"We got any Comet or Babbo or Fantastick in the house?" asked Remo. "Shmuck."
"Yield to Gordons. Peace we seek," said Chiun.
"Maybe some Lestoil?" said Remo.
In the Windward Hotel, the small television screen on a set without a case had transmitted Chiun's words of peace. The last picture it showed was of the sky. The fading morning stars seemed to be racing away, and then the picture shuddered, flashed an image of bubbles, and then only blackness and silence.
Jellicoe watched the set turn itself off. He shook his head and moaned. Sergeant Pitulski looked confused.
"I didn't see nothing. Just the door. The shot, the gook that should of gone down, and then the hand coming like it was suspended from up above, you know. You think they got some trick machinery in that house or something?"
"No," said Mr. Gordons. "Well, so much for metal. Now we try fire, Sergeant Pitulski."
"The Marines are ready to move out," said Pitulski.
"Stay more than an arm's length away," said Mr. Gordons. "If we go now, we may catch them in the house. Stay twenty-five yards away and hit the house from there. I think I saw a clearing on the television transmission, so they won't have the advantage of places to hide to come up on you. This may be effective."
Driving to the house overlooking Magen's Bay, the three did not take the experimental roads Alstein had tried. They knew the best way, because they had watched him wander all night over the little TV set. As the now hot morning made breathing difficult in the car, Sergeant Pitulski wondered why Mr. Gordons wanted to accompany him.
"Because you drink. There is nothing more unreliable than a human being with alcohol in his bloodstream."
"I fight better drunk than sober," said Pitulski.
"A chemical illusion," said Mr. Gordons as he drove up winding Mafoli Avenue; down behind them they could see Charlotte Amalie at the foot of the rising hill, and the fine white cruise ships docked in the bay.
"May I ask why we want to kill those two?" said Jellicoe. "I mean if you want to tell us."
"I have no desire not to tell you. The one without the beard, which would indicate he was younger, has extraordinary strength. He damaged my left side. Now if he could do this, then either he or the bearded one, or both together, could destroy me. Correct?"
"Correct," said Jellicoe. "But the Oriental said he didn't want to. That was the one thing he made clear. That he didn't want to tangle with you."
"'Tangle,' I take it, means battle," said Gordons. "That is one thing he said. Just because a person says something does not mean he will act upon it."
"But we had to go find them, didn't we?" asked Jellicoe.
"You are correct. That only indicates, however, that they are not coming after me now," said Mr. Gordons.
"And from what I gathered, they don't want to come after you. At least not the old one who seems to get his way; he doesn't want to come after you at all, ever," said Jellicoe.
"Who gives a shit?" said Sergeant Pitulski.
"Will you shut up, you dummy?" said Jellicoe.
Mr. Gordons continued driving smoothly, apparently ignoring Pitulski.
"I too tend sixty-four percent positive, plus or minus eight percent, that the bearded one would avoid me. At least for now. And I too could avoid them."
"Then why are you, we, us, all of us trying to kill them?"
"Because it is optimum," said Mr. Gordons.
"I don't understand."
"If they are dead, my chances of survival improve. Therefore, I will kill them. In killing them, I will also become effective against anyone like them."
"All right, can I ask why? I mean, why do you want to become effective against them and people like them?"
"To maximize my survival."
"But there's got to be more of a reason. There's such a small chance you would ever meet people like them again. I mean, do you spend all your time just surviving?"
"Exactly," said Mr. Gordons.
"Doing nothing but surviving?"
"Surviving requires all my effort."
"How about love?" asked Jellicoe, desperately hoping to strike some emotion other than this computer-like insistence on only survival.
"Love has as many meanings as there are people." said Mr. Gordons. "It is not capable of programming," he added, and he turned up a narrow road that rose above Magen's Bay.
"There it is, Sergeant Pitulski," said Mr. Gordons as they stopped at a driveway which was cut into a clearing. In the center of the small clearing was a wooden house with a large hole in the front door where a doorknob might have been.
"Now this is how I want you to do it," said Mr. Gordons, as he strapped the flamethrower unit to Sergeant Pitulski's back and checked the nozzle end of the tube which fitted under his arm. "I don't want a direct spray that can be evaded. I want you to first set the far side of the house aflame, then move the flame around left in a circle that comes almost to your feet, and then keep going onward toward your right until the circle is closed. With the fire, you will make the flames fatter toward the house until we have a funeral fire."
Sergeant Pitulski said it wasn't the Marine way; Mr. Gordons said it was the way it would be done.
The first line of flame shot in an arch over the dry wooden house and the droplets caught and flared wherever they landed. In a surprisingly even circle, Sergeant Pitulski set the brush aflame and brought the circle to a close, but, as he did so, he lost the exact sighting of the house in the rising flame. He stepped back to higher ground and haphazardly filled in the center of the circle, but such was the dryness of the brush and wood of the house that the whole area went roaring up under the infusion of liquid flame. Sergeant Pitulski backed away from the roaring heat.
"Well, that's it," said Jellicoe, watching from the front seat as Mr. Gordons got back into the car.
"Invalid," said Mr. Gordons and started the car with a roar and spun it around and down the road. As Jellicoe looked back, he saw two figures, one in a barely smoking kimono and the other with what appeared to be a bandaged arm, flip Sergeant Pitulski into his own pyre. The fatty body made nary a pop on its way to crispness.
Mr. Gordons's driving amazed Jellicoe. He took corners at just the maximum possible speed, and soon he was on the open highway, but looking behind, Jellicoe could see that the young man with the damaged shoulder was not only keeping up with them, but was gaining on them, driving at a speed so incredible that he seemed to churn above the concrete road itself.
"On with your water gear, On with it. It's in the back seat," said Mr. Gordons. "It's your one chance for survival. Quickly." Jellicoe struggled with the suit as they speeded along the bumpy mountain road, but gave up and settled for the tanks and the mask and fins. Into the small gate at Magen's Bay Beach, Mr. Gordons spun the car, skidding to avoid a large beach house. There were shrieks from bathers. To avoid a tree, Mr. Gordons ran over a little toddler. Down the beach, he braked the car to a skidding, sandy stop.
"Out. The water is your only chance. Quickly, into it."
With his flippers on, Jellicoe could only penguin walk toward the water, but once in it, his flippers began to work, and he got his rubber mouthpiece set in his teeth and turned on the tank and blessedly moved along the sandy bottom.
Magen's Bay was not deep near the shore so Jellicoe swam directly out to sea. He was at home here in these clear waters, at home because what he feared was on land. And he thought that perhaps when man first left the sea, crawled up in that primitive state onto land, he had done so to escape what might be in the sea.
At forty feet deep, his back flipper caught in something and he turned to dislodge it. When he did, he saw the young man with the injured shoulder. His face was very calm.
In the water, Jellicoe worked on one chance, holding the man down without air. Surprisingly, the man did not resist. Jellicoe put his arms around the neck and the man was motionless, this man whose only name Jellicoe knew was Remo.