Ник Картер - The Killing Ground

Mann was waiting for him. Carter pulled up beside the AXE resident’s car, and wound down his window. Mann leaned over and cranked down his own window.

“Meet me at the compound, in the park just beyond,” Carter said. “But make sure you’re clean.”

“Right,” Mann said.

“Did you bring the things?”

Mann nodded. “Hawk called.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Carter said, rolling up his window. He crashed the gearshift into first and took off.

For the next half hour he concentrated on his driving, making absolutely certain he was not picking up a tail.

Mann was just pulling into the park area as Carter showed up.

It was very windy now, and cold, but the rain had eased to a misting drizzle, perfect for cover.

“No trouble?” Carter asked.

“None. You?”

“I’m clean,” Carter said. He and Mann quickly changed into black jump suits, darkened their faces, and then pulled on the small packs Mann had brought along.

They headed immediately into the woods on a diagonal line that would bring them to the Soviet compound’s back wall.

“What about security?” Carter asked as they walked.

“It’s always been light. We don’t bother them, except electronically, and they don’t display any hardware.”

“They must maintain a perimeter watch.”

Mann nodded. “They usually have one or two men on the outside. But I couldn’t tell you their schedule.”

“Armed?”

“Probably.”

They hurried the rest of the way in silence, eventually coming within sight of the ten-foot-high wall, where they crouched behind a tree to watch and listen for a few minutes.

Carter checked his watch. It was just past nine-thirty, which meant they had less than thirty minutes to get in, do their thing, and get back out before the West German Air Force chopper made its routine pass.

There were a couple of lights on in upstairs windows of the compound building. Other than that the place was mostly in darkness.

Carter and Mann made it the rest of the way to the wall, and Mann boosted Carter up so that he could see over the top. Several cars were parked near what appeared to be a large service garage, and a light shone from around front. Other than that there was nothing to see.

Carter pulled himself the rest of the way up onto the wall, then, lying flat on his stomach, he reached down and helped Mann up and over the top.

Seconds later they both had dropped inside the compound and were racing to the back of the main building.

Mann pulled a grappling hook and line from his pack, and without hesitation he tossed it up, the hook catching on the edge of the roof three stories above.

“You’ve got everything you need in your pack,” Mann whispered, looking around. “I’ve got the detonator radio. They’re standard radio-controlled fuses, with plastique bricks.”

“Stand by,” Carter whispered. “If we have some company, shut them up, but don’t kill anyone.”

“Right,” Mann said.

Carter quickly climbed up the rope, and at the top he rolled over onto the roof in the midst of the communications and surveillance antennae.

He looked back over the edge, but Mann had disappeared, probably on a scouting trip.

Working as fast as he could in the darkness, Carter attached plastique charges to all seven of the compound’s antennae, inserting a radio-controlled fuse into each of the charges.

With eight minutes to spare he was again at the edge of the roof. Still Mann was not back. Carter eased over the eaves and quickly scrambled down the rope. With a quick flip on the line he had the grappling hook retrieved. He coiled the line and stuffed it into his pack as he headed around the corner on the run.

Charlie Mann was crouched in the shadows beside the building. He urgently motioned for Carter to get down.

“Two guards out front. They’ve got the fence line to the side covered,” Mann whispered.

Carter spotted the two Russians leaning against the side of a truck near the front of the building. They were talking.

Time was getting short. They were going to have to be out of there before the chopper came for its flyover.

Carter and Mann eased back around the corner, then stood up and headed in a dead run straight back away from the compound building, then around the corner of the service garage where they clambered over the wall.

With less than three minutes to go, Mann pulled the detonator out of his pack and set it for discharge as they hurried through the woods back toward their cars.

They had just come to the edge of the woods when the sound of the chopper’s rotors came to them over the breeze.

Mann stopped and looked back as Carter peeled off his dark jump suit.

“Hold it,” Carter said. “Hold it!”

The chopper came directly overhead, and a couple of seconds later it was directly over the Soviet compound.

“Now!” Carter snapped.

Mann cranked the switch, and an instant later a large explosion lit up the night sky.

“That’ll give the bastards something to think about,” Carter muttered.

“And the West Germans aren’t going to be exactly overjoyed either,” Mann said.

He and Carter raced back to their cars, tossing the packs and other things into the trunk of Mann’s BMW.

“Good luck, Nick. It’s been an interesting evening,” Mann said.

They shook hands. “I’ll clear you with Hawk when the dust settles,” Carter said.

“Was it worth the trouble it’s going to cause?”

“It was worth ten times as much trouble, my friend.”

“Good enough for me,” Mann said. “Take care, pal.”

“Right,” Carter said, and he jumped into his car and headed toward the E6 that led down to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, not turning on his headlights until he was well away from the now furiously burning Soviet compound.

Kobelev would put two and two together, and understand that the business tonight had been Carter’s work. He would also find out within hours — if he didn’t already know — that Carter would be at the Alpina Hotel.

Carter grinned. But that was just the beginning. He was going to play Kobelev’s game back at the man in spades. Before this weekend was over, Sigourney’s death would be avenged. When it came time for Carter to speak to her parents, he would have something positive to say to them.

It took an hour and a half to circle around Munich, then to drive south to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. During the trip down, Carter listened on the car radio to the first news reports of the explosion at the Soviet compound. A Soviet spokesman from Berlin said it was his understanding that the act may have been one of aggression by certain members of the West German Air Force.

The reaction had come a lot sooner and was much harsher than Carter had expected. Once the dust had settled, and it was discovered that the explosion had come not from the West Germans but had been an act of sabotage by unknown parties, it would not set well on Kobelev’s record. It wouldn’t take the KGB long to understand just who had engineered the raid. And then they would naturally turn to Comrade General Kobelev for an explanation: “Why wasn’t Carter stopped sooner? Why wasn’t he eliminated in the Caribbean when you had the opportunity and the means?” Carter could almost hear the outrage from Moscow, and he smiled.

Jealousy. Fear. Vengeance. Carter wondered which litany Kobelev would be willing to recite.

But then, he thought, all of that speculation was moot. By then Kobelev and his handmaiden Ganin would be dead if Carter had his way.

In the resort town, quiet now because it was between the summer season and the winter skiing season, Carter parked his car a block from the big hotel and with bag in hand went the rest of the way on foot.