It was like admitting a personal disgrace. Yet through her shame, Anna's eyes never left Remo's. By this point Remo thought he was beyond shock. He was wrong. Her words brought him to his feet. Any residual lethargy he was feeling evaporated like morning mist.
"Who did it?" he asked coldly.
"Feyodov had charge of the weapon," Anna said. "The order to fire came to him directly from the Kremlin. It was a stupid, stupid thing to do. Stupid men fearful of the future, lashing out in some insane attempt to prove their virility."
"Dammit, Anna, everything about guys isn't measured from the lap," Remo snapped. He was thinking rapidly. "Who was in charge over there back then? Was it the guy with the caterpillar eyebrows and the Edward G. Robinson bottom lip?" He shook his head unhappily. "Can't kill him, he's dead," he complained to himself.
"No," Anna said. "And that does not matter."
"Not to you, maybe," Remo said. He snapped his fingers. "I know who it was. It was that chrome dome with the Rorschach forehead."
"Remo, please," Anna pleaded. "I only told you this so you would understand how desperate this situation was before the attack on Mir. It has only gotten worse now. We must figure out a way to end this to the satisfaction of my government before the idiots in charge decide to resort to yet another insane face-saving measure."
"Right now, sweetheart, I'm not that all-fired worried about what satisfies your government," Remo snarled. "I've gotta find Chiun."
He flung open the door and marched into the hallway.
For a moment it was up to Anna Chutesov to worry about her government and the foolish decisions it made. Including the one, as yet unspoken, that she had hoped for ten years Remo would never learn of.
Cursing silently the testosterone-fueled madness that always seemed on the verge of destroying the human race, the head of Russia's top-secret Institute hurried out the door.
Chapter 25
Theodore Schwartz of AIC News-Wallenberg marched briskly off the elevator and onto the thirtieth floor of the AIC News-Wallenberg Building in midtown Manhattan.
The towering glass building was home to what was inarguably the greatest telecommunications empire of the twenty-first century. And as CEO of ANW, Ted Schwartz was master of his domain. As he strode like a modern-day Midas down the gleaming executive hallway with its high-tech black surfaces and space-age silver accents, all eyes were glued to his powerful frame. Every face he encountered, he owned.
As usual, the staff cut him a wide swath. Grown men and women panicked and ran into offices to avoid him.
Their reactions usually brought him a silent thrill. The king who inspired fear in his subjects.
This day, however, was different.
Though as usual he was the eye of a gossipy hurricane, with tongues wagging and eyes flashing nervously in his direction, Ted paid no mind to the attention he attracted. He had more weighty issues to deal with than the endless nattering of his company's many proles.
In his corner office suite he passed through the outer room of secretaries without slowing.
Unlike most mornings, the many phones were silent. Bike messengers and FedEx men had apparently been delivering urgent letters since daybreak. The secretaries were tearing like mad through stacks of sealed shipping envelopes.
Notes from his rivals in the television and information business. Pleading for his assistance. They were turning on their TVs and finding dead air where their own networks should be. When they switched through the channels, the only thing they found were the News-Wallenberg networks.
His rivals wanted to know how he'd survived so long into the devastating storm that had crippled their industry. But without phones, they couldn't very well call. Hence the letters pleading to be let in on Ted Schwartz's secret.
Though it was exactly as he'd planned, at the moment he didn't have time for the sniveling pleas of his peers.
Ted's private secretary tried to stop him as he strode into her anteroom and swept over to his office door.
"Good morning, Mr. Schwartz," the shapely young woman announced nervously. "Scott Crouse already called twice today. He wants you to call him. He says it's urgent."
Ted Schwartz felt a blush of anger touch his cheeks.
That idiot Scott Crouse had been abusing special phone privileges like a madman, calling Schwartz's office a dozen times the day before.
Crouse had been chairman and CEO of America Internet Connection, the largest Internet service provider in the world. AIC had recently merged with the massive News-Wallenberg conglomerate. With the merger AIC gained access to the vast array of media outlets controlled by News-Wallenberg, which included hugely popular magazines, cable television networks, the Wallenberg Boys movie company and Wallenberg Music. But as a result of their recent business alliance, Crouse had been forced to take a back seat to Ted Schwartz. In spite of several months of abuse by the CEO, intended to either bring him in line or force him to quit, the young man had still not figured out the merger had reduced him to little more than a glorified mail clerk.
"I'm busy," Ted announced angrily. "And tell him if he uses anything other than the normal phone system once more, I'll tie a T-1 line so tight around his neck they'll be scraping eye juice off the screen of his Power Mac."
Flinging open his office door, the CEO slammed it shut in the face of his startled secretary.
He didn't need to talk to Crouse to know why the young man was calling. Ted Schwartz already knew. Thanks to the disruptions in the satellite network, AIC customers all around the country were having an impossible time dialing online. It was a minor, anticipated glitch in an otherwise perfect plan. Besides, Ted thought to himself, AIC subscribers were used to getting busy signals.
Though the morning sun was crawling up between Manhattan's skyscrapers, the big office was bathed in gloom. The blinds were drawn tightly over mirrored windows.
Behind his broad desk, Schwartz scooped up the phone. The familiar buzz of a dial tone hummed in his ear. Unlike most of the phones in America this day, Ted Schwartz's worked. If it hadn't, Ted would have been pissed.
This was one of the most private lines in existence. At the moment only a handful of News-Wallenberg's top men had access to the top-secret satellite through which it passed. The satellite itself was installed with scrambling technology so sophisticated no intelligence service-either foreign or domestic-had any hope whatsoever of decrypting it.
Scott Crouse was wasting time on that selfsame satellite to whine about the phone-line disruptions that were preventing his teenaged AIC customers in flyover country from getting online to download their daily dose of Internet porn.
"You're not long for News-Wallenberg, Scotty boy," Ted muttered to himself as he stabbed out an eleven-digit number.
He had the number memorized. No way he was going to put this one on the speed dial.
It took seven rings for someone to answer. When a lazy voice finally said hello, Ted Schwartz was drumming his fingers furiously on the buffed glass top of his desk.
"Get him on the phone now," Ted ordered hotly. It took less than a minute for a new voice to arrive on the line.
"Yes, sir," Zen Bower said, panting. He had obviously run all the way to the phone.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Schwartz demanded.