The driver's-side door didn't open. The samurai just stepped out. He was suddenly just ...there. Standing. Then he was coming around to Slattery's position, the loose, ebony plates of his armor jumping with every assured step.
"Hold it."
The samurai advanced. He was walking toward him as if the pistol Slattery held in a firm Weaver's grip was meaningless.
"Stand or I will shoot. I mean it."
The samurai kept coming. He strode into the high beams, his gleaming body resembling an upright black beetle balanced on its hind legs. He had a very confident walk.
Slattery discharged his weapon.
He squeezed off two quick shots, held fire and saw to his consternation the samurai was still coming. Shooting for the head this time, he snapped out three rounds. The weapon bucked and convulsed in Slattery's hands as he emptied the clip.
The damn samurai walked on, calm, cool and collected like the monster in an old horror flick. Impersonal. Unconcerned. Unstoppable.
Slattery retreated to the guardrail, dropped his clip and shot a fresh one home. Bringing the weapon up, he resumed fire.
The SIG roared and danced, casting angry gun flashes on everything. Including the short black sword that was suddenly in the samurai's hands and swinging back to take a swipe at him.
The blade swung up and over, weaving in midair as if the samurai was toying with him.
Slattery's SIG fell silent. He thumbed the clip out.
And the hovering blade came down with a sudden sharp chop-to bite into his shoulder at a diagonal and remove Francis X. Slattery's entire right shoulder from his torso.
It jumped off his body like a side of ham.
Slattery's horror-filled eyes followed it down.
It lay in the ground like a giant chicken leg, dressed in red-spattered Connecticut State trooper khaki.
The disconnected hand clutched the SIG, and his finger kept squeezing the trigger in some feeble nervous reflex. But it had no strength left. It was dead but didn't know it yet.
Then, legs buckling, Slattery fell atop it.
Francis X. Slattery had seen many weird sights on the job. Now he watched helplessly a black armored samurai climb behind the wheel of his cruiser and go roaring away.
Then he saw no more. He was dead.
That was how the backup cruiser found him.
AN APB WENT out and within the hour, Slattery's cruiser was found abandoned. Beside the vehicle lay the body of a local teenager. Bifurcated as if a guillotine had missed his neck and chopped him clean in two across the waistline.
They found his missing Camry in Pennsylvania, not far from the Amtrak station at Reading. No one connected the samurai with the Reading train station. Local authorities assumed he had stolen another car. But without a dead body to connect to another missing vehicle, they had no clue what car he'd be driving, if any.
All anyone found was a pay phone beside the abandoned vehicle, the receiver dangling.
No one connected it with the missing samurai, either.
There the trail ended.
Chapter 10
When they returned home, Chiun insisted that Remo circle Castle Sinanju three times before parking.
"I think the coast looks clear," Remo said dryly as he completed the third pass.
"You can never tell with ronin, who are more sneaky than ninja," Chiun said bitterly.
Remo shot the rental car into one of the parking slots. Chiun got out first. He examined the windows of the house. A few upper ones were open for ventilation.
He examined both doors before allowing Remo to use his key.
Even then he insisted they hang back, with both doors open.
Their ears searched the interior. Hearing no heartbeat or other telltale signs, Chiun entered first.
Splitting up, they combed the building.
When every room had been checked, they rendezvoused as agreed in the bell-tower meditation room.
"Look, Remo."
Chiun was pointing to the telephone on a low taboret. It was hooked up to a message machine. The red light was blinking.
"Must be Smith," Remo said, starting across the room.
Chiun intercepted him with his tiny body. "Are you mad? Smith is dead."
"Oh, right. I forgot. Who could it be? We don't know anyone else."
"It is the ronin, checking to see if we are home. Do not fall into his cunning snare, Remo."
"A ghost using the telephone?"
"He absconded with your dragon. If he can drive one infernal white device, he can dial another."
"How would he know our number?"
"How would he know to find us where he found us in the first place?" Chiun retorted. "Ghosts know all manner of dark secrets. That is one privilege of being a ghost. They lurk invisible. They spy unsuspected. There is no defense against their vaporous wiles."
"Seems to me a ghost smart enough to use telephones and cars wouldn't take a zillion years to walk across the Atlantic."
"Ronin are inconsistent. No doubt he is crazed from harboring centuries of grief and shame."
Remo's eyes were on the monotonously blinking light.
"Maybe Smith called us before the wreck."
"From a train? Do not be ridiculous, Remo."
"They have rail phones now. Just like on airplanes."
"It is the ronin, " Chiun hissed. "He is very clever."
"For a guy who walked the wrong way to America," Remo said dryly.
Chiun eyed Remo thoughtfully. "You cannot let go of your emperor. That is your problem."
"I still can't believe Smitty's dead."
"He will never die in our hearts. Even if his noble bones have been consigned to the cold clay, we will remember him always. Now, cast him out of your mind. We must pack."
And because he knew the Master of Sinanju was right, Remo allowed Chiun to chase him from the room.
THE SUN WAS COMING UP as Chiun was going through his steamer trunks some twenty minutes later.
Upstairs the telephone rang and rang.
Standing up, Chiun raised his voice. "Do not dare climb the tower stairs, Remo. I know what you are thinking."
Remo's voice came from down the hall. "I'm in the bathroom, Chiun."
"Stay there. I am still about my packing. Answer no telephones."
"Who would be calling us at this hour?" Remo called back.
"A houseless ghost knows no rest. We will ignore the fingerless fiend."
But the phone rang and rang and rang. It stopped after nearly fifty rings. Almost at once it rang again. And kept ringing.
Remo came out of the bathroom dripping from a cold shower. He wore a towel around his waist. Except for his freakishly thick wrists, he looked as ordinary as soap.
He poked his head into the room where Chiun was busy packing.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked.
Chiun did not look up from folding kimonos. "You are thinking wrong."
"Harold Smith is the only guy I know who would flog a telephone line like that. Then hang up and go round all over again."
"It is the ronin. In the days of Kang, they would knock on any door for hours until given food."
Remo cocked an ear ceilingward. "Sound's like Smith's ring to me."
"You are imagining things."
"Maybe the ronin's leaving a message. Think I'll mosey upstairs and eavesdrop."
Chiun leaped to his feet. "You will do nothing of the sort!" he said, pointing with a threatening finger. Realizing it was his blunted index finger, Chiun hastily made a fist and shook it at Remo.
Remo said, "I won't pick up the phone, I promise."
"The ronin will hear you eavesdropping. They are like that."
"Oh, get off it, Chiun."
"Remo!"
But Remo had floated up the stairs.
In the bell tower the phone kept ringing. And ringing. Oddly the message machine wasn't picking up.
Remo saw why when he looked more closely. The tape was used up.
Rewinding, Remo set it at the beginning and hit Playback.