated on the task at hand. Soon he was once more caught in the hypnotic rhythm of the cross-country skier. He would continue one more hour, then make camp and rest.
Carter herringboned up a steep snowy slope, his long skis cutting crossmatched steps as he followed the more agile skimobile. Probably a Russian skimobile. Maybe a Silver Dove skimobile. Carrying a helpless American. Diamond. Antarctica was a preserve for wildlife, but not yet a preserve for humanity.
Then Carter smiled. Antarctica's spirit of universal peace and harmony was sufficiently strong that all of the continent's stations were open by treaty agreement to visitors from any nation at any time. He wondered about Novolazarevskaya. The Russian station.
He wasn't about to ski right up to it and ask whether their open-door policy applied to spies. Not with Blenkochev so close.
Sweating, he reached the top of the crest. Accordian pleats of snowy valleys and rocky mountaintops spread before him. He wiped a mitten across his face. His breath was silver steam in the air.
He scanned the majestic and deserted Antarctic mountains. On the other side of them was Novolazarevskaya. Exactly why had Blenkochev left Russia? What did he hope to accomplish in New Zealand?
A new answer to the question was beginning to form in Carter's mind.
Then he heard an intrusion in the white silence.