"Which was where?"
"Dressing for the flight back to Moscow."
"Oh," said Smith, suddenly understanding.
That was the last any of them had heard of Anna Chutesov. The crisis with the Soviet government had occurred later, but Smith knew that the beautiful Soviet blond would have had nothing to do with that matter.
Now Smith suspected that Anna Chutesov was somehow involved with the Gagarin incident. The landing of the Soviet shuttle could mean anything.
Smith returned to his desk. On the computer screen a news digest blazed in glowing green letters. Smith, a veined hand on his throbbing stomach, read it again.
The digest reported the arrest of Daryl Doone, a salesman. Doone had been arrested when his car was spotted weaving on Interstate 95, just south of Rye. The state trooper who took him into custody reported that Doone had registered .21 on the Breathalyzer test-well over the legal limit.
Daryl Doone had admitted that he had been drinking. Admitted it freely. But he swore that he had not started until after he saw the ghost.
According to Doone, he had been driving along a particularly deserted stretch of the highway when a space shuttle came in for a landing. The shuttle swooped down just ahead of Daryl's car, narrowly missing the car roof.
Daryl followed the craft as it taxied down the highway. He lost it in the backwash of its tail jets. When he finally came to the end of the burned rubber landing tracks, there was no trace of the shuttle.
As he explained it to the state trooper, the shuttle had obviously rolled down the nearby exit ramp. But there was no sign of it at the end of the ramp-just trees and an abandoned car wash where the tracks stopped dead.
Daryl Doone had an explanation for the apparition, however. He was convinced it was the ghost of the destroyed American shuttle Challenger. It was the only answer. He had pulled the Scotch bottle kept for medicinal purposes only-from his glove compartment and drunk it dry to stop his hands from quivering. He had never seen a ghost before. Especially one that big.
Harold Smith did not believe for a moment that Daryl Doone had seen a ghost. Harold Smith did not believe in ghosts.
But Harold Smith knew that at the time of night that Daryl Doone had claimed to see a space shuttle descend on Interstate 95, the matter of the Yuri Gagarin had not been broken to the press. It was too much of a coincidence. Therefore, Smith reasoned, Doone had seen the shuttle land, apparently intact.
It was too much of a coincidence, Smith also thought, that the Soviet craft would land so close to Rye and Folcroft. It meant something. But what?
At that moment, the intercom buzzed. Smith tripped the switch.
"Yes, Mrs. Mikulka?" he asked his secretary. "You have a visitor, Dr. Smith."
"I recall no appointment at this time."
"I told her that, but Ms. Chutesov says she's sure you'll see her anyway."
"Ms. Chutesov is correct," Smith said grimly. "Send her in."
Anna Chutesov closed the door behind her.
"You are not surprised to see me?" she asked. Smith's lack of expression puzzled her, this cool Russian beauty who was so seldom surprised at anything anyone did. Especially men. She understood men. She understood that they were really boys, and that is how she treated them. Surprisingly, they seemed to like it.
"Not at all," said Smith.
"Then do you also know why I am here?"
"No," admitted Smith. He looked at her coldly.
"Oh! You admit it," said Anna Chutesov, taking a seat and crossing her long legs provocatively. "I admire a man who admits his ignorance. So few men do. It is some macho thing with them."
"Please get to the point," Smith said warily. He was unarmed. He did not imagine that this young woman with the Kewpie doll face would barge into his office to assassinate him, but it was possible.
"I am here to recover the property of my government. I know your government would enjoy the stupid propaganda coup that capturing the Yuri Gagarin would bring. Let me assure you that it is not worth it. Our shuttle is no different from yours."
"We don't have the Gagarin," Smith said flatly.
"But you will do your utmost to locate it. You will probably send your best man to recover it. You will send Remo."
"Remo doesn't work for me anymore," said Smith.
"Then either you are lying to me or Remo is dead," said Anna Chutesov suddenly. "Which is it?"
"Neither," said Smith in a voice as short as the Russian's.
"The Remo I knew was a patriot. He would never stop working for you, for America."
"A year ago. I would have agreed with you, Ms. Chutesov," Smith said in a less brittle tone. "But Remo has changed. I don't understand it myself, but he appears to have absorbed his training until he's more Korean than American now. Or he thinks he is."
"Than you have no one to track the missing spacecraft?" asked Anna Chutesov disappointedly.
"Chiun is still with us," said Smith. "Officially, that is."
"You mean unofficially, do you not?" And she smiled.
"Well, yes, unofficially, then. I mean that Chiun still works for me."
"I see. And Remo? Where is he?"
"Remo has agreed to remain in America with Chiun for the duration of the Master of Sinanju's current contract. I don't control him anymore."
"Remo has always been unpredictable, especially for a male. But perhaps we can work something out."
"I don't understand."
"I think you do, but you wish to draw me out before committing yourself. Very well, let me lay my cards on the table. I am here-unofficially, of course-to recover the Gagarin. That is your task too. But the Master of Sinanju, powerful as he is, is not exactly suited for this kind of assignment. He is more your infallible arrow. All you need do is point him and he will hit the bull's-eye each time. But if you cannot give him a clear target, he might as well be a rampaging elephant-powerful, unstoppable, but ultimately useless."
"You understand my problem perfectly, but I doubt that you could point Chiun in the right direction-unless you already know where the Gagarin is."
"I do not. And I think you are beginning to realize this."
Smith nodded wordlessly, and Anna Chutesov sensed that she was finally getting through to the dry-as-dust bureaucrat.
"I agree that I cannot command Chiun, but I do have a certain, shall we say, influence over Remo. This is what I offer you."
"You'll . . er . . influence Remo to help you locate the Gagarin, is that it?"
"And in return for my help in proving to you that the craft has inadvertently strayed into your airspace, you will allow me to recover the Gagarin for my country. Quietly."
Smith shook his head. "I cannot make that guarantee. I am under orders."
"Bosh! An organization like yours could not function if it were orderable, like the CIA. You have autonomy, Smith. Do not deny this."
Smith leaned back in his chair. His brow wrinkled like an old blanket and his lips became a bloodless line behind which his teeth clamped tightly. The nutlike hardening of his jaw muscles betrayed his dilemma.
Anna Chutesov was correct, in all of it. She could, Smith imagined, convince Remo Williams to aid in the search for the Yuri Gagarin. It would solve many problems, and solve them quickly. Smith, at first worried that the shuttle's landing was a Soviet thrust against CURE, now had only one more concern.
"You are an honorable person, Ms. Chutesov. I will ask you for your word on something before I agree to this."
"Ask. "
"Give me your word that the Gagarin's landing is not a hostile act against either America or CURE."
"To the best of my knowledge, neither is the case," replied Anna Chutesov truthfully.
"Accepted," said Smith.
Smith reached for his intercom.
"Mrs. Mikulka, could you have Mr. Chiun sent up here?"
"That nice patient who insists upon calling you Emperor Smith?" asked Smith's secretary.