Nick Carter - The Istanbul Decision

Tatiana heard the stupid American doctor leaving, but she did not turn around. He and his asinine attempt at Russian! As though his vile tongue could do justice to the expressiveness of that language!

But she had to contain her anger. She had to keep her silence, build a wall around herself. And wait until the time was right.

And when that lime finally arrived, she'd have to depend on instinct. Instinct her father had taught her to depend upon and use. Attack, he said. Attack and keep on attacking until the enemy can no longer raise his head. And then keep on — keep on until you've utterly crushed him!

She thought about her enemy — his face a pulpy mass of blood — and it made her smile. It was the face of Nick Carter, the man who had put the bullet in her back, the man she hated more than anyone in the world. Revenge upon him would be sweet when it came. And it would come. In time. In time.

She twitched her toes inside the cloth hospital slippers. Her secret. She had to keep it from these stupid doctors at all costs. No one could know, no matter how they tried to take her unawares, no matter how many pins they stuck in her legs. Nothing could spoil the surprise she had in store for them, all of them. She would exercise at night. She would do isometrics in bed to work off the weakness that had crept into her body from the weeks of lying and sitting in this disgusting room. Then, when the time came, she would show them how well she walked. And ran.

The first to die would be that sniveling nurse. She'd find out whom she'd been dealing with all this time. What a pleasure it would be to watch the light of life fade from those dull eyes, to let death swell that sharp tongue of hers and silence it forever! But in time, not now. For now she must wait.

Nick Carter, the man uppermost in Tatiana Kobelev's thoughts, was oblivious to the hatred being directed toward him from the hospital at Camp Peary more than three hundred miles away. He lit another cigarette and dropped the match between the seats of the small rehearsal hall located on West 49th Street in New York City, then focused his attention again on what was happening onstage.

The director had stopped the show to make a minor adjustment, but now they were underway again, working on a scene from the second act of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire.

Most of the actors were bad, some even terrible — stiff, uncertain of themselves, or so overconfident that their performances lacked balance and subtlety. But the young woman in the role of Blanche radiated power. She was Blanche Dubois. When she spoke, Carter could hear the harbor sounds, and smell the sweat and stench of the New Orleans slum. She was the epicenter of the entire production, and the director seemed to know it, checking with her time and time again as to how she wanted a scene done or if such and such a change met with her approval. Finally they broke for lunch, giving Carter the opportunity he'd been waiting for. He slipped backstage and knocked on her dressing room door.

"Who is it?" she asked impatiently.

"It's me."

"Who the hell is 'me'?" she asked, flinging the door open. She looked into his face, and her mouth dropped open in surprise. "Nick!" she exclaimed happily, throwing her arms around him.

"Hello, Cynthia."

"'Hello, Cynthia'? This is all you can say after two years? I pine for you half my young girlhood and ail you can say is. 'Hello. Cynthia'?"

"May I come in?"

"Yes, of course."

The room was packed with crates of costumes, wigs, and other paraphernalia. He lifted a copy of the script from a chair and sat down. "Hawk sent me," he said simply. "We've a job for you."

"Business, is it?" she said, disappointed. "I should have known. You wouldn't come all the way up here just to pay a social call."

That's not true. Cynthia. When they told me you'd been selected for this assignment, I couldn't wait to get here."

"Really, Nick? If you weren't such a Don Juan, I could almost believe that. David Hawk. I haven't heard that name in a long time. How is the old bastard?"

"He survives. He's tough. He has to be. But this time he needs your help."

"I've heard that song and dance before. It seems to me I remember you and me hotfooting it across the deserts of Iran one step ahead of the Ayatollah."

"We appreciated what you did."

"Swell. I get a letter of commendation from the President, and I can't even show it to anybody. That, and a broken heart. Now you want me to do it all over again?"

"I didn't break your heart, did I?" asked Carter with a smile.

She had been leaning against the dressing table. She came to where he was sitting and ran a hand through his hair. "You 're an asshole, Nick. You know you did. You made me love you, then you ran off to Algeria or some damned place and that was the end of it. Tell me, this job Hawk has in mind — will you be working with me?"

Carter stood up and took her into his arms. "Yes."

"Closely?"

He kissed her neck. "Very."

She made a sound low in her throat that was half groan and half sigh, and pulled away from him. "It's no use. We open in Philadelphia in seven days for a month's run, then we return here. I can't just walk out on them now."

"I saw the rehearsal. You're the best thing in the show."

"It's a big chance for me, Nick. I'm no longer just an understudy. I've been learning."

"It's important, Cynthia."

Her eyes never left his face. "How important, Nick? Tell me the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Make it easy for me."

"Your Russian is still passable?"

"I was raised over there, remember? Until my father defected."

"Who's the most important individual in the Soviet hierarchy?"

"You mean officially, or who has the most power?"

"The most power."

"I'd have to say the head of the KGB. Everyone's afraid of him, even the Premier."

"What if I told you there was a man standing in line to seize that power, a man so totally evil, so obsessed with destroying both his country and ours, that he makes Hitler look like a Boy Scout?"

The hate in his voice made her suddenly cold, and she tried to laugh. "You're not serious, are you?"

"Deadly. I tried to kill him once, but I failed to make certain the job was done. I won't make the same mistake again."

"Who is this maniac? What's his name?"

"Nikolai Fedor Kobelev."

The girl's face turned white. "Oh. Nicky!" she exclaimed.

"You know of him?"

She sat down heavily in the chair behind her. "I know him all right. His name has been a curse in my family for years. He was a cipher clerk in State Security. An opportunity for a promotion came up, and it was between him and another clerk. The competition didn't last long. The other clerk was found at home, stabbed through the neck. That other clerk was my mother. I was a year old at the time."

"I didn't know."

She shook her head, the memory hard. "He pulled strings, managed to shunt the blame onto my mother's alcoholic brother. Uncle Piotr is still in Siberia doing life."

Carter's hands fell to his sides. "I'm sorry," he said. "I wasn't told. If I had known, I would have requested they assign somebody else."

"No, Nick! I want to do it. I have to. Don't you see? I owe it to my mother and my family. If you're going to run an operation on Kobelev, I must be there."

Carter shook his head. "There isn't room on this assignment for personal vendettas. The man has to be taken out cleanly, professionally, completely. There can't be any slip-ups."

"I can do it, Nick. I swear I'll do exactly what you say. But I have to be there when you put the knife in him."

Carter sighed. There wasn't much time. Finding another actress might take months. Besides, Cynthia's resemblance to Kobelev's daughter was almost uncanny.