After Rishiri had driven off, Carter went back to where the maids had finished bathing Kazuka and dressing her wounds, which had looked a lot worse than they were. She had lost a lot of blood, and it would be a while before she was fully recovered, but she would be all right.
They had given her something to make her sleep, and when Carter looked in on her she was very drowsy, her eyes half closed.
"Nicholas?" she murmured softly.
Carter went to her side and kissed her forehead. "I'm going now. You're safe here. Rest."
"Don't go," she whispered, trying to sit up. "You cannot go. It isn't safe."
"It will be all right."
"No, listen to me, Nicholas. I know. Everything has turned against this thing you are about to do."
"The Russians can't be expecting us, Kazuka. It will be all right. I promise."
She lay back on the bed and looked up at him. "Come back to me," she said. "I will wait…"
"Sleep now," Carter said. He kissed her again, then backed out of the room.
None of the staff was around at the moment, but it did not matter. They knew what to do to take care of Kazuka without any further instructions. And if they did run into some trouble, they would call her uncle, and with his power and influence no one would get to her. She was as safe here as she could be anywhere else.
Before he left he reloaded Wilhelmina. He had not said anything to Kazuka, of course, but he too was beginning to get the feeling that this mission was somehow jinxed. From the moment he had been given the assignment, things had begun to go wrong. Now, not only was Kazuka hurt, but he felt responsible for the lives of a CIA field man and two naval officers.
The wind had come up and it had begun to snow lightly by the time Carter was on the highway, pushing the Mercedes at times to its limits. The mountains ran north and south, forming the spine of Honshu, the main island. Carter came out of the mountains and ran with the coastal hills and plains, passing through little villages and terraced farmlands.
Around the larger towns, such as Hachioji, Omiya, and Tsuchiura, he had to reduce his speed. Time was too precious now for him to be stopped by some local cop for a traffic violation. During those times his mind went over and over the mission — what they would find when they stepped ashore in the Soviet Union and, more importantly, the extent of the security at Svetlaya.
The nearer he came to Mito and the CIA compound, however, the more he began to get the feeling that something else had already gone wrong. With Kazuka it was women's intuition. With him it was a sixth sense that he paid attention to, but never let dominate his thinking.
Nothing seemed changed in the town itself, though it was snowing quite hard and the winds were gusting. The chopper pilot was going to have trouble getting them out to the sub, he figured, if the bad weather continued.
On the other side of Mito, Carter took out his Luger, flipped the safety off, and laid it beside him on the seat.
The compound itself was a little north of the coastal village of Nakaminato. He came around a long, sweeping curve in the highway, then turned down the access driveway that led to the compound gate. As he approached he kept looking for the Korean guard, but the man was nowhere in sight, and the gate itself was open.
Alarm bells began clanging in Carter's brain. He picked up his Luger and held it on his lap as he slowed down for the gate.
The guardhouse door opened and a man dressed in a thick gray overcoat stepped outside. He was definitely not Korean. The guard raised his arm in salute as Carter powered down his window.
It was a Russian, Carter suddenly realized; they had found out about this place. The Killmaster raised his Luger just as the Russian realized who was driving and started to bring his machine gun around.
Carter fired twice, the first shot catching the Russian in the chest, knocking him backward, his own weapon firing into the ground; the second hit the man in the side of the face, destroying his skull, blood filling his eyes as he went down.
The Russian had recognized the Mercedes and thought one of his own was driving it. A fatal mistake.
Carter stopped the car, jumped out, and dragged the Russian's body back into the guardhouse. The Korean guard, the back of his head blown away, lay in a pool of blood in the corner. Carter touched his cheek. It was still warm. The man had not been dead for very long. It meant the Russians had just arrived.
Back outside, Carter drove the rest of the way through the fence, then walked to the access road and closed and locked the gate. He did not want anyone else coming into the compound behind his back — not more Russians and certainly not the Japanese authorities, who might show up to investigate the gunfire.
It was getting late. Already the light was fading in the overcast sky. The chopper would be showing up very soon if the pilot had been able to get off the ground in Tokyo.
The driveway cut through the edge of the south woods above the helicopter landing area, then ran through the orchard before coming out into the open part of the compound where the main house and other buildings were located along the edge of the cliffs down to the sea.
Carter pulled up just within the orchard and went the rest of the way across on foot, cutting the last fifty yards through the orchard itself.
Had there not been two Mercedeses just like the one he was driving parked in front of the main house, everything would have looked normal. Four men to each car, minus the one at the guardhouse, meant there were possibly as many as seven armed professionals on the property.
One man armed only with a Luger and a stiletto was not enough. Carter figured he was going to need an equalizer before he went barging in down there. Something that would even the odds a bit.
He turned and hurried back through the orchard to a point where even on the driveway he would be out of sight of anyone at the house. He crossed over to the north side and worked his way through the trees to a spot he figured was well beyond the communications center and directly across from the armory.
At the edge of the orchard he studied the sixty yards of open ground to the armory. Nothing moved. No lights shown from any of the buildings except from the main house a few hundred yards to the south. It was possible, however, that the Russians had been smart enough to discover the communications center and station someone there. But he was betting that they hadn't had enough time.
Scott's driver had explained yesterday that the compound was often used for counterinsurgency training, to impress the Japanese. It meant there would be riot control weapons in the armory. Weapons designed to take out, or at the very least subdue, large numbers of people.
The snow was getting heavier, and at least for the moment Carter was thankful for the cover it provided him.
Leaving the protection of the trees, he dashed across the open lawn, half expecting the sound of gunfire at any moment.
None came by the time he made it to the stone garage. It took him a few nerve-wracking minutes to pick the locks, but soon he was inside. The garage was filled with rack of assault rifles, riot control shotguns, tear gas launchers, and bomb disposal equipment.
Carter grabbed an assault rifle with a bandolier of extra ammunition, and a tear gas launcher with a half-dozen canisters. Then he raced across to the communications building where he flattened himself against the wall beside a window.
He took a brief look inside. The radio technician lay dead on the floor. Two Russians were studying the equipment.
Carter loaded the tear gas launcher, stepped back, and fired a canister through the window.