Remo smiled, surprised. "What? The sophisticated lady of the islands, a virgin?"
"I've always felt as if I belonged to Abraxas. He held me with awe and pity and fear. But I don't want to belong to him anymore." She touched his face. "Remo, will you love me?"
"Loving you is easy," Remo said. He brushed her cheek with his lips. She found his mouth, and her tongue searched out his own. Then he undressed her gently, and on the cool, secret earth of the cave, serenaded by the rushing sea, he awakened her body with his. Later, they lay side by side.
"What's that?" Remo said, sitting up. He cocked his head toward the mouth of the cave.
Circe snatched up her clothes. "What's what?"
"I thought I heard something." He got dressed quickly. "Let's go. Something's changed."
"What?" she asked, shaken.
"It's nothing for you to worry about. Just the air. There's a presence here."
"How can you tell?"
"It would be too hard to explain," Remo said. He took her outside and led her by the hand back to the car. "Wait here." He closed the door after her.
"What did you hear?" she insisted.
"Maybe nothing. A hum, I thought. Something electric." He left her and walked silently into the brush.
"A hum?" Circe whispered. "Here?" Her face went ashen. She fumbled with the door handle. "No," she screamed, tripping out of the car. "Don't go in there! Remo!"
Another noise came then, clear and distinct: the crack and whine of a bullet in the instant before it struck the girl. She cried once, softly, before she fell.
?Chapter Fourteen
Remo bent low over the girl to hear her words. "The car." She coughed, grimacing at the pain.
The bullet had hit her in the chest, although it struck well away from the heart. On the bright white of her dress grew a spreading bloom of red. "I should have known Abraxas would have the car tracked."
"Don't talk," he said. "You'll be all right. Just let me get you to a doctor."
"Help me..."
He felt the second bullet as soon as it was out of the pistol. It came toward him, parting the air in front of it in a miniature shock wave that stormed Remo's acute senses like the crude blow of a hammer. He threw himself over the girl. An instant later the bullet whizzed over his head, followed by the sharp crack of the report in the shadows of the scrub pines.
He was up before its echo died, moving swiftly through the darkness. Not a twig cracked beneath his feet. The silence that the bullet had broken was restored, and the air was still as he moved with the almost instinctive care of those trained in the arts of Sinanju.
He stopped. There was no sound. Chiun could walk with no sound, but few others could. Remo doubted that anyone who needed to use a gun to kill possessed the skill to run without disturbing the earth beneath his feet. He looked up. The man who'd shot Circe had to be waiting for him nearby. Ahead of him there was nothing. Behind, only the cheerful racket of mating sparrows.
"This way," a voice called from Remo's left. It was amused, mocking. Remo dashed for it, plunging through the trees and into a swamp of mangroves rising out of the mist like the spears of warriors.
"A little further." The voice sounded nearer. Whoever it was hadn't moved.
The swamp grew denser. The water reached up to Remo's knees. Above him, a low wind sighed through the spindly trees like a prayer for the dead, and the motionless fog hung like a pall around him. He felt as if he had stepped into another world, a primeval place half land and half water, stirring silently in darkness.
He moved with difficulty. The mud at the bottom of the swamp was getting thicker with each step he took. He felt as if he were walking on oatmeal. He grabbed hold of one of the upright mangroves. It bent in his hands like wet straw. Around him, as far as he could see, was nothing but swampland, swarming with the rush of mosquitos and sand flies.
The water was nearly to his waist now. His feet barely moved in the slimy bog at the bottom. He looked around. Which way had he come? And how far? It all looked the same. Everywhere was the thick soup of the fog and the ropy mangroves, stationed like sentinels in a lost prison stinking of decay.
"You're almost there... Remo," the voice called.
"Who are you? How do you know my name?"
A little man with slicked hair and a Walther P-38 in his hand appeared seemingly out of nowhere. "I was listening," he said.
Remo lunged at him. It took all his strength to wade even inches through the mire. Perspiration popped up on his forehead as he struggled to lift one foot and then the other.
"I'm waiting," the man said.
Remo felt as if he were in a dream. The muck seemed to pull at him like a living thing. He stretched out his arms in front of him. Anything, a stick, a rock, he thought, anything to pull him out of this pit. But even the mangroves had disappeared from the bubbling black slime that clung to him.
"Quicksand," the man said amiably. "Amazing stuff, isn't it?" He walked forward, examining his pistol. He was right in front of Remo, standing at the edge of the bog. With two more steps, Remo could take hold of the man and kill him.
If he could take two steps.
"Oh. Allow me to introduce myself. Michael LePat. I work for Abraxas. Incidentally, that was his woman you just raped. What a pity we won't get to know each other better." He smiled.
Remo was sinking faster. The quicksand tightened around his chest, easing the air out of his lungs slowly. He knew that if he panicked, the pit would swallow him whole. He held completely still and cleared his mind. Chiun had told him that, in situations where no answer was at hand, the voice of the gods spoke through a man's quiet mind. So he forced himself to be still, inside and out, while the hungry sea of quicksand churned around him.
No gods' voices came. Only a story Chiun had once told him about one of his ancestors who had ruled the ancient House of Sinanju. This Master of Sinanju, spoke Chiun, had passed his 120th year, and his strength was fading. In his dotage, while the Master lay in a bed of raw silk and gold waiting to pass quietly into the great void of death, a group of ruffians, to avenge a relative whom the Master had vanquished in his youth, stole him away to an unworthy place so that the old man would die in dishonor. They forced him to journey night and day to their own country to a cold crag overlooking a wasteland of rock.
"You will jump from this place to be smashed upon the rocks below," one of the abductors told the Master of Sinanju. "Your death will be one of weakness, a suicide, and the pain will be great."
The Master viewed the crag with his old eyes, which had seen the wonders of the world, and said, "I will do as you wish. I will jump from the crag and fall as the gods see fit. I ask only that you grant me one request before I pass into the void."
"We will do nothing to delay the wretched death you deserve," one of the murderers said.
"It will delay nothing. I ask only that you all stand near me to witness my end. As you can see, I am an old man, and no longer possess the power to fight you. All I wish for are witnesses to my death, so that those of my village will know truly that their Master has been defeated by a force greater than his own."
The ruffians swelled with pride. To tell the people of Sinanju that they had watched the Master die in ignominy and disgrace would satisfy their thirst for revenge.
"Very well, old man," their leader said, and the criminals advanced upon the crag to join the Master.
They did not see, as their aged prisoner had seen, that the crag was brittle and cracked and could not support the weight of many men. The crag broke free with a deafening splinter of rock and falling earth, dashing the men against the stones below. But the Master himself was prepared, and leaped away before the crag broke.
He returned in time to his village, and lived for thirty more years. Until his death, which was as quiet and dignified a passage into the void as any man could wish for, the Master was known throughout the Orient as the wisest of men.
Remo didn't know why the story had come into his head, but it gave him
an idea. It offered a slim chance for escape, but more than he'd had a few moments before.
"Throw me a rock," Remo panted.
"A rock?" LePat raised his eyebrows in merriment. "You mean a rope, don't you? Sorry, I'm all out of rescue equipment."
"A rock," Remo insisted. "I'll sink faster."
LePat's expression was puzzled. "You talk as if you want to die."
"If it's going to happen, I'd like to get it over with. Come on, you've won. I know you'd rather see me go this way than with a bullet."
"Don't try to goad me," the little man said. "A bullet's too painless. You won't get me to shoot you."
"You don't have to shoot me. I'm willing to die in this crud. Just throw me a rock to get things moving, okay?"
LePat looked at him for a moment, appraising, then shrugged. "Why not," he said, hefting a slime-covered stone the size of a canteloupe. "Watching you die is becoming a bore, anyway." He tossed it carelessly to Remo.
With the palm of his hand Remo slapped back hard at the stone, putting a lot of English on it with his fingertips. It careened around in an arc, flying in a curve past LePat.
The little man ducked and stared at the flying rock as it whizzed by in its wide circle. "I should have known you'd try a trick," he said, aiming the Walther at Remo. He squinted, his lips curling into a sneer. "I think I'll only wound you. The shoulder, perhaps?" He veered the sight slightly to the right. "Don't hope to die from this bullet, by the way. I'm a considerably better shot than you are. That rock was the wildest toss I ever saw."
Remo said nothing. He was listening to the pitch of the air as the rock reached the farthest point in its curve and came back around, singing.
"Are you afraid, Remo?" LePat taunted.
"Simply quaking."
His throw had been good. The rock was right on target. At the moment when LePat's finger tensed to squeeze the trigger, the rock slammed him in the middle of his back, sending the gun splattering into the quicksand with the falling form of LePat behind it. As LePat stretched out his arms to reach for the gun, Remo lurched forward and grasped both the man's hands.
LePat cried out, his legs scrambling for purchase on the solid ground beyond the quicksand. Remo counted on the man's fear. The harder LePat struggled, the closer he brought Remo to the edge of the quagmire.
It was receding. The iron grip across his chest eased, and Remo could breathe again. The extra oxygen pumped into his arms in a surge of energy. With a monumental effort he pushed himself ahead and clasped his hands behind LePat's back. The little man cursed as he pulled back, saving himself from the quicksand and dragging Remo up with him.
"Thanks a million, pal," Remo said. He set one foot on the bank. Then, going into a deep spin, he swung the man into the air and released him.
LePat screamed as he landed chest first in the quicksand. His arms flailed briefly, like the wings of a trapped insect, and then his breath released in a boil of filthy bubbles. His head disappeared first. The rest of him followed quickly. When Remo left him, all that remained above ground were LePat's shoes, which had come loose and floated upside down on the bog like the footprints of the doomed.
"Circe!" Remo called, running back through the scrub pines. He had found his way to the shoreline, and followed it back to the cave. Now, as he retraced his steps, he spotted the white car.
The place beside it where the girl had lain was empty.
The car. He went back to it and made a quick examination. Just as Circe had said, there was a small transmitter taped to the Opel's underside. With the strength of rage, he hurled the tracker high into the air and into the sea beyond. Then he returned to the place where he'd left the girl.
The ground was cold. She'd been moved some time ago. It could have been the police, he thought. But there were no tire tracks besides the Opel's. There was only one other explanation.
LePat hadn't been alone.
Remo got on his hands and knees in the grass by the car. He widened his pupils to maximum. The action made the blades of grass glimmer with unseen light. And on the grass were spots. They looked like water, but these spots were dark and thick and already beginning to harden. He rubbed some on his fingers and sniffed.
Blood.
She had left a trail for him.
The moon came out for a moment, illuminating the bloodstains to the road, where they continued. Toward South Shore. Whoever took Circe hadn't used a car.
A cloud passed overhead, blotting out the brief light of the moon, and a wave of sorrow passed over Remo. He was not a seer, but he knew when death was near. It was brushing against him now, and he knew that before the night was over, death would fold its dark wings and claim its victory.
?Chapter Fifteen
A shiver of apprehension ran down Chiun's spine. Ever since he heard the shots fired from the island, he, too, felt the wings of death flapping in the night breeze. Remo could take care of himself against bullets. But there was something else on that island, something indefinable and dangerous. It was as if the black clouds that obscured the stars was covering the whole earth, with the spectre of death heralding a new Dark Age.
Smith lay on the bunk where Remo had placed him. His eyelids fluttered. He looked at Chiun groggily.
"Where are we?" he whispered.
"Ah, Emperor Smith. You have come back to us at last. We are on a boat. It is safe here. Remo is on the island."
Smith shook himself awake. "My head," he said, cradling his head in his hands. "It feels like..."
"Like you drank too much?" Chiun offered.
"I beg your pardon? I don't drink."
"You did. Quite a bit, in fact, o illustrious one. You were, as Remo would say, doused."
"Soused," Smith corrected, groaning. "It's coming back to me now. The injection... those pink cocktails. Good God. The printouts."
"They are here. We brought you from that place."
"Thank you," he said, raising himself to his feet. Chiun handed him his clothes. "I can't imagine what would have happened if Abraxas got hold of them."
"You have seen him?"
"No. No one's seen him; just his name. It's been transmitted by satellite into every television set in the world. People are beginning to think that Abraxas is some kind of god."
"The masses are fools, easily duped," Chiun said loftily, averting his eyes. "But surely no one is in danger because of a name on a television set."
"That's just the beginning," Smith said, climbing into his trousers. "He's got a plan— the Great Plan, he calls it, the arrogant swine— to take over the world."
Chiun laughed aloud. "Others have tried that, most worthy emperor."
"He can do it," Smith said earnestly. "I know it's preposterous, but he's got everything organized to the last detail. You'll forgive me if I don't tell you the exact nature of his ideas. It's a matter of national security."
"Of course," Chiun said, trying to sound as if he cared one way or the other about national security.
Smith buttoned his shirt hastily. "What we've got to concern ourselves with now is stopping him before this insanity goes any further. Can we reach Remo?"
"I am not his nursemaid," Chiun sniffed. "But he will show up. Bad pennies always do."
"Very well," Smith muttered. "Then we'll have to do this without him. I'll tell you some of what I know, but I must have your oath never to reveal what I am about to say."
"The Master of Sinanju gives his word," Chiun said, stifling a yawn.
Smith breathed deeply. When he spoke, his voice was weighted with urgency. "Abraxas is planning to reveal himself on worldwide television. He's going to interrupt broadcasts all over the world to announce the Great Plan of Abraxas. If that happens, the people he's hypnotized will support the massive destruction he's going to suggest. It will be too late to stop him then."
Chiun thought. "But how can everyone see him at once? Half the world sleeps while the other half lives in daylight."
"He's projected a time when all the communicatio
ns satellites orbiting above earth will be in optimum position to broadcast to their widest possible range." He toyed sheepishly with his shirt button. "I did it for him, actually, from the compound's computer center. I— er— wasn't quite myself."
"Perfectly understandable, o worthy emperor," Chiun said. "You were doused."
"Messages have been transmitted from individual satellites telling people when to tune in. He's expecting an audience of a half-billion."
"Interesting."
"A half-billion people is enough to begin a world revolution."
"I see. And when will this announcement occur?"
"On the twelfth. One minute after midnight on the twelfth. That's odd. On the island I seem to have lost all track of time. What date is it today?"
"The eleventh," Chiun said.
"The eleventh?" Smith checked his watch. The color drained from his face. "It's eleven-twenty," he said.
On the South Shore grounds, Chiun regarded the rambling old manor house. "A strange place," he said.
"I suppose so," Smith panted, already exhausted from rowing the rubber raft that brought them from the yacht. Scaling the high fence onto the grounds had not been easy, either. Smith marveled at the uncanny strength of the old Oriental, who must have passed his eightieth year. For him the fence had been a child's barricade, crossed without effort. But then Chiun, he remembered, was special, just as Remo was special. Among the three, Smith alone was vulnerable to fatigue and weakness.
He wanted to rest. His head was still swimming from the effects of the drinks. He would never be young again, and, unlike Chiun, age and mortality weighed heavily on him. "Let's go in," he said.
"Are there no guards?"
"Unnecessary. Everyone here is fanatically devoted to Abraxas, and outsiders don't come in. They claim the place holds evil spirits, or some such nonsense."
"It may not be nonsense," Chiun said quietly. "I do not like the feel of this house."
The interior of the mansion was a labyrinth of small rooms connected by obscure passageways. In the distance were the muffled sounds of voices.
"They all must be in the conference room," Smith said. He glanced at his watch again. "Waiting for the broadcast."
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