"Chiun!" his voice echoed savagely off the stone courtyard walls. "Remo! You have stumbled into my domain to meet your end."
He was pulled out of the insensate roarings of his mind by the close yapping of a small animal. Already out of control, he turned slowly to see with his madman's eyes a dog darting back and forth in the courtyard, barking bravely at the Dutchman whom all animals feared.
His eyes automatically trained themselves on the dog. With a yelp, the animal began to run faster and faster around the courtyard, panting, stumbling over its own feet, until it collapsed. Its tongue lolled out in exhaustion.
The Dutchman tried to pull his mind away from the dog. It belonged to the Asiatic girl, and she was his favorite. But he could no more quell the violent power of his thoughts than he could halt the tide. He felt the thing, the ugly, unwanted thing inside him that had given him no rest since the moment he had discovered it, stir within him. The dog would have to die another horrifying death to add to the Dutchman's long list.
The thought was emerging on its own, red and blistery, the colors growing brighter... Then the sound of fast, shuffling feet momentarily broke his concentration as the girl, clothed in a white sleeping gown, her black hair flying behind her, dashed into the courtyard and scooped the dog up in her arms. She was whimpering and her hands shook as she picked up the animal, careful not to look at the Dutchman.
But the thought had already formed. Boils. And suddenly the girl screamed and tore at her clothes in a grotesque frenzy. The white gown hung in tattered strands over her once-perfect body, now covered with seeping sores. The dog scurried into the interior of the castle as the girl clawed at her eyes. Her ragged cries echoed, feeding the Killing Picture in the Dutchman's wild, transfixed eyes.
It was near the end. The girl's knees buckled and she fell to the earth, still screaming. Then the doorway opened, and the mute stood within its arch, the little dog at his feet.
"No!" the Dutchman shouted, but the mute would not leave. When would it stop, the horror, the killing, the revulsion at himself? Would he spend the rest of his life killing everyone who dared to come near him? Would he end his days a senseless monster with no will to perform anything but acts of death? With an effort so great that he felt his heart would stop, the Dutchman's feet began to turn. One step, then another, each harder than the last, until he was facing the wall.
"Go," he whispered hoarsely. The mute ran into the courtyard and lifted the bleeding girl in his arms. Then they fled with the little dog whining beside them through the big oak and iron door leading inside the castle.
The Dutchman clung to the top of the wall with white-knuckled hands. He could not hang on much longer. Soon he would have to turn back, commanded by the demon inside him, and everything in his way would be obliterated.
When he heard the soft thump of the door closing, the tension lessened. He felt some strength return to his hands and legs. Jumping high into the air, he vaulted over the wall and ran over the scrub of Devil's Mountain to the sea, where he swam for several miles until his energy began to dissipate.
Far out in the deep waters of the Atlantic, the demon calmed. The Dutchman turned on his back to see the bright, clean streaks of sunset clouds in the sky. His nostrils filled with the salt fragrance of the sea. His body floated motionless on the waves, soothed and cooled by the water. It would be so easy here, now, to dive to the depths of the sea, attach himself to a rock, and release the life from him that would float to the surface with the air in his lungs and burst in the salt spray. Death would be the most welcome event in his life.
But death was a luxury he could not give himself before his task was completed. He had made a promise to the Master, and he would fulfill it. Remo and Chiun would die first. Then the Dutchman would rest.
With long, weary strokes, he swam back to shore.
The mute was waiting for him when he returned to the castle. With his usual stony expression, he prepared the Dutchman his bath and a solitary meal of rice and tea. After he had finished, the Dutchman said, "Thank you, Sanchez." It was the first time he had used the mute's name. Sanchez's expression did not change, but the Dutchman thought he saw, for a brief moment, something like pity flicker in the mute's eyes.
The Dutchman spoke no more. In sign language, he asked Sanchez to make preparations at the shipyard. He could not allow more incidents to occur in his own home. The straw dummies were not adequate to contain his strength. He needed live victims.
The mute nodded and left. My power is becoming frightening, the Dutchman thought. Soon I will have to make contact with the young American and the old Oriental, Chiun. The time is coining.
Soon.
?Four
Pierre came to get Remo in a red Datsun pickup. Its fenders were riddled with dents, and the tailgate clanked open and shut with each bump on the winding dirt roads. Both headlights were smashed.
"Is this thing safe?" Remo asked.
"Safest car on de road," Pierre said, his teeth shining brilliant white against the ebony blackness of his skin. He patted the pitted dashboard of the Datsun as it labored up the steep hill roads near the island's west shore. "When Pierre get in accident, he drive away. Other guy— splat." He grinned with homicidal glee.
"Isn't that illegal?" Remo asked, amused.
Pierre dismissed the objection. "Not much illegal in the islands," he said. "Killing with gun, that illegal. Squashing with car, that legal." He poked Remo in the ribs. "Good thing for you Pierre got big car, huh?"
Remo smiled wanly. On his right, far below the cliff road, he spotted an industrial complex surrounded by an electric fence replete with high-voltage signs in English, French, and Dutch. Two television monitors atop high metal poles tracked the area constantly. The entire place was lit with bright floodlights.
The elaborate security system made the compound seem out of place in its primitive, night-blackened setting. "What's that?" Remo asked, pointing to it.
"Dat the Soubise shipyards," Pierre said.
"Soubise? Fabienne's father?"
"Dat the one. Only Soubise, he dead now. It all belong to the Dutchman now." He whispered the name in a low, mysterious whisper designed more for intrigue than communication.
"That Dutchman again. Everybody keeps bringing up the Dutchman, like he's some kind of a ghost. Who is this guy, anyway?"
"Nobody know the Dutchman," Pierre said, his voice that of a master storyteller beginning to spin his tale. "Never see nobody, never go noplace, that one. Some say he the devil himself. Look. Look up there." He skidded the truck to a halt on the steep mountain road, causing the vehicle to shimmy precariously close to the cliff.
"What's that?" Remo said, squinting through the darkness at a barbaric-looking white fortress on a hill in the distance.
"Dat the castle where he live, the Dutchman, up on Devil's Mountain."
"A castle? Must be an eccentric old coot."
"He just a boy, Mister Remo," Pierre whispered. "Maybe twenty, twenty-five year old. But he the devil, don't doubt that."
Remo was interested. "Sidonie said Old Man Soubise left him all his money."
"And the shipyard, too. The old man, he see the Dutchman, and he go cuckoo. Dat what happen. Any man what looks on the golden boy of the castle, it too late." His eyes rolled in a broad pantomime of instantaneous madness.
"Wait a minute, Pierre. That kind of stuffs pure superstition."
"It true!" Pierre protested. "The Dutchman, he go in disguise to work for Monsieur Soubise as a truck loader. One day he get close to the old man, and bam! Like that, the old man say he a bird and jump off a cliff."