Anna almost laughed in his face. The poor fool still didn't understand.
"I will go alone. Skachkov might still listen to me. Where he goes, the others will follow."
Across the crumbling tarmac, Anna's helicopter pilot saw her on the ladder. The wobbling rotors of the Kamov spluttered to life.
"And if he does not listen to reason?"
"Then, Mr. President, we are in real trouble," Anna said somberly. "For the only two men who might be able to stop him will want an explanation, and they will not stop until they get one. And they, unlike Skachkov, have never had any particular loyalty to Russia, its politicians or its spies."
Her final word delivered, Anna began to descend. The president quickly disappeared inside the plane. Anna had barely reached the ground before the ladder was being pulled back inside. The ladder vanished and the door thudded shut. The plane began to taxi almost immediately.
As Anna ran toward her waiting helicopter, the Ilyushin's engines whined in pain and the four big turboprops began to drag the plane slowly forward. Accelerating rapidly, it reached the end of the runway by the time she made it to her helicopter. Engines screaming, it was pulling into the air as she climbed aboard the Kamov. A thin stream of white smoke trailed the presidential plane into the cold sky. Anna's helicopter rose from the battered runway a moment later. As the Ilyushin banked toward Moscow, the helicopter turned east.
A military flight in Tambov would bring her as far across Russian Asia as the Kamchatka Peninsula. Another Kamov would be waiting for her there.
Settling back in her seat, Anna Chutesov pulled off her hood and stuffed her hands in the pockets of her heavy coat.
The three Russian politicians had been given the illusion of safety. Anna Chutesov had no such illusions.
She was flying into the grinning teeth of Death himself. And though she had cheated him before, she had her doubts that she could succeed this time. After all, if she was right, this time Death would come to Anna Chutesov wearing a familiar face.
She closed her eyes. Despite the din of the rotor blades, Anna quickly fell asleep. For the time being, there was nothing else for her to do.
Chapter 14
Instead of offering an igloo control tower and a terminal staffed by walruses and polar bears, the Fairbanks Airport proved to be as modern as any Remo had ever visited.
Outside, the climate left a lot to be desired.
"It's kind of chilly," he commented as he and Chiun walked through the parking lot to pick up their rented Jeep. "I think we might be underdressed."
The cold wind made the hair on Remo's bare arms stand on end. He looked down at his flimsy cotton T-shirt and tan chinos. His pants flapped in the subzero wind.
The Master of Sinanju nodded agreement. "Our current attire would be sufficient for a short trip," he said. "However, we do not know how long this will take. We should plan for an extended stay."
They were at their rental car. Remo popped the locks with a button on the key chain.
"Got you covered," Remo said as they climbed inside the Jeep. "Two sets of Admiral Bird casual outerwear coming up."
Trailing cold exhaust, the rental headed out into the streets of Fairbanks.
BOOTSIE KLEIN WAS talking on the phone behind the counter of the clothing store where she worked in downtown Fairbanks when the bell over the front door tinkled to life.
As she took a good look at the pair walking in off the street, she dropped her voice low.
"I've gotta go," Bootsie whispered to her girlfriend. "No, I'll tell you later.... Yeah. Bye."
She quickly hung up the phone.
"Can I help you gentlemen with something?" she asked the two men.
It was clear that she could. When Bootsie had driven to work that morning, the digital thermometer on the bank had read eight degrees.
The old one wore a yellow kimono that looked as if he'd swiped a pair of curtains from a Chinese brothel. The young one was dressed to unload shrimp boats in Key West, not traipse around the streets of Fairbanks.
"Hi, Boobsie," Remo said, reading her name from the tag on her ample chest. "We need some winter gear. Something to keep us from freezing to death for a couple of days in the tundra. What do you think, Chiun," he said, turning to the Master of Sinanju, "windbreakers?"
"The lining cannot be too thick," Chiun sniffed. "My precious pores must be allowed to breathe."
"You got windbreakers?" Remo asked Bootsie, leaning his bare forearms on the glass countertop. "The early-spring kind, with the liners?"
"You're kidding, right?" Bootsie asked.
"Oh, and we're gonna need hats," Remo added.
"I, um, think your friend's already found one he likes," Bootsie suggested, pointing. "I'll have to check out back for windbreakers."
As the sales clerk ducked through a nearby door, Remo glanced over to the Master of Sinanju.
"Oh, brother," he muttered.
Chiun was standing at a narrow door mirror. Nestled over his bald head was a red plaid winter hat. Long flaps hung down like lazy dog's ears. Happy hazel eyes peeked out from under the pinned-up brim.
"Should I even try to talk you out of it?" Remo sighed.
"Of course, Remo," Chiun replied. "You may do so after I have convinced you to trade in that undergarment you wear as a shirt for a proper kimono." He wiggled his head. His hat flaps flapped.
"Figured I'd be on the losing end," Remo said. He leaned back on the counter to wait for the saleslady. Bootsie returned a few minutes later with a pair of spring jackets. By then, Remo had a plain wool ski cap for himself on the counter.
Chiun immediately plucked one of the coats from the young woman's hand. His arms vanished, turtlelike, up the sleeves of his kimono, dragging the jacket inside. With a few wiggling contortions, he slipped into the windbreaker. His bony hands reappeared a moment later.
"Pay the woman, Remo," he commanded. Spinning, he marched out the front door.
Remo had tugged on his own coat. It was a snug fit around his thick wrists.
"Did you mean what you said?" Bootsie asked as she rang up both coats and hats. "Are you really going outside the city dressed like that?"
Remo stuffed his hat into his pocket. He pulled out his wallet.
"You bet," he said, slapping a credit card on the counter. "And if we find a nice ice floe, a certain lucky someone might just be taking a one-way Eskimo cruise."
Bootsie's face darkened. "That's not a very nice thing to say," she scolded as Remo signed for his purchases. "He seems like a nice old man."
Remo's eyes met hers. "Who said I meant him?" Dropping her pen to the counter, he turned and left the small store.
REMO PICKED up a map from a gas station rack and called Smith from a pay phone. Between the map and Smith's directions, he was able to find the rural route to the Kakwik settlement.
Word had spread of the massacre, keeping highway crews from clearing the road after the recent storm. Luckily, a strong wind had blown snow to both shoulders. Remo's Jeep sped up the middle of the lonely road.
At one point, a crooked sign sprang up from a snowdrift to announce that Kakwik was five miles away. Remo saw something else printed in an unfamiliar language just below the English words.
"What'd that say?" he asked as they raced by the sign.
Chiun's face was bland. "How should I know?"
"I thought you were Sinanju's universal translator," Remo said. "You know every language known to man, including two dozen that everyone else has forgotten about."
"Languages, yes," Chiun admitted. "However, that was nothing I recognized. Those scratches were no doubt caused by a passing bear sharpening his claws."
"Didn't look like Gentle Ben scratches to me," Remo said. "Probably some kind of Eskimo dialect. Since I never saw any piles of whale blubber stashed away back in Sinanju, I guess the natives here never needed to hire an assassin."