"Okay, lodge bunny," Remo announced as they crossed over to him, "who are you guys and why are you trying to kill me?"
For a moment, the commando didn't seem certain what he should do. But as Remo and Chiun continued to walk toward him, he seemed to reach some inner conclusion.
Pulling another grenade from the pocket of his camouflage jacket, he wrenched the pin loose. Remo fully expected him to lob it at them, but the man did something completely unexpected. With a grunt, he thrust the grenade up under his own ski mask. For a moment, it looked as if his head had sprouted a particularly grotesque tumor. Then he was gone.
The commando flipped over the brick backyard wall. There was an explosion from the other side, and the sky began to rain little flecks of red-streaked slush.
"Dammit," Remo growled, "not again."
When they looked over the wall, they found a corpse with a crater where a head used to be. The little white button was streaked with black.
"And I am not very fond of the type of boys you are playing with these days," Chiun sniffed beside him.
Twirling, he marched back through the snow toward the house.
WHEN THE PHONE RANG, Smith was dozing in his chair, the dull light of his desk lamp the only illumination in his shadowy office. Blinking sleep from his eyes, he picked up.
"I'll give you three guesses who was just attacked by another button-wearing commando," Remo announced.
Smith's brain snapped instantly alert. "Like the ones in New York?" he asked worriedly.
"Right down to the suicide-before-capture work ethic. Looks like I was right. They work for Raffair."
Smith was still trying to absorb the information. "No," he said. "It does not add up. You were not a risk when they went after you in New York. I have been thinking that they could be associated with MIR."
"The Puerto Rican terrorists?" Remo asked. "No way, Smitty. They'd have no way to find me unless they followed me from San Juan. And I didn't sense any beady little revolutionary eyes watching me on the plane home. Anyway, I've gotta keep this short, seeing as how I'm using that counterfeiter's phone and right now there's a blown-up commando sleeping in his neighbor's petunia bed. The guy's boss is named Sweet. No front name, but he's in New York."
Smith adjusted his rimless glasses. "That limits the search parameters. Anything else?"
"There was more than just the one guy Chiun kacked back at the office. Sounds like there's a whole goon squad out looking for us right now."
Smith's lips thinned. "I was afraid of that."
"Still no bigee," Remo assured him. "They've got a needle in a haystack's chance of tracking us down. And you don't have to worry about us ending up on 'Bloopers, Boners and Beheadings.' This is where the video was fed. That Sweet guy got the only other copy, so it looks okay on that front." In Boston, Remo glanced at the floor from where he sat at the edge of Paul Petito's bed. Spools of videotape coiled like silvery serpents on the worn carpet.
"Very good," Smith said. "I will commence the search for Sweet. In the meantime, the two of you may return home. I will contact you when I learn more."
"Check," Remo said. "But don't call for a while. We're going out to eat first."
When he glanced at the Master of Sinanju, he saw that the old Korean was standing just inside the bedroom door. He was once more examining one of his blue ten-dollar bills.
"I'm paying," Remo added firmly as he hung up the phone.
Chapter 16
The information was damning enough to topple the United States government.
Mark Howard hunched behind his desk in the bowels of CIA headquarters. Although he stared at the swirling screen saver on his computer monitor, his thoughts were miles away.
All was quiet save the soft background hum of equipment. The murmuring voices were gone for the day. Few people haunted this part of the building so late at night.
The overhead lights had been dimmed. They'd been encouraging such penny-saving measures at the CIA for much of the past decade. The money saved could be redirected to buying field agents actual bullets for their guns.
In the shadows of his cubicle, Mark had read the report out of Boston twenty minutes before. Even though he'd been looking specifically for it, he hadn't expected to see it.
The feeling again.
Paul Petito was dead. Local authorities had found him on the floor of his basement. At first, they'd said the counterfeiter had died from a single gunshot wound to the head. That had soon been amended. Now they were saying his skull had been pierced by an object unknown.
To Mark, the details of Petito's death were irrelevant.
He'd couriered his Raffair dossier to the President this morning, after a personal phone call from the chief executive. In those documents was a fresh printout with Paul Petito's name. To replace the one Mark had doodled on.
Death. That's what he'd written next to Petito's name. And Petito was now dead. A secret arm of the executive branch, sanctioned to kill.
Anyone who knew about this was at risk. And now Mark Howard knew. Knew for certain.
For some reason, the President was involving him in this. Though he had tried to figure out why, no feelings came to him. The sense of dread swamped all else.
For a long time, Mark merely sat. A shadow among shadows. At long last, a leaden hand reached out and shut off his computer. The internal fan hummed to silence.
He thought of Petito. A hole pierced in his skull. Of Smith and his unknown agents.
His cubicle was eerily quiet. The dark walls, close.
He wouldn't be trapped. Couldn't allow thoughts of defeat. Fate was coming for him. He had to be ready when it arrived.
As he rose to his feet, the first hint of determination clenched his jaw. Mark Howard gathered up his topcoat. It was winter, after all. He didn't want to catch a cold on the way to meet his destiny.
Chapter 17
Johnny Fungillo knew enough to be scared. The others hadn't a clue. They had only seen the old one in action, and even so, they still thought he'd used some simple sleight of hand to take down Bear DiCrrotti. But Johnny Books alone had seen the young one up close and personal. Twice.
In East Africa, he'd managed to take down two of Johnny's oldest and dearest friends in the blink of an eye. If Johnny's guess was right, he was even faster than the old man. The second time he'd met the skinny guy with the thick wrists had been a complete shock.
Back in Africa, most of New Jersey's Renaldi Family had been wiped out by a bunch of crazy natives with spears. Johnny had been forced to scrape up this current gig from Sol Sweet, attorney to the wrongly incarcerated Don Anselmo Scubisci. He had been absolutely stunned when on the plane ride up to Boston he'd found himself staring into those dark, dead eyes again.
He couldn't move fast enough to avoid the man's darting hand. Before he knew it, the guy's finger was pressing his forehead.
That simple touch had completely paralyzed Johnny. While he wanted to scream at the doctors who stared down at him after he'd been transferred by ambulance to Boston's St. Eligius Hospital, Johnny couldn't budge an inch. Some were saying that he'd be stuck like this for the rest of his life. And he might have been, if not for a fluke.
His first and only night in the hospital, the nurses on his floor had ordered ice-cream takeout from Friendly's. The portly RN who was checking in on Johnny had been in a hurry to get out to her melting cookies-'n'-cream sundae. While struggling to reset his IV with one hand, the impatient woman had banged him on the forehead with the full bedpan she'd been clutching in her other hand.
It was a one-in-a-billion shot, but apparently the edge of the bedpan had hit him just right. The woman almost had heart failure when Johnny sat bolt upright in bed and demanded his pants.