The Sky is Falling td-63

by Warren Murphy

  "The weapon is not in Hanoi. It's here. Somewhere north of Boston," came the President's voice. "I have given the search for it over to our public agencies."

  "Good," said Smith. He did not have the sort of ego that demanded that he stay in charge of a project to which he had been assigned. That was one of the requirements of his having gotten this job in the first place.

  "Do you know what misleading damage might have been done if we had based everything on the belief that the weapon was in Hanoi? They don't believe us, and dammit, I wouldn't either, Smith. Now, get your people into the Boston area and we'll close in with them when and if or if and when we find it."

  "Can't do that."

  "Why not?"

  "One's on the way to Hanoi."

  "And the other?"

  "I don't think he is speaking to us, sir."

  "I want you to remember, Smith, that when the human race depended on you, you let it down."

  "I know, sir."

  "Get back to me as soon as you reach either of them. I can't believe it. You, America's last and best hope."

  "Yessir," said Smith. When Remo checked in again, he was going to have him give more information on that woman. Was Remo somehow falling in love?

  Harold W. Smith didn't know. He used to think it was Chiun he didn't understand.

  In Moscow, the Russians were beginning to understand many things. The young colonel in charge of the assassination squads was getting the reports on the whereabouts of the lone American agent and the red-haired woman. They checked out in San Gauta. They checked out at the airport. He was headed for Hanoi.

  "I think, sir, that Hanoi would be the right place to put him down," said Colonel Ivan Ivanovich. He had been trained in Russian schools. His father before him was KGB and had served with Zemyatin in the great patriotic war. Therefore, the young colonel had been precisely taught not to pray. It was at this time, speaking to the man who terrified him, that he was discovering ways to ask the Almighty for help.

  "Yes," said Zemyatin. "But I will plan the details of the putting down."

  "Sir, yes sir," said Colonel Ivan Ivanovich to the brute who had so shocked his senses within Dzerzhinsky Square itself. The old wretch had purposely killed an innocent officer.

  Without the terror in the young colonel's heart, there would have been a thousand reasons not to take certain actions and a thousand more memos.

  But the strangest fact of all was that Zemyatin was not a cruel man. He had never been a cruel man. He had never killed another person without a reason. He was ruthless, but then he never really had much choice. Events had made him what he was. All Alexei Zemyatin had ever really wanted was to be a good butler.

  And because Field Marshal Alexei Zemyatin, the Great One of the Russian Revolution, had once been a butler, nothing an American or anyone, even his superiors, could ever hope to say would stop his planned attack. He had been taught too bitterly and too well that there was no one in the universe who could be trusted.

  Chapter 13

  "Alexei, Alexei," his mother called. "The count wants you now."

  Alexei Zemyatin heard the calls while he was in the pantry supervising the silver, which had to be polished in the French manner. No matter that it lacked the sheen of fine Russian silver. The count, like so many Russians, wanted everything French. That was why he had taken young Alexei to France with him before the war. There was enough silver in the daily service to feed two hundred serfs for a year. At the time, young Alexei Zemyatin did not give this much thought.

  The silver belonged to the count, and the most important thing about two hundred hungry serfs, thought Alexei, was that he was not one of them. And he would devote his life to keeping it that way.

  In his youth, Alexei had had fine sharp features, not unlike the count himself, giving life to rumors that in his veins flowed noble blood. This he did nothing to discourage, although his mother told him his father was really a merchant who had passed a night on the estate, paid her a compliment, and left her with Alexei, whom she felt was the true joy of her life.

  Alexei did not rush from the pantry when the count called. He made sure the silver tally was correct when he handed it to the older butler. He had discovered early that just because it was logical that people should be honest, it did not necessarily make them that way.

  Alexei trusted none of them. The only person he trusted besides his mother was the count. He was the perfect man. Count Gorbatov was the big father of the manor that stretched for over a hundred miles and contained forty to eighty thousand souls. No one knew the exact number. At that time, no one counted the tillers of the field, or those who were born and died in the cold darkness that was the peasant's hovel.

  The peasants believed Count Gorbatov was above lying. In some way, like many of the peasants, Alexei had come to believe that if there were no master for the estate, the fields would no longer provide sustenance. It was the count and God who gave them life, many felt.

  "Alexei, hurry," said his mother. She was a maid on one of the floors, and this was a very important thing. To be a maid in the manor house instead of a serf meant ten to twenty more years of life. It was that simple and that valuable.

  "Hurry, hurry, he calls," said his mother. She was always afraid that Alexei would not respond quickly enough and be sent to the fields.

  He smiled at her and knew that she was proud of him in his gilt uniform and powdered wig, looking ever so much like a royal servant from some ancient French royal court. Even his shoes cost the equivalent amount of a peasant's income for a year.

  Alexei walked crisply to the morning sitting room where the count sat in a silk-covered chair so plush that it threatened to envelop his frail old body.

  "Your Excellency," said Alexei as he formally entered the vast well-carpeted room. He stood, his legs symmetrical, shoes touching at the heel, his hands rigid at the side, for a crisp bow. He could smell the sweet seasonings of the master's morning drink. Like every servant, he had learned early to control his hunger, among other things. These controls would prove to be of enormous value in his survival, and later the survival of an entire nation. For hunger, like panic, was only an emotion. If one could ignore the one, one could ignore the other. Young Aiexei stood waiting for the old man to speak.

  "Alexei, I am going to take you into my confidence, young man."

  "Thank you, Your Excellency," said Alexei.

  "There is a great war going on. Very great. We will not win it."

  Alexei bowed, showing he had heard.

  "You probably cannot understand military strategy. That is for people of different blood. But that is not your fault, nor is it your duty. Very soon many soldiers will be coming here."

  "You wish us to make ready for the Germans, Your Excellency?"

  "Not Germans. They will be Russian soldiers."

  "You wish us to prepare to receive Russian soldiers?"

  "No. There is nothing we can do about them but get out of the way. Alexei, our soldiers are retreating and disorganized. A disorganized army is a mob. They will loot. They will pillage and they will rape. We must remove the valuable things, but we cannot give alarm to the rest of the people on the estate. We must prepare things in secret. The silver and the gold and the good porcelains must be hidden in carts."

  At the time Alexei believed that somehow this was for the good of the estate. Days passed, days in which the peasants could have fortified themselves, could have been warned of the approaching mob. But no one was warned and because Alexei trusted the count, he did not even tell his mother. He packed the silver before dawn and packed the gold before the next dawn. He personally made lists and told other servants that their labor would not be needed. This they accepted readily as a chance to get out of work and they did not ask questions.

  One night, the count himself awakened Alexei and ordered him to dress immediately and quietly for a long journey. The carriages and carts had been packed for days. "I must wake my mother, Your Excellency."

 
"Don't worry about her," said the count.

  And Alexei, trusting the count implicitly, followed his orders. They left before dawn. When they stopped it was evening, and they were still on the estate. The count, as it was explained to everyone, was taking a little trip to Moscow to confer with the new government. The Czar had abdicated, a parliament was vainly trying to run things in Moscow, and the count was headed there to give what help he could. It seemed just like an ordinary journey with a few more carriages than necessary. When they stopped, Alexei looked for his mother. He had been assured, after all, that he was not to worry about her, therefore she must have been brought along.

  He did not find her. But it was impossible he did not see her because his work around the carriages kept him so busy. On the second day he still could not find her, nor on the third.

  By the fourth day, he realized she was not there, and asked to speak to the count.

  "Your Excellency, you said that I should not worry about my mother. But I cannot find her in this caravan."

  "Your mother? Your mother?"

  "Yes, Your Excellency, Zemyatin. A maid on the second floor, Natasha. Somewhat heavy. Not very."

  "I don't know. Why are you bothering me about this?"

  "Because I do not see her. When you told me not to worry about her, I was so relieved I could have kissed your blessed hand."

  "I don't know about her. Get back to the carriages," said the count. He had tents pitched by the side of the road for his nightly rest.

  And then Alexei realized the count had meant she was not worth worrying about, not that she was safely protected. Only his years of training, that perfect control of a Russian servant under a ruthless master, kept him from screaming out his anger.

  "Thank you, Your Excellency," he said simply, and bowed away. But outside the tent, he was determined to save his mother. He thought first of stealing a horse from one of the wagons and riding back. But a horse would be noticed. He thought of heading back on foot. But wild rumors already had hundreds of thousands of men looting the countryside. His mother, if she had time, would be smart enough to flee, in which case she wouldn't be at the estate. She might be hiding, in which case he might not be able to find her.

  Without even comprehending what was going on, young Alexei Zemyatin was discovering his awesome talent for strategy and tactics. He realized that running hysterically back to the estate was no way to find his mother-indeed, he might be killed by the count, who feared anyone leaving him who knew about the treasure.

  In Moscow, Alexei very simply separated the count from his gold by supposedly getting it onto the one train heading to the one open port heading toward the west: Murmansk. The gold crates, of course, were dummies. The count was also assured that Zemyatin would sit with the crates all the way from Moscow to Murmansk.

  When the count told Alexei at the train station he would always have a job with him, Alexei knew his plan had worked. He kissed his master's hand and sent him off to a life of racking poverty with a perfect bow and a lie.

  "I will be in the baggage cars with the crates," Alexei said.

  He didn't bother to board but went to Lenin's Moscow headquarters. Even then Alexei knew he needed people to find his mother. The communists had them. They also had discipline and he had quite coldly calculated they were going to seize the government. They did not believe in democracy. They did not even believe in the proletariat. They believed in winning. That was all the former butler now believed in also.

  The day before, he had devised the plan whereby the communists could steal the gold and silver most easily, and thus help finance their rebellion at this crucial time in their history. All he wanted, he said, was to serve the revolution. But he chose to serve in the party's young secret police organization as secretary to Lenin.

  He was the only ore who had no background or belief in Marxist theory, and that quickly enabled him to become Lenin's confidant. His genius enabled him to become the Great One.

  He never did find his mother. Millions died during those first cruel years. Famine spread throughout the land. Wars were fought inside Russia on several fronts, and when Alexei could finally spare the manpower for the search for his mother, the estate no longer existed. So brutal were the conditions that cannibalism reappeared in Russia for the first time in thousands of years.

  A junior officer who knew of the search and Alexei's beginnings once asked him if he had planned his revenge of making Count Garbatov live in poverty to make up for his never finding his mother.

  "Revenge?" he asked. He was puzzled by the word. No. There was never an idea of revenge. He had needed the gold and silver to help this new party seize power. He couldn't have cared less about Count Gorbatov. He never sought revenge, or even practiced cruelty. He was, in the hardest of times, the perfect butler, keeping emotions like hunger under control. He did what was necessary.

  But shrewdly, he did not let the subordinate think he was above revenge. People who thought you might want to get even were less likely to cross you. Revenge was only worthwhile if you advertised it. The real target was never the person you punished, but the one who thought you might punish him.

  Thus, many years later, with the world on the brink of destruction, when a young KGB colonel dispatching a kill team toward Hanoi mentioned that "now we will get him for what he did to us in London," Zemyatin did not discourage this stupidity. He absorbed the messages that made up the pre-kill picture, and asked a simple question.

  "Why did they mention that he does not wear a wristwatch?"

  "I imagine, Comrade Field Marshal Zemyatin, that San Gauta is a poor country, and most North Americans wear watches. This one did not. It was mentioned."

  "Why didn't he wear a wristwatch?"

  "I don't know," said the colonel, feeling perspiration form under the neck of his uniform.

  "Let's find out. Maybe we can find out. Don't you wonder that here a person functions in the civilized world and does not wear a watch?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean," said Zemyatin, "that it might behoove us to find out why he does not need to tell time, or whether he is able to tell time without a watch. It could even be that he has a watch hidden somewhere. I don't know. You don't know. Find out."

  He did not bother to repeat that an enemy was perfect until he showed you how you could kill him. The young colonel would do as he was told. The young colonel would do exactly what he was told, because he believed that Zemyatin was cruel and ruthless, when the truth was the Great One was only ruthless. He did not trust the young colonel's word. He had never trusted anyone since the count. What he did trust was the colonel's fear.

  But as he left the office, something akin to fear in himself emerged. It was not something that halted thought, or demanded that every body function be turned to its service. Rather, it was a question he was asking himself. When was this lone American going to show them all how to kill him?

  On the flight to Hanoi on board a Swiss aircraft, Remo allowed himself five minutes' sleep. Kathy tried to make it four. Her hand was on his thigh.

  "Have you ever done it in an airplane?" she whispered.

  The lights were dim, and the other passengers were asleep. Remo hated the use of the word "it" for copulation. "It" seemed to represent copulation on every stupid car bumper that rolled along on American highways. Divers did "it" deeper. Bridge players did "it" with finesse, and horseback riders did "it" bareback.

  "It?" said Remo.

  "You know," whispered Kathy as her tongue touched his ear. She could have sworn his ear ducked.

  "Yes, of course I know. And the answer is probably. I have done it on airplanes but with people I wanted to do it with."

  "Do you find me unattractive?"

  "No," he said. "You're beautiful."

  "Don't you like women?"

  "I like women. I just don't like people who use the word 'it' when they mean copulate."

  "It's so unsexy to say 'copulate.' "

  "Not to me. Try it," s
aid Remo.

  "All right. Remo, let's copulate."

  "No," said Remo. "See, isn't that easier than a lot of beating around the bush?"

  "I'd rather beat around the bush," said Kathy.

  Remo took her hand and gently moved it to her own thigh, where he combined the heat of her body with his, creating a raging urge up the thigh through Kathy's body.

  She groaned. A stewardess poked her head out from behind the curtain. She saw two people sitting upright next to each other. The man waved.

  "I've heard of people doing it on airplanes, but not in five seconds," she said to another stewardess. "They were just sitting upright a few seconds ago."

  Kathy snuggled her head into Remo's arm. "How did you do that? That was wonderful."

  "I didn't do it, your body did it."

  "You do so many amazing things," said Kathy. She did not think he would actually go to Hanoi, at least not right away like this. She had thought that it might take him a while to get into that communist country. That would have given her time to get a good change of clothes and, with some luck, get control of the fluorocarbon beam generator. That wouldn't be hard. It would require all the corporate maneuvering of rubbing against Reemer Bolt for a few moments.

  But there was no time. As soon as they got out of San Gauta this man lost no time in getting a passage to Hanoi. Kathy was sure he worked for some government, probably her own. He was, after all, very American although he had some strange eating habits.

  In a large South American city outside San Gauta, he had made a single phone call. And within an hour, a rather prosperous-looking woman in the back of a chauffeur-driven limousine pulled up to the phone he was using in a little kiosk outside a large store.

  "Are you looking for Valdez Street?" the woman had asked.

  "Just a moment," Remo had said. And then he had whispered to Kathy, "Do you remember those words I asked you not to forget?"

  "Yes," Kathy had answered.

  "What were they?"

  "I am looking for the large groceryman."