"Hello, American friend who frightens me," said Vlad Korkusku, slapping on an insincere smile. "I'm not your friend. And if you're the one trying to kill us, you're going to get the Chernobyl of wedgies."
"Kill you? No, no. Am not killing you," Vlad Korkusku insisted. "Hotel worker said I could find you here. I have come with message from Agent Bulganin. She is in needing of your assistance."
"Soon as I get a thanks for the first twenty times I helped her in the last two days, I'll consider it. Until then, Mother Russia can take a flying leap."
The SVR agent was standing in his way. Remo picked up the big man with the ease of a grandmother rearranging the wicker furniture. He set Korkusku to one side.
"Is important," Korkusku pleaded. "I was away from embassy for a time. Only just found message she left. She did not give full details for sake of security. Just said that there was great danger and to find you if I could, and to reassemble my squad if I could not. She took only one SVR agent with her to presidential palace. I have to be coming to Novgorod to round up rest."
"Yeah?" Remo scowled. He turned to his teacher. "Say, Chiun, maybe they don't care about us at all. Maybe they followed this schmuck."
"They are not watching him-they are watching us," the old Korean pointed out.
Korkusku was confused. "Who is watching who?"
"The killers who have us surrounded," Remo said, peeved. "Do you mind?"
Startled, Vlad Korkusku reached under his jacket. He found an empty holster. He looked pleadingly at Remo.
"No, I am not telling you where I hid your guns," Remo said impatiently. "If you've got the urge to kill and maim, use a Russian cookbook. Besides, they don't want you. Now beat it. I've had it with cleaning up bodies."
Korkusku didn't seem to know what to do. With great reluctance-and all the while studying the growing shadows-he left Remo and Chiun to get in their car.
The SVR man got no more than a few feet when there came a sharp pop. His black shoes skidded on pavement. There was a gasp that seemed strangled in his throat.
Korkusku spun back to Remo and Chiun, a look of panicked bafflement on his sagging face. One hand was clutched to his chest. Blood gurgled between his fingers.
"Crap," Remo said. "Never a minute's peace." This time when the men opened fire on him, Remo didn't head in the opposite direction. With an angry frown he headed straight for the gunman in the bushes.
The man took careful aim at Remo and fired. When he missed-and continued missing-he grew more and more panicked. With one bullet left and realizing now that there was no chance of hitting the stranger he had been sent to kill, the man sprang abruptly to his feet.
"Brother, the rapture is upon us!" he cried.
And, placing the barrel of his gun against his own temple, he pulled the trigger.
The man on the dock followed suit. By the time Remo reached them, the gunmen were two twitching corpses.
Remo checked for ID. Like the men in their hotel room, they had none. He returned to his teacher's side.
"You were right, Little Father," Remo said. "That guy wasn't Mayanan. He sounded like he was from the Midwest."
There was a gurgle from the ground. He went over to where Vlad Korkusku was gasping for breath on the pavement.
When Remo saw the condition of the SVR man's wound, he frowned morosely. "Too bad."
"I am going to die?" the Russian pleaded.
"Worse for me. You're gonna make it." He shook his head. "Life. Always it's gotta make more work for Remo."
Scooping the Russian agent off the ground, he dumped him like a sack of Ukrainian beets in the back of his rented car.
Chapter 28
The President of the United States leaned in close to hear the whispered words of his chief of staff.
As he listened, he tried not to chew the inside of his cheek. His wife had been on him to stop this old habit, which the Washington press corps had dubbed a smirk.
The press held the smirk up as proof positive that this President was an unserious frat boy who had somehow stumbled into his role as national leader. Which was strange, really, because the same press that dubbed this President unserious for a smirk found very serious his immediate predecessor, a man who had devoted so much time and energy to exposing himself to women during his time in office that once-after one exhausting, zipper-free summer vacation on Cape Cod-naval doctors at Bethesda had had to apply sunburn ointment to his very raw, tenderest of presidential areas. But that was then and this was now and this grown-up President who had learned from his mommy as a very little boy how to keep his belt buckled and his pants up at his waist was regularly eviscerated by the Washington press for his unserious smirk.
"I'm not sure who he was," the chief of staff was saying. He kept his voice pitched low. "But he had clearance. He wanted to talk directly to you."
"Let me guess," the President said, exhaling unhappily. "General Smith, right?"
"No," the chief of staff said, a hint of surprise in his voice. "Undersecretary Smith, actually. With the Treasury Department. You know him?"
"Just by reputation," the President replied.
"Oh. Well, I don't know who he is, and neither do any of the Secret Service here. He's in their database as a Treasury employee, but when I had them check out his office they said it was a storage closet."
"He doesn't have a regular office there," the President said, vaguely uncomfortable. "He's more of a floater."
"Oh." The chief of staff seemed to expect a more complete answer, but when he saw one was not forthcoming he forged ahead. "Well, it's just lucky the treasury secretary was with us to confirm this wasn't one of his regular staff. Otherwise they might have dragged you out of here."
"I'm not going anywhere," the President said firmly.
The chief of staff nodded. "I knew that," he said. "I just thought you should know. He sounded so serious. Like it really was life and death. But as long as you seem to know, I suppose everything's okay. Excuse me, sir."
The chief of staff hurried over to confer with the chief executive's press secretary.
As soon as he left the president's side, yet another group of men came up to shake the President's hand. The President politely obliged.
He couldn't begin to guess how many hands he had shaken since arriving in Mayana earlier that afternoon. Hundreds since that first handshake at the airport with Executive President Blythe Curry-Hume. There would be hundreds-perhaps thousands-more before this Globe Summit was over.
As he shook the hands of a delegation from a country that regularly denounced the United States at the UN, he considered his chief of staff's message.
The President wasn't surprised his chief of staff would be concerned. The man who had called had access to his private number and knew all the special codes. And the President himself might actually have been concerned. That was, if he had not been expecting the call.
So far the President had had members of his staff bring warnings to him from General Smith, Special Agent Smith, Field Director Smith and now Undersecretary Smith.
The President had to hand it to Dr. Harold W. Smith. The director of CURE was tenacious.
Smith had expressed reservations about the President's plan to attend the Globe Summit right from the start. His concern had only grown more acute these past few days. With the capture of the Russian submarine, the older man had relaxed some of his concerns. But now, not one day later, he had doubtless found yet another reason for the President to cut short his visit.
The President was not about to leave. Yes, there was potential danger in coming to South America. But the greatest threat had obviously been the rogue submarine off Mayana's coast, and that had been dealt with. According to intelligence, the Russian government was telling the truth. It was not behind the sub attacks. The Globe Summit was as safe-and as dangerous-as everywhere else in the world. The President of the United States couldn't alter his schedule based on undefined risk or he would spend his entire tenure in office hiding in a bo
mbproof cave under the Rockies.
"Mr. President?"
The voice intruded on the President's private thoughts. He had been shaking hands with members of the Chinese delegation. He looked up to find Mayana's executive president standing before him. Some of the other world leaders had begun to gather around him.
"We're nearly ready for the demonstration," Blythe Curry-Hume said. "I'm sure you will find it fascinating."
With a friendly sweep of his arm, Jack James herded the world leaders through a nearby gate.
As he followed the Jamestown cult leader through the gates to the deck of the Vaporizer area, the President of the United States concentrated on controlling the smirk that so bedeviled and delighted members of the fourth estate.
REMO DUMPED Vlad Korkusku at the hospital in downtown New Briton around the corner from the presidential palace. After the injured Russian was wheeled off to surgery, Remo decided to try Smith again.
This time he didn't even bother to ask Chiun for the cell phone he was sure was still stashed up the old man's robes. Chiun was acting too weird and possessive to even try arguing. He went off and scraped up his own phone. He was back in a minute. He was happy when he managed to open it but stood blankly staring at the buttons for a long moment.
"Do you know what you are doing?" Chiun asked.
The two men stood near the glass-enclosed entrance to the emergency room. Outside, streetlights were winking on.
"Of course I do," Remo said. "A phone's a phone." He stared at the cell phone for a few more seconds.
"You have to press those little buttons," Chiun offered.
"I know that," Remo snapped.
He pressed some of the little buttons. Nothing happened.
"Nothing happened," Chiun pointed out.
Remo gave him a withering look. He tried pressing the buttons again, this time in a different combination. Still nothing. Frustrated, Remo collared a passing doctor and asked him for help.
"I think it's broken or the batteries are dead or something," Remo said as the balding man took the phone.
"No, no," the physician said with a helpful smile.
"See this little button here? You've got to hold that down for four seconds before you can make a call. That way it won't accidentally turn on if it's jostling around in your pocket. See? You're ready to make a call now. It's not that complicated really. I've got the same model."
"Thanks," Remo said, taking the cell phone back and feeling a little guilty for the fact that this nice and helpful man actually no longer had a phone like this one, since it was his pocket Remo had swiped the phone from in the first place.
Through some miracle he was able to place the call. He was amazed when Smith answered. "Remo, thank God," the CURE director blurted, his tart voice straining with barely controlled panic. When he heard Smith's tone, Remo's brow furrowed.
"What's wrong?"
"My God, he's still alive," Smith spluttered. "No one knows it. I tried to contact the President, but he will not take my calls. I almost issued a warning through some of the other governments there, but who would believe it? It sounds too incredible. But it's true. My God, I was helpless. If word got out, he might be alerted and do something rash."
"Deep breaths, Smitty. He who?"
"Jack James," Smith insisted. "He didn't commit suicide with his cult at Jamestawn. He is still alive."
Remo took a second to absorb the CURE director's words. "Is he still in Mayana?" he asked.
Smith blurted the whole story, as quickly and concisely as was humanly possible. When he was finished, Remo didn't bother to say goodbye. He tossed the phone into a trash can and whirled to his teacher. Chiun had heard everything. His parchment face held a look of deep concern.
"Next time I say I'm bored just hanging around Sinanju, remind me to take up basket weaving," Remo said.
Side by side, the two men raced out the emergency-room door and into the warm South American night.
THE WORLD LEADERS were asked to leave their entourages out in the parking lot. There was only a limited number of protective boots to go around, they were told, and this test would be a nice shared moment for the men who held the environmental fate of the world in all their hands.
The Vaporizer was just as most of them had seen on television. The black deck was surrounded on all sides by a wall made out of the same material that lined the pit. A chain-link fence prevented the men and women from falling in.
"What you witness here today is something the world will talk about long after you have all turned to dust," Executive President Blythe Curry-Hume promised as he ushered the last of the world leaders out onto the deck. "If you will all step to the fence. We will be ready to begin momentarily."
The President of the United States fell in with the prime minister of Britain and the president of Russia. The first few leaders had reached the fence. A ripple of confusion passed through the group as they looked in the pit. As the men and women glanced at one another-muttering in dozens of languages-another sound rose above them.
The President heard the muted sound of shouting voices.
"What's that?" he asked.
America's chief executive and the others hurried to the fence at the edge of the pit. When they looked down inside the Vaporizer, they were stunned to find not garbage, but human faces staring up at them.
Captain Gennady Zhilnikov and the rest of the crew of the ill-fated Novgorod looked pleadingly up at the world leaders.
"What is the meaning of this?" the President demanded. "Is this supposed to be some kind of sick joke?"
He turned to look for Mayanan Executive President Blythe Curry-Hume. Only then did he see that the black door had slid silently shut behind them, sealing them in. In the crowd of confused world leaders he didn't see the face of Mayana's executive president. And then he heard Curry-Hume's voice. It boomed at them over the public-address system.
"'And there was given to him the key of the bottomless pit,'" Curry-Hume recited in a tone suited more to a carnival revival meeting than a summit of world leaders. "'And he opened the bottomless pit and there came up smoke out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and air were darkened by the smoke of the pit.'"
The President felt his blood run cold. There was no way out. The door was sealed. He glanced into the pit.
The crew of the Novgorod was growing more frantic. Some clawed at the walls. The President now saw why. The lights in the walls had gone from a dull glow to a brilliant white. The deck beneath their feet hummed with energy.
"'For they are spirits of demons working signs,'" Blythe Curry-Hume shouted, "'and they go forth unto the kings of the whole earth to gather them together for the battle on the great day of God almighty.' That day is upon us!"
There was a flash. White and all-consuming. And in a series of pops so fast they seemed to happen simultaneously, the crew of the Novgorod vanished from sight.
Even as understanding of what had just happened was sinking in, the world leaders had a fresh shock. All around the upper deck, little pressurized caps began popping off the walls, one at a time. Beneath the caps winked on the sightless eyes of glowing nozzles.
The realization fell softly over the crowd like a settling shroud. And like the crew of the Novgorod, many of the leaders of the world screamed and ran for the walls.
"'And there came forth a loud voice out of the temple from the throne, saying, "It has come to pass!" the man who had been Jack James cried out with joy.
And at the edge of the upper deck, a few of the leaders who held their ground-the President of the United States included-watched with stoic countenance as the little lights continued to twinkle to life in the walls all around.
REMO'S CAR SQUEALED to a stop at the rear gate of the Mayanan presidential mansion. As it rocked on its shocks, he and Chiun were already out the doors and racing to the gate.
Two uniformed guards tried to stop them. Remo put them to sleep and dumped them in the bushes while Chiun kicked open
the gate. The old man swirled inside, Remo behind him.
They met no other guards on their way to the building.
"I don't like the looks of this," Ramo said. "This place is like a ghost town."
"The Reigning Master of Sinanju Emeritus fears neither ghosts nor living men," Chiun intoned. Ducking beneath the shadow of a long canopy, the old Korean cracked the shatterproof doors that led into the mansion. Sheets of bulletproof glass imploded, crashing to the floor and scattering like glistening sand.
The sound finally attracted attention. Guards came running up the hall, rifles aimed at the two men who were charging toward them.
"Emeritus?" Remo asked as the men opened fire. He twisted and twirled around volleys of screaming lead.
"It is a title conferred on Masters who, while technically on the edge of the Time of Seclusion, still actively ply their trade," Chiun explained.
The guards were upon them. There were seven of them. Some dropped their rifles in favor of handguns. Others tried hand-to-hand attacks.
"How come I never heard of this before?" Remo asked suspiciously as he slapped a palm into a soldier's forehead. The man's eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped unconscious to the floor.
"If I am now expected to catalog those things which you do not know, I will have to plead with the gods to extend my life by another five hundred years," the old Korean replied. Darting hands slipped past the defenses of two charging, screaming men. Slender fingers pressed two throats and the men collapsed.
They made short work of the remaining guards. Leaving the men asleep on the floor, the two Masters of Sinanju flew for the stairs.
They found the presidential suite of offices all but deserted. Only one heartbeat issued from a back room. Remo kicked the door open. It screamed off its hinges, cracking to kindling against the far wall. The Mayanan president's office was empty.
They traced the heartbeat to a locked bathroom. Inside, Petrovina Bulganin was bound and gagged on the floor. The Russian agent had shattered the vanity mirror and was using a fragment to saw through the ropes at her wrists. Her hands and forearms were covered in blood.
On the floor near her was the male SVR agent she had brought along to help. The man had not fared as well as Petrovina. His skull had been fractured in several places. The body was rolled toward the wall.
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