Sole Survivor

"What do you think, Little Father?"

Remo never heard what Chiun thought, because suddenly jets of water sprayed at them from all directions and the huge spinning buffers bore down on them.

"You take the right side, Remo. And I will take the left," said Chiun.

"And you follow us," Remo told Anna.

Remo moved to one side as the buffer, red and blue like a child's ball, came at him suspended on the end of a strut mechanism.

Remo went for the strut, avoiding the buffer, which, despite its size, looked harmless. But Remo knew those bristles, designed to scour enameled car bodies, would tear off his skin in a twinkling.

They never even got close.

Remo hit the strut at the lug point and sent the buffer flying into a wall. It bounced off, teetered like a rolling tire, and wobbled to the ground.

Remo looked back. The Master of Sinanju was still occupied with the twin of Remo's buffer.

Chiun had set himself off to one side, his feet apart in a fighting stance, as the whirling pom-pom of plastic came at him.

"Stand back," he said.

"What is he doing?" demanded Anna, her voice on edge. "He is just standing there. He will be killed." But the Master of Sinanju was not just standing there. His hazel eyes were fixed on the whirling device. When it was a whisker's length from his face, he stepped back and pushed out both hands, the fingers held loosely, as if he were a magician throwing flash powder onto a brazier.

The heavy bristles encountered Chiun's long, Sinanju-trained fingernails.

It was no contest.

The buffer spun like a buzz saw, but it was a buzz saw that had lost its teeth. Red and blue bristles flew off in all directions like rice at a wedding. Wet, they coated the walls and floor.

Anna screamed.

Chiun laughed at the sight of the Russian woman pawing at her clothes. Snippets of bristle clung to her, making her look like a human ice-cream cone sprinkled with red and blue jimmies.

"I warned you to stand back," Chiun said.

Remo took Anna by one arm and spun her in place, and although his hands moved as if he were slapping her body at high speed, Anna felt nothing more than the fanning breeze of his hands in motion.

When Remo stepped back, there wasn't a speck of plastic on her clothes.

"Thank you," she said formally.

"Stick close," Remo advised.

"The soap is next," Chiun pointed out. "It will come from those nozzles ahead."

Remo nodded. "Let's hit them before they hit us."

"Agreed," said Chiun. Still sticking to opposite sides of the track, Remo and Chiun went for the vertical bars which housed the jet nozzles. No sooner had they begun to dribble than fingers clamped over them with the power of hydraulic vises. The nozzles, crimped by the steel-strong fingers, dripped white liquid that burned holes in the concrete flooring.

"They use strong soap here," Remo said.

"Fool," said Anna Chutesov. "Do you not recognize acid when you see it?"

"What's next?" asked Remo.

"Don't you know?" asked Chiun. "I thought all whites were familiar with machines."

"Not all car-wash machines are alike. And I've never been in this one before."

"The hot-air things," said Chiun.

And then they came, dropping from the ceiling to the height of a car hood, and blowing hot air.

"We can walk around those," Remo said casually. "They won't hurt us."

"You are too confident," warned Chiun.

"Car washes are built to clean, not to kill," Remo said.

The blowers suddenly gushed flame.

"This one does not appear to know that," reminded Chiun, sidestepping a jet of liquid fire.

Remo grabbed Anna.

"What are you doing?" she yelled.

"Trust me," Remo said, pulling her into the mounting flames. They went through the sudden wall of flame. The Master of Sinanju, executing a nimble leap, joined them.

"I could have burned to death," Anna said angrily, shaking free of Remo.

"No chance," Remo said, looking back at the abating flames. "You're covered with water. It protected you." Suddenly the air was alive with death.

"Down! Hit the floor!" Remo called to Anna. He recognized the sound of automatic-weapons fire. A bullet zinged past his face.

Remo heard the stutter of a machine gun to his right, outside the car-wash track. He tore through the latticework, avoiding the bullet spray easily.

The weapon was an M-16 rifle attached to a mounting on the floor. It fired automatically. Remo came up on the side and snapped out the banana clip. The weapon ran empty. Silence returned to the dark confines of the building.

"Chiun, you and Anna stand still. They've got booby traps on this side. I'm going to check them out."

"Have a care, Remo," Chiun warned.

Remo found a complicated spring contraption designed to launch a trio of stun grenades when a photoelectric beam was intercepted. Remo extracted the grenades, crushed them into harmless powder in his hands, and wiped his hands clean.

There were no other traps ahead, so he clambered back onto the track.

"What did you discover?" Anna asked, her automatic shaking in her hand.

"Later. I want to check the other side. Give me a hand, Little Father."

Chiun reached into a tangle of pipe and gear mechanism and, at Remo's signal, they lifted a section of the wall free.

Remo stuck his head around the other side. It was dark, darker than the car track, but Remo's eyes took in even the tiniest light and magnified it until he could see clearly.

"This side looks clean," Remo said, rejoining the others.

"Did you see the letters?"

"Yeah. The letters C.P. Someone painted them on the wall at a funny angle. So what?"

"Look above you," Anna suggested.

Remo and Chiun looked up. Through a maze of piping they saw a huge red letter C. Another C. was beside it.

"Together they read CCCP," Anna said grimly. "In the alphabet of Russia, it stands for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Exactly the same as the letters on the Gagarin's wing."

"Are you going to start that again?" Remo said. "This is a car wash. It's been here for years. Smith told us that. It isn't your missing shuttle."

"It's just like a stubborn male to refuse the evidence when it is pushed in your face," Anna cried. "You are invincibly dense, like all your sex. How can I make you believe!" She looked overwrought, tense. Something was bothering her, Remo realized. Something more than the present situation.

"Try leveling with us," Remo said, on a hunch. Anna bit her lip. She turned to the Master of Sinanju, who was watching the flames die out at the other end of the track.

"Do you remember the silver ball that hung over the exit from this place?" she asked.

Chiun wrinkled his face in thought.

"Ah, I remember now," he said. "I was looking at it when I lost consciousness. I remember wondering what it was for."

"It matches photographs my government showed me of a communications satellite that was aboard the Yuri Gagarin when it was launched."

Remo looked at Anna Chutesov as if she had two heads.

"Communications satellite?" Remo said. "Hanging in a car wash."

"Yes!" Anna said hotly.

"A communication satellite hanging in a car wash," Remo repeated, giving Anna a skeptical look.

"Why is that so unbelievable, Remo?" Chiun said. "Some people hang furry dice in their motor carriages. Perhaps it is an American custom with which you are not familiar."

Remo looked at Chiun. And again at Anna.

Finally he shook his head. "All right, all right, we'll go look at this thing. But let's skip the rest of the tour, shall we?"

"It is unbelievable," Anna whispered, touching the huge red letters as they brushed past them.

"It's nothing," Remo said. "In the sixties, kids would spray graffiti letters twice that size. Right-side-up, upside-down, and inside-out. They called it pop art, but I think they were all on drugs or something."

"American teenagers would write USA, would they not?"

"Probably members of the Socialist Workers' Party," Remo said. "This is about their speed."

They emerged at the end of the building. A door led off to one side, back in the direction of the car track. "Probably leads to the exit," Remo said.

"The man in the booth may be there," said Anna. "And the satellite. I am sure he is making the machinery attack us."

Remo turned to Chiun. "What do you think, Little Father?"

Chiun listened. "I hear no heartbeats. just water dripping. "

"Then let's go," Remo said, reaching for the doorknob.

"No!" said Anna Chutesov. "Let me go first."

"Why?"

"It is too late for me. But you have not been affected. I will go first."

"Affected?" Remo said.

"The woman speaks wisdom," said Chiun. "She will go first."

Remo shrugged. "Then she goes first. But let's pick up the pace. I haven't got all day."

Anna unlatched the safety to her automatic, gripped the door with her other hand, and set herself. The door flew open and she was through it in a smooth leap. Her heels clicked on the opposite side.

"See anything?" Remo asked.

"No," Anna said in a small voice. "It is gone. Gone."

Remo went to step over the threshold, but Chiun tugged him back by the sleeve.

"I am next. I will tell you if it is safe."

The Master of Sinanju sniffed the air carefully before venturing forth. Remo waited. He knew that sniffing the air was the last resort of a Master of Sinanju when facing the unknown. It was a legacy from the days when Masters traveled through faraway lands, often encountering unknown carnivores along the way.

Chiun went through. In a moment he called for Remo to follow.

Remo found Chiun and Anna staring at the ceiling. Strutwork dangled brokenly. It was clear that something, not long ago, had hung from the ceiling, but had been twisted loose.

"There was something there, all right," Remo admitted.

"See?" Anna said triumphantly. "I told you. And there, that is the booth where the man with the sinister voice called to me."

"What did he say to you?" Remo asked.

"He said, 'Have a nice day.'"

"Gosh, that's sinister, all right," Remo said. "I'll ask Smitty to put out an all-points bulletin. Charge him with inciting to have a pleasant day. He could get twenty years for that."

"It was the way he said it," Anna insisted.

Remo stepped over to the grimy booth and rubbed his fingers against the glass. Some gunk came off in his hands, but the other side was just as dirty and he couldn't see clearly.

"Funny," he said. "This place is as new as a penny, all except for the dirt on this thing."

"The owner's booth," Anna told him. "He did not wish to be seen, the fiend."

"The demon car washer," Remo said. "I don't buy it."

"How do you explain the machines that attacked us?"

"Malfunction," said Remo.

"And the booby traps?"

"The owner has a thing against trespassers," said Remo, less confidently.

"Fool," said Anna Chutesov. But even her scorn did not faze Remo Williams.

Remo pulled back his hand and hit the glass with an open palm. The glass shivered, hung in place as spiderweb cracks radiated from the point of impact, and then fell in shards so fine it was as if the glass had turned to sugar.

There was a control board on the other side, Remo saw, and the entire booth appeared to be occupied by it. There was no space in which a human being could sit. Indeed, no seat. Just a steel well lined with cables and connective devices.

"You say there was somebody in this booth?" Remo asked.

"I saw his shadowed outline through the glass," Anna insisted.

"Have a look," Remo offered.

Anna stepped carefully. When she saw that the confines of the booth could contain a human being only if he had no lower body, she turned a pale greenish white and stumbled off to a corner, where she sank to the ground, unmindful of the grease stains her clothing soaked up.

Remo yanked handfuls of thick cable until they snapped apart. The sound of the frantic machinery ceased immediately. He turned to Chiun.

"Did you see the outline too, Little Father?"

"Would you think me mad if I said yes?" asked Chiun.

"No."

"I did."

"That's crazy!" Remo blurted.

"Liar!" Chiun said.

"Okay, I'm sorry. It just doesn't add up."

"It's diabolical," said Anna. "Where can it be? What can he be doing with it?"

"I think Anna's starting to lose it, Little Father. Listen to her."

"You listen to her. I am disappointed that I have found no one on whom to avenge my honor." And he kicked at a wall until the bricks tore loose from their mortar. After Chiun had a pile, he stamped the bricks with his sandaled feet until a fine powder resulted.

"Feel better now?" asked Remo.

"No," replied the Master of Sinanju.

"I didn't think so," said Remo, offering Anna Chutesov a hand. "Let's all get out of here. There's nothing more to this shell."

They walked out the back and around to the car. Before they got to it, the windshield fell out in pieces and the hood popped up.

"Uh-oh," said Remo. "We're in trouble."

"Sniper," cried Anna, diving for shelter behind the car.

"That too," said Remo, looking around. "But I was thinking of what Smitty is going to say. That's his car." A tire exploded, and one side of the car sprouted a string of neat black holes like notes on a musical scale. On the ground, Anna clung to handfuls of grass and wondered what was keeping Remo and Chiun from joining her in safety.

In the budding top of an oak tree, Earl Armalide emptied an M16 rifle into the car until he knew it was undrivable.

He dropped the weapon, which swung free from a lanyard attached to his belt, and unshipped his AutoMag pistol from its shoulder holster. He decided to take out the tall skinny one first. His head represented the cleanest shot.

Armalide fired one round. He was so sure of his aim that he didn't pause to look. He assumed his target had gone down, and adjusted his sights to the second target, the little Oriental in the Pee Wee Herman suit. A second shot blasted out.

Earl looked for the girl next. She must have sought shelter behind the car. No problem. An AutoMag round could go through an engine block. He brought the pistol back up to his face, but in doing so noticed that there were no bodies on the ground.

Now, where had those two kills gone? They couldn't have dragged themselves behind anything. A .44 slug had the stopping power to nail a kill to the ground, even if death wasn't instant which it usually was. Yet there were no blood tracks or drag marks in the grass.

Earl Armalide had chosen this particular oak tree because it was solid and had a large crown of branches. There wasn't much leafage to the branches this early in the spring, but there were enough green buds to help his camouflaged body blend in. It was also high enough that he could pick off anyone attempting to climb the tree after him.

The tree, all four feet in circumference of it, shook suddenly.

Earl Armalide was sure it was an earthquake until he looked down.

Looking back up at him from the base of the tree were the upturned faces of his two kills. But they weren't dead. They were alive. In fact, the tall one with the dead-looking eyes smiled. It was not a nice smile.

"Ollie, ollie oxen free," the tall one called playfully.

"Eat this, sucker," Earl spat back. And then he fired into that grinning face.

The bullet split a half-buried rock where the man had been standing. The tree shook again. More violently this time. Earl had to clutch at the tree trunk just to hold on. Sap made his fingers sticky and he cursed. That stuff could jam a fine weapon like the AutoMag in no time. He switched hands.

"Why do you not come down?" asked a high squeaky voice.

Earl looked down at the Oriental and shot at his face. The oak shook again. Although the Oriental had not seemed to move, he was suddenly standing in a different spot. Unharmed.

"He must want us to say the magic word before he'll come down," the tall man told the Oriental in a loud voice.

"I wonder what it is?" said the Oriental in a wondering tone.

"Maybe it's 'timber.' " The tall man called up to him, "Hey, buddy, is it 'timber'?"

Earl did not answer. Instead he pulled the pin from a hand grenade and dropped it.

The hand grenade shot back up. It stopped an inch from the tip of Earl Armalide's quivering nose. It seemed to hang in the air as if weightless. Frantically Earl made a grab for it, but the grenade suddenly fell back.

It returned in another millisecond, hanging impossibly. "I can keep doing this until it goes off in your face," the tall man sang cheerily.

Earl grabbed again. In vain. The grenade fell. The next time it came up, Earl was certain the five-second fuse had been exhausted. But the grenade did not stop long enough to eradicate his sweating face. It kept going.

High up, it went off. The concussion shook the tree. Hot pieces of shrapnel rained down. They clipped branches, set bark to smoldering, but miraculously, did not embed themselves in Earl's huddling flesh. A single red-hot piece landed in his lap and he frantically pushed it off before it burned through to the family jewels.

"Are you coming down now?" the Oriental wanted to know. He slapped at the trunk and it vibrated like a sapling.

Earl clung to the tree, hoping it was all a dream. It had to be. No one could toss a grenade into the air so high that the shrapnel lost its killing velocity falling back to earth.

"I guess it's 'timber,' " said the skinny white man. And the mighty oak shook again, and kept on shaking. They were using axes on the tree, Earl knew. The sharp, meaty thunk sound was unmistakable. So was the crack! just before the oak began to sway.

Earl jumped clear as the oak crashed to earth. He landed in a tangle of breaking branches, and lay still, the air knocked out of him.

The white man and the Oriental extracted him from the woodsy mess. Earl Armalide sat catching his breath as the two stood over him.

Dazed, unable to think of anything better to say, he asked, "Where are your axes?"

"What axes?" asked the white man, blowing a wood shaving out from under a fingernail.

Chapter 13

The first thing Dr. Harold W. Smith said when he arrived at the Yuri Gagarin Free Car Wash was, "What happened to my car?"

"He shot it up," Remo said laconically, indicating a man in soiled jungle fatigues.

Smith stood over Earl Armalide, who was crouching on the grass, his hands clamped at the nape of his neck. "I'm not giving you anything but my name, rank, and serial number," said Earl Armalide. His arms ached. His legs tingled from constricted blood flow. He would have moved to relieve the agony, but after the white guy had forced him to assume the humiliating POW position, the Oriental had touched him at the back of the neck, and ever since then Earl Armalide had felt as if he had developed a case of muscle lockjaw.

"Your wallet," Smith said grimly.

"I already checked," Remo said, handing Smith the billfold. "There's no I.D."

Smith took the wallet wordlessly. He riffled through it, found no identification cards, and extracted a thick sheaf of bills. He silently counted out an assortment of tens and twenties. He tossed the wallet at the man's feet and said, "This is for the damage to my car. And estimated towing charges."

"I hate to point this out, Smitty," Remo said, "but you've got a more serious problem on your hands than your repair bill. Besides, anyone can see your car has been totaled."

"I know an excellent mechanic," said Smith. "Now, what was so urgent that you insisted I come here personally?"

"This guy is somehow connected with the car wash. He says his name is Tex Trailer."

"He's lying," said Smith. "His name is Earl Armalide."

"How do you know?" Remo demanded.

"I recognize him from TV reports. He's a federal fugitive, wanted on a number of charges, not excluding murder of law-enforcement officers." Smith leaned down and broke the man's dog tags from under his camouflage collar. He glanced at them briefly.

"See?" he said, showing them to Remo.

Remo read the tags. "You're right. It says Earl Armalide, serial number 334-55. What branch are you with, buddy?" Remo wanted to know.

"No comment."

"Turn it over, Remo," said Smith.

Remo read the other side. Stamped on the reverse were the words "Compliments of Survivalist's Monthly."

"They give them out as a subscription promotion," Smith said. He walked over to the car-wash entrance and examined the exterior carefully. With a penknife taken from his vest pocket, he pried loose one of the white tiles covering the outer walls.

"Interesting architecture?" asked Remo when Smith returned.

"No, but the construction materials are unusual."

"You should see the washing mechanism itself. It'll kill you."

"It's unusual to see space-age plastics and top-secret alloys used in the construction of a commercial car wash," said Smith levelly, looking Earl Armalide straight in the eye.

Earl Armalide wanted to look down to avoid Smith's stern gaze, but his neck would not move.

"What are you saying, Smitty?" Remo asked.

"This is no ordinary tile. It is one of the expensive heatproof tiles used to protect shuttle hulls. They are easily identified. They resist extraordinarily high temperatures, but are so brittle that they would shatter under heavy rain." To demonstrate his point, Smith broke the thick tile between two fingers. "I believe Ms. Chutesov was right all along," he added, dropping the pieces at Armalide's feet.

"I am glad someone here can think," said Anna Chutesov. She, too, was giving Earl Armalide a hard stare.

"Where are the crewmen?" asked Smith.

"Search me. I never saw them. I think they're dead."

"Of course they are dead," said Anna dully. "They were brave men. They would never let one man take control of their craft without fighting to the death."

"I had nothing to do with that," said Armalide. "The ship was empty when I climbed aboard."

"At Kennedy?"

"Yeah. I figured it was a Russky invasion trick and if I stormed the shuttle I'd be a hero and get a pardon from the President. "

"Idiot male," spat Anna Chutesov.

"If the ship was empty, pal, who flew it?" Remo demanded. "You don't look like you could fly a paper airplane if you had the rest of your life to practice."

"This is gonna be hard for you folks to swallow."

"Try us," Remo said.

"There wasn't anyone inside."

"It took off automatically?" asked Smith. "No, not exactly."

"What, exactly?" Remo prompted.

"The ship flew itself," Earl Armalide said.

The Master of Sinanju drifted up behind the crouched figure of Earl Armalide. "Did I mention that this was the creature who worked at the evil car wash? No? As such, he is partly responsible for the unspeakable thing that has befallen the House of Sinanju. As reigning Master, I claim the right to deal with the wretch as I see fit after this interrogation is over."

"And I claim the right to kill him in the name of the brave Soviet cosmonauts who lost their lives," returned Anna Chutesov.

"The ship flew itself" said Earl Armalide frantically. "You gotta believe me."

The Master of Sinanju reached for Earl Armalide's left ear and gently rubbed it between thumb and index finger. He continued rubbing it even after Earl Armalide gritted his teeth against the rising heat friction. Smoke drifted past his nostrils. He was sure the old Oriental was cooking his earlobe with a match, but there was no flame visible. And Earl Armalide had spent years training his peripheral vision in simulated combat. He could tell if his sideburns lined up without using a mirror. But he could not see any match.

"What say you now?" said Chiun.

"The ship flew itself," Earl Armalide moaned through watering eyes. "It was alive."

"Okay, the ship flew itself," said Remo, who knew that no one ever lied under the fierce pain the Master of Sinanju could inflict. "Tell us more."

"I climb into the ship, you understand? Only there's no one aboard. I'm in this airlock thing and suddenly the walls start closing in. You know, like in an old movie when the hero is locked in a secret room by the bad guy."

"Impossible," scoffed Anna Chutesov. "The airlock has no such function."

"Don't I wish," said Earl Armalide. "I was this close to becoming a bouillon cube, when-"

"Did you say cube?" asked Smith, suddenly thinking of the objects found on the Kennedy Airport runway. "Yeah, cube. The walls were coming in and so was the roof. I figured if they didn't stop, I'd be cubed. But they did stop. In fact, the ship asked me a question. I look up and there's an eyeball sticking out of a wall. It's looking at me, and it wants to know about this magazine that fell out of my pocket Survivalist's Monthly."

"What did the ... er ... ship want to know?" Smith asked.

"It wanted to know what a survivalist was. It was interested in survival."

The hair on the Master of Sinanju's face suddenly trembled, but there was no breeze to stir it.

"What did it ask?" Chiun wanted to know.

"About survival stuff mostly. It wanted to compare notes. It said it was a machine, a survival machine." Smith, his face ashen, looked at Remo. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" he said hollowly.

"Gordons," said Remo. "He's back."

"Who's Gordons?" asked Anna Chutesov.

Chiun nodded grimly. "Gordons. Oh, this is a doubly evil day."

"Who's Gordons?" repeated Anna.

"You saw him?" Smith asked Earl Armalide. "Can you describe him?"

"I told you. I just saw the eye. He claimed that he was the shuttle. Said he assumilated it."

"Assimilated," corrected Smith. His face was haggard.

"Yeah, that."

"Did he give you his name?" Smith asked.

"I didn't know he had one. He said he was a survival machine and if I helped him, he wouldn't cube me. It was a good deal, so I took it. I wasn't interested in being on a first-name basis."

"Explain the car wash," said Smith. "It's the Gagarin, isn't it?"

"Must be. One minute I was inside the ship, flying along calm as you please. The next, we landed and I was knocked cold. When I woke up, I was inside the car wash and the ship was gone. I figured I was home free at first, but when I tried to leave, the place came alive. You can't imagine what it's like, being threatened by a car wash."

"Oh, I don't know," Remo said dryly.

"That's right," Earl Armalide said sheepishly. "You do."

"Why a car wash?" Smith asked.

"Camouflage. At first, I gave him the idea that if he didn't want anyone chasing him, he had to be unobtrusive."

"The Yuri Gagarin Free Car Wash is not exactly a masterpiece of subtlety," said Remo.

"That part came later. He kept the name because, to be truthful, he didn't seem too bright. Know what I mean? He took things too literal. I tried explaining that the name was a problem, but he said he had to work with the things he assimilated. First he assimilated the shuttle, then he merged that with the car wash. When the military dropped their search, he was ready to move on to something else, when the idea hit him."

"What idea?"

"Well, he was afraid of enemies. I guess that's you guys, because he talked about you a lot."

"Oh, Gordons and I go back years," said Remo.

"Who is Gordons?" Anna asked again. She was ignored.

"He said as long as there were so many people on this planet, he wasn't safe, I kinda understood him then for the first time. I'm a survivalist, you know. We had that in common. The way we figured it, there were too many people on the planet telling others what to do and using up all our resources. There were people after me and other people after him. So we decided to team up to solve the problem."

"By sterilizing the planet," said Anna Chutesov. Remo, Chiun, and Dr. Smith all looked at Anna Chutesov in the same blank way.

"Yeah? How'd you know that?" Armalide said wonderingly.

"Yes, how did you know that, Ms. Chutesov?" Smith asked firmly.

"Let him tell it," said Anna Chutesov. She looked pale. Her Walther hung slack in her hand as if it was suddenly too heavy.

"There was this satellite thing that came with the shuttle, the Sword of Damocles," Earl Armalide said. "The machine had figured out it used microwaves to sterilize people-only he didn't call people, people. He called them meat machines. Isn't that weird? He and I figured out that if we kept killing our enemies, it only made more enemies. But if we sterilized them, all we had to do was wait them out, and in time, we would have the problem licked."

"The Yuri Gagarin Free Car Wash was a sterilizing factory?" Smith said, aghast.

"The free part was my idea," Earl Armalide said proudly. "You get more people faster that way."

"Did it never occur to you that a single car wash, at best, is only going to get a fraction of the population in, say, a fifty-mile radius?"

"After a while, yeah, it did. I explained that to the machine, and we worked it out. Once we figured out how to make more microwave sterilizers, he was going to give me the franchise. I was going to have free car washes all over the world."

"Wonderful," said Anna Chutesov, throwing up her hands. "Capitalism at work."

"Don't knock it if you ain't tried it, honey," Earl Armalide said.

"Who was in the booth?" asked Remo.

"The machine, I guess. He could turn into anything. I guess he turned a part of the car wash into a mechanical man. I never saw him clearly, though. He never came out of that booth. But I was glad about that. I got tired of air ducts talking to me and eyeballs staring from walls. It was creepy."

"So where is Gordons now?" asked Remo.

"He got spooked. He said he picked this area because he knew his enemies-that's you guys-were near here, and he figured if he waited around long enough you'd drive through, and zap-he'd sterilize you both. Only the Oriental came through alone and he panicked when you were knocked out, mister."

"I am not a mister, I am a Master," said Chiun, his face full of repressed rage. He slapped Earl Armalide's head and the man, paralyzed in a fetal position, tipped over like a tenpin.

Remo set him up again.

"Sorry, Master," Armalide said. "When it happened, he figured it was time to split because he was worried you'd probably investigate what happened to your friend. He didn't want a fight. So he had me steal a garbage truck for him so he could get away. I was to wait until you people showed up. You know what happened after that."

"He's driving a garbage truck?" Smith asked.

"No, he is the garbage truck. It was the only thing I could hijack that was big enough to carry the satellite so no one'd notice it."

"Where did he go?"

"He didn't say. But I figure he's out there doing his thing, sterilizing people. He wants to clear the planet of meat machines. You know, people."

"That's insane," said Anna.

"No, ma'am, it's survivalism in its purest form. You get rid of the people and you got no problem. No more wars, no more racism or nuclear fears, and plenty of food to go around. It was going to be just him and me."

"It would take, minimum, about eighty years for the last living adult to die off," Smith pointed out.

"We had it figured at fifty," said Earl Armalide. "In fifty years, the only ones on their feet would be so old we could shoot most of them. Can you guys make my arms and legs work again? I'm ready to go to jail now."

"No chance," said Remo.

"Okay, I'll go to jail like this."

"That wasn't what I meant," Remo said meaningfully.

Chiun looked at Smith. "Emperor?"

"We're done with him," Smith said. "Make it look like an accident."

"Would you prefer heart attack or perhaps sudden lung collapse?" asked Chiun, fluttering his fingernails over Earl Armalide's close-cropped head.

"Hey, you can't do this. It's against the Geneva Convention. Besides, I ain't killed no one. I just sterilized a few. Show me a law against that. Specifically."

"You are forgetting the IRS agents and the others," Smith reminded him.

"Hell, that was different. That was war."

Those were the last words that Earl Armalide ever spoke because Anna Chutesov, her face like something extracted from a granite cliff, stepped up to the squatting survivalist and shot him in the face.

Earl Armalide rocked back on his heels and tipped over onto his back.

"What did you do that for?" asked Remo. "Now we're going to have to bury him so there won't be an investigation."

"You do not understand, do you?" Anna Chutesov said furiously. "Idiot! You are so immersed in your own stupid self that you overlook the obvious."

"Give me a hint."

"I, too, have been sterilized."

"Is that why you've been so upset?" Remo asked.

"Of course. What did you think?"

"Never mind," said Remo, who was suddenly disappointed to learn that Anna Chutesov wasn't carrying a torch for him, after all.

Chapter 14

"Who is this criminal, Gordons?" demanded Anna Chutesov.

They had returned to Smith's Folcroft office. Outside the big picture window with a view of Long Island Sound, night had fallen. There was no moon. The only illumination came from the weak fluorescent lights, fluttering out their last hours. The office looked danker than it did by day, and Anna Chutesov noticed the dust in the corners that was not apparent in sunlight. Of course, she thought to herself, Smith probably cleans it himself. It was, after all, a high-security office. And Smith had a mania for attending to details himself.

Upon entering the room, Smith immediately took his customary position behind the desk and brought up the CURE terminal. It glided up from the solid oak desktop like a genie answering a summons. Smith went to work. Anna turned to Remo and Chiun.

"Will one of you kindly answer my question?" she asked.

"Anna wants to know about Gordons, Little Father," Remo said.

"Pah! Do not speak that thing's name to me," Chiun spat.

"Anna's not a thing," Remo said. "And I don't think you should blame her for what happened to you. She got a burst of microwaves too."

"I did not mean the female," said Chiun. "I was referring to the machine man."

"Oh, Gordons. Right."

"Will someone answer me?" Anna said tartly.

"Gordons is an android," Remo said. "Do you know what an android is?"

"Yes," answered Anna Chutesov.

"Good," said Remo. "Why don't you explain it to me? I never got it straight." He took a lotus position on a bare space on the floor. Chiun had settled onto a hardwood chair. Anna thought to herself that they had their positions reversed. It should have been Remo on the chair and Chiun on the floor.

"An android is an artificial human being," said Dr. Smith absently, keying commands into his terminal. "It's a quantum leap above a robot. An android can be made to look like a human being with artificial skin and prosthetic devices."

"Thank you," said Anna Chutesov. She regarded Remo as if he were a bug.

Remo, stung by the look, sat up straighter.

"We first encountered Gordons years ago," he said seriously. "His full name is Mr. Gordons. He was named after a brand of gin. Gordons was part of some crazy space program-an artificial thinking machine designed to pilot spacecraft on long-range missions, where it was impossible to send a man. He was programmed to survive, no matter what. I guess that program was a good one because he's still around. We thought we killed him at least three times."

"I wish we had," snapped Chiun.

"Go on," said Anna Chutesov.

"Anyway," Remo continued, "Gordons was just an experiment. Before him there was Mr. Smirnoff, Mr. Seagrams, and others. The NASA scientist who created him liked to drink. A lot. That was the inspiration for naming him. Then the government cut off funding for the project and Gordons overheard. He understood that money was important, and must have figured he'd be deactivated or something, so he fabricated a new look to pass himself off as a person and escaped."

"How could a machine replicate a person?" Anna asked.

"He usually tears the skin off and starts from there." Anna, in spite of herself, shivered.

"A monster," she said. "When will you males stop creating such monsters? When?"

"Actually," Remo said, "the NASA scientist was a woman. What was her name, Chiun? Wasn't it Vanessa Something?"

"Yes, you are correct," Chiun said disinterestedly. "Vanessa Something was her name."

From his console station, Dr. Smith broke in. "A records search indicates that the city currently owns the car wash. It went bankrupt in 1984 and was seized by the state for taxes."

"How did this Gordons take control of the Gagarin, in the first place?" Anna asked.

"Smitty, what can I tell her about that?" Remo asked. "Whatever you want. After what we've heard about the microwave satellite, she's hardly in a position to complain. "

"Complain about what?"

"Gordons had everything he needed to survive," Remo went on. "He was as strong as a derrick and could transform himself into anything. He might even be that chair you're sitting on."

Anna Chutesov jumped up and looked at the chair. It looked ordinary, a simple wooden chair. Then it moved. Anna recoiled.

"It's him! Gordons," she screeched.

"Look at her, Remo," said the Master of Sinanju.

"She is afraid of a chair." And he stamped his sandaled foot against the floor a second time, causing the wood chair to skitter to one side. Chiun cackled.

Anna Chutesov gave the Master of Sinanju a bilious stare. But when she sat down, she availed herself of another chair.

"Gordons was missing one critical element," Remo went on. "Creativity. He didn't have any. He could reason in a simple way, but he was unable to think original thoughts-kind of like a Hollywood producer. It drove him crazy. He kept trying to figure out ways to become creative. One time, he killed a bunch of artists and scooped out their brains for study. It didn't work. The last time we saw Gordons, he had assimilated a NASA artificial intelligence computer. And, bingo, instant creativity."

"But he was still stupid," said Chiun.

"Slow, anyway," Remo amended. "But he was still dangerous, and we had to chase him all the way to Moscow to recover the computer."

"Gordons was in Russia?" Anna Chutesov said.

"Do you remember the Volga missile?" Remo asked her.

Anna Chutesov said nothing. She realized her mouth was gaping, and she clicked her teeth shut.

"That is one of the greatest secrets of my government. How did you know about it? How could you know?"

"Your people had a doozy of an idea. They couldn't land a man on the moon, even after the U.S. showed them how. And they were afraid that we'd claim the moon for America one day. So they created a deadly germ that could breed in space and infiltrate spaceships and spacesuits, and then loaded it aboard a moon rocket called the Volga. The idea was to poison the moon so no one could claim it."

"I know the plan," said Anna Chutesov hotly. "It was insane. But it was a previous regime. The current leadership had nothing to do with it."

Remo shrugged as if that were a minor detail. "Chiun and I followed Gordons to Moscow. The Russians had captured him because in order to launch the Volga, they needed the artificial intelligence computer he had absorbed. We made a truce with Gordons, and convinced him to ride the Volga into outer space and send it off course. The moon was saved and Gordons was out of our lives. A happy ending, we thought. Until today."

"There were strange rumors surrounding the Volga's fate," Anna Chutesov said slowly. "The men in charge of the project were blamed for the failure and executed."

"That's the biz, sweetheart," Remo said.

"I do not understand how this Gordons could attach himself to the Yuri Gagarin. The Volga was lost in deep space."

"That part I can't explain," admitted Remo.

Smith suddenly looked up from his terminal. "Oh, my God," he whispered.

"Smitty?" said Remo.

"Gordons knew where to find us."

"Yeah, he's creative now. He probably looked us up in the Yellow Pages."

"No. That isn't it." Smith turned in his chair to face the others. "Even lost in space, Gordons wasn't entirely helpless. He probably fabricated some kind of propulsion system from the Volga's parts. It would be easy for him. But finding earth would be next to impossible without specific navigational programming. Unless Gordons had a signal to home in on."

"What's so hard about that? There's plenty of earth radio transmissions he could have locked in on," said Remo.

"Not from Rye, New York. Not from Folcroft."

"From where, then?" asked Remo.

"Do you remember the transmitter Gordons planted on you that last time?"

The memory made Remo absently scratch his back. "Yeah, he stuck a little thing into my back no bigger than a bee sting. I didn't even feel it, but it threw my body out of whack. I couldn't stop hopping like a jack-in-the-box until Chiun pulled it out."

"You never could sit still," Chiun said unkindly.

"I took possession of the device after you returned from Moscow," Smith said. "It later disappeared. I can remember thinking it must have fallen off my desk and I had accidentally swept it up during a cleaning."

Anna Chutesov came to her feet.

"If this Gordons homed in on this office, it would explain why he landed in this area," she said.

"Yes, it would," Smith agreed.

"Then the transmitter must still be here. Where did you see it last?"

Smith considered. "Right ... here," he said, placing a finger on a packet of printouts. "I placed it on a set of computer forms. I always put my printouts on this quadrant of the desk."

"Believe him," said Remo. "At home, he's probably got individual compartments in his sock drawer."

"Then the transmitter is still here," said Anna. Everyone got down on the floor and looked for the transmitter, except the Master of Sinanju, who muttered something about closing the barn door after the horse. Only he didn't say "horse," he said "ox."

After several minutes, Remo got to his feet and said, "I don't see anything."

"Nor I," admitted Smith.

"It does not seem to be here," said Anna Chutesov. And remembering that Remo had called it a bee sting, she ran her hands along the floorboards. She was rewarded by a tiny stinging sensation in the ball of her thumb.

"Ouch!" she said deliberately.

"You all right?" asked Remo solicitously.

"A splinter," Anna said, getting to her feet. "Here, let me . . ."

"I am fully capable of extracting a splinter from my own hand," she said sternly. Turning to Smith, she asked, "Is there a washroom where I can clean the wound?"

Smith handed her a brass key. "Use my private washroom," he said. "It's out in the hall."

"Thank you," said Anna Chutesov.

In the washroom, she held her thumb up to the bare ceiling bulb. As she had hoped, the splinter was black, insectlike. It had penetrated at a shallow angle so that it was clearly visible under the translucency of her epidermis. The transmitter.

Anna washed a droplet of blood from the point of entry and, without removing the transmitter, she rejoined the others.

"Find it?" she asked brightly.

"No," said Smith.

"Uh-uh," seconded Remo. "I don't think it's here."

"I'll have the room swept electronically," Smith decided. "A bug is a bug. I'm certain it will be found. I should have thought of it before this."

"Don't be too hard on yourself, Smitty," Remo said. "Who would have thought Gordons would return?" But Smith wasn't listening. He was at his terminal again, tapping keys like some demented concert pianist. "What're you doing, Smitty?" Remo asked curiously. "I'm setting up a program to collect statistics on infertile couples. It will feed off the AMA computers and Health and Welfare files."

"You're going to track Gordons that way?"

"No, this is in case you and Chiun don't stop him before he succeeds in sterilizing more people. I can count on your help, can't I?" said Smith, thinking of Anna Chutesov's promise to influence Remo into solving the Gagarin mystery.

"Sure," said Remo. "I promised Chiun I'd pitch in on this one. And I have six months to kill before returning to Korea."

"This could take much longer to resolve than six months," Smith warned.

"How long?"

"Weeks, months, years," said Smith. "We don't know what form Gordons will take next. But based on the car-wash experience, he will probably assume the form of a commercial structure, something through which large numbers of people pass daily."

"Like an airliner?"

Smith shook his head. "Not efficient enough. Something stationary. A skyscraper, or possibly the Lincoln Tunnel. The World Trade Towers, perhaps."

"You're talking about a needle in a haystack here," Remo protested. "Chiun and I can't just walk up to every big building on the continent, tip our hats, and ask, 'Pardon us, but are you Mr. Cordons, the sterilizing machine?' "

"When we find the transmitter, we should be able to track him through it," Smith said. "It's our only lead."

"Okay," Remo said, settling back onto the floor. "So we wait."

"Wait!" cried Anna Chutesov. "Thousands of people are being sterilized with each passing hour and you want to wait! Does he not understand what is happening?" she asked no one in particular.

"No, he does not," said the Master of Sinanju. "He cannot understand. He thinks it is some unfortunate minor ailment, like a hangnail."

"What'd I say?" said Remo plaintively.

"For every person who loses the ability to procreate," Smith said, "the world not only loses the 2.3 children most couples bear in their lifetimes, but also the grandchildren and great-grandchildren and so on who will never be. Future leaders, scientists, entertainers, and ordinary hardworking people will never be. The loss to our social and economic future is incalculable. If Gordons only partially succeeds, Americans may become scarce in the next century."

"Smith is right," said Anna Chutesov.

"I'm glad you said that, Ms. Chutesov," said Harold W. Smith, "because I would like some information from you. Please give me the specifications on the microwave satellite. I believe that Gordons' survivalist accomplice referred to it as the Sword of Damocles."

"I regret I cannot," said Anna Chutesov. "That is a state secret."

Smith nodded imperceptibly and returned to his computer.

"Do any of you know the Russian words for 'Sword of Damocles'?"

"Damoklov Mech," answered the Master of Sinanju. "Thank you," said Smith, keying the phrase into his computer. He waited, and in a matter of seconds he was reading an on-screen file.

"The Sword of Damocles is a phased-array microwave transmitter," he reported. "It's very powerful, capable of affecting a massive landmass during an approximately four-year orbital sweep. As you may know, microwave ovens heat by exciting water molecules in food. This satellite uses the same principle to raise the human body temperature just enough to neutralize the reproductive system. Slow but certain sterilization results. The transmitter is very powerful, but for it to accomplish its full task, the sterilizing of America, it must be placed in orbit. That part at least is good news. On the ground, Gordons can do limited damage. But we're still talking thousands of people each month, under optimum circumstances. And Gordons, being a machine, has no limitations on his lifespan. If not stopped, he could conceivably sterilize the entire earth."

"Where are you getting that information?" demanded Anna Chutesov, blinking furiously.

"From the computer files of the Glavnce Razvedyvatelnoe Uprevlenie," Smith said nonchalantly.

"You ... you have access to GRU files!"

"Normally, no," Smith admitted. "I am usually rebuffed by the obstructive passcodes placed over the files. But knowing the codename Sword of Damocles makes it possible to penetrate this particular file."

"When did you obtain this capability?"

"Recently. I've been working on it in my spare time. Oh, don't worry. I'm sure you'll inform your superiors, and they'll enter new buffers. Just be certain you don't tell them about my operation."

"And if I do?"

"You know I could not allow you to live under those conditions," said Smith without hesitation.

"I will not allow this woman to be killed until she has fulfilled an obligation which she has incurred with the House of Sinanju," said Chiun sternly. "Afterward is a different matter."

"What obligation is that?" asked Remo.

"It does not involve you," said Chiun, eyeing Anna Chutesov and shifting his gaze to Remo suggestively. Anna came over to Chiun's side and whispered in his ear. "What would you have me do?"

"Remo liked you before," Chiun breathed back. "Get him to like you again. Offer him anything, but extract from him a promise to remain in service to America."

"I will do my best," said Anna. She drifted over to Remo, who had been watching the exchange with open-faced curiosity.

"Hi!" said Anna Chutesov breathily. She smiled. Remo smiled back tentatively.

Anna placed her slim hands on his bare biceps and almost purred. "I was thinking that when this is over we should get reacquainted."

At the familiar stroking, Remo felt a delicious tingling deep within him. Memories of Anna Chutesov, the soft Anna Chutesov, the one who was a tiger in bed, rushed back to him.

Suddenly Anna Chutesov felt her hands clutching themselves instead of Remo's hard arms.

"Bad idea," Remo said sheepishly.

Anna allowed herself a moment of puzzlement, then pressed closer.

"Perhaps we could discuss this outside," she breathed.

"I can't," Remo pleaded.

"Yes, you can. Help him overcome his shyness," said the Master of Sinanju. "He has grown very shy lately."

"Little Father, did you put her up to this?" Remo asked.

"Never," said Chiun.

"How could you say such a thing, my Remo?" asked Anna Chutesov. She had met Remo's earlier indifference with scorn. That had not worked. She had ignored him and he had ignored her back. She had insulted him, to no avail. Now she was throwing herself at him. That never failed.

Until now.

"Look, things are different with me now," Remo said.

"I will make them right again," said Anna, playfully tugging on Remo's belt. She laughed. Her pink tongue darted out from between perfect teeth and her blue eyes sparkled mischievously.

At his desk, Smith's face flushed and he craned his head closer to the computer screen.

Remo backed away, his hands held palms-up before him, as if Anna Chutesov were some species of poisonous fruit.

"I'm engaged," Remo blurted out. "To be married."

"So?" asked Anna Chutesov.

"I love her."

"You will have all the rest of your life to love her. Love me now."

"Could you please take this out in the corridor?" asked Smith exasperatedly. Open displays of affection embarrassed him. Naked lust such as Anna Chutesov was portraying upset him even more.

"Yes, it is disgraceful," said the Master of Sinanju, who hoped that in the privacy of another room, it would be even more disgraceful.

"I don't want any part of this," said Remo. "I'm going to be a happily married man soon."

"I do not believe you," protested Anna Chutesov.

"Look, don't take it personally," said Remo. "There's just someone else now."

Anna Chutesov looked at Remo, his hard-muscled arms, his lean stomach, and that face that could be so cruel but now had that little-lost-boy look, and experienced a sinking feeling deep within her. Remo no longer wanted her.

Suddenly, clearly, Anna Chutesov realized something that had been true for a long time, but which she had pushed deep into her subconscious.

She wanted Remo Williams. She wanted him sexually, wanted him so badly it made her throat dry and her heart pulse hotly in her neck, and if he were not stronger than she was, she would have flung herself at him, tearing at his clothes until she got what she wanted. Worse, she thought she loved Remo Williams.

Remo Williams, who did not want her.

In one moment of shocked recognition, the entire psychological mindset that had enabled Anna Chutesov to rise to political power crumbled like a sand castle before the inrushing tide.

Anna looked at Remo with uncomprehending eyes. "I want you, but ... but you do not want me," she said hollowly.

"I'm sorry. Really," Remo said, meaning it.

Biting her lower lip like an injured child, Anna Chutesov walked stiffly out of the room.

"You both saw that," Remo said. "I tried to break it to her gently, didn't I? It's not my fault she couldn't handle it."

"You gave her the back of your hand," said Chiun angrily. "And after all she has meant to you."

"She'll be back," said Smith hopefully.

"No, she will not," said the Master of Sinanju, folding his hands into the oversize sleeves of his jacket. "She wanted only two things, Remo and Gordons. Remo has spurned her. She will go directly to Gordons and take her bitterness out on him."

"How can she?" asked Remo. "She doesn't know where to find Gordons any more than we do."

The Master of Sinanju shook his aged head. "Not so. She has the insect thing."

"Gordons' bug? How?" demanded Smith.

"She picked it up, pretending it was a splinter. Did neither of you notice? She was so obvious about it."

"You could have mentioned it, Little Father. Now we have to follow her."

"We do not need the insect device. I know where Gordons is."

"You do?" Remo and Smith said a beat apart.

"Yes. Gordons wishes to make all persons barren. He will thus go to the only place where he can accomplish this easily.

"Where?" asked Smith.

"The one place in all the world where all Americans and non-Americans go. Or hope to go."

"Where?" asked Remo.

"I will not tell you. I will show you. Emperor Smith, I will ask you to make travel arrangements for Remo and myself "

"I would like to know exactly where you are going," said Smith.

"The matter between Gordons and the House of Sinanju is a matter of honor," Chiun said gravely. "Remo and I will handle it."

"Very well," agreed Smith. "I will make the arrangements. Just let me know the necessary details."

Just then, the red telephone rang. Smith picked it up.

"Yes, Mr. President. You picked an appropriate time to call. I have just confirmed the fate of the Russian shuttlecraft."

Smith listened.

"No, it is not intact, exactly," he said uncomfortably. "Actually, the crew is already in Air Force hands. No, the Air Force hasn't quite realized this as yet. I know it sounds strange, sir. In fact, the whole matter is strange. Please bear with me while I try to explain. And by the way, Mr. President, are you sitting down?"

Chapter 15

Carl Lusk loved sex. He loved it in all its splendiferous variety. In an age of AIDS, herpes simplex, herpes complex, and more traditional social diseases, he moved unafraid through the dating bars and computer love services. Carl Lusk was twenty-three and believed that AIDS only happened to fags and heroin addicts and that only stupid people caught social diseases. While he was young he was going to sleep with as many women as possible. Sometimes as many as five in one day. The trick, he believed, was not to sleep with the same woman twice. He knew the chance of catching any social disease from a one-night stand was slim, but it went up with each subsequent encounter. As Carl saw it, monogamy was like playing Russian roulette with five of the six chambers loaded.

Carl Lusk was not completely reckless. There were some encounters he did avoid. Dogs, children, and men were at the top of that list. But that didn't mean that he couldn't fantasize about these things. To that end, he put together one of the world's largest collections of taped and print pornography to facilitate his fantasizing.

Carl was a baggage handler at Denver's Stapleton Airport. It was not the most glamorous job in the world, but it enabled him to copy off women's names and addresses from the luggage he loaded. It was better than a computer dating service. Cheaper, too. Carl Lusk was ferrying a load of luggage to a waiting 747 when the garbage truck that would change his entire attitude toward sex rolled past him.

Carl knew right away there was something strange going on.

First, garbage was not picked up on the runways, where the jets sat.

Second, there was no one driving the garbage truck. The driver's seat was empty.

Carl spun the baggage truck around and lost the rear cart of the baggage train, but he didn't care. He was sure the garbage truck was out of control and he wanted to see where it ended up. Carl also liked to stop at major traffic accidents.

The garbage truck went around a corner to the area where private planes were hangared, and Carl had visions of Piper Comanches flying in all directions.

When Carl negotiated the same corner, he was surprised to see that the garbage truck had come to a full stop.

Carl came to a full stop too.

The garbage truck had stopped behind a Lear jet, its front bumper touching the tail assembly.

Then the garbage truck reared up on its back wheels. The wheels spun and the garbage truck lurched like a rogue elephant. It came down on the Lear jet, squashing the tail and pushing its nose into the air. The garbage truck began to shake furiously. The Lear quivered like a fish caught in a net.

Carl Lusk watched in rapt awe. Under his breath, he said the first thing that came to mind. "Oh, my God, they're screwing!"

Carl Lusk got down on the runway and tried to look under the garbage truck's chassis. He had never seen a garbage truck screw a corporate jet before. He wondered what the garbage truck-which was obviously the male-had for equipment. Details like that fascinated him.

As he watched, gravel digging into his cheek, Carl heard the truck's hydraulic equipment start to grind. "I wonder if that means it's coming?" he asked himself. Then he saw it. A silver ball, like a perfectly round egg, dropped from the garbage truck's undercarriage and was absorbed by the jet. The jet's aluminum skin just opened up and swallowed the silver ball.

The garbage truck, suddenly quiescent, fell over on its side, rear wheels smoking and spinning impotently. The Lear jet suddenly whined into life and rolled onto the runway.

As it passed, Carl Lusk saw that there was no one piloting the aircraft. Not only that, but the crumpled tail was returning to its normal shape like a plant recovering after being stepped on.

After the Lear jet had vaulted into the sky, Carl Lusk summoned up enough nerve to approach the garbage truck.

The driver's seat was vacant. But he knew that. The truck smelled of week-old trash and tiny bugs crawled out from the smeary edges of the hydraulic door, which hung open and empty.

"It's dead," Carl Lusk whispered. And then he thought about what he had just said. Funny that he would think of the garbage truck as dead. Garbage trucks did not live. Garbage trucks also did not copulate with other machines, but this one had.

Carl Lusk retreated to his baggage cart and decided not to mention what he had seen to anyone. On the way back to his terminal, he decided to burn his pornography collection. It would be tough to live without it, but maybe there was such a thing as too much sex after all. That left only the future course of his sex life to be decided-monogamy or celibacy? It was a grim choice. Perhaps he would flip a coin.

When the unauthorized Lear jet landed at Burbank Airport in California, it taxied to one end of the main runway and whined to a stop.

Because it had refused radio contact, did not ask for landing clearance, and came down the wrong way, the tower naturally assumed it had been hijacked.

Airport security was immediately mobilized. The first man on the scene was Officer Andy Ogden, who drove his car to the jet and got out cautiously. He did not draw his gun. He assumed that a drawn gun would be a signal for violence and he was trained to defuse violent situations, not make them worse.

As he approached the jet, Andy Ogden heard a loud metallic sound, like a titanic punchpress. There was no explosion, so he knew it was not a terrorist grenade going off.

A man came out from under the far wing. He jumped down as casually as if he had stepped from a barber's chair. The man walked up to Officer Andy Odgen.

He was not armed, so Andy Ogden did not pull his weapon. Pulling his weapon would have been an overreaction. And Andy Odgen was trained not to overreact.

And so when the man with the strange silver suit and the fixed face approached him with an outstretched hand and said, "Hello is all right," Andy Ogden accepted the hand in relief as much as in friendship. When he saw that the man's face was a cluster of wires and circuits with glassy blue eyes and an armrest ashtray for a mouth, it was too late to draw his weapon because the man had squeezed his hand to a blood-soaked pulp and had started to work on his other hand.

His last thought was a strange one. Why did the man have a round porthole in the middle of his chest?

When the main security team reached the Lear jet, they did not think twice about having passed Andy Odgen on the way. Officer Ogden was driving his car, which for some reason had a great silver ball mounted on the roof. He was probably going for help. When they found the body on the runway, skinned raw, they forgot about Andy Odgen and drew their guns.

They recognized that there were times to overreact. They moved under the Lear jet's wings, looking for an open hatch.

They did not find an open hatch, exactly.

What they found was an opening in the far side of the hull. The opening was six feet tall, in the rough shape of a man, like the chalk outline usually made at murder scenes to indicate where the victim fell. It led directly into the ship.

They climbed in through the man-shaped opening and found that the plush passenger section was deserted. Going forward, they found that the cockpit had been vandalized. Most of the flight controls-the navigational instruments and on-board computers-were missing. They did not find the missing hull section, which should have been impossible to miss. Not only was it shaped like a gingerbread man, but there should have been a porthole in the middle of the thing.

The only other oddity was a television set built into one wall. It was on, showing a popular children's cartoon program. The chief of the security team turned it off and led his men back out to the body on the ground.

"Wonder who that thing was?" one of the others said. The security chief looked at the inhuman carcass for a moment. He saw the gleam of white gold on the man's left ring finger and suddenly sat down on the runway.

"What?" he was asked when they saw his stricken expression.

"The ring. Look at the ring. That's Andy's ring!"

"You sure?"

"Look," the chief of security said in a sick voice. One of the men looked. He saw the silver monogram A. 0. mounted on an onyx setting. Bits of skin clung to the edges of the band, indicating that the epidermis had been torn off around the ring.

He too sat down on the runway. He threw up into his lap and didn't bother to clean himself off. He just sat there.

"That wasn't Andy we saw a minute ago," he said.

"I won't say anything if you don't," said the security chief.

The security team all sat down in a circle on the runway and made a pact that they would not mention the man they had seen fleeing the area who looked like their former colleague but was not. They cut their thumbs and pressed them together so that it was a blood oath.

Then they waited. But they didn't know what they were waiting for.

Anna Chutesov drove to the Soviet embassy in New York City. She drove over the speed limit because she felt that if she slowed down or stopped it would all catch up with her.

It caught up with her in New Rochelle. She pulled over to the side of the road and buried her face in the steering wheel and, for half an hour, sobbed uncontrollably.

When she sat up at last, her face was drawn and her eyes were dry. She was again the Anna Chutesov who had risen from the Komonsol to a position of supreme responsibility in the Kremlin.

She was in love. And the man whom she loved was not only an American agent but also, more damningly, he did not want her. It was the ultimate humiliation for a woman who had never before allowed herself the luxury of acknowledging deep feelings for any man. The consul general was not surprised to see Anna Chutesov. He had been informed that she was in the country, and because he knew all about the missing Yuri Gagarin-as did the whole world by now-he assumed that the shuttle's recovery was her mission. "Comrade Chutesov," he greeted unctuously. Instead of speaking, Anna Chutesov took her thumb between her teeth and ripped at the skin. She dug at the tear with a colorless fingernail and attacked it again with her teeth,

"Here," she said, spitting a black plastic whisker into the doubtful consul general's hand. "This is a highly sophisticated homing transmitter. If there is a way to pinpoint the source that is receiving its transmissions, do so immediately and inform me once you have that information."

"Of course, Comrade Chutesov. Where might I reach you?"

"I will be in the embassy lounge. Drinking."

Anna Chutesov was drinking vodka when the consul general found her. She did not look drunk. Probably she wasn't. But the bottle on the bar was nearly empty.

"We have isolated the area at which the transmissions are directed," he said.

"Where?" snapped Anna Chutesov, pausing with a tumbler just under her elegant lips. The consul general noticed that there was no ice in the glass.

"In the state of California. Near Los Angeles."

"Is that the best Soviet science can do?"

"No. A team will be dispatched to triangulate the exact location, if that is what Comrade Chutesov desires."

"Comrade Chutesov only desires the loan of the equipment necessary to locate that point. Comrade Chutesov will handle the matter herself. Comrade Chutesov would not trust this to a man. Comrade Chutesov will never trust a man ever again."

"Yes, Comrade Chutesov," said the consul general. "You will not require backup agents on this matter?"

"I already have them, if the fools were able to pass themselves off as untrained migrant workers-which I think may have been too much for them."

And Anna Chutesov downed the remainder of the tumbler of warm alcohol, telling herself bitterly that all men were like straight vodka, colorless and so damned transparent.

Chapter 16

Larry Lepper hated robots. "I hate robots," he said.

"These aren't robots," said Bill Banana, head of the famous Banana-Berry Animation Studios, in a soothing voice. Normally Bill Banana saved his soothing voice for his girlfriends. When you were the head of the largest cartoon factory in the history of television, you did not soothe, you barked. Sometimes you did neither. Sometimes you just fired people when they refused to let you have your way.

Bill Banana did not want to fire Larry Lepper. He wanted to hire him. Larry Lepper, despite his youthful appearance, was the greatest animator in the business.

"I don't do robots," insisted Larry Lepper. "I did robots over at Epic Studios. You could fill a junkyard with the robots I designed for Epic. No more."

"These robots are different," soothed Bill Banana. He leaned back in his office chair, surrounded by life-size papier-mache statues of his studio's cartoon creations. They looked more realistic than he did.

"I thought you said they weren't robots," said Larry Lepper.

Bill Banana spread his hands in an expansive gesture. He broke out in a pleased grin. Somehow, his grin looked wider than outspread arms. He had good reason to grin. When you grossed three million dollars a year and were responsible for exactly seventy-eight percent of the cartoons shown on Saturday morning, you were king of your industry. Even if it was an industry in which artistic skill, technical brilliance, and storytelling ability were reduced three percent each year as a hedge against rising production costs, so that after nearly thirty years of animation, the Banana-Berry Studio was reduced to cranking out cartoons that were only one step above flip-page books.

"They aren't robots. Exactly." Bill Banana grinned.

"Robots are robots," said Larry Lepper. "You can call them Gobots, Transformers, or Robokids, but they're still robots."

"Robokids made us a cool quarter-million last year," said Bill Banana seriously, rolling a stubby cigar to the other side of his mouth.

"The ratings sucked. You made it all on toy-licensing deals."

"That's where the action is these days. You know that. And don't knock Robokids. It was brilliant. I should know, I came up with it myself. Kids who transform into robots. No one had ever thought it up before. They had trucks that turned into robots and jet airplanes that turned into robots. They even had robots that turned into other robots. But Robokids? Original."

"I'm not working on robot shows," repeated Larry Lepper. "I'm sick of them. Here," he said, unzipping a black portfolio that was the size of an executive's desktop. "Let me show you my latest concept."

Bill Banana accepted the Bristol Board reluctantly. He looked at the drawing, cigar ash falling on the board with each puff.

"Buster Bear?" he barked.

"Look, this robot trend's gotta peak soon," Larry said eagerly. "Be the first guy out of the gate for a change."

"No good. No one will buy a Buster Bear toy. Look at him. He looks like a cream puff. Maybe we could change him, though. Call him Blaster Bear. Stick a whatchamcallit an Izzy-in his paw."

"Uzi," said Larry Lepper wearily.

"We'll call it an Izzy. That way we can copyright the design and spin off the gun as a separate toy."

"And copyright the character yourself? Nothing doing," said Larry Lepper, snatching back the presentation piece before cigar ash burned holes in it. "Thanks, but no thanks."

"So let me tell you about my new show," said Bill Banana, happy to get Buster Bear off the negotiating table.

Larry Lepper wiped at his shiny forehead unhappily. He was only thirty-four, but he had already lost most of his hair. Oddly, his high forehead made him look younger than his years.

"No robots," said Larry Lepper.

"We call them Spideroids. They're not robots, exactly. They're giant spiders, see, but they turn into androids. An android is a robot that looks like a real person. My manicurist explained it to me."

"How original," said Larry Lepper dispiritedly.

"I knew you'd get it!" Bill Banana said excitedly, slapping the desk with a beefy smack. "I knew that you, Larry Lepper, of all the guys working in the industry today, would see the awesome potential of this concept. How fast can you come up with the designs? I'll put you on at our top salary."

Larry Lepper quietly zippered the presentation piece marked "Buster Bear" into his portfolio like a man closing the lid on his dreams.

"I'll do the model sheets," he said dully. "Get someone else to do the animation."

"Done," agreed Bill Banana, reaching across the desk to shake Larry Lepper's limp hand. He was not entirely happy, because it meant he'd have to hire other artists to do the stuff that Larry wouldn't, but it was dealable. He just wouldn't pay Lepper the top rate. The dumb schmuck hadn't worked for Banana-Berry in five years and would never know the difference.

"When do you need it?" asked Larry Lepper. "Monday morning. The sponsors are gonna show up at nine."

"But this is Friday. I'll have to work all weekend."

"Work here. I'll give you a studio, have your food sent in, and if you want, a girl. Or a boy. Or both. I treat my employees right."

"Just leave me alone all weekend and I'll see what I can do," said Larry Lepper miserably, visions of drawing stupid robots for the rest of his life dancing in his mind's eye.

By Sunday evening Larry Lepper had generated a roomful of Spideroid model sheets, showing front and side views of different spider characters. He had jumping spiders, spinning spiders, and climbing spiders. There were brave spiders, mean spiders, and, for comic relief, silly spiders. They looked pretty sharp-if you liked spiders.

The problem was, Larry couldn't figure out plausible android transformations for any of them. Designing robots that became cars or planes was easy. But spiders had eight legs. Larry didn't know what to do with the extra legs. If he kept them, the androids still looked like spiders. And he couldn't ignore the extra legs. If the show sold, the model sheets would be turned over to a toy company for immediate production so that the toys would hit the stores the week the show premiered.

Larry tossed his pen into the inkwell in frustration. In his portfolio he had designs for dozens of funny animal characters which, if he had gotten them on the air twenty years ago, would have made him famous.

But Larry Lepper had not been an animator twenty years ago. He had been a child dreaming of drawing cartoons for a living and maybe, just maybe, owning his own theme park like his idol, Walt Disney. He never told anyone this, but Larry was more interested in operating his own version of Disneyland than he was cartooning. That was where the real money was. Animation was just the road to the greater dream.

Larry Lepper had pursued his dream-disappointing his father, who had had his heart set on Larry following him into the family hardware business-and come to Hollywood. He was good. But more important, he was fast. And he had found work.

Drawing robots that turned into motorcycles and flying saucers that became robots, all fighting mindlessly, and not a single human character in any of the scripts-that was the depressing part. If they wouldn't let him draw Buster Bear or Squirrel Girl or any of his other creations, at least they could give him a real-life person to draw once in a while.

Instead, he was stuck trying to come up with a plausible android counterpart for a giant spider with eight laser-beam eyes and vise grips for feet. He decided to work on the character's names instead. But even that defeated him.

"What the hell is another word for 'spider'?" he muttered aloud.

" 'Arachnid,' " said a metallic voice from the open door. "It is the scientific term."

Larry Lepper turned at the sound. There was a man framed in the door. He was a tall man, dressed in Hollywood pastels and wearing wraparound sunglasses that looked like they were part of his face and not an accessory. His shirt was open at the throat but instead of chest hair, Larry saw glass. Probably a medallion, but it looked pretty big. The man's hair was the color of sand, and when he smiled, it was like a camera shutter locking into the open position. His teeth looked too good to be true, even for Hollywood.

"Hello," said Larry Lepper, thinking the man was some assistant producer come to check on his progress.

"Hello is all right," said the man, walking in. He walked stiffly, as if his joints were arthritic.

"It works for me," said Larry dryly. Probably on coke, he thought to himself. Half the town was.

"I am looking for Commander Robot," said the man politely.

Larry extracted himself from his drawing board and distinctly heard two vertebrae pop. He had been hunched over the board since dawn.

"Um, he's not here," said Larry cautiously. And just in case this nut was dangerous, he reached for a sharpnubbed Speedball pen.

"Lieutenant Cyborg, then," the man said calmly. The breeze wafting through the open window sent the man's scent toward Larry Lepper. Distinctive personal scents were in this year. On Rodeo Drive, where the stars shopped, you could buy colognes that made you smell like everything from avocados to old money. This guy smelled like the Las Vegas shuttle.

"Nope," said Larry. "I really think you should try the security guard at the front gate."

"He was most helpful. He directed me to this building. You are the only one here."

"He's not supposed to do that. We're normally closed on Sundays," said Larry Lepper, sliding toward the door.

"Yes, he was reluctant at first. I broke his arm in three places and his attitude changed. I have always been intrigued by the cooperative attitude caused by inflicting physical damage on meat machines."

"Meat machines?" asked Larry. The man was coming toward him, a hand outstretched.

"Homo sapiens," said the man, taking Larry by one wrist. He exerted sudden pressure. With the Speedball, Larry stabbed him in the stomach three times. The Speedball broke on the third thrust. When Larry looked up at the man's face, that fixed smile had not changed one whit. It also seemed very far away.

Larry discovered that he was on his knees from the pain.

"What ... what do you want?" he moaned.

"I have told you. I will ask again. I wish to speak with either Commander Robot or Lieutenant Cyborg. I have seen them on television fighting the Stone Kings and I wish to enlist their aid in combating two personal enemies of mine. I have lost my former tutor, who was a survivalist, and am in need of allies."

"You can't," Larry lepper groaned.

"Why not?"

"Because they're not real."

"I do not understand your meaning. I saw them myself on the television screen."

"They're cartoons. They don't exist in real life."

"According to your skin tension reading, you are telling the truth, but I still do not understand your words."

"I ... I can show you," gasped Larry Lepper, feeling the two bones of his wrist clicking together in the strange man's one-handed grip.

Larry Lepper felt himself being yanked to his feet. "Show me," the man said tonelessly.

"The next room," said Larry.

In the next room, Larry showed the man paintings of scenes from the Robokids show done on clear acetate. They festooned the walls.

"These are called cels," Larry said. "Artists paint pictures of Commander Robot and the others on them."

"This one is very realistic," said the man, plucking a eel from the wall.

"You gotta be kidding," said Larry Lepper, who had a low opinion of cel artists. He rubbed his sore wrist. The feeling was coming back.

"It looks exactly like Commander Robot."

"Well, yeah, that's true," Larry said. He picked a pile of cels off an acrylic-splattered worktable. "Here, see these others? The Commander Robot figure is different in each one. We shoot these in sequence so that Commander Robot seems to move against painted backgrounds. It's an optical illusion. It's called animation."

The man gathered up the cel paintings, and faster than it seemed possible, he sorted them into the correct order. Then, holding them up to the light, he fanned the cels until the illusion of movement was created.

"See?" Larry said hopefully.

"They do not talk." His voice sounded disappointed.

"They can't. They're just paintings. Actors dub in the voices. "

"That would explain why Commander Robot and the announcer had identical voice recognition patterns."

"The actors double up. It's in their contracts. You must have a great ear to be able to tell that."

"Why is this done?"

Larry Lepper shrugged. "To make money, to provide entertainment for the children who watch the show. But mostly to sell toys and breakfast cereal."

"Is that your goal-to sell toys and breakfast cereal?"

"No, I just want to make enough money to launch my own business. I sank my savings into an abandoned theme park, but I need more cash to get it off the ground. That's the only reason I'm wasting my time on this junk."

"I am beginning to understand," said the man, letting the cels fall to the floor. "It is all make-believe. Yes, this explains another fact that had puzzled me."

"What's that?" asked Larry Lepper conversationally. "Why Commander Robot and his fellow Robokids went to such great lengths to conceal their secret identities and then broadcast their adventures for all to see."

"I can see why that would bother you, pal. I sure am glad I was able to clear up the mystery for you. I sure am. Yes sirree."

The man stood in silence for a long time after he dropped the cels to the floor.

"You okay, pal?" asked Larry Lepper.

"Commander Robot and I would have made an effective team," said the man. His chin fell and even his too-square shoulders seemed to droop.

"You had a lot in common, yeah," said Larry. "Anyone can see that." The man was blocking the only path to the door and Larry knew he had to humor the guy. He might survive if he humored him.

"You understand," said the man, looking up.

"I'm good with robots," said Larry sympathetically. "Everyone knows that."

"Actually, I am an android survival machine. My name is Mr. Gordons."

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Gordons, I'm real sorry about the confusion. Real sorry. I'll ask the studio to put a disclaimer on the next episode so it won't happen again." Larry inched to the door. Mr. Gordons matched him step for step. Larry gave up.

"I appreciate your sympathy. Although I am a machine, I have the capability of feeling emotion. Also I can transform myself into any object with which I come in contact."

"Yeah, that's handy, all right. Real handy. Popular, too. I know lots of robots who can do that. Almost all of them, actually."

"I told you, I am not a robot. I am a survival android. My name is Mr. Gordons."

"Right. I got that. 'Robot' was just a figure of speech. No offense."

"None taken. Would you like to see me assimilate an object of your choice?"

"I really would, but I have to finish making Spideroids."

"What are Spideroids?"

"Cartoon characters. They're spiders who turn into androids."

"Would you like to see me become a spider, then?"

"No, not that," Larry said hastily. "I hate spiders. They crawl up my pants leg and make me itch."

"I would become a very big spider, and I would promise not to crawl up your leg if you do not wish it."

"Thanks just the same. Okay if I go back to work now?"

"I will watch you work," said Mr. Gordons. "Perhaps I will learn something useful."

"Suit yourself," said Larry Lepper, backing into the other room. He climbed behind his drawing board and pretended to get to work. Maybe the nut would get bored and leave.

Mr. Gordons watched him silently. He gave Larry the creeps, but he was afraid to make a break for it. When Larry had not drawn a single line for five minutes, Mr. Gordons had a question.

"Why are you not working?" he asked.

"I can't think of a name for this one."

Mr. Gordons looked at the model sheet and the blank space at the bottom for the name.

"I am very creative. It is one of my newer skills. Let me try."

"Sure," said Larry Lepper, who couldn't get out of Mr. Gordons' way fast enough. "Go right ahead. I'll get lunch."

"Wait. I will not be long."

"Took me all weekend to do all those sheets," said Larry Lepper, and then he stopped talking.

The right-hand fingers of the man who called himself Mr. Gordons blurred suddenly. One minute he was touching the tumbler of ink pens on the desk, and then the next, he had an assortment of drawing utensils for fingers.

As Larry Lepper watched, slack-jawed, Mr. Gordons began writing names onto the model sheets with his index finger, which was a pencil. He inked them with his other fingers, which ended in different size nibs. His thumb was an ink eraser, but Gordons never resorted to it. He seemed incapable of drawing a false line.

Less than a minute after he began, Mr. Gordons handed a stupefied Larry Lepper a neat stack of model sheets. Larry went through them, his eyes bulging like those of a thyroid patient.

"Gobblelegs, Spinner, Spiderette," Larry read. "These are pretty good names-considering industry standards these days."

"Thank you. I also took the liberty of modifying some of your designs so that they are more practical."

"We usually don't worry about that stuff. The animators can't be bothered to keep the characters consistent half the time."

"Is there anything else?"

"Can you do the android robot counterparts? I'm having trouble with that part."

"You are my friend so I will do this for you," said Mr. Gordons, and taking several blank sheets and ten minutes' time, he produced a set of model-sheet androids that exactly matched the Spideroid drawings.

Larry Lepper was astonished. This Gordons character didn't even refer to the original sheets. Yet his robots were perfect. They looked like they could be built. In the margins Gordons had even worked out weight specifications, gear ratios, and other technical details that would have been absurd if they didn't look so damned plausible.

"You really are an android," said Larry Lepper wonderingly.

"If you had known me before today, you would not have doubted me," said Mr. Gordons. "I do not lie."

"That means you can really turn into other stuff, like the Robokids do. Really?"

"Really. Would you like me to demonstrate?"

"No! I mean, yeah. Maybe." Larry Lepper was thinking at a furious pace. This nut or machine or whatever it was seemed to like him.

"Please make up your mind. I have enemies and now that I understand I cannot rely on the fictitious Commander Robot, I must discover a new form to take so that my enemies will not find me."

"You can turn into anything?"

"Yes. I require only appropriate raw materials to assimilate. "

Larry Lepper looked at Mr. Gordons and his all-purpose drawing hand.

"I'm your friend, right?"

"You are my friend, right."

"And you can turn into anything?"

"I have already said that."

"Anything I ask, right?"

"Yes. "

"If I asked you to turn into something very, very big, what would you say?"

"I would say what very, very big thing do you want me to assimilate, friend?"

"I'll get my car," said Larry Lepper, deciding that here was one robot he could learn to love, "and show you."

Chapter 17

At Los Angeles International Airport, the Master of Sinanju rented a car with the privileged air of a diplomat being whisked through customs.

"I'm driving," Remo insisted, as the counter clerk finished processing Chiun's credit card.

"No," said the Master of Sinanju firmly. "I am."

"Little Father, you don't know the roads out here. I do. We'll get there faster if I drive."

"But you do not know our destination," Chiun said triumphantly. "I do."

They walked to the lot in silence. Since Chiun had told Remo that he knew where to find Mr. Gordons, he had refused to say any more. He had asked Harold Smith to book a flight for Los Angeles and went off to change his clothes. Remo was surprised when he returned, not in a gaudy American suit, but wearing a brocaded kimono that Remo estimated weighed close to twenty pounds. The Master of Sinanju had explained that the matter between Sinanju and Gordons was a matter of honor and required ceremonial attire, and that he was not renouncing American dress, despite what Remo might think. He had also suggested that Remo dress more appropriately. Remo had changed his socks.

When they neared the rental car, Remo darted ahead and slipped behind the wheel. He grabbed it in both hands and clung for dear life.

"You are not driving," said the Master of Sinanjn testily. "I am. I purchased the use of this conveyance with my wondrous card and I insist upon driving."

"It's a credit card and everyone has one," cried Remo.

"Not like mine. Mine is gold, and merchants do not burden me with requests for money when I use it."

Remo, who had tried repeatedly to explain how credit cards really worked, and failed, sighed and said, "I'm driving. Just tell me where I'm going."

The Master of Sinanju stamped a sandaled foot. "If you do not step out this instant I will have you arrested." He made a show of looking around for a policeman.

"Tell you what, Little Father," Remo said lightly. "Let me drive down so you get to know the roads and I'll let you drive us back. Fair enough?"

"I wish to drive both ways," Chiun said stubbornly. "Sometimes the roads are not the same in both directions."

"Look, if I drive, you can concentrate on navigation. Anna told me you were a wonderful driver, but needed more navigation practice."

"She said that?" asked Chiun.

"Absolutely," lied Remo.

"I take back every bad thing I said about her," said Chiun, stepping around to the passenger side. "Where to?" asked Remo when Chiun settled into the passenger side.

"I will not tell you. I wish it to be a surprise."

"Then how am I going to get there?"

"Give me a map and I will inform you of each step."

"Oh, for crying out loud," Remo sighed, reaching into the glove compartment and pulling out a folded road map. "Here."

The Master of Sinanju delicately unfolded the map and studied it for some moments, tracing several routes with a long-nailed finger. Remo tried to peer over the edge of the map, and Chiun shifted in his seat so that his back was to Remo.

Remo folded his arms and looked bored. Finally Chiun said, "Leave this parking area."

Remo sent the car out of the lot and asked, Now what?"

"Left."

"This will go a lot smoother if I'm not working from connect-the-dots directions," Remo complained. "Could you possibly see fit to give a town to aim for? Please."

"Very well," said Chiun petulantly. "We are going first to Inglewood."

Remo fought the traffic along Manchester Boulevard until they hit Inglewood, and asked, "Now?"

"Follow this same road south."

Remo drove until the road took him to Firestone Boulevard and finally linked up with the Santa Ana Freeway. It was only ten in the morning and traffic was just a step away from being gridlocked.

"I do not know why you did not wish me to drive," said Chiun, his eyes peeled for cars decorated with fuzzy dice. "We are spending most of our time standing still."

Because he was in no mood for an argument, Remo asked about something that had been bothering him. "When Smith gave that credit card to you, what exactly did he say?"

"He said I was responsible for it."

"Responsible. That was the word he used?"

"Exactly. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, nothing," said Remo. "By the way, have you been getting a lot of strange mail lately?"

"Some. All junk. I throw it out unread."

"I see," said Remo.

"Why did you ask that question?" Chiun wanted to know.

"Oh, no reason. Just to kill time."

The traffic got worse the further south they traveled. When they entered the town limits of Anaheim, it was almost at a standstill.

"This next exit," said Chiun at the last possible minute. Remo sent the car sliding off the ramp with a screech of tires.

"A little more warning next time, huh?" he said.

"We are almost there."

"Where?" But Remo knew where almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth. He braked the car. "Oh, no," he said, looking at the huge sign gracing the entrance to a sprawling parking area: DISNEYLAND.

"Oh, yes," said the Master of Sinanju proudly. Grimly Remo drove into the lot and parked the car. With Chiun trailing behind him, he strode to the row of ticket booths. A digital sign for keeping track of admissions stood off to one side. The current number was 257,998,677.

Remo groaned.

"Do you not agree with me that this is where Gordons has come?" Chiun said.

"Yeah, Little Father, I do," Remo said hoarsely. He was thinking of the numbers of people who passed through the gates of Disneyland every day. He could remember reading that more than three million people had visited Disneyland since opening day. That meant thousands each year. And every one of them potential victims of Mr. Gordons' microwave sterilization plan.

Remo walked up to one of the booths. The ticket girl practically hugged him.

"Oh goody, a customer!" she squealed delightedly.

"Why the surprise?" asked Remo. "Don't you get hundreds of people here every day?"

"Look around. Do you see any hundreds of people?" Remo looked around. There were only the other ticket takers, looking at Remo with longing expressions. He looked back at the parking area. Except for Remo's car, it, too, was empty. In the background the famous Disneyland monorail scooted along its raised track, every car vacant.

"Where are all the people?" Remo asked.

"We haven't had any ever since that other place opened up," the ticket girl confided.

"What other place?" asked Remo.

"Don't tell him," the other ticket takers hissed.

"Too late," said Remo. "Tell me."

"Larryland. It's down in Santa Ana. It sprang up practically overnight, and ever since it did, people have been going there instead of here."

"So what? They'll come back when the novelty wears off. "

"Not this novelty. Larryland gives free admission."

"Did you say free?" asked Chiun, who had been looking in vain for Mickey Mouse.

"Yeah. And it's twice the size of this place. That will be thirteen dollars for two adult admissions, please," she added.

Remo ignored her and turned to Chiun. "Little Father, I think you were wrong."

"But not far wrong," Chiun insisted. "I think we should venture to this upstart Larryland. After we have visited Frontierland, that is. I have always wanted to see Frontierland."

"Frontierland was dismantled years ago, Little Father," Remo said gently.

Chiun sucked in his cheeks with disappointment. "No!" he gasped.

"I'm afraid so."

Chiun brushed past Remo and accosted the ticket girl.

"Frontierland. It is no more?"

"Long gone," said the girl.

"Do you have any more of the fur caps with the long tails?"

"Davy Crockett hats are collector's items now. You can't get them anymore."

Chiun turned on Remo. "You should have brought me here sooner," he said, and stormed off to the car.

"This was your idea, remember?" Remo shouted. Then he ran after the Master of Sinanju in case Chiun decided that his only solace after this grievous disappointment would be to get behind the wheel of an automobile.

"Does this mean you're not coming in after all?" the ticket girl called after them.

Colonel Rshat Kirlov had always dreamed of one day visiting the United States of America. He never imagined he would cross the border walking on his hands and knees, leading soldiers who crawled like dogs.

At thirty-seven years of age, Colonel Kirlov was a squat bull of a man whose swarthy skin betrayed a hint of Tatar blood. His black hair was as coarse as horsehair. He would never pass for an American, but he could pass for a Mexican peasant, which was why he had been selected for this mission.

Mexicans would not mistake him for one of their own, however. That was why Colonel Rshat Kirlov kept his distance from the occasional real migrant worker as he led ten handpicked soldiers, mostly enlistees from the Asiatic republics of Uzbekistan and Tashkent, across the desert on their hands and knees. They were dressed in the Mexican peasant clothes which had been provided to them at the embassy in Mexico City, where they had been flown directly from Moscow. They had donned the garments when they got to the dusty border town of Sonoita, to which they had been driven in a rickety bus.

There they had set out on foot for the Arizona border. The embassy had briefed him that the border was not heavily patrolled. Although the American government frowned upon the migrant workers who stole up from Mexico, they also needed them to harvest their fruit crops. Crossing would be comparatively easy, he was assured.

Colonel Kirlov was not a man to take chances. So he had his men drop to their knees and, leading the way, he showed them how to walk on their knees and just the tips of their fingers. The tracks they left would look uncannily like those of a hopping jackrabbit. That was to fool the American border police.

They traveled for three miles in this fashion, with hot desert sand burning their fingertips and windblown sand abrading their faces. Colonel Rshat Kirlov worried that their fingers would be too raw to pull gun triggers when the time came, but inasmuch as he had been forbidden to carry weapons into the United States, it did not seem especially important just then.

When Colonel Kirlov finally gave the order to stand, they were on American soil.

They ambushed a camper van on a lonely road. Kirlov waved his cotton shirt in the face of the oncoming vehicle, and when it slowed, his men leapt from out of the rocks. That they were unarmed made no difference. There was only a middle-aged man and his wife and their dog. They killed all three with bare hands, burying all but the dog by the side of the road. They buried the dog too, but only after they had eaten the meat.

Colonel Kirlov's orders were to reach the town of Vaya Chin, near the Papago Indian Reservation, and wait.

When Anna Chutesov showed up two days later, she took one look at the hijacked camper and said, "Good. You are not as big a fool as I would have expected. We will need this."

Colonel Rshat Kirlov was not used to having a woman talk to him like that. Especially one who was not a KGB officer. He started to raise his voice in protest.

Anna Chutesov slapped him in the face. It was the shock more than the pain that stilled his tongue. Disdainfully the blond woman turned her back on him and addressed his men, who were lined up at attention. "I have brought you all American tourist clothes," she said, tossing bundled packages at their feet. "Go behind those rocks and change while I load your equipment on the vehicle."

When Colonel Kirlov opened his package, he discovered a gaudy Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts. Changing clothes in silence, he felt like a fool. Looking at his men climbing into their new clothes, he knew he looked like one too.

Kirlov sat in the back of the camper during the drive across the desert to the place that Anna Chutesov, breaking a long smoldering silence, told them was California. She kept adjusting a beeping device that sat in her lap. Often she raised it, turning a loop antenna this way or that, and sending the camper in confused circles. Kirlov knew she was homing in on some radio signal. But that was all he knew.

Finally, after many long hours in which the driven blond woman had refused to give any of them a turn at the wheel, they stopped on a great black highway where the traffic was backed up until they could drive no further.

Anna Chutesov stood up.

"We can go no further. The rest of the way we will travel on foot. In twos. You will find your weapons in the overhead compartments."

The men fell on the compartments like thirsty dogs. They had been alone in an enemy land too long without weapons. Weapons would make them feel like men again.

Colonel Kirlov pulled out a stubby Uzi with a folding stock and looked at his men. They, too, had brought forth identical weapons.

"No Kalashnikov rifles?" Kirlov said to no one in particular.

"The Uzi is an excellent field weapon and easily concealed," said Anna Chutesov. "Gather up extra ammunition clips and form your men into pairs. I will direct them on when to exit."

"Where are we going?"

Anna Chutesov pointed out of the windshield, beyond the lines of honking, smoking cars.

Colonel Rshat Kirlov squinted. Not many hundreds of yards away was a great encampment. Towers climbed to the sky. A peculiar wheel turned against the sun, like a cog in a great machine. Flying machines darted like dragonflies.

Colonel Rshat Kirlov nodded. Obviously the place was an important American installation. Probably a space complex, for Kirlov knew of the recent loss of the Yuri Gagarin.

He tried to read the enormous sign over the entrance, but he could translate only the last part of the complex's official title.

He turned to one of his men, whose English was better than his own.

"What means 'Larry'?" he asked. "I do not know the word."

"We are obviously going to that secret American space complex ahead," he whispered to the others. "Do any of you know what that word on the great sign means?"

The men took turns squinting at the large sign.

But none of them could translate the peculiar name Larryland into proper Russian. And the cold Anna Chutesov refused to enlighten them.

Chapter 18

Larry Lepper was lord and master of all he surveyed. Standing on the top of a fairyland minaret, he enjoyed the spectacular panorama that was Larryland. From the main gate, where the crowds streamed in through the opening in the shape of Buster Bear's smiling mouth, to the hundred-foot statues of Squirrel Girl, Magic Mouse, and other Larry Lepper creations, he owned it all. Children played in the plastic-cobbled streets. Their shrieks of joy radiated from the Room of the Creepers, laughter welled up from the Hologram House, and the smells of popcorn, cotton candy, and fried dough wafted into the dry heat of the southern California afternoon.

Larry had it all. No more slaving away at a drawing board. Never again would he have to work for the likes of Bill Banana or draw another robot. In fact, producers were banging at the door to option his characters. Larry had always assumed that he would achieve his dream the other way around-get the characters on the air first and hope they led to a theme park. But it had come true the easy way.

And best of all, it had happened overnight.

Larry had led the strange Mr. Gordons to the site, a deserted theme park that had gone bankrupt trying to compete with Disneyland.

"Can you do something with this?" Larry had asked. It was night. Mr. Gordons simply walked through the chain-link fence, cutting a hole large enough to pass through with fingers like wire cutters. He walked over to the deserted Ferris wheel and into the control booth. Not through the door, but literally into the wall. Larry had blinked, and the wall had seemed to absorb Gordons.

Larry had felt a trembling in the ground, and suddenly, like the color filling the screen in The Wizard of Oz, the park came to life. Larry rushed in like a child.

He had spent the first evening overseeing adjustments. He had only to ask the Ferris wheel to change and it became the Squirrel Girl ride, complete with colorful images of Squirrel Girl on each hub.

When the last attraction, the sprawling Moon Walk, had been modified, Larry was satisfied.

"We'll make millions," he cried. "What should I charge for admission?"

"Nothing," said the voice of Mr. Gordons, which this time came from the Moon Walk entrance, which Gordons had designed so that no one could leave the park without enjoying it.

"Nothing? How will I make money?"

"You will make money on the concessions," said Mr. Gordons. "But it is important that large numbers of people pass through Larryland."

"Larryland? I was going to call it Lepperland."

"Lepperland has an unfortunate connotation," pointed out Mr. Gordons, whose voice now crackled from the Buster Bear statue as Larry made his rounds. Larry quickly got used to the voice coming from different places. He had worked in a fantasy world so long that nothing surprised him. Not even the fact that the entire park was a thinking android.

"I had my heart set on Lepperland," he complained. "Names are important. I learned this in my last occupation. "

"What was that?" Larry asked, curious. "I was a car wash."

"You mean, you worked in a car wash."

"No," said Mr. Cordons. "I was the car wash."

"Oh."

And because Mr. Gordons had provided Larry Lepper with his dream, Larry had not complained or objected. He had rushed out to place ads in the newspapers so that when the first rush of families came, he was all set to greet them in his Buster Bear suit.

That had been just one hectic day before. Now Larry was taking a break from being Buster Bear and enjoying the view from his private tower.

"Ah, what could possibly go wrong now?" Larry said aloud.

The voice of Mr. Gordons came from the air-conditioning vent. "There is trouble in Larryland, Larry Lepper," it said.

"What trouble?" Larry asked, bringing his face close to the vent.

"Several men are coming in through the entrance, carrying automatic weapons."

Larry looked down. Lines of cars stretched out from the parking lot like beetles on a conveyor belt. Cars honked impatiently. And across the tops of a string of vehicles stomped several men in gaudy tourist clothes.

They pushed their way through the crowd. They carried beach towels and Larry didn't have to guess as to what the towels concealed. He knew from the two-handed way the towels were carried, one hand under and the other on top, holding the towels in place.

"What do I do?" demanded Larry Lepper.

"Find out what they want. It is imperative that there be no disruption in the functioning of this theme park."

"My thinking exactly," said Larry Lepper resolutely. Larry Lepper donned his oversize Buster Bear head and waddled down the winding steps, his heart in his mouth. He wondered if the Mafia had come to demand a piece of the Larryland action.

Anna Chutesov was surrounded.

She stood in a sea of children, trying to isolate the radio transmission. It was important that she stay in one place long enough to get one leg of the signal. The children milled around her and it only made her acutely aware of the horror that was masked under the harlequin name of Larryland. How many of them, she wondered, would never develop into puberty because of this innocent day in the sun?

When a little girl skipped by, bumping Anna's head with a Buster Bear balloon, Anna turned on her with the fury born of frustration.

"Go away!" she hissed. "Can you not see that I am doing something important?"

The little girl stopped, looked stunned, and rushed off crying, "Mommy, Mommy."

Anna Chutesov returned to her radio locator, biting her lip. Every moment she was delayed finding the Sword of Damocles, more parents, more children, would be exposed to its microwaves. Somewhere, Anna knew, the satellite was doing its insidious work. But where? Which of these rides was stripping those who walked through it of the ability to bear children?

Anna got her first fix, and locking it into the optical viewer, started for the other end of the park.

She didn't get there. She dropped the locator, breaking it. She was looking at the object of her search.

It was a great palace of crystal and chrome. The neon sign in front said MOON WALK. It was the largest building in the park and set near the back. It had the biggest lines, which snaked around a series of posts and lines designed to keep the crowds in place. It was also the only exit from Larryland.

"How diabolical," Anna Chutesov said, hush-voiced. "In order for the people to leave, they must go through the Moon Walk. It is there that I will find what I seek."

Anna found Rshat Kirlov at an ice-cream stand trying to balance a double-scooped pistachio-nut cone. "Fool," she said, knocking the cone from his hand.

"I was hungry," Colonel Rshat Kirlov whined.

"Never mind. I think I have found the object of my search."

"I will have my men assemble for the assault."

"Let us pray such a moronic measure will be unnecessary," Anna said. "Deploy your men around the attraction called the Moon Walk. Do not-repeat, do not-let them enter. I am going inside. Alone. If I do not return at the end of twenty minutes, you will send in your two best men. Tell them they are to look for what appears to be a satellite. They are not to be fooled by appearances of frivolity. If they see such an object, they are to destroy it at all costs. If the first pair do not return, send in the next, and so on until success."

"I understand."

"No, you do not. You are taking orders and you are obeying them. Understanding is not your function."

"What happens, Comrade Chutesov, if none of my men return from this place?"

"You will go to the Soviet consulate in the city of Los Angeles. It is the large city to the north. Tell them that the Sword is inside that building."

"The sword?"

"The Sword," repeated Anna Chutesov. "Now, instruct your men. The twenty minutes begin when you see me walk through the entrance to the Moon Walk attraction. "

Anna Chutesov did not get into the long line leading to the Moon Walk. There was no time. Every delay would sterilize that many more people walking through the building. She struggled through the crowd and hopped a low concrete obstruction until she was near the head of the line. She stepped ahead of the first in line, a family of four. She wanted to warn them, but who would believe her?

Anna did not argue with the teenage boy who controlled the doors. She smiled glassily, and while the boy sputtered something about not breaking in line, Anna led him around to the side wall and squeezed his neck until he lay dead. She wished she did not have to kill him, but it was his life against that of thousands of unborn generations. Without an operator, no one could enter the Moon Walk until Anna Chutesov had neutralized its evil function.

"I smell Russians," said the Master of Sinanju.

Remo Williams paused. They had just made their way past the Buster Bear entrance gate. The crowds seemed too packed to allow passage, but Chiun told Remo to follow his lead.

The crowd probably never understood why they parted before the tiny Oriental in the white brocade kimono. Some felt an itch and moved aside to scratch it. Others felt pressure against their backs, but when they looked back, they saw nothing.

Thus it had gone until Remo had discovered himself deep within the gaiety of Larryland.

He sniffed the air. "Yeah. I smell them too," he said. Long ago, the Master of Sinanju had taught him that all people gave off distinctive odors, a mixture of body chemistry and diet. Although all these personal odors were unique, they could be categorized according to dietary influences. There was the distinctive curry-spice aroma of the East Indian, the hamburger smell of the American, and so on. Russians usually smelled of black bread and potato soup.

"There," said Chiun, pointing.

Remo saw two men in Hawaiian shirts standing about uncomfortably, towels held at hip level.

"Think they have guns?" Remo asked.

"They will need them. They reek of suspicion."

"Anna must have beat us to the punch, Little Father."

"Perhaps," said the Master of Sinanju distantly. He was not watching the Russians. He was scanning the park, looking for the most probable hiding place of the Sword of Damocles. He dismissed the tallest structure-a large tower-because he sensed no energy emanating from it. The Squirrel Girl wheel was too open. There was no place amid its skeletal works to conceal a spherical object. That left the walk-in attractions.

"I don't see Anna, but I count ten Russians, all armed, hanging around the Moon Walk," Remo said. "What do you suppose that means?"

The Master of Sinanju turned his attention on the Moon Walk. The attraction had the longest line, meaning that it was the most popular. It was also surrounded, as Remo had pointed out, by Russian agents.

Chiun faced Remo and looked him in the eye. "Listen to me, Remo, for this is important," he said.

"I'm listening," said Remo, watching the Russians out of the corner of his eye.

"Then listen with your eyes too," snapped Chiun, clapping his hands so sharply that nearby pigeons took wing.

"Okay, okay."

"I have lost something important to me," Chiun scolded. "I will not lose you too."

"I can handle whatever comes," Remo said.

"Nor will I countenance your losing your seed. Someday you will have need of it, when the time comes to train the next Master after you. Look around you, Remo. Look at these people. Look at the husbands and wives and the precious little children."

Remo looked. Everywhere, he saw joy. A father picked up a small boy so he could better see a greeter dressed as Magic Mouse juggling white balls. Twin brothers took turns eating from the same cotton-candy cone, their mouths pink and sticky. It made Remo wish he was a child all over again.

"What do you see?" asked Chiun.

"I see a lot of people having fun. Makes me wish I was one of them."

"I see children who will never know the joy of a new sibling coming into their lives," intoned the Master of Sinanju. "I see parents who have created life for the final time and do not realize it. I see women who will never enjoy the miracle and wonder of birth. I see fathers who will never again behold their likeness in a baby's face. I see a desert of suffering. Meditate upon that, Remo, my son, and tell me again what you see about you."

Remo looked again.

"I see horror," he said.

"Good, for now you see true. Some of these people may be saved from such a destiny, but you must obey my every command, for there is little time."

"Say the word, Little Father," Remo said resolutely. "I'll do whatever you ask."

The Master of Sinanju nodded. "The Russians look nervous," he said. "They have many guns and there are many innocents about. You will attend to them. Use all your skill, for no bullets must fly."

"They've seen their last sunset. What about you?"

"I will search for the instrument of infertility, and Gordons. Do not follow me, for you must not risk your seed too. That is the most important part."

"I can't let you go up against Gordons alone," Remo protested.

"And I cannot let you become an empty vessel," Chiun retorted. "If you will not do this for me, or for Sinanju, then think of your betrothed, who awaits your return."

"Mah-Li," said Remo.

"Yes, Mah-Li may wish to bear your children, although why is beyond me. Keep Mah-Li in mind, lest you do something foolish. Now attend to the Russians while I search these buildings, beginning with this one. Whatever you do, whatever happens, do not follow me into any of them until I have destroyed the round sword of the Russians."

"Gotcha, Little Father," Remo promised.

And the Master of Sinanju melted into the crowd. Remo tried to follow him with his eyes, but it was impossible to spot his tiny figure moving through the masses of tall American tourists.

Colonel Rshat Kirlov understood his orders. He was to await the return of Anna Chutesov or the passing of twenty minutes. In the meantime, he was to do nothing. While he waited, he wondered why as bold a stroke as the infiltration of America by a crack KGB team would lead to a place such as Larryland. He understood that Larryland was a place like the famous Disneyland, about which he had read. Everyone knew about Disneyland, even in Soviet Russia.

Vaguely he wondered if Anna Chutesov's mission was to steal American theme-park technology. Perhaps there would soon be such places all over Mother Russia. He wondered if they would be called something like Leninland.

A seven-foot polyester bear interrupted his thoughts. "Excuse me," said the bear. "But I must ask you to check your guns at the gate. I'm sure they're not real, but even water pistols are not permitted here. We have a strict no-weapons policy. It's for everybody's safety, naturally."

"Go away," said Rshat Kirlov. "I know nothing of what you are speaking to me about."

"Look, I don't want to have to call the police."

"And I do not want you to call the police," said Colonel Rshat Kirlov, pressing the concealed muzzle of his Uzi machine pistol into the bear's fat paunch.

When Remo Williams gave up looking for the Master of Sinanju, he saw that three of the Russians had surrounded one of the official Larryland greeters, someone in a big bear suit. The trio pressed colorful beach towels against the bear suit, and were forcing the man inside to walk behind the big Moon Walk pavilion.

"Excuse me," Remo said, barging in on them. "But that's a national treasure you're assaulting."

"National-?" began Colonel Rshat Kirlov.

"Absolutely," said Remo. "Don't you recognize Yogi Bear when you see him?"

"Buster," corrected Larry Lepper, inside the suit. "Buster Bear."

"Shut up," said Remo. "Now, as I was saying, this man is a big American media star, and a close personal friend of Smokey the Bear. Why don't you leave him alone?"

"What do you not mind your own business?"

"Okay," said Remo airily. "I asked nice. Didn't you people hear me ask nice?"

"Yes," said Larry Lepper nervously. "I did."

Remo decided that the Russians weren't the problem. Their weapons were. He took the weapons of the two nearest men away from them with a one-handed sweep. The third man, the one who had been speaking and the apparent leader, saw Remo hold up two Uzis in one hand and the covering towels in the other. He hesitated.

The hesitation was momentary. Remo's kick was lightning.

Colonel Rshat Kirlov felt his Uzi leap into the air. Remo caught it coming down. The towel fluttered after it, and Remo got it too.

"Now, watch carefully," Remo said. The Russians watched. So did Lepper, peering through the eyeholes concealed in Buster Bear's smiling mouth.

Remo tucked one of the Uzis under an arm and, with a steel-hard forefinger, proceeded to stuff a beach towel down the weapon's blunt muzzle like a magician loading colored scarves into a hollow wand. He tossed the weapon back at its owner and performed the same operation on the other two machine pistols before returning them.

"Ta-dah," he sang. "Nothing up my sleeves, either."

"What means 'ta-dah'?" asked Colonel Rshat Kirlov, looking at the weapon in his hand. He stared down the muzzle. It was dark. There was obviously no beach towel inside, although to the naked eye it had looked as though the crazy American had stuffed the thick towel into the gun. Colonel Kirlov knew that could not be. The muzzle of an Uzi would barely accommodate a pencil, never mind a very thick towel.

"Are your weapons clear?" he asked the other men. They nodded.

"Then use them."

Remo stood with his arms folded while three trigger fingers depressed three triggers and three hands shattered into raw bone and blood. The men did not have time to scream. They never realized that their guns had backfired and exploded. Remo danced up to each of them and took them out with stiff-fingered strokes to their frontal lobes.

"What happened?" asked Larry Lepper dully. The three men lay on the ground.

"They died," Remo said unconcernedly. He was looking for more Russians. He saw two more, standing like Hawaiian versions of Mafia bodyguards before the Moon Walk pavilion. "Excuse me while I go kill some more."

"Nice meeting you," said Larry Lepper, grateful that he would not have to deal with the armed men.

"Give Smokey my best," Remo called back.

The sound of the exploding Uzis had gone unnoticed in the carnival sounds of Larryland, so the next pair of Russians had no idea that there had been trouble. They stood at attention, oblivious of the crowds swirling around them.

Remo slipped up from behind and took an elbow in each hand. The men felt a sudden irresistible urge to drop their weapons. They did.

Remo scooped up the Uzis and removed the clips. "There," he said. "Now that they're empty, I've got some questions for the two of you." He pointed the weapons at them.

"Excuse me," said one of the Russians. "But you are mistaken."

"I am?" asked Remo. He frowned. "Yes. Those weapons are not empty."

"Nonsense," Remo said. "You saw me take out the clips."

"There is always a round in the chamber. Be so good as to remove those before you wave them like that."

"I think you're thinking of some other weapon," Remo said.

"I am sure I am correct," the Russian said with studied politeness. "I am a soldier."

"Really?" said Remo. And because he resented the presence of Soviet soldiers in an American theme park, he did something he had not done since learning Sinanju. He pressed the trigger.

The complaining Russian folded like a broken board. "What do you know?" Remo said. "He was right, after all. I guess that means there's another round in this gun too." He pointed it at the second Russian's face.

"What do you wish to know?" the Russian asked unhappily.

"For starters, I'd like to know where Anna Chutesov is."

The Russian jerked a thumb at the Moon Walk pavilion, which glittered directly behind him.

"She is there, looking for something. We know not what."

"You just answered my second question," Remo said.

"Is that good?"

"For me, yes. For you, uh-uh," Remo told him, shaking his head sadly.

"You are going to shoot me here?"

"No, I hate guns. Firing that one made me remember why. It's noisy and sloppy, and why should I shoot you when I can do this?" And Remo flipped the gun at the Russian. It struck him square over the heart, stopping it.

"Much better," Remo said, looking around for more Russians.

The Master of Sinanju found himself walking through a long, square tunnel whose walls might have been carved from black obsidian. Starlike lights twinkled behind the smoky glass, giving the illusion of walking through a tunnel of stars. When he emerged at last, he found himself in a spherical white room.

The room was turning like the inside of a basketball rolling down a hill. It was filled with children and adults, laughing and giggling as they tumbled about the slick inner walls.

When the room stopped revolving, an opening appeared on the opposite side, leading deeper into the Moon Walk attraction. The children started for the opening first.

The Master of Sinanju cleared space in a gazellelike leap. He landed, blocking the entrance, his spindly arms raised menacingly.

"Begone!" he said wrathfully.

The children giggled, thinking the Master of Sinanju was part of the attraction.

"Are you a moon man?" one of them asked.

"This place is closed. Begone," Chiun repeated. And when one of the children reached out to touch the brocade of his robe, he slapped him once. Not hard, but sharply enough to get the attention of the others.

"How dare you strike my child!" a woman cried, shoving her way toward the Master of Sinanju. Chiun smacked her too, and spinning her around, sent her off with a firm sandal on the seat of her pants.

"I have closed this place," he said loudly. "Go now, and tell the others that no one may enter henceforth, otherwise they will face the wrath of the Master of Sinanju."

"And you'll face the wrath of my lawyer," the woman shot back. But she led the crying child back toward the entrance. The others followed.

Satisfied that he had prevented a terrible fate from befalling the group, the Master of Sinanju turned to face the next room and pressed on. His face was set.

Anna Chutesov felt the eyes upon her.

She had walked through the Star Tunnel and the Satellite Spin and floated through the Orbit Room to find herself in a great room called the Sargasso of Lost Spaceships. The floor was a web of nylon mesh. Great rusty hulks of derelict spaceships lay all about her. They protruded up from the bouncing mesh flooring, stuck out of the walls, and floated under the ceiling. She brushed at a tiny asteroid that hung before her face, but her hand went through it. She realized it was a three-dimensional image.

The room was burnished with an eerie blue glow. In the semilit portholes of the spaceships, there were dummies of astronauts and aliens, supposedly dead and marooned in space. Their eyes stared, open and seemingly alive.

Anna walked past a dummy in an astronaut suit, picking her way carefully because the web flooring gave with each step like a trampoline, making it seem as if she were actually walking in space. She thought she heard the crinkling sound of a spacesuit flexing.

Anna stopped to listen, but the floor continued to shake.

Anna Chutesov wheeled suddenly, her pistol coming up.

The dummy in the spacesuit clambered to its feet and faced her. Its unblinking blue eyes regarded her blankly.

"Hello is all right," said the voice. The same voice that had called to her from the booth of the Yuri Gagarin Free Car Wash.

"I prefer good-bye," spat Anna Chutesov, and she emptied the clip into the figure's chest.

Chapter 19

Remo Williams had lost count.

There had been ten Russians altogether. He was pretty sure of that number. He had counted them before he had gone to work on them. The trouble was, he had not bothered to count them as he dispatched them.

Remo thought he had gotten all ten. But he wasn't sure. He sat down on a grassy knoll where the legend "Larryland" was spelled out in daisies and cornflowers, and counted them off on his fingers. There had been the first three, whose guns exploded. Then the next two, one of whom he had shot. A bad move. He would never do that again. Remo recalled stuffing one Russian into a trash receptacle. That made five so far. Then there had been the one who had picked up a little boy and tried to use him as a shield when Remo had cornered him. Remo had rescued the boy and fed the Russian to the big gears of the Squirrel Girl ride. That had been a mistake too, because the man had screamed in Russian as the machinery ground up his legs. And that had brought the others running.

That was where it turned complicated.

Did three Russians try to jump him-or was it four? If Remo could remember for certain, it might account for all of them.

Remo had had to run into the crowd, and the Russians followed him, so Remo had to play it carefully. He sneaked up on the first one, crouching low, working the crowd so that the first target noticed nothing. The other Russians saw their comrade suddenly drop from sight. Remo had pulled him to the ground and collapsed his windpipe.

The second Russian disappeared beneath a sea of people in exactly the same way, and Remo, because it had seemed fitting, had made the "duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh" sound that was the theme from jaws as he bore down, unseen, on the third and possibly last guard.

Remo tapped that man's spine, and carried him off to the pile he had made of the others, out of sight behind a cluster of palms.

So was it three or four? Remo couldn't remember. He thought it was four, but he wasn't positive. He wished he had counted. Probably it was four, because he didn't find any more Russians. Maybe the last one had run away.

While he was trying to figure it out, the man in the Buster Bear suit came up to him.

"I think someone's calling you," he said helpfully.

"Where?" Remo asked, coming to his feet. "Where?"

"There," said the bear, pointing.

Remo followed the bear's pointing paw. In a side door to the Moon Walk pavilion, the face of Anna Chutesov had appeared.

"Remo," her urgent voice called out. "Hurry. Chiun needs you."

Remo hesitated only a moment. Chiun had told him to stay outside. But now he was sending the message that he needed help. That decided Remo. He flashed to the door.

Anna Chutesov had already disappeared inside. Remo spotted her at the end of a dim passageway. She looked back and waved him on.

Remo followed, noticing that on either side of the passage, a copper line, like a transistor radio circuit, ran the length of both walls. He wondered why it would be exposed like that, then saw that Anna brushed either line casually as she walked, and he knew the wires must be safe.

"Wait up," he called after her.

"There is no time," she called back. "Hurry."

Remo followed her into a room that was completely dark. His eyes adjusted instantly. He saw Anna Chutesov's dim figure disappear through a door.

Remo stepped through. The next room was full of mellow golden light.

Anna Chutesov stood off to one side. She stood with her fingertips touching the continuous copper line, and Remo noticed that the tips of her fingers, like the wire, were coppery.

"Hello is all right," Anna Chutesov said in the voice of Mr. Gordons.

"You never did learn to talk right, tin man," Remo said. And because he knew that the real Anna Chutesov had to be dead, he started in on Gordons without wasting another moment.

The voice of the Master of Sinanju stopped him. "Remo!" Chiun called. "Go back! Do you hear me? Go back."

Remo, distracted, turned to the sound of his voice. He saw a panorama of a lunar landscape, artificial rock and craters dotting the floor. From the ground, stalagmites rose like spiny needles, and over his head stars twinkled against a glassy black sky and planets loomed gigantically.

In the middle of the ceiling hung the planet Saturn, a silvery ball crowned by a yellow ring.

And immediately below Saturn, clinging to a needle of stone and clawing like a cat for the ringed planet, was the Master of Sinanju.

"Chiun! You okay?" Remo called.

"I hear disappointment shouting in a loud voice, asking me if I am okay," Chiun said angrily. "I am not okay. I am risking my life to protect an idiot. Go! Save your seed."

Before Remo could answer, his vision exploded in a starburst of pain.

Gordons had struck the first blow.

Remo stepped back, weaved to avoid a second, killing blow, and steeled himself. He knew he was facing Mr. Gordons, his old enemy. But Mr. Gordons looked exactly like Anna Chutesov. That would make it harder.

"Remo. Go this instant!" Chiun cried, his cheeks puffing out with rage. "I will handle this."

"After I settle this little score," Remo said. He lunged for Gordons' chest. The blow sent sparks flying, but Mr. Gordons remained on his feet. The android clutched at the wall for support, feeling the copper wire, then came on.

Remo knew from past experience that the element containing Gordons' intelligence, the nearly indestructible control circuits, were not always located in the same part of his mechanical body. They could be hidden in the android's head, throat, elbow-even in his little finger. Stopping Gordons meant locating and immobilizing that motivating element.

Remo decided not to waste time.

"I'm going to show you a new game," he said. "It's called process of elimination."

He jumped back, bounced off the wall, and kicked against Gordons' chest with both feet. Gordons fell. Remo landed on top of him. He took off the android's right arm with a vicious chop. Gordons, squealing like a tape recorder, swept Remo aside with the other arm.

"Nope, it's not in that arm," Remo said, getting back his legs.

"Remo! Go!" Chiun called in anguish. He was at the tip of the stone needle, within reach of the planet Saturn, which Remo understood was the Sword of Damocles satellite in disguise.

The needle slowly sank into the floor, taking Chiun with it. The Master of Sinanju leapt to another needle as the artificial planet began to revolve in Remo's direction. Its bottom dropped open to reveal its toothlike microwave emitters.

"Remo, it is pointing at you!" Chiun cried. "Run now. We will fight this creature another day."

"Nothing doing," said Remo. "He got Anna. And I'm going to get him."

"I did not want to fight you," Mr. Gordons said. "I would have been content to outlive you, knowing that the House of Sinanju ended with you."

"There isn't room for both of us on this planet," said Remo.

"I will remember your words when I watch the last human being die," said Mr. Gordons, raising his remaining fist.

Remo ducked under Gordons' balled fist, and bobbed up behind him. He batted Gordons' head off. It flew to the other side of the room like a puppet whose string had been jerked.

"Nope. Not in the head either," said Remo.

Mr. Gordons staggered around in circles until he bumped into the wall. He groped for the copper line. When he found it, his jerky movements straightened.

Remo, unaware that the Sword of Damocles' emitters were zeroing in on him, moved in for the kill.

The Master of Sinanju felt his fingernails scratch the Sword of Damocles. The touch was brief. Then, once again, the stalagmite on which he stood retracted into the moonscape floor.

He leapt to the floor, where he swiftly considered the situation. He could rush to Remo's side and pull him from the room and possibly save him from Gordons' mad attack. But that would still leave the hellish device. It would burn the vitality from his pupil's loins before he crossed the room. The Master of Sinanju hesitated.

Then he noticed an object at his feet. It looked like the head of Anna Chutesov, but its neck ended in a cluster of wires and optical fibers.

The Master of Sinanju swept the head up by its blond hair and sent it flying. He had made his decision. Remo waited for the next blow. When it came, he moved back from it, taking Gordons' remaining wrist in a two-handed grip. He pulled, turning the momentum of the android's thrust against him in a throw that was too perfect to be mere judo. It was Sinanju.

Gordons went flying. His hand came off at the wrist. Mr. Gordons staggered toward the wall, toward the copper wire that ran around the room.

Remo stepped in ahead of the jerking automaton and yanked a length of the copper filament from the wall, breaking the circuit.

The body of Mr. Gordons collapsed in a heap. "Yep," Remo said, pleased with himself. "It was in the left hand this time."

"And you are out of your mind," said the Master of Sinanju angrily, joining him.

Remo turned. "I'm sorry I disobeyed your instructions, Little Father. He made himself look like Anna and said you needed me."

"And you believed him!"

"I didn't stop to think. I just knew that you needed me."

"I need an intelligent pupil, that is what I need," sputtered the Master of Sinanju. "One who has sense enough to obey the wards that come from my lips, not the trickery of an impostor."

"Is that the thanks I get for stopping Gordons?"

"Pah! You did not stop him. I stopped him. Look." Remo saw that the Sword of Damocles satellite was lying in an artificial crater. It was shattered like a dropped Christmas-tree ornament. The head that resembled Anna Chutesov lay to one side, staring glassily through hair that Remo knew had belonged to the real Anna Chutesov. He turned away from the sight.

"You stopped the satellite," said Remo. "I stopped Gordons."

"When I destroyed the round sword, the machine man collapsed. His thinking parts must have been concealed inside."

"No, it was in his hand," Remo insisted. "He dropped in his tracks when I pulled off the hand."

"No," Chiun said firmly. "I saw him stagger for some moments after that. He sought the copper line, which was the connection to his brain. See? The copper line leads to the ceiling and to the hanging cable."

Remo looked. Sure enough, the filament traced along the ceiling and ran into the suspension cable from which the Sword of Damocles had hung.

"No, no," said Remo. "You don't understand electronics. He probably controlled the satellite through the wire."

"No, the satellite controlled him. That was why he kept touching the wire. Gordons had learned from his past mistakes. He knew that you would seek to destroy him in combat by wrecking his thinking parts. So he sent a false version of himself to do his fighting, operated by removed control."

"Remote control," Remo corrected.

"Then you accept my theory."

Remo threw up his hands. "Does it matter? One of us got him. It's over."

"It does matter," snapped Chiun. "I got him. The glory is mine. And I would appreciate it if you kept your white mouth shut when I report my great victory to the grateful Emperor Smith."

"Whatever you say, Little Father," Remo said wearily. The Army Corps of Engineers set off the last explosive charge, sending a smoking pile of debris quaking into the air.

"Well, that's the end of Larryland," said Remo.

He watched the mushrooming cloud of dirt and debris slowly lift, pause, then collapse in on itself.

"And of the evil creature Gordons," added the Master of Sinanju. "Thanks to me."

"Are you going to start that again?" sighed Remo.

"Start what?" asked Dr. Harold W. Smith. He had flown in from New York to personally oversee the operation. The Army thought he was a civilian attached to the Environmental Protection Agency.

"Never mind," said Remo. "A family quarrel. It's a shame to destroy Larryland so soon. I never got to go on any of the rides."

"Larryland was Mr. Gordons," said Smith. "He had assimilated the entire park. That's why we're having it pulverized. You'll recall that as long as any functioning piece of Gordons remains intact, he's capable of reconstructing himself."

"Chiun and I smashed every particle of Mr. Gordons' body," Remo assured him.

"No," said the Master of Sinanju stubbornly. "Remo wasted his time dismembering a dummy. I obliterated the round sword of the Russians, which truly contained Gordons' wicked brain."

"In any case," Smith went on, "destroying Larryland should put a period to this whole affair."

"Not to mention making certain that Gordons won't ever come back again," Remo added.

"I think we can be assured of that this time," said Smith, watching the dust settle over Larryland.

"What are you telling the Russians?" Remo asked him.

"Almost nothing. A low-level Soviet delegation is on its way to New York to take possession of the Yuri Gagarin and the bodies of its crew. The latter are in sealed caskets, of course."

"I'd love to see the looks on their faces when you present them with the keys to a car wash." Remo chuckled.

Smith ventured a rare smile. "I would too. But I don't think they're going to ask any questions. Not about the Sword of Damocles. They will assume that we have it. That knowledge alone will inhibit them from deploying another."

"What about the guy who owned Larryland?"

"He's undergoing extensive questioning. But I'm satisfied that his story of being a dupe is genuine."

"What will happen to him?"

"No charges will be filed," Smith said. "But I imagine there will be lawsuits once the first symptoms of sterilization show up in the general population. Fortunately, they will be few in number. We've already put out the word that Larryland had to be destroyed because it was built on a toxic-waste site. That should take care of the explanations. What Larry Lepper says in his defense is his problem. But it's doubtful that he will tell the truth. No one would ever believe him."

"Did they find Anna's body?" Remo asked quietly.

"What there was of it that Gordons hadn't assimilated," Smith said grimly. "Along with the KGB team, she will be buried in an anonymous grave. Officially, we don't know what happened to any of them. I doubt that the Soviets will be asking about their whereabouts."

"Anna was a good person."

"She was a valuable ally," Smith admitted. "But she was also a security problem for us. It would have come down to her death sooner or later."

"That's the biz, I guess," Remo said sadly. "I won't forget her soon."

"And I hope that Emperor Smith will not forget that it was his humble servant who finally dispatched Mr. Gordons," Chiun injected. "I would have accomplished this task many years ago, but I was formerly hampered by having to train an unruly pupil at the same time. Now that I am working for the emperor alone, I had no trouble with him."

"I still say the brain was in the hand," Remo mumbled.

"You would," sniffed Chiun.

"All that matters is that Gordons is gone for good," said Smith.

"Amen," added Remo, taking a last look at Larryland.

Epilogue

High over the settling dust that was Larryland, a cracked metallic element reached the apex of its climb. It was beginning the rapid descent to earth when a high wind caught it and sent it tumbling through the clouds. It glittered under the sun, helpless, aimless, and useless.

It would have eventually fallen back to earth to dash itself to pieces on the ground if the jet plane had not come along.

The tiny element was sucked into the port engine. In the cockpit, the pilot saw the trouble light that warned him the port engine had flamed out.

"Oh, God," he said. Frantically he killed the switch and initiated restarting procedures.

The engine kicked in on the third throw of the switch. "Whew!" breathed the pilot. "That was almost the last call."

"Definitely," said the co-pilot. "I wouldn't want to make an emergency landing way out here. Not with the Man himself on board."

"Odd, I thought I felt the controls move by themselves," said the pilot.

"Nerves," said the copilot dismissively.

"Probably," agreed the pilot, gripping the controls more tightly. The momentary resistance seemed to go away. Laughing self-consciously, the pilot radioed for landing instructions.

"This is Air Force One," he told the tower, "requesting permission to land. Over."