Josef Steranko's mouth hung open. Was he dreaming? Was this a nightmare from which he would awaken? He hung up on the KGB chief's frightened plea for instructions.
Stenanko walked slowly to his window overlooking Red Square. He could hear the sirens in the night, racing blindly from one scene to another, always too late because they were searching for concentrations of troops. Josef Steranko knew there were no concentrations of troops. The Americans would not have dared land troops on Soviet soil without first immobilizing Soviet missile defenses, and this they had not done. Yet something was roaming the streets of Moscow making a juvenile show of force. Something powerful enough to lift automobiles and crush plate glass into powder. Something that could hurl coins with force enough to massacre armed KGB agents as if they were defenseless children recruited from the Young Pioneers.
Something ... or someone.
But even as the thought ghosted through old Marshal Steranko's mind, he shook his head angrily. It was preposterous. Such a weapon could not exist. And if it did exist, the Americans would not send it to Moscow to stir up such infantile troubles when they had powerful ballistic missiles to throw in a first strike.
Then Marshal Josef Steranko saw the secret weapon with his very own eyes.
It was a man. All in black. Unarmed, except for what appeared to be a long pole. He was inside the very walls of the Kremlin itself, climbing the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, by law the tallest structure permitted in Moscow. The man climbed effortlessly, like a monkey, until he reached the large onionshaped dome with its crucifix, retained for historical reasons.
At the top of the dome, the man in black plunged the pole into the ornate bulb and shook it once. An American flag unfurled proudly, defiantly. The flag, Steranko realized instantly, that had been liberated from the American embassy.
Josef Steranko stood watching the man for a full five minutes.
"He is waiting," he said under his breath. "He wants something."
Steranko walked to the phone and dialed the officer in charge of Kremlin security.
"Inform the man on the bell tower that Marshal Josef Steranko wishes to speak to him," he said crisply. Ten minutes later, two green-uniformed KGB officers escorted Remo Williams into Steranko's spacious apartment. The old marshal noticed that the arms of the troops hung limply by their sides, hands empty.
"Your weapons," he demanded. "Where are they?"
"He took them," one trooper said, jerking his head toward Remo.
"And he took away the use of our arms when we protested," the other added.
"It'll wear off in about an hour," Remo said casually.
"Leave us," Steranko said. The KGB men left. Josef Steranko looked hard at the man before him. There was an unreadable expression on the man's blackened face.
"The penalty for espionage against Mother Russia is execution," he told Remo.
"I wouldn't have written my name over every blank wall in Moscow if I were spying," Remo pointed out.
"Then what?"
"I'm here to get back a friend. Your people have him."
Marshal Josef Steranko sat down on a sofa that, although new, might have been designed around the time Buddy Holly died. He looked at Remo with unwavering eyes and said:
"Speak."
Chapter 17
Marshal Josef Steranko knew it was treason to escort the American named Remo into the Grand Kremlin Palace itself. He also knew that if he did not, this madman who fought like a tiger would not only kill him but also bring Moscow down about everyone's ears until he got what he came for.
And Marshal Joseph Steranko, who had stood at Leningrad when the Nazis and the Finns were hammering the city with artillery, was charged with the defense of Moscow and the mother country. And he was going to do whatever he had to do to safeguard them both-even if it meant sneaking into the Kremlin an American agent possibly bent on assassinating the entire Politburo.
Leaders came and went, but Moscow must stand. Steranko had escorted Remo as far as the main stairway of the Grand Kremlin Palace. Remo was wearing a winter greatcoat and fur hat that Steranko loaned him.
None of the sets of guards they encountered questioned them. They assumed the old marshal was reporting on the rumored attacks on the city.
"The guards say that the General Secretary is in conference three floors above with an Oriental such as the one you described to me," said Marshal Steranko, pulling Remo into a marble corridor. "Your friend may be anywhere on that floor. I can go no further."
"You're sure?" Remo demanded, shucking off the greatcoat.
"Absolutely."
And Remo thanked the man by putting him to sleep with a nerve tap, as opposed to killing him. Remo floated up the damp north stairs. He sensed no electronic warning systems. No traps. Remo wondered if it was because the Kremlin's stone walls did not allow electronic implants-or were the Russians so secure in their capital that they thought they didn't need any?
On the third floor, Remo found himself in a dark paneled corridor with numerous heavy doors on either side. It was strangely deserted. All the doors looked alike and Remo couldn't read the letters on any of them. They reminded him of his old high school back in Newark. Oppressive.
For want of a better approach, Remo walked down the corridor, trying the doors on each side. The first several were empty, but in the third, he came face-to-face with six guards who were just leaving what must have been a break room, if the strong smell of coffee was an indication.
"Sorry," Remo said lightly. "I was looking for the little boys' room."
The guards turned as if on separate pivots geared to a single motor. The nearest one, seeing Remo's strange costume, fired two shots almost without thinking.
But in the split second it took for him to pull the trigger, before the bullets emerged from the barrel, Remo had grabbed the pistol and turned it into the Russian's stomach, so that the man shot himself as well as the guard directly behind him.
Both men fell, hitting the parquet floor so close together that they made a single thud.
Remo was in motion before the two dropped. The room was small, without much room to maneuver in, so he moved in on the next nearest guard with a straight-arm thrust, taking him in the throat. The man's head snapped back, his neck dislocated. He died instantly, but Remo wasn't through with him yet.
Grabbing him by the back of the neck, Remo backpedaled into the corridor, bringing the body, still on its feet, with him.
"Hold your fire," the sergeant of the guards yelled, not realizing what had happened because it happened so blindingly fast. "You'll hit Ilya."
The guards held their fire.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are," Remo sang from the hallway. He had to avoid a firefight. If Chiun was anywhere on this floor, he didn't want him to be hit by a stray bullet.
"He is unarmed," said the sergeant of the guards softly. "Two of you go out and shoot him dead."
A pair of guards started for the door. The sergeant hung back, his pistol ready.
A head suddenly appeared in the doorway, and the two guards opened up on it. The head snapped back out of sight just ahead of the shots.
"What was that?" one asked.
"It looked like Ilya. Ilya, what is wrong?"
The head reappeared in the doorway, and they could see it was Ilya's all right. They could also see that Ilya's eyes were open and unblinking, like those of a Howdy Doody puppet.
"I'm fine," the head seemed to say in a weird, faraway voice. "Come out and play."
"He's dead!" one of the guards said. "And that crazy man is using him like a toy."
The macabre sight froze the two hardened guards in their tracks. One of them went green.
"Fools!" cried the sergeant of the guards. "What are you frightened of?" And he put two bullets into Ilya's slack jawed dead face. "There. Now get that hooligan."
Remo dropped Ilya's body across the threshold of the door and waited out of sight.
The snout of a Tokarev pistol showed f
irst, and Remo snaked out a finger to meet it. The barrel snapped off and fell to the floor with a clank. The guard stood looking stupidly at his maimed weapon. Then he looked at Remo, who held his right fist with forefinger extended, like a kid pretending that his hand is a gun.
"Mine still works," Remo said casually. The guard fired anyway. The bullet popped out of the gaping breech. Without a barrel to give the slug velocity, it tumbled slowly end over end.
Remo caught it in his palms, held it up for the Russian to see clearly. "Now, for my next trick," Remo announced, and flicked the bullet back.
The guard took it in the forehead with enough force to knock him down.
Remo danced into the room, taking out the fallen guard with a crunching kick to the temple and then went straight for the one person left in the room.
The sergeant of the guards.
The Russian's Tokarev snapped off a series of shots. Remo wove to one side, dodging the first three shots, and then moved to the other, letting the round drill past him.
"You got one shot left, pal," Remo said. "Better make it count."
The sergeant of the guards did. He placed the pistol to his temple, and before Remo could react, blew half his face across the room.
"I guess they don't make Russians like they used to," Remo said.
It had gone so well for Colonel Viktor Ditko. From the flight from Pyongyang airport to Moscow, and the escorted drive from Sheremetyevo Airport to the Kremlin, the Master of Sinanju had not spoken a word. He simply stared out the window, regarding the wing of the Aeroflot jet as if it might, at any moment, fall off.
Colonel Ditko personally led the Master of Sinanju through the ornate gilt door of Vladimir Hall in the Grand Kremlin Palace. The low-vaulted octagonal room was one the General Secretary preferred for certain kinds of meetings.
The General Secretary had arisen from behind an oversize conference table and smiled genially. "Welcome to our country," the General Secretary had said to the Master of Sinanju. "I understand you speak English."
"I also speak Russian," the Master of Sinanju had said coldly in Russian. "Too bad that you do not." The General Secretary lost his smile.
"I will speak with the Master of Sinanju in private," he informed Colonel Ditko.
"What about my appointment to the Ninth Directorate?" asked Colonel Ditko nervously, fearing he would become lost in the Politburo's endless bureaucratic machine.
The General Secretary frowned at the raising of a minor detail at so historic an occasion.
"Very well. Consider yourself so appointed. Your first assignment is to stand outside this door and see that I am disturbed by nothing."
"Yes, Comrade General Secretary," said Colonel Ditko, who took his instructions literally.
So when, not long after, the General Secretary's personal secretary tried to get into the office, Colonel Viktor Ditko, barred her way.
"The General Secretary is not to be disturbed."
"But this is a crisis. Moscow is under attack. The Politburo is going into emergency session."
"My orders are clear," said Colonel Ditko, unholstering his sidearm.
The secretary, whose duties did not include staring at the business end of a pistol, ran off. So did subsequent messengers. The phones rang continuously. But there was no one to answer them.
Military and political leaders, unable to reach the General Secretary, automatically assumed he was dead, or fighting off assassins. Rumors of a coup filled the Kremlin itself. Guards, secretaries, and other functionaries quietly evacuated the building.
And so, while Moscow was practically under siege, Colonel Viktor Dicko single-handedly prevented word of the greatest crisis in the city's history from reaching the ears of the one man who was empowered to orchestrate a coherent response.
No one had dared to come near Vladimir Hall for more than an hour when a strange figure padded down the long corridor that led to the gilt door.
Colonel Ditko squinted down the corridor, which was not well-lit. The figure was unconventionally dressed. He wore not a suit, nor a uniform, but something like the pajamas of the decadent West, except they were of black silk. His sandaled feet made no sound when he walked, but he walked with a confidence that told Colonel Ditko that his authority came, not from orders or a uniform, but from something deep within him.
Colonel Ditko thought the man's face was familiar, but the lights in the corridor were widely spaced.
Just when he focused on the man's features, he entered a zone of shadow.
Colonel Ditko brought his pistol to the ready. "Who would pass?" he demanded.
And then the figure came into a zone of light again, and Colonel Ditko saw the blaze of anger in the man's eyes and he heard the voice reverberate off the walls.
"I am created Shiva, the Destroyer; Death, the shatterer of worlds. The dead night tiger made whole by the Master of Sinanju," the voice intoned. "Who is this dog meat who challenges me?"
Too late, Colonel Viktor Ditko recognized the face of the American named Remo. Too late, he brought his Tokarev in line. Too late, he pulled the trigger.
For the American was upon him. Colonel Ditko did not feel the hand that swatted aside the gun, and took his wrist like a vise.
"Where is Chiun?"
"I cannot say," said Colonel Ditko. And then Remo squeezed. His hand turned purple, and the tips of Colonel Ditko's fingers swelled like stepped-on balloons. The tips split, spewing blood.
Colonel Ditko screamed. The scream was a word. And the word was "Inside!"
"Thanks for nothing," said Remo Williams. who collapsed Colonel Ditko's larynx with the heel of his hand.
Remo stepped over the corpse to reach for the door.
The General Secretary of the Soviet Union was trying to call Washington. The operator kept breaking in to tell him there was a crisis. His advisers were frantically attempting to reach him. Would he please accept the incoming calls while there was still a functioning government?
"Never mind!" the General Secretary screamed. "Clear the lines. I must reach Washington!" He clenched the telephone receiver in his hand. The pain was beyond endurance.
Which was strange, because as near as he could tell, the old Korean known as the Master of Sinanju was merely touching the General Secretary's right earlobe with a long fingernail.
Then why did the pain sear his nervous system worse that a million white-hot needles?
Finally, thankfully, the familiar voice of the President of the United States came on the line.
"Tell him that the tapes have been destroyed," the Master of Sinanju hissed in his ear.
"The tapes have been destroyed!" screamed the General Secretary.
"What?" said the President. "You don't have to shout."
"Now tell him that you have broken your contract with the Master of Sinanju."
"I have broken my contract with the Master of Sinanju."
"And that the Master of Sinanju no longer works for anyone, including America."
"The Master of Sinanju no longer works for anyone, including America," the General secretary gasped. Pain caused his vision to darken. He thought he was going to die. It would have been a blessing.
"You are done," said Chiun.
"I am done." said the General Secretary, and hung up. Sweat poured off his brow like water from a faulty playground bubbler.
Remo Williams barged into the office of the General Secretary and stopped dead in his tracks. "Chiun!" he said.
Chiun was standing over the Russian leader, holding the man down in his seat with a single delicately curved fingernail. The Master of Sinanju no longer looked wan and tired. Life blazed in his hazel eyes. And at Remo's unexpected entrance, surprise.
"Remo," he squeaked. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm here to rescue you."
"I need no rescuing. Who guards the gold of my village?"
"Smith."
"Phtaah!" Chiun spat. "We must hurry home then."
"What about your contract with
Russia?"
"This fool Russian did not read the fine print. Sinanju contracts are nontransferable. Clause fifty-six, paragraph four. Since Master Tipi's unfortunate servitude, this has been standard in all Sinanju contracts. Which you would have known had you bothered to read the scroll I left for you."
"You were coming back all along?"
"Of course."
Remo's face wore a puzzled expression. "I don't understand this."
"What else is new? Here," he said, tossing Remo two mangled blobs of black plastic. "The tapes this Russian used to blackmail Smith."
Remo caught them. "They're no good anymore. But this guy still knows everything," Remo said, indicating the General Secretary.
"He has graciously consented to accept the gift of amnesia, as administered through the kind offices of Sinanju," Chiun said, twisting his fingernail suddenly. The General Secretary jumped in his seat.
"Now all we have to do is get out of Russia alive." Chiun made a snorting sound. "Passing through borders has never been a problem for Masters of Sinanju. All nations are happy to give us diplomatic immunity."
Remo turned to the Soviet General Secretary. "You got a problem with that?"
The General Secretary had no problem with it whatsoever. In fact he was more than eager to order his private plane to take them back to Pyongyang-if only the damned People's Phone Lines would clear.
Chapter 18
The Master of Sinanju and his pupil sat on opposite sides of the airplane during the flight back to Pyongyang, North Korea. Representatives of the government of the Great Leader, Kim Il Sung, were on hand to greet them and arrange a helicopter flight directly to Sinanju.
During the short hop, Remo broke the strained silence.
"You seem to have recovered awfully fast," he said.
"'Of course," said Chiun. "I am the Master of Sinanju."
"I thought you said you were dying."
"I never said that. Your American doctors said that. And what do they know?"
"Wait a minute," Remo said accusingly. "You specifically told me that you were dying."
"Never. I merely pointed out that I was in my end days, which I am. I have no more days left to my life than those which lie before me, which are many fewer than the years I have lived before this."
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