Alstein looked at the shiny chrome. He bounced the gun flat on his palm. He spun the cylinder. He looked at the cartridges and with his fingers isolated one and held it up to the light.
"Same gun, same bullets," said Alstein. "I know this cartridge. Two days ago I was loading and I became fascinated by the bronze case. I always am. Bullets are beautiful. Art. Really beautiful. And with a pin, for the hell of it, I scratched my initials in it. Not deep. I don't want to weaken the shell. But here it is."
"I was wondering about that," said Mr. Gordons. "I thought perhaps you had some special system. But I see you are about to put it into a different chamber."
"The chambers are all the same," said Alstein.
"They are not. Neither are the bullets. They are all different in size and shape but you cannot perceive that. Here. Let me load the same way you had them loaded."
Alstein watched and commented that he couldn't see how Mr. Gordons could tell. But that wasn't the first crazy thing and it wasn't the last. It was not only the first time Alstein had gone on a team hit, but also the first time that he was wired and given what Mr. Gordons called a tracker. He made Alstein stand in the center of the room and turn around slowly. When the button-like thing taped to Alstein's stomach vibrated, Mr. Gordons said the two targets were in the direction Alstein was facing.
"You mean, here in the room?"
Mr. Gordons laid out a map of St. Thomas. "No. Roughly either the Peterborg Estates or over Magen's Bay. When you're pointed toward them, you'll feel the vibrations. They will get stronger as you get closer."
Sergeant Pitulski yawned and blinked his eyes and attempted to focus his mind. Something was caught in the back of his shirt.
He reached behind him and with great effort tore it out from his shirt. It was a little metal spur with spikes. He pressed it in his fingers and then, to test its hardness, bit into it.
Alstein spun around and grabbed his stomach.
"It's burning, it's burning, it's burning," he cried.
"Turn away from Pitulski," said Gordons and with his fingers snapped the spur from Pitulski's mouth as if preventing a dog from chewing on some unclean thing.
Jellicoe watched Mr. Gordons's fingers reshape the spur and Alstein sighed with relief. So that was how Mr. Gordons found him in the bathroom of the O'Hare Airport, thought Jellicoe. The spurs were miniature transmitters—homing devices—and when Sergeant Pitulski had bitten into his, he somehow had changed the frequency to that of the two targets. Jellicoe felt around his back and his fingers closed on a beautiful sharp spur. He moved his hand away quickly. Apparently Mr. Gordons had not seen him. He would leave it there until he saw a chance of escape. And this time he would not carry his own beacon. He would throw it away and flee. When he had a chance.
"Buncha nuts," mumbled Alstein and then took a fast look at the photographs of the two hits. One, according to Mr. Gordons, was called "high probability Remo" and the other "high probability Chiun." The Oriental was Chiun. Mr. Gordons believed this because that is what he heard them call each other.
The photos looked as if someone had shot them head high but when Jellicoe picked up the two sheets of paper, black and gray ink came off on his right thumb in a smear like a small Greek shield. It shone glossy. They were not photographs. They were incredibly fine etchings. Done with ink.
Who was this Mr. Gordons? What were his powers and where did he get them? He was like a walking laboratory and manufacturing plant, all in one. Jellicoe shuddered and tried to think of more pleasant times.
"I'll be back in an hour with the job done and we can all go home," said Alstein. But he was not back in an hour. He didn't even find the house until sunrise. The vibrating button worked fine, but it seemed to vibrate right over, fields or directly up rocky inclines and it was dawn Before Alstein had worked out the correct combination of roads for his car and stood before a little wooden house with an excellent view of a wide jade-blue bay and the waters below. A long furry rat-like creature scurried under a banana palm. A small brown lizard clinging to the side of the house looked balefully behind his head with eyes that rotated.
Moe Alstein cocked his gun, knocked with his left hand on the door. No one answered. He knocked again.
"Who is it?" came a voice.
"Western Union," said Alstein. "I got a message for you."
"Who for?"
"A Remo something."
"Just a minute."
Alstein raised the gun and aimed just above the doorknob. When the knob turned and the door opened slightly he let go with the first shot that took off a fist-sized hunk from the edge of the wooden door. The door slammed open and Alstein moved in, looking for the wounded body. But there were only splinters and a big hole through the sliding glass door at the other end of the house. There wasn't even any blood. A bearded old gook stuck his head out of a door. Alstein squeezed off a shot at the bearded face. But no blood. No body smacked back as if hit by a sledgehammer. Just a big scoop out of the wall.
Where was the person who had opened the door? Where? Moe Alstein stepped back in sudden panic. He would retreat to the road and blast them from there. There was nothing in this house that could stop a .357 Magnum.
But what had happened? He had to have hit someone but there was no blood. And he had had the little gook perfect. He could take the bowl off a champagne glass at thirty feet; he wasn't going to miss a whole head. The door behind him had to have sent wood splinters into someone. You don't open a door without a hand. As Alstein stepped back, he felt a little stinging in his gun hand. He saw an arm over his shoulder coming directly down to his right wrist. There was a guy on the ledge above the door, resting on it as if it were a wide hammock.
"Hi. I'm Remo. You got a message for me? Well, just let me have it and don't sing. I can't stand singing telegrams."
Alstein tried to wrest his hand free but he could not. The gun dropped dully to the wooden floor. The Oriental appeared from the far doorway in front of the .357 Magnum hole. Not a whisker on the long wispy beard was damaged.
Chiun moved quickly to Alstein and his hands darted around the bigger man's body like butterflies gone amok. He felt the metal spur taped to Alstein's stomach, but kept his hands moving for another moment before stepping back.
"Who sent you?" asked Remo, hopping down from the doorsill.
"Mr. Gordons."
"He's here on the island? Where is he?" asked Remo.
But Alstein's mouth gave forth no words. It opened and then filled with blood. The Master of Sinanju withdrew a long nail from the throat and like a spigot unplugged, Alstein's blood gushed forth from the puncture hole in his throat.
"What'd you do that for?" asked Remo. "What'd you do that for? He was going to tell us about Gordons."
"Hear ye, hear ye," wailed the Master of Sinanju. "Gordons, we do not wish your death. Sinanju yields. The world is big enough for both of us. Hail the House of Gordons."
"Now I know why you killed him," said Remo. "You don't want me to find Gordons."
Alstein writhed on the floor, his blood soaking his jacket, his arms flailing uselessly. Remo stepped away from the growing, seeping dark puddle.
"That's blood," said Remo. "You know how hard it is to clean up blood? From dry wood, no less. You know how hard? Get him out of here."
But Chiun wailed again.
"No grief, no bill due do we hold against the glory of the House of Gordons. No wealth do we want. Sinanju yields."
"Shmuck," said Remo and with his good arm snared Alstein's belt and carried him at arm's length, so as not to get himself messed up, out to the porch where with one spinning heave he threw the body splashing into Magen's Bay.