“You are without feeling, without soul, without heart.”
They were both now in the corridor, and could hear Maggie’s faint sobbing from behind the closed door of her cell. The door had no lock, and Remo pushed it open softly.
Maggie was there as she had been left. But the dress that had ridden up on her buttocks, was now slung up over her hips. The ferret-faced guard stood behind her, his back toward Remo. His right hand moved rhythmically, back and forth between Maggie’s legs, and Remo saw he held a gun in his right hand. He was giggling and still talking to himself. “There’s more for the little lady where that came from. Stay with poppa and poppa will give the little lady all she wants.”
Remo cleared his throat. The guard partially turned and saw Remo there. Chiun was in the shadow of the corridor and was unseen. The guard grinned at Remo and giggled again. “She likes you, P.J. but she likes this better. Don’t you, little lady?” Then his left hand reached over and joined his right between Maggie’s legs, working the gun in and out.
Remo spoke, and his voice was edged ice.
“I like your style, kid. You’re being promoted.”
The guard turned to look at Remo. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Right upstairs.” Then there was a knuckle in the windpipe. It hurt too much to cough and he was dying too fast to choke, so the guard fell onto the damp floor.
“Or downstairs, as the case may be,” Remo said.
Maggie glanced over her shoulder, as far as she could in her position, and saw Remo. At first her face showed relief, and then it turned again into a mask of hatred.
Remo moved around in front of her and Chiun joined him, quietly lowering her dress over her flanks.
“You,” she said to Remo. “Leave me alone. I don’t want any help from you.”
“Maggie, honey. I can’t explain now, but trust me. We’re on the same side.”
She started to speak, to spit out her distrust, her hatred, but then Chiun stood alongside Remo and the look in his eyes told her somehow that everything was now all right.
She watched as Chiun and Remo knelt on the floor next to the iron ring. Then they each launched a hand slash at the ring. The two blows landed only a fraction of a second after each other. The vibrations that Chiun started in the metal, Remo interrupted; the metal swallowed its own vibrations, and the inch-thick-ring screeched in pain, then splintered into fragments.
Then, as if the locks were not there, the iron bands on her wrists and ankles were broken, and the chains fell heavily to the floor.
Maggie straightened up, painfully, rubbing her wrists which had been chafed raw by her writhing movements on the point of the guard’s gun. She stared disbelievingly at the broken shards of steel on the floor, the remnants of the manacles that had held her so tightly.
Then, Remo had her by the elbow and said, “Come. Nemeroff is waiting for us.”
She followed Remo and Chiun out of the cell, then stopped, and went back in. The guard’s gun lay at his fingertips. It was a .45 automatic. She picked it up.
“I may need this,” she said to Remo.
“Don’t get in our way. It’ll be safer.”
“For whom, Mr. Kenny?” she asked.
“For all of us. And I’m not Mr. Kenny.”
They moved quickly up the stairs leading to the main floor, Chiun leading the way. By the time Remo and Maggie had reached the first floor, Chiun was pressing the secret button for the elevator. Remo asked him: “How did you find that?”
“It gives off vibrations. One must listen for them.”
“I didn’t hear a thing,” Remo said.
“Of course not. The perpetually open mouth impedes the efficiency of the sometimes-opened ear,” Chiun said and led them into the elevator.
Remo pressed the button marked V.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
EVERY SEAT AT BARON NEMEROFF’S conference table had been filled.
From all over the world they had come, white men, black men, yellow men. They wore the costumes of their native countries: dashikis from Africa, cotton suits from Asia, dark blue mohair from the United States.
Among them, the thirty-odd men present had accounted for thousands of deaths on a one-by-one basis; they had sent thousands of girls to the brothels; through them, tens of thousands of adults and children had fallen prey to the perils of the needle.
They thought of themselves as indispensable businessmen in an indispensable business. And across all the lines of all their businesses ran the influence of Baron Isaac Nemeroff and when he called, they all came.
Now they all listened.
Overhead, the helicopters flew with their slow flapping sound, occasionally shrouding the room in a flash of shadow as one passed over the multi-colored, glass dome set over the conference table.
Angelo Fabio, the biggest man in the United States was toying with a pencil between his fingertips. Nemeroff’s idea seemed to make good sense to him. Occasionally, he would look up and his eyes would meet those of Fiavorante Pubescio who had come from California or Pietro Scubisci who had come from New York, wearing his dirty suit and carrying his omnipresent bag of peppers. He would nod and they would nod in agreement.
Still something nagged at Fabio; he wished he could pinpoint it.
Nemeroff stood at the head of the table, towering over the seated men, his blotchy face flushed with excitement as he spoke to them.
“Consider, gentlemen. Our own nation. Under crime’s flag. Where no laws will be enforced that we do not want enforced. Where poppies will grow freely in the fields. Where hunted men from anywhere on the face of the earth can find shelter and refuge.”
He looked around the table, from man to man, to murmurs of approvals. One man spoke. He was short and thin; his skin was yellow; his white suit was wrinkle-free; but Dong Hee, crime’s undisputed king in the Far East, ran a finger down the crease in his sleeve as he spoke:
“How do we insure this Asiphar’s loyalty?”
Nemeroff noted the “we,” and with a faint smile turned to the tiny Korean.
“If you will look at the screen up over the elevator door, gentlemen. Behind you, Mr. Hee.” Nemeroff leaned forward, pressed a control button imbedded in the wood of the table, causing a plywood section of the wall over the elevator door to slide back revealing a six-foot-square television screen.
Men pushed their chairs back from the table, so they could swing their bodies around and look at the screen.
Nemeroff pressed another button. Immediately, the sound of a voice was heard. “Oh, do it. Do it some more.” It was a man’s voice, thick and guttural, and it was pleading. Then the screen lightened into a picture of Asiphar, his fat body a study in black against the white sheets, being violated by a fair-skinned blonde girl armed with a hand vibrator. They were naked.
Nemeroff let it run for thirty seconds, then turned down the sound, but let the picture continue.
He cleared his throat and eyes turned back to him.
“That is your soon-to-be-President Asiphar,” he said coldly. “He is a swine. He will do anything for the promise of a woman.”
Dong Hee spoke again. His English was precise and delicate, as were his features. “That is so, Baron, I am sure. But when he is president, what guarantee will we have that…satisfying his aberrations will still be enough?” As he spoke, his right side and shoulder flickered with the bluish color from the TV screen. “After all, as president, he should be able to make his choice of women. He will have wealth, position. Will he really need us to be his pimps?”
The others had been watching Hee with interest. Now they turned to Nemeroff for his answer.
“You make a very good point, Mr. Hee.” As he looked around the room, he saw a puzzled look on Fabio’s face. “True enough, as president of Scambia, Asiphar would have certain power. But as for wealth? Whatever his dreams are, they will not be realized.
“For the last five weeks, a crew of workmen has been laying a sewer next to the wall of the east wing of the S
cambian presidential palace. They are no ordinary sewer workmen; they are my men.
“When President Dashiti is assassinated, at that very moment, the national treasury of Scambia will be removed from its vaults, in the east wing of the palace. Our Asiphar will find that he is the head of a country without funds even to pay for its president’s funeral. He will be on an allowance. From us.”
There were murmurs of approval around the table. Hee nodded his head to Nemeroff in satisfaction. Fabio remembered what he wanted to ask:
“What about P.J. Kenny? Why is he here?”
“I was coming to that, Mr. Fabio, because that is another guarantee of Asiphar’s cooperation.” Nemeroff slowly scanned the table, meeting individually as many pairs of eyes as he could, before speaking again. “Those of you who are from the United States have, I am sure, heard of Mr. P.J. Kenny. Certainly, you have heard of his work. I daresay many of you from other nations have also.
“It is my proposal to keep Mr. Kenny in Scambia as our resident manager, as it were. He will guarantee President Asiphar’s cooperation, because Asiphar will be given to understand that if he steps out of line, Mr. Kenny will slit his throat. Mr. Kenny’s presence will have another benefit too. I think it would have a dampening effect upon the ambitions of anyone who might try to display his entrepreneurship in Scambia.” The words were soft and measured, but the meaning was blunt and hard, even to the Americans who had never heard the word entrepreneur. Anyone who stepped out of line, who tried to get cute and take over the Scambia setup, would be killed. By P.J. Kenny. Who never missed.
“Does that answer your question, Mr. Fabio?”
Fabio grunted.
Nemeroff added, “Mr. Kenny is in the castle right now and I expect him here momentarily. I would like to caution some of you who have seen him in the past that you will not recognize him. He has undergone plastic surgery recently, to facilitate his departure from his own country. He will not look like the man you may remember.”
“Just so he works like the man we remember.”
“He does,” Nemeroff said, smiling at the underboss from Detroit. “In fact, he is awesome. That and his reputation for fairness should make him an ideal representative for us in Scambia.”
There were nods of agreement from the Americans, most of whom were clustered around the far end of the long table. Fabio was busy now watching Asiphar on the screen and had forgotten what the discussion was about. All he could think of was that blonde on the screen. She knew some tricks. He wondered if she was in the castle. He would ask Nemeroff before he left.
“What is the financial arrangement to be?” Hee asked.
“I was coming to that. Here, now, we represent twenty-two different countries. From the United States, there are eight major families. For the purpose of this discussion, each family will count as a country. I am asking each of you for $500,000. For your membership in our private country.” He smiled, his face breaking in the big horse grin. “And for each man you send, the fee will be $25,000.”
“And what do we get out of it?,” asked Pubescio from California.
“I am sure, Mr. Pubescio, that you will understand that the $25,000 per person is what is paid to Scambia. In other words; to me, to Mr. Kenny, to President Asiphar. But what you charge for your service is, of course, up to you. I need not point out that $25,000 is a ridiculously inexpensive cost to a man fleeing for his life.”
“And what about the $500,000?” Pubescio said.
“That gives you the right to determine who shall be permitted to go from your area to Scambia. I think you quickly see that that power carries with it great monetary value. In just months, you will recover all that sum and much more, I know.
“There are other things which may have crossed your minds also,” Nemeroff said. “There will also be ways to send people to Scambia, who might meet with a terrible accident upon running into Mr. Kenny. That could be arranged.”
The American leaders looked at each other and smirked. They understood. So did Dong Hee. Soon, so did the others. Around the table heads were nodding.
“Gentlemen, I do not wish to press you for time, but it is of the essence. Within 48 hours, our plan will be underway. I must have your answers now.”
“And suppose our answer is no?” Hee asked.
“Then it shall be no. Nothing could be done at this late hour by anyone to thwart our plan. If any of you choose not to participate, that would be your decision. But I would then reserve the right to deal with others in your country, to try to interest them in our proposal.”
“It costs too much,” Fabio said. That is what he always said at any discussion of any new idea. And then he always went along. Men at the table buzzed, discussing the idea with their neighbors.
Nemeroff had them; he knew it. He had primed Dong Hee well and Hee had handled his role perfectly, firing the questions with just the right degree of animosity, but allowing Nemeroff to calmly break down the resistance that was every one’s natural posture.
Hee stood. “Baron,” he said. “It will be a pleasure to join with you.”
Nemeroff cocked an ear. He heard the faint whoosh of the elevator.
“Thank you, Mr. Hee. Gentlemen, I believe Mr. Kenny is coming. Perhaps some of you would like to meet our resident manager.”
He came from the end of the table and walked toward the elevator door, separated from the main room by a simple mahogany panel.
The elevator door opened and the man known as P.J. Kenny stepped out.
“Mr. Kenny,” Nemeroff said. “There are gentlemen here who would like to meet you.”
“I’ve brought company,” Remo said. Eyes at the table turned toward the elevator, and strained to get a look at the new arrivals, and Chiun and Maggie stepped out of the elevator after Remo.
“I thought you were going to dispose of them,” Nemeroff said.
“You thought wrong,” Remo said coldly, stepping from behind the mahogany panel and standing next to Nemeroff, under the television pictures of Asiphar and his woman, casually looking around the conference room, meeting the faces that stared back at him intently.
Nemeroff put a hand on Remo’s shoulder and hissed into his ear: “What’s wrong with you, Mr. Kenny? The whole plan’s ready to go.”
“Two mistakes, Baron,” Remo said. “First, I’m not P.J. Kenny; I’m Remo Williams. And second, the plan’s not ready to go; you are.”
He took another step into the room, and Chiun stepped out from behind the mahogany panel. Almost as if by magnetism, his eyes were drawn to those of Dong Hee, who was turned in his seat, casually watching the scene at the elevator door.
He tensed when he saw the old Oriental in the blue robes.
“Who is that man?” he said to Nemeroff.
Nemeroff looked at Chiun, who stepped closer to Hee. “I am the Master of Sinanju,” Chiun said.
Hee screamed. The sound unleashed the room into action.
Hee stood and tried to run. Men scrambled to their feet, their hands moving with practiced ease toward guns under their jackets. Chiun seemed to float in the air and then he was atop the conference table. His blue robes flowed around him, angelically, but his face was that of an angel of death and he roared, in a hollow, doom filled voice: “Despoilers of men and jackals of crime, your end is here. It is the hour of the cat.”
Hee screamed again. He was still trying to get away from the press of men in chairs, to escape the legend he had heard of all his life, and then his head dropped limply to his side, as a stroke from the old man’s hand crushed his neck.
Chiun swirled along the table like a dervish. Men scattered; more drew guns; shots were fired, and through them all, now on the table, then on the floor, raced Chiun, the Master of Sinanju.
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 gro
wn 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 P.J. 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.”
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