The braking of the wheels touching tarmac triggered Remo's waking reflexes, and he looked out the window at the blue runway lights speeding by.
"We're there?" he asked Chiun.
"Yes."
"Any problem with the stewardesses?"
"I told the first that you were very happy, the second that you were a VIP and not to be disturbed under any circumstances, and the third expressed regret that you were married."
"You told her that I was married?"
"No, it was her idea," said Chiun blandly. "I merely did not contradict her mistaken impression."
"Nice going, Little Father. I owe you one."
"And I will collect in a time and place of my own choosing."
As they left the plane, the flight attendants said their goodbyes, insisting on shaking Remo's hands warmly, and Remo accepted because they had been good enough to leave him alone.
Once in the terminal, he opened his fist to check the folded papers they had surreptitiously slipped him, thinking they were the usual hastily scribbled phone numbers.
"Why did all three give me AIDS-prevention pamphlets?" Remo wondered aloud, tossing them into the nearest trash can.
"Perhaps they recognize you for the promiscuous rake that you are."
"I'm the reverse of promiscuous."
"If you fall into the foul habit of dating women, promiscuity will be your epitaph."
"You sure you didn't put them up to this?"
"Lust kills," sniffed Chiun. "Remember this as you sow your wild goats."
"It's 'wild oats.' And stop trying to get my goat."
"Do not complain to me if your voracious goat consumes all of your wild oats and you have none left when you are my age."
Chapter 15
Sometimes Radomir Eduardovitch Rushenko forgot himself. It was very easy to forget. Just as it was very difficult to fully lose the old Red ways.
Rushenko parked his dull black Volga automobile within sight of Iz Tsvetoka's modest tailor shop on Tverskaya Street, not far from the hideous yellow double arches of the most popular McDonald's restaurant in the heart of gray Moscow. It was very gray now, with the heavily overcast skies like lead and the freshening smell of snow coming out of Siberia.
The bell over the door tinkled as Rushenko stepped down from the sidewalk to the sunken establishment.
The balding, fuzzy-haired tailor did not look up from pressing a pair of trousers until Rushenko said, "Good morning, tovaritch."
"I am not your comrade," the tailor said harshly.
"Excuse me. I meant, good morning, sudar. "
The tailor nodded, satisfied.
Rushenko laid his suit on the counter and said, "It requires special attention."
The tailor gestured to the fitting room. Rushenko stepped inside, drew closed the red curtain and, just as the surly tailor made his pants presser spurt steam, Rushenko gave a coat hook a certain twist.
The rear panel of the fitting room pivoted on a middle hinge, and Rushenko quickly stepped back. The panel finished its revolution, and it was as if he had stepped off the face of the earth instead of entering the bowels of the most secret security organization in Russian history.
There had been at one time the Czarist secret police. Then the Cheka. Then VCheka. After that OGPU, NKVD, NKGB, MVD and KGB. Now there was the FSK, a toothless organization good for nothing more than wardening the old KGB files and taking horrific casualties in Chechnya.
The best and brightest of the old KGB, having no stomach for detente, perestroika, glasnost and the cold consequences of these failed policies, had banded together to form a clandestine ministry that was responsible to no one in the sickeningly democratized Kremlin. Until the red-letter day Soviet rule would be restored, they would operate in secret, overseeing, manipulating and protecting Mother Russia from its deadliest enemies-which in these days was itself, and its drunken, incompetent leaders.
His footsteps echoing down the corridor, Rushenko came to a blank nickel-steel door. There was no name on the door. To place a name there would be to give a name to the ministry that had no official existence.
In the beginning, it had been called Shchit-Shield-a name suggested by the sword-and-shield emblem of the old KGB. It was completely paperless, having no files or public phone number. But after a while, it became clear even a name was a security risk. So a formal name was dispensed with. A ministry that enjoyed no official sanction should not enjoy a name, reasoned the architect of Shield, Colonel Rushenko.
The headquarters of the ministry changed from time to time. At first it was a Moscow prison. Later it masqueraded as a publishing company specializing in Russian-language sequels to Gone with the Wind.
The current incarnation had been the brainchild of Rushenko, because it enabled his people to keep an eye on the American FBI, which in this most insane of eras had itself established a branch office in the very same part of Moscow.
Rushenko stood before an ivory panel, his firm mouth addressing a copper microphone grille. A laser lens emitted a steady crimson glow at eye level.
A voice crackled, "Identify."
"Radomir Eduardovitch. Colonel."
"Place your fingertips to the five lighted spots."
Touching a fan of five points of light that appeared beneath the laser eye, Rushenko allowed the optical reader to scan his fingerprints. He was then asked to peer into the red laser lens.
The laser-harmless unless his fingerprints were not found on file-scanned the unique vein pattern in his retina, and only then did the door hum open. The alternative was a smoking hole bored from brow to the back of his skull.
Inside was a reception area done in old-style socialist heroic decor, with a honey blond woman in a simple maroon skirt and red turtleneck jersey seated at a massive desk. It was a different blond woman each month. A different heroine of the Motherland who would willingly drink poison in the event of unauthorized penetration so that the secrets of Shield would go to the grave with her.
"You are expected, tovaritch."
And Rushenko smiled to hear the old form of address again.
"Thank you, comrade."
Nowadays people were sudar-"sir"-or gospo-din-"Mr." It sounded too elitist for Rushenko and his socialist ears for he had been educated under the old system. Only here in the labyrinth of Shield was it acceptable to address others as "comrade."
In a red-walled conference room without windows but illuminated by high-intensity floor lamps to defeat the depressive psychological effects lack of sunlight caused, Rushenko met with the other section chiefs of Shield. They only convened in case of crisis or intelligence and policy discussion. It was safer that way. All wore the insignialess black uniforms of the defunct Red Army, as did Colonel Rushenko, revealed when he removed his greatcoat and astrakhan hat.
"There has been an event in the United States," he was told by a man whose name he didn't know, a former KGB operative like himself.