Perfect.
Sing Hop Ma didn't approach the target personally, hanging back a constant fifty yards to watch from a respectful distance. There was still a possibility, however slight, that something could go wrong. The Malays would be on their own in that event, with nothing but a heartfelt guarantee of slow, protracted death if they betrayed their master. Peasants that they were, they knew the reputation of the Ben Hoa Tong and would do nothing to provoke the massacre of their extended families.
Sing Ma was ready for the trap to close.
Let the festivities begin, Remo thought. He'd felt the executioners before he picked them out by sight; nothing about their superficial looks that would have made them stand out in the crowded marketplace. If pressed for a description of the feeling, Remo might have said they broadcast raw hostility, the same way other human beings radiated fear, anxiety or confidence. It took conditioning and practice to revive the special sense that most men lacked, an edge they had surrendered quite unconsciously along the evolutionary road from "savagery" to "civilization," but the study of Sinanju opened many hidden doors.
Before they came in striking distance, Remo knew that there were six of them, all Malays, traveling in pairs. They weren't total idiots, no shouting back and forth to keep in touch, but once he had them spotted he could read the glance they exchanged while closing for the ambush.
It was fairly well coordinated: two in front of Fred and Freda Frump, two more in back of Remo, with the final pair approaching from his right, across the open marketplace. The hunters broke formation as they closed the gap, forming a semicircle that enclosed the three Americans but allowed other Malays to slip through the cordon when they recognized the danger.
It took another moment for the Frumps to realize their path was blocked, so taken were they with the handmade jewelry offered by an aging sidewalk vendor. Only when the merchant started packing up his wares in haste did either of them realize that something was amiss. They looked around the ring of hostile faces, blanching at the sight of knives and bludgeons, trembling like two effigies constructed out of Jell-O.
"Kasi kita wang segala engkau," one of the assassins ordered. Give us all your money.
So, it was supposed to look like robbery, thought Remo, with the sidewalk merchant serving as a witness for police. No matter that a daylight mugging was among the city's rarest crimes. Assassination would be rarer still, and it required at least a nominal diversion if the killers meant to stay at large.
He tried to picture Fred and Freda as the targets, but dismissed the thought at once. They were innocuous, despite their violation of prevailing fashion codes, and they didn't look prosperous enough to make six hardened thugs risk prison for their pocket change. If anything, bad luck had brought them to their present circumstance.
Which meant the killers had been sent for Remo. That, in turn, suggested strongly that his cover had been blown, but he couldn't address that problem at the moment.
Not until he dealt with more-immediate concerns.
"Kasi kita wang segala engkau," said the leader of the thugs once more. He punctuated the command by jabbing with his wavy-bladed kris in the direction of the Frumps. They squealed in stereo and clutched at one another, sweating through their polyester outfits with the sudden rush of fear.
"Don't move," said Remo, stepping forward to confront the ersatz muggers as he spoke. His next words were addressed to the apparent spokesman for the group. "You're making a mistake."
The blade man stared at Remo, took a moment to absorb the warning and dismissed it like the oaf he was. His forward lunge was telegraphed by twitching muscles in his jaw and the shift of balance to his forward leg before he struck. It was too late to save himself, once he committed to the strike.
One moment, he was thrusting forward, on the verge of burying the kris in Remo's gut; the next, his striking arm was twisted out of shape, the elbow shattered, shoulder dislocated, forming crazy angles, and the blade he meant for Remo slid between his sixth and seventh ribs. The man was dead before he knew it, lurching several steps past Remo, toward the cringing Frumps, before he fell.
The others rushed Remo then, and while his physical reaction was instinctive, nothing but a blur to those who watched dumbfounded from the sidelines, Remo's senses broke the action down and analyzed each movement as a master choreographer reviews a complicated dance routine.
The two goons on his left were close enough to merit an immediate response, one brandishing a dagger, while the other swung a length of chain. He crushed the blade man's larynx with a floating strike that killed him where he stood, continuing a single fluid motion as he spun the standing corpse around and used it as a shield. The oily chain whipped out to wrap itself around the dead man's skull, and Remo met his startled adversary with a snap kick to the face, explosive impact shattering the lower jaw and driving bony needles deep into the soft flesh of his palate.
That left three, and he was ready for them as they tried to mob him, getting in each other's way. He hardly seemed to touch them—Fred and Freda would babble to the police that their attackers almost seemed to turn on one another, it had taken place so quickly—but dramatic roundhouse punches aren't required to kill. A fingertip behind the ear will manage very nicely, or an open palm below the chin, delivered from perhaps a foot away.
The work was done in fifteen seconds, give or take a heartbeat, then Remo stood perfectly composed amid the bodies of his fallen enemies. He faced Fred and Freda, stepping close enough for them to smell his aftershave.
"What did you see?"
Fred blinked at him behind his horn-rimmed glasses. "Hell if I know, mister. It was all so fast."
"So fast," squeaked Freda, echoing her man.
"That's fine."
A dozen witnesses would offer vague descriptions of the round-eyed warrior to police, but none of them could say exactly what he wore or how he vanished from the scene within a few brief seconds of the massacre. It had been self-defense, of course; they all agreed on that score, but investigators were concerned about the presence of a stranger in their city who could wreak such havoc, even if the late recipients of his attention had been gutter trash with records that included sixty-five arrests in thirteen years.
Who could predict what such a man might do?
As for the object of their urgent curiosity, he was intent on getting back to his hotel before he had to meet the others. There was still some time remaining, and he wanted to consult Chiun before the rendezvous.
It was a long shot, granted, but he hoped the two of them could figure out who wanted Remo dead.
Chapter Three
"What do you know about Malaysia?" Dr. Harold Smith had asked him two weeks earlier.
"It's hot there," Remo answered after due consideration. "And it rains a lot."
Smith frowned, his face like an animated lemon. "And to think we marvel at the sorry state of modern education," he remarked.
"It's been a while since I read up on my geography," said Remo.
"Obviously. May I bring you up to date?"
"Please do."
It was Smith's specialty, in fact—not world geography, but bringing Remo up to speed on areas where major problems had arisen, sometimes overnight. In fact, the recognition and solution of those problems was the only reason Dr. Smith and Remo came together. Viewed another way, it was the only reason Remo was alive.