"If you kill me," Skobelev said arrogantly, "you'll never get the gates open. They close automatically when the alarm goes off. They're closed by now. Only a secret code will open them again."
Blenkochev picked Skobelev up by the back of the neck. He swung the smaller man like a pendulum.
"If you don't open them," Blenkochev said, "we're dead anyway. And I'll kill you. It's been a long time, but I remember how."
He dropped his air rifle to the floor and pulled a stiletto from a sheath inside his blue suit. He sliced down the front of Skobelev's jacket, through the silver dove on the heart. The jacket gaped open. Skobelev refused to look down, but a vein on his temple began to throb.
"I'd enjoy killing you," the KGB man said grimly. "A nice little traitor like you."
Carter looked at his watch.
"Thirty seconds."
He kicked open the door, air rifle ready.
Four dead, bloody bodies littered the floor. One of them was Lev Larionov, the former priest. The other three were Silver Dove technicians.
Carter looked at Blenkochev.
"Why I was late," Blenkochev said simply.
He shoved Skobelev into the room. The traitorous general stumbled, falling onto Larionov's corpse. He pulled himself up, his face pasty, wanting to recoil, but he refused to show any weakness. He smoothed his cut jacket and walked across the room to a computer console. For the moment, he was beaten.
Blenkochev followed while Carter watched one of the television screens that showed the giant front doors of steel. They were closed as Skobelev had said. Inside the doors in the warehouse area, Silver Dove soldiers were handing out air rifles and ammunition.
Skobelev stood silently at the console. Blenkochev jammed a gun in his back. The Soviet general slowly reached a hand forward. Slowly the fingers pressed keys on the console. The monitor read, "Are you sure?" Impatient, Blenkochev pressed in "Yes." Colored lights flashed.
"Ten seconds," Carter said.
Slowly the doors began to open.
Firing, khaki-clad antiterrorist troops slipped in the widening crack.
"There're my men," Blenkochev said, his gaze fastened to the overhead monitors. "Yuri Somolov is leading. A good man. Reliable."
The Americans, New Zealanders, and British mixed with the Russians, firing at the white-clothed Silver Doves. Some darted toward the corners. Others knelt, holding their ground, refusing to retreat as the Doves mustered themselves in a furious attack. Bodies began to litter the floor. Still the invading force moved slowly but relentlessly on toward the back of the warehouse, toward the doors that led into the rest of the compound.
Skobelev turned, his face reset from fear to self-confidence, a still dangerous man. Even though his forces appeared to be losing, he had not given up. He was already figuring out how he was going to talk the Politburo out of his responsibility for the gone-wrong Silver Doves. Even before he was free of charges, he'd form another group. A fanatic was a person who redoubled his efforts once his aims were lost. Skobelev wasn't a supremacist as much as a man who blindly pursued a nonexistent goal no matter the cost to others.
Blenkochev gazed appraisingly at the wily general. The big KGB man knew, too, what was going to happen. His face said it was too much. He pulled back a massive fist and decked the traitorous general.
As Skobelev sprawled unconscious to the floor, Blenkochev looked around the room. Carter picked up a folding chair and set it behind him. Blenkochev nodded his thanks and sat. He tilted his head to watch the television screen. Crouching and firing, David Hawk and Chester ffolkes ran into the warehouse. They separated to improve their chances of making it.
The invading units fought onward. The Silver Doves made the international forces pay with injury and death for every inch they gained.
Blenkochev sighed and put his bloody hands on his legs. The hands trembled.
"I'm sorry about Anna," Carter said.
Blenkochev watched the battle on the screen.
"You loved her?" he said.
"Yes."
"At least she had that."
Blenkochev sat squat and solid on the chair, a sixty-eight-year-old agent who'd lost his daughter. He couldn't mink about that. He'd wait to grieve until he was alone at home. Instead he watched with pleasure as the international units finally passed through the doors that led into the Silver Dove complex. Soon rifle fire echoed inside the miles of corridors.
Skobelev moaned and sat up.
"About the penicillin," Carter said. He looked at Blenkochev. "You diluted it?"
The K-GOL director was silent. He stared at the screens, tracking the battle. The hands seemed to tremble more.
"You diluted it, made money," Carter said. "Maybe you pocketed the profits yourself."
Skobelev's gaze moved from one agent to the other. He was beginning to understand.
"That's how you were able to buy off the newspaper in Düsseldorf," Carter said.
"What's past is past," Blenkochev said at last. He hadn't wanted to say even that. "I paid for the newspaper myself."
Skobelev laughed and stood. He was shaky, but he held himself together as if he weren't. There was fresh determination about him.
"Not many alive today know that story!" General Skobelev said. "I'll have to remind Chernenko."
There was sudden pounding at the door. Carter went to it.
"N3!" It was Hawk's voice. "Open up!"
When Carter opened the door, Hawk and Colonel ffolkes were standing there, eyes bright with victory.
"It's secure, old man," ffolkes cheerfully told Carter. "It's a bloody mess out there, but the damned Doves won't be able to poison the world as they'd promised."
As ffolkes talked, Hawk brushed past Carter. He glanced at Blenkochev, his gaze level with appreciation for the Russian's cooperation. Then he strode directly to General Skobelev.
"Skobelev!" Hawk growled. "So you've found a new way to cause us trouble!"
Skobelev, suddenly unsure, backed toward Blenkochev. The mighty K-GOL man stood, glowering at the Silver Dove leader.
"I'll go back to Moscow," Skobelev said. "With Blenkochev."
"You think you'll get off scot-free?" ffolkes said, appalled.
Hawk watched the cagey Soviet general with interest.
"He has something to trade," Hawk decided.
"Penicillin," Blenkochev said curtly.
Hawk, ffolkes, and Carter looked at Blenkochev.
"I was following orders," Blenkochev said. No shame or remorse showed on his face as he used the ancient soldier's excuse to avoid responsibility. "Stalin's orders. We were making a better world. We all did things we wouldn't have done otherwise. It was after the war, and my country needed the money. Later, after Stalin died and Khrushchev denounced him, the orders from higher up changed. If the penicillin situation had occurred again, it would've been because of individual decisions in the field, not orders from the top."
"So the old acts are now hidden," ffolkes said. "Against policy."
"Hidden as a substitute for forgotten," Hawk said.
"And when the past raises its ugly face, the Politburo runs screaming." Carter said.
"I'm not proud of it." Blenkochev said, raising his head to gaze around the room with his steely eyes. "I did what I had to do. My duty. My country had to survive."
"One wonders whether when the cost is so high the country deserves to survive," Carter said.
"It snot my job to decide that," Blenkochev said. "I only do what s necessary."
Skobelev laughed heartily. He hooked his thumbs inside the waist of his pants and laughed at the joke.
"I'll remember that when I talk to Chernenko!" Skobelev said.
Confidence had flooded back into the creator of the Silver Doves. Skobelev had remembered what it was to be a Soviet general. To be Chernenko's right hand. To be able to outwit most of those who would succeed Chernenko. He knew once again what it was to be so powerful that the lives of those around him were in constant jeopardy to his whim.