The occupant of room 33-D grasped the remote control and hit Mute. Dr. Pagan kept talking anyway. He just didn't make any sound.

  "I didn't get this e-mail. That's it! I was out. My system is down. I can't be held accountable for mail I don't receive."

  Hastily he reaccessed the last R and hit the Reply key.

  "Cease all communications until further notice," he typed. "Erase all e-mail from me. We have not been in contact. Don't even answer this. I never sent this message."

  Then he folded up his laptop and called down to the main desk.

  "I'm checking out. Immediately. Urgent business. Gotta get back to the States."

  Packing furiously, he muttered, "Let Gaunt come here. I'll go back to Seattle. It's the last place he'll think of looking. If he complains, that'll teach him to get on an international flight without waiting for confirmation of my whereabouts."

  The occupant of room 33-D left without shutting off the TV Oblivious, Dr. Cosmo Pagan continued lecturing a dark, empty room.

  "It might interest my loyal viewers to know that geologic evidence recently came to light suggesting that the Chesapeake Bay was created as a direct result of a meteorite impact approximately thirty-five million-that's million not billion-years ago. And just last May, Asteroid 1996 JA-1 missed our earth by a mere 279,000 miles-a near miss on the grand scale of the cosmos ...."

  Chapter 22

  On the way back to her apartment, Kinga Zongar broke the speed limit in her bloodred Maxima GTE all the length of the Central Florida Greenway.

  Somewhere past Kissimmee, a black-and-gold Florida State Highway Patrol car came wailing after her.

  Kinga considered her options. She must not be deterred in getting word to Moscow.

  On the other hand, if she managed to evade this state person, others would pursue her, arousing great suspicions where none existed.

  In the end, it was her long period of relative inactivity that decided Kinga. She pulled over onto the shoulder of the road and sat quietly as the highway patrol car pulled behind her, its roof lights making a discordant multihued web of color in the humid air.

  When the highway patrolman came striding up in his gray-and-black whipcord uniform, his straw Stetson cocked at a rakish angle, Kinga smiled with quiet pleasure. He was very big for an American. His life would require at least three bullets.

  From the drink receptacle between the front seats, Kinga extracted her choice of weapon. A matte-finish Ruger. It was a very satisfying firearm with which to kill enemies.

  A touch of the dash button brought the window humming down, and Kinga turned her head so the patrolman could see her flawless womanly face.

  "I am sorry to bother you, Officer. Was I exceeding the speed limit?"

  Whether the patrolman was disarmed by her polite manner or her refined if unplaceable accent did not matter. He thumbed his Stetson back off his head and drawled, "I'm afraid so, ma'am."

  He was very solicitous and polite. So Kinga did him the courtesy of shooting him directly in the face so that he would experience no pain or discomfort in the brief, helpless interval before he struck the macadam in death.

  She left him jittering in his insensate death throes, pulling away reluctantly because these wet affairs were always so stimulating. Especially after going so long without them.

  Reaching her apartment without further incident, Kinga locked up her vehicle and entered her apartment quietly, so as not to disturb the neighbors who never showed her reciprocal courtesy. But this was America, after all.

  The Compaq was running as always. She took the red leather chair and logged on to the net, typing in Cyrillic with professional precision.

  To: UncleVanya@shield.su.min From: AuntTamara@aol.com Subject: Findings Preliminary investigation fails to disclose cause of accident in question. National media reporting sighting of three glowing letters in sky prior to event. Media speculating letters of cosmic origin. Clearly they are not, unless extraordinary coincidence at work. Letters are; " MNP."

  Further, have made contact with investigators from NTSB, who are not what they pretend to be. One is elderly Asian gentleman with North Korean accent. The other is American companion. Does this suggest anything to you?

  Kinga pressed the Send key and waited. Knowing the Russian telephone system, it could be a minute or three days before a response came back. She decided to wait until drowsiness overcame her alertness. It was an exceedingly sultry night, and sleeping would be difficult at best.

  Twenty minutes passed before she decided to call it a night. If a reply came, the machine would emit an electronic call that invariably pulled Kinga out of the deepest sleep.

  Deep in the night, the chime sounded and Kinga flung off her red satin bedcover before her eyes quite opened. She dropped into the chair, squinting to read the green letters in the humid darkness. As a gesture to modesty, she left the room light off.

  The Cyrillic message popped up at the touch of a key.

  To: AuntTamara@aol.com From: UncleVanya@shield.su.min Subject: Report Mir story incredible. We have queried Glavkosmos contacts.

  Your North Korean possible Master of Sinanju, now known to be in employ of Washington through unknown agency. Request courtesy liquidation. Good luck.

  Kinga Zongar smiled in the greenish phosphor glow. It would be the greatest of pleasures to undertake a sanctioned wet affair of such magnitude here in the United States.

  Reaching out to erase the message, Kinga hesitated only briefly. The brief interval proved to be unfortunate.

  A hand, cool as steel and equally hard, arrested her wrist.

  Trained for dangerous contingencies, she stifled a sharp intake of breath and said in a moderate voice, "I am unarmed, as well as nude."

  "I noticed," said a friendly, familiar male voice. "Move your head so we can read."

  "You! My goodness, Remo. I did not hear you enter."

  "But we heard you enter," said the squeaky voice of the elderly Korean, Chiun.

  "You have been in my apartment all this time?"

  "We almost waved when the highway patrolman pulled you over. But we were in a rush," said Remo in an insolent voice.

  "You are staring at my bosom," Kinga said thinly.

  "Can't help it. It's in the light."

  "I must protest this intrusion on my privacy."

  Remo pointed at the screen. "Check this out, Chiun."

  "It is in Russian."

  "I figured that much out. What's it say?"

  "She has been instructed to liquidate me," the Master of Sinanju said thinly. He did not sound so very angry as annoyed in a minor way. This fell strangely on Kinga's ears.

  "What about me?" asked Remo in a tone also not angry, but casual in its interest.

  "You are not mentioned, lesser one."

  Kinga said nothing. Her eyes were on the screen, and her heart was beginning to pound. Another moment, and she would have erased the incriminating message for all time. Now the Cyrillic letters glared greenly at her like burning crystals.

  "I would not have harmed you, Remo," she said quietly.

  "Why not?"

  "I admire you."

  "You have a pretty cool way of showing it."

  "I am very shy with men."

  "Is this why your walls are covered with salacious portraits of women?" Chiun asked, gesturing broadly in the eerie green glow. His face resembled a shriveled lime with thin eyes.

  Kinga said, "I fail to grasp your meaning."

  The light went on; illuminating the walls. Here and there were hung lithographs and reproductions of studies and paintings. The subjects were all of a single theme. The female form.

  "Looks like you have a one-track mind," said Remo, looking around admiringly.

  "You are speaking nonsense. These are reproductions of works of fine art. Have you no culture?"

  "I don't see any equal opportunity for men."

  "A nude man is a vulgar sight. A woman's unclothed form is pleasing to both sexes," Kinga said.

  "I kinda like what I see," Remo admitted.

  "You are very uncouth, barging into my flat and-"

  "Tough. You're pretty rude yourself, coming to this country to spy."

  "I am not spy."

  "You are not Hungarian, either."

  "I will speak the truth. I am half-Hungarian. My paternal parent was Russian. I am ashamed of this because there was a rape involved in my conception. It is very painful to admit this, but it is nonetheless true."

  "Let's skip the personal history," said Remo, cutting in. "Who do you work for?"

  "I am free-lance. The highest bidders command my allegiance. No other."

  "Liar," said Chiun.

  "I speak the truth. And now that you have read my instructions, I would like to erase them, please. They are no longer of consequence now that you have seen them."

  This time it was the elderly Korean who arrested her reaching hands. But his touch was not steel, but acid. Needles dipped in acid. Injecting Kinga with a deadly venom that burned along the nerves until her lush body lay on the floor quivering.

  "Who do you work for, Russian?" the Korean voice demanded through the mounting pain.

  "I cannot tell," Kinga gasped through clenching teeth. She tongued a cyanide pill out of a hollow wisdom tooth. The maneuver was surreptitious in the extreme. But it didn't go unnoticed.

  The pain redoubled, and her tongue shot out. The pill fell to the rug, and a sandal crushed it utterly, then returned to exerting pressure on her head.

  Kinga could hold it back no longer. "FSK! FSK! I am FSK! My control is Stankevitch, FSK!"

  Remo turned to the Master of Sinanju. "What's the FSK?"

  "I do not know," said Chiun. "But I do know that I am done with this would-be slayer of me."

  "She couldn't kill you if she had a neutron bomb tucked in her bra."

  "That is not the point," said Chiun, bringing a black sandal down on Kinga Zongar's disheveled head. The heel touched the side of her head, paused, then dipped a quarter inch.

  Kinga Zongar's head burst like an erupting melon.

  "Chiun! For crying out loud, that was my date."

  "You have terrible taste in women," sniffed Chiun, scuffing his sole clean against the carpet.

  "She was going to be the first date I've had in I don't know how many years. I didn't even get to first base."

  "Nor would you have. She does not love men, only women."

  Looking around the room again, Remo said, "I guess you're right. But I gotta admit it was nice having a conversation with a woman who didn't lust after me."

  "There are other lesbians, if that is your desire," said Chiun.

  "Not funny," said Remo, picking up the telephone and calling Harold Smith by the simple expedient of depressing the 1 button until an automatic relay embedded in the telephone system routed the call to Folcroft Sanitarium via Dixville Notch, New Hampshire.

  "Remo?" Smith asked.

  "Who else?"

  "I have run up against a blank wall."

  "On the Russian angle?"

  "No, on Kinga Zongar. According to my research, she does not exist prior to 1988."

  "Well, she's not going to get past 1996 either."

  Smith's voice grew sharp. "What do you mean?"

  "Chiun just wasted her."

  "With cause?"

  "We tracked her back to her apartment, where she got a computer message from someone writing what Chiun says is Russian."

  "It is Russian, as was the woman," Chiun piped up.

  "Whoever gives Kinga her orders, they ordered her to hit Chiun. They figured out who he was."

  "It is obvious who I am, even to Russians," said Chiun.

  Turning the phone away from the Master of Sinanju, Remo told Smith, "I'd read you the message on the screen, but it's full of backward N's and R's and upside-down letters I don't recognize."

  "Where are you?"

  "Kinga's apartment. I think it's going to be available by the first of the year if you're interested," Remo added dryly.

  "One moment. I am tracing your call."

  Remo hesitated. While he did, he said to Chiun, "Why don't you throw a blanket over her? She's naked."

  "She is your date. You cover her nakedness," Chiun sniffed as he read the screen.

  Smith came back and said, "I have accessed the computer."

  "How'd you do that?"

  "The supporting telephone line is listed in Kinga Zongar's name, as is the line you are calling from."

  "Oh," said Remo. "Pretty slick."

  The line hummed for a moment. Then Smith said, "I am attempting to retrace the e-mail to its sender."

  "How can you do that?"

  "The e-mail address at the top."

  Remo looked. "Which one is that?"

  "Top line."

  "I see a W, a backward N and a T. "

  "It is pronounced like a certain foul English word."

  "Which one?" asked Remo.

  Smith said, "The W is the Cyrillic Sh. The backward N is pronounced like a double e but transliterates as i, while the T equals our T. "

  "I'm a little slow today, Smitty. Care to spell it out for me?"

  "Never mind," put in Smith. "The word means 'shield,' and I am coming up with an e-mail account in Moscow."

  "She said she was with the FSK, whatever that is."

  "The Russian Federal Security Service. It used to be the KGB. But the e-mail account is not coming from the former KGB headquarters in the former Dzerzhinsky Square."

  "Probably a blind."

  "Unfortunately I cannot get a definite address."

  "So we're at a dead end?"

  "No. I have it narrowed down to four blocks on Gorky Street. I think it would be useful for you and Chiun to go there and discover what you can."

  "Not much of a lead," said Remo.

  "According to the e-mail from Moscow, her superiors are attempting to learn what they can about this from Glavkosmos, the Russian space agency. If you find nothing in Moscow, that will be your second stop."

  "Sounds pretty thin."

  "Nevertheless, it is a direction, and we desperately need a direction right now. Especially with Dr. Pagan giving hourly public theories."

  "What's he saying now?"

  "Currently he is vacillating between an asteroid strike and a floating hole in the ozone layer."

  "No asteroid could have done what Chiun and I saw."

  "The American public will have to be educated to understand that. In the meantime, panic is growing and we are making no progress."

  "Okay. Next stop Moscow," said Remo, looking to Chiun for his reaction.

  That was when he noticed the red smudge on Kinga's index fingernail.

  "Hold the phone, Smith."

  Remo called out. "Check this out. She was wearing some kind of fake nails."

  "Do not remind me of my shame," sniffed Chiun.

  "This isn't about you." Kneeling, Remo lifted the cooling hand. It was the color of porcelain. Under the exposed natural fingernail were three letters seemingly tattooed to the cuticle: "WNT."

  "Looks like the Russian word for 'shield,'" said Remo.

  "Yes, it is the Russian word for 'shield,'" said Chiun.

  Returning to the phone, Remo said, "She's got 'shield' tattooed under her fingernail. Smitty, what do you make of that?"

  "A recognition sign."

  "Her code name maybe?"

  "That, or the name of the organization for which she works. Let me consult my data base."

  The speed with which Smith came back on the line surprised Remo.

  "I have something." Smith's voice was troubled. "Do you recall the event at the Rumpp Tower a few years ago where you and Chiun encountered Russian agents?"

  "Yeah. It was the last time we fought that crazy Russian klepto who could walk through walls."

  "During that assignment, a Russian thug you captured blurted out the Russian word for 'shield' when asked his affiliation."

  "I execute my assignments, I don't commit them to memory," Remo growled. "Remo, it might be useful to throw the word 'shield' around in Moscow."

  "Gotta have the Russian pronunciation."

  "Sheet."

  "What's the matter?" asked Remo. "Got a paper cut?"

  The momentary pause on the line made Remo think Harold Smith was fuming in silence. When he spoke again his tone was distasteful.

  "Report as needed."

  The line went dead.

  On the way out, Remo tossed the red satin bed cover over Kinga's lush lines, telling her, "That's the biz, sweetheart."

  Chapter 23

  It was a long flight to Moscow from Orlando, Florida. The reservation clerk said, "It's a ten-hour trip. You'll have to fly to Berlin, then catch Aeroflot's Budapest flight to Bucharest and Moscow."

  "Sounds like it involves a lot of stewardesses," Remo said unhappily.

  "I'm sure they'll treat you right," the clerk said with a wink.

  "Let me think about it"

  "The next available flight leaves in fifty minutes."

  "I'll get back to you on that."

  Remo found the Master of Sinanju guarding the luggage carousel from thieves. He was doing a good job of it. Nobody was stealing any luggage. Nobody was getting their luggage back, either. The carousel kept going around and around as an angry mob pressed closer and closer like Transylvanian villagers confronting Frankenstein's dying monster.

  "What are you doing?" Remo asked Chiun.

  "I am protecting valuable property from thieves," said Chiun, swiping the air before him like an angry cougar. The ring of people flinched as one.

  "They look like passengers to me."

  "Let them prove it. I have seen on television how luggage is stolen daily by thieves pretending to be tourists."

  "We don't have any luggage with us," Remo reminded.

  "If we strike terror into would-be thieves now, the next time we bring luggage, my trunks will be safe."

  "That's a nice theory, but we have to get to Moscow this year," Remo sighed.

  "I cannot go to Moscow trunkless."

  "Well, we can't go to Moscow until I figure out a way to get there without inciting stewardesses of five or six nationalities to commit crimes of passion against my body."

  Chiun stepped in front of a woman who came slithering closer on her belly. She slithered back like a blue-jeaned serpent, hissing in defeated frustration.