"The Trotsky Brigade," his aide said. "I have tried to raise them, but I cannot."
The American voice broke in again.
"Okay, so it is a trap. But there's only two of us. What's the matter, you chicken or something?" Zhirinsky frowned as the radio speaker began to emit clucking sounds. "What is 'chicken'?" he asked his aide.
The young man shrugged nervously.
Zhirinsky's brow grew heavy. "It sounds like he is mocking me," he said with low menace.
The voice on the radio stopped clucking. "Hey, Chiun, how do you say stupid in Russian?" Another voice chimed in from the background. "Tupitsa."
"Zhirinsky's a tupitsa-ass," taunted the first man. In his office the ultranationalist's eyes nearly launched from their sockets. "He is mocking me," he gasped.
A raspberry issued from the speaker.
Ropy knots of rage tightened in Zhirinsky's neck. "Send all of the Institute men to their location! Whoever they are, I want them dead. Where is Skachkov? Where is that spineless assistant of mine, Kerbabaev?" Spittle flew from his spluttering lips.
"I will check," his aide said, scurrying from the room.
On the radio the voice had begun singing the "Star Spangled Banner."
Eyes furious, Zhirinsky snatched up the microphone. Blue veins bulged on his pale forehead. "Who are you?" he bellowed.
"The spirit of America," replied the hateful voice, "here to tell you that the only good xenophobe is an American xenophobe. Now, you wanna hurry up and kill us already? I've got a prophecy to hammer out and some overdue videos to bring back to the Juneau Blockbuster."
With a sharp crackle the radio went dead. Zhirinsky's address to the Russian people was forgotten. His ascension to power, the new Soviet Union, the turmoil back home-all faded into a chorus of nothing. His focus was now aimed entirely at this detestable American who would dare mock Vladimir Zhirinsky.
"I will show you who is poultry!" the ultranationalist raged. Grabbing the radio, he heaved it against the wall. Like Zhirinsky's sanity, it shattered into a hundred pieces.
Chapter 33
The first truck slowed to a stop on the cold Fairbanks street at 10:17 p.m.
From a darkened second-story window in the chamber of commerce building, Remo watched eight Russians with rifles disembark. Each wore a white face mask and goggles.
"They must only own one party dress," Remo commented.
Chiun sat in a lotus position on the floor, his hands resting lightly on his knees. "If I know my Russians, their government took their spare kimonos to give to those who didn't have kimonos and then traded them to Iraq for oil," he said dully. "Do any of them look like the false Master?"
"Tough to say," Remo replied as he watched the men outside. "With those masks I can't see if they fit the description Anna gave. So far they look like the same klutzes we've already met."
A yellow school bus pulled up. From the front and rear doors, thirty more soldiers climbed stealthily down to the dark street. Behind the bus, a few more large trucks unloaded even more men.
"Looks like the last of them," Remo said as the men grouped in the street.
The Master of Sinanju rose silently from the office floor, sliding in beside Remo at the window. Slender nails split the miniblinds wider.
The Russians were fanning out around the building. Some had already slipped around back. They kept to the shadows, joining with the darkness.
To Remo and Chiun's keen eyes, they might as well have had a hundred searchlights trained on each of them.
"This really burns me, Little Father," Remo said softly. "They don't deserve Sinanju. Not even a hint of it."
Chiun's weathered face was hard. "So it was with the others who stole from the House through the years," he intoned. "They are all dancers and board breakers who have appropriated but a reflected ray of the Sun Source. Unlike the other times in our history, we have an opportunity here to eliminate every practitioner of this illegitimate art."
"Hmm," Remo said absently.
The soldiers approached from all around. On the street they moved toward the front. Those around back had to be closing in by now. A creak came from above, followed by soft footfalls.
"Looks like the gang's all here," Remo said, turning from the window. "You wanna go front, back or roof?"
Chiun's keen ears filtered the many thudding heartbeats that were converging on the three-story building. Only a few came from above.
"The roof," he said firmly, his hand snaking from the blinds. The metal slats closed soundlessly.
Side by side, the two men ducked out the door. Dark specters, they slid through the elongated shadows of the hallway. The stairwell brought them up to the roof-access door. At the steel door Remo paused.
Eight heartbeats came from beyond. Two were just outside the closed door.
As Remo waited, he felt a fingernail press his lower back.
"Go," Chiun breathed impatiently. Remo held up a staying hand.
On the other side of the door, the handle rattled. A scuffed foot sounded on the roof.
Remo made a disgusted face. "Purcell's gotta be the crappiest teacher in town," he whispered. In punctuation he slapped the flat of his palm against the door's surface.
The steel door sprang open, sweeping into the two men who stood just beyond it and carrying them around to the wall. With a horrid crunch of bone, the two startled Russians were crushed between door and wall.
The remaining six men who were creeping across the roof saw barely a flash of movement from the door before Remo and Chiun exploded through the opening.
Remo took the ones on the left, Chiun the three to the right.
The Master of Sinanju's flashing nails formed gills of spurting blood in the throats of his three commandos. As they fell to their knees, clutching necks, three pulverizing heel strikes to the forehead launched Russian bone shards deep into Russian brains.
Beside the old man Remo grabbed a commando head in each hand. He snapped them together, the head of the third soldier in between. Skulls cracked and commandos dropped.
All six soldiers formed a tangled pile of limbs on the dark roof.
"Count?" Remo asked, spinning to Chiun. "Seventy-three," the old man replied.
He tipped his head, reconsidering.
Whirling, the Master of Sinanju's outstretched toe caught the chin of a commando just peeking over the roof's edge. The man's head came loose in precisely the way heads weren't supposed to. The head bounced to the neighboring roof, rolling to a stop near an air vent. The body plummeted to the dark alley below. The wizened Korean turned a bland eye to his pupil. "Seventy-two," he amended.
Remo heard the headless body thud to earth. Hushed voices called urgently to one another far below.
"Say, Chiun, I've got a game for you," Remo said. "Ever play lawn darts?"
Chiun stroked his thin beard. "I do not believe I am familiar with it."
"You're gonna love it," Remo assured him. "It's right up your alley. Or down, as the case may be."
Remo quickly gathered the eight rifles that had been dropped by the Russians. Bringing them to the edge of the roof, he leaned seven on the ledge, keeping one in his hand.
"The object is to use a dart," Remo said, holding out a gun, "to hit your target. Permit me to demonstrate."
Raising the rifle like a spear, he leaned over the edge of the roof. With a crack the gun rocketed from his fingers, disappearing down into the dark alley.
Leaning on the ledge, both men watched the rifle scream into the head of an Institute soldier who was standing among the group that encircled the decapitated body.
The flying barrel buried deep into skull and torso. By the time it stopped burrowing, the soldier looked as if he'd sprouted a gun-butt dorsal fin.
"See?" Remo said, smiling at Chiun as the other commandos began firing in a blind panic up at the roof. "Lawn darts is more of a suburbs thing. I had stickball and kick-the-can growing up. But there's really nothing to it."