"And his eyes were brown?" Remo asked.
"Yeah. Brown… like yours."
"And his hair?"
"It was dark," O'Brien said. "Dark . . . like yours." He jumped up from the chair and his hand flashed to his side, but then his hand didn't work anymore and he was back in his chair, and a pain more excruciating than any he had ever felt before was happening along his partially-crippled right arm, and the man who thought he was PJ Kenny said, "What the hell's the matter with you? What are you trying to pull a gun on me for?"
O'Brien said, "Don't give me that. How'd you get here?"
"What are you talking about?" Remo said. "I work for the baron."
"Sure," O'Brien sneered. "He just went ahead and hired Remo Williams."
"Remo Williams? What the hell are you talking about?"
"You're him, man. Maybe you can shit the baron but you can't shit me. You're Remo Williams."
"And you're nuts. I've been assigned to kill Williams."
"Well, just cut your wrists, man," O'Brien said. "And Williams'll die of the bleeding."
"You're dreaming," Remo said.
"Look, Williams," O'Brien said. "I don't know what you're pulling here, but how about letting me in on it? I can probably be some help to you."
Remo was busy trying to sort out what O'Brien had said, but it was all wrapped up in darkness. He was PJ Kenny. But this man said he wasn't. This man would know and he said that he was Remo Williams. But how could he be?
"I just had plastic surgery," Remo said. "It must just be a coincidence."
"No way," O'Brien said. "How about it? You and me? Fair split?"
A fair split. Remo thought about it for a second, O'Brien's hand went toward his gun again, and Remo suddenly hated this man who had brought confusion into a life that was simplifying into the daily humdrum of the professional assassin. So he reached high into the air and brought the side of his fist down against the top of O'Brien's skull and heard the bones cracking like ice cubes splintering in a warm mix and O'Brien slumped forward in his chair, dead.
Remo let the body fall heavily onto the floor.
Remo Williams? How could it be? He was PJ Kenny. Nemeroff had known him. Maggie had known him. How could he be Williams?
But there was the chink. Had the chink recognized him when he stepped into that door at the hotel? Had the chink known he was Remo Williams? Then why hadn't he said something? Why had he just stood there, waiting to be killed by PJ Kenny?
He tried to consider the moves and every move came back to Chiun, to that old Oriental calmly awaiting death in his cell, humiliatingly bound, wrist and ankle to the floor, and Remo knew his answer was there and he would have to confront the old man.
At that moment, the telephone rang. It sat on a small walnut table in the center of the room and Remo stepped over and picked it up. "Hello."
"This is Nemeroff. Was O'Brien any help to you?"
"Yes," Remo said. "A great help."
"Good. May I talk with him, please?"
"Afraid not, baron," Remo said, looking at the body. "He's lying down." He saw the brains and blood oozing from O'Brien's skull. "He said he had a splitting headache."
There was a pause. "Oh, all right," Nemeroff said. "I am just beginning my meeting now. My men will have to forego their pleasure with the Englishwoman. Would you please dispose of her and the Oriental and then join us up here in the fifth floor conference room?"
"Yes, sir. As fast as my little legs can carry me," Remo said.
"Thank you. We will all be waiting."
Remo hung up the telephone, looked at it momentarily, then stepped out into the hall. He would have to confront the old Oriental, and clear up this mystery once and for all.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The dungeon corridor was empty, even though Nemeroff had told ferret-face to watch the prisoners. The mold felt damp and slippery under Remo's feet as he slid down the dungeon corridor to Chiun's cell.
The door was locked, bolted heavily with an iron lock that weighed four pounds. Remo took the lock in his hands, and looked around to call the guard for the key, but then changed his mind for some reason, and twisted the lock in his hands until the metal fractured and it came loose from the door.
He quietly laid the two pieces on the floor, listening. There was no sound in the dungeon except the soft sobbing of Maggie in her cell, behind the closed door, across the narrow passageway. She would be next, but first, the Oriental.
Remo pulled the door open slowly, and remembered how he had last seen the old man, helpless, wrists and ankles chained to the floor.
The door opened softly. The old man sat on the bunk in the cell, a full six feet away from the metal ring, and Remo looked toward the ring.
It was inch-thick steel and it had been-sheared in half. Laying next to it were the chains. Broken. So were the ankle and wrist manacles, mashed and broken as if they had been pounded by a hammer wielded with enormous power.
But of course that was impossible, since the old man's hands and feet would have been in the chains when such a hammer was wielded and he would have suffered injury.
The old man stood as Remo walked into the cell, then bowed from the waist and smiled.
For the moment, Remo would not ask how he had escaped. There were other, more important, things for the man who thought he was PJ Kenny.
"Old man," he said, "I need your help."
"You have but to ask."
"I think I know who I am, but I'm not sure. Help me."
Chiun looked at the small bandage still covering Remo's temple. "You received a blow on the head, did you not?"
"Yes."
"And it was after that that your memory disappeared?"
"Yes."
"Then perhaps a similar blow," Chiun said, and before Remo could move or react, a small rock-hard fist lashed out, and a thumb knuckle hit against his temple, missing the exact mid-point of the bone by a precise 32nd of an inch, and Remo lived by exactly that distance. He saw stars. He shook his head to clear it. And then in a rush of memories, his life flooded back into him: his identity, his mission, who he was and why he was here.
"I know," he said, smiling happily, yet shaking his head from the shock of the attack. "I know. I'm Remo."
"I am glad," Chiun said. "I have something for you." And then, quicker than eye could see or body could move, the old man's hand lashed out, open, fingers extended, thumb drawn in alongside the fleshy part of the palm, and the four extended fingers slapped Remo's cheek with a sharp report.
Remo's head spun, and he growled, "C'mon, Chiun, now what the hell was that about?"
"That is for calling Sinanju a suburb of Hong Kong and for calling me a Chinaman. That is for being insolent to your elders. That is for not staying on your diet and for consorting with women and for bothering Doctor Smith and for endangering your country's interests."
"Had you worried, huh?"
"Worry? About a piece of worthless carrion who will, without me, eat himself to death in a week? What is to worry?"
When he had been PJ Kenny, Remo had planned to ask how the old man had broken his iron bonds. Now that he was again Remo Williams, the question was not necessary. The old man had broken his bonds because he was Chiun, the Master of Sinanju, and because there had never been anything quite like him in the world before. Even if he felt he was getting old, there was color in his cheeks now and the happiness of the hound on the chase.
"Come, Chiun, we have things to do," Remo said, turning toward the door.
"A common pattern," Chiun said. "First the personal abuse, and now the orders. Do this. Do that. Am I to be treated like a wage slave? Is there no respect due a man my age, a frail old specter barely able to stand erect?"