“Fuck you, buddy! Way I see it, you’ve got just two choices. You can split or you can get your ass kicked.”
“There’s a third choice,” Remo said.
“Oh, yeah?”
“You go bye-bye for good—last exit, no return, pain guaranteed.”
“That’s it!” the taller of the goons declared. “That’s fucking all she wrote!”
He charged at Remo, swung his heavy flashlight like a club, with all his weight behind the blow.. It slashed through empty air, his target having sidestepped at the final instant, fading to the big man’s right.
It was a simple thing to grab his wrist and use the momentum of his rush against him. Remo heard the arm snap one, two, three times, at the shoulder, elbow, wrist. He kept the pressure on, ignored the slugger’s scream and caught him with a jab behind the ear that turned his adversary’s brain to jelly, leaving Remo with a lifeless body at his feet, the dead man’s flashlight in his hand.
“Your turn,” he told the short Latino.
“Hey, man, fuck it! What’s the big deal anyway? You wanna go out walking in the woods, man, that’s your business.”
“Wrong. I’m trespassing.”
“Hey, I don’t give a shit, okay?”
“You’ve got a job: to do,” said Remo, circling around the second goon to cut off his retreat.
“You’re pushin’ it,” the khaki watchdog warned him.
“That’s exactly right.”
“Okay, man.” Reaching in a pocket of his slacks, the sentry drew a folding knife and flicked it open.
From the way he held it, Remo understood that he had gone this route before, on more than one occasion. He was probably one of the toughest hombres in whatever bar he chose to frequent, but there was a world of difference between that kind of brawling and the fine points of Sinanju.
“Are you gonna move or what?”
“Or what,” said Remo, waiting.
There was no wild-assed rush this time. The young Latino took his time, advancing slowly, feinting with the five-inch blade and waggling his free hand in an effort to distract his adversary. Remo watched him going through the motions, stood his ground and waited.
When the lunge came, it was telegraphed by the expression on the young man’s face, a kind of grimace, lips drawn back to bare his small white teeth. The blade was aimed at Remo’s stomach, but it never got there. Remo parried with a left-hand sweep across his body, clasped the young man’s wrist and yanked him forward, so the open-handed killing blow didn’t have far to travel. Remo barely felt the impact in his palm and wrist; he heard and saw the young man’s head jerk backward, with the left side of his face imploding, while the force of impact snapped his neck.
The girl was trembling when he turned to face her, trying to decide if she should wait and try to talk with him or simply run away. Her fists were clenched, pressed tight against her thighs, and he could see the shiny tracks of fresh tears on her cheeks.
“Are you all right?”
She almost jumped as Remo spoke, but she recovered quickly. “Yeah,” she said. “I mean, I guess so. Who are you?”
“Hang on a second while I get these jokers out of sight.”
There is a trick to carrying outlandish weights, and it does not involve a lifetime wasted pumping iron. The trick is leverage and motion, never letting deadweight drag you down by hanging in one place. It seemed entirely natural, therefore, when Remo picked the corpses up, their belts employed as handles, and walked off into the trees, the bodies swinging in his grasp like empty suitcases.
He dumped them several yards inside the forest, partly hidden by a stand of ferns. He half expected the young woman to be gone when he returned, but she was waiting for him, dabbing at her eyes with one hand, staring at him with a mixture of suspicion and respect.
“We haven’t got much time,” he said. “You wanted out of here, I take it?”
“Right.”
“I’ll trade a lift for information,” Remo said. “Who are you?” she repeated.
“Right now, the only friend you have.”
She sniffed and smiled at that and said, “What are we waiting for?”
Chapter 11
Once upon a time, the Master of Sinanju had compiled a list of all that he found pleasing in America. The list was short and read as follows:
It isn’t China.
It isn’t Japan.
It isn’t Vietnam.
It isn’t Thailand.
It isn’t France.
He did not mention television, though TV seemed to occupy much of his time. In fact, it would be no exaggeration to describe him as a TV addict.
Which is not to say that all of television’s offerings met with Chiun’s approval. In fact, almost none of them did. However, when Remo asked him on occasion why it was he watched so much TV, Chiun explained that he was monitoring the decline of so-called Western civilization.
That night, cooped up inside his squalid quarters at the Dogwood Inn, Chiun had found yet another example of something Remo called an infomercial. He had been watching these programs on and off lately, preferring those that dealt with psychic and astrological themes.
The one on television that night was not one of his favorites. He had seen it dozens of times. A fat man in a ridiculous wig and puffy white shirt was revealing the secrets of the universe to a bubbly ex-MTV veejay. She grinned vapidly, nodding in appreciation at every lisping observation the man made. It was truly awful.
Still, Chiun watched, for there was nothing else to do. He had already scanned the local newspaper, found nothing to amuse him in the drab reports of nearby goings-on. The county high school had elected cheerleaders. The ladies of the Hidden Valley Church had turned a profit on their bake sale, with the proceeds bound for charity. Three local teens had been arrested for defacing rural mailboxes.
All drivel.
Chiun reached out to Remo with his mind and wondered how the mission was proceeding. Obviously he was not concerned for Remo’s safety. So far, the enemies he faced on this assignment for Mad Emperor Smith had been no challenge for the next Master of Sinanju. Still, if their targets could truly raise the dead, they might have tricks in store that would take Remo by surprise.
Chiun wondered how the local newsmen would describe events unfolding at Ideal Maternity. There was a tendency among most men to cover up their own mistakes and oversights, he realized. It would be too much to expect the unadulterated truth from any branch of the American news media, but they would find it difficult to totally ignore the matter, if some version of the truth spilled out. There would certainly be corpses to explain, but that wasn’t Chiun’s concern.
He was enduring the last fifteen minutes of his infomercial when the enemy arrived. A flash of headlights first, across the flimsy curtains, as the car pulled up outside. It was too soon for Remo to return, and two doors slamming meant at least that many passengers emerging from the vehicle. Chiun counted footsteps and revised his estimate to three. Male voices were jabbering, when any skilled assassin would have held his tongue.
Chiun did not rise to greet them, leaving them to do the work. It was sufficient inconvenience that they chose to interrupt his watching television, even if it was a program he did not really enjoy.
For a moment, Chiun imagined his assailants were so stupid they would pass right by his door. They did, in fact, go several steps too far, as if proceeding toward the motel office, but then one of them barked at the others to come back.
Between them, they made noise enough to wake the dead.
The talk was bad enough, a fatal error in itself for a would-be assassin when his trade demanded stealth, but Chiun could also hear them draw their weapons, cocking pistols as they stood outside his door, for all the world to see.