Warren Murphy: Prophet Of Doom

Yet the leader was calling out to someone. Calling in their approximate direction.

"Hello? Excuse me, gentlemen."

He couldn't be talking to us, Remo thought. I didn't make a sound.

He thought of Chiun. Not only would the Master of Sinanju never make an unintentional sound, but he would also disown Remo at the merest suggestion of such an accusation.

That brought it back to Remo again.

Remo tried to recall if he'd stepped on a branch or dried leaf. One thing was certain: if Remo had made a noise, he'd never hear the end of it.

"They're not here," said another of the soldiers.

"He insisted they would be. He also said they'd be hiding." The lead soldier addressed the woods once more. "We've been instructed to meet the two of you and lead you back to Ranch Ragnarok," he called out.

How could they possibly know we'd be here? Remo thought.

And because Remo could think of nothing better to do, he stepped out onto the path.

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Even though they were looking for someone, the soldiers were still surprised to see their quarry materialize before them. The three at the back started to reach for their weapons, but thought better of the move. Their hands returned to their sides.

"Looking for me?" Remo asked airily. He pointed a finger at his own chest.

"Yes, sir," said the lead Ragnarok soldier. "We're your escort."

"We didn't call ahead for an escort," Remo said reasonably.

"But you are expected."

Remo pitched his voice over their heads. ' 'What do you think, Chiun?"

"It is rude to refuse an escort," a squeaky voice came from too close behind the soldiers.

They spun around, coming face-to-face with the Master of Sinanju. He perched on the path like some great yellow parrot, face inscrutable, hands tucked inside the sleeves of his billowing kimono. The elderly Korean had slipped up behind them without so much as a whisper of his sandal soles.

"That's it," said the second man to the patrol leader. "Two of them." He and the others glanced nervously up and down the path, obviously uncomfortable with the idea that the woods through which they had marched so frequently could have harbored unseen assailants all along.

"Will you gentlemen follow us?" the patrol leader invited.

And with that the patrol turned and headed back down the path.

Remo shot a glance at Chiun. The Master of Sinanju

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wore a puzzled frown. What else could they do? They were obviously expected.

They fell in step behind the soldiers.

"Think Smith told them we were coming?" Remo whispered out of the corner of his mouth. A tree branch hung in his way. It became so much falling wood chips after Remo made busy motions with his hands.

Chiun's hazel eyes squeezed like a wary cat's. "Smith is a lunatic, but he is not stupid."

"Did you tell him you wanted to quit? Maybe this is his idea of an ambush. Dead assassins tell no tales."

"And live ones sometimes speak too much," Chiun replied. "I am not stupid, either. Of course I did not speak to Smith of our intentions."

"Your intentions," Remo corrected.

"Details," the Master of Sinanju said dismissively.

About a half mile along, the path opened up on a vast expanse of virtually barren fields. An eight-foot-high fence, woven at the top with tumbleweeds of gleaming razor wire, sprouted from the parched Wyoming plain—the only crop in this wide, alien vista.

The fence was broken up at regular intervals by concrete guard towers. Remo and Chiun were escorted between a pair of the three-story structures. A small gate, just large enough for one man to pass through, swung open at their approach.

"Side door?" Remo asked the soldiers.

The patrol leader grunted his assent.

Within the Ragnarok compound, Remo and Chiun found a cluster of ugly concrete salt-box structures squatting together about a hundred yards beyond the fence.

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Another building was set apart from the others. It stood alone on a tract of land beyond a section of rolled-up fencing and looked for all the world like a giant, half-buried tin can. Remo could tell by the fresh scars in the earth that the hurricane fence had only recently been extended around this new area.

There was a smaller area corralled off by the isolated building, and Remo could see hundreds of tiny black heads speckled within the pen. Some were butting horns, others were running frantically for reasons that were entirely their own, but most were standing around, sullenly chewing whatever vegetation they could scrape up.

' 'You boys must be on that strict all-goat diet I keep hearing about," Remo commented, nodding across the field toward the pen.

The soldiers didn't respond.

Near the main grouping of structures, a young woman stood patiently waiting, an AR-15 slung across her shoulder as casually as a handbag.

"A reception committee?" Remo said quizzically. He shot a look at Chiun, but found the old Korean distracted.

The Master of Sinanju had raised his nose barely perceptibly and was pulling in delicate puffs of air. He seemed focused on the solitary building beyond the goat pen within the newly constructed fence.

"I'll take them from here," the woman announced when they reached the perimeter buildings.

The men nodded and headed in toward the largest communal building.

"Welcome to Ranch Ragnarok," the woman said

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once the men had left. Her intelligent blue eyes swam behind horn-rimmed glasses.

"I've got to compliment you. This must be the most hospitable concentration camp I've ever been in," Remo said. "Don't you agree, Little Father?"

Chiun ignored him.

"Now, of course you don't really mean that," the girl admonished. But there was a twinkle in her eyes.

"Are you the Clearasil woman?" asked Chiun.

"Hardly," the girl said. "My name is Buffy Brand. I'm an acolyte in the Church of the Absolute and Incontrovertible Truth. Welcome again."

"Care to share this incontrovertible truth with a disbeliever?" prompted Remo.

"You're standing in it, Mr....?"

"Falwell," said Remo, adding, "and I find it hard to believe that a trainload of mortar mix dumped out in the middle of nowhere somehow holds the mystery of creation."

"It's not creation that's a concern to us here at the Truth Church," Buffy explained. "We're looking more toward the other end of the time line. We are preparing for the End Times."

"That anything like halftime?" asked Remo.

"Remo, why prolong this prattling?" Chiun squeaked. "This is not the one you seek. You," he commanded imperiously, pointing to Buffy Brand, "show us the way." His hazel eyes strayed back toward the distant building.

"Who put a knot in your bloomers?" Remo asked.

"This is not the time for insolence," Chiun warned, chopping the air with one long-nailed hand.

Remo accepted the rebuke in silence. "I guess he's

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calling the shots," he said, turning to the girl. "Lay on, MacBuff."

"You are father and son?" Buffy asked once they were hurrying alongside the nearest buildings. Her squeal of excitement when Remo nodded made it sound as if until that moment, she had thought that such a family relationship was only possible in a fairy tale. "How wonderful for you." She searched their faces. "You don't really look much alike, do you?"

"He is adopted," Chiun confided.

"Actually, I adopted him," Remo said, peeved. He was sick of being passed off as some kind of charity case.

"I allow him his delusions," Chiun declared. "For if I did not, he would never listen to me. Not that he heeds well now," he added quickly.

" 'A wise son heareth the doctrine of his father: but he that is a scorner heareth not when he is reproved.' Proverbs, chapter thirteen, verse one," Buffy said.

"Shut up," Remo suggested.