The Istanbul Decision Read Free Page A

leaving Carter alone in the room. That, no doubt, was what the man outside was waiting for.
    Carter unlocked the case as the old man finished, walked to the sink, and ran the water. Then he stepped to the towel dispenser. It rattled loudly as he cranked out several feet of paper towel.
    From under a neatly pressed pair of Yves St. Laurent slacks on the bottom of the case Carter retrieved a wooden box.
    The door swung open, the bustle of the terminal suddenly filling the room. The old man had left. Another second and the door swung open again, this time admitting a man whose step was a good deal surer and more distinct than the old man's shuffle.
    Carter held his breath while these new footsteps hesitated briefly by the door, then continued on.
    Time was running out. Carter found the correct key and opened the box. Wilhelmina gleamed and smelled faintly of gun oil. On the right, also resting in the Styrofoam, was a clip, and along the top of the box nestled a stubby cylindrical silencer. Carter took out the gun and silencer and fitted them together, making only as much noise as absolutely necessary to turn their perfectly matched, well-oiled threads.
    The footsteps stopped at the next stall. Carter picked the ammunition clip from the box and held it in his hand. The jingling of coins in a pocket gave Carter his cue. At the same instant the dime slipped into the slot and clattered through the door lock's mechanism. Carter jammed the ammo clip in the butt of the gun, using the sound of the coin to mask the metallic
clack
as he drove the clip home. The man entered the stall, and Carter levered a live round into the chamber and took off the safety.
    The man in the sports coat faced the toilet, whistling faintly as the steady stream of his urine thudded into the water below, his ill-polished Florsheims sticking out beneath his pale trousers scant inches from where Carter watched under the lower edge of the partition.
    Then the shoes left the floor. One was raised to the paper dispenser bolted to the partition wall. The bolts creaked slightly under the unusual weight. The other disappeared as it was placed on the toilet seat. Carter twisted around, watching the upper edge of the partition.
    The half moon of the man s head appeared above the flat horizon of the partition, and Carter fired, the bullet making two virtually simultaneous sounds in the tiled bathroom: the
chunk
sound of the explosive gases being dissipated in the silencer, and the thud of the impact on the man's skull, like a strong finger thumping a melon.
    The entire line of stalls shook violently as the man's body pitched backward. An interval of silence lasted only a split second, then there was another thud as the body slammed into the small space above the toilet, the gun clattering to the floor. It came to a spinning halt at Carter's feet, a huge Graz-Buyra, standard Komitet issue.
    Carter quickly stood and dressed himself. He put the Luger in his jacket pocket and the Russian gun in his suitcase. Then he climbed the partition and peered down into the next stall.
    The man was dead, had been since the Luger's bullet pierced the frontal lobe of his brain, passed through his skull, and blew out a large section of the back of his head. The partition wall behind him was splattered with blood, gray matter, and bits of bone. There was nothing to be done about that now.
    Letting himself down into the stall. Carter hurriedly went through the man's pockets. A New York driver's license identified him as Josef Mandaladov, thirty-eight, and gave his address as the same building that housed the Soviet mission to the United Nations.
    Carter had just stuffed the billfold into his own pocket when the lavatory door swung open again and two youngsters came in, talking loudly over a percussive disco beat that emanated from the "boom box" they were carrying. One of them went to the urinals while the other stayed by the sinks. Carter held his breath, not daring to move.
    When the one had