The man beside the wide walnut desk was also dressed in white — a white silk three-piece tropical business suit, nipped in at the waist.
He stood beside the desk as Carter, Blenkochev, and Anna filed into the office, now accompanied by only three of their original escorts. The three Silver Doves kept their air rifles pointed at Carter In the corner, a heater hissed with warm air.
"Blenkochev," the man beside the desk said in a contained voice.
Blenkochev nodded affirmation.
"I should have known it'd be you. Skobelev," he said. "It's good to see you."
From General Yevgeny Skobelev's breast pocket flowed a brilliant red silk handkerchief. The small dove on the pocket was embroidered with shining silver thread. His shoes were white, too, and polished until they reflected the walnut desk. His shirt was pale pink, only slightly more rosy than his skin. With his thick white hair, light blue eyes, and baby-pink complexion he was a portrait in pastels Except for the bright red handkerchief… which framed the silver dove with bloody importance.
"Why are you here, Blenkochev?" General Skobelev said.
The Soviet general was giving nothing away, not even a gracious greeting. He walked behind his desk and sat in a leather-covered chair.
He had all the amenities, even paintings of Russian landscapes on his four plastered office walls, lamps instead of overhead fluorescent lights, and an apartment-size refrigerator on the floor behind his chair. Beside it was a second door, this one with a peephole.
Blenkochev took it all in with one haughty glance. He wasn't intimidated. He dropped into a leather-covered chair in front of the desk, crossed his legs, took off his mittens, and opened his parka. His perfume filled the room.
When Carter tried to sit, Blenkochev waved a hand, and the three guards backed the AXE agent into a corner.
Carter didn't protest, fulfilling his role. He didn't trust Blenkochev, but he would play along with him for a while. He needed to know exactly what was happening in the Silver Dove installation. What he'd told Blenkochev were only educated guesses, and he needed confirmation. He needed concrete information on which to judge what to do. Concrete information to give Hawk.
Anna watched, then sat, too, and loosened her thick clothing.
"Have any coffee?" Blenkochev asked, smiling disarmingly.
Skobelev looked at him briefly, then at one of the Silver Dove guards. The guard nodded and left the room.
"Now, Leon," General Skobelev said. "What's this all about?"
"I might ask you the same question," Blenkochev said arrogantly, "except that it's my business to know the answer first." He slapped his hands down on the wooden arms of his chair. The sound reverberated in the small room, and the two remaining guards jumped. "I've come to join you, Yevgeny. My daughter and I. No other way to explain it. I brought Carter to show my sincerity."
Skobelev exercised self-control. His mouth dropped only a fraction of an inch. Then he reassembled his face, and his manner was once again that of the polished and mighty Soviet general, close to the Politburo, right-hand man to Chernenko, a face known to all Russia for the many appearances it made in official Soviet news photographs celebrating the First of May and other military occasions.
He studied Blenkochev. The personal power of the two Soviet leaders filled the room.
"My men heard you planning to bury supplies with Carter," Skobelev said. "Emergency supplies that you'd return for. Need later, after taking our base perhaps."
"A ruse," Blenkochev explained smoothly, "a distraction. I wanted to stay in one place long enough for your men to find me."
"Carter had his weapons," the Silver Dove leader shot back. "He was your companion, not your captive."
"Carter is notorious for escaping," Blenkochev said easily. "Sometimes success is more certain with trickery than with force. And remember, he's David Hawk's favorite. Some of his training came from Hawk personally."
The name of the mighty AXE chief gave Skobelev pause.
"Yes. David Hawk."
The white-haired Russian general tapped his fingers on the desk lop. From his expression, Carter guessed that he'd had his own run-ins with Hawk. The experiences were enough to convince Skobelev that Carter was too dangerous to capture easily, and worth the difficulty of outwitting.
"Do you know our aims?" Skobelev warned the potential convert Blenkochev. "What we plan to do? A man with a queasy stomach and no vision belongs back in the safety of Mother Russia, not here on the frontier of a new way of life."
"I know enough to intrigue me," Blenkochev said and smiled, "Enough to think you re on to something important. A superiority of life forms. As for the rest, perhaps you'd better fill me in."
The door to Skobelev's office opened, and the guard returned with a tray and two mugs of steaming coffee. He put the mugs on the desk, one in front of Skobelev, and the other in front of Blenkochev. None for Anna.
Angry, Anna stared at her father, but the flicker of his eyelashes warned her to be silent. They had a job to do. No time to right petty injustices. She compressed her lips and folded her hands in her lap. Two bright spots flamed on her cheeks. She looked at Carter, and he saw the depth of her sense of injustice. She was a passionate woman.
Skobelev didn't notice. He picked up his cup and sipped daintily. His gestures were like his clothes, tidy and perfect. A man to whom perfection was perhaps a god.
"It's simple, really," he said. "Only the best men should rule the world. Why do we have so many problems? So many wars? Because the wrong kind of people get into leadership roles. They're fooled into trusting nonexistent gods. Genetically and hormonally they're incapable of making intelligent decisions that will benefit everyone."
"And you are?" Anna said quietly, her face a brilliant red.
Skobelev didn't even glance at her. But Blenkochev did. Again the warning look. She dropped her eyelashes.
"Of course!" Skobelev said confidently, his chest pushing against the while silk suit. "And that brings us to the issue of Carter."
He gazed at Blenkochev. He was issuing a challenge. What was to be done with the American spy?
Blenkochev looked coldly at Carter, and in that moment the AXE agent knew his usefulness to Blenkochev was over. He was abandoned.
"Do whatever you like," the KGB man said. He'd achieved his reputation for ruthlessness by crawling up over the corpses of his no-longer-useful comrades. "He knows little about your operation. And that means Hawk knows next to nothing." By abandoning Carter, he strengthened his position with Skobelev and Silver Dove.
"Then you're shortsighted," Carter said.
Everyone in the room turned to stare at Carter. Until he'd spoken, he was a piece of furniture. Now they remembered that he had a life and will of his own. A reputation. It made them edgy, even more eager to be rid of him, just as they would any potentially dangerous animal. Only Anna looked at him sympathetically. And she was as powerless as he.
"Take him away," Skobelev said, his fingers flicking with distaste at the AXE agent. "Kill him."
Sixteen
The heater in the corner across from Nick Carter hissed. The warm, stuffy office air stank of Leon Blenkochev's perfume. The hot eyes of the Soviet guards were focused on Carter, burning with the delightful prospect of killing him.
Two of the Silver Doves grabbed his arms.
Casually Carter shrugged, stepping between them.
Carter still didn't have the information he needed. His weapons were gone. It was too early to fight.