VI
"Have you looked out your window, sir?" the pleasant, young voice asked me over the phone. I'd been so engrossed in my work sheets that I hadn't. When I did, I hung up. A thick fog was blanketing the city, the kind that doesn't go away for days. I checked out of the hotel and got a ticket on the Rome-Zurich Express. My compartment was in midrain and I boarded about twenty minutes before we left. Though listed as an express, it was far from what we call a through train back home. I had taken a sleeping compartment, and the conductor checked my passport and made up the berth. It was evening when we pulled out, and I watched the fog-shrouded lights of the Eternal City go by as we gathered speed. Like most European trains, it went like hell between stops, but then there were those innumerable stops for switching cars and adding new ones. I went to bed early and slept well. Trains always had a soporific effect on me. When I awoke we were just nearing the Swiss border at Bellizona. I went to the dining car and had a light breakfast. The countryside had changed, I saw as I looked out the train windows. It was hillier, with distant mountain peaks, snow-capped outlines, rising skyward. Spruce, evergreen and mountain laurel had replaced olive, cedar and grapevines. A crispness to the air had replaced the soft, indolent climate of Southern Italy. I strolled back to my compartment and was almost at it when a man's voice called out. I turned to see a man of medium height, balding, holding a gold cigarette case open as he came toward me.
" Scusi, Signor," he smiled, his Italian heavily accented. "Favorite darmi un fammijera?" I halted, fished a pack of matches from my pocket and handed them to him. As he leaned forward to take them, he spoke softly in accented English. "Do not move, Carter," he said. "There are two guns trained on you. One is here in my other hand, the other is behind you."
I stood still and saw the tip of the revolver jutting out of his jacket. I turned my head only enough to see the other man at the far end of the corridor.
"Open the door to your compartment and go in," the balding one said. "No tricks." Two more big, burly types in leather coats had appeared behind the man at the far end and they were closing in. I knew when I was in a sack. I opened the compartment and went in, my new-found acquaintances crowding in behind me. In a fast professional onceover they immediately relieved me of Wilhelmina. They missed Hugo. That was the great thing about the little stiletto. Even professionals, especially when in a hurry, often missed the leather sheath against my forearm.
"You seem to know my name," I smiled cordially at the first one who had asked for a match.
"Carter — Nick Carter." He smiled thinly. "Top AXE operative. N3, officially."
I sized them up quickly. If I hadn't been able to type the balding one, the last two were dead giveaways. They wore the stolid, poker-faced expression of NKVD work horses, heavy of hand and solid of head. The balding one was no doubt Soviet Intelligence, on an upper level.
"Since you know so much about me, am I to consider this some kind of special fan club?" I asked pleasantly. The balding one smiled again.
"Not really," he said. "But your reputation is well known."
"Especially to Soviet Counter-intelligence," I commented. "Didn't I meet some of your boys in and around London lately? A rather fatal meeting for them if I recall correctly."
He nodded and his smile was missing. "Unfortunately, you are correct," he said. "But things will end differently this time. I am Captain Vanuskin and I deplore bunglers."
"Me too," I smiled. My mind was racing. They had popped up out of nowhere. Either they were getting smoother or I was getting old. It actually bothered me more than being caught.
"I didn't notice you tail me to the train," I admitted. "I'm impressed."
"We didn't," Vanuskin answered and my eyebrows went up involuntarily. "As I said, your reputation is very well known. We were certain you'd spot a 'tail, as you Americans so quaintly put it. We staked out the hotel and we knew the airports were out because of the fog. So if you left, it had to be train or car. We had a man watching every outbound train track. When you left the hotel, our man merely radioed the fact. Then another of our men picked you up boarding the Zurich Express."
I felt better. They weren't getting smoother, only a little smarter. And the fog had simplified their task for them. Which brought me to another very interesting point. Only two people knew I was at the Rafaello Hotel — Hawk and Karl Krisst. Of course, Krisst could have let someone else know but I doubted that. I put it aside as an off-chance possibility, deciding instead on a little fishing expedition.
"Then he's one of your men," I said to the Russian. "He's the one who ripped you off that I was at the Rafaello."
"Who is this 'he'?" Vanuskin replied cagily.
"You can stop playing games," I said. "It's too late for that I'd still like to know how it's done though."
Vanuskin grinned, a wide, sly grin. "You are referring, I presume, to the unfortunate mental deterioration of certain scientists — to their stolen brains?"
I wanted to remap his grinning face, so much so that my hands were clenching and unclenching. I forced down the impulse. It would be certain death.
"That's more or less it," I said, forcing myself to sound casual.
"We don't know the answer to that any more than you do, Carter," the Russian answered blandly.
"Oh, come on now," I said. "Such modesty is something new for you boys, isn't it? I never figured it for your land of operation, though."
"It's not our operation, as you put it," the Russian said. "But we are only too happy to cooperate. And we're not being modest. We feel as though we have been given a very unexpected and most valuable gift. Naturally, we will do everything in our power to protect our unknown benefactor."
The Russian threw back his head and laughed at the incredulous expression I was wearing.
"Hard as it may seem for you to believe," he went on, "it's the truth. We were mysteriously contacted about a year ago by someone who wanted a list of those scientists we knew were engaged on scientific research for the Western powers. For our cooperation, he promised he would do us a great favor, which he certainly has done. We submitted such a list. He chose a name, returned it to us, and the next thing we knew, that scientist had suffered a total mental collapse. This man has contacted us each month since then in much the same manner, either by mail or special courier. We suggest a few names we know are on important work for the West He picks one and does the rest. Of course, we are only too happy to furnish him with whatever he wishes."
"Money, too?" I asked, wondering about motives.
"If he asks for it. He rarely does."
"What about Maria Doshtavenko?" I asked.
Vanuskin shrugged. "An unfortunate case, an eruption of bourgois feelings, you might say."
"You mean humanitarian feelings," I countered.
"Call it whatever you like," the Russian said. "She was in a position to know of our contact and the general outlines of what was happening. She wanted it halted. She had ideas of putting these few scientists before the interests of her country."
"Bull," I corrected him. "She had ideas of putting humanitarian ideals above local political maneuvers. You got wind of it and had her killed."
"I told you," the Russian said. "We will do everything to protect our contact and his work."
I smiled inwardly. I actually knew more than the Russians did about their dirty little game. All they knew was they had a contact. I knew who he was, and now they had actually fingered their benefactor without knowing it. Of course, there were a helluva lot of questions for which I had no answers as yet. What made Karl Krisst run, for one. And how was he accomplishing his dirty objectives?