Remo took Maggie's arm and pulled her into the room next to him, as he leaned casually against the wall.
"Watch him," he said. "He's really good." He really was, too, Remo thought. Where had he ever gotten the idea that Chiun had grown old?
Chiun moved faster now, faster than bullets, faster than men's hands. Men converged on him and grasped only each other as he was not there, and then his hands and feet were there and bodies hit the floor.
Knives appeared but were wrested from their holders' hands, only to reinsert themselves in their owners' stomachs. Pencils and pens from the table became deadly missiles finding their marks in throats and eyes. One pen hit the mahogany panel next to Remo. It went all the way through the inch-thick hardwood, its point protruding through the other side.
"Hey, Chiun," Remo called, "watch that." To Maggie, he said, "He's good, right? Wait until he warms up." Maggie could only watch in stunned horror. It was like a butcher shop.
Bodies were piled, now. Men no longer fought for the chance to get at the old man. They came now for the door. But between them and the elevator door stood Remo Williams and there began another pile of bodies.
And then there were no more men standing. Only Remo and Chiun and Maggie who surveyed the carnage of the conference room. It looked like a Wall Street version of the St. Valentine's Day massacre.
"Not too good, Chiun," Remo said. "I was watching. You took two strokes on that big goon from Detroit. And you missed the target completely with this pen." He pointed to the pen in the mahogany panel. "You know what a pen like that costs?" he said. "And now it's not even good for writing or anything."
"I am contrite," Chiun said, his hands folded inside the sleeves of his robe.
"Yep," Remo said, "and your elbow was crooked again. Flying up there like Jack Nicklaus on the backswing. How many times do I have to tell you you're never going to amount to anything if you don't keep the elbow close to your side? Can't you learn anything?"
"Please tell me who you are," Maggie suddenly pleaded.
"It's best you don't know," Remo said. "But we're from America. And our assignment was the same as yours. Break this up."
"And you are not PJ Kenny?"
"No. I killed him before I got here." He interrupted himself as he saw a ghostly flicker in the highly polished wood of the wall across the room. He stepped into the room and looked up over his head. "Hey, look, the movie's on. Let's watch." He watched for a second, and said, "On second thought, Maggie, you better not watch."
He looked around the room. "Now let's see where Nemeroff is."
He walked toward the head of the table and turned a body over with his toe, then looked up, annoyed. "Chiun, is he over there?"
"No," Chiun said.
"Maggie. You got him by you?"
She forced herself to look at the bodies that littered the floor around her. No Nemeroff. She shook her head.
"He escaped, Chiun. He got away," Remo said.
"If you had been more a participant and less an observer, perhaps that might have been prevented," Chiun said.
"There were only thirty, Chiun. I wanted to leave them for you, so I could see what you're going to do with the bodies. Now where the hell did he go?"
There was a hard whirring sound overhead.
"The roof," Remo said. "The helicopters. He's up there." He looked around for panels, for stairways. He saw nothing. He looked up. A helicopter was settling down on the roof, its blades cutting swaths of darkness in the room as they revolved above the glass dome.
"How the hell do we get up there?" Remo asked.
Chiun answered.
First he was on the floor, then on the table, and then he was hurtling through the air, toward the dome, and he hit into it feet first. It crashed. He turned his body in air, grabbed a cross bar with his hands and pulled himself through the opening in the shattered glass.
Some old man, Remo thought.
He followed, springing onto the table and jumping up for a handhold on the cross bar. He hoisted himself through the break in the glass, calling over his shoulder, "Stay there, Maggie."
Then he was on the roof, alongside Chiun. But they were too late for Nemeroff. His red helicopter was already off the roof, and then it dipped its nose and sped off toward the south toward Mozambique, toward the island nation of Scambia.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Nemeroff's second helicopter was taking off at the other end of the roof and Remo and Chiun raced toward it. They reached it just as it started to speed up its rotor, and with dives, they grabbed the right wheel struts.
Above them, the engine roared and lugged, and tried to lift. But their weight unbalanced the craft. It lifted and dropped; lifted again and dropped.
Above their heads, the helicopter window opened. The co-pilot made his first and last mistake. He reached out, and tried to throw a punch at Chiun. Chiun reached up with a toe, then the co-pilot was coming through the window. He hit the stone covered roof and lay in a personal heap.
Remo moved up the struts and slid in through the window. A moment later, the pilot came out the same window. Seconds later, the craft sat down heavily on its haunches and the rotor stopped as Remo cut the engines.
The door opened and Remo jumped out onto the roof. His eyes joined Chiun's in looking forward to the horizon toward which the red helicopter of Baron Nemeroff was speeding.
"Must we pursue?" Chiun said.
"Yes."
"Can you fly this craft?"
"No," Remo said. "Can you?"
"No. But if I were a white man I would be able to use a white man's tools."
They heard behind them the sound of a motor and they turned. As they watched, a section of roof lifted up and then a small screened elevator rose onto their level. In it was Maggie.
As she stepped out, she said: "He had a secret door. I found it. Where is he?"
Remo pointed to the helicopter, now far away in the distance.
"Well, why don't we follow him?"
"I can't fly this damn thing."
"Get in," she said. "I can."
"I always knew there was something about you limey women that I liked," Remo said.
He hopped up into the plane. Maggie clambered up on her side and Chiun slid in alongside Remo, sitting between and behind Maggie and Remo, watching.
"How does this thing fly?" he asked, as Maggie started the engines and they kicked on with a whooshing sound.
He sounded worried.
"C'mon, Chiun, you never saw a helicopter before?" Remo asked.
"I have seen many of them. But I have never been in one and therefore did not examine the problem closely. How does this thing fly without wings?"
"Faith," Remo said. "Blind faith holds it up."
"If body gas from passengers with eating problems would hold it up, we would have no trouble," Chiun said.
Then the craft was off the roof, hovering, and expertly Maggie worked the stick, dipping its nose. Then with a powerful swish, it began moving forward, climbing, gaining speed and altitude, following on the trail of Baron Nemeroff.
"Why must we chase him?" Chiun said. "Why don't we just land somewhere and call Smith?"
"Because if we don't stop him, hell go through with his plan anyway to assassinate the President. We've got to stop that."
"Why must we always get involved with other people's problems?" Chiun said. "I think we should sit down somewhere and calmly consider the prospects."
"Chiun, be quiet," Remo said. "You're here now and we're flying to Scambia. We'll be there in just a few minutes so don't worry about it." And to Maggie, he said: "You're pretty good at this. Her Majesty teaches you agents everything."
"Not at all," she shouted over the roar of the blades. "Private lessons."
"Thank heavens for resourceful Englishwomen," Remo said.
"Amen," she said.
"Amen," Chiun said. "Yes. Amen. But keep praying."