Warren Murphy: Last Call

"Very wise," Chiun said.

"He runs a risk of losing the man," Smith said. "But it's a matter of pride with him."

"Very foolish," Chiun said.

"We'll keep him alive," Remo said. "That's it?"

Smith looked at him for a moment, then turned slowly in his chair to look out the one-way windows toward Long Island Sound. "That's it. For now."

Remo had heard those "for nows" before. He stared at Smith's back. The CURE director continued, looking out the window.

Outside Folcroft, Chiun said to Remo, "I do not understand this. Russia is your country's enemy, correct?"

"Yes."

"Then why are we saving the head of all the Russias? Why do we not kill him and install our own man on their throne?"

"Chiun," Remo said decisively. "Who knows?"

Admiral Wingate Stantington was walking around the perimeter of his office. The clicking

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sound of the pedometer on his hip gave him a sense of satisfaction. It was the first time he had felt reasonably good since he had been taken out of his office in a Hefty bag.

Not that he had forgotten that. He never would. And he would get even, he vowed. With the dark-eyed American. With the old Oriental. That black woman who set it all up. His own secretary who allowed it to happen.

He would fix them all. In due time.

It probably had been easier in the old days. He could have just unleashed a CIA hit team, given them their targets and told them to do it. And afterwards, they would be whisked out of the country, set to work in a foreign mission somewhere, and that would be that.

It was different now. Try to find somebody who'd do a little dirty work without worrying all the time about being arrested and indicted. Try to find one who could do it without writing a book about it later on.

When it came time to write his book, he'd let them know what he thought. All of them.

When his private telephone line rang, it was the President telling him that the premier of Russia was arriving that afternoon.

"He can't," Stantington said.

"Why not, Cap?" the President asked.

"We haven't had a chance to put together any kind of security arrangements," Stantington said.

"That's not your concern. I'm just alerting you so you know what's happening in case you hear anything later."

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Stantington depressed the button on his telephone tape recorder.

"Officially, Mister President, I have to advise you that I am against this entire idea. I think it is needlessly risky, fraught with peril, and ill-advised."

"I have received and noted your opinion," the President said with chill in his voice as he hung up.

All right, Stantington thought. He was on record. When things went wrong, as they were bound to later, he could tell any Congressional committee with a clear mind and heart that he had advised the President against this course of action. And he had it on tape. He'd be damned if he'd be arrested and indicted for somebody else's mistake.

Stantington sat heavily behind his desk and sighed. But was that enough? Was it enough that he had protected his ass ?

He thought about that for no more than thirty seconds and reached his decision.

Yes, it was. There was nothing more important than surviving. The man who had the job before him could languish in a prison chowline. The President could bumble and blunder about. But Admiral Wingate Stantington was going to be as clean as a hound's tooth, and perhaps someday, when they were looking around for viable, clean candidates for offices like President, Wingate Stantington would stand out like a silver dollar atop a pile of pennies.

He leaned back in the chair as he had an idea. He might be able to help that process along-par-

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ticularly if he was the man who prevented World War III and saved the Russian premier's life in the bargain.

The killings of the three ambassadors had been done by people close to the targets. Now it was Vassily Karbenko's idea to bring the premier to America and Karbenko, it was well known, was like a son to the premier.

Karbenko might fool some others, but could there be any doubt that he was bringing the premier to America so that he would be within the range of Karbenko's own guns ?

Stantington was sure of it. Karbenko was the assassin and the President was playing into Karbenko's hands by allowing the Russian premier's visit.

"Get me the files on Colonel Karbenko," Stantington barked into his telephone.

As he waited, he thought about it, and the more he thought, the more sure he was. It was Karbenko. Of course. He felt good about the decision. He felt like a real spy. The buzzer rang. "Yes?" he said.

"Sorry, sir, there are no files on Colonel Karbenko."

"No files? Why not?"

"They were probably stolen yesterday afternoon."

"Yesterday? What was yesterday?" "Don't you remember, sir? You proclaimed it Meet-Your-CIA Day. An open house. We had thousands of people here. Somebody must have taken the files."

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Stantington slammed the telephone back on its base. It didn't matter. He was still going to save the Russian premier.

Dulles International Airport was cleverly located so far out of Washington, D.C., that most people couldn't afford the taxi ride to the city and had to take a bus. The smart ones packed a lunch.

The Russian premier and his wife, Nina, arrived quietly in a leased British plane that had picked them up at an airfield in Yugoslavia where they had transferred from a Russian Aeroflot plane.

Colonel Karbenko had made the arrangements. He had to choose among British, French, Italian, and American planes for the last leg of the journey. He had rejected the Italian plane because it might get lost, the French because he knew what French airport mechanics were like, once having lived in Paris. Left to choose between a British aircraft and an American, he picked the British, because, like the Americans, they were competent, and unlike the Americans, the pilot would not immediately sit down to write a book entitled, Mystery Passenger: A Journey Into Tomorrow.

Karbenko had an unobtrusive green Chevrolet Caprice parked next to the plane. He went into the plane's passenger compartment, and a moment later, came down the steps followed by the premier and Nina.

The premier was wearing dark sunglasses with a straw hat pulled down over his face. His wife had on a red wig and blue tinted glasses. She wore a two-piece brown suit, so formless that it

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looked as if it had originally been fitted to a refrigerator.

"We speak the English," the premier said. "That way, nobody know we not Americans."

Karbenko led them across the tarmac of the runway toward his car. He glanced up and noticed Remo and Chiun standing there.

"Good work," said Remo.

"How'd you get here?" Karbenko asked.

"Hail, mighty premier of all the Russias," said Chiun.

"Who is this ?" asked the premier.

"I don't exactly know," Karbenko said.

"I am not an administrative assistant," Chiun said. "Hail again."

"Thank you," the premier said. "It is a great pleasure to be here among my American friends."

"I am not an American," Chiun said.

"But I am," Remo said.

"Forget him," Chiun said to the premier.

"What are you doing here?" Karbenko repeated.

"Just making sure," Remo said, "that everything goes right."

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Two cars followed them as they drove away from the British jetliner. There were four men in each of the cars, and when Vassily Karbenko saw them, he grunted softly and tromped down on the gas pedal of the Chevrolet Caprice.

The car was speeding down an unused runway at the airport, toward an emergency exit onto the highway that surrounded the field. As Karbenko's car sped up, the two other cars separated and increased their speed also, moving up on either side of the premier's car.