Sole Survivor td-72

by Warren Murphy

  At Remo's words, Anna Chutesov sank into a chair and buried her face in her hands. "He knows," she said. Her shoulders shook uncontrollably.

  "I thought you said you didn't break the news to her," Remo said doubtfully, looking at her.

  "I did not," Smith affirmed.

  "Then what?"

  "Ms. Chutesov is convinced that the shuttle has been reconstituted as this Yuri Gagarin Free Car Wash. She and Chiun drove through it. That was when Chiun lapsed into unconsciousness. Her story is patently absurd, of course. The shuttle crashed two days ago. Assuming some idiot was inclined to build a car wash out of the scrap, he could hardly have accomplished that feat overnight. But there is something odd about the car wash."

  "That's the temple of evil Chiun was babbling about? A freaking car wash?"

  "It seems so," said Smith.

  Remo went over to Anna Chutesov and gently shook her shoulder.

  "Is that it?"

  Anna Chutesov lifted a tear-filled face to Remo's. She shook her head until her blond hair flopped at the nape of her neck.

  "He must have killed the crew," she said brokenly. "There is no other explanation."

  "Could I see you a moment, Remo?" Smith asked. Remo and Smith huddled in a corner.

  "I don't understand any of this," Smith said.

  "Join the club."

  "The Gagarin disappears near Rye and then this woman shows up. She's the only one outside of our operation who knows about CURE."

  "You think this is a setup?"

  "Her car-wash story is ridiculous. And why was Chiun rendered unconscious and she was not?"

  "Sinanju makes a person more sensitive to certain things that don't bother normal people," Remo said. "The hamburger you had for lunch would put me six feet under. I do know this much: if Chiun says he was sterilized by a car wash, I have to believe him, Smitty."

  "I think you should look into that car wash, Remo. Take Ms. Chutesov with you, but keep an eye on her."

  "Gotcha," Remo said, making an A-okay sign with his fingers.

  Remo rejoined Anna Chutesov, who had found her feet and her composure. She wiped her eyes with her fingertips.

  "You game for another crack at that car wash?" Remo asked.

  Anna Chutesov squared her shoulders and opened her mouth to speak.

  "Yes," said the Master of Sinanju from the doorway. He was wearing a hospital johnny, which he clutched at the back, out of modesty.

  Remo snapped around.

  "Little Father, should you be out of bed?"

  "It is my future that has been murdered, not my resolve," said Chiun. "And I cannot allow you to venture into that evil building without me to guide you. For you lack the wisdom of the full Master and are the last potent vessel of Sinanju, Remo."

  "I never thought of myself in those terms." Remo smiled.

  "Neither have I," said Anna Chutesov archly.

  Chapter 12

  Remo slowed the car as they approached the crude road sign that said YURI GAGARIN FREE CAR WASH. "Where are the huge lines I've been hearing about?" he asked. He had driven the car from Folcroft because Chiun was too weak to fight about it. Anna Chutesov smoldered in the back seat. At times, she dabbed at her eyes. Remo, feeling a wave of pity, thought he knew why. Anna was hurt by his rejection of her. Maybe she was in love with him. He would have to break the news of his engagement to her gently, poor kid. Let her down easy.

  "There!" Chiun said, pointing. He had donned a tiny suit of green and white checks that made him look like the Korean version of a racetrack bookie. "The place of evil," Chiun added. "Fie on the day I set eyes upon its wickedness."

  "Looks like an ordinary car wash to me," Remo ventured.

  In the back seat Anna Chutesov growled from the back of her throat and unlimbered a Walther PPK automatic from a pocket of her spring coat.

  "Where'd you get that?" Remo asked, noticing the gun in the rearview mirror.

  "I bought it."

  "How'd you manage that? Guns are tough to get in this state."

  "The gun-store owner was very co-operative. He, at least, recognized me for what I am."

  "A Russian agent?" Remo asked. No, fool. A woman."

  "Oh," said Remo. "I think there's something I should tell you."

  "Later," Chiun broke in. "The evil place looms ahead." Remo coasted to the bottom of the ramp, letting two cars pass before he slid onto the grounds of the car wash. There was no activity about the place. The wind shook the banks of oak trees behind it. There was a cardboard CLOSED sign taped to the front.

  "Looks deserted," Remo said after a long pause.

  "A brilliant observation," Anna Chutesov snorted, stepping out of the car, pistol in hand.

  "Hey!" Remo said. "Wait up!"

  "Hush!" said Chiun. "Let her do as she will." "She might get killed," Remo pointed out.

  "Better her than us. Besides, it is her fault I have been unmanned."

  "Unmanned? Oh, right."

  "Let us see how the car-wash machine treats her," Chiun said.

  "Nothing doing, Little Father," Remo said. "She might do something crazy." Remo trotted after her.

  Anna Chutesov had stepped into the open entrance. She moved like a cat, supple and silent, and Remo felt, vaguely, a stirring of his old feelings for her. She was a graceful female animal, cool as a snow leopard, and fearless. She paused before the hanging leather strips to examine a control board.

  The leather strips lifted quietly like the tendrils of a great plant and wrapped around her head, arms, and legs. Anna Chutesov screamed as they dragged her inside.

  Remo broke into a run.

  The Master of Sinanju pounced after him and got in his way.

  "No, Remo!" said Chiun, pushing against Remo's stomach. "I will attend to this. You must not risk your seed too."

  "You're not well. You stay."

  "We will both go, then, stubborn one," Chiun said, and they flashed into the Yuri Gagarin Free Car Wash. They went through the hanging leather strips so fast they cracked like sails in the wind.

  Inside, Remo saw an incredible sight. The interior of the car wash was dark, hot, and stifling, but its mechanisms were alive. Looking down the length of the car track, he saw frantic mechanical movement. It was like a fun-house tunnel come to malevolent life.

  Huge bundles of hanging strips of leather, like seaweed, dragged along the wet flooring, and out of the tangle poked a pair of slim legs. Anna's legs. And Anna screamed as they dragged her toward the flailing machinery.

  "Hold!" Chiun cried. Remo, his eyes automatically adjusting to the light, saw the Master of Sinanju jump to one side of the leather tangle. There was a flurry of flashing fingernails, and in a twinkling, the leather strips fell into a wet heap.

  Remo helped Anna Chutesov to her feet.

  "Good going, Little Father," said Remo. "I have her. "

  "Now take her," Chiun cried. "I demand you leave. Go! This instant!"

  "Nothing doing," said Remo stubbornly.

  "The danger is not at this end," Anna said suddenly, "but at the other."

  Remo and Chiun looked at her. She was dripping wet.

  "How do you know that?"

  "Trust me. I know," said Anna, wringing out her hair.

  "What do you think, Little Father?"

  Remo never heard what Chiun thought, because suddenly jets of water sprayed at them from all directions and the huge spinning buffers bore down on them.

  "You take the right side, Remo. And I will take the left," said Chiun.

  "And you follow us," Remo told Anna.

  Remo moved to one side as the buffer, red and blue like a child's ball, came at him suspended on the end of a strut mechanism.

  Remo went for the strut, avoiding the buffer, which, despite its size, looked harmless. But Remo knew those bristles, designed to scour enameled car bodies, would tear off his skin in a twinkling.

  They never even got close.

  Remo hit the strut at the lug point and sent the buffer fl
ying into a wall. It bounced off, teetered like a rolling tire, and wobbled to the ground.

  Remo looked back. The Master of Sinanju was still occupied with the twin of Remo's buffer.

  Chiun had set himself off to one side, his feet apart in a fighting stance, as the whirling pom-pom of plastic came at him.

  "Stand back," he said.

  "What is he doing?" demanded Anna, her voice on edge. "He is just standing there. He will be killed." But the Master of Sinanju was not just standing there. His hazel eyes were fixed on the whirling device. When it was a whisker's length from his face, he stepped back and pushed out both hands, the fingers held loosely, as if he were a magician throwing flash powder onto a brazier.

  The heavy bristles encountered Chiun's long, Sinanju-trained fingernails.

  It was no contest.

  The buffer spun like a buzz saw, but it was a buzz saw that had lost its teeth. Red and blue bristles flew off in all directions like rice at a wedding. Wet, they coated the walls and floor.

  Anna screamed.

  Chiun laughed at the sight of the Russian woman pawing at her clothes. Snippets of bristle clung to her, making her look like a human ice-cream cone sprinkled with red and blue jimmies.

  "I warned you to stand back," Chiun said.

  Remo took Anna by one arm and spun her in place, and although his hands moved as if he were slapping her body at high speed, Anna felt nothing more than the fanning breeze of his hands in motion.

  When Remo stepped back, there wasn't a speck of plastic on her clothes.

  "Thank you," she said formally.

  "Stick close," Remo advised.

  "The soap is next," Chiun pointed out. "It will come from those nozzles ahead."

  Remo nodded. "Let's hit them before they hit us."

  "Agreed," said Chiun. Still sticking to opposite sides of the track, Remo and Chiun went for the vertical bars which housed the jet nozzles. No sooner had they begun to dribble than fingers clamped over them with the power of hydraulic vises. The nozzles, crimped by the steel-strong fingers, dripped white liquid that burned holes in the concrete flooring.

  "They use strong soap here," Remo said.

  "Fool," said Anna Chutesov. "Do you not recognize acid when you see it?"

  "What's next?" asked Remo.

  "Don't you know?" asked Chiun. "I thought all whites were familiar with machines."

  "Not all car-wash machines are alike. And I've never been in this one before."

  "The hot-air things," said Chiun.

  And then they came, dropping from the ceiling to the height of a car hood, and blowing hot air.

  "We can walk around those," Remo said casually. "They won't hurt us."

  "You are too confident," warned Chiun.

  "Car washes are built to clean, not to kill," Remo said.

  The blowers suddenly gushed flame.

  "This one does not appear to know that," reminded Chiun, sidestepping a jet of liquid fire.

  Remo grabbed Anna.

  "What are you doing?" she yelled.

  "Trust me," Remo said, pulling her into the mounting flames. They went through the sudden wall of flame. The Master of Sinanju, executing a nimble leap, joined them.

  "I could have burned to death," Anna said angrily, shaking free of Remo.

  "No chance," Remo said, looking back at the abating flames. "You're covered with water. It protected you." Suddenly the air was alive with death.

  "Down! Hit the floor!" Remo called to Anna. He recognized the sound of automatic-weapons fire. A bullet zinged past his face.

  Remo heard the stutter of a machine gun to his right, outside the car-wash track. He tore through the latticework, avoiding the bullet spray easily.

  The weapon was an M-16 rifle attached to a mounting on the floor. It fired automatically. Remo came up on the side and snapped out the banana clip. The weapon ran empty. Silence returned to the dark confines of the building.

  "Chiun, you and Anna stand still. They've got booby traps on this side. I'm going to check them out."

  "Have a care, Remo," Chiun warned.

  Remo found a complicated spring contraption designed to launch a trio of stun grenades when a photoelectric beam was intercepted. Remo extracted the grenades, crushed them into harmless powder in his hands, and wiped his hands clean.

  There were no other traps ahead, so he clambered back onto the track.

  "What did you discover?" Anna asked, her automatic shaking in her hand.

  "Later. I want to check the other side. Give me a hand, Little Father."

  Chiun reached into a tangle of pipe and gear mechanism and, at Remo's signal, they lifted a section of the wall free.

  Remo stuck his head around the other side. It was dark, darker than the car track, but Remo's eyes took in even the tiniest light and magnified it until he could see clearly.

  "This side looks clean," Remo said, rejoining the others.

  "Did you see the letters?"

  "Yeah. The letters C.P. Someone painted them on the wall at a funny angle. So what?"

  "Look above you," Anna suggested.

  Remo and Chiun looked up. Through a maze of piping they saw a huge red letter C. Another C. was beside it.

  "Together they read CCCP," Anna said grimly. "In the alphabet of Russia, it stands for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Exactly the same as the letters on the Gagarin's wing."

  "Are you going to start that again?" Remo said. "This is a car wash. It's been here for years. Smith told us that. It isn't your missing shuttle."

  "It's just like a stubborn male to refuse the evidence when it is pushed in your face," Anna cried. "You are invincibly dense, like all your sex. How can I make you believe!" She looked overwrought, tense. Something was bothering her, Remo realized. Something more than the present situation.

  "Try leveling with us," Remo said, on a hunch. Anna bit her lip. She turned to the Master of Sinanju, who was watching the flames die out at the other end of the track.

  "Do you remember the silver ball that hung over the exit from this place?" she asked.

  Chiun wrinkled his face in thought.

  "Ah, I remember now," he said. "I was looking at it when I lost consciousness. I remember wondering what it was for."

  "It matches photographs my government showed me of a communications satellite that was aboard the Yuri Gagarin when it was launched."

  Remo looked at Anna Chutesov as if she had two heads.

  "Communications satellite?" Remo said. "Hanging in a car wash."

  "Yes!" Anna said hotly.

  "A communication satellite hanging in a car wash," Remo repeated, giving Anna a skeptical look.

  "Why is that so unbelievable, Remo?" Chiun said. "Some people hang furry dice in their motor carriages. Perhaps it is an American custom with which you are not familiar."

  Remo looked at Chiun. And again at Anna.

  Finally he shook his head. "All right, all right, we'll go look at this thing. But let's skip the rest of the tour, shall we?"

  "It is unbelievable," Anna whispered, touching the huge red letters as they brushed past them.

  "It's nothing," Remo said. "In the sixties, kids would spray graffiti letters twice that size. Right-side-up, upside-down, and inside-out. They called it pop art, but I think they were all on drugs or something."

  "American teenagers would write USA, would they not?"

  "Probably members of the Socialist Workers' Party," Remo said. "This is about their speed."

  They emerged at the end of the building. A door led off to one side, back in the direction of the car track. "Probably leads to the exit," Remo said.

  "The man in the booth may be there," said Anna. "And the satellite. I am sure he is making the machinery attack us."

  Remo turned to Chiun. "What do you think, Little Father?"

  Chiun listened. "I hear no heartbeats. just water dripping. "

  "Then let's go," Remo said, reaching for the doorknob.

  "No!" said Anna Chutesov.
"Let me go first."

  "Why?"

  "It is too late for me. But you have not been affected. I will go first."

  "Affected?" Remo said.

  "The woman speaks wisdom," said Chiun. "She will go first."

  Remo shrugged. "Then she goes first. But let's pick up the pace. I haven't got all day."

  Anna unlatched the safety to her automatic, gripped the door with her other hand, and set herself. The door flew open and she was through it in a smooth leap. Her heels clicked on the opposite side.

  "See anything?" Remo asked.

  "No," Anna said in a small voice. "It is gone. Gone."

  Remo went to step over the threshold, but Chiun tugged him back by the sleeve.

  "I am next. I will tell you if it is safe."

  The Master of Sinanju sniffed the air carefully before venturing forth. Remo waited. He knew that sniffing the air was the last resort of a Master of Sinanju when facing the unknown. It was a legacy from the days when Masters traveled through faraway lands, often encountering unknown carnivores along the way.

  Chiun went through. In a moment he called for Remo to follow.

  Remo found Chiun and Anna staring at the ceiling. Strutwork dangled brokenly. It was clear that something, not long ago, had hung from the ceiling, but had been twisted loose.

  "There was something there, all right," Remo admitted.

  "See?" Anna said triumphantly. "I told you. And there, that is the booth where the man with the sinister voice called to me."

  "What did he say to you?" Remo asked.

  "He said, 'Have a nice day.'"

  "Gosh, that's sinister, all right," Remo said. "I'll ask Smitty to put out an all-points bulletin. Charge him with inciting to have a pleasant day. He could get twenty years for that."

  "It was the way he said it," Anna insisted.

  Remo stepped over to the grimy booth and rubbed his fingers against the glass. Some gunk came off in his hands, but the other side was just as dirty and he couldn't see clearly.

  "Funny," he said. "This place is as new as a penny, all except for the dirt on this thing."

  "The owner's booth," Anna told him. "He did not wish to be seen, the fiend."