The Istanbul Decision Read Free

that Cynthia Barnes, nee Katerina Burjeski, had made her appointment at Camp Peary and that the CIA-selected doctors had found her suitable for surgery. That night he packed a bag and caught a plane for Phoenix.
    His eventual destination was a small dude ranch on the outskirts of Tempe. Ostensibly it was a run-down tourist attraction that had seen better days, but in reality it was a rest haven for the agents of AXE, the super-secret information gathering and political action organization of which Carter was a charter member. AXE was doubly secret, secret even from the Central Intelligence Agency, its funding hidden in a maze of budget referrals and footnotes, and finally tucked safely into the President's own Special Expense Account so as to be utterly untraceable. Carter had worked his way through the ranks to the designation N3, Killmaster, a name that spoke more eloquently than any job description as to his purpose and capabilities.
    The Litchfield Municipal Airport in Phoenix is rather small, in spite of the city's size, with concourses for deplaning passengers at one end and a large lobby with a double baggage carousel in the center. At the far end, doors lead to the parking lot. Carter arrived at 9:58 P.M. exactly and went directly to the baggage carousel.
    He was relatively sure the usual broken-down station wagon with Mesa Verde Dude Ranch printed on the door in flaking gold letters would be waiting for him outside to take him the rest of the way to Tempe, and he was equally confident the driver would have been more than willing to tend to his bags as well, but Carter much preferred to look after his own luggage.
    Over his shoulder he carried a small leather bag that contained his toiletries and other personal effects, as well as whatever book he was currently reading, usually a foreign language grammar or contemporary political history. But it was his other case, a finely tooled handmade Brazilian two-suiter, that he missed most whenever he flew, and for which he watched now with a steady gaze as the carousel began to turn and luggage began dropping to the rail. This bag held the small arsenal of personal weapons he had about him always: a 9mm German Luger complete with silencer, affectionately called Wilhelmina; and a small, pencil-thin stiletto. Hugo, that fit in the chamois sheath he always wore on his forearm He possessed one other weapon, dubbed Pierre, a gas bomb that fit high on his left thigh, almost like a third testicle. But it was plastic and was able to pass through metal detectors without so much as a beep, a feat impossible for the other weapons. They had had to be packed away and had been out of his grasp now for almost six hours. The effect on him couldn't have been stronger if he'd been walking around all that time without clothes.
    Like a determined little train of cars on a roller coaster, the bags, one by one, rode to the top of the carousel, then tumbled down, presenting themselves with a
clunk
to the several dozen travel-weary passengers at the bottom who closed in to snatch them up as they rode by. Carter waited, waiting for the familiar outline of his bag, when suddenly he felt the eyes of someone in the crowd staring at him. The alarm bell in the back of his head began to clang, the danger signal tingling in every nerve of his body.
    He gave no sign that he knew. Calmly he collected his bag and made his way directly to the men's room.
    In the reflection of the concession stand window he saw a man in light slacks and sports coat separate himself from the crowd and move in the same direction, a telltale bulge under the left arm of his jacket. The men's room was deserted except for an older gentleman standing at one of the urinals. He didn't bother to turn around as Carter entered, selected the last toilet stall in line, put a dime in the slot, and went in.
    He took down his trousers, sat down, and pulled the suitcase up onto his lap. In a matter of seconds the old man would finish up and go,