It was clear she had inadvertently struck a raw nerve. Biting her lip, she left the old man to his private thoughts.
Ten minutes later the fuel line was just being detached when Remo appeared through a side door in one of the low terminal outbuildings. He hurried to rejoin Anna and Chiun.
"I talked to Smith," he said, his voice tense. "Looks like Zhirinsky's pulled a disappearing act." Anna's expression made it clear that this was in no way good news.
"How long has he been gone?" she asked.
"Don't know. Didn't ask. Does it matter?"
"It does, depending on where he is going," she said, her tone troubled. "You were careful to keep me out of your discussions with your Dr. Smith?"
Remo grew sheepish. "Well..." he said.
Anna's voice grew flat. "You didn't," she accused.
"I didn't," Remo said quickly. He just as quickly reconsidered. "I guess I sort of did. But only after he did it first. Smitty's got this new assistant, Anna. Somehow the little nit figured out you weren't dead." Chiun's curiosity was piqued. "How did Prince Mark divine such a thing?"
"I dunno." Remo shrugged. "Probably just dumb luck." When he turned to Anna, he found that the Russian agent's beautiful face had taken on a cavedin look. "Don't sweat it, Anna," he said. "I told him that Chiun and I are hands-off in the killing-you department. When this is over, I'll talk him into letting us go back to our old arrangement."
Anna shook her head. "Things have changed too much since then," she said. Her soft words seemed spoken only for herself. Ice-blue eyes sought the imperious face of the Master of Sinanju.
Remo would have said more, but they were interrupted by the Kamov's pilot. The man was scurrying down from the helicopter cockpit. His face urgent, he approached Anna, spouting a stream of Russian while he ran.
He was barely finished before she was turning on the others. Her face remained without a hint of emotion.
"There has been another massacre," Anna said dully. "A small town to the west of here."
"How long ago?" Remo demanded.
"Apparently it is happening right now," Anna replied. "One of the townspeople has radioed for help." Expression still flat, she turned to her pilot, issuing a few brief Russian commands. The man turned and ran back for the Kamov.
"I forgot to ask before," Remo said as the engine coughed to life. "How many of these guys are there?" He was surprised by her answer.
"Nearly 150," Anna said, her tone lifeless.
"Looks like our work's cut out for us, Little Father," Remo said tightly.
The Master of Sinanju offered a sharp nod of agreement. Hiking up his kimono skirts, he hurried to the waiting Kamov.
The wobbly rotors had just begun to slice the chill air.
Remo began to follow his teacher, but paused. Anna still appeared to be shell-shocked.
"Don't worry," he vowed softly to her. "You're safe as long as I'm around." Giving her a reassuring smile, he turned and ran for the helicopter.
Alone for a moment, Anna shut her tired eyes.
Blocking out the cold, the wind and the growing roar of the Kamov.
"No, Remo," she said quietly to the night. "That is when I am at the greatest risk."
Shoulders hunched against the freezing wind, Anna Chutesov hurried to the waiting Kamov.
Chapter 22
Anna's pilot dropped them a mile outside town. The Russian agent and the two Sinanju Masters made their cautious way down to the village.
The small Inuit settlement of Umakarot was a snowcapped junkyard. Half-scavenged cars and trucks rose from the drifts like the bones of frozen metal beasts. Sheets of tin on tumbledown homes rattled in the wind.
And amid all the squalor lay the bodies.
In spite of the pervasive gloom, Anna could still see well enough to note that the first body they passed had been mutilated. The villager's nose had been removed. A gaping red triangle sat beneath the dead man's wide-open eyes.
The others they saw were like the first. "Zhirinsky," Anna hissed knowingly. With a tear of Velcro, she pulled her automatic from the pocket of her parka. Her eyes studied the washed-out grays and blacks that shadowed the village.
Remo and Chiun were proceeding cautiously. There was nothing in their movements that indicated either safety or danger. Anna pitched her voice low.
"Are we alone?" she asked.
"Nah," Remo replied. "We're pretty much surrounded."
From where they were walking, Remo and Chiun took note of eighteen commandos, all dressed in the same concealing off-white uniforms.
"Hey, be careful where you point that thing," Remo said.
Anna's gun barrel had strayed to his back as she studied the blank shadows. She quickly shifted it away.
"What are they doing?" Anna asked.
"Standing," Remo said. "If it wasn't for the guns they've got pointed at us, I'd say they kind of looked like snowmen. Albeit smelly, skinny Russian snowmen, one of which I think is carrying a beach pail full of noses. Yuck." His brow lowered. "Why do you suppose they haven't opened fire?"
"Perhaps they want my autograph," the Master of Sinanju sniffed as he padded along.
"Huh," Remo said. "That's weird."
"What?" Anna whispered. She had yet to see a living soul.
"One of these guys is kind of moving his hands funny," he said, making a point not to appear too interested in the soldier who loitered in the shadow of a fix-it shop. "Chiun tells me I move my hands like that, don't you, Chiun?"
The old Asian nodded. "There," he said, with a subtle chin motion. "Another does the same." When he followed the old man's gaze, Remo found a Russian standing in shadow near a tall stack of useless snowmobile chassis. To Remo's surprise, this soldier was also rotating his wrists absently.
"Now that's freaky," Remo mused. "You think Purcell taught them that to try to throw me off guard?"
"We do not know who taught them anything," Chiun cautioned. "Nor do we know how much they know. Therefore we must remain cautious."
"Fiddlesticks," Remo said. "Guy uses a gun's a guy who ain't so tough. Look, I'll prove it."
They were in the process of passing within a breath of one of the soldiers. Remo reached out casually, clamping on to the man's black goggles. With a yank he pulled them a foot away from the startled soldier's face and let them fly.
The goggles shot back much faster than they should have. With a thwack they struck his face, burying deep back in bone and brain.
The soldier appeared as if out of the ether, flopping to his back in the snow. He didn't move again. "See?" Remo pointed out with a knowing nod. "I told you."
Anna met the sudden appearance of the soldier with shallow shock. Her brain didn't have time to fully absorb what had happened before she felt herself being hoisted in the air. As the guns of the remaining soldiers abruptly blazed to life, Remo flung Anna to safety behind the nearby heap of half-dismantled snowmobiles.
"Stay put," Remo suggested as he twisted and twirled around the incoming spatter of screaming lead.
Leaving Anna crawling on her knees in the snow, Remo and Chiun swirled into the center of the small village. Like moths drawn to a flame, the soldiers converged.
The men continued firing even as their shielded eyes told them that they had to already have hit their targets. Any doubts they might have entertained were quickly settled by the Master of Sinanju.
Chiun launched himself at the soldiers. A flying kick to the forehead of a charging commando sent the man's head back like a swatted tennis ball. It struck the face of the man directly behind. Skull met skull in a fusion of bone that instantly turned the two soldiers into Siamese twins conjoined at the head.