She looked from one man to the other, her brow knotted, before answering.
"In Moscow there is a training facility," Anna replied. "For more than a decade men have been recruited. Skachkov was one of the earliest. He, like many of the others, was a former athlete. Those who showed natural physical abilities were enrolled in the program."
"That's the what, but not the who," Remo said. "Someone had to have trained Scratchcop, right? If he's the almighty false Master, who taught him?"
Chiun also seemed interested in her response. "That is something you will have to ask him," Anna said.
There was a hint of vagueness in her tone. Although Remo missed it, Chiun did not.
Before she had even finished, Remo was turning to Chiun. "Nuihc was dead ages before this."
"Do not speak that name to me," Chiun said, his face fouling at the mention of his traitorous nephew and former pupil.
"I'm just saying we can eliminate him is all," Remo said. "The Dutchman might not be out of the equation, though." He glanced at Anna. "You said ten years, right?"
"Perhaps a few more," she admitted.
"The time frame fits," Remo said. "He could have hired out to Feyodov to train this Scratch guy before that last time we beat him."
"It is possible," Chiun replied. He was studying Anna Chutesov through narrowed eyes.
"Only explanation," Remo insisted. "Unless you've got another undead Master of Sinanju stashed up your sleeve, it'd have to be him. So let me guess," he said to Anna. "These guys along with Zhirwhosie were with Feyodov in the black market. But when we bumped off their sugar-daddy general a couple days ago they all snapped. Am I close?"
"Zhirinsky had been dealing with Feyodov and others in the black market a great deal lately," Anna admitted carefully. As she spoke, she stared out the helicopter's side window. The dark sky and light ground formed a fuzzy, perpetual twilight. "The SVR was interested in his transactions," she continued. "He has been receiving a great many donations lately from others with political leanings like his own. He was spending the money on a rather exotic collection of black-market items. Some feared he might be staging a coup to take back the Russian government for the hard-liners."
"No such luck," Remo said. "Instead of rooting through your own garbage, he's got to come kick over our cans. What's he think he's going to accomplish in Alaska anyway?"
"Why does a man do anything?" Anna asked. "They are insane. Strutting and crowing to prove their worth. If Zhirinsky is worse, it is only a matter of degree." She seemed to be harboring some secret anger. Her icy eyes flashed hot as she stared out at the night.
"Okay, this time let's try to answer leaving out all the NOW rhetoric, shall we?" Remo said reasonably.
She glanced at him. "Zhirinsky wants Alaska," she said simply. "He is a madman with a mind to act. And this twisted mind doubtless thinks a stunt like this will be met with public approval back home. Given the present state of my country, he is probably correct."
"Does the phrase 'World War III' mean anything to him?" Remo asked.
"Zhirinsky is a true Communist," Anna said bitterly. "He would be willing to sacrifice the lives of millions in order to gain power."
"Happy days are here again," Remo grumbled. "You know, a lesser man might take this opportunity to point out that if you'd shared some of this information with us like our original agreement all those years ago instead of pulling that disappearing act of yours, we might have been able to nip this in the bud."
She shook her head. "Zhirinsky only just made his intentions known," she said, her voice distant. "As it is, he is free somewhere in Russia. I could not trust the SVR to apprehend him, for they might have decided to join him. I am the only person I trust to stop him, and when I heard what was going on here I had to leave him at large in Russia to travel to Alaska. I am alone, Remo. And I have been alone for a long, long time. I told you already what it would mean to share information with you. I was not willing to sacrifice my life, which is what would have been the result had I broken my silence."
It was Remo's turn to shake his head. "I know you think I would have killed you, but I wouldn't have," he insisted. "Smith would have thought you were a security risk, but I know better. I don't know why you're so sure about this, but you're wrong, Anna. I would not have killed you. Period."
She turned to him once more. A hint of warm sadness melted the iciest depths of her deeply intelligent blue eyes.
"You would have," she said quietly.
And the seriousness of her tone seemed to leave no room for argument.
The lights of Kakwik appeared to the far right of the helicopter.
"Should I have my pilot change course so that you can retrieve your vehicle?" Anna asked.
"Let's ditch it," Remo said. "We'll see this through together."
"Yes," the Master of Sinanju said, breaking his studied silence. "Let us remain close."
Remo saw that he was watching Anna with suspicious hazel eyes. He automatically chalked it up to the old man's distaste for the relationship Remo and Anna had shared in the past.
"The events have been confined to this region of the state," Anna said. "We should assume that the troops are near here."
"Alaska's a big town," Remo said. "But I guess we're stuck till they make their next move. In the meantime I'll give Smitty a call."
Anna's features tightened. "Remo," she warned.
"I know, I know," he promised. "You're still dead. But it'd be nice if someone kept track of this Zhirinsky while we're cooling our jets, don't you think?"
The tension drained from her face. "Agreed," she said reluctantly. "Just please think of a plausible lie to explain where you learned the information I have given you."
"Don't sweat it," Remo promised. "I'm on it." And the smile of self-confidence he flashed her was such that Anna Chutesov regretted more than ever her participation in the events that had led her here, to the end of the world.
Chapter 19
Though he knew he was in Folcroft, Mark Howard didn't know exactly where.
It was a hallway like any of the others. Apparently, night had fallen. At least there was no sign of daylight beyond the barred windows.
Funny, as he walked he couldn't remember seeing bars on any of the windows before. But there they were. Solid steel, preventing escape. The world beyond the thick panes was as black as death.
A cold wind snaked up the hallway, icy fingers brushing Mark's shivering spine.
A voice. Soft. More a plaintive moan than spoken words. It stopped abruptly.
For an instant he thought he'd imagined it. He paused to listen.
Nothing. Just the forlorn sigh of the wind and the creaking of the sedate old building.
He strained to hear.
And as he listened to the shadows, he swore he saw something moving in the darkness before him. The flicker of movement turned to a flash. Whatever it was had flown to his side at a speed impossible even for his mind's eye to reconcile. And the voice that was the wind and the dark and everything else in this lost place bellowed with rage and pain and hate in his ear. Come for me!
"WHAT?" Mark called, snapping awake. It took him a moment to orient himself.
He was alone in his small Folcroft office. The blinds were open. Gray daylight bathed the naked trees beyond his one window. The thin snow that had been spitting down since he'd come to work early that morning continued to drop to the ground. Where it struck, it melted on contact.
Mark rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
A dream. He'd been dreaming. Somehow he had fallen asleep at work.
"Great," he mumbled, annoyed with himself. "Just the right way to start a new job."
Shaking away the weird feeling of dread the strange dream had given him, Mark turned his attention to his computer.
The monitor wasn't high tech like Dr. Smith's. A simple old-fashioned screen and keyboard sat before him. When not in use, a concealed stud lowered the monitor into the surface of the scarred oak desk, hid
ing it from prying eyes.
According to Eileen Mikulka, the desk had belonged to Dr. Smith. Mark assumed it had been with the older man for much of his stewardship of CURE. With a somber appreciation for the history that the battered desk represented, Mark reached for the keyboard.
After only a few moments he had banished all thoughts of the disturbing dream.
Dr. Smith had asked him to look into the Russian angle of what was taking place in Alaska. Since the survivor of the Kakwik massacre had mentioned an old Soviet rather than a modern Russia connection, Mark had begun by searching for known ultranationalists. He quickly found that the list of unrepentant hard-liners was discouragingly long. The names on the screen seemed to scroll forever. There were far too many to go through them all.
Dumping the list, Mark altered the search parameters. Reasoning that whoever was behind this would almost certainly have to be unbalanced, he instructed the CURE mainframes to limit the search to Russian ultranationalists with known or suspected mental problems.
When the list reappeared after a few scant moments of analysis, Mark was troubled to find that it was nearly identical to the first roster of names.
His search had once more been too broad. The vague category of mental problems he had used was too all-encompassing to isolate those who would restore Communist rule and enslave the Russian population.
He leaned back in his chair to think, careful not to bump his head on the wall. Almost as soon as he'd tipped back, a thought came to him. Deciding that whoever would launch such an attack on American soil would have to be insane, Mark returned to his keyboard, typing something more straightforward.
"L-O-O-N," he said aloud as he entered each letter. The word he'd typed on a whim yielded instant results. A single file appeared. At its top was the name Vladimir Zhirinsky.
Mark remembered the unreformed Communist from a few years back. In fact, one of his first suggestions as a CIA analyst had been to warn his superiors of the threat Zhirinsky presented. As he scrolled through the profile, he found the term "loon" had been applied to the ultranationalist by a State Department official.
"Score one for the State Department," he said as he reacquainted himself with Zhirinsky's biographical data.
Mark was surprised to learn that Zhirinsky was no longer a member of the Duma. He typed in the Russian's name, executing a quick search through CURE's most recent files. He was surprised to find Zhirinsky mentioned in a file dated that very day.
Upon accessing it, Mark found that the file had been routed from the FBI. One of the Bureau's agents had been brutally assaulted in San Francisco earlier in the week. He had been found in a closet at the airport, and had only just regained full consciousness that morning.
When Mark read the details of the assault, he felt his heart trip.
The man's nose had been torn off in the attack. Worse, there was every indication that it had been bitten off.
Even before reading it a few minutes ago, Mark had remembered well the incident where Vladimir Zhirinsky had chewed off his debate opponent's nose on live Russian television.
All at once, Mark Howard was beginning to get a very strong feeling.
Hands moving swiftly across the keyboard in a vain attempt to keep pace with his racing mind, Mark allowed his intuition to take over. Unmindful of where it might lead him.
Chapter 20
Remo left Chiun and Anna to oversee the refueling of the Russian agent's Kamov. At a pay phone in the Fairbanks airport terminal, he stabbed out the multiple 1 code that automatically rerouted the call to the CURE director's office. Remo was relieved to hear Smith's tart voice on the other end of the line. For a moment he had been afraid the older man's new assistant might answer.
"More bad news, Smitty," Remo announced. "The problem here might be bigger than we bargained for."
"Explain," the CURE director said tightly.
Remo quickly told him about the ten men he and Chiun had encountered. "So that's it," he concluded. "Except Chiun's all wigged out that we're facing down some renegade Sinanju Master. Oh, and I think the Dutchman might be to blame."
The tension in Smith's tone was evident. "Has Purcell escaped?" he asked, voice growing sick.
"Not unless he took off after we left. I think he trained these guys before he took a permanent powder from sanity at Folcroft. It's the only explanation."
Smith cleared his throat. "Perhaps not. Remo, Master Chiun has been known to on occasion-" he paused, searching for the right word "-solicit outside work. Could he-"
"I know where this is heading," Remo cut in, "and the answer is no. Chiun doesn't have time to train any armies. He's got too much on his plate as it is, what with catalog shopping for a house and brownieing up to the new guy."
"Army? Remo, how many of these individuals are there?"
"Oops. Forgot to ask her. I'll have to get back to you on that one, Smitty."
Smith's voice suddenly seemed to drop. His acid tone took on a worried edge. "Her who?" the CURE director asked.
Remo hadn't even realized he'd misspoken. His eyes darted around the airport terminal as if searching for a convincing lie among the thin crowd of travelers.
"Um," he said. "Just someone we-" Inspiration struck. "You know that FBI agent that helped us out in Barkley a couple of days ago?"
"Brandy Brand," Smith supplied, his voice perfectly even.
"Yeah, her," Remo said. "She's here, too. She must get all the 'When Good Russians Go Bad' cases these days."
"You are saying that she has been assigned to this case and is working in Alaska right now?" Smith asked. By now his voice had grown distinctly dubious.
Remo suddenly got the impression he was being set up. But he'd come too far to bail out now. "Yes?" he said cautiously. It came out sounding too much like a question.
"That is odd," Smith said. "Because my information has Agent Brand still in California. She is directing the FBI's follow-up investigation into those individuals at Barkley University and elsewhere in town who were involved in smuggling and assembling the device that was used to wreak havoc on the global satellite network earlier this week."
He let the words hang between them.
Caught in an obvious lie, Remo didn't know what to say. He shook his head in tired annoyance. "What are you even doing checking up on Brandy, Smitty?" he asked wearily.
"It would seem the situation that involved her is tied to events in Alaska," the CURE director explained. "While conducting research, Mark linked an assault on Agent Brand's partner at San Francisco Airport with a Russian nationalist by the name of Vladimir Zhirinsky. Apparently, her partner recognized Zhirinsky but did not know from where. He remembered when he recovered this morning from the shock and heavy sedation he had been under."
"Bully for the prince regent," grumbled Remo, who now had a new reason to dislike Mark Howard. "Zhirinsky's the guy who's pulling the strings on the soldiers up here," he said. "I was calling to have you keep tabs on him."
"I have already issued orders to put Zhirinsky under surveillance," Smith said. "And you still have not answered truthfully my original question. Since it is not from the woman you claimed, from whom did you get this information?"
Remo's mouth thinned. "Trust me on this one, Smitty. You don't want to know."
"I fear I already do," Smith said gravely. "Remo, is Anna Chutesov still alive?"
Remo felt his heart sink. "Oh, boy," he said. "How long have you known? You must've just found out with that mess in California. Just do me a favor, Smitty, and make sure you don't say I'm the one who told you. She's gonna kill me when she finds out."
For a few seconds there was nothing but dead air on the other end of the line. When the CURE director at last spoke, his voice was a barely audible croak. "My God, so it is true," Smith said.
A continent away, in his Spartan Folcroft Sanitarium office, Harold Smith gripped the edge of his black desk with his free hand. His arthritic knuckles grew white.
"Oh," Remo said over the bl
ue contact phone. "You mean you didn't know for sure already?"
Smith's grip on the desk did not relax. "No, I did not. Have you known this all along?" he demanded.
"No, Smitty," Remo said. "We all thought she died on that assignment years ago. She just popped up and said 'hi' this week when we were in Barkley after that screwy Russian general. I'm lucky I had my nitroglycerine tablets on me."
"How did she escape this time?" Smith asked. A pause.
"I don't follow," Remo said.
"Obviously she escaped from you. Otherwise she would not be alive now."
"Oh. That," Remo said slowly. "I kind of let her go."
"Let her go," Smith said, his voice perfectly flat. "Given the knowledge she possesses of this agency. In spite of the danger she represents to everything we do, you let her go?"
"Well, if you put it that way, sure it's gonna sound bad," Remo admitted. Before the CURE director could speak, Remo forged on. "Look, Smitty, she kept our secret for more than ten years. The proof's in the pudding on that, otherwise we wouldn't still be in business. Anna was afraid you'd send me to kill her, so she took the only way out she thought was open to her. And before you try to get me to bump her off, the answer is no. And Chiun's on the same page because he knows I'd be pissed at him if he kills her."
"Then I will do it myself," Smith said.
"Try it and you can find yourself a new enforcement arm," Remo warned.
Smith relaxed the tension in his fingers. His hand slipped from the desk, falling wearily beside his worn leather chair.
"Remo, this is an untenable situation," he said tiredly.
"Why?" Remo asked. "Anna worked with us before. Why can't we just go back to where we left off?"
"Because things have changed drastically in the intervening years," Smith explained. "There is no Soviet Union. We were arm's length allies while our countries were both superpowers. Our pact at that time benefited both nations. With Russia in its current state, however, Anna Chutesov simply is not needed any longer."
"Don't be so sure on any of that, Smitty," Remo said. "If this Zhirinsky guy gets his way, the old-line Commies might be back singing 'Hail Freedonia' while splashing around naked in the celebratory vodka fountain."
By Eminent Domain td-124 Page 13
