Sole Survivor

The Soviet shuttle Yuri Gagarin encounters a spinning object that fuses with the craft and kills its crew. The object speaks English, controls the shuttle, and eventually lands at Kennedy Airport; survivalist fugitive Earl Armalide boards it, and it later disappears over Long Island Sound. The U.S. President refuses authorization to land but orders chase planes not to challenge the shuttle as it descends. Remo has retired from CURE and plans to return to Sinanju, but takes on a separate mission to remove Dexter Barn, a convicted child molester rejected by towns after parole, by shipping him in a crate toward Iran or Libya.

Smith asks Chiun and Anna Chutesov to investigate the missing shuttle near Rye. Anna recognizes the shuttle’s transformation into a car wash and the Sword of Damocles satellite hidden within it; exposure leaves Chiun believing that he has been sterilized. Remo returns to help. Earl reveals that the machine, now identified as Mr. Gordons, allied with him in a plan to mass-sterilize humanity. Anna, who says the weapon sterilized her too, kills Earl, then pursues Gordons using Remo’s old transmitter.

Remo and Chiun learn Gordons is an android built for survival, previously encountered in an earlier crisis, and that he escaped deep space by assimilating the Soviet shuttle. After Anna transfers Remo’s transmitter to Soviet officials, they trace Gordons to California. He assimilates an abandoned theme park into Larryland, using animator Larry Lepper’s cartoon creations to draw crowds through the Moon Walk, where the Sword is concealed. Anna’s Soviet backup enters Larryland; Remo confronts the armed team while Chiun moves through the attraction. Gordons impersonates Anna to lure Remo into a fight; Smith later reports that Gordons had assimilated most of her body and that she will be buried anonymously.

Chiun destroys the disguised satellite while Remo disables Gordons’s fighting body; the two disagree about where Gordons’s controlling intelligence resided. Smith orders the park demolished, believing this will prevent reconstruction. Smith says Anna’s remains and the Soviet team will be buried anonymously, and Larry is left to face questioning and a cover story. The indexed epilogue shows a cracked metallic fragment caught by a jet’s engine; the aircraft controls seem to move by themselves, and it identifies itself as Air Force One, leaving Gordons’s ultimate fate unresolved.