He wasn't surprised by Blenkochev's abandonment. When it was time, he'd have to figure a way to escape, but it wasn't time yet. His gaze swept the Soviets and settled on General Skobelev.
"You're planning some kind of biological warfare," Carter said. "But it won't do you any good. We've almost got the serum to combat it."
It was Skobelev's turn to shrug.
"I'm not impressed," the Silver Dove general said, "unless you have proof of your serum."
"No proof here, but I can tell you that the New Zealand doctors who treated the attaché and the Chilean soldier are working with our medical people. There'll be a breakthrough soon." Carter smiled, almost believing the lie. "Another miracle of modern medicine. By the end of the week."
Skobelev studied Carter only a moment. Confidence surged through the general. His pastel, dandyish figure vibrated with it.
"Nonsense," the Silver Dove leader decided. "Take him!"
"The guards' grip on Carter's arms tightened and they walked him to the door.
"When the entire world laughs at your threats you won't believe it's nonsense," Carter said.
He allowed a sneer into his voice.
A flush rose up the general's checks. He didn't want to be made a fool of. Still, he motioned to the guards, and they shoved Carter closer to the door.
"They'll say, 'The stupid Silver Dove… as out of date as a dinosaur! " Carter laughed. " 'So behind the times they couldn't even win a mud-wrestling match! Do you think anyone will listen to threats of biological warfare when the United States will share the serum freely with everyone?"
"Enough!" the general snapped.
Skobelev stood. He was ramrod straight, dignified against Carter's impossible accusations. He believed in himself so thoroughly that the disbelief of others only strengthened him.
He wasn't insane, not yet, but his unwillingness to reason had pushed him into fanaticism.
"Americans all have one common malady," the general observed hotly. They think they're invincible. It will destroy them in the end!"
He opened the door behind his desk. His movements bristled with pride. He was totally involved with himself as he strode through the dour and motioned to the guards to follow with their charge.
"I'll show you, Nick Carter!" he proclaimed. "Great Killmaster. Great fool!"
Carter smiled, a slow deep smile of satisfaction. Now perhaps he'd find out what was going on in the Silver Dove installation so well hidden inside the Antarctic mountain.
The laboratory on the other side of General Skobelev's office was another enormous room. The air temperature was controlled, thermometers placed strategically over lab tables and equipment.
Glass and steel glistened under fluorescent lights. Culture dishes, bunsen burners, rows and rows of tubes and vials, electronic instruments, recorders, and white-smocked doctors and lab technicians — all males — filled the busy room. Carter had yet to see any other woman but Anna in the Silver Dove installation. Against the far wall, bright lights on computer consoles flashed on and off.
In the heart of the room's scientific array was a thick glass cage about ten feet by ten feet. Scientists worked outside the glass cage, their hands inside gloves. Each of their minute hand movements was copied exactly by the hand movements of corresponding robots inside the glass cage. The robots carried, poured, heated, and slid samples under microscopes — whatever the hands of the working scientists demanded.
"Very professional," Carter observed.
He stood inside the door with Skobelev, Blenkochev, Anna, and the guards. After glancing over their shoulders at the visitors, the scientists went on working.
Full of pride, Skobelev gazed at the scene.
"Of course," Skobelev said arrogantly. "This is where we developed the strain. SD-Forty-two."
"Silver Dove Forty-two," Anna murmured.
Skobelev looked at her briefly, then dismissed her from his mind. The presence of her sex was an irritation, a reminder of worldwide imperfection.
"And the original bacterium?" Carter said. "Was it found here?"
Skobelev waved his arm to encompass the mountain.
"Mutated and grown here," he said. "Soon we'll be ready! One of our cosmonauts stumbled on it in outer space. He kept it under sterile conditions until we had the lab here operating. It was easy to hide such a find in the layers of Russia's overweight bureaucracy."
"I suppose Rocky Diamond proved useful to you," Carter said grimly, imagining Diamond's painful death.
"The American aviator?" Skobelev said. "Yes. Such stamina. Still, he succumbed in twenty-four hours. That seems to be the maximum time needed for the bacteria to work. It was unfortunate for him that he had to land near here with engine trouble, and then that he saw my men. We grabbed him just as he was radioing our."
"And now?" Blenkochev asked. "Now that everything is ready, when do we move?"
The KGB leader appeared eager, as if he were truly a member of Silver Dove shaping a new future. Perhaps Blenkochev's joining hadn't been a ruse.
Carter looked at him carefully.
"Soon," Skobelev smiled. "Very soon, dear Blenkochev, we'll tell Chernenko and the others what we have here. Bacteriological warfare that will wipe out all the human lives it touches! They'll scream and complain, but they'll have no choice. They'll hand over control of Mother Russia. And with you and me joined, we'll rule Russia! I'll take the military, and you the government. Then, quickly, we'll force the nations of the world to the peace table, and great Mother Russia will benevolently rule the earth forever!"
"Ah!" said Blenkochev, beaming.
"I'm not convinced." Carter said. "Do you think the people who've struggled to power in their nations will capitulate so easily? Fighting for what they believe in is second nature. As soon as our serum is developed, your plan is dead."
Skobelev threw back his head and laughed. His pastel figure shook with merriment. At last he pulled the crimson handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his eyes.
"Your serum is based on the Chilean soldier and the New Zealand attaché?" the Silver Dove leader asked, chuckling.
"Yes," Carter said.
"Then it's worthless!" Skobelev said. "Those two died of the old bacterial strain! The new one is the one that killed Diamond. He stumbled into our hands just in time to be our first human guinea pig. It worked so well that we've discarded the others. The new strain is the one that we'll use to win the world. Your so-called serum is worthless!"
The cell Nick Carter was thrown in was cold and damp. It was a hole, blasted out of the granite mountain. The heavy steel door clanged shut, and he was in a semidarkness lit only by a hallway light through bars high on the door. Somewhere in the underground cells he heard women's voices, low, subdued, beaten.
He stood, stamped his feet, and walked around the cell. He had no equipment. His weapons and radio were gone. He needed to escape now, to inform Hawk of what he'd learned.
He paced the cell. It was furnished with a narrow cot, sink, and toilet. The smell of women lingered in it. He'd passed their cells as he was brought here.
Women weren't good enough in the Silver Dove compound for anything but sex. In the distance, one of them sang a keening song of sadness and betrayal. Locked in until called, kept on birth control powders mixed in with their food, they were here only for the Silver Doves' physical pleasure.
That pleasure was the women's single purpose in a life shortened by captivity and hopelessness. The Silver Doves' own women — their legal wives — would be home in Russia raising children and waiting for their heroic men.
Carter walked the length of the cell, then back again. The women talked. Water dripped somewhere. He could almost hear the motors of the vehicles in the warehouse entrance overhead. He could almost feel the cold fresh air of the Antarctic summer. For one brief moment he thought of trout jumping in high New Zealand lakes.