It was the two men from the surveillance camera at the Boston Raffair office. In real life, the old one's fingernails looked even sharper than they did on video. Petito's eyes bugged even as he continued chewing on the vile-tasting wad of paper.
"It smells funny down here," Chiun complained as he and Remo glided across the basement floor.
"You could have waited in the car," Remo replied.
"And allow you to sneak away on foot?" Chiun said blandly. "Oh, wipe that look of innocence off your face. You are as predictable as a two-year-old."
Remo's expression grew glumly guilty. "I would've left you the keys," he grumbled.
Before them, Paul Petito was rooted in place by fear. Dark blue saliva was dribbling down his chin when the two intruders stopped before him.
Remo stood toe to toe with Petito. "You gonna eat your printing press next?" he asked.
This bit of incriminating evidence hadn't occurred to Petito. His eyes grew wider above his puffed-out cheeks.
"Mmggmmm," Petito said, shaking his head as he chewed.
"Mommy forgot to tell you not to talk with your mouth full. Probably was too busy teaching you not to steal."
Reaching over, he cuffed Petito in the back of the head.
A fat wad of pulpy blue paper launched like a soggy cannonball from between his stained lips. It flattened with a wet splat against the cellar wall.
"Don't kill me!" Petito begged. His frightened mouth was a dark blue cave. It grew wider as Chiun swept forward. "Ahhhh!" the counterfeiter screeched, flinging his hands protectively in front of his face.
But instead of a decapitating pressure at his neck, he felt a gentle tugging at his hands. Before he knew what was happening, the remaining counterfeit bills he hadn't had a chance to chew were being pulled from his knotted fingers.
"Chiun, what are you doing?" the young one said wearily.
"Hush," the old one admonished. "I am counting."
Petito peeked out from behind his hands. The Master of Sinanju was laying out the bogus bills in one wrinkled palm.
"That stuff won't even buy a hotel on Baltic Avenue," Remo warned.
"Do not think you can trick me into giving you half," Chiun replied as he carefully flattened the bills.
Remo turned to Petito. "Okay, what's with that building you bought? And the first lie I smell gets you a one-way ticket through that." He pointed to the printing press.
Petito couldn't talk fast enough. "They mailed me the money from New York. I was the front so whoever really owns everything wouldn't show up on paper. Guy who contacted me was Mr. Sweet. I don't know his first name, uh, uh..." His mouth and brain struggled to keep pace. "Oh, some of the New York guys stay here. They saw him kill that guy at the office yesterday." He pointed to the Master of Sinanju.
Chiun had one bill loose and was examining it in the light. He seemed oblivious to the quivering counterfeiter.
Remo's face soured at the mention of the events at Boston Raffair. "Where'd that satellite dish go?" he demanded.
"The picture came here. They rigged it to a receiver in the yard. I've got the tape upstairs. Oh, and they sent a copy to Mr. Sweet back in New York. That's it."
Remo was about to ask more when Chiun broke in. "These bills are flawed," the old Asian announced, his brow creased.
Terrified eyes darted to Chiun. "I don't think so," Petito apologized. "They took months to engrave."
"The engraving is adequate." Chiun frowned unhappily. "Although there are many errors, most white eyes would be blind to them. It is the color. These ugly paper things are supposed to be green."
"I think he knows that," Remo said impatiently. Petito nodded. "I was just testing them," he explained.
Chiun's eyes narrowed slyly. "You can make them in the proper color?"
"It's not easy nowadays, but it's doable," Petito said.
Chiun folded his arms imperiously over his chest. In the process, the bills somehow disappeared inside his kimono.
"Do it," he commanded.
"Knock it off, Chiun," Remo said. "We're not helping this nit screw the United States government."
Chiun's hooded eyes were flat. "What has the government done for me lately?" he queried.
"Pay you a king's ransom in gold every year, for one."
Chiun erased Remo's words from the air with one flapping hand. "There is no reason why the one should have anything to do with the other," he dismissed. "If you hope your future Masterhood to be anything more than a footnote in the annals of Sinanju, you must be aware of opportunities when they present themselves."
"Chiun, I am not shackling this numbnut to the furnace back home, and I'm sure as hell not hauling all this crap out into the car."
"Not even if I make it worth your while?" Chiun asked craftily. A pair of blue ten-dollar bills appeared from the folds of his kimono. Thinking better, he pocketed one and offered Remo the other.
Remo shook his head wearily. Turning from the Master of Sinanju, he focused his attention back on Paul Petito.
"Before he's got you stashed in the hold of some freighter bound for North Korea, that's everything you know?"
The counterfeiter racked his brain. While there was certainly more, he couldn't seem to get it out in time.
"Uh, oh, um..." he began.
"Time's up, Gutenberg," Remo pronounced. Hand moving in a blur too fast for Paul Petito's eyes to even follow, Remo sank a single hardened index finger into the man's ink-soaked occipital lobe.
Petito's mouth formed a blue circle. He slipped from Remo's receding finger and toppled onto the stained floor.
When Remo turned back to the Master of Sinanju, the old man wore an angry scowl.
"You are a hateful man, Remo Williams," he accused.
"Just keeping you honest," Remo said. "Besides, the golden rule of Sinanju says paper is just the promise of real money. I've gotta call Smith." He headed for the stairs.
"Do not lecture me on the rules of our House, engraver killer," Chiun said, following unhappily.
"I did us all a favor," Remo said absently. He had suddenly noted a sound upstairs. "Sure, you wanted to bring him home today, but I know who'd end up having to feed him and walk him." His eyes were trained upward.
Chiun aimed a stern finger at his pupil. "You can explain to my grandchildren why they will not be receiving birthday gifts this year."
Bullying past his pupil, he had placed but one sandal on the bottom cellar stair when the darkened figure appeared at the top of the staircase.
Both of them had been aware of the man skulking across the floor above them, but Remo hadn't prepared himself for what the latest arrival would be wearing. Head to toe, he was dressed in the same commando outfit as the two men who had attacked him on the street in New York. The white button with its circle-in-parentheses design was affixed to his camouflage jacket. Through the holes of his ski mask, his eyes peered down the stairwell.
"What the hell?" was all Remo had time to ask before the man let a small object slip from his fingers.
A hand grenade clunked down the cellar stairs. Above, the masked man darted away.
With a puff of impatience, Remo scooped up the grenade, slapping both hands around it. When the grenade went off an instant later, Remo had softened his hands to relax his muscles, meeting the explosive force with an equal containing force. The grenade made a little clicking noise and died.
Remo tossed the still intact but now useless hand grenade to the floor.
"Let's see what's what with the khaki downhill set," Remo announced.
He and Chiun flew upstairs, racing out into the backyard where they'd heard the commando's boots clomp. The man was crouching in the snow near a squat brick wall, his index fingers tucking mask material into his ears to ward off the sound of the expected explosion. When he saw Remo and Chiun exit into the yard, his mouth and eyes widened in his mask.