The other man was wiping his hands on a handkerchief. He was clearly more irritated than repulsed. "Is one of President's bodyguards," he replied.
Sears felt his stomach grow weak. "I thought so," he said. "He looked like one of the men who came with him to the unveiling."
"It is not only body," the other man said, stuffing his hanky in his pocket. "There is second one on far side. Also presidential bodyguard."
"My God," Sears said. "I didn't know what to do. I sent everyone home before anyone could see. I just- With up there and all-" He nodded numbly toward the mountains. "I thought it would be... Who do we tell?"
The other man spoke with clear authority. "No one," he insisted. "I will make call to inform those who need to know. In meantime, clean this mess."
"How-?" Sears began. "Oh. Oh."
He stared down into the Vaporizer pit. At the body lying pale and broken with the rest of the trash. "But shouldn't we...?" Sears began to ask.
But when he turned, the man who Mike Sears alone knew was not actually a janitor was already gone.
Chapter 18
Remo had showered and changed, tossing his soiled clothes out the window. After an hour of arguing about what they should do for dinner, the two Masters of Sinanju decided to eat in the hotel dining room. Around the corner from their hotel suite, they found a cell phone on the hallway floor behind a potted plant. Remo scooped it up.
"Hello?" he asked.
Nothing but dead air. Shrugging, he snapped the phone shut and slipped it in the pocket of his chinos. "Problem solved," he told his teacher. "Smitty says I should be able to get through to him on one of these gizmos."
They rode the elevator downstairs. On the way to the lobby it stopped on the fifth floor. When the doors opened, Remo was confronted by a familiar, surprised face.
Vlad Korkusku blinked in shock at the sight of Remo. One of the other SVR agents Remo had sent for a swim was with Korkusku. Both Russian agents took a cautionary step back.
"Is you," Korkusku hissed.
"Is leaving," Remo replied blandly, pressing the lobby button once more.
It was apparent that Korkusku and the other man didn't want to upset Remo. They smiled to prove that they were friends. When Remo got a close-up look at the products of Russian dentistry, he frantically pressed the lobby button. Everyone seemed relieved when the doors began rolling shut.
"I am not your enemy," Korkusku offered, leaning at an angle toward the closing door.
"Tell that to someone who hasn't smelled your breath," Remo replied. "You're taking the next car down."
Exhaling, Korkusku whispered something in Russian to his companion. Though Remo didn't understand the words, he knew the tone of guilt when he heard it.
"Little Father?"
"He says they kidnapped the woman and are holding her captive in a room down the hall," Chiun said, uninterested. He clucked unhappily. "We should have sent downstairs for a menu first. We do not even know the fish of the day."
Remo wasn't listening. His hand had already shot out, catching the doors just before they closed completely.
Korkusku and his companion had apparently heard the old Korean's loud translation of their worried whispering. When the doors rolled back open, the two men were already halfway down the hallway and running like mad.
Remo tore off after them. Frowning his annoyance, Chiun flounced after his pupil.
Korkusku had slid to a stop in front of a door. Frantic fingers fumbled at a key chain. When he found it, his shaking hands couldn't get the key in the lock. Which didn't matter because by this time Remo was on him.
"Knock, knock," Remo said, banging Vlad Korkusku's head into the door. The lock popped and the Russian agent and his companion toppled in onto the carpet.
The curtains in the big suite were drawn tight on the bright lights of the warm New Briton night. Beyond the living room was the open door to a bedroom. Sitting on a chair in the middle of the adjacent room was Petrovina Bulganin. Her hands were tied behind her back. Cords from the drapes bound her ankles to the legs of the chair.
Remo propelled Korkusku and the other man into the bedroom. A television flickered on a stand in the corner. On the screen a fire burned at sea. Orange flames licked the sky while an endless scroll of text moved on a bar from left to right. The CNN logo was plastered in the corner.
Remo ignored the television.
Four other men were inside the room. Three were Russian agents. The fourth and most prominent individual was a portly little teddy-bear-of-a-man who looked shocked at the sudden, tumbling appearance of Vlad Korkusku. His fear grew to anger when Remo and Chiun slipped into the bedroom.
Nikolai Garbegtrov wore a black sweater and matching trousers with a black beret pulled tight over his tattoo. The outfit made him look like an overweight beatnik.
"Ublyudok," Garbegtrov said to Korkusku, thinking he had been betrayed.
One of the agents in the room pulled a gun, wheeling on the intruders. On his knees on the floor, Korkusku shook his head frantically, trying to warn the man off. Before he could open his mouth, there was a horrible crack of bone.
The SVR gunman was upside down when he crashed into the louvered closet doors. The doors splintered, and the contents of the closet dumped into the room.
Hundreds of hats spilled from suitcases and hatboxes. There were fedoras and homburgs, baseball caps and toques. Hats of all different shapes and sizes, all collected in the recent past. A black bowler rolled out across the floor, tapping into the toes of Petrovina Bulganin's shoes. Hanging in the back of the closet Remo saw a sorry little sombrero.
Near where the agent had been standing, Chiun tucked his hands inside the voluminous sleeves of his kimono.
"Now can we go eat?" he asked.
"In a minute," Remo said. "Okay, what the hell do you turnipheads think you're doing?" Garbegtrov pulled himself up to his full height, jutting out his chins indignantly.
"I do not know who you think you are to be," he sniffed. "But I am former head of Russia and we are questioning this person for possibility of treasonous acts. You may go now, and we will not involve police. But you will go now."
He spoke with such authority. Standing erect in the middle of the posh Mayanan hotel room, the former Soviet premier was the very haughty embodiment of offended dignity.
Remo flicked off Garbegtrov's beret.
"Aahhh!" screamed the former head of Russia. There was a brief flash of his pro-American tattoo before he managed to stuff his head between the mattress and box spring.
"Let's try this again," Remo said, turning to Petrovina. "What's going on here?"
Petrovina seemed a little dazed. A result of the drugs they'd injected into her after dragging her down in the elevator. Petrovina tried to keep her lolling head straight as she looked up at Remo.
"Oh, is you," she said. "Hello."
"Yeah, hi," Remo said. "What are they doing with you?"
"It is there. On television." Remo glanced at the TV.
The fire still burned. Remo checked the endlessly scrolling bar as it rolled by the bottom.
... Rescue ambulance falls in as storm drain collapses, further endangering imperiled kittens'?" he read.
"Not words," Petrovina said. "That is different story. Look at picture."
Remo looked more closely at the screen. When he got a good look, his face steeled. He marched over to the bedroom window, drawing back the drapes.
Far out at sea, a fire blazed high into the night. The same image as that on the screen. In fact, it looked as if the action were being filmed from the roof of their hotel.
"Sub's back, Little Father," he said darkly, letting the drapes slip from his fingers.
"Yes," Petrovina said. "Two more scows have been sunk in last half hour. Garbegtrov want to know what I know about sinkings. Is my fault. I should have worked alone. Should have known. Korkusku was former member of KGB who worked presidential security. That is how he knows Garbegtrov and why he is in league with Garbegtrov now. Aft
er I left you, his men kidnapped me and brought me here. They knew I was in Mayana to investigate trouble at sea. They only learn now that trouble was caused by that one." With a contemptuous nod, she indicated Nikolai Garbegtrov.
All that was visible of Garbegtrov was his ample rump.
"Whatever she says, she is lying!" he yelled from under the mattress. "I never even met this woman before. Now that I think on it, I do not believe this is even my room."
Still bound to the chair, Petrovina was shaking her head. "I knew was mistake to rely on SVR help," she muttered to herself. "The Institute has agents who could have come down to assist me. Good agents who I know and trust. But Russian entourage for Globe Summit was picked by Kremlin, not Institute. Our president was once KGB and so trusts old KGB men. So I get traitors to back me up."
Remo didn't hear the last. At the mention of the Institute, he glanced at Chiun. The old Korean's eyes had narrowed to slits of deep concern.
"The Institute has field agents again?" Remo demanded. "What kind of agents?"
It was the drugs that replied. Petrovina would never have answered such a question under ordinary circumstances.
"Like me," she said simply. "Espionage agents. I was drafted from ranks of SVR. We are all women. No men allowed. It is like big sorority." She giggled.
Remo let loose an exhale of relief. Beside him, Chiun nodded soft satisfaction. His thin beard barely stirred.
"She has not repeated her previous folly," he said.
"Wasn't Anna's fault that time, Little Father," Remo replied. "Still, I'm glad she's not churning out hack versions of you and me again. Sounds like the Institute's gone all feminist."
In her chair, Petrovina blinked. She seemed to be coming around. "Anna," she said. "Director Chutesov. Yes, you know her, don't you?"
Remo shook his head. "Long story with an unhappy ending," he said. "Let's worry about the here and now. What do you know about the scows that you didn't tell me?"
"Is Russia caused problem," she said. "We suspected it but did not know. Now we do. But we did not know Garbegtrov was behind problem. I only learned that now."
Garbegtrov had wrapped a blanket around his head like a turban and crawled over to his nearest spilled hat. He stood up now, a woolen nightcap covering his great shame. A dangling red pom-pom bobbed in front of a flabby face that was pleading understanding.
The premier seemed resigned to the fact that the truth was about to come out. He at least wanted to be certain that it was his version.
"I can explain," he insisted. "Is not actually my fault. Is his. He has gone insane."
"Do not lie," Petrovina accused, chin aimed squarely at former Premier Garbegtrov. "It is your doing. From what you have said, it is all your fault."
"What did he do?" Remo demanded, exasperated.
"He stole Russian submarine and now it has gone completely out of control," Petrovina Bulganin replied. Her eyes burned accusation at Nikolai Garbegtrov. "He wished to silence me, thinking I was only one who knew. But then news came on television of cause of first two scows sinking. He now wants information from me to stop submarine."
Remo looked around the room-from Petrovina to Korkusku and his men to Garbegtrov. Vlad Korkusku was on his feet now, a chastened look on his sagging face. Garbegtrov wore a hangdog expression of guilt.
"So we're all on the same side now?" Remo asked.
"I am on no one's side but my own," Chiun proclaimed.
"No surprise there. Everybody else?"
Vlad Korkusku spoke up for his men. "We will work with you," he volunteered.
"I want to stop sub," Garbegtrov pleaded. "It will ruin me if truth gets out."
"Don't tempt me," Remo warned darkly. "A question for the room. Does anyone here know how to find it?"
Heads shook all around.
"Great," Remo groused. "We're limited to water." He pointed at Korkusku. "You're driving." They started for the door. Behind them Petrovina bounced in her chair near former Premier Garbegtrov. She was tugging at her ropes. With the others leaving, Garbegtrov seemed at a loss for what to do with the Institute agent.
"Are you going to cut me loose?" she demanded.
"You already cut me loose, baby," Remo replied. "Or did you forget your post-eavesdropping snit?" With Chiun and the others, Remo was heading out the door. Petrovina screeched after him.
"I have keys to boat!"
At the door, Remo stopped. His Russian entourage plowed into one another behind him. At Remo's elbow, Chiun's weathered face puckered unhappily. The old Korean could see the look of surrender on his pupil's face.
"Just remove the harpy and take her keys," Chiun spit. "No good has ever come of consorting with Russian women."
Remo sighed. "I'm sure it'd be easier," he admitted. "But I've already dumped my share of bodies for the day."
He trudged resignedly back to Petrovina.
Chapter 19
Captain Gennady Zhilnikov did not like having civilians aboard his boat. Unfortunately he didn't have much of a choice. His entire crew were technically civilians. Yes, they had all been sailors at one time. But now they were common civilians. Just like Captain Zhilnikov himself.
It seemed somehow fitting. After all, civilian money had bought and paid for his boat.
Not originally. Way back when the world made sense, the construction of the Charlie-class nuclear attack submarine Novgorod had been financed by the glorious Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. No, only its theft had been paid for by civilians.
The Novgorod was one of the many submarines in the Atlantic fleet that had been retired at the end of the Cold War. Towed to an abandoned Latvian shipyard on the Gulf of Riga, the submarine was added to the lengthy list of vintage craft from the Russian navy slated to be dismantled or scuttled in the Arctic Sea.
The Novgorod was docked for months. A sad, silent, rusting symbol of another era.
When the Russian empire began to collapse faster than anyone had imagined, the republics along her western border quickly claimed independence from Moscow. Along with independence, Latvia claimed ownership of all of the vessels docked within her borders. This included the Novgorod.
Russia hemmed and hawed for a time about wanting the ships returned. In time Moscow decided it would be easier to let someone else worry about disposing of the obsolete vessels. Russia turned control of the boats over to Latvia.
After claiming victory over its former master, Latvia suddenly realized that it had no idea what to do with the rusting hulks it now owned. It was years before someone up the chain of command in the newly independent country decided that a detailed inventory should be made. When the task was finally undertaken, no one noticed that one of their decommissioned Russian submarines had gone missing.
It had happened when the eyes of the world were directed at more important matters. An elite group of former Russian navy officers and men had crept onto the base under cover of darkness and made off with the Novgorod. Most amazingly, this daring act had taken place by order of none other than former General Secretary Nikolai Garbegtrov himself.
Back when they first stole the sub, Captain Zhilnikov thought that he was part of a covert mission to restore the glory of communism to the tattered remnants of the Russian empire. He and his men assumed that Premier Garbegtrov was assembling a secret fleet that would force the reformers from power and return him to his rightful place as Party leader and iron-fisted ruler. Zhilnikov and the rest would be toasting their success within the walls of the Kremlin by summer.
But summer came and summer went. American fast-food restaurants opened in Moscow, billboards advertising American products sprouted up around the capital and still the new revolution failed to materialize.
The men of the Novgorod began to realize they might not have signed on for the mission they had expected. Premier Garbegtrov seemed more interested in hosting American film, television and recording stars aboard the captured submarine than in seizing control of the Russian ship of state.
Captain Zhilnikov learned the truth one fateful evening off the coast of New England. The Novgorod had surfaced in the dead of night to take on supplies. They were met by an expensive American yacht.
This had happened frequently since the theft of the submarine, usually near Martha's Vineyard, where many rich Communist apologists lived. Food, repair materials, oil-anything they needed was given them by the Americans. That night the boat that met them belonged to a middle-aged singer whose well-publicized heroin addiction and institutionalization for mental problems assured him gold records, Grammy awards and plaudits from his peers.
Garbegtrov had given the singer a complete tour of the submarine, from stem to stern. The gleeful songsmith nodded approval, stating emphatically that America had never built anything as impressive as the Novgorod.
Captain Zhilnikov knew right then and there they were dealing with a complete imbecile. American submarines had always been superior to Russia's. Zhilnikov complained about the man after the singer had climbed out of the conning tower and the crew of the Novgorod closed the hatch.
"That man is a fool," the captain snarled.
"Yes," former Premier Garbegtrov agreed. "But he is a rich fool."
Captain Zhilnikov glanced at his men. They were checking instruments, going about their duties as good Communist sailors. The yacht was puttering away from the submarine. While they were busy, the captain pitched his voice low.
"With respect, Comrade Premier," he whispered, "the men are anxious. When will you begin the restoration of the glorious Soviet Union?"
Garbegtrov looked to Captain Zhilnikov, a hint of amusement in his tired eyes. When he saw Zhilnikov's earnestness, the premier burst out laughing.
Garbegtrov rubbed tears from his eyes as he held on to a bulkhead for support. Still laughing, he glanced back to Zhilnikov. The captain's eyes had grown suspicious. His heavy brow was low.
The laughter died in the premier's throat.
"Oh," Garbegtrov said, amazed. "Oh, you are serious."
"Of course, Comrade Premier," Captain Zhilnikov had said. "Is that not our mission?" Garbegtrov shot a look over at the other sailors on the cramped bridge. They were busy at work. Only the executive officer was looking their way.
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