Warren Murphy: Last Call

Remo nodded. The Russian colonel was impressive.

"This man is impossible." Nina spat out the words, then wheeled and pointed toward Chiun who sat on the floor, his arms folded under his saffron kimono, looking impassively at the motel wall.

"What happened?" Karbenko asked.

"I wanted to watch television," the premier's wife said. "He told me I should not because all the shows were obscene. If I wanted a good story, he said, he would tell me one. Finally I succeeded in getting the television turned on. I was to watch the news. He told me I should not watch the news. That they were showing pictures of some fat man."

"Yes?" Karbenko said.

"The fat man is the premier. His picture was on the television. Now what do you think of that?"

Karbenko looked at Remo. Remo shrugged.

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"Maybe your husband ought to lose some weight," he said.

"Then he broke the knobs off the television set so we could not watch it."

"Philistines," Chiun said. "The Russians were always a people without taste."

"Where is the premier ?" Karbenko asked.

"He is in the next room. Watching the television there," Nina said.

"I hope his eyes rot," Chiun said.

"I guess you didn't like Chiun's movie," Remo said.

"We began to get tired of it after the first hour," she said. "So we asked him to stop."

"A Russian could lie in a field of flowers and complain of the smell," Chiun said. "There has not been a sensitive Russian since Ivan the Good."

"Ivan the Good?" Karbenko said. He looked at Remo, a question mark on his face.

"Right," Remo said. "Chiun's family did some work for him once. He paid on time. That raised him from Ivan the Terrible to Ivan the Good."

They left Chiun staring at the wall and went through the open door into the next room.

The premier was sitting on the small single bed, smiling.

"I have been much on your television, American," he told Remo.

"What did they say?" Karbenko asked.

"That I am visiting America to confer with the President about the deaths of our three ambassadors. That our mission here has refused to give any details of my whereabouts or my schedule."

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"Good," said Karbenko.

But the premier did not hear the comment. His eyes were fixed, almost glazed, looking at the TV tube.

"Look, Nina. Look," he said, pointing at the tube. "That is where we are going."

Remo and Karbenko leaned over to look.

It was a commercial for Florida's Disneyworld.

Nina nodded.

The premier said. "I want to go there."

"When?" Karbenko said.

"Why not now?"

Karbenko thought for a moment.

"Why not?" he said.

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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

At 9 o'clock that night, the premier and his wife, along with Remo, Chiun, Karbenko, and the Russian spy's four top men, were on a private plane heading for Orlando, Florida.

Ten minutes earlier, Admiral Wingate Stan-tington had learned, in his condominium apartment at Washington's Watergate Complex, that the Russian premier had never checked into the Colony Astor Hotel.

"That son of a bitch," Stantington swore as he slammed down the telephone. Karbenko had done it; he had gotten himself along somewhere with the premier and was just waiting his chance to gun him down.

Not if Stantington could help it though.

Within an hour, his men had found the budget motel where the Earp family had been registered. And only a half hour later, they learned of the specially chartered plane that had left Washington on its way to Orlando.

They checked all the hotels in the Orlando area, before they found one with a block of four rooms registered to Doctor Holliday and family.

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Doc Holliday. Karbenko's cowboy passion had given him away.

The hotel manager confirmed that the large group had ordered four taxicabs in the morning to take them to Disney world.

Admiral Stantington sat alone in Ms apartment for an hour, thinking, before he made up his mind.

He would not let Vassily Karbenko assassinate the Russian premier on American soil.

And if there was only one way to stop him, that was the way Stantington would take,

Vassily Karbenko was as good as dead.

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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The premier wanted to go as an American.

"I want to walk the streets and alleys of Disneyworld, like American peoples. I will mingle among them. No one will know we not American."

Karbenko's four KGB agents looked at each other, then they all nodded.

Remo looked at the premier. He was wearing a Hawaiian plaid shirt, and a large straw hat, and big tinted sunglasses as a disguise. But he still had a face like a mudslide and anyone who had seen his picture on television was not likely to mistake him for anyone else.

The four taxicabs arrived on time. Remo, Karbenko, the premier, and Nina crowded into one cab. Two KGB agents rode in the first cab and two more in the third. Chiun insisted on riding alone in the last cab, because he would not share a taxi with Philistines.

"Remember, Chiun," Remo said. "We've got to keep him alive. Nothing else matters."

"Trivia," said Chiun. "All my life is bogged down with trivia."

At the gate, the Russian contingent ran out of

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money for entrance fees. Disneyworld did not take credit cards, nor did it recognize the International Monetary Fund or Russia's natural gas reserves. This decision was based on the judgment that Russia's natural gas reserves might well run out before Disneyworld did, Disney-world being an eternal and replenishable resource needing only fresh paint and teenagers who could run around dressed like mice and ducks.

Fortunately, Remo was carrying money and he was able to pay the $2,365.00 in cash for two days of rides for the group. This left the premier with enough money to buy "diplomatic necessities." Everybody got a diplomatic necessity. Karbenko's four KGB men got the winding kind, and the premier and Nina got the digital kind where Mickey Mouse's face appeared and lit up when the diplomatic necessity clicked off noon and midnight. Chiun got one too and proclaimed his love for Russia.

The monorail led over lush green fields with manicured trees. A large perfectly blue lake glistened in the late morning sun. One of the KGB men wondered if they dyed the lake blue.

When they got off the monorail they were greeted by the rich smell of fresh popcorn. To their left was a bank which would translate the cotton crop from Russian Tashkent into American dollars. The Russian cotton crop got the contingent through Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pioneer World.

Chiun wanted a Davy Crockett hat. The premier decided to buy one for everybody, so one of the KGB men was sent back to the Disneyworld

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bank where he negotiated away mineral rights in the Ukraine, and brought back a satchel of cash to the premier who was waiting at Polynesian World.

The mineral rights also paid for a grass skirt for Nina and Mickey Mouse heads made from coconuts and sea shells.

"This is very nice," Chiun said to Remo, pushing the Davy Crockett tail out of his eyes. "But you are a liar."

"What now?" Remo said.

"Once you took me to a place and told me it was Disneyworld. But that wasn't Disneyworld. This is. You lied to me."

"Chiun, just keep an eye out so that nothing happens to the premier."

By now the Russian party was hungry and the premier found out that the entrance fees did not pay for lunch. Another KGB man was sent back to the main Disneyworld bank, with a promise of two months' tractor production. This allowed everyone to have soft drinks and a meal. When they were done with the meal, no one got up.

Remo asked why they continued to sit at the tables. The premier said the appetizers were a bit flat but he had high hopes for the main course.