"Who was it?"
"I think it was Dr. Smith. He said you are to call your Aunt Mildred."
"That was Smitty. I don't have an Aunt Mildred," Remo said.
He took the phone with him into the corner of the room and dialed Smith's direct number.
"Yes?" came Smith's voice.
"What was it? You called."
"The two dead men were Rhodesian nationals. They had no history in this country. Salisbury police suspect they might have been contract killers, but there is no firm evidence either way."
Remo nodded. "It's safe to assume that if they were here, they were here working for somebody," he said.
"That's right," Smith said.
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"How about the Mountain High Society?" Remo asked.
"I don't know about that," said Smith. "Hiring killers would not seem to be their style. Basically, they have been just another one of hundreds of protest groups. Perhaps a little better financed than most organizations like that, but otherwise not much different."
"How about their leadership? That broad with two names. That little greaseball Carpathian?"
"Both clean," Smith said.
"Both dead, too," Remo said.
"Oh," said Smith. Quickly Remo told him what had happened, without mentioning Pierre LaRue, trying to keep his voice down so that Joey could not hear him.
"Mrs. Wins ton-Alright was one of the founders of the society," Smith said. "And until a few years ago, she bankrolled it."
"And then what happened?" Remo asked.
"Her second husband, Lance Alright, left her. He left her penniless. There was a suspicion that he took her money and ran off to indulge in oil speculation. Nothing's been heard of him since."
"She didn't live like she was poor," Remo said.
"I don't know. She had no income. Carpathian drifted into this society right after graduating college. It upset his family, who are wealthy merchants in the Middle East."
"Oil. Middle East," Remo mused aloud. "What about the tape recorder? Anything?"
"A cheap type made by the hundreds of thousands. Most of this particular model was bought up by the federal government for its own use. I'm still trying to track down the specific model."
"Keep in touch," Remo said. He hung up, disap-
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pointed. The bodies were piling to the sky, and still there was no hard information, no solid lead. Just a lot of unanswered questions.
He vowed that he would not leave Joey Webb alone or out of his sight, until everything was cleared up.
Remo was wakened by Chiun standing over him.
"What's wrong?" Remo asked; instantly awake.
"The forest is afire," Chiun said.
Remo jumped to his feet. "Those damn Mountain Highs," he snarled as he ran to the front door.
"Perhaps," Chiun said.
The two men went outside. To the north, the hillside was an undulating wall of flame. To the west and east and south, it was the same. The woods were filled with smoke and mist as the fire ate its way down the hillsides toward the valley in which Alpha camp and the grove of copa-ibas sat.
"We're surrounded," Remo said.
"Exactly," Chiun said.
"What about Joey?" Remo said. There was no need for him to explain to Chiun that they could escape, but fighting their way through the fire could mean the young woman scientist's life.
Even as they spoke, the area around the log cabin began to turn into a maelstrom of sparks. Nearby, they could hear the thud of falling limbs from trees and the explosion of vehicles and bulldozers and tree-yanking machines that were parked all through the forest.
Joey met them at the door, rubbing her eyes.
"Oh, Christ," she said. "How the hell do we get out of here?"
"If we want to save the copa-ibas, we don't," Remo
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said. He looked at Chiun, almost helplessly. "Everything is burning."
"Not everything," Chiun said.
Remo stopped and looked. Around them, the fire was moving down the mountainsides like syrup down the side of a bowl. Trees were burning. Outbuildings. Logging equipment. What was not burning?
The snow.
The snow was not burning.
He nodded to Chiun, and together he and the old man began to pile up snow. They built a mound in the center of the biggest clearing in front of the camp buildings. When they had dug out a big hollow, Remo told Joey, "Get in."
"What?" she exclaimed.
"Just get inside that snow wall." The girl, frightened now by the growing insidious crackle of the flames, gulped, nodded, and obeyed. Quickly, Remo and Chiun built a sloping roof of snow over the structure. The girl was sealed off from the flames. Hopefully, the igloo would last long enough for them to do their work. She was safe. Now save the copa-ibas. Then save themselves.