Remo could see by his severe expression that his teacher would brook no argument. "Sorry, Little Father," he said quietly, sinking into his seat.
The hard lines of Chiun's wrinkles softened. "Your Masterhood was prophesied by no less than the Great Wang himself," he resumed. "He of the Sun Source, the first Master of the New Age. Wang said that a Master would find among the barbarians of the West one who was once dead. This Master, who we now know is I, would prepare his disciple for the coming of Shiva."
"I heard all that before, Chiun," Remo said. "What's it got to do with Alaska?"
"You heard only part of the story. Wang also spoke of the time of hardship, when Shiva's avatar would be put to the test." He folded his hands in his lap, and his voice took on the familiar cadence of instruction. "'And in this time will be reborn one of the dead, but beyond death, of the Void and not of the Void, of Sinanju, yet not of Sinanju. And he will summon the armies of death and the war they wage will be the War of Sinanju, the outcome of which will decide forever the fate of the line of the Great Master Wang and all who have followed him.'"
By the end, the old man's voice was barely a whisper. His wrinkled lips puckering in a frown of concern, he waited for his pupil's reaction.
Remo carefully absorbed the Master of Sinanju's words.
"You think this is happening now?" he asked quietly.
Chiun nodded. "I have seen the signs," he intoned. "As have you, for it was prophesied to you that you would face hardships in the coming years. Some have already occurred, others have yet to pass. Yet this is the time. Your time."
Though he felt for his pupil, the wizened Asian didn't let the emotion seep to the surface. His face was etched in stone.
Remo's own expression had darkened. He dropped a frustrated hand to his knee. "Well, ain't that just a turd in the water tank," he exhaled. A sudden thought came to him. "Hey, wait a minute. You just said you think this is what's going on now. This dead, undead whoever-he-is leading his corpse army to wipe out Sinanju."
Chiun nodded. "The false Master is to be of Sinanju, but not of Sinanju. Although it is unclear the form the armies of death will take, you yourself said that these beings Smith spoke of appeared to have abilities similar to our own. They appear and vanish at will. Those who have seen as would say the same of us."
"Okay, so what the hell did you think you were doing running off by yourself?"
The old Korean's eyes flicked to the window. "I was not certain," he said, smoothing a wrinkle in his brocade kimono. "Nor am I now. Rather than waste all our time, I thought it would be wise to first reconnoiter alone."
"Baloney," Remo said. "You were trying to protect me."
Chiun arched an eyebrow. "Someone has a high opinion of himself," he sniffed. "If you must know, what I was trying to do was give myself a few hours of time alone. Since moving into Smith's palace, you have been underfoot every waking minute of the day. I was welcoming the solitude afforded by this trip. And then you had to come along and ruin it all with that big nosy mouth of yours."
"Right," Remo mumbled, crossing his arms. "I believe you about as much as I believe all that bilge water you were pumping up what's-his-face's blowhole."
Chiun's hands retreated to his kimono sleeves. "I will say whatever is necessary to garner the goodwill of Smith's heir," he said.
"No kidding," Remo said blandly. "I'm surprised you weren't volunteering me to wax on, wax off his car. Which reminds me. After the way I left yesterday, I figured you'd rip me a new one when I got back this morning. I'll probably live to regret asking, but you wanna tell me why? Maybe I can do whatever it is I did again."
The old man's face was flat. "That is extremely unlikely," he said.
"Why?" Remo asked. "What'd I do?"
It was clear from the way he shifted in his seat that the Master of Sinanju did not welcome this direction in their conversation. Chiun looked not at his pupil, but dead ahead. When he spoke, his voice was low.
"It is possible, Remo, that you were correct," he said. Each word had to be bitten off. His jaw trembled at the painful admission.
At first, Remo had no idea what to say, so shocked was he by the tiny Asian's statement. He blinked. "Oh," said Remo.
"Oh," he repeated.
"Oh," he said a third time after a prolonged pause during which he still had no idea how to respond. "Oh," he said, suddenly more brightly than the first three times. "What was I right about?"
Chiun gave him a withering look. "How many opportunities have you ever had to be right in your entire misspent life?"
Remo frowned. He could remember being right lots of times. So many times that he couldn't narrow down this particular time.
Glancing over, Chiun saw the confusion creeping into his pupil's face. The old man rolled his eyes impatiently.
"I am referring to our discussion about the Master Wo-Ti, imbecile," he said.
"Oh, that," Remo said, nodding. "I know I was right about that one." He scrunched up his face. "Hey, not only was that one of the many times I've been right, but for those of you keeping score at home, that makes you wrong."
"I did not- Will you wipe that stupid smirk off your face? I did not say that. I believe in this instance we were both correct."
"Nope," Remo said firmly. "You're not gonna square that circle. I'm the one who's right this time. You said so yourself. And as soon as we get back home, I'm calling the Guinness people to see if they'll put it in print."
"If they did not give you an entry for the world's biggest feet or for that summer squash you call a nose, I doubt they would be interested."
"Didn't mean it that way," Remo said. "I meant put you in for finally admitting it. So, when was the exact moment you realized I was right? Was it at the actual moment I was right, or did it come later, a few minutes after I was right?"
Chiun's brow was a flat line. "Will this craft never land?" he complained, leaning toward the window. Western New York State was far below.
"We've still got a ways to go," Remo said.
Fussing unhappily with his kimono, Chiun sat back in his seat. "You may suspend your selfcongratulations for the duration of this trip," he grumbled. "There is little enough room in here for your other comically swollen features without having to surrender space to your swelled head. I merely meant that in interpreting the scrolls of Sinanju it is possible the conclusion you reached was correct."
Remo wasn't buying it.
"It's right there in black and white," he insisted. "'Sinanju will never serve a succeeding emperor.' That was the lesson of Wo-Ti."
"There is more than just that to the story," Chiun said. "In foolishly agreeing to safeguard the life and throne of Pepi II for all of that pharaoh's natural life, Wo-Ti was stuck in Egypt until Pepi died at the age of ninety-six. Afterward, Wo-Ti's successor declared that Sinanju does not guarantee life, but only death. This could be considered the greater part of his lesson. If so, he has his legacy and we would be safe to dispense with that other trivial part."
"I think Wo-Ti would have something to say about that," Remo warned. "When I met his spirit a few years back, he was under the impression that the 'no successor' lesson was the big one."
"Wo-Ti has been dead for three thousand years," Chiun clucked. "He has likely not kept up with the modern demands of our ever changing craft."
Remo shook his head. "This reeks of a dodge, Little Father," he said. "I know you've cooked the books before, and most of the time I didn't care because I didn't really think it mattered. But this one's too big to let slide. We work for Smitty until he's gone. After that, we're done and that pimple-faced twit assistant of his can go pound sand."
"We have just had this discussion recently," Chiun said. "America is the only nation that can afford both of us."
"Well, maybe we should-I don't know-maybe we should split up, then. Find two countries next door to each other and go there. I'll take England and you can have France. We'll holler insults across the English Channel. Or maybe we could just
go home for a while and veg out."
"Home where?" Chiun said suspiciously.
"To Sinanju," Remo said. "I could go baby shopping for an apprentice. You could lock yourself away like Monty Burns in that bank vault you call a house, counting and recounting every nickel Smitty's ever sent you. It'd be fun."
"When, Remo, did you develop this affection for Sinanju?" Chiun asked, his hazel eyes hooded.
"I haven't," Remo said. "I can't get all gaga like you over a pile of shit-smeared rock. But if we're checking out options, we have to consider them all, because tradition dictates that we can't work for Smith's successor."
"And who is the current guardian of our traditions?" Chiun asked haughtily.
Remo opened his mouth to answer, but stopped abruptly. "Wow," he said, blinking surprise. "Deja vu."
"What is wrong?" the Master of Sinanju asked.
"Huh? Oh, nothing," Remo said. "I just flashed back to California. That thing that I ought to remember, but can't." He shook his head in an attempt to dislodge the strange sensation. "Weird. I almost had it, I think." He glanced at the Master of Sinanju. "You sure you don't wanna tell me what this is all about?"
Chiun shook his head. "I have spoken too much as it is, my son," he said. "It will come in its time. As for returning to Sinanju, I may do so to visit, but at this stage in my life, to move back there for any extended period of time would be to move back there forever. And I am not yet ready to enter that final phase of my life."
The old man closed his wrinkled eyelids, settling in to sleep for the rest of the long trip to Alaska.
Remo shook away the residual effects of this latest odd episode. Whatever was trying to break through, he hoped it did so soon. "Smitty's helper is a drip," he offered.
"Sinanju has worked for worse," Chiun replied, his eyes still firmly shut. "I could tell you stories about Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia that would whiten even your fair skin. As long as their gold takes proper teeth marks, nothing else matters. Now get some rest."
His final command delivered, the old man fell asleep.
When the snoring started a minute later, Remo hardly heard it. His troubled eyes were directed out the window. His thoughts were far away.
Beyond the glass the gossamer clouds continued to slip silently by.
Chapter 13
The cold wind carried a faint odor from the vast Pripet Marshes and across the wide, cracked tarmac. Even the frigid Russian winter wasn't cold enough to keep the stench down. In the summer the smell was powerful enough to make a strong man retch. Anna Chutesov ignored it.
Sergei stood behind her, the hems of his coat flapping in the wind. Fanned out around him were five others.
Six men. All that was left.
The men moved, stopped, even seemed to breathe in unison.
A warm hood was pulled up tight over Anna's blond hair. Her hands were stuffed deep in the pockets of her down parka. Blue eyes impatiently scanned the sky above the vast tracts of empty land that abutted the airfield.
"This is absurd," she muttered as she checked her watch for the twentieth time.
When she spoke, Sergei shifted guiltily. She shot him a deeply displeased look.
Only after she had read the news report he had found online had the young man reluctantly admitted something to her. It turned out to be an item of vital importance that he, in his stupid male loyalty, had kept from her far too long. Not wishing to betray the others, Sergei had waited to tell her with whom they were truly dealing.
The terrible truth only fueled Anna's fear.
Behind Anna and her Institute-men, an abandoned flight tower scraped the sky. An empty barracks squatted below it.
The airport buildings were all in various states of decay. Tar paper hung from roofs in sheets. Broken windows howled forlornly in the gales. Chunks of concrete littered the ground where once had trodden the boots of many a Red Army and Soviet air force soldier. On the field, wind whistled through the rusting hulks of three old MiG-23s.
The old base was a shadow of its former self. Anna would leave it to the poets and the hard-line zealots to draw from its condition whatever conclusions they might like to make about the Russian nation as a whole.
Anna's ride sat near the flight tower. The remodeled Kamov helicopter, called a Helix in the West, resembled a giant wheeled fish. Above the fuselage, two rows of silent rotors-both upper and lower-shuddered in the desolate wind.
Anna's ice-blue eyes continued to impatiently rake the weak white sky.
To the west was Poland. Northeast was Moscow. And farther east well away from Russia and its former client states-was the place where Anna Chutesov should be.
"Men," she muttered to herself.
The moment she said the word, her ears tickled with the distant hum of a plane engine. With darting eyes she found the aircraft. The Ilyushin was a tiny speck in the sky.
Anna crossed her arms tightly. "It is about time." It took an agonizing few minutes for the big aircraft to land. The Ilyushin bounced across the ruts and holes in the runway, finally rolling to a stop near the tower. The pilot didn't cut the engines.
Anna ran across the tarmac to the waiting plane. Sergei and the other men ran with her, cold, silent shadows.
The Russian presidential plane was nothing like America's Air Force One. The poor Ilyushin looked to be on its last legs. The fuselage was dull and grimy. The tires were nearly bald. A thin, almost invisible stream of white smoke slipped from the starboard nacelle. The pilot had been assuring Russia's worried president for weeks that white smoke wasn't anything to worry about. They could go all the way through the various shades of beige to black before it became necessary to take the plane in for expensive servicing. Fuel drizzled to the tarmac from a pinhole leak.
As soon as Anna reached the plane, a door popped open behind the left wing and a retractable ladder extended. She kicked the bottom rung so that the metal ladder locked in place and scurried up. At the top a hand reached out and helped her inside.
The man's copilot uniform was faded and worn. Ragged threads hung from the cuffs. Since he hadn't been paid in three months, he had recently been forced to sell his insignia to some visiting American teenagers to buy food.
"That way," the copilot said, pointing.
Anna had already pushed past him. Even as her entourage of six began boarding the plane, she was hurrying down the aisle to the lounge.
The engine sounds were muted inside. Wind buffeted the plane, rocking it from side to side.
She found the president of Russia sitting in a tatty seat. The seat belts had apparently been stolen from the presidential plane. Cords of nylon clothesline hung in their place.
There was very little that ever surprised Anna Chutesov. But when she saw the two men sitting with the current Russian president, she felt her brow sink.
One was a big man. Tall, with no neck and a large belly that seemed to go from pelvis to chin without taking the time to form a chest. In comparison, the other man was small, although his wide cherub's face and rounded body gave him the appearance of a teddy bear come to life.
Both men had led Russia at different times. The smaller one had accidentally taken the country away from the Communists. The larger one had-through corruption and mismanagement-turned it over to criminals.
The latter man had escaped the presidency when no one was looking on New Year's Eve of the new millennium with a presidential pardon and a pair of suitcases crammed to overflowing with American foreign aid. His looted wealth had done nothing to remove him from his path of personal destruction. His skin was waxy, and his crown of white hair crashed in great uneven waves across the top of his big head. Around his ankles three empty vodka bottles rolled with the jostling movements of the wind-tossed plane.
The two former leaders along with Russia's latest president looked up as Anna entered the lounge. The current president quickly got to his feet. "Forgive us for being late," the little man said. "It is not easy to get away these days. I do not believe int
roductions are necessary." He held a small hand out to the other two men.
The bigger one wasn't even paying attention. He was rooting around with one paw under his frayed seat for a fresh bottle. This apparently required all his concentration. He bit down on his jutting tongue.
The other ex-president answered for both of them. "We know Anna Chutesov well," he said soberly. The man scratched his forehead. Even though it was warm enough on the plane, he still wore a hat, pulled down low. Just the bottom of his world-famous winestain birthmark could be seen peeking out from under the wool. The part that Anna could see looked as if it had mutated somehow.
"I decided to check with my predecessors after our last meeting," the current president explained to Anna. "They convinced me that the danger might be greater than I originally feared. For all of us. I have extended presidential protection to them both, for Russia cannot run the risk of appearing weak. If something were to happen to them, it could open us up to even more dire security threats."
Anna didn't bother to tell him that, short of a full-scale nuclear war or a comet flattening Moscow, they were already facing the greatest threat imaginable.
"Presidential protection is an empty phrase," she said. "What we need goes beyond mere words." As she spoke, the first of her entourage began filing into the lounge. The men were so silent Anna had not heard them. She knew they were there only by the look of relief that bloomed on the face of the hatwearing former president.
The current president raised an eyebrow, as if he had expected more.
"Are they good?" he asked.
"They are trained," Anna replied.
"They had better be," the ex-president with the hat said. "It is bad enough when vandals can break into your house in the dead of night and permanently disfigure you. Now I find out my life might be in danger." His pudgy fingers scratched once more at his birthmark.
When his hat shifted, Anna could see that the mark now resembled the number one.
"Forgive me, Mr. President," Anna said frostily, "but I would remind you that it is you who started us down this road more than ten years ago. Pandora's box has been opened now, but you are the one who made certain it was full."
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