Prophet Of Doom td-111

by Warren Murphy

  Despite public impressions to the contrary, Moss Monroe was a man who knew which way the wind blew. When he saw that the woman had failed to order back the throng of armed zealots, he beat a hasty retreat to the rear his limousine and hightailed it from Ranch Ragnarok. Pronto.

  He watched out the rear window as the twin watch-towers of Ragnarok's front gates slipped below a hill

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  in the road behind him, and silently vowed to make it his mission on earth to destroy everyone who promised that pack of crazies could tell him at all about his future. From now on, for Moss Monroe, it would be nothing but tea leaves, tarot cards and an occasional seance.

  "What did you do to my acolytes?" Esther Clear-Seer demanded. They were in her ranch house, away from prying ears. Kaspar had dismissed his troops, and they had obeyed.

  Now he dismissed Esther Clear-Seer's concerns.

  "It is irrelevant. There are more pressing matters at hand."

  "Pressing, my ass. You've corrupted them. You've turned them against me. Do you have any idea how long it takes to break their will? Some of them have been here for years."

  "They will still obey you," Kaspar intoned.

  "But they obey you first."

  "Irrelevant," Kaspar repeated with a wave of his hand. "We must prepare."

  "For what?"

  "The force the Pythia spoke of. This Sinanju. It is an ancient power that can destroy everything we've worked for."

  "So what is it?" Esther asked testily.

  Mark Kaspar closed his eyes. His face assumed a wary cast. His voice grew doleful and full of portents.

  "It is here."

  Chapter Eight

  Remo had contacted Harold Smith before leaving Thermopolis, and the CURE director's orders had been explicit: they were not, under any circumstances, to enter Ranch Ragnarok while Moss Monroe remained on the premises.

  "What if he stays there a week?" Remo complained.

  "You will wait."

  "Great," Remo said sarcastically. "Smitty, the local paper is reporting there was a kid kidnapped in town last night. Maybe Chiun and I could take a look into that while we're waiting." "That is not our business." "You're all heart, Smitty," Remo groused. "You will proceed to the ranch," Smith instructed, "where you will await Monroe's departure." As it turned out, they didn't have to wait long. Remo had barely turned off the rural asphalt route onto the wide dirt path that wound through the woods to Ranch Ragnarok when Moss Monroe's limousine burst into view over a rise in the rutted, dusty path.

  The limo became airborne for a split second before it bounced roughly back to earth. The driver momentarily lost control and nearly broadsided Remo's rented

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  Jeep before he skidded out onto the mangy strip of state tar in a cloud of dust that obscured the entire vehicle.

  But only for a second.

  As if yanked by a giant rubber band, Moss Monroe's limo launched from beneath the cloud cover and rocketed back toward Thermopolis. Smoking rubber strips burned up the road nearly a quarter mile behind America's premier political outsider.

  "That man departs in haste," Chiun intoned, the sides of his mouth a network of wrinkles.

  "He probably remembered the deadline for filing papers to run for king of Rwanda," Remo suggested.

  They ditched their Jeep and ducked into the dense woods that closed in on either side of the narrow dirt access road. There were various cameras and motion-detection devices hidden in the trees and along the forest floor, but the two men avoided the electronic devices with ease, sensing their vibrations and magnetic fields instinctively. Sinanju made them at one with the universe and honed their awareness of all its combined forces.

  It was not long before they found a path. Nearly imperceptible indentations marked it.

  "Foot patrols?" Remo asked Chiun.

  The Master of Sinanju nodded. "They have passed five times so far today," he said, noting barely visible heel marks and freshly snapped twigs.

  Remo cocked an ear. "Sounds like they're going for six."

  His sensitive ears had picked up the sounds of heavy breathing and of awkward, stumbling men progressing from the direction of the ranch.

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  Chiun nodded and slipped wordlessly into the woods beside the path.

  There were still times when his teacher's skills amazed Remo. Here was Chiun, a century old and dressed in a kimono—the garish yellowness of which made him resemble a ripe, ambulatory banana—vanishing in an evergreen forest with the utterness of a scrap of ignited magician's flash paper.

  Remo had little time to appreciate the artfulness of the move. As the patrol closed in, he also faded into the patchy shadow of the forest, his black T-shirt and chinos becoming part of their warp and woof.

  He met up with Chiun a few feet off the beaten path.

  "Why did you hesitate?" Chiun demanded in a squeaky whisper.

  "I was just thinking...." Remo said, smiling knowingly at Chiun.

  When Chiun detected the softness in Remo's voice, his features became less harsh. ' 'Please, Remo, refrain from thought when we are on a mission. I would not want the smoke issuing from out your ears to give away our position of vantage."

  He raised a bony finger to his lips to stifle Remo's inevitable retort. "Silence. They come."

  There were four of them—all dressed in Army-surplus cammies. They carried AR-15 rifles balanced across their shoulders like yokes for carrying water buckets. According to Remo's highly trained senses, an unusual and difficult posture.

  Every man on the path—and especially the leader—seemed anxious to brandish the weapons before him. And although he didn't completely

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  understand why, Remo was certain that was exactly what they ordinarily did.

  These men were used to carrying their weapons in their hands. So why weren't they?

  It was clear that none of them ever had any serious military training, and it became more clear with every stumbling misstep that they were as out of place in the woods as lost Rockettes. They lumbered up the path, wheezing with every uncertain footfall.

  From the way they were peering into the overgrown brush as they moved along, it was apparent they were in search mode.

  Whatever it was they were after didn't matter. If they were disciples of Esther Clear-Seer, they were expendable.

  "I'll take the right," Remo whispered. He shot a glance to Chiun, but the Master of Sinanju was already gone. Remo caught a glimpse of yellow silk as Chiun glided between a pair of giant, pitted evergreen trunks.

  "And why don't you take the left?" he suggested to the unhearing wind.

  Remo slipped silently right.

  The patrol was clumsy. They had probably made this same circuit through the woods hundreds of times, but not one of them seemed comfortable in the forest environment. Remo noticed a tree root that had been worn smooth from countless stubbed toes. He pictured booted feet tripping over that same root a dozen times in the same week, surprised that it was still there.

  Amateurs.

  As the group advanced, Remo circled around before them, at times keeping pace, other times moving a few steps ahead. He knew Chiun would be mirroring his

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  own moves on the soldiers' opposite flank. There was no hurry.

  All at once the group came to a halt.

  Remo froze. What were they up to?

  The men fell to discussing something among themselves.

  "This is the spot?" the leader asked. "You sure?"

  "I counted it off," offered one of the others with a nod. "It's 334 paces."

  The leader stepped away from the other three and stared into the depths of the forest, nearly at the spot where Remo stood.

  The leader shot a glance back at his men. "You're positive?"

  The other soldier nodded.

  Enough was enough. Remo's curiosity was piqued, but not so much so that he'd stand in the middle of the woods until moss sprouted out his north side. He moved an i
nch.

  The lead soldier spoke up. "Hello?" His voice echoed uncertainly in the forest.

  Remo remained frozen, his breathing keying down to minimal cycles of respiration.

  The Ragnarok soldiers searched the silent evergreens with nervous eyes.

  "This is the foretold spot?" the leader said, turning to his men once again.

  "And the right time," stressed the second man.

  "Maybe they're not here," someone else suggested.

  In the thicket Remo focused his senses beyond the soldiers. A few yards into the woods on the opposite side of the path, he could hear the sound of Chiun's breathing—inaudible to anyone's ears but his own.

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  The Master of Sinanju had stopped beneath the lazily swaying bows of an evergreen. Remo could tell by his shallow intake of air that Chiun was pondering the strangeness of their situation.

  It looked like the soldiers were expecting someone. Intruders. Infiltrators. But other than he and Chiun, there was no one around. And there was no way they had been detected. Even something as impalpable as an infrared beam would have been felt by either Remo or the Master of Sinanju if they had interrupted the beam with their stealthy bodies.

  Yet the leader was calling out to someone. Calling in their approximate direction.

  "Hello? Excuse me, gentlemen."

  He couldn't be talking to us, Remo thought. I didn't make a sound.

  He thought of Chiun. Not only would the Master of Sinanju never make an unintentional sound, but he would also disown Remo at the merest suggestion of such an accusation.

  That brought it back to Remo again.

  Remo tried to recall if he'd stepped on a branch or dried leaf. One thing was certain: if Remo had made a noise, he'd never hear the end of it.

  "They're not here," said another of the soldiers.

  "He insisted they would be. He also said they'd be hiding." The lead soldier addressed the woods once more. "We've been instructed to meet the two of you and lead you back to Ranch Ragnarok," he called out.

  How could they possibly know we'd be here? Remo thought.

  And because Remo could think of nothing better to do, he stepped out onto the path.

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  Even though they were looking for someone, the soldiers were still surprised to see their quarry materialize before them. The three at the back started to reach for their weapons, but thought better of the move. Their hands returned to their sides.

  "Looking for me?" Remo asked airily. He pointed a finger at his own chest.

  "Yes, sir," said the lead Ragnarok soldier. "We're your escort."

  "We didn't call ahead for an escort," Remo said reasonably.

  "But you are expected."

  Remo pitched his voice over their heads. ' 'What do you think, Chiun?"

  "It is rude to refuse an escort," a squeaky voice came from too close behind the soldiers.

  They spun around, coming face-to-face with the Master of Sinanju. He perched on the path like some great yellow parrot, face inscrutable, hands tucked inside the sleeves of his billowing kimono. The elderly Korean had slipped up behind them without so much as a whisper of his sandal soles.

  "That's it," said the second man to the patrol leader. "Two of them." He and the others glanced nervously up and down the path, obviously uncomfortable with the idea that the woods through which they had marched so frequently could have harbored unseen assailants all along.

  "Will you gentlemen follow us?" the patrol leader invited.

  And with that the patrol turned and headed back down the path.

  Remo shot a glance at Chiun. The Master of Sinanju

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  wore a puzzled frown. What else could they do? They were obviously expected.

  They fell in step behind the soldiers.

  "Think Smith told them we were coming?" Remo whispered out of the corner of his mouth. A tree branch hung in his way. It became so much falling wood chips after Remo made busy motions with his hands.

  Chiun's hazel eyes squeezed like a wary cat's. "Smith is a lunatic, but he is not stupid."

  "Did you tell him you wanted to quit? Maybe this is his idea of an ambush. Dead assassins tell no tales."

  "And live ones sometimes speak too much," Chiun replied. "I am not stupid, either. Of course I did not speak to Smith of our intentions."

  "Your intentions," Remo corrected.

  "Details," the Master of Sinanju said dismissively.

  About a half mile along, the path opened up on a vast expanse of virtually barren fields. An eight-foot-high fence, woven at the top with tumbleweeds of gleaming razor wire, sprouted from the parched Wyoming plain—the only crop in this wide, alien vista.

  The fence was broken up at regular intervals by concrete guard towers. Remo and Chiun were escorted between a pair of the three-story structures. A small gate, just large enough for one man to pass through, swung open at their approach.

  "Side door?" Remo asked the soldiers.

  The patrol leader grunted his assent.

  Within the Ragnarok compound, Remo and Chiun found a cluster of ugly concrete salt-box structures squatting together about a hundred yards beyond the fence.

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  Another building was set apart from the others. It stood alone on a tract of land beyond a section of rolled-up fencing and looked for all the world like a giant, half-buried tin can. Remo could tell by the fresh scars in the earth that the hurricane fence had only recently been extended around this new area.

  There was a smaller area corralled off by the isolated building, and Remo could see hundreds of tiny black heads speckled within the pen. Some were butting horns, others were running frantically for reasons that were entirely their own, but most were standing around, sullenly chewing whatever vegetation they could scrape up.

  ' 'You boys must be on that strict all-goat diet I keep hearing about," Remo commented, nodding across the field toward the pen.

  The soldiers didn't respond.

  Near the main grouping of structures, a young woman stood patiently waiting, an AR-15 slung across her shoulder as casually as a handbag.

  "A reception committee?" Remo said quizzically. He shot a look at Chiun, but found the old Korean distracted.

  The Master of Sinanju had raised his nose barely perceptibly and was pulling in delicate puffs of air. He seemed focused on the solitary building beyond the goat pen within the newly constructed fence.

  "I'll take them from here," the woman announced when they reached the perimeter buildings.

  The men nodded and headed in toward the largest communal building.

  "Welcome to Ranch Ragnarok," the woman said

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  once the men had left. Her intelligent blue eyes swam behind horn-rimmed glasses.

  "I've got to compliment you. This must be the most hospitable concentration camp I've ever been in," Remo said. "Don't you agree, Little Father?"

  Chiun ignored him.

  "Now, of course you don't really mean that," the girl admonished. But there was a twinkle in her eyes.

  "Are you the Clearasil woman?" asked Chiun.

  "Hardly," the girl said. "My name is Buffy Brand. I'm an acolyte in the Church of the Absolute and Incontrovertible Truth. Welcome again."

  "Care to share this incontrovertible truth with a disbeliever?" prompted Remo.

  "You're standing in it, Mr....?"

  "Falwell," said Remo, adding, "and I find it hard to believe that a trainload of mortar mix dumped out in the middle of nowhere somehow holds the mystery of creation."

  "It's not creation that's a concern to us here at the Truth Church," Buffy explained. "We're looking more toward the other end of the time line. We are preparing for the End Times."

  "That anything like halftime?" asked Remo.

  "Remo, why prolong this prattling?" Chiun squeaked. "This is not the one you seek. You," he commanded imperiously, pointing to Buffy Brand, "show us the way." His hazel eyes strayed back toward the distant building.
/>   "Who put a knot in your bloomers?" Remo asked.

  "This is not the time for insolence," Chiun warned, chopping the air with one long-nailed hand.

  Remo accepted the rebuke in silence. "I guess he's

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  calling the shots," he said, turning to the girl. "Lay on, MacBuff."

  "You are father and son?" Buffy asked once they were hurrying alongside the nearest buildings. Her squeal of excitement when Remo nodded made it sound as if until that moment, she had thought that such a family relationship was only possible in a fairy tale. "How wonderful for you." She searched their faces. "You don't really look much alike, do you?"

  "He is adopted," Chiun confided.

  "Actually, I adopted him," Remo said, peeved. He was sick of being passed off as some kind of charity case.

  "I allow him his delusions," Chiun declared. "For if I did not, he would never listen to me. Not that he heeds well now," he added quickly.

  " 'A wise son heareth the doctrine of his father: but he that is a scorner heareth not when he is reproved.' Proverbs, chapter thirteen, verse one," Buffy said.

  "Shut up," Remo suggested.

  "Let the child speak, Remo," Chiun said. "This one is wise beyond her years."

  Buffy blushed. "I'm only quoting," Buffy said, embarrassed. "The Prophetess says anyone can quote. She comes up with wholly original doctrine. She insists that it's as good as gospel, though."

  "I'll bet she does," Remo muttered.

  Buffy frowned intelligently. "She doesn't seem to know too much about the actual Bible, either."

  "That way she can make it up as she goes along," Remo suggested.

  "That's not a very nice thing to say," Buffy chided.

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  There wasn't the venom one would expect from a religious fanatic, Remo noticed.

  "And anyway, she sure as shootin' knew you were coming," Buffy added.

  "How did she know that?" Remo wondered.

  Buffy shrugged. "Beats me. Maybe Kaspar told her."

  "And I'll bet Richie Rich gives her the weather forecast."

  "Don't be, silly," Buffy said. "Mark Kaspar showed up a couple of months ago. The rest of the acolytes seem to gravitate more toward him lately, but my allegiance is still to Yogi Mom."

  Remo nodded to himself. It sounded like there was some kind of power play going on in paradise. He'd have to check out this Mark Kaspar once he was finished with Esther Clear-Seer.