Last Call td-35

by Warren Murphy

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  benkq for a moment. Then slowly her hand wavered and dropped. Gruboff stepped over and yanked the automatic from her hand.

  He raised his other hand to punch her but was stopped by a barked command from Karbenko.

  "None of that, Igor," he said.

  Igor glared at Ruby with hatred. There was a large purplish bruise blossoming on the side of his face where Ruby had hit him.

  "I know you not sell Bible," he said to her.

  "Three more minutes and I coulda sold you your own car, dummy," Ruby said.

  "Over here," Karbenko said. He motioned Ruby to a seat on the couch next to Smith.

  "Now, Doctor," Karbenko said, "everything grows vastly more complicated. I believed what you told me about Project Omega. But now something tells me that everything is not quite right."

  "Why?" Smith asked.

  "Because I know very few sanitarium directors whose administrative assistants carry automatics."

  "If you lived in my neighborhood, you'd carry a submachine gun," Ruby said.

  Karbenko smiled. "Clever, child. But it will not do."

  He looked at Smith. "I was willing to risk my contact with you," he said. "I had even made preparations for Igor here to return to Russia since his cover was so obviously blown by helping me pick you up. But now, not just you . . . this girl, too. You have put me in a very awkward situation, Doctor Smith."

  "You have my deepest sympathy," Smith said.

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  Karbenko picked the revolver up from the table and hefted it in his hand.

  "You know what I must do, don't you ?"

  Another voice came into the cellar.

  "No. What must you do?"

  Ruby turned. It was Remo. He was standing at the foot of the stairs alongside Igor. Chiun was next to him. Igor turned, a dumbfounded look on his face, because he had not heard them come down the stairs.

  He pointed the automatic at Remo and his finger began to squeeze on the trigger. Remo clutched Igor's wrist. His fingers searched out a bundle of nerves on the bottom side of the wrist. Igor's trigger finger could squeeze no more.

  "Who's in charge here?" Remo asked.

  "I am," Karbenko said coldly.

  Remo looked at Igor. "Sorry, Kong. But you're just baggage." He released Igor's wrist. Igor continued squeezing the trigger. Ruby was surprised that the tired old .22 automatic went off. Igor was even more surprised, because when it fired, the gun was pointing up into Igor's chin. The bullet ran through the soft flesh and buried itself in his brain. Igor dropped.

  "I thought you never get here," Ruby screeched.

  "Shut up, you," said Remo, "or I'm leaving. You're next, Tex."

  Karbenko aimed the pistol at Remo.

  "Who are these people, Smith?" he said.

  "Two more of my administrative assistants," Smith said. "Remo, don't kill him."

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  "Hold, hold," said Chiun. "What is this? Who is an administrative assistant?"

  "Why not kill him?" Remo asked Smith. "Everybody knows the only good cowboy is a dead cowboy."

  Chiun was jumping up and down. "An administrative assistant? Who? Not me. Who then? What did you mean by that, Emperor Smith?"

  "Don't kill him," Smith repeated to Remo. "We need Colonel Karbenko."

  When he heard Smith speak his name, Kar-benko's eyes shifted slightly toward the thin balding doctor, sitting on the couch. Just a tiny shift, done and over in a fraction of a second. Then he looked back toward the young American and the old Oriental, but they were not there. He felt the gun being snatched from his hand by the Oriental and the American, the one called Remo, was propelling him backward into a chair.

  "Sit down and behave yourself," Remo said.

  "I don't seem to have much choice, pardner," Karbenko said.

  "Smile when you call me that," Remo said.

  "Who is an administrative assistant?" demanded Chiun.

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  CHAPTER TEN

  It was all decided very swiftly.

  Smith's plan was simple.

  It was impossible, he said, for the Russians to protect their premier from an assassin who might be anybody, anywhere around him. But there was one way to save the premier.

  Bring him to America. Alone. Without an entourage.

  And then if he were murdered, America would have to take the blame in the eyes of the world and Russia's leadership would be justified in doing what it felt it had to do.

  "It is risky," Karbenko said.

  "It is risky for us too," Smith said. "But at least it has a chance of success. Leaving your premier in Russia is not risky at all. He will be dead in no more than a few days."

  "What makes you think I can convince him?" Karbenko said.

  "I know more about you, Colonel, than you think," Smith said. "The premier regards you as a son. He will listen to your recommendation."

  Karbenko nodded. "Yes, he will."

  "Then make it," Smith urged. "And then we

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  can join forces in protecting the premier here until the assassin is uncovered."

  Karbenko's eyes crinkled as he thought.

  "Okay, pardner. You got a deal," he said.

  "Whoopee ti-yi-yo," Remo said.

  "He must have meant you when he said administrative assistant," Chiun said to Remo.

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  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The carpet was a gold woolen pile, deep enough to drop a dime into and lose sight of the coin. The desk was a giant oaken box. It had once been used by Stalin. When Khrushchev had come into power and attacked Stalin's reputation, the desk had been put into the Kremlin basement along with the other trash.

  But then, ,a few years later, when he, too, was safely out of office, Khrushchev's own reputation had been attacked. So the teak desk he had bought for the premier's office was put into the basement and Stalin's desk dragged out, re-finished, polished, and put back in the sixth-floor office.

  But the rug that Khruschev had installed was too new and the Stalin rug too old and worn and threadbare to be reinstalled, so the gold rug was left on the floor.

  Sometimes the new premier envied America. The White House, he was told, still had a Lincoln bed. There were signs all over American announcing where George Washington had slept. Presidents' homes were national shrines. In

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  America, heroes remained heroes and history remained history.

  Not so in the Kremlin. The Kremlin even had a man assigned to its custodial department whose sole job was to continue shifting around furniture whenever the Kremlin decided to change its reading of past history.

  The current premier had decided in his first day in office never to buy furniture for it. He would use whatever was left over and was politically reliable, because he regarded it as a waste of time to buy desks and chairs and tables, knowing that in a couple of years after his demise or disposal, they would probably wind up in the Kremlin cellar too as his own successor began to rewrite history.

  The only thing in the office that was pure was the globe. It had once belonged to Lenin. Everybody liked Lenin.

  The premier was reaching for the telephone when his office door opened and a general whose green uniform was festooned with a chestful of medals and ribbons walked in. He led a contingent of seven men.

  The premier looked up, startled. The general had not knocked. The premier slid his chair back ready to dive under the desk, in case bullets started flying.

  "General Arkov," the premier said. "What brings you here in such a hurry?"

  "Quick, men," the general said. "Check everything."

  This is it, the premier thought. Someone had mounted a coup against him and in a moment, he

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  would have a bullet in the brain, the personal gift of General Arkov, head of the KGB.

  The seven men with Arkov began scurrying about the office. Two went into the bathroom. One dropped to the rug and began looking under the chairs and sofa. Another crawled under the premie
r's desk. Two had electronic devices and they scanned the walls and electrical switches.

  General Arkov stood in the doorway, watching his men. After a few minutes, they all returned to stand in front of him, shaking their heads.

  "All right," Arkov said. "Take positions." The men spread out around the room and Arkov looked, for the first time, at the premier.

  Surprised that he was still alive, and thus emboldened, the premier's voice was sharp.

  "Now I suppose you will tell me what this is all about?" he said.

  "Semyon Begolov is dead. An assassin got him in London, and four of our men assigned to protect him."

  "Dead? Who?"

  "His valet."

  "Andre something? I remember him," the premier said. "He seemed like a quiet enough sort."

  "He was. Until last night when he put a bullet into Begolov's head. That is why we are here."

  "To put a bullet into my head?" the premier said, and as soon as he had said it, he wished he hadn't. Arkov's eyes narrowed as if a joke were a sign of weakness and he must forever after keep a close watch on the premier.

  "No, premier. To make sure that no assassin tries to do the same to you."

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  The premier looked around the office at the seven KGB men. They stood watching him, looking ill at ease, shifting their weight from foot to foot.

  "And I am supposed to work like this?" the premier said.

  "I am sorry but we have no alternative. We must protect you the best way we can."

  "Protect me from the outside office."

  "No." The answer was flat and formal and final.

  The premier shrugged. His telephone rang. His hand reached for the telephone but before he could get to it, one of the KGB men had intercepted him. The man picked up the telephone himself, cautiously, before speaking into it.

  "There are many devices, Premier," General Arkov explained. "A sound signal could come over a telephone that could paralyze you. A needle might have been inserted into the earpiece of your receiver, so it could puncture your brain when you talk on the phone."

  "I think somebody punctured your brain," the premier grumbled. He looked up angrily at the KGB agent who had finished inspecting the telephone and handed it to him.

  It was the premier's secretary asking if he wanted coffee.

  "No. Vodka," he growled. "A big glass. With ice."

  "So early in the day?" she said.

  "You too?" he asked. "Better yet, bring me a bottle."

  "You know what the doctor said, sir."

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  "And you know what I said. A bottle and a glass. Skip the ice."

  That there was no working in the office became clear in only minutes. Every time the telephone rang, one of the agents intercepted the call. Every time the intercom buzzed, the agent with the small electronic-box scanned it before allowing him to answer. His vodka was taste-tested before he was allowed any. He poured twice the size drink he had planned.

  When his newspapers arrived, another agent went through each page first for hidden bombs and then General Arkov and they debated on whether the ink of the paper itself might be poisoned and whether it should be sent out for laboratory analysis.

  The premier resolved the problem for them. He jerked the paper from Arkov's hands.

  "Give me that newspaper," he said. He walked toward the door to his private bathroom.

  "Where are you going?" Arkov said.

  "To the bathroom, where do you think?"

  "Just a moment," Arkov said. "Men."

  Two men scurried into the bathroom. They closed the door behind them. The premier heard the faucet running. He heard the medicine cabinet being opened and closed. He heard the toilet flush. He heard the shower run and then the bath water. He heard the toilet flush again.

  He rocked back and forth from foot to foot, waiting.

  The medicine cabinet again. The toilet for a third time.

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  "Dammit, Arkov," he roared. "I've got to go."

  "Just a moment, sir," Arkov said.

  "Another moment and you're going to have to send out to get me new pants."

  The two KGB men left the bathroom and the premier shoved them aside, hurrying inside.

  He read the newspaper carefully, from front to back. Stubbornly, he rubbed his fingertips over the ink of the pages and, when he was done, his fingers were stained black with the oily gum of the ink.

  He washed his hands.

  "Did you check the soap to see if it's poisoned?" he yelled out.

  "No," called back Arkov. The premier heard men scurrying toward the bathroom door. He leaned over and locked it.

  "Good," he said.

  When he was done washing his hands, he dropped the newspaper into the waste basket in the bathroom and went outside. Three agents were dismantling the overhead light.

  "Looking for a death ray gun, I suppose," the premier said.

  "Or a bomb," Arkov said.

  "Idiot. Did it ever occur to you that our three ambassadors have been killed by humans? By people close to them? Why should I be different? Why should I be killed by a device or a machine?"

  "I cannot take chances, Excellency," the general said.

  "And I can't take this nonsense. I'm going home. Call me when the proletariat throws off its chains. Or you find an assassin lurking in my

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  desk drawer or my inkwell. Whichever comes first."

  General Arkov insisted upon riding in the back seat of the limousine with the premier. The KGB chief kept his holster unbuttoned and his right hand on the butt of his gun, and a watchful eye on the man who had been the premier's driver for almost ten years.

  Three KGB men rode in a car in front of the premier and four more in a car following them. At Arkov's direction, the road leading out of Moscow had been sealed to all other traffic and the premier did not see another moving car during the entire thirty-minute drive to the small house in the countryside outside Moscow.

  The large wall surrounding the small house was a new addition, but the rest of the house was much as it had been when the premier was young and still working his way up through the Communist Party ranks, when it had been him and Nina, just him and Nina, and a hope that he would survive the Stalin purges and the Khrushchev counter-purges and the continuous plotting in the KGB and the Army.

  He had survived them all. And now he led. There were party congresses and committees and the secret police and the military and the more-bread-and-butter factions, all the groups who were trying to impress on Mother Russia their own blueprint for the future. But there was only one premier and his hand was the hand on the nuclear button.

  Odd that he should think of that, he realized. With America laying back all over the world af-

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  ter it declined to fight for victory in Vietnam, the Russian program for the world was proceeding on schedule. Black Africa was slowly coming under Communist control. All the Americans had left in Africa was South Africa and they seemed intent upon destroying that.

  Every time he read an American press report condemning South Africa, he had to stifle a laugh. The previous week, he had read one respected paper lamenting the injustice that in South Africa, only whites could vote. Apparently it had never occurred to them that in the rest of Africa, nobody could vote.

  But that was a picture of America lying down and dying, and this was something different. There were assassins about, assassins bought and paid for in some mysterious way by America twenty years earlier, and three ambassadors had been killed and he was the next target.

  Would he start a nuclear war to save his own life? The premier wondered. No matter how powerful a man was, no matter what responsibilities he had to history and to his homeland, he never came easily to the idea of death. At the advice of his secretariat, the premier had not yet accused the United States publicly of the embassy murders. It would be an easy matter to get most of the world to believe that the U.S. had plotted and carried them out. All
the American newspapers would believe the story. And while that might serve Russia's short-term interests, it would also point out, even to the stupid, that the United States had somehow infiltrated the personal staffs of three of the Soviet's top diplomats.

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  And that did not at all look like the picture of a country playing dead. It would look like a CIA on the move and he was not sure he wanted to encourage that picture. The Third World followed power.

  The KGB men made him wait in the car while they went inside and searched the house and a few minutes later when he was allowed to enter, he was met inside the door by Nina.

  The premier's wife was a dozen years younger than he was. She had been beautiful, but now, in her early fifties, her legs were blooming into telephone poles and her hips into a hassock. But her face was still vibrant and pretty with the peasant shrewdness in it that she had always had. American politicians' wives always seemed to get thinner as their husbands got more successful. He wondered why Russian wives tended to imitate haystacks, but he had no chance to ponder the question because Nina was stamping her sizable foot and demanding, "Who are these lunatics and what are they doing in my house?"

  "Security, dear," he said.

  "Well, your precious security has just destroyed a cake I have been baking for over an hour. It will be a lump of lead now."

  "Talk to General Arkov about it, Nina. He is in charge of complaints today. He has ignored all mine; maybe you'll be luckier."

  He began to walk into the kitchen but was stopped by one of the agents who went inside, checked it all first, finishing up his inspection by sticking his head into the refrigerator, apparently to make sure no clever American assas-

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  sin, disguised as an ear of corn, was hiding in there.

  The premier lost his temper. Finally it was decided that he and Nina could be alone in the kitchen. General Arkov would guard the door to the rest of the house. Two agents would stand outside the door leading to the rear yard and the other five agents would stand outside each of the windows, to make sure there was no attack through the windows.

  "Fine," said the premier.

  "Yes," said Arkov. "One thing."

  "What?"

  "Keep your heads down."

  Nina poured the premier a glass of vodka and herself a glass of white wine, then sat facing him across the kitchen table.