"At your age, you probably need help loading the magazine, huh?" the Cole staffer was saying.
The young man chuckled at his own comment. The chuckle mutated into a choked gurgle when the part of his brain that controlled the laughing function was rudely disrupted by a small piece of soft lead that had traveled at great velocity from the other side of the tent.
The staffer's forehead exploded outward. Then the sound of the gunshot registered on this end of the tent. Dollops of blood and sticky gray brain sludge splattered across a quilt depicting meticulously sewn scenes of early Wyoming pioneer life.
The staffer fell to his knees, his mouth sagging in shock. Before he had even hit the asphalt, Smith had drawn his own gun and, crouching like a football lineman, threw one gray shoulder into the back of Senator Cole. The force propelled Cole through the open
326
wooden archway of the quilting booth. When a second shot rang out, Smith threw himself atop the senator.
A fat woman Cole had been speaking with was struck in the shoulder by the bullet. It spun her around like a confused dancer without a partner. She dropped heavily to her ample bottom, stunned. A fountain of red burbled up from beneath her smart cotton blouse.
Screaming erupted all around. Most people had frozen in shock when the first shot rang out. By the second they were shocked out of their shock. The crowd under the tent scrambled in all directions.
Behind the cover of the small booth, Senator Cole sat stunned and blinking like a stupefied ostrich.
No time to check on him now. As he and Cole had ducked for cover, Smith registered the Kaspar campaigners drawing weapons from beneath their candidate's smiling face. They had been concealed in the hollow centers of the poles on which they had carried their posters.
The front of the booth was draped across with a sheet of wide crepe paper. Smith tore a hole large enough to see out across the main body of the tent.
Pairs of nervous legs went scampering close by. Not much farther away he could see an advancing group of armed men. Smith aimed his automatic at the closest gunman and pulled the trigger.
A satisfying explosion came from the heavy gun. The bullet struck the first man dead center in the chest. He toppled backward, his rifle clattering away from his twitching fingers.
The rest scattered like roaches, taking cover behind the dozen other carnival stands that stretched across the far side of the tent.
327
The burp of an automatic weapon preceded a shower of bullets across the open face of the booth where Smith and Cole were hidden. Fabric from shrapnel-torn quilts exploded in every direction, blowing wildly from the various impact points before settling softly to the asphalt floor.
A gunman appeared over the top of one of the concession counters. But before he was able to squeeze the trigger on his AR-15, Smith loosed two more shots. The gunman flung up his arms, then he sank behind the counter. He didn't appear again.
"Who is it?" Cole hissed. "Who's trying to get me?"
Smith was surprised that the man sounded so calm. Probably still in shock.
"I believe they are members of the Truth Church, Senator."
Cole screwed up his leathery face in confusion. "The cult?" he asked.
Smith had no time to respond. Two other members of the Truth Church were moving out from behind the raffle stand. They moved from folding chairs to tables, and when they were close enough, Smith fired his last three shots at the pair. He only hit one.
Jamming a hand into his jacket pocket, Smith fumbled for the spare ammunition clip he brought with him. But even as he did, he knew that if the gunman had continued moving forward he wouldn't have time to reload before the assailant made it to the booth.
Smith had just rammed the clip home, and was yanking back on the slide, when he saw the barrel of the AR-15 appear over the counter of the booth above their heads like the snout of a curious anteater.
328
Another second, and the barrel would be aimed at them. A second after that, Harold W. Smith and Senator Jackson Cole would be dead.
But those two seconds were precisely two seconds too long.
A shrill voice ripped the deathly still air.
"Hold, vassal of evil!"
A blur of crimson whirled across Smith's field of vision.
Before he knew what had happened, the rifle had vanished back over the top of the counter. Smith again peeked out through the hole in the booth, and he saw the gunman lying facedown on the ground, his own weapon jutting from his back like the dorsal fin of a shark.
A wizened face appeared over the counter.
"What are you doing here!" Smith exploded. "Where is Remo?"
The Master of Sinanju's eyes grew heavy of lid.
"Normally, when one preserves the life of one's emperor, the skies rain soft gold, not hard questions," Chiun said aridly.
Smith pushed himself up to a crouching position. "There are other assailants here," he warned Chiun.
"I will deal with such ruffians," Chiun said. "I have cleared a path so that you may lead your charge to safety." He gestured back in the direction from which he had come, behind Smith.
Smith glanced over his shoulder. He saw a motionless leg lying at an unnatural angle through the nearby rear tent flap. Close by lay a trampled Mark Kaspar poster.
329
Without another word Chiun moved toward the center of the tent.
The other members of the Truth Church, emboldened by the absence of return gunfire, had come out of hiding and were again advancing on Smith's position.
Like a fiery red dervish, Chiun swirled into the center of the mob.
One gunman, then another, raised their weapons to fire upon the Master of Sinanju. But it seemed as if he was never where they expected him to be. And as they redirected their fire, trying to fix their bizarre target, one by one they began dropping.
Smith watched for a moment. Only when he was certain that Chiun had crowded the remaining gunmen inside did he urge the senator to his feet. The two men scurried, crouching, out the rear tent flap to safety.
Esther Clear-Seer had watched the attack from a safe distance outside the tent.
The crowds had swarmed around her when the shooting started, but by this time most had fled screaming to safety. Aside from her Truth Church acolytes, Arapahoe Street was all but deserted.
She had no idea who the old guy with Cole was, but when she heard the last of eight bullets fired and didn't hear another as her men approached the booth, she was certain that the senator was finished.
And then the Asian had surged out of nowhere, arms high, face a thundercloud of righteous wrath.
He was the same old Asian who had come to her ranch with that Remo. The one who had broken her nose. The one Kaspar called the Master of Sinanju.
330
Esther had looked forward to seeing that old fossil again. She wanted to teach him a lesson that would never let him contemplate again blackening both all-seeing eyes and impacting her holy sinus cavities.
And it was just fine with her if her loyal acolytes did all the maiming and bone busting for her.
The old man was quickly surrounded. He disappeared under the bigger and taller bodies that closed in with slow, steady menace.
Esther Clear-Seer smiled. This would be worth waiting for.
When the bodies of her Truth Church acolytes began dropping around the feet of the old man, she changed her evil mind. It might be better for her own personal safety if she watched the proceedings from an even greater distance, after all.
In a blind panic Esther Clear-Seer turned and ran after the last remnants of the fleeing crowd, and her ears filled with the ugly, too-familiar sound of bones breaking and shattering.
Chapter Twenty-One
first the blackness was complete.