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  Brandy barely had time to see them drop neatly, one after the other, inside the hollow head of Huitzilopochtli before she felt herself being swept off her feet.

  With Brandy tucked up under one arm, Remo took off like a shot. Chiun kept pace with him, once more carting Anna.

  With every racing step the old man seemed to grow more vigorous. Remo, too, quickly sloughed off the disharmonizing effects of the tunnel. They were two city blocks away from the town square when the ground began to shake.

  It was a low, protracted rumble that started at the center of town and rolled toward the Barkley suburbs. Once they had both determined they were at a safe distance, Remo and Chiun stopped running. They deposited the women on the sidewalk.

  A mile from the center of town, all four of them looked back in the direction from which they had come.

  The Barkley skyline had changed. Over the nearest buildings something was missing. For the first time since they had arrived in town, the evil eyes of Huitzilopochtli did not look out over the small California community.

  The statue was gone. In its place was empty air. And then a column of dust rose up from the distant point where the ancient god had stood, obliterating the cheery pastel-blue sky.

  IT TOOK half an hour for the dust to clear. When Remo, Chiun and the others returned to Barkley's center, they found the buildings around the grassy square in ruins.

  At the last minute Remo had aimed one of the mirrors into the civic center where the Buffoon Aid concert had been held. The other he had aimed down into the statue itself.

  The fractured beam had detonated the explosives and set off a chain reaction in the network of tunnels. When the underground complex collapsed, so too did everything above it. Including the city hall. Barkley's main civic building lay in cratered ruins. Before it the four-story Huitzilopochtli statue was little more than a pile of crumbled stone.

  "Oh, my," Brandy said when she saw the rubble that had been the Barkley civic center.

  "I figured that'd keep them from hosting any more of those ditzy benefit shows," Remo explained.

  Brandy cast a worried eye at Remo. "But that's where the city council was hiding."

  A flicker of genuine concern passed over Remo's face. "Any civilians with them?" he asked. Brandy nodded. "They said Yippee Goldfarb and the other two Buffoon Aid hosts were in there. They were planning on starting that HTB fund-raiser again today." Her face troubled, the FBI agent wandered away from the rest, toward the bombed-out civic center.

  Standing on the grass, Remo thought of the three famous actor-comedians. If Brandy was right, Yippee, Leslie Walters and Bobby Stone were probably buried somewhere under all that rubble. He thought of all the movies, TV specials and talk-show appearances they would never again make.

  "I've done my good deed for the century," he said. With an expression of utter indifference, he turned his attention to Anna. "What's Mactep mean?" he asked sweetly.

  Anna had been scanning the debris field. At his use of the Russian word, she glanced up. Buried in the depths of her ice-blue eyes was a hint of worried surprise.

  "Where did you hear that?" she asked, her voice level.

  "From the guy you were so eager to shoot holes through you took off on us twice," Remo said, his own tone flat. "And don't think we didn't notice."

  "Yes, she was more of a single-minded nuisance than she used to be," Chiun agreed. "And given the mannish doggedness she has displayed in the past, that is saying much." With delicate fingertips he stroked his thready beard. "Perhaps it is due to her advanced age. It is a fact of nature that women past a certain time of life no longer produce feminizing chemicals. That goes double for Russian women, who at birth are already halfway to manhood."

  "All the parts look like they're still in the right place to me," Remo said. His eyes never left Anna's. He was still waiting for an answer.

  "You say that today," Chiun cautioned. "Tell me your opinion tomorrow when one of those parts is a mustache. And Mactep is Russian for 'Master'." His own gaze was curious.

  The two men stared hard at the Russian agent. Anna seemed poised on the edge of a lie. At last she relented. With a sigh, her shoulders sank. "Mactep was the program intended to bring Sinanju to Russia," she admitted carefully. "It was begun many years ago under the auspices of a secret agency called the Institute. You recall the time when your Dr. Smith signed your contract over to our premier? Feyodov ran the agency that you were both supposed to come work for."

  Remo had all but forgotten that time. It had been ages ago. It was during that particular crisis that he had met his bride-to-be, Mah-Li. After meeting her, the contract nonsense with the Russians had been just a pesky distraction.

  For a moment he thought of the road not traveled. Of Mah-Li, of Anna. Of the future he would never have and the one he was destined to fulfill.

  "Oh," Remo said, his voice small.

  Chiun noted the pensive look on his pupil's face. Lest the boy lapse into another one of his maudlin funks or, worse, the woman read some romantic meaning into Remo's silence, he quickly chimed in.

  "Sinanju contracts are nontransferable," the Master of Sinanju huffed, whirling on Anna. "Not that we would work for Russia under any circumstances. The entire nation smells like a distillery. Not to mention the fact that all the women are manlike and all the men are drunkards. Now, we could overlook the manful women because, let us be reasonable, you cannot help that. Besides, no one other than besotted Russian men are interested in coupling with them."

  His voice dropped low. "Especially an Apprentice Master of Sinanju who can have his pick of comely Korean handmaidens," he added as warning. His voice grew loud once more. "But the rest cannot be easily dismissed. Tell your Kremlin masters that when you people stamp out alcoholism and do away with those silly little flirtations with communism and democracy you have engaged in these past few years, and are ready to install a new tzar like the beloved Ivan, then and only then will we talk. Until such time Russia is off-limits to our services. Consider yourselves under a Sinanju embargo." Face resolute, he crossed his arms rigidly. "Stand firm with me on this, Remo."

  Remo seemed surprised to hear his name. He shook away the troubling memories. "Right," he nodded. He instantly shook his head. "No, wait. Wrong." His gaze grew hard, his jaw firmly set. "Before we put up Sinanju's version of the Berlin Wall, there's still one more Russian bill that needs paying."

  And the seriousness with which he spoke the words caused both Anna Chutesov and the Master of Sinanju to share a rare, troubled frown.

  Chapter 33

  The man whose actions had inadvertently destroyed an empire slept peacefully beneath his heavy woolen blankets.

  The last premier to rule the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was short and stocky, with a mild paunch and an affable face that, in slumber, made him resemble a human teddy bear. A white fringe of hair rimmed his otherwise bald pate. In the shadows of his bedroom, the famous wine-stain birthmark that was his trademark was a dark splotch.

  He was a cuddly, grandfatherly figure with a pleasant smile and an open demeanor.

  The blankets-which retained the aroma of mothballs from the upstairs cedar closet even this late in the Russian winter-rose and fell with each deep breath.

  He had been a premier who called himself president. A powerful player on the world stage in days long gone.

  These days he rarely dreamed of that old life. It had been years since his missteps had collapsed the Soviet Union. Years since he had been forced into private life. Years since anything he did mattered.

  A final foray into politics a few years before had been humiliating. These days his life was occupied largely with global environmental causes.

  As he slept this cold February night, winter wind rattling the windows of his cozy home, something seemed to creep into his consciousness. Snoring awake, the retired premier looked for the familiar glow of the digital clock. Through slivered eyes he saw that it was two in the morning.

  He was clo
sing his eyes when he thought he saw something dark move in front of the glowing red numbers.

  For an instant his mind told him to be worried. But then a sudden intense feeling of drowsiness overtook him. With a big, growling yawn, he closed his heavy eyelids and fell into a deep, inviting sleep. When he next awoke the clock read 4:00 a.m.

  With another yawn, the old premier pulled himself out of bed and padded to the bathroom.

  He was passing the medicine cabinet on his way to the toilet when he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

  At first he thought he was seeing things. The glow of the nightlight was too weak to be sure. He snapped on the wall switch. When he saw his reflection his jaw dropped.

  During the night his forehead birthmark had mutated. The main blotch now seemed to form a number. When he rolled his head to one side he saw that a letter was beside it.

  In a panic, he pulled from the closet a small handheld mirror that had belonged to his late wife.

  He soon found that the letters formed a slogan. With a sinking feeling in his ample gut he tracked it all around his bald pate. It wrapped his head like the logo on a tire.

  He could not believe his eyes. The former premier was already despised in his own country. Somehow someone had broken into his home and tattooed him with the one thing that would make him even more hated than he was already.

  The slogan that spread like a rash from his birthmark all around his head read U.S.A. #1.

  Shoulders slumping, Russia's retired premier dropped the small hand mirror into the marble sink. Like the mighty empire he had once led, it cracked into a hundred jagged pieces.

  Chapter 34

  Between flights, Remo called Smith from a pay phone at London's Heathrow International Airport. "So that's that," he said as he finished explaining the details from Barkley and the side trip he and Chiun had taken to Russia. "If he wants to go hug any more trees, from now on he's gonna have to wear a hat or Crosby, Stills and Nash will stone him to death. Not that he wouldn't deserve it. After the Challenger he earned way worse than he got."

  "I suppose I should be thankful that you did not eliminate him," the CURE director said thinly. The Master of Sinanju stood next to Remo at the phone bank. The old man was staring glumly at the passengers as they hurried back and forth across the terminal.

  "It is I who convinced Remo not to remove the fat Russian, Emperor," Chiun called.

  "Please thank Master Chiun for his restraint."

  "Now, there's a phrase you don't hear every day," Remo said dryly. "And don't be too free with the thanks until you hear whose ticket he wanted us to punch instead."

  "Sinanju skills should not be wasted on some roly-poly retiree, Emperor Smith," Chiun said. "I wanted to remove the dangerous pretender who sits on Tzar Ivan's throne. He is a little man, and little men always have something to prove."

  Remo looked down at Chiun. At just five feet tall, the old man's bald scalp came up to his shoulder. "Er, thank Master Chiun for the warning, but tell him I want no harm to come to their current president," Smith said.

  "Don't thank him for that one, thank me," Remo said. "I just wanted the old one. But I knew you'd go apeshit if I killed him. Besides, that thing on his head made a pretty good one. After that, the rest just wrote itself."

  "It is good you went no further," Smith said. "Given the attempt by Feyodov to provoke a confrontation between our two nations, there is no telling how the Russians might react to the sudden, mysterious death of a former national leader."

  "Boo-hoo-hoo for the Russians," Remo said, scowling.

  Smith forged ahead. "As for the cosmonauts who were stranded on Mir, they have been rescued. The shuttle with them aboard landed an hour ago."

  "Send them a bill," Remo grumbled.

  "But do not expect them to pay," Chiun offered.

  "So that's it," Smith said. "Theodore Schwartz, the man who financed this whole scheme, is in custody. You have taken care of Feyodov and the Barkley end." The older man hesitated, considering his next words. "Now that this is over, there are things we need to discuss when you return."

  Remo noted the cryptic edge suddenly in Smith's voice.

  "I don't like the sound of that. If you're thinking of throwing us out, don't," Remo warned. "Chiun didn't get the free house he was banking on and now with the three Buffoon Aid stars MIA, he's thinking he won't ever see one from that quarter. Though if we got one buck each from everyone who's ever had to put up with the multi-untalented Yippee Goldfarb on Oscar night, we'd be in clover."

  "It has nothing to do with your living arrangements," Smith said. "It is more an organizational detail. If there are no other loose ends, we can discuss it when you return."

  Remo thought of Anna Chutesov. A loose end that had apparently been dangling out there for more than a decade without any of them knowing about it.

  The CURE director sensed something in the pause from Remo's end. "Is there something more, Remo?" Smith asked.

  "No," Remo said. "That's it. See you stateside." He hung up the phone.

  As they walked back across the terminal, the old man gave his pupil a furtive look.

  "You did not tell Smith about the woman," he said.

  Remo shrugged. "Why bother stirring up that pot? And anyway, she bagged out on us as soon as we hit Moscow. Besides, we didn't see her for more than ten years. What are the odds we'll ever see her again?"

  Neither man chose to wager. Both wearing thoughtful frowns, each man for a different reason, the two Masters of Sinanju walked silently toward the departure gate.

  EPILOGUE

  Her early-morning briefing with the president of Russia had not lasted long. The relief on his face had been great when he learned of Anna Chutesov's success.

  In relating the details, Anna deliberately left out the involvement of Remo and Chiun. There had been too much stirring of old embers these past few days. At this point it would do no good to remind the Kremlin leadership of anything more to do with the men from Sinanju.

  When she was through, she left the small man who led this weakened Russia to his celebratory glass of vodka.

  Anna was bone tired as she drove her own car from the Kremlin back into Kitai Gorod. The Institute building rose up from the dirty streets like some great primitive temple of concrete and mortar.

  She was passing the building and heading for the secret entrance when something caught her eye. With a shocked gasp Anna slammed on the brakes. The car behind her screeched to a stop. Anna threw open her door. Horns beeped as she raced across oncoming traffic to the front of the building.

  The gates to the unused driveway sat on the street. At her order, they were left closed in perpetuity, entwined with a rusty chain. Beyond them, up the short drive, was the sealed door to the underground garage. Neither gate nor garage door had been opened since Anna's arrival at that building more than a decade before.

  This morning, the garage door was open wide. A great yawning black space stretched beyond.

  The gate was still closed. With trembling hands Anna reached out to it.

  The chain was broken. Within the chips of orange rust gleamed bright shards of twisted silver links. At her touch, the chain slipped to the ground, and the rusted gate creaked open into the driveway.

  Behind her, horns blared and men shouted. Anna heard none of it. The shouting and honking were background noise.

  As angry drivers began climbing out of their cars, she remained rooted in place. Her glazed eyes were distant. Her mouth hung open in shock. She said but one word, inaudible over all the yelling and traffic sounds.

  "Mactep."

  And for the first time in her life, standing alone on that Moscow sidewalk, Anna Chutesov felt the first thundering strains of true fear.

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