"What do you want?" the man near Remo menaced.
"I want not to be manipulated all the time. I want to not be lonely when he's not around and then irritated when he is. But mostly, I want to know where you keep your car keys in that shrink-wrapped Union suit."
By now, the other man had dropped his gun. Both hands and one foot were heavily involved in his game of tug-of-war with Chiun's door.
"Don't get smart with me," Remo's commando threatened. His gun jabbed at Remo's ribs.
"How about if I get fatal?" Remo suggested. There came a blur of movement impossible for the HETA commando to follow.
He was stunned to find that his target had vanished. So, too, he realized with growing concern, had his gun. Frightened fingers gripped empty air.
A sudden coolness to his head and face. His mask gone, too. Whirling, the commando tried to shout a warning, but something blocked his throat. Something itchy.
And in a moment of horrifying realization, the HETA man didn't know which was worse: the fact that he was being force-fed his own hat, or the fact that the stranger was using the barrel of his own gun to tamp it down his throat.
"Junior eat up all him din-din," Remo enthused, stuffing the metal barrel deep into the man's esophagus.
"Blrff," the HETA commando gasped.
"Yum-yum. Eat 'em up," Remo agreed.
The man's eyes bugged. He couldn't breathe. The hat was wedged in a tight ball inside his throat. Remo pulled the barrel free, tossing the gun into the bushes.
The man immediately shoved his fingers into his mouth, probing for fabric. It was too far in. Clawing at his throat, the red-faced commando toppled over onto the road.
"Bon appetit, " Remo declared, turning his attention back to the Master of Sinanju.
The other BETA man was still yanking on the door, his face red as that of his suffocating colleague.
"Perhaps it is rusted shut," Chiun was suggesting through his open car window.
"Chiun, quit clowning around," Remo complained.
The old Korean exhaled, bored. "Very well. But only because I grow weary of this buffoon."
As the commando gave the door one last mighty wrench, the Master of Sinanju lifted his pinkie, at the same time slapping a flat palm against the interior door panel. The crunch of bone on door was wince-inspiring.
The last Remo saw of the second HETA man, he was five feet off the ground and flying backward into a thick stand of midnight-shaded maples. Remo never heard him land.
Chiun joined his pupil outside the car.
"More up ahead," Remo informed him. The dark shapes of barn and farmhouse loomed up the road. Chiun nodded.
"Together or separate?" he asked.
"Together," Remo replied. "You haven't given us much of a chance to bond lately."
"I long for the day you finally get the hint," Chiun whispered, swirling from his pupil.
Side by side, the only two true living Masters of Sinanju began moving swiftly up the pitch-black road.
HUEY JANNER WAS DEEP in tofu-fueled REM sleep when he felt a firm hand clamp over his mouth. "They're here," a voice whispered from the murky shadows.
Mona.
Huey pulled himself out of bed. In the dark, he fumbled off his pair of sweat pants. His unitard was underneath.
"How far?" he asked, sleep clogging his throat.
"Driveway," she replied tersely.
He could hardly see her. She was dressed in her black, form-fitting leotard.
"Did you get them ready yet?"
"No," Mona insisted. "I came for you first. Why, I'll never know. Move it!"
She hurried from the bedroom, slinking stealthily along the silent upstairs hallway. He heard one of the top steps creak as she crept to the ground floor.
Stumbling in the darkness, Huey chased after his wife.
THE SECOND WAVE of HETA commandos hid in a cluster of sickly elms that slouched up from the middle of the Janners' sprawling front lawn.
Not one of the three men saw even a flicker of movement from the long driveway. Night skulked, dark and menacing.
"Are you sure somebody's here?" one commando whispered nervously as he studied the shadows.
"Sam yelled there was a car coming," the second replied.
"I heard a car," offered the third tense voice.
"Me, too," agreed the first man.
"Me, three," announced Remo Williams.
Panic. Gun barrels clattered loudly together as the men tripped and swirled around, looking for the owner of the strange voice in their midst. They found two men.
"Are you now the town crier, announcing our arrival to every lurking simpleton?" Chiun asked, brow creased in annoyance. He stood at Remo's elbow.
"I barely opened my mouth," Remo replied, equally annoyed.
"Silence is golden," Chiun retorted. "Especially coming from you."
Three sets of frightened eyes bounced from one intruder to the next. Finally, the jaw of one HETA man dropped open.
"Fire!" he screamed.
Two HETA commandos were accidentally slaughtered in the ensuing panicked shooting match. The roar of automatic-weapons fire was rattling off into the night as the third man checked the bodies at his ankles. Neither Remo nor Chiun was among the dead.
A finger tapped his shoulder. The remaining HETA man looked up dumbly. He found that he was staring into the deadest black eyes he had ever seen. "Missed me," Remo said thinly.
A thick-wristed hand fluttered before the commando's face. The colors that danced across his field of vision in the next instant were more brilliant than anything the man had ever seen. First red, then blinding white, then black. Afterward, he saw nothing at all.
Remo let the body slip from his fingers.
"House or barn?" he asked the Master of Sinanju.
"Where does this kind belong?" Chiun asked dryly.
"Barn it is." Remo nodded.
Turning from the trio of bodies, the two men made their stealthy way toward the menacing dark structure.
HUEY JANNER NEARLY JUMPED out of his skin when he heard the gunfire.
"They're close," he whispered anxiously.
"Get a grip," Mona insisted. She kept her breathing level as they crept through the dark interior of the barn.
Huey had a difficult time following her. Though he tripped frequently, Mona didn't slow her stride. She had exceptional night vision.
With Mona at point, they approached the old dairy stalls where the BBQs slept. Mona pulled two dark bundles from a wooden shelf. She tossed one to Huey.
"They're in for one hell of a surprise," Mona Janner whispered with certainty. Huey smiled weak agreement.
Wishing he shared his wife's confidence, Huey ducked inside a stall. Nearly purring in pleasure, Mona disappeared inside another.
"DINGBAT, twelve o'clock high," Remo commented as they slid up to the big barn door. His eyes were on the hayloft.
Chiun's narrowed eyes were fixed on the crouching figure. "I will deal with this one," the old man said.
Wordlessly, he melted into the shadows beside the barn. Remo continued on alone.
The barn door was open a hair. Remo slipped inside.
The big interior was drafty and dank. The thick smell of wet, molding hay clung to the air. Remo's finely honed senses detected faint life signs coming from the long west wing of the barn. He slid across the packed earthen floor to the rear of the main building.
As he came upon the closed door that led to the old dairy stalls, he heard a new sound. A shout. "Giddap!"
A woman's voice.
"Move, move, move!" a man yelled almost simultaneously.
Pushing open the door, Remo turned the oldfashioned crank light switch. Bulbs clicked on along the angled wood ceiling, flooding the old cow stalls with washed-out light.
"Giddap! Giddap, dammit!" the woman's voice shrieked.
Remo followed the shouting down to the third stall.