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. After 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.