Zhirinsky snapped off the radio, tossing it back to the runny-nosed soldier.
"Start the engines!" Zhirinsky commanded. Across the plain, men scrambled aboard two dozen waiting Hind gunship helicopters. As the engines coughed to life, Zhirinsky strode off toward them, eager to finally rendezvous with history.
THEY MET the first evacuees six miles out from Fairbanks. To Remo the trudging line of men and women was a vision out of some war-torn European country.
The people were wrapped in multiple layers of clothing. Some dragged duffel bags, suitcases-whatever they could carry. Farther down the road some luggage had already been abandoned. Weeping children cried freezing tears.
Remo pulled his borrowed Land Rover to a stop near a Fairbanks police department deputy. The haggard man was helping to shepherd the people along.
"What the hell's this?" Remo demanded, flashing his ID.
"We've been ordered to empty the town," the officer said.
Remo pulled his head back in the window. "How Fiddler on the Roof can you get?" he asked Anna and Chiun.
Powering up the window, he tapped the gas.
Mobs choked the road for miles into town. For much of the way the Land Rover had to crawl. It was only when they were a mile from town that the last stragglers slipped behind and the road opened up once more. Almost at once they spotted the roadblock. Soldiers in white patrolled a barricade of stolen cars. "More friends of yours," Remo said to Anna.
In the back of the truck, Anna studied the men as Remo sped toward them.
"Their masks," she said. "They've changed their masks." As she spoke she fumbled in the pocket of her parka, pulling out a pair of small binoculars.
Instead of the ski masks the other commandos had worn, these men wore simple white hoods, their faces exposed. Their light, centered stances telegraphed basic Sinanju.
"Are there any more than the four I see?" Anna demanded.
"Don't know," Remo said. "Depends on which four you see."
"That is all of them," Chiun answered thinly.
"Good," Anna said, pocketing her binoculars. "You are safe, for none of them is Skachkov." Chiun's prophecy and Anna's obsession over this one commando were finally getting to Remo.
"How good is this guy?" he muttered.
"Just be careful, Remo," Anna stressed.
When he glanced in the rearview mirror, he saw a look of genuine concern on Anna's pale face.
"Whatever," he grumbled. "Just stay in the car. Chiun and I will take care of these guys."
The soldiers didn't seem very concerned about a lone vehicle approaching their conquered town. One had been talking on a stolen cell phone as Remo's truck approached. He continued his conversation as the Land Rover stopped, a blandly arrogant eye directed toward the intruders.
Only when Remo and Chiun emerged did the soldier with the phone suddenly grow interested. As the other three commandos raised their weapons, the fourth man spoke in rushed, almost reverent tones into his phone.
"What gives?" Remo asked as he swung his door shut.
As he and his pupil walked over to the men at the barricade, the Master of Sinanju cocked an ear.
"He says he recognizes you," Chiun replied. The instant he said it, the old Asian's face registered surprise.
"What?" Remo asked, noting his teacher's expression.
"He claims to know me, as well."
"Just like the one in the camp," Remo mused. "And one of the guys in that village called me Master just before I pulled his plug. Gotta be Purcell. He told them about us."
"He did not tell them everything," Chiun intoned ominously. "For he obviously did not warn them of the penalty for stealing from the House of Sinanju." Shoving in front of his pupil, he flounced over to the commandos. "Attention, thieves!" he proclaimed. "Being Russian and, thus, used to having everything of value stripped from you all your wretched lives, including gold, dignity and sobriety, you no doubt knew that this day of atonement would come the moment you first chose to steal from Sinanju. Now, although you deserve no mercy, mercy shall be granted nonetheless. I promise you, your deaths will be swift. The line forms here. No shoving."
He folded his arms imperiously over his narrow chest.
Before him, the four Russians didn't know what to make of the strange little man. The soldier on the phone was whispering into the mouthpiece when he spotted something beyond Remo and Chiun. His eyes widened.
Hissing a few final words, he stuffed the phone away.
Remo had sensed Anna exiting the truck. Before he could tell her to get back inside, the men had raised their guns to her. A single shot cracked the cold air.
The bullet fired from Anna's automatic caught the soldier with the cell phone in the chest. He flopped back onto the hood of a Dodge that was part of their barricade.
As the first fell, the rest opened fire.
"Dammit, Anna, can't you keep it in your pants?" Remo growled. He was already moving on the men. With the flat of his palm, Remo met the blazing barrel of a Kalashnikov in the infinitesimal sliver of time between fired bullets. A nudge sent the weapon launching back, severing the arm of the soldier at the shoulder. Both arm and gun flew backward, the itching finger still firing. Unfortunately for the commando, something had come between the gun and its original target.
Bullets fired from his own gun by his own traitorous arm popped the soldier's head like a ripe August melon.
"That woman is a menace," Chiun fumed, swirling in beside his pupil. A flying foot separated a head from its neck. "She has brought chaos to an orderly surrender. I don't know what you ever saw in her."
"Then you're not looking hard enough," Remo said.
There was only one soldier left. He twisted his gun between Remo and Chiun, unsure what had just happened.
"Gimme that, dummy," Remo said.
Tugging the rifle from the man's grasping fingers, he bopped the soldier on the head. The stunned commando dropped to his bottom on the cold road.
Even as the last man was falling, Anna was scurrying out from behind the Land Rover and hurrying to the barricade. Her gun was still clutched in her hand.
"We are in trouble," Anna said.
"Why? Did you run out of people to shoot?" Remo asked.
Ignoring his sarcasm, she waved her gun at the sky. Both Remo and Chiun had already heard the rumbling coming from the west. It had been soft at first, carried on the cold wind. But it was growing louder. The black dots of a fleet of Hind gunships speckled the gray sky. A sound like distant thunder rumbled closer. Passing the road a mile to the north, the attack helicopters swept into Fairbanks.
"Zhirinsky," Anna hissed.
Remo glanced at her. "You sure?"