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  "Course I can," Remo disagreed. "I can ignore whatever they're going to do and go outside and sit in the grass in the shadow of that chunka-chunka scary rock. Bye."

  He hadn't taken a single step for the exit when he heard the first shout in Russian behind him. It was quickly followed by a single gunshot. After that, pandemonium.

  "Well, crap," Remo observed, slamming on the brakes. Placing firm hands to his hips, he spun. The seated Russian was now trying to claw his way across the panicking row toward the center aisle. In his wake came the gaggle of men who had raced up the aisle. A hulking member of the hit squad carried a smoking gun in his paw.

  The single, ill-advised warning shot had sent a flood of concertgoers to the exits. The first wave was racing toward Remo and Chiun. The crowd broke around the unmoving men, crashing through the gleaming exit doors behind them.

  Remo shook his head in disbelief. "They don't leave for Bobby Stone's Ricardo Montalban impersonation, but they stampede over one single gunshot?" he complained.

  "Quickly," the Master of Sinanju pressed.

  The center seats were empty by now. Chiun bounded from the floor. Toes barely brushing the top of one of the back seats, the old man launched himself forward.

  With a resigned sigh, Remo followed, toe to chair to air. The two men propelled themselves to the fourth row down, spinning in midair. In a heartbeat they landed on either side of the pack of armed Russians.

  The huge Russian with the gun was running along in front of the other five. Lumbering toward his fleeing countryman, he was startled to suddenly find himself staring down into a pair of hard, deep-set eyes. Halting, the SVR agent quickly twisted his gun, aiming it into Remo's face.

  "Here's where I've got a problem," Remo said. "My country's falling apart, sure. No argument there."

  As a pudgy finger squeezed the trigger, something went wrong. Instead of aiming toward the little American's face, the gun was now pointed in the opposite direction. The hulking SVR agent didn't have time to ponder the significance of this strange turn of events before the bullet fired by his own hand blew off the top of his Soviet-era head.

  "But your country," Remo continued as he bounded over the falling mountain of flesh and into the next man in line.

  The next Russian came up short, stunned by both his collapsing comrade and the stranger leaping over him.

  "Now if we want to talk a real mess, that's the shithole to end all shitholes," Remo said as he planted a finger deep into the second man's occipital lobe. "I mean, rather than pester me, why don't you use this energy where it might do some good? Take a mop and a pail to the Urals and don't stop until you reach Iran."

  When he crushed the third man's chest to jelly and found a fourth one beyond the toppling agent, Remo frowned. There were only six in all, and he was up to four.

  "What, you sitting this one out, Little Father?" he complained loudly as he planted a gun deep into the next man's pumping heart.

  Chiun didn't respond. The row was too narrow. Remo couldn't see the Master of Sinanju beyond the next two men.

  With a punishing overhand blow, Remo sent the penultimate agent's head down deep into his thoracic cavity. Collapsing vertebrae clicked together like fastening Legos. His chin now nestled onto his sternum, the suddenly short SVR agent tipped forward onto the floor.

  All that was left behind the man was one very shocked Vadim Zhdanov.

  The Master of Sinanju was nowhere to be seen. When he realized he alone was left standing among his SVR agents and that a man who fit the description given by the director of the Institute was wading through the bodies of his team toward him, Vadim Zhdanov did the only thing he could do under the circumstances.

  Gulping audibly, the Russian agent placed his own gun to his own temple and pulled the trigger. As the last body fell, Remo scowled. "Typical," he said to the man with the smoking hole in his head.

  "He gets me all rah-rah worked up and then takes a powder."

  Still frowning, he turned.

  The crowd had all but dispersed. A few stragglers were pushing through the doors near the stage. Remo was grateful that there weren't any cameras aimed his way. Most were directed at the stage, but some were positioned to get audience-reaction shots. But the crew from the cable network airing the Buffoon Aid special had fled, as well.

  At the end of Remo's row, beyond the line of fallen SVR agents, a man was sprawled across two seats.

  Hopping from head to chest to head, Remo skipped across the bodies and approached Yuri Koskolov.

  The single shot intended to warn had accidentally found a target. Lying back uncomfortably across the seats, the Russian was clasping a hand to his heart. His fingers were stained bright red. His skin was already growing waxy.

  "What's your story?" Remo asked.

  Yuri Koskolov shook his head in weak incomprehension. "I just vanted to see funnyman Jackoff Smirniv," he gasped.

  Then he died.

  Remo straightened. His brow had only sunk lower over his eyes.

  "Russia," he mumbled in disgust. "What a country."

  Expression still dark, he went off in search of the missing Master of Sinanju.

  Chapter 13

  The clandestine rendezvous was held in the broad daylight of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Boris Feyodov leaned back on a bench, his heels digging comfortably into the pebbled path. Hands folded and resting on his paunch, he watched the joggers as they ran by.

  The retired general was glad he had worn a jacket. Though the sun was warm, the occasional gusts of cool, salty wind from off the Pacific chilled the air.

  His tired eyes watched a young jogger approach. The girl was all of twenty-five, with a bobbing knot of natural blond hair, red shorts and a scandalously revealing tank top.

  The sweating girl smiled at him as she ran past. Feyodov returned the smile, tracking her with his eyes.

  Her smile was one of politeness. She wasn't interested in him. Couldn't possibly be. She had seen him looking at her and decided to give a dirty old man a cheap thrill.

  As he thought of his age, his physical condition, his current career and the life that had somehow claimed all he had once been, the remnants of the smile he had offered the pretty young American girl slowly faded into the broad lines of Boris Feyodov's sad, sagging face.

  A sudden stiff breeze made him shiver.

  Feyodov was scowling at the cold when a dark shadow fell across him, blotting the sun. Eyes hooded, he looked up.

  He saw little more than a bushy black mustache surrounded by a nimbus of brilliant sunlight. "This is the last of it," the man grunted by way of greeting. He pulled a thick manila envelope from under his black raincoat, handing it over to the seated general.

  Feyodov silently accepted the envelope. As the man took a seat beside him on the bench, Feyodov opened the envelope, thumbing through the thick stacks of hundred-dollar bills.

  He didn't count the money. He just wanted to make sure there weren't any old Pravda clippings padding out the payment. This customer had tried that once early on.

  With a satisfied nod, the general turned his full attention to his seatmate.

  Without the blinding sun as a backdrop, he was now able to make out the features of the man.

  He had brown hair that was streaked with gray and a matching mustache that drooped over his thick lips. Bushy black eyebrows hung heavily over eyes that burned with the passion of an unapologetic Communist.

  In his day several years before, Vladimir Zhirinsky had been nearly a legendary figure in Russia. At that time the ultranationalist was feared by the West. As time wore on, Zhirinsky's star had faded. Now-like the Soviet Union he loved-he was relegated to the back pages of history books. But thanks to his dealings with Boris Feyodov and others in Russia's black market, he was poised to rewrite both his personal history and that of his nation.

  "Everything has nearly been delivered," Feyodov said as he tucked the envelope in his breast pocket. "This will cover the rest. The most-" he paus
ed "-exotic item is already on the ground in Alaska."

  Zhirinsky nodded. His gray eyes seemed to be transfixed by Feyodov's nose. Often in meetings, Feyodov found that the nationalist looked people in the nose rather than the eyes.

  "You will have to contact my office in Russia with the details," Zhirinsky said, getting quickly back to his feet. "You have the number. I have already told my spineless assistant, Ivan Kerbabaev, to await your call."

  Feyodov seemed puzzled. "Why can I not just tell you?"

  "No time. I must return to Moscow," Zhirinsky said mysteriously. "I learned only this morning that an opportunity that I have awaited for months has finally presented itself."

  The nationalist whirled. He took two steps across the grass before spinning back to Feyodov. A sudden impulse grabbed the wild-eyed man.

  "Join me," Zhirinsky said. "You were a general once, as well as the son of a great hero to the people's cause. Be a hero like your father, the field marshal. For the people, for the cause. The tide will turn soon. You have helped lay the groundwork for the new glorious revolution, share in the benefits that history will afford the strong."

  Still sitting on the bench, Feyodov shook his head. "I was a general," he agreed softly. "Once. But that rank proved to be a hollow mockery." Slapping hands to knees, he pushed himself wearily to his feet. His eyes were level as he addressed Zhirinsky. "Now I am a businessman."

  The look of disgust on the face of Vladimir Zhirinsky was enough to show Boris Feyodov what his fellow countryman thought of businessmen.

  Zhirinsky hadn't the time to argue. With the urgency of a man propelled by great events, he strode off across the park. Feyodov watched him go.

  "Protect the world from revolutionaries," the former general muttered. The soft words were not so much a prayer as a cheerless desire. Thinking dark thoughts, Feyodov wandered across the park.

  His car was in the lot where he'd left it.

  Had this been a Moscow park, the vehicle would have been stolen two minutes after he'd left it and would be halfway to Sevastopol by now. Not that he would have any right to complain about the criminals. The fact that he was one of the greatest contributors to the current lawlessness that gripped his land was not lost on Boris Feyodov.

  Feyodov was climbing in behind the wheel when his cell phone chirped to life.

  When he answered, he recognized the worried, whispered voice of Oleg Shevtrinko, one of the men he had brought with him to California from Russia. "General, something is happening here," Oleg said

  Feyodov accepted the use of his former military title. While he had lost the title of general years ago, his black market associates were mostly former Red Army subordinates. They were the men from the Sary Shagan Missile Test Center. The men who knew him as nothing less than a god. Out of respect for what he had been, they would not dare call him anything other than general. If they only knew the truth of his career after that time...

  The fact that it was Oleg calling sent up a warning flare for Feyodov. Obviously, there was some kind of problem. Yuri Koskolov was the only man authorized to contact Feyodov.

  "What is wrong?" Feyodov asked. "Where is Koskolov?"

  "Dead," Oleg answered. "At least that's what they are saying. There was nearly a riot at that insane charity event here. In addition to Yuri, several others are dead." His voice dropped lower. "Those we work for are panicking, General. They say this is a preemptive attack by their government. They have ordered the scientists to-"

  The phone abruptly went dead. "Oleg?" Feyodov demanded. "Oleg?" He shook the phone. Nothing.

  He tried calling back. Dead air greeted him.

  The batteries were new. Feyodov had just changed them the previous morning. This was a very expensive phone. It filtered out background noise, so that there was not even a hiss. According to the carrier service, the phone worked in all but the most remote parts of the country. Golden Gate Park certainly shouldn't qualify as inaccessible.

  Not a single sound issued from the lump of plastic in his hand. As far as he knew, the only thing that should have caused such a thing to happen would be-

  Feyodov's face blanched. Slapping the phone shut, he stuffed it back in his pocket.

  "Sukin syn," he swore.

  Throwing the car in gear, he stomped down on the gas.

  Joggers jumped out of the way as the big American car steered by the renegade Russian general lurched desperately into the street.

  "WHAT'S THAT ONE?" Zen Bower demanded.

  On the screen where the ice cream maker was pointing, a computer-generated object whirled through the void of space. It looked like a stickfigure box with a funnel at the top. A glowing blue line extended just below the funnel.

  "It's another communications satellite," answered the nervous man at the targeting console. He was an engineering professor from Barkley University.

  "Is it on the chart?" Zen asked hotly.

  The engineer looked at the reference book on his lap, comparing the numbers from the screen. "No," he said.

  "Then blast it," Zen commanded.

  The man shook his head. "The weapon's not fully charged," he replied apologetically. He cringed when Zen pounded a fist on the console.

  "Dammit!" Zen growled. "Just shoot already!" Another voice broke in from behind Zen.

  "It is not possible yet."

  Zen wheeled.

  Oleg Shevtrinko had just come up the rock-hewed tunnel. In his hand he still clutched the cell phone he had used to contact Boris Feyodov. It had gone dead the moment Zen-in a wild selection of random targets-had ordered the destruction of the satellite through which the signal was being carried.

  "Don't you dare tell me anything's not possible," Zen snapped. "It's your boss who told us we couldn't hit anything without some three-million-dollar gewgaw. We've taken out three more satellites with no problem at all."

  "It is possible to target and hit an object in space, but it is not foolproof," Oleg lied. "The device that General Feyodov is getting will make luck unnecessary."

  "Yeah, well, maybe," Zen said. "And he's not General Feyodov-he's being paid to be Barkley's supreme military commander. Although we're gonna pull back on the SMC title until we know what happened. After this I might bust him down to private and give you a battlefield promotion."

  Oleg Shevtrinko's back stiffened. He had known General Feyodov for seventeen years. Back when the general was in charge of Sary Shagan, Oleg had participated in the murder of Viktor Churlinski and the other scientists that fateful January day. With ties forged in blood, Oleg's loyalty was to his general and his general alone.

  "I would not accept," Oleg said coldly.

  Zen's eyes widened. "You'll do what I say," he ordered. "Feyodov abandoned his post just when the U.S. government decided to attack. If that coward doesn't hurry up an-"

  "We do not yet know who attacked," Oleg interrupted icily. "And were I you, I would refrain from using the word coward in the presence of the general."

  To Zen, it was as if the air in the underground chamber had suddenly gotten ten degrees colder. He wasn't sure what unwritten line he'd just crossed, but it was obvious he had trodden on something he should stay away from.

  Oleg's eyes were flinty and unblinking. "As for the incident at your silly concert that has gotten you so panicked, it is probably nothing more than random violence."

  Some of the anger drained from Zen. "Violence doesn't happen in Barkley," he said dismissively, his voice growing subdued. "We've registered every man in town as a potential sex offender and forced every adult white hetero male to undergo mandatory sensitivity training. For God's sake, if the men here were any more whipped they'd all be lesbians. Which," he added quickly, lest Oleg get the wrong impression, "as a lifestyle choice is perfectly natural and beautiful and should actually be encouraged since men are such horrible, sexist-pig rapists anyway. So if there is violence in town, it has to be imported. America must be on to us."

  Conclusion made, he gave quick orders to the seated
engineer to continue firing at targets on the approved list. Turning from the frowning Oleg Shevtrinko, Zen hurried up the tunnel. He paused to kick a chair at an empty console.

  "Get out of there," Zen snapped.

  With a timid squeak, Gary Jenfeld came crawling out from under the table. He clutched a cardboard container of Zen and Gary's Chewy Newton Crunch in his shaking hand. Runny ice cream streaked his thick beard.

  "Is it safe?" Gary asked worriedly.

  "The plan's been bumped up," Zen said. "Since they're obviously on to us, it's time we told the oppressive regime in Washington what's expected of it."

  "Um ...Zen," Gary said hesitantly. "Isn't that jumping the gun? Shouldn't you tell him about the dead people at Buffoon Aid? I mean, this is all his idea. Not to mention his money. Maybe he'd think different about this than you."

  Zen dropped his voice low. "He knows, you idiot," he hissed. "HTB was airing Buffoon Aid, remember? Besides, this is going exactly according to plan."

  With that, Zen spun away from his former partner. Without another word, he marched up the tunnel with the brisk stride of a revolutionary.

  "His plan or yours?" Gary Jenfeld wondered softly.

  Melting container of ice cream in hand, Gary huffed nervously up the dark tunnel after Zen.

  Chapter 14

  The frightened crowd from the civic center had fled screaming into the streets, only to stop at the town square. They stood in the shadow of Huitzilopochtli. Faces fearful, they clogged roads and sidewalks.

  The Master of Sinanju had encouraged Remo to engage the Russians in the hall merely as a distraction. Blocked by their bodies, the old man had slipped out a side door. He emerged into the tightly packed crowd.

  His hazel eyes scanned hundreds of faces for one in particular. He had nearly given up, thinking that his advanced years had somehow given way to hallucinations, when he caught a glimmer of movement across the square.

  While most everyone's interest was focused on the hall, one figure skulked off in the opposite direction. The peaked black hood of an obscuring cape could be seen bobbing across the distant road that bordered the grassy square.