"She..."
"What is it, Remo?"
"She..." Remo swallowed hard. He knelt.
Mistress Kali lay in a crumpled heap. Her head rested on one pale, outflung arm, the golden hair covering her face like a feathery broken wing.
Carefully Remo raised the hair, brushing it back.
Chiun looked down, eyes narrowing.
The features showed in profile, showed in death. They were chiseled and firm. One eye lay open in shock. The black lips were parted to show the dead white teeth.
Remo stared at her profile for the longest minute of eternity.
Then, face twisting in pain, Remo looked up. Looked up at the Master of Sinanju. Bitter tears started from his eyes. His voice was a shocked croak. "Chiun. You killed her. You killed Jilda. You killed the mother of my little girl."
And the Master of Sinanju, the force of the truth striking him fully, stepped back as if he'd been dealt a physical blow.
Chapter 37
The sonar's metallic contact led the Cayuga to Stellwagon Bank, a closed fishing area off Massachusetts.
"If that's a torpedo, I'm Davy Jones's favorite hooker," Sandy said grimly. "It's herding those fish. Every time they veer south, it changes course and chases them north. Someone's controlling it."
After an hour of cat and mouse, Sandy got an inkling what that someone was.
A big gray factory ship. It lumbered along on a course generally parallel to their own.
She went up to the flying bridge and used her binoculars.
"Circle that tub," she ordered.
The Cayuga circled the wallowing factory ship until the name appeared on the bow.
Hareng Saur
MONTREAL
"Sparks, inform Cape Cod we have a French-Canadian factory ship in our waters and ask what should be done about it."
"Aye, sir."
As she waited for a reply, Sandy saw something that seemed incredible.
The Cayuga was still in pursuit of the mysterious torpedo.
Suddenly the torpedo accelerated, surfaced and began to home in on the Hareng Saur.
"Looks like our next course of action will be decided for us," she said.
The torpedo, trailing a foamy wake, closed with the gray ship.
Sandy had her glasses trained on the probable point of impact. Amidships of the big boat.
She saw the wake close in. There was no way to avoid a direct hit. The Hareng Saur seemed completely oblivious to the threat. The tiny white figures on her deck were going about their business in a brisk but unpanicked fashion.
At the last possible minute, a panel opened just at the waterline as if to devour the incoming device.
The torpedo struck. Sandy flinched inwardly. But there was no explosion. The torpedo just scooted into the black aperture.
The black port closed up, and all was quiet except for the sudden heaving of fish nets overboard.
"What the hell happened?" the helmsman wondered aloud, coming out of his protective crouch.
"The torpedo herded the fish to the ship," she said. "Damn it. They're chasing our fish into their waters and stealing them. This is environmental piracy on the open seas!"
Chapter 38
Remo stood up. He was trying to compose his features. His shoulders shook. His fists made two mallets of bone.
"Chiun..." His voice was soft, not accusing, but numb with shock. "Chiun, it's Jilda. Jilda's dead."
"I know," said the Master of Sinanju, eyes round and wide.
Remo looked around the room. "If Jilda's here, where's Freya?"
"I do not know. But I vow that I will find for you your daughter, Remo. I will atone for this grave error I have committed."
"That's why I recognized her. It was Jilda. Jilda..."
Remo looked back at the dead woman he had loved many years ago. His eyes seemed to retreat into his skull-like countenance. Then he asked a question. "What was she doing here? Why was she dressed like that?"
The Master of Sinanju surveyed the room. His eyes fell upon two kneeling men, one nude and one not. "They will know," he intoned.
With determined steps Chiun strode up to the cowering pair. "Speak! Why did you kneel before that woman?"
"She was Mistress Kali," Gilbert Houghton said, as if that explained everything.
"I loved her, although to speak the unvarnished truth I only met her just this day," Anwar Anwar-Sadat admitted. "is she truly ...dead?"
"She is no more, popinjay," Chiun said severely.
Remo had joined them. Reaching down, he seized the Egyptian by his collar and dragged him to his feet. His eyes were hot. His voice hotter.
"We're looking for a little girl. Blond. About twelve.
"Thirteen," Chiun corrected. "Golden of hair and blue of eye. Like her mother, who lies here dead. Where is she?"
"I know nothing of any little girl," the Secretary-General of the UN protested.
Remo found the leash with his toe, dug under it and snapped his foot. The free end of the leash whipped into his waiting hand. He tugged hard.
Fisheries Minister Gilbert Houghton was yanked off his hands. "Urrkk," he said.
"What about you?"
"I have seen no little girl and I have been Mistress Kali's slave for many weeks now."
"I am crushed, desolated," said Anwar Anwar-Sadat. "I thought she loved only me. And now she is dead."
"She never loved you. But she scorned me. I was the object of her scorn," Houghton snarled.
"Both of you shut up," Remo ordered. Turning to Chiun, he said, "I'm going to find Freya if I have to tear this place apart brick by brick."
"And I will help," vowed Chiun, girding his skirts.
"But first we deal with these two."
"We are instructed to intimidate, not dispatch these two."
"Accidents happen," Remo growled. "You got that one. I'll take the other."
Remo stood the Canadian fisheries minister up against a wall while Chiun immobilized the UN Secretary-General with a painful twist of the Egyptian's ear.
"You're behind all this?" Remo accused Gilbert Houghton.
"I admit nothing."
"And this is about fish?"
"No comment."
"That's your answer? No comment?"
Gil Houghton gulped like a goldfish. "No comment."
Sweeping his hands out, Remo brought them together with a sudden loud clap. Gilbert Houghton's head happened to be caught between his palms in the thunderous instant Remo's palms came together.
When Remo stepped back, hands returning to his sides, Gil Houghton's head sat on his neck like a sunfish's. Flat with eyes set on opposite sides of what had been a round mammalian skull.
The surprised whites filled with blood, and the pursed lips seemed to be kissing empty air-then he pitched forward, dead.
Remo turned.
The Master of Sinanju had one sandal on the Egyptian's heaving chest. Anwar Anwar-Sadat attempted a protest. Chiun quieted it with a sudden pressure of his foot.
While Anwar Anwar-Sadat unwittingly watched his last breath leave his dry, open mouth, Chiun calmly took hold of his dusky mandibles and lifted his head off his spinal cord.
It came off with a popping suck of a sound like a head off a plastic doll. As simply as that.
Tossing the head in a corner, the Master of Sinanju faced his pupil in expectant silence. His chin lifted.
"It wasn't your fault," Remo said.
Chiun bowed his aged head. "I accept responsibility for my rash actions."
"You were just trying to protect me," Remo said distractedly.
"And I have wounded you deeply, for which I am deeply regretful."
"If we find Freya okay, it will be all right. Let's find Freya. Just find Freya and everything will be forgiven."
Remo's cracking voice told the Master of Sinanju that their future together hinged on finding alive the daughter Remo had lost once and could not bear to lose again.
"I will not fail you, my son," Chiun vowed.
Carefully Remo went over to the splayed body of Jilda of Lakluun and carried it to a stone shelf that ran along one wall. He laid it on the ledge, arranged the leather-clad limbs modestly and touched her gleaming hair briefly.