On the sidewalk below, he spotted footprints. The chauffeur's. They led away from the building.
"Let's go!" Remo shouted. "He's getting away!"
The Mongols raced to the door, nearly dismembering one another trying to plunge down the stairs with swords in hand.
Remo was the last one out of the room. The stairs were choked with Mongols, so Remo cleared them with a single leap. He kicked the front door open when he reached it, hitting the sidewalk without breaking stride.
Remo found the street empty in both directions.
His eyes scanned the snow at his feet. The Mongols piled out, ready to do battle.
"Hold up!" he said, blocking Kula with a hand. "Check it out!"
The Mongol looked down. There were two sets of footprints now-one going and one coming.
"Enlighten us, white tiger," Kula said.
"This second set wasn't there a minute ago," Remo explained tersely. He backtracked them.
They led him back into the house through the broken door.
"This is the guy from the back of the limo," Remo told Kula. "I recognize his footprints from New Rochelle."
The sinister name "New Rochelle" buzzed from Mongol lip to Mongol ear. Lips tightened. Daggers were clutched more tightly.
"He must have slipped inside when we were upstairs," Remo added. "Come on. We'll nail him."
They ran back into the building. This time they turned the place upside down in their fury. Display cases were overturned and their glass kicked loose under frustrated sheepskin boots.
Remo went back upstairs.
"There is no one here," Kula shouted up from below.
"Check for secret passages, tunnels, anything!" Remo shouted down. "He's in here!"
The Mongols grunted and ran the walls through with their blades, until every vertical surface resembled crumbling Swiss cheese.
They found no sign of life. There was no basement, no attic-just two deserted and now disarrayed floors.
Remo came down the stairs dejectedly.
"I don't get it," he growled.
He went outside. "He had to come here while we were upstairs," Remo said aloud to the nearest Mongol. "So where did he go?"
The Mongol shrugged. He couldn't understand it either. Or Remo. He didn't speak English.
"Perhaps he is a ghost," Kula ventured. "We have ghosts in Mongolia, just as you do in demon-haunted New Rochelle."
"I've never seen a ghost in Mongolia or New Rochelle."
Remo decided that following the chauffeur's footprints was his only sensible course of action.
His Mongols at his heels, Remo made his way through a maze of alleys.
The footprints-both pairs-paralleled one another, although going in opposite directions. They led back to the first courtyard, which was once more empty.
"I thought you guys left the slab down limo-side-up," Remo complained.
"We did, truly," Kula said.
"Well, it's gone."
To be certain, they upended the slab again. The limousine wasn't on either side of the revolving surface.
But Remo noticed that the tracks of the passenger as well as the chauffeur stopped at the edge of the slab-one going and the other coming.
"This doesn't make sense," Remo told no one in particular. "I checked the car before I went down the tunnel. It was empty."
"Yes?" Kula said.
"No driver. He took off through the tunnel, right?"
"Correct. Absolutely."
"But the passenger seat was empty. I could tell from listening. So how could the guy in back walk away after we left the car and go into the house? He wasn't in the car in the first place-I'd swear to that-and he didn't end up in the house. But his footprints say he was."
"The answer to this conundrum is quite simple," Kula said sagely.
Remo looked up expectantly. "Yeah?"
"It is Chinese sorcery."
"It is bullshit," Remo snapped.
Chapter 29
Remo Williams led Smitty clopping through the streets of Sayn Shanda. He had sent Kula away with his men, to await orders.
They would need to gather more men if they were to head off the approaching Mongol horde.
But for now, Remo had a date with Fang Yu.
He stabled his horse and noted that Fang Yu's bay was still in its stable.
He rode the elevator to his floor in silence, feeling suddenly strange in his native costume. He wondered what Chiun would say if he saw him now. Perhaps before the day was over, he'd find out.
Remo went directly to Fang Yu's door. He knocked twice.
Fang Yu opened the door a crack.
"Remo! Where you been? I been looking for you."
"I had to catch a train," Remo said, pushing the door in. Fang Yu stepped back, her mouth open in mute surprise.
"Train?" she said. "Where did you go that you still in Sayn Shanda?"
"Beijing ordered the Twenty-seventh Army up by rail," Remo said in a harsh, brittle voice. "Kula and I stopped them outside of town. They won't be killing any more Chinese-or Mongolians."
He watched Fang Yu's face for reaction-anger, horror, fear.
Instead, she surprised him by breaking out into a wide smile.
"You defeat Twenty-seventh Army? Remo, that wonderful! You be hero to Chinese people. Twenty-seventh Army butchers. Very bad."
"There'll be more," Remo added. "I've got to stop them if I can."
"I will help,''
"Why?"
Fang Yu blinked behind her tortoiseshell glasses. "Say again, please?"
"I know you're not Ivory Fang," Remo said in a fiat voice.
Fang Yu said nothing. Her face lost its color. It went as bloodless as old bone.
"So what's the truth," Remo said flintily. "Who are you really working for?"
Fang Yu swallowed. "For West. For Democratic China."
"Liar!"
"Not lie to you!" she retorted, her eyes hot. "I do so work for new China. Ivory Fang is my husband's code name. He sick, so I take his place. We do this from time to time. This way, Security Bureau never sure if Ivory Fang man or woman. Keep us safer longer."
"You're married?" Remo asked, surprised at his own disappointment.
Fang Yu turned away. "Husband understand."
"But I don't. I thought you cared about me."
"I do care for you, Remo. You very brave, very American. I admire American men very much. You good in sack too."
Remo decided to cut to the chase. The truth wasn't coming fast enough.
"You haven't seen me at my best," Remo said, low-voiced, stepping closer.
"What you do?" Fang Yu asked uneasily.
"You said I'm good in the sack," Remo returned. "But I've been holding back."
Fang Yu stepped back suddenly. "You have?"
"Exactly."
"Then you should not hold back. You should take me."
"Exactly what I had in mind . . ."
Remo did it by the numbers this time. He took Fang Yu's wrists in one hand. The other forefinger started its rhythmic irresistible tapping.
Fang Yu wet her lips. Her eyes squeezed in the first tormenting rhythms of the Sinanju sexual technique. Remo watched the play of emotion across her face, smiling. In a matter of moments, she would tell him everything she knew.
Then, and only then, would he take her. And then only if he still felt like it. The truth came first.
Fang Yu stepped closer to Remo, her chest against his. Her breath was quickening, pushing her small but rising breasts into his chest.
"Oh, Remo," she breathed, lifting her hands to his shoulders. Her fingernails dug in. Her eyes squeezed into catlike slits of turmoil. Her smell was in his nostrils, her breath mingling with her rose-petal scent.
Her breath smelled of pork.
It was the last smell Remo remembered. The very last thing he recalled was the touch of her slim fingers on the bare skin behind his ears, and suddenly he was swimming in blackness.
Fang Yu stepped back, her eyes hard. Remo fell back onto the bed. He bounced once, then lay still.