Racing around to the front of the building, he clicked the assault rifle to full automatic fire and sprayed the doorway as the two Russians stumbled outside, coughing in a thick cloud of tear gas. They went down in bloody heaps.
Before they had stopped twitching. Carter was sprinting toward the main house.
Someone came running around the far corner of the house. He fired one shot at Carter, who snapped off a short burst from the hip, knocking the man off his feet into the bushes beside the veranda.
The front door slammed open and two men rolled out, one left and one right, firing their handguns as they came.
Carter dived forward, firing even as he fell. The head of one of the men exploded, but the second man had rolled again and was still firing, bullets ricocheting off the gravel driveway. Carter jumped up at the same moment his rifle jammed. He tossed it aside as he dived to the left and reached for his Luger. The Russian got to one knee and started to fire, when he was flung violently forward by a burst of gunfire from within the house.
Carter had his Luger out and he spun that way.
"It's me!" Barber yelled.
Carter held up.
"It's all right! The others are dead!" Barber shouted. He appeared cautiously at the doorway.
Carter lowered his gun. "Is everyone all right in there?"
Barber came out onto the porch. "Scott's bought it, but Hansen and Forester are okay."
Over the noise of the wind they heard a chopper coming in and Carter looked up toward the sound, but all he could see was snow.
"They'll never expect us to move in this weather," Barber said.
"I wonder," Carter mumbled. Maybe Kazuka had been right after all.
Eleven
Scott had taken a round at very close range in the side of his head. The force of impact had broken his neck. He lay in the front corridor of the main house. Hansen was angry, but Forester was shook up.
"They must have killed the Korean guard topside," the naval computer expert said.
"They did," Carter said. "They also killed the communications man. Anyone else hurt in here?"
"They didn't have time to get to the staff," Hansen said. He looked over Carter's shoulder toward the front door. "Where did Barber go?"
"The chopper is coming in. He went up to meet it."
"Good God, you're not still planning on making a try for it, are you?" Forester asked. "In this weather?"
"You can return to Tokyo if you'd like," Carter replied. "In fact I'd rather you would."
Forester and Hansen looked at each other. "If you're going, we'll go," Forester said.
Carter holstered his Luger and bent down over Scott's body. He was tired. He hadn't got much sleep last night, and today had been rugged.
Hansen came over with a blanket and they covered the CIA chief of station's body. First Tibbet and now Scott were dead, not to mention a lot of Russians. How many others, Carter wondered, would fall before this business was over?
"We had no idea what hit us," Hansen said. "Scott was the first out in the corridor when they came in. He reached for his gun."
Carter straightened up. "Get over to the communications center and pick up the Svetlaya and Petrograd layout programs you and Forester worked out. We'll go over them aboard the sub."
"Right," Hansen said, and he left.
"How about our arctic gear?" Carter asked Forester.
"It's ready upstairs."
"Get it. We'll be leaving within a half hour if the chopper pilot thinks he can get us out to the sub."
"Yes, sir," Forester said, and he went upstairs.
Carter stood alone in the corridor, staring down at Scott's form beneath the blanket. He kept thinking about Kazuka's warning. He had never before been really spooked on an assignment, but this time the feeling was definitely there. He didn't like it, yet it was becoming increasingly difficult to deny his own sixth sense. Jumping out of an airplane without a parachute was beginning to seem like the sanest, safest thing he had done all week.
The front door crashed open. Carter spun around, dropped to one knee, and yanked out his Luger as Barber rushed in. The CIA man stopped short, his mouth dropping open.
Carter lowered his gun and got to his feet. "It's not a good idea to do things like that, Tom. Not now."
"Sorry," Barber said sheepishly. "The chopper pilot is waiting for us. He's sticking with his machine because of the wind."
"Will he take us out to the sub?"
"If we leave right now, Nick. This storm is supposed to intensify."
"Where's the sub?"
"About eighty miles out. She's running on the surface, waiting for us."
"Hansen is in the comm center getting the computer models for Svetlaya and the sub. Get him over to the chopper. I'll get Forester and our gear."
"Right," Barber said. He turned and hurried out.
Carter raced up the stairs as Forester was bundling the remainder of their things into the packs.
"Are we ready to go?" the navy man asked.
"Right now," Carter said. He grabbed a couple of the thick packs and one of the aluminum carrying cases.
Forester hesitated a moment.
"Last chance," Carter said.
Forester shrugged. "I've come this far — I might as well stick it out."
They hurried downstairs and across the stairhall to the front door. Again Forester hesitated. He looked back at Scott's body.
"What about this mess here?"
"The staff will clean it up. And I'll be making my report from the sub."
Forester looked at him. "Who the hell are you, Carter? There were eight Russians here, including the one up at the gate. You took out most of them. What are you?"
"Lucky, I guess," Carter said with a grin. "Well, are you staying or going?"
Forester turned without another word and went out.
Hansen and Barber were already at the helicopter pad. The big Sikorsky Sea King Navy rescue chopper was blowing snow everywhere and making so much noise it was impossible to talk. The pilot was literally flying the machine on the ground lest the strong winds knock it over.
They tossed their gear inside and climbed up through the main hatch. A Navy crewman wearing a crash helmet and headset slid the hatch closed, said something into the microphone, and they lurched off the landing pad, slewing sideways for a sickeningly long moment or two, but then they were airborne, swinging out to sea, the snow and clouds closing in above them, the storm-tossed waves fifty feet below.
Once they were settled on their course, Carter went forward to the cockpit to talk to the pilot.
"We've got an ETA at the sub at nineteen-thirty hours, sir," the pilot shouted. "About thirty-two minutes flying time from here."
"Are we being scanned by radar?" Carter asked.
The chopper's communications man nodded. "Yes, sir. Japanese coastal radar has us. But these flights are fairly routine."
"Even in this weather?"
"Yes, sir. Sometimes."
"How about to sea?" Carter asked.
The communications man flipped a couple of switches. "Yes, sir," he said, turning back. "The Silver Fish — that's the sub we're rendezvousing with — has us."
"Anyone else?"
"As in Russian?"
Carter nodded.
Again the communications man did something with his equipment. "It's clean so far, sir," he said, turning back again. "But we're so low, we don't see very far."
"I understand," Carter said. He looked at the pilot. "If we're picked up on Russian radar — I don't care from what type of ship — we'll be scrubbing this mission. We have to get to our sub clean. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir," the pilot said.
"Let me know if we run into any trouble."
"Yes, sir."
Carter went back into the main cabin where Forester and the others were strapped down. Forester looked green but determined. Again Carter got the strong feeling that something bad was going to happen.