Gates Of Hades

Chapter Thirty-three

114 Taylor Street

Queens, New York

The same day

Rassavitch had no trouble blending into the enclave of Russian emigrants. Every evening and twice on Sunday he attended the concrete-block building that had begun life as a grocery store and now served as an Orthodox church. It still had a faint odor of spoiled fruit. He was a religious man, a man convinced he had survived the communists to serve God by restoring the Master's will on earth.

He did God's will, and he had been called here by like- thinkers to make certain others did, too. At the moment, God was displeased with the use being made of the Earth, the despoliation of His greatest gift to man. It was far past time someone, some group, wreaked vengeance on those who defiled the Earth.

Rassavitch had finally found just such an organization. That was God's will, too.

If there was one thing distinctly Russian, it was a peasant's love for the land, a commodity for centuries owned exclusively by the State, by the Czars, then the Party. Now, at least in theory, any Russian could own a few hectares. The catch-and in Russia there was always a catch-was that only the wealthy could afford to buy, the very people who raped the earth with poisonous fertilizers, who polluted the rivers with chemicals and defiled even the air all had to breathe.

The injustice of it made Rassavitch grind his teeth.

But the Russians here didn't seem to care. Oh, a few of the old babushka tended thumbnail-sized patches of sickly vegetables, but most of the populace had no interest in the land that had been the sustenance of the Russian people since before the czars. Instead, the young people would rather work at jobs in the city and spend their leisure time wearing American blue jeans, the dye from which Rassavitch was sure polluted some stream, and listening to the noise they called music.

At first, he worried his fellow Russians who had shed the old ways might notice him, perhaps report him to the authorities. Then it dawned upon him that nobody cared. In America, everyone was far too busy making a dollar and watching television to be interested in what someone else did.

Including defiling the earth, the water, the air.

Soon, very soon, Americans would realize the earth could and would strike back.