"You monitored the sentries," Carter said.
"Exactly, my bright Killmaster," Skobelev said, beaming with approval. It was a pleasure killing a worthy opponent. "All the sentries were fixed with special electronic devices. When one of their hearts stopped, the appropriate light lit up on the computer next door. After that, it was easy. We knew how you'd be coming in, and could watch you."
Carter nodded thoughtfully, seemingly impressed.
"That's my Luger," Carter said, gesturing at the gun on Skobelev's desk.
"I know," the general said with satisfaction. "I have all your equipment."
"Not quite all," Carter said, his turn to be pleased.
He flexed his knee, and the pin to a small gas bomb, twin to Pierre, popped out. The bomb dropped quietly from his pant leg onto the floor as all the Silver Doves trained their attention on their leader and Nick Carter.
"Nine minutes," Mike said softly beside him. "Better speed it up."
"What?" Skobelev said, irritated. "Speak up! You're going to be dead soon anyway. This is your last chance to talk…"
The bomb hissed loudly and exploded with the deadly, odorless gas. Carter and Mike held their breaths, waiting, counting. It took only thirty seconds for a person to fall unconscious from the gas, another thirty seconds for them to die if not removed to safe air.
"Carter!" Skobelev shouted. "What's he done? Nikolai? Alexei? What's he done!?"
Skobelev stood up and leaned over his desk to see.
Confused, the Silver Doves hesitated, looking at one another. Several of them sniffed the air, unsure.
"It's a bomb!" Skobelev yelled. "Grab it!"
One of the Doves bolted for safety through the office door into the hall. Three others followed.
Two braver ones ducked to grab the bomb and throw it out after the cowards.
The rest of the Doves turned on Carter.
Unmoving, not breathing, not wanting to attract any more attention to himself, Carter watched their fingers flex on their triggers. Their adrenaline was raging. They'd be breathing harder. Then he saw their eyes flicker. Their bodies sway. They took even deeper breaths. Their eyes glazed. In unison, Carter and Mike reached up under their caps and pulled down small gas masks to cover their noses and mouths.
The scream of the alarm reverberated through the installation. The Silver Doves who'd escaped the office had turned it on.
Skobelev lifted heavy eyes to look out the door. He fell over his desk. One by one, the other Doves in the room collapsed.
Carter and Mike jumped over the bodies. They grabbed Skobelev by the arms and dragged him into the laboratory where he could breathe. They needed him.
They locked the door so no one else could enter through the office.
The lab scientists looked up. There were seven of them. Astonishment widened their eyes. They grabbed air rifles.
"Eight minutes!" Mike said. "Only eight minutes! Where the hell is Blenkochev?"
Carter swung his air rifle, knocking the closest scientist off his feet and back into a table. Glass vials and tubes smashed to the floor.
Through the only other doorway, his thick black hair a wild halo over his head. Blenkochev charged like a bull into the laboratory. He, too, locked the door.
His stout face was thick with anger. His impeccable clothing was disheveled. His hands were raw and bleeding.
"They've killed Larionov," the heavyset KGB leader said.
He grabbed a Silver Dove scientist, picked him up as if he were a rag doll, and threw him across the room at two other scientists who were frantically trying to decide who to shoot first. The three collapsed in a heap to the floor.
"Then I'll take care of the outside doors myself." Carter said.
But first the three had to secure the laboratory before the glass cage was opened or broken into and the lethal bacteria released.
Mike raised her air rifle as if it were an ax. A scientist dashed toward her on his way to attack Carter. As he passed, she smashed the rifle down onto his head. He stopped dead in his tracks, surprised. Then he crumpled to the floor.
Carter spun and kicked the sixth scientist in the nose. The nose broke, the cartilage destroyed. The scientist yelled, grabbing his flattened nose as blood poured through his fingers.
Blenkochev picked up the last scientist by the front of his lab coat, swung him back and forth like a battering ram, then sent him skidding along a lab table as if he were a stein of beer. Microscopes flew off the table in a wake of metal and glass.
Carter stripped off his white snowsuit so that he was once again in his khaki clothes. He picked up Skobelev and shook him. Skobelev groaned.
"Wake up, dammit!" Carter said.
Blenkochev and Mike were already dragging the scientists into a corner where they could he better watched.
Someone pounded on the lab door. Carter looked with dismay at his watch. Mike stripped down to her khaki suit. Blenkochev still wore his blue one.
"Four minutes," Carter said grimly. "Skobelev!" He shook the Silver Dove leader again, then slapped his checks.
Skobelev's eyes opened. He frowned. Carter stood him on his feet.
"We're going," Carter told Blenkochev and Mike. "Keep the area secure. Don't let anyone in."
He reached for the door to the office.
"You're much too impertinent, N3" Blenkochev said.
He opened the door a crack and peered in, his air rifle ready. He nodded tersely and slipped into the office.
Behind Carter, Mike lifted her air rifle to guard the pile of semiconscious scientists.
Carter pushed Skobelev into the office. As he passed the desk, the Killmaster picked up Wilhelmina and slipped her in his pocket.
At the hall door, Blenkochev once again peered out. Voices, footsteps, and confusion echoed from the corridor.
"Very bad. Too many Doves," he told Carter. "Better let me handle it."
Before Carter could protest, Blenkochev stepped into the hall and closed the door.
The feet moved, slowed, stopped. There was a din of voices, so many that no individual one stood out. Then Blenkochev s voice predominated, the strong cultured Russian voice that commanded attention. Again the din rose up, overtaking Blenkochev.
Carter balanced Wilhelmina in his hand, ready.
Suddenly there was a shout, the voices unified. Curses filled the air. Feet pounded down the hall.
The door opened. Carter backed around it, Skobelev limp beside him. He raised his Luger.
"Hurry!" Blenkochev said, his big head coming around the door. "Everyone's gone. This way now. A short cut!"
He opened a door across the hall, then ran into a new corridor Carter had never been in.
"Only two minutes!" Carter said.
Dragging Skobelev, Carter ran behind Blenkochev past more offices and conference rooms.
"What did you tell them?" Carter asked.
"That you'd broken into the lab. Let out the bacteria. They believed it."
"Jesus Christ."
"In this building, it's best to keep religion out of it," the KGB czar observed.
Panting, he stopped in front of a heavy steel door. He took a breath.
"Inside are the controls for the electronic equipment in the installation," he said.
"Including the big outside doors?"
"Exactly."
Carter and Blenkochev stared at Skobelev.
"I've never liked you," Blenkochev said to Skobelev. "You're a sniveling little pansy. No guts. No heart. And worse yet, no brains."
Skobelev drew himself up and straightened his smudged white silk three-piece suit.
"I don't have time to be tactful," Carter said, staring at Skobelev. "When we get in there, you lock those gates open. If you don't I'll kill you."