He reached the end of the dining car and jumped to the salon car. He landed badly, trying to roll to absorb the shock and rolling right on his rib cage. He lay for several seconds, fighting to stay conscious in spite of the enormous swell of pain from his sides. Finally it began to subside, and he was able to sit up and pull himself into a crouching position.
He clambered across the top of the club car, but this time, instead of jumping, he tried to step onto the salon car. Unfortunately, the cars were swaying at an opposite rhythm, and as he stood with one foot on either car, the movement threatened to topple him backward off the mountainside. For a moment it looked as though he'd made a fatal error, but he managed to grab hold of the small wheel that operated the car's manual brake and pull himself on board.
Both vent holes, fore and aft, were clearly visible in the car's roof. Carter wondered which would be the most advantageous for his entrance. He would have to take one guard out with his first shot, which meant with the other it would probably degenerate into a gun battle. If he chose the near vent, there might be time for the guard in the club car to get in and catch him in a crossfire. The next car up was a sleeping car, and according to his information there was no guard in this, so he opted for the far vent.
He made his way across the car's roof as stealthily as he could, lifted the lid on the vent, and peeked in. No one was there. He crouched to get a better angle. Kobelev sat in a swivel chair in a booth by the bar, looking directly at him, a revolver to Cynthia's temple. Instinctively Carter drew back — and the back of his head hit the hard metal of a gun barrel.
"Won't you come in, Mr. Carter?" shouted Kobelev from the car below. "We've been expecting you."
Eight
Tatiana Kobelev reached across the narrow bed table and picked a card off the pile. A triumphant grin lit her face. "Gin!" she announced, laying her cards out.
The old nurse sighed and threw down her hand. She started to say something, then apparently thought better of it, and resignedly began to gather the cards into a deck.
"I think I like this American game," Tatiana said.
"It's more run when you don't cheat," the old nurse said sourly.
"I do not cheat! How dare you accuse me of cheating?"
"The proof is right here," said the nurse, coming around to the bed and fumbling beneath the blanket next to Tatiana. Tatiana tried to stop her, but the old woman managed to grab the queen of hearts and hold it up to her. "You see? You picked up two cards on the last turn and stashed the extra here. Do you think I'm a fool?"
"No! I think you are a peasant strumpet and a whore!" Tatiana shouted at the top of her voice.
The old woman's eyes narrowed and her face trembled with anger. Suddenly she lashed out and slapped the Russian girl's cheek.
"Whore! Whore! Whore!" the girl chanted.
A Marine stuck his head in at the door. "Everything all right in here, Lieutenant Dilsey?"
The old nurse sighed. "Missy here's just feeling her oats, is all."
"Why don't you come out of there for a while, ma'am? Give yourself a break. You remember what happened to Lieutenant Green."
"Sergeant, I don't have to be reminded what happened to the girl's previous nurse. I have no intention of letting this young lady get under my skin like that. Besides, she is not supposed to be left without supervision."
"I know that, ma'am, but a few minutes won't hurt. You haven't had a break from this for over a week."
"Two weeks."
"Exactly, ma'am."
"All right. My replacement will be here shortly anyway. And you're certainly not going anywhere, are you, dearie?"
Tatiana stared up at her sullenly, pure hate in her eyes.
The old woman stared back unflinchingly, then turned and left, locking the door behind her.
The room fell suddenly silent, except for the rush of air in the heating vent. For a moment Tatiana looked around, savoring her solitude. She'd been left to herself precious few times since coming to this awful place, and when one of these rare moments chanced to happen, it was not to be squandered wantonly.
She threw off the blanket, swung her feet out, and let herself down on the floor. Then using the bed table and the edge of the mattress for support, she pushed herself upright. She let go of the table and bed, and for one wavering, unsteady moment, was alone on the floor. Then she lost her balance and had to grab the bed to keep from falling.
Yes, she was doing nicely. With a few minutes' practice, the simple movements of walking and standing would come back to her. The exercises at night were paying off. The muscles were strong; they'd simply forgotten what to do.
She inched her way toward the foot of the bed. She would have to be careful. If Dilsey or the soldier saw her standing, the dancing would end, as the old saying went.
When she reached the end of the bed, she tore off the plastic cap from the top of a leg, moistened her finger, and pulled up an object that had been suspended in the hollow of the leg by a slender thread of bed linen. The object glinted in the light: a surgeon's scalpel, an instrument so sharp the mere weight of it would lacerate skin.
She held it by its thread and spun it, watching the sunlight flash on its blade. She'd stolen it from a careless doctor during one of the endless examinations. "Cough! Cough louder!" he'd said as she pulled it from the instrument tray. Then he d touched her breast in a most undoctorlike way, and it had taken all her self-control to keep from plunging it into his heart right then and there. But instead she gritted her teeth and slid the knife discreetly under her pillow.
This would be the tool of her vengeance, she thought, watching the scalpel spin. With it she would set into motion events that would free her from this confinement and bring about the death of Nick Carter, a consummation she wanted more than anything else in the world. Soon, she told herself. The time is almost at hand.
The Americans had already parried. This she knew. How she knew was a combination of intuition and tradecraft, although which predominated was impossible to say. Her father had taught her the tricks of the agent's art — the suspicious turn of mind, the secretiveness, the prodigious powers of deduction, the constant alertness and attention to detail — at such a young age and engrained them in her so thoroughly, tradecraft and intuition had become indistinguishable in her thinking.
Three weeks ago she'd fallen asleep reading in bed and two hours had passed of which she was completely unaware. This was highly unusual. She'd always been a light sleeper, given to restless dreams, some of them so vivid they'd caused her mother a great deal of concern when Tatiana was a child.
But this was a dreamless sleep, and when she'd awakened she tasted something bitter on her lips, and her skin was achingly dry except beneath one earlobe. There was wax. Conclusion? Her food had been drugged, and while she was unconscious a wax impression had been made of her face. There could be only one reason: they were making a double of her to fool her father.
Whether or not this operation had succeeded, she had no idea. Daily she searched the faces of everyone around her for some clue, but their expressions revealed nothing. They were too stupid to be told, she concluded. And yet she lost sleep each night wondering if she'd unwittingly become the instrument of her father's destruction.
The time is coming soon, she thought as the scalpel slowed. Soon she would be strong enough, and already the agony of not knowing was driving her into frenzies at night. Soon her own restlessness would force her to break out at any cost.