But Remo's tone grew certain. "Not half as well as you think, Little Father," he said firmly. "Yes, I had feelings for Anna at one time and, yes, it threw me for a loop to see her alive after all these years. But that was a long time ago. I'm different now. Plus there's the added fact that I'm more than just a little ticked off at her for that whole fake-death thing. So if you're worried that I'm harboring some hope of linking arms and running off into the sunset with her, don't bother. Whatever I had with her is over. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't be worried about the fact that she's tooling around this asylum in the Scooby van with a pack of Herman's Hermits rejects. They should have been right behind us."
Chiun found great relief in his pupil's assuredness of tone. With a thoughtful frown he nodded agreement.
"Yes," he said, stuffing his hands deep inside his kimono sleeves. "They should have. I for one, however, am not surprised. That woman has always been duplicitous."
Remo looked down at his teacher. "You think it's Anna's fault they got lost?"
"They are only as lost as she wants them to be," the Master of Sinanju replied ominously.
Remo was about to question him more when the trunk of the car abruptly slammed. As the council members climbed into the back seat of the vehicle, Brandy hurried over to Remo.
"We're all set," the FBI agent said, fingering the car keys. "Shouldn't take more than an hour or so to get everything ready. We just need someplace quiet to work."
Remo nodded. "We'll go back to Anna's place," he said. "I'll drive, Bu-" He caught himself before finishing. For what seemed like the hundredth time he had started to call her Buffy. He stuck out his hand. "Gimme the keys."
As the three of them were getting back in the car, Remo's curiosity finally got the better of him. "Why the hell'd you change your name anyway?"
By the look on her face, it was obviously a topic she didn't like to discuss.
"Some stupid TV show," Brandy groused. "They even stuck my old name in the title. I was Buffy all my life, then Hollywood's got to come along with some ridiculous fantasy show for arrested adolescents and make it impossible for me to do my job. When I got sick of the guys at the Bureau making fun of my name, I changed it. I hate that show."
"Really?" Remo said as he turned the key in the ignition. He knew the show she meant. "I kind of like it."
She gave him a withering look.
"What did I tell you?" Brandy muttered unhappily to herself. She crossed her arms. "Arrested adolescents and dirty old men."
The rental car sped quickly out of the parking lot.
ONE CLEAN SHOT. That's all she needed and this madness would finally be over. This among other things consumed Anna Chutesov's thoughts as the Volkswagen van bearing her and the remaining city council members drove through the brightening streets of Barkley.
They had lagged behind Remo's car long enough to lose them. Once the lead car was out of sight, the Russian agent had instructed Gary to take a side street. After that, they steered a beeline for the city hall.
In the back five council members whimpered in fear. Behind the wheel Gary Jenfeld somehow managed through Herculean effort to keep his chocolate-and-ice-cream-packed bowels from releasing into his boxers.
"Is this some sort of Patty Hearst-in-reverse thing?" Gary whined. He pictured a brainwashed version of himself weeks from now being caught on blurry bank video, clean-shaven, dressed in a suit and withdrawing money to finance campaigns to get endangered spotted owl on the menu at the next RNC fund-raiser and build nuclear reactors in seal pods.
"Shut up and drive," Anna ordered.
Prodded at the point of her gun, Gary Jenfeld drove into the heart of Barkley. They passed beneath the great shadow of Huitzilopochtli. Anna sank back in her seat and watched the statue as they sped along. Her own face was stone by the time they circled the building and parked in a rear lot.
Anna forced the council members to surrender a few articles of clothing. When they climbed down from the van moments later, her blond hair was wrapped in a concealing bandanna. A bulky, genderneutral jacket hid her natural curves. If one looked quickly, she could be mistaken for a council member. She kept her hand on the butt of her gun as she slipped it in her pocket.
"I don't like this," said Gary, who had decided that this was probably more an assertive-feminist thing than a brainwashing thing. "I understand your desire to express your gender superiority in this male-dominated environment, but what about that guy who knocked down all the doors and killed all those guys at Buffoon Aid? I know he's only a man, but he does have that whole upper-body-strength thing going for him. Let's go back and get him."
"Get me in to Feyodov," Anna said evenly. Gary's rounded shoulders sank.
The ice cream man took the lead, steering the small group up the rear steps of the building.
An electronic lock was affixed to the wall. Gary's laminated security pass deactivated it. Once they'd gained entry to the city hall, they quickly headed down the first-floor hallway. Anna kept to the center of the small group, using their bodies as camouflage. The back route led them up to the council chambers. Farther down the hall, Anna saw the backs of the second set of doors Remo and Chiun had knocked through. The thick steel was buckled around the locks, but they still stood. They were closed now, secured on the inside by a metal beam. In spite of the fact that she had led them all here, Anna felt like a prisoner. All that kept her going was the gun in her pocket and the hope that she could end this before anyone learned the real truth.
As the group passed inside the council chamber they ran head-on into a trio of Feyodov's black market cronies.
"Oh!" Gary said, startled. "We didn't ...that is, um..."
In the center of the crowd, Anna clenched her teeth.
The fool was panicking, spluttering like an imbecile in front of men who were already growing suspicious.
Anna shrank into herself. She was beginning to ease her gun out of her pocket when Gary struck on an idea.
"We caught one!" Gary cried. Wheeling, he aimed a pudgy finger directly at Anna Chutesov. The other council members quickly picked up the thread. Before she could free her gun, they grabbed Anna roughly by the arms. One tore the bandanna from her head.
She tried to struggle, but it was no use. The men swept in. A quick search turned up her gun. After that, the Russians themselves took hold of her. "We've got another one in the van," Gary Jenfeld volunteered, backing quickly away. "Much worse than this one. A real secondhand-smoke-producing, hate-criming, Christian Coalitioner. Too dangerous for you guys. Tell you what, I'll go get him myself while you handle this one."
If the Russians heard him at all, they didn't seem to care. As Gary stumbled out the door, the black marketers were hauling Anna away from the remaining frightened Barkley officials. They headed for the back of the auditorium.
And with all hope of a simple resolution evaporating with every step, Anna Chutesov could do nothing but allow herself to be dragged helplessly along.
BOMB BUILDING was apparently to the Barkley city council what riding a bicycle was to the rest of the world. It took the two men and one woman scarcely an hour to tape, snip and wire together four makeshift bombs.
"These should pack enough of a wallop to knock it out of commission," Brandy Brand told Remo as she stuffed the last of the devices inside one of the big khaki duffel bags they had picked up at the hardware store. "But I still don't know how you think you're going to get them inside."
At the moment that wasn't worrying Remo.
He and Chiun had heard a vehicle arrive outside the flophouse a moment before. For the past few seconds Remo had been listening to a frantic, muted conversation downstairs.
After the speaker was done, he had hurried upstairs.
Brandy was in the process of closing up the bag around the last bomb when the sound of panting breath and pounding feet became audible to the others in the room. When the frantic, sweating man thundered inside the room an instant later, Brandy immediately whipped out her gun. With screams of "narc" and desperate denials of youthful ties to the Weather Underground, the three panicked Barkley bomb makers jumped for cover under the soiled mattress.
Gary Jenfeld recoiled at the sight of Brandy's gun. "Don't shoot!" the ice cream man yelled. With cringing cupped hands and one upraised knee he formed a standing fetal position.
Remo and Chiun had both determined who the intruder was long before Gary raced into the room. Though Remo strained his senses, he detected no one trailing behind the lone council member. "Where's Anna?" he asked.
Gary peeked anxiously out from behind his hands. "It's not my fault," he begged. "She made me do it."
He shrank more from the look Remo gave him than he had from Brandy's gun. Voice quavering in fear, Gary quickly told Remo of the events leading up to Anna's capture.
"She went all Helen Reddy macho on me," the ice cream man said in conclusion. "I blame the whole male-dominated hierarchical society that makes every woman feel they have to overcompensate for their innate superior femaleness."
"I blame the fact that you wet your pants and turned her over to them," Remo said coldly.
"Well, there is that, if you want to get technical," Gary admitted. "Let's just split the difference and say the unfeeling patriarchy was at play here, too."
"You're two seconds away from getting your difference split," Remo snapped. As Gary cringed once more, Remo frowned. "We have to get her out of there."