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  Disloyal Opposition

  ( The Destroyer - 123 )

  Warren Murphy

  Richard Sapir

  PEACE, LOVE AND DESTRUCTION.

  JUST ANOTHER DAY IN SUNNY CALIFORNIA

  Barkley, California, has always been a counterculture kind of a place, but now, its local historical society has decided they've had enough of Washington's politically incorrect ways. They are seceding from the union...and they've hire an ex-KGB general with a supersecret particle beam weapon to blow up anything that moves so they can live in harmony and nonviolence.

  The news of some weird - the term being relative - scene happening in Barkley gives Dr. Smith an excuse to dispatch Remo and Chiun, who have been hanging around CURE headquarters far too long. Ironically, from across the former Iron Curtain, another secret specter is hunting the Russian mad dog as well - someone Remo believes to be dead. The first great war of the 21st century promises to be a wild scene for all, including Smith, who just received a special gift from an ex-president: an assistant director for CURE.

  Destroyer 123: Disloyal Opposition

  By Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

  PROLOGUE

  The explosion heard round the world came a full fifteen years before Boris Feyodov would become a whore. On that great day in January 1986, he gave no thought to betraying his country or the great socialist cause, nor to spreading his legs to the capitalist dogs of the hated West.

  Indeed, when the Russian general saw the beautiful white cloud from the explosion on his small monitor, he was one of the few people on the face of the planet who realized the triumph it represented for the Soviet Union over the mewling, complacent Americans.

  The grainy image of the blast was transmitted live via satellite to the many Japanese television screens that ringed the cramped control room buried beneath the frozen ground of the Sary Shagan Missile Test Center in Kazakhstan.

  As the big white cloud expanded, shooting milky streamers into the blue sky, a cheer went up in the small room.

  "Perfect!" exulted a white-coated scientist. The thick glasses Viktor Churlinski wore were at least twenty years out of date by Western standards. He eagerly adjusted the glasses on his blunt nose as he spun in his seat to face the standing general. "It went exactly as expected, comrade General," he boasted proudly.

  Pieces of the test craft streaked toward the ocean. "Impressive." General Boris Feyodov nodded. Though it was warm in the small room, Feyodov still wore his heavy greatcoat. His huge peaked Red Army hat brushed the low ceiling as he leaned back from the console.

  "It is more than impressive, comrade General," Dr. Churlinski insisted. "The curvature of the earth would make this impossible for most. Even the Americans cannot do this at the moment."

  So excited was he, the scientist failed to notice the flicker of disdain on General Feyodov's harsh face.

  "We have bounced the stream off the atmosphere itself," Viktor continued. "And to hit a moving target seven thousand miles away? It is-" he shrugged "-well, it is more than just impressive."

  Viktor spun from the general to his team of scientists.

  Men were slapping one another on the back. One had smuggled in two vodka bottles. Drinks were poured and congratulations filled the cramped room.

  As the scientists celebrated their achievement, the ringing of the wall telephone went unnoticed to all but General Feyodov.

  It was the hotline. There was no doubt that someone from Moscow was calling with congratulations. When the general answered the phone, he was surprised to recognize the voice on the other end. He began to offer a rare smile of satisfaction. But his face froze abruptly.

  As he listened to the speaker, the color drained from the general's face.

  "But, comrade-" he questioned.

  The argument he was about to offer was cut off. With a final order, the line went dead.

  When he hung up the phone, General Boris Feyodov seemed suddenly drained of life. The excitement in the bunker was such that no one noticed. Picking up the receiver once more, Feyodov dialed a number on the base. After a few hushed commands, he hung up the phone again.

  No one in the bunker noticed the hard scowl that had settled on the fleshy face of the Red Army general.

  The party went on for several minutes before the knock came from the hall. Slipping silently from the celebrants, Feyodov stepped over to the sealed metal door of the chamber. Pulling it open, he gave a sharp, angry hand gesture.

  Only at the sound of marching boots did Viktor Churlinski and the rest look up. Their exultant faces fell.

  Six Red Army soldiers had filed into the room, forming a line on the far side of the consoles near the door. Their youthful faces were etched in stone. And, to the horror of the gathered scientists, their rifles were raised.

  A single vodka glass slipped from sweating fingers, smashing on the concrete floor.

  Viktor's face held a look of horrified bewilderment. He shook his head in confusion as he turned to Feyodov.

  "Comrade General?" he asked fearfully. General Feyodov did not answer the terrified scientist. He stood at attention beside his men, eyes locked on the far wall.

  For an agonizing moment, no one said a word. The only sound in the tiny room was the frightened breathing of the huddled scientists. Finally, Feyodov lowered his gaze. With agonizing slowness, his eyes sought those of Viktor Churlinski. In the brown depths of his unflinching orbs, General Feyodov offered something close to an apology.

  The general took a deep breath. The scientists watched expectantly. "Fire," ordered General Boris Feyodov. And chaos erupted in the room.

  A bullet slapped Dr. Churlinski square in the forehead, burrowing deep into his brilliant brain. Bits of hair-mottled gray matter splattered onto the console behind him.

  The other men were shot in the chest and face. Those who tried to run were shot in the back. Flowers of crimson bloomed on white lab coats.

  The metallic stink of blood flooded the underground bunker.

  A stray bullet crackled into the face of a monitor, sending blue sparks and glass shards into the room. "Watch the equipment!" Feyodov growled as the last body sank to the floor.

  Leaving the soldiers near the door, the general strode into the room.

  Viktor Churlinski was sprawled back on a console, his glassy eyes staring ceilingward. Feyodov dragged the dead man by the collar, dumping him to the cold floor. Stepping over the corpse, the general inspected the shattered monitor.

  The damage was superficial. It would not have affected the primary systems. Seeing that everything else had survived intact, he ordered the soldiers from the room.

  As the men marched back through the door, Feyodov crossed the room. He would shut off the power from outside.

  Before closing the door on the grisly scene, Feyodov cast one last look around the bunker.

  The bodies of Viktor and the others were a minor distraction. His dark eyes were drawn to the computer consoles. The image of the explosion he had helped cause was being replayed by the American news services on several of the monitors.

  The world would forever after call the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger an accident. General Boris Vanovich Feyodov knew otherwise.

  With a hard tug, Feyodov closed the heavy iron door.

  He would not open it again for another decade.

  Chapter 1

  The socialism that governed Barkley, California, was the cute Western variety where the windows of all the organic bakeries and herbal garden shops were always full and everyone kept their lawns trimmed to a city-council-mandated one and onequarter inches year-round. If it was true that every ridiculous fad to sweep America first began in Californ
ia, those same fads had first been born on the politically correct streets of the college town of Barkley.

  Barkley was the undisputed Mecca for the counterculture, both old and new. On the carefully swept sidewalks of its tidy tree-lined streets, hippies could still be found in all their tie-dyed, potbellied splendor. Aging beatniks prowled the byways in black turtlenecks, bongos tucked under arms. Youths pierced and tattooed represented the new avantgarde.

  Couples in bell-bottoms berated neighbors for destroying the planet with Huggies while earnestly washing the cloth diapers of their lone "experience" child under the spray of the front-lawn sprinklers. Men who thought the internal-combustion engine represented the single greatest threat to the world pedaled rusting ten-speed Schwinns to work. Women with filthy bare feet and furry legs lashed themselves to trees that had a date with the chain saw.

  The main streets of Barkley were potholed obstacle courses. Someone had noticed a few round rocks at the bottom of one of the holes and instantly declared that they were cobblestones from the days Spain ruled California. In an act of misguided historical preservation, the holes were left to widen. After scented candles and hemp underwear, shock absorbers were one of the best-selling items in town.

  The Barkley Historical Society wasn't quite sure what it would do once all the cobblestones reemerged. After all, they were a sign of Spanish imperialism, as well as the subjugation of indigenous peoples. The head of the society thought the townspeople could pry them up and throw them at Antonio Banderas's car if he ever came to town.

  A reed-thin woman in her early forties, she was picturing herself hurling a rock as a stunned Melanie Griffith looked on. The woman wore a glimmer of a smirk and a muumuu that looked as if it had been dragged through every historically significant ditch in town.

  No one noticed the pleased smile on her face. The rest of those gathered in the small auditorium in Barkley's city hall were too busy discussing the two most significant things to descend on their hamlet since Fritz Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro made a campaign stop there back in 1984.

  "How are things going with Buffoon Aid?" asked an overweight man who sat on the dais at the front of the hall. As he spoke, he continued to eat from the container of ice cream on the table before him. The man's own image was plastered across the side of the carton.

  Before a hostile takeover that had cost him his business, Gary Jenfeld had been half owner of the famous Vermont-based ice cream company Zen and Gary's. His partner, Zen Bower, sat in the chair next to Gary.

  After losing the company that still bore their names and likenesses, the two men had slinked bitterly across the country, settling in the socially conscious town of Barkley.

  "Everything's cool, you know," drawled a black woman who sat down the main table from Zen and Gary. She pushed a string of dirty cornrows from in front of her dark glasses.

  Yippee Goldfarb was an actress, comedian, producer and middle box on the syndicated game show "Tic-Tic-Blow!" For someone with not an ounce of discernible talent, her success was incredible even by Hollywood standards.

  "I got my boys Leslie and Bobby comin' in tonight," Yippee said laconically. "Home Ticket Booth will be beaming us coast to coast via satellite for the next three days."

  At the mention of the cable network, Zen offered a thin, knowing glance at the rest of the council. "Good," he said with an efficient nod. Zen began shuffling through his notes so they could move on.

  "Uh...a little snag," Gary said. As he bit his lip, dollops of melting ice cream dripped down his coarse beard. "It's about Huitzilopochtli." He raised his hands to ward off the council's sudden worried looks. "The statue's fine," he said quickly. "You can see it if you lean this way."

  Gary leaned far to the left.

  Long windows lined one wall of the room. The dusty venetian blinds were twisted open. A dark, looming shape-taller than the city hall itself-could be glimpsed through the slats. Fat and tall and menacing, the slab of rock seemed to swallow up sunlight. A dark shadow cast from the huge statue fell like an ancient blight across the windows.

  From this angle, a single black eye-as big as a small car and carved in angles of pagan fury-glared at the men and women in the crowded auditorium.

  "Four stories of rock-hewn Aztec scariness towering over the main square," Gary winced, shuddering. Chunks of brownies were like brown grout between his yellowed teeth. "The statue's not a snag, per se. It's just that we got a call from Fox News about it this morning."

  A ripple of concern passed across the stage. "How did they find out about it?" Zen asked.

  "Don't know," Gary replied. "They didn't say. Maybe from some blabbermouth National Review reader over at the university. Anyway, they wanted to know if, since it was the Aztec sun god, we planned on sacrificing any hearts to it. I think they might have been yanking me."

  Zen's face fouled. "That's ridiculous," he snarled. "We shelved the heart-sacrifice proposal months ago." His narrowed eyes found a few people in the back row who stubbornly mixed paper and plastic in their recycling bins. "For now," he added under his breath. More loudly he said, "I hope you told them the statue's just a link to the true, nonwhite, original gods of this hemisphere."

  Gary nodded. "Then I steered them to the Buffoon Aid benefit. Oh, but I did mention how the kids of Barkley are pledging allegiance to Huitzilopochtli. But they're offering flowers, not hearts. I made that clear."

  A hand shot up in the front row. It was Lorraine Wintnabber, chairperson of the Barkley Historical Society. As her dirty arm stabbed high in the air in an unintentional duplication of the Nazi salute, the woman scrambled to her feet.

  "No flowers," she insisted.

  Men on either side leaned away from the ripe smell rising from her exposed underarm.

  Even Zen didn't seem to have patience for Chairperson Wintnabber. Thanks to her one-woman pothole crusade, he was on his tenth set of BMW shocks in as many months.

  "What's wrong with flowers, Lorraine?" he asked with a sigh.

  "They're living things," Lorraine snarled. Her filthy neck craned out of her muumuu. "'Pick' is just a euphemism for 'kill' when you're a flower. I for one do not think that it's good for the children for us to teach them horticide."

  "I hadn't thought of that," Zen frowned. He bit his cheek. "I suppose we could use fake flowers."

  Lorraine's arm Sieg Heiled once more. "Not plastic," she warned. "They have to be made from biodegradable paper."

  Zen nodded reluctantly. "You're right," he sighed.

  "Super," Lorraine enthused. A soiled notebook appeared like magic from the sleeve of her muumuu. "How many hundred should I put you down for?"

  The next few minutes were spent haggling with the only woman in town licensed to produce handcrafted biodegradable flowers. It was finally decided that eight hundred was the perfect number that would satisfy the powerful Aztec god Huitzilopochtli without siphoning too much of the budget from the annual Kent State Reenactment and Flea Market.

  "I'd better get started on this right away," Lorraine announced to the room when they were done. Notebook clutched in her grimy hand, she hurried from the auditorium.

  At the back door, she bumped into a man who was just striding into the hall. Too busy at the moment to accuse him of contact rape, Lorraine scurried around him and was gone.

  Far up on the stage, Zen noted the appearance of the new arrival with a flicker of approval. His lips curved to form the superior smirk common to political-science majors and devout Marxists.

  The crowd failed to notice the stranger as he took up a sentry position near the door.

  "Now, on to the most important item on the agenda," Zen announced from the stage. "I am pleased to finally announce that your council has been doing extensive secret work on the whole United States of America problem. I am sure that most of you had resigned yourselves to living under the oppressive boot heel of the fascists in Washington for the rest of your time on this polluted planet. I am pleased to report, however, that as far as Barkley is con
cerned, the American century is finally over."

  There were sighs of relief around the hall, accompanied by a smattering of applause. "Thank Gaia that's over with," one man muttered.

  Zen held up a staying hand and the noise died away.

  "I can't go into all the details at the moment," he said. "But I can tell you that we have recently acquired the means by which Barkley can at last declare its independence from America. We will become the first socialist state ever to exist on this benighted continent. We will shake the pigs in Washington from their fat complacency, collapse their fragile police state and signal to the rest of the world that the Revolution has finally begun."

  His voice had taken on the strains of a revival meeting preacher. Throwing his arms wide, he gestured to the back of the room.

  "And though your council deserves most of the credit, a small measure of our newfound liberty must go to a true hero of the People's cause. My fellow Barkleyites, I give to you the man who will help deliver us to our utopian paradise, Barkley's supreme military commander!"

  All eyes turned to the man in the back of the room.

  The old soldier was clearly uncomfortable with the sudden attention. As the crowd broke into applause, his back stiffened. The buttons of his Red Army uniform strained to the bursting point from the motion.

  The uniform no longer fit as it once did. In the past fifteen years, his flat stomach had given way to a middle-aged paunch. Soft streaks of silver lined the dark hair that peeked out from under his hat. But the one thing that had not changed was the eyes.

  Flat brown eyes looked out across the sea of blissful, dimwitted faces. A notch formed in his brow. As the applause grew soft with confusion, then fell to silence, General Boris Vanovich Feyodov looked from one corner of the room to the next. When he was through scanning the crowd, he turned from the room and was gone. Back out the door to the People's Hall.

  A few more feeble handclaps trickled to silence. On the stage Zen Bower hid his anger with clenched teeth. He leaned over to Gary Jenfeld. "For what we're paying him, he'd better stop jumping at every shadow," he whispered.