“Just who are ‘they’?”
She started to reply, then stopped. “I think it better that Vadim explain all this to you.”
Abruptly, before the Killmaster could ask her anything further, she started up the trail.
Carter picked up the buckets and the spade and started down.
It all fit. Or at least he hoped it did.
The blonde, Jarvia Karoly, had followed him from the Pension Galpi in Budapest. It stood to reason he had been made at the frontier by the SSB officer. That was how the blonde had picked him up.
Ilse Beddick, being with Vinnick, wouldn’t know what name he was traveling under, or where he would be staying in Budapest.
He remembered the look on the brunette’s face when he’d walked into the bar. He could see now that it had been a look of recognition. He also remembered the snow m her hair. Obviously she had just entered the bar from the outside. That probably meant that she had just arrived at the lodge.
It fit, he thought.
He just hoped that Vinnick, when they met, could answer the rest of the questions rambling around in his mind.
Five
Carter walked along the freshly plowed street toward the lift station. The snow was piled high on the sides, soft and powdery.
At the lift station he was relieved to find he was not the only guest who had decided on a midnight run. There were about fifteen people lined up for tickets.
Carter studied them carefully as he waited in line. They were young, the men tall and athletic, and the women attractive in snug-fitting ski outfits.
Ilse Beddick was not among them.
He got his ticket and walked along the railed corridor toward the cars. Again he looked at the sky. There would be a moon before long, not a full one, but it would be too bright for comfort. He decided to remain in the shadow below the big wooden platform until his number was called. He could hear the shuffling feet and laughter of the people above him. Most of the conversation was in Hungarian, with a sprinkling of German.
Carter waited for the last seat and dropped into it while it was still moving. There was no one behind him, and no one who had gone before him had given him a second glance.
At the top, there was a large sign directing skiers to the five runs and indicating their degree of difficulty.
Carter smiled to himself.
Number Two on the north was by far the most difficult. Ilse Beddick had made a good choice.
To a man and woman, the group in front of Carter fanned out to the easier runs. Carter found himself alone at the top of number Two.
He killed a little time by crouching and coating his skis with oil from a hand roller. When he could hear no more chatter from the others, he discarded the hand roller and poled his way over the precipitous lip.
Then he was plunging downward, gathering speed into the first bank. Startled birds exploded from the neighboring pines as he accelerated. He felt the exhilaration of taking the course as fast as he could. A line of trees came up quickly, a flat area unexpectedly dark, shielded from the brightness of the moon.
And he felt ice suddenly under his skis and the sudden burst of speed that came with it. His legs bent lower and he felt the pull on his thigh muscles. The jump, as it came up, was not so high as it was unexpectedly fast, and he made a mental note of it. He sailed into the air, came down on a flat slope that immediately became a traverse of steep bumps and rolls. A right turn came at him and he felt soft snow, leaned into it hard, and took it without slowing.
A line of trees again, longer, the shadows deeper, and hard, blue ice. He saw the green shapes hurtling past as another traverse came up and he went airborne and down, airborne and down again in a twisting path where a single error would mean crashing into the trees and almost certain death.
Coming out of it, the slope flattened, rose, and went into a long schuss that looked deceptively simple as he gathered speed only to find it dotted with bumps and rolls.
Then he saw the sign and leaned into a hard right turn that sent powder swirling in a twenty-foot arc.
The alternate trail was narrower and the snow softer, slowing his descent.
In seconds he saw her figure on a rise in front of him. When she was sure it was Carter, she turned and sped off. He fell in behind. Not more than two minutes later, she left the trail and wove dangerously through the trees.
Carter had to admire her skill. It was all he could do to keep up with her, and his heart was pounding like a trip-hammer.
Then he saw the farmhouse, light in the downstairs windows. It was steep-roofed and loomed large in the moonlight.
The woman slid to a halt and Carter came up beside her. They unbuckled their skis and mounted the steps to the porch. Carter expected some kind of watchdog, and when no one appeared, commented on it.
“Too risky,” she replied. “Only the two of us know about this meeting. Come this way.”
He followed her around to the side of the house. She rapped twice on a pair of French doors, and they entered a large, cozy room heated by roaring logs in a huge fireplace.
In a rocker by the fire was a gaunt man beneath a lap robe. His face was a sickly, sallow color, and his tangle of wiry gray hair was an invitation for nesting birds. He was approaching his sixtieth birthday, but he looked an ailing twenty years older than that.
When he looked up, his eyes were dark and cavernous, but they were also alert, and they assessed all of Carter in one penetrating look.
“Ah, Carter. Please sit down. You’ll forgive my rudeness at not standing. I must conserve as much strength as possible. You see, I am dying.”
Ilse Beddick poured tea for herself and Vinnick, and found brandy for Carter. As she did this, she related the night’s events at the lodge.
“Yes, when I heard you outside, I figured that there had been difficulties. You see, Carter, there are factions in my country, indeed in my own service, who would dearly love to bring me down.”
“I guessed as much,” the Killmaster replied. “But why?”
“I shall get to that, soon,” Vinnick said. “In the meantime, how much did my sister tell you? Oh, by the way, if you wish to smoke, please do. Ilse, find him an ashtray.”
Carter eased into Lorena Zorkova’s story and speeded up, hitting just the high points as he came to the end. He thought the man had fallen asleep, but when he finished, Vinnick’s head came up and his eyes were as bright and penetrating as before.
“Good,” he murmured. “When the Soviets moved in to establish the Communist party, I joined immediately.” Here he paused, a raspy laugh escaping his lips. “I was, you might say, a ruthless, devoted advocate of the new regime.”
“And you became one of its most powerful and feared men,” Carter offered. “Why?”
“Two reasons... survival, and revenge. Now, an answer to your earlier question. I was one of the men who advocated against complete submission to Moscow. To do that, we aligned ourselves with Red China as much or more than with the Kremlin. Because of this, Romania still has some degree of independence.”
A little bell went off in Carter’s head. “All the information you passed to us through your sister?”
“Exactly. Astute of you at last. All of it was a detriment to the other Eastern bloc countries and Moscow. That in itself was a form of revenge for what the Bolsheviks did to my father. My sister was my eyes and ears in the West, as well as my conduit to you. The operation has worked quite well. It has also given my sister a better life in the West. Ilse, more tea, please.”
The woman was at his side at once. Carter studied the two of them. There was obviously a great deal of warmth and affection there. Vinnick sensed Carter’s look, and smiled.