He looked at himself in the mirror on the wall of the motel room where he was staying. He realized, with a little surprise, that he possessed the kind of face women would find attractive. The high cheekbones, the deep-set brown eyes, the firm mouth—it was a better face than the one he had been born with. Less vulnerable looking, perhaps. The Brazilian plastic surgeons Smith had hired the first time Remo's identity had been compromised had been skillful and experienced, with an eye for masculine beauty.
The lean body was unrecognizable from the one Remo had when he was a young policeman, before his training with Chiun began. That body had been fleshy and muscular. This one was deceptively thin. Only the unusually thick wrists—a genetic "flaw"
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that had become a great asset in climbing and fighting—remained.
Still, he wondered, who was Remo Williams? Gone, as forgotten as an obscure line from an obscure play. Would he have been happy living as a normal man with normal weaknesses, with friends to swap lies with and a woman to love? He would never know.
He turned away. Mirrors always brought out the fool in him. Who needed mirrors, anyway?
The phone rang. "Yeah," he said. The wire was silent but for strained breathing at the other end. "Who is this?"
"Vadassar," came the strangled response.
"Who?"
"Montgomery," the voice managed.
"General? Is that you? What is it?"
"Vadassar. The recruits. Zombies . . ." The general's voice was weakening. "They're—" He gasped, choking for air. "They're going to kill us all," he said. Then Remo heard the receiver drop to a hard surface, and there was no more sound.
What he found at Fort Wheeler resembled the Vietnamese villages he'd seen during the war. Bodies were everywhere, their bellies slit open, their heads blown away, littering the base grounds like broken toys. The only sound Remo could hear was the eerie, faraway howling of coyotes. As he stepped over the corpses, Remo noticed that almost all of them wore the uniforms of top officers.
The administration building was worse. The mutilated remains of human beings who evidently had been going about their daily work were strewn over
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the stairwells and on the floors, now slippery with blood. Clipboards and brown-spattered sheets of paper lay scattered beside them. An open elevator exposed the fragments of its last passengers, who had been grenaded out of existence until they were no more than bits of flesh and cloth dotting the walls. Through each open office door he saw the dead, grotesquely murdered, the looks on their faces all expressing surprise and fear.
General Montgomery's secretary sat spread-eagled on her typing chair, her arms flung back, her head hanging backward from her body, supported by. only a few strands of flesh. The general himself had been shot through the abdomen, with an automatic rifle. A thick trail of blood and ripped intestines led from near the door to his desk, where the telephone he had used for his final message dangled from its cord.
Remo picked up the phone and dialed the seven-digit code number to Smith and waited for the routing connections.
"Yes," Smith said very quietly, sounding more shaken than Remo could remember ever hearing the vinegar-blooded New Englander.
"There's been a bloodbath at Fort Wheeler," Remo said. "Mostly officers. They're all dead. Nobody else seems to be around."
There was a pause at the other end of the phone. "I was afraid of that," Smith said. "The same thing has happened at the other bases where the disappearances have taken place. The-pattern's been continued. It's madness." •
"I may have a lead, Smitty. What's the name Va-dassar mean to you?" "Vadassar? Let me check." Remo heard the click
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of buttons and the electronic garble of Folcroft's immense computer hookup in action. Then silence. "Nothing," Smith said. "Vadassar, you Said? Let me try variations on the spelling."
More buttons. More silence. "No. It doesn't compute."
"That's funny. A general here who was murdered today called me before he died. The last thing he said was 'Vadassar.' "
"Maybe it's an anagram. I'll work on it. Meanwhile, there's nothing left for you to do there. Get over to Fort Borgoyne. If this horror is spreading, it'll strike there next. And hurry. This is monumentally important."
For an instant, Remó remembered the legend in his dream. A monumental force from the West will seek to destroy Shiva.
"Remo? Are you there?"
"I'll take care of it, Smitty," he said, and hung
up.
As he looked back over the body of General Arlington Montgomery, he felt a twinge of guilt coming from deep inside him. He had been with a woman when the massacre had taken place.
There were two places he had to go before leaving for Texas. The first was locked, and Remo knew instinctively as he tried the door to her house that Randy Nooner was gone for good. He forced his fingers into the lock and shattered it from inside, then walked immediately to her bedroom closet. It was
empty.
He returned to the base and followed the heavily worn trail to find the other place, the location of the evangelist Randy Nooner had mentioned.
It was deserted. In the center of the worn area
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was a large space, excessively used, which Remo assumed had been the site for the services. He combed the area carefully with his feet, feeling with his toes for anything that may have been left behind.
There was nothing. Whoever had been at the spot had been careful to clean up before leaving. Too careful. Then he found it. He didn't see it at first, hidden under some sawdust shavings, but he could smell it. The odor of human blood was as potent to him as the scent of heavy perfume in a small room.
He scratched away the top layer of sawdust and found the dried brown smear beneath.
In the desert hundreds of miles away, a photograph of the massacre shimmied to clarity in a darkroom developing pan.
"Beautiful," a heavily accented voice said. "His Highness will like this very much. Very much indeed."
The woman developing the pictures dried her hands and turned on the light. "And Vadassar is át last a reality," said Randy Nooner.
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Six
In the back of the customized sky-blue Airstream trailer, which was painted with fluffy white clouds, Samantha counted money.
"A hundred eighty-six thousand and change," she said, planting a noisy kiss on the wad of bills. "Three months out of Pontusket, and we're rich as thieves. How about that, Artie, honey?"
"It's all right, I guess," Artemis Thwill said. He gulped down a martini.
"Can't you work up any more enthusiasm than
that?"
Artemis poured himself another drink.
"Quit swilling those things. This is the greatest thing that's ever happened to us, and you're turning into a lush. What kind of god are you, anyhow?"
"Get off my back," Thwill said. He tossed down the contents of the glass. "It's not easy being God."
"I just can't figure you out, Artemis," Samantha said. "Back in Iowa, when we were stomping around those one-horse towns, living on beans and mugging bums, you were happy as a pig in shit."
Artemis thought back to those early days before their marriage, when he and Samantha had set up their tent in sleepy Iowa towns and not many people
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'-"¦a
had come to hear him speak. The people who did come were loose-in-the-head fanatics without a cause, mostly, or drifters looking for a place to spend a few hours out of the noonday heat.
It had been easy then. Sometimes the victims virtually offered themselves up to Artemis, hanging around in the tent after the services were over to have a private word with him. And even if they didn't, it was a simple matter to ask a few townies to linger after the rest had gone. Then he would ask them some questions about themselves, nice and neighborly, and sooner or later he'd find someone who didn't have a wife or kids or girlfriend waiting for him back home, someone who wouldn't
be missed right away, and Artemis would single that person out as his special friend. Samantha would cook dinner in the Airstream for Artemis and his new special friend, and they'd all enjoy a little dinner chitchat. On these occasions Artemis's appetite would be boundless, his charm devastating, his humor infectious. Then for dessert, right along with the coffee, Artemis would land a flying right hook into his special friend's throat, or bounce his special friend's skull against a rock, or instigate an impromptu game of mumblety-peg on his special Mend's torso.
Artemis sighed in remembrance. No, they didn't have two nickels to rub together back then, but those were the happiest days of Artemis Thwill's life. "Money isn't everything," he said quietly. Oh, for just one more special friend to kill. He poured himself another drink, emptying the gin bottle.
Samantha chattered on, oblivious to his reverie. "Well, don't say you didn't jump at the chance to take on this opportunity with the military."
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"Opportunity. Crap. This army nonsense is a pile
of crap."
"It's not crap. It's a splendid opportunity," Samantha pouted.
"Quit trying to sound like Randy Nooner."
"If it wasn't for Randy giving us this chance, we'd still be starving in Iowa. And you'd be heading for the hoosegow before long. Murders get to be traceable after a while, if it turns into a constant thing like it did with you. You're an addict."
"I was just having a little fun."
"You were doing in three and four guys a day,
Artie."
"Nag, nag, nag," Artemis said, waving his glass in front of him. "Marry a woman and she turns into a bitch. I'll tell you what's wrong. It's that Nooner bitch, that's what. Ever since she came into the picture, all the good times went poof. Now it's just gripe, nag, moan—"
"This is a business, Artemis. And for the first time since we started, this business is making money." Her eyes were pinched and hard.
"But what about me?" Artemis yelled. "What about my feelings'} How do you think I feel not even being allowed to write my own speeches anymore? And that pap I have to say, all that morbid stuff about carrying on after I'm with the dear departed. It gives me the willies."
"All saviors have to be martyrs, stupid," Samantha said. "That's just so that when you kick off, we can make a big deal out of it."
"For your information, Samantha, I do not intend to die just so Randy Nooner can get some good press." He drained his glass with a shudder.
"You could get hit by a bus," Samantha offered.
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"And that's another thing. All the killing. It bothers me."
Samantha laughed. "Changed your tune, I guess. You used to love it."
"Yeah, before you and Randy Nooner decided to take over my life. Now I just stand around twiddling my thumbs while those dunderheaded soldiers get in all the good shots."
"Oh, Artie. They were only a few dippy chaplains who never put up much of a fight anyway. Besides," she said, imitating Randy Nooner, "it's good P.R. once the recruits are in on a kill, they're with us all the way."
"I don't give a hot shit if they're with us or not," Artemis said. "All I ever wanted was to push somebody off a bridge once in a while, or to blow some nobody's brains out." His eyes grew watery with sentiment, remembering the good old times. "I never asked for much, Samantha. A dislocated jaw here, a snapped neck there. Now what do I get for all the hours of hard work I put in, all the traveling and missed meals? A fat nothing, that's what. I can't even punch out a drunk anymore, because, according to Randy Nooner, God doesn't do that." Artemis blew his nose with a pitiful roar.
In a few minutes the Airstream and the flatbed truck behind it, which was carrying the tent and supplies, pulled off on the side of the road.
"Come on," Samantha said, stuffing the bills back into the strongbox and locking it. "Here's where we make our connection."
Artemis shambled to his feet, weaving slightly. "Just another town along the highway, another crowd of strangers," he lamented, holding back his tears.
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'"Quiet down," Samantha said, gingerly picking up the strongbox. "Here comes somebody."
A short, swarthy man sausaged into a lieutenant's uniform entered the trailer.
"Ah. A worshipper," Artemis said. "At least the soldiers treat me with respect. They don't nag me. To them, I'm God."
"Move it, turkey," the lieutenant said to Artemis. His words were thickly accented, and his breath gusted clouds of curry and kibbe.
"What kind of soldier are you?" Artemis demanded, letting the edge in his voice show that he didn't approve of rudeness toward his person. The lieutenant slapped him across the face and spewed out a stream of guttural foreign-sounding words.
Outside, a black Lineóla limousine waited. As the lieutenant pushed Artemis and Samantha out onto the roadway, he squeezed one of Samantha's breasts energetically, expressing his delight in a high-pitched giggle.
"Now wait a minute," Artemis said. "You can't treat my wife this way."
"My apologies, O divine Artemis," the officer said, still chuckling. He bowed in mock obedience, withdrawing a billy club from his belt as he did. He whirled the club in his hand before bringing it forward with a crack on Artemis's kneecaps. Thwill buckled under the pain and sank to the ground.
"Get in," the lieutenant commanded. He opened the door to the limo and roughly pushed Artemis inside. "At Vadassar you are not God, white-skinned imperialist American," the officer spat. He slammed the door.
In the corner of the back seat, Randy Nooner
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looked up from her newspaper. "Nice trip?" she asked.
"Did you see what your driver did to me?" Thwill asked, gesturing toward the lieutenant in the front seat.
Randy pushed a button and the locks on the doors clamped shut. "You probably irritated him." From the front seat came a stream of angry, incomprehensible monologue. "Drive," she said, and slammed the partition between the front and back seats. They sped off into the night.
"How can that man be an officer in the United States Army?" Artemis continued. "He hardly speaks English."
Randy Nooner jabbed Artemis in the knee, sending sparks of pain blazing up his leg. "I'd say he gets his message across," she said. "Besides, there are more like him where we're going."
"Where's that? Dante's Inferno?"
"I thought you'd never ask." She tossed him the newspaper in her lap. On the front page was a photograph of the bloodied grounds at Fort Wheeler with the banner headline: UNEXPLAINED MASSACRES AT ARMY BASES.
"What do you think?" she asked.
Artemis gazed at the wirephoto for a long moment before realizing that a thin stream of saliva had dribbled down his chin. "It's beautiful," he said.
"Magnificent. All those recruits you've been preaching to at Fort Antwerth, Fort Beson, Fort Tannehill, and Fort Wheeler held a little revolution today. They've killed the officers and deserted the bases."
Artemis pointed to the story. "It says here that it happened at all four bases at the same time."
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"We had recruits of our own planted to time the whole operation. An ingenious coup, don't you think?" She went on without waiting for an answer. "Now all the deserters are in one place, waiting for you to appear."
"Where's that?"
She spoke her words reverently. "The culmination of all our efforts. The beginning of a new army, Fort Vadassar."
"You mean the place that I've been telling those zombie soldiers all these months is the Promised Land? That Vadassar? A fortT
Randy smiled. The limo rolled over mile after mile of highway and onto a series of dirt roads leading deep into the Texas heartland.
"I thought you made that name up. I didn't know there was a real Vadassar," Artemis said.
Randy smiled. "Of course not, dear. It didn't exist until today. Originally, Vadassar was private property, built by private funds."
"Whose?"
Randy smiled. "Don't ask so many questions,
Art. You'll live longer."
They drove in silence the rest of the way.
Fort Vadassar was a miracle of modern engineering, gleaming under its acres of electric lighting like a star in the Texas wasteland. Its pristine buildings were magnificently designed with sojar panels. Its •grounds were lush, with oases around deep lagoons that were carved into the dry earth and irrigated by underwater pipes. On the banks around the lagoons sprouted wild tropical flowers. In the recreation compound, an Olympic-sized swimming pool shim- '
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mered in the moonlight, next to a row of perfectly kept tennis courts and a football stadium.
"Holy Moses," Samantha said. She shook Artemis awake. "Get up, Artie. Look at this."
Artemis's eyes rolled groggily. "Wha—we there?" He spotted the tennis courts and the pool. "Where the hell are we?"
"Vadassar," Randy Nooner- said- breathlessly. "The headquarters for the new army of the United States of America."
The car pulled in noiselessly beside a smallish ultra-modern building constructed from steel and mirrored glass. "These are the guest quarters, where you'll be staying," Randy said.
"How long?" Artemis asked warily.
"Well, let's see." Randy ticked off the agenda on her fingers. "First, there's the address to the troops. Then tomorrow we're holding a press conference—"
"I thought you said nobody knew this place existed."
"No," she said. "I didn't say that. I said Fort Vadassar didn't exist. It still doesn't, in fact. It won't exist officially for another four hours or so."
"How do you arrange that?" Samantha asked eagerly. ¦'
Randy chucked her under the chin. "I already told your husband not to ask so many questions. It's bad for your face, honey."
"You mean, like, I'll get pimples?"
Randy nodded. "And scars," she said cordially. She led them to the house, past the corporal assigned to guard the entrance. The soldier stared blankly ahead of him, chanting, "Hail Artemis," as . they passed.
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"Hey, I don't think I like your threats," Artemis said to Randy Nooner.
"Hail Artemis," said the guard.
"I don't care if you like them or not," Randy said.
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