For a man on one of the most restrictive diets on Earth, Remo was always surprised at how often he found himself eating crow. Of course, it was usually served by Chiun and he didn’t have a choice. Serving it to himself and involving Smitty was one of the least enjoyable things in his life.
“Your preacher is off the hook,” Remo said when the phone was answered.
Doctor Harold W. Smith was taken aback only slightly, but his sour disposition wasn’t capable of taking any enjoyment in Remo’s discomfort. “On the contrary,” he replied, “I’m afraid he is very much ‘on the hook.’”
“Smitty, I just went a rather ugly round with the offspring of Sasquatch and the Pillsbury Doughboy, and the intel he gave me points to somebody else. Two female ‘somebody elses’ in fact,” he added.
“Where did you come across this information?” Smith asked.
“Some big asshole,” Remo said. “Tried to do the business on me. Damn near succeeded, too, by the way, and thanks for your concern. Whatever whammy these earthquakes put on Chiun, it’s starting to affect me as well. And right now the best we can hope for is to continue to put a kink in their schedule.”
“So your plan is to find a different bomb every one hour and forty-nine minutes and stop it from detonating?” Smith asked flatly. “You’re fast, but you’re nowhere near that fast. Besides, it’s not working.”
Smith explained how the recovered bomb had revealed a hidden transmitter, one that triggered only milliseconds after the detonation timer hit zero.
“So basically what you’re saying is that someone’s getting notice if a bomb doesn’t go off...” Remo said, his voice trailing off.
“That they probably have a backup bomb that goes off somewhere else,” Smith replied.
“So that’s that, then,” Remo said. “It’s been a fun ride, Smitty, but I’m going to go cram a fulfilling life into the last few days I have left.”
“There is an upside to knowing this,” Smith said.
“You know how I live for your nuggets of optimism,” Remo replied.
“To be prepared to set off a backup bomb on a moment’s notice,” Smith said calmly, “they would need to have a stationary base of operations. Some place where they could stockpile their explosives and have a fresh one ready in less than two hours.”
“Find their base, find their bombs,” Remo said. “Seems simple enough. Oh, but wait, it’s still a pretty big planet, isn’t it?”
“Did your assailant mention anything at all that might hint as to a location?” Smith asked.
Remo considered. “He said it was two girls,” he said. “They seemed pretty flirty to be hiring a killer. And one might be Russian.”
“Russian?” Smith said. Over the phone Remo could hear keys tapping as Smith worked his computer console.
“Just a guess,” Remo said. “He said one of them gave him a Russian goodbye.”
“I don’t see anyone with close ties to Russia working in Walker’s main headquarters,” Smith said, scanning once more the list of employees that constantly yielded him no solid results.
“Smitty, I’m telling you, the Walker thing’s a red herring.”
“But I did get a trace on the black box of Walker’s private jet,” Smith continued undeterred. “It went off the radar after entering Russian air space.”
“Wait a second,” Remo said. “So your theory is a guy who has apparently gone to Russia, and my source pins it to two girls who might be in Russia. I don’t know. That’s still pretty iffy.”
“Here’s something that’s not,” Smith said tersely. “A number of Russian male citizens, all former military, have applied for jobs as security personnel for a special project.”
“I don’t suppose this special project has a name?”
“No. And all the men have disappeared. Some of their family have filed complaints that they’ve gone missing.”
“But they’re not missing,” Remo said. “They’re just hidden somewhere. Maybe guarding a big old pile of bombs?”
“That’s an assumption,” Smith said. “But it’s all we have to go on.”
“Two girls, a bunch of Russian soldiers, and a preacher,” Remo said. “Sounds like a party.”
“None of the men said where they were going, but I’ve been able to trace the paths of more than a few of them based on incidental transactions made after they applied for the positions, and were presumably hired,” said Smith. “Of those, nearly eighty percent of them all seem to be converging on a remote village of Vanavara. It’s something of a tourist town.”
“Vanavara?” Remo said. “That’s pretty far north. Be pretty cold this time of year for Russian sightseeing.”
More taps. “It’s not that kind of tourism,” Smith said. “Vanavara is just the origin point for expeditions to the real attraction. That’s where Walker’s base will be.”
“I’ll bite,” Remo said. “Where is that?”
Smith sighed. It was too perfect, both from a tactical sense as well as a philosophical one, not to be accurate. It was where the meteorite didn’t hit, where Tesla’s experiment may or may not have caused a hole in the Earth.
“Tunguska.”
· · ·
The Reverend Billy Walker was uncomfortable wandering the grey, shadowed hallways of the greater concrete structure. His quarters, if he didn’t open the door, looked on the inside to be at least a close facsimile to his office back in California, betrayed only by the washed out quality of the sunlight that filtered through the casement windows near the top of his wall.
He’d been to Russia before, of course. He’d had a couple of televised revivals here, once Glasnost set in and the country opened its borders and its minds. But he’d always gone where there were people, where there were hearts to be won and souls to be saved.
There wasn’t a soul to be found in Tunguska, except for those that had been hired on to provide security and cycle the ordnance when needed—and their souls, much like his, were beyond saving.
He paused before the door that was his destination and knocked twice.
“Come in,” a youthful voice replied on the other side. The Reverend Walker cast his eyes downward and opened the door. The last time he had walked in, invited, he inadvertently caught a glimpse of the girls in just their skivvies. He hadn’t meant to see what he saw, and apologized profusely for the intrusion while blushing hotly. He didn’t want to repeat that incident, and was glad that the girls had not taken affront to his accidental invasion of their privacy.
“We’re decent,” one of the girls said with a giggle. He looked up and blushed anyway. Yes, they were covered—literally covered—with a sheet up to their necks as they lay side by side in the double bed. Under the sheet, however, it was clear to him that the sisters were naked.
“Did I wake you?” he asked, tremulously.
They smiled. “Who could sleep through the sound of that blast?” the one on the left teased.
“Yes. Right,” he said. “That’s actually what I came to talk to you about. Was that the backup plan, or did something go wrong?”
The one on the right sat up, propped against a pillow, holding the sheet to her breasts with one hand, her bare shoulders revealed. “Both,” she said. “That was the backup plan, and something did go wrong.”
“Oh?” Walker stammered.
“Nothing to be worried about,” the girl on the left assured him. She sat up as well now, and leaned in close to the other, sharing the cover the sheet afforded. But it was such a sheer sheet, and it clung to them the way only silk can, revealing contours and curves, the swells of their breasts, capped off with a clearly delineated and pert nipple. Despite the cold, the Reverend Walker could feel a trickle of sweat trail down his left temple. He knew he had to be blushing, because the girls began to giggle. They always took such innocent childlike delight in the embarrassment of an old man. “One of the bombs that was supposed to go off…Well, it didn’t,” she continued. “So, we set off one of the backups. Just as we planned.”
He wiped the bead of sweat from his cheek. “Will it…” he began. “I mean, is there a chance that we might have to do it again?”
The girl on the right shrugged, raising those bare shoulders and pushing her breasts further against the sheet with the noncommittal motion. With the drop of her shoulders, her breasts continued moving for a second longer. “Hard to say,” she said. “We’ve taken steps that ought to take care of the matter, but you just never know.”
“I understand,” Walker said. “It’s just that, well, as you explained to me earlier, I thought we couldn’t achieve the goal if we set them all off at the same location. We had to, you know, spread them out.”
They smiled, so sweetly, as if they knew so much and put up with him knowing so little. “Yes, that’s right, Billy,” said the girl sitting up against the left pillow. “But that was only in the beginning.”
“By now, things are so far in motion that we can afford more than a couple of double taps on the same spot,” the other added.
“So we’re that far along?” he asked hopefully. “The goal is in sight?”
“Another day or two,” she replied, “and not even God himself could stop what we’ve got going.”
He silently asked God to forgive them the blasphemy cloaked in their confident statement, but he knew God wasn’t listening to his prayers any longer.
“Good,” he said. “That’s very good.”
The first girl patted a narrow spot between her and the other girl on the bed. “Want to spend the last days in paradise?” she cooed. “Always room for one more.”
He chuckled and looked at the floor once more. “Girls, one of these days, I’m going to more than half-think you’re serious.”
“Not many of those days left to think that,” she said.
“No,” he said, shuffling toward the door. “Not many of those days left at all.”