Remo would have to return to Ranch Ragnarok.
His jaw set in grim determination, Remo jumped down from the cage.
Behind him the torpid python slept peacefully in the shadows.
In a darkened basement room on Long Island Sound, a pair of hazel eyes opened with a start.
The only sound to stir in the room in more than six hours was that of the heavy door opening and closing.
Kaspar was standing atop the Pythia platform in his pale priestly vestments.
This was odd, thought Esther Clear-Seer. He hadn't worn the strange pagan robes since the young Sinanju Master had fled into the night two days before.
Kaspar glared angrily at Esther as she mounted the stairs.
"What is this?" he demanded, pointing.
Behind him, sandwiched between two burly Truth Church acolytes, was Buffy Brand. The young girl looked pale and shaken.
"This is the sneaking Fed I caught with Cole's daughter," Esther explained, forcing a steady tone. She noted with surprise that Lori Cole was seated once more atop the small wooden tripod. All that was missing from the strange scene was the noxious yellow smoke. A column of vaporous steam rose up from the rock fissure. That was all.
Kaspar tapped his foot impatiently. "She is still alive," he said, extending an index finger toward Buffy.
"Oh, I didn't tell you?" Esther returned blandly.
"You told me you killed her."
Esther shook her head. "I told you I took care of
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her," she corrected. "And I did. And what were you doing snooping around the bunkers?"
Kaspar grew angry. "She escaped," he hissed at Esther. ' 'We were lucky one of the patrols stumbled upon her."
It was Esther who was angry now as she turned on Buffy. She thought she had locked the girl securely away in a tiny punishment cubicle in one of the rear bunkers. Perhaps the girl might have compatriots on the Truth Church grounds, she thought. "How did you get out?" she demanded.
Buffy refused to respond. Her mouth was twisted shut in defiance.
Esther turned back to Kaspar. "It doesn't matter anymore," she said firmly. "She didn't escape."
"The young one from Sinanju was able to escape in spite of his injuries," Kaspar countered. "I am wondering now if it was this little spy who aided him."
Esther suddenly remembered the two rows of dead Truth Church guards who had ambushed Remo within the Ragnarok compound. The video cameras and explosives that night had been intended to disorient the young Sinanju Master named Remo and lure him back to the Pythia Pit. Esther had been surprised to find that so many of the guards had been shot from behind. They didn't have video on the incident. She assumed that Remo had captured a weapon and assassinated the acolytes himself.
"So what if she helped the guy escape?" Esther said, knowing that it did indeed make a great deal of difference. "He hasn't blabbed to the FBI yet. He's
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probably lying dead somewhere out in the greasewood scrub."
"You are a fool," Kaspar snapped.
"Not as big a one as you are," Esther replied calmly. "Look, it would be better for us in court if we kept this one alive."
"That's good advice," Buffy said, glaring at Kaspar. "The two of you are finished."
Buffy had given up struggling long before. Her hands were bound with thick rope cords, and her wrists were bloodied from trying to twist herself free. The Truth Church acolytes squeezed her biceps in their meaty fists. She subsided.
"Now, now," Esther remonstrated. "Remember the Book of Samuel, wherein we are instructed by our Lord to turn the other cheek."
"There is no Book of Samuel," Buffy said flatly. "And I prefer Revelations." She began quoting. '"And the beast was seized and with it the false prophet. And these two were cast alive into the pool of fire that burns with brimstone.'" Buffy's stare bore into the blackened soul of Esther Clear-Seer, and when the young woman smiled her perfect smile, it was sincere.
Esther shivered involuntarily. The Feds these days were getting creepier and creepier.
"Okay—you win. Go ahead and kill her," she muttered to Kaspar.
"No," Kaspar said. "She is to be a sacrifice to my master..."
Esther arched a very black eyebrow. "Graduated from goats, have you?"
"And you will perform the sacrifice."
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Esther waved the suggestion away. "I don't stoop to slaughtering goats or lambs," she said. "Have one of the acolytes do it."
"You will perform the ritual, for it was you who saw fit to hide this spy from my sight. Perhaps this will help you to better grasp your earthly obligations."
Esther bit her tart tongue. No point in arguing. Just kill the girl and get on with her life. She dared not tell him that she had driven out to Hot Springs State Park and released the last Pythia into the wild like a captivity-bred condor. Her mind was shot, and she'd probably die from exposure. But if she survived, Esther could always claim at the trial she tried to help the girl out.
"Do you want me to do it now?" she asked, controlling herself.
Kaspar shook his head. "It is not the appointed time. Are your acolytes in readiness for the senator's reception?"
Esther nodded. "Everything's set. After today I doubt they'll be my acolytes any longer. No way can the Truth Church survive the hell about to break loose in Thermopolis."
"Oh, it will survive," Kaspar assured her. "When my master returns to us, we will unleash power greater than any seen on this planet in two millennia."
Kaspar turned away from Esther and began fussing around the tripod and the Cole girl. "Go supervise the operation," he said dismissively. "Be certain that nothing goes wrong."
Esther had decided not to ask how Kaspar knew for certain that his master was returning. But as she crossed the platform, it came to her.
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She could see down through the grate beneath the small stool. The stone urn had been replaced on the outcropping of rock within the jagged crevice. And Esther saw with alarm that the yellow powder within it was glowing.
Harold W. Smith had locked his briefcase in the trunk of his rental car before hiking more than three miles to the center of Thermopolis, Wyoming.
He guessed by the choke of cars parked at the outskirts of town and the increasing noise as he got closer to Arapahoe Street that the Hot Springs State Fair was a big event in this part of the state. But still Smith was surprised by the sheer numbers of people who had migrated to what was just an ordinary sleepy Western town.
Compared to the state fair, the rally held for Senator Cole a few weeks earlier looked, in retrospect, like an anemic Rotary Club meeting.
That was not to say the earlier event hadn't been large for a town Thermopolis's size. It was just that the state fair was something everyone in the area could enjoy, election year or not.
The downtown area had been blocked off to all through traffic. Dozens of large green-and-white-striped tents had been propped up in the park across from city hall. Some straddled the asphalt strip on Arapahoe Street between the small brick library building and the new post office/minimall.
Hundreds upon hundreds of people were crowded into the vicinity of Arapahoe between Cottonwood Street and Beartooth Road. The park was clogged with a sea of bobbing heads.
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There were still a great many Cole banners flapping gaily in the seasonably cool breeze. Signs in support of the senator hung on telephone poles as far as the eye could see. One had been slung down the side of the four-story office building adjacent to the city hall, but few people paid them any attention. This was a day to forget about politics.
There were no Calhoun posters in sight—the few who had hung signs in defiance of the overwhelming support for Senator Cole having lost their nerve since their candidate dropped out of the race. A coming grand-jury investigation into the molestation charges didn't bolster partisan confidence any.
As Smith moved uncomfortably through the sea of pedestrians, he
thought it odd that there seemed to be almost as many Mark Kaspar posters in the crowd as there were Jackson Cole placards. In a few acts of random political zealotry, some had been stapled over Cole posters. But most were mingling within the body of the crowd, carried on poles by roving ideologues. It seemed to Smith he could not walk ten feet without bumping into noisy Kaspar supporters.
On the posters Mark Kaspar's face showed an uncharacteristic grin from a larger-than-life center square that was framed on three sides by a patriotic red, white and blue border. Beneath the picture on a block of white, large stenciled letters proclaimed Mark Kaspar, Man Of The Era.
His supporters carried Kaspar's reptilian face around determinedly on the ends of their sticks, annoying the hometown crowd who overwhelmingly supported the popular incumbent senator.
Smith asked around and found that Cole had not yet
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made his appearance. When asked where the senator might be, a few people pointed vaguely in the direction of a potbellied man in an out-of-style polyester suit and a big foam campaign hat.
Smith found, upon questioning the man, that he was mayor of Thermopolis and that, even though he wasn't really supposed to tell anyone, he'd let Smith in on a little secret. The senator was in the last closed-off tent beyond the peanut vendors.
"And he better get out here soon," the mayor enthused. ' 'This is a big, happy hometown crowd. Great place for a politician to press the flesh. Damn great place." Someone called out to him, and the mayor made a beeline back to the Buckhorn beer booth.
As he hurried to the last tent, nearly colliding with one of the pole-carrying Kaspar supporters, Smith wondered how many other people the mayor had spoken to.
At the tent Smith found his path barred.
"Excuse me, sir," a Cole staffer said firmly. "No admittance to the general public. But I'll convey your support to the senator." He tried to steer this gray-flannel supporter away from the flap of the senator's tent, but found that he would not be moved.
Smith produced a card that identified him as a member of the United States Secret Service and held it beneath the upturned nose of the senator's staffer.
The clean-shaved young man checked the card scrupulously. He then looked the unhappy-looking man in the nondescript gray suit up and down critically.
"You're a little old for Secret Service, aren't you, Pops?"
"It is not your place to make that observation,"
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Smith said forcefully, as if to explain away his advanced years. Experience had taught him that most things said with authority were accepted without question. He returned the ID to his pocket.
"Guess not," the man said agreeably. He was nervously scanning the crowd, concerned the senator's tent would be overrun if he left his post for a minute.
Smith glanced at the crowd. Although there appeared to be more Kaspar signs gathered at this end of Arapahoe Street than anywhere else, no one seemed much interested in the last tent. In point of fact, it was the presence of the overly vigilant staffer who had planted himself outside the closed flap that seemed to have attracted the most attention.
When the staffer was finally persuaded things would not fall apart if he abandoned his post for a few seconds, he led Smith inside.
The atmosphere within the tent was not quite that of a political nerve center. About a dozen people milled about. Some local politicians in sweat-stained suits, taking their jobs on the Thermopolis city council far too seriously; a few Cole aides; a couple of the senator's friends—local business people who had stopped to wish him well and ended up chatting among themselves.
Senator Jackson Cole was in his shirtsleeves, sitting cross-legged on one of the several dozen metal folding chairs that had been left in the tent for his convenience. Most were folded and leaning up against a rickety old table, but the senator had found himself a nice spot on the trampled grass floor to unfold his seat. He was scanning a few sheets of fax paper through a
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pair of granny-style bifocals. He looked like a balding condor in cowboy boots.
"Senator Cole," Smith said, stepping away from the tent flap.
The senator glanced up, seemingly annoyed at the unfamiliar voice. He gave his nervous assistant a displeased look.
"It's okay, Senator," the young man explained, motioning to Smith. "He's Secret Service."
Cole looked at the proffered card suspiciously, then returned it to Smith.
"So what do you want?" he asked. His voice suggested a perpetual peevishness, and a slightly protruding lower jaw caused him to whistle softly when he pronounced the letter 5.
"The President was concerned for your safety, sir," Smith said. "With the strange circumstances surrounding this campaign so far, he thought it best you have some kind of protection."
"So he sent you?" Cole said with a tired chuckle. "You look like you last saw duty under ol' LBJ."
"He was concerned," Smith repeated, unfazed by the senatorial dig.
Cole removed his glasses and wearily massaged his eyelids beneath large bony fingers.
"You're a couple days too late. You realize that, don't you, Smith?" he asked.
"I was given a full briefing before leaving Washington," Smith replied. "I am sorry about your daughter."
The staffer visibly winced. It was obvious the campaign staff had been avoiding the subject of the kidnapping.
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Cole looked up at the Secret Service agent with something bordering on respect.
"Appreciate the good thought," he said.
Smith hunched awkwardly beneath the sloping green-and-white stripes of the tent roof. His eyes were determined gray flecks beneath his rimless glasses.
Cole nodded to Smith. It was a gesture of respect, as much as one of appreciation. He stood up, grabbing his suit jacket from the folding chair.
"Let's go out and kiss some babies," he announced with a tight smile.
As he ushered his nervous aides and the Secret Service agent from the tent, in his heart Jackson Cole wished more than anything that he could kiss his own baby again.
Remo hailed a taxi at the airport.
At first the cabbie was reluctant to drive as far as Thermopolis. The round trip would take a couple of hours minimum, and besides, the fare in the back seat had a hacking cough that sounded like he belongedyin a TB clinic. It didn't help that he also reeked like a pile of sun-ripened eggs.
Remo had persuaded the cabbie to change his mind by peeling hundred-dollar bills from the thick roll of cash in his pocket. When the man ceased griping and started drooling, Remo stopped peeling.
Every route into Thermopolis was tied up for some kind of festival, Remo saw. The driver had been forced to take a dozen detours before they finally turned onto the familiar road that led out to the Truth Church ranch.
The taxi deposited Remo near the blinking yellow light, and Remo slipped into the woods as the car drove away.
Remo encountered no patrols as he moved onto one of the wooded paths that led up to the main ranch compound.
The guard towers at the perimeter looked abandoned.
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As he approached, Remo sensed no hum from the electrified fence. Just deadness. It was just as well. He was in no mood for acrobatics.
Coming to a side gate, Remo stepped up onto a square of raised concrete in which an anchoring hurricane fence pole had been sunk. He gripped the pipe in his hands and pulled. Concrete dust exploded around his shoes like clods of trampled dirt. With a protesting cry of metal, the pole wrenched free of the mortar.
There was a steady snap, snap, snap of metal fence links as Remo pulled the pole back toward him. When he was finished, Remo rolled the chain-link section around the pole and dumped it off to one side. It clung limply to the next upright post, bouncing slightly.
As he stepped through the newly formed gate, Remo was startled by a voice behind him.
"How fortunate for you that the power was not on," the voice said.
Remo wheeled.
The Master of Sinanju stood beside the guard tower, a blot in a crimson kimono. His bony hands were tucked inside the voluminous sleeves, which lay across his belly.
"How did you find me, Little Father?" Remo asked quietly.
"I followed the smell," Chiun explained simply.
Remo nodded. For some reason the strong sulphur odor around him had grown more powerful since the incident at the zoo.
"You shouldn't have come," Remo said, shaking his head slowly. "I don't want this thing inside me attacking you, too."
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"I am safe," said Chiun. "It is you the sun god seeks."
Remo smiled darkly. "So, you here to give me a pep talk?"
Chiun's eyes thinned. "I am here because I am here."
Before he could reply, a sudden coughing spasm fshook Remo.
"It is worse?" Chiun asked, face quirking up in concern.
The fit of coughing abated. Remo nodded. "A little," he admitted, wiping tears from his watering eyes. Something seemed to drain from him at this small effort. All at once he gripped his head in his hands in a burst of frustration. If only he could shake the presence within him.
"I don't think I can beat this thing, Chiun. It's already too powerful." When he looked into the old man's eyes, the tears on Remo's face were no longer the by-product of coughing. "I'm sorry I let you down, Little Father," he choked out. "I wasn't strong enough to fight it."
Remo turned away. He wanted to hit something. He wanted to throw something. He wanted to rip something apart and shred it with his bare hands. Anything to quell the feeling of loss and utter helplessness welling up inside him. Instead, Remo found himself staring sullenly at the hard-trampled earth at Chiun's black-sandaled feet.
Chiun's wrinkled visage had grown stiff. "I will not hear this foolishness, Remo. You have let nothing down but your guard. Despite the tumult in your mind, your essence lives." He lifted his bearded chin
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proudly. His scrawny neck extended like a turtle's from its shell. "Hear this now, my son. Every day you breathe brings glory upon the House of Sinanju. You do not let me down, because I will not allow this."
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