"Does it not strike you as odd that they sent you to me with the money?"
"You once had a reputation."
"But why now?"
The woman cupped her harsh reddish hands around the goblet as she had done when she was young and soft and beautiful, when the wine was not that good.
"All right, Ricardito. We will follow your thinking because you are the only one capable of thinking. And everyone else, especially a committee, cannot match your wisdom."
"Your organization has many people who effectively eliminate others. True?"
"True."
"Then why after more than 20 years must they choose a mercenary? Do they think I would not speak if captured? Absurd. Or do they plan to kill me afterwards? Why bother? They could get someone else, for much less than $70,000. Someone more politically reliable and less likely to need extermination. True?"
"True," said Maria, drinking more of the wine and feeling its warmth.
"They obviously chose me because they know they might not succeed with their own people. And how would they know this? Because they have tried before and failed. True?"
"True."
"How many times have they tried?"
"Once."
"And what happened?"
"We lost eight men."
"They seem to have forgotten my specialty in the assassination of one man. At the most, two."
"They are not forgetful."
"Why then do they expect me to attack a company?"
"They do not. It is a man. His name, as best as we can learn, is Remo."
"He killed eight men?"
"Yes."
"With what weapon? He must be very fast and select his range of fire brilliantly. And of course, he is accurate."
"He used his hands as near as we can tell."
Guerner put down his goblet. "His hands?"
"Yes."
He began to chuckle. "Maria, my dear. I would have done it for $35,000. He is perfect for my weapon. And easy."
Ricardo deEstrana y Montaldo y Ruiz Guerner threw back his head again and laughed. "With his hands," he said. "A toast to a man who is fool enough to use his hands." They toasted again but the woman took merely a formal sip.
"One more thing, Ricardo."
"Yes?"
"I must accompany you."
"Impossible."
"They wish to make sure that everything is done neatly. There is a Chinese girl who is not to be killed. Just the man and possibly his elderly companion."
She withdrew a picture from the purse she had kept on her arm all the while, even while eating.
"These are the men to die. The Caucasian definitely. And this girl is to live."
Guerner took the photograph between two fingers. It was obviously shot from above, with a telephoto lens. Because of the absence of depth of field and the obvious fluorescent lighting which would allow an f.4 opening, "Guerner estimated the lens to be .200 millimetre.
The Oriental man was elderly, his wraithlike arms waving above him in gesture to the young girl. Behind him came the younger Occidental with the look of frustration. His eyes were deep-set, his cheekbones slightly high, his lips thin and his nose strong but not large. Average build.
"The Oriental is not Korean?"
"No. She is Chinese."
"I mean the man."
"Let me see," said Maria, taking back the picture.
"I don't know," she said.
"No doubt they all look alike to you, my revolutionary friend."
"Why does it matter?"
"It would matter if he were a certain type of Korean. But that is doubtful. Keep the picture. I have it in my mind."
He whistled gently that afternoon as he removed a long tubular black leather case from the locked safe behind his family's coat of arms.
With a chamois cloth, he polished up the rich blackness of the leather, then folded the cloth and put in on the oak desk by the window. He placed the leather case beside the cloth. The afternoon sun made white flashes on the leather. Guerner placed a hand on either side of the case, and with a snap, it opened, revealing a Monte Carlo stock made of highly glossed walnut, and a black metal rifle barrel two feet long.
They rested on purple velvet, like machined jewels for the elegance of death.
"Hello, darling," whispered Guerner. "We work again. Do you wish to? Have you rested too long?"
He stroked the barrel with the tips of his right fingers.
"You are magnificent," he said. "You have never been readier."
"You still talk to your weapon?" Maria was laughing.
"Of course. Do you think a weapon is purely mechanical? Yes, you would. You think people are mechanical. But it is not. They are not."
"I only asked. It seemed ... somehow ... strange."
"It is stranger, my dear, that I have never missed. Never. Is that not strange?"
"It is training and skill."
Blood rushed to Guerner's aristocratic face, filling the cheeks like a child's colouring book.
"No," he said angrily. "It is feeling. One must feel his weapon and his bullet and his target. He must feel it is correct to shoot. And then the path of the bullet is correct. Those who miss do not feel their shots, do not carefully insert them into their target. I do not miss, because I feel my shots into my victim. Nothing else is important. The wind, the light, the distance. All are meaningless. You would more easily miss picking your cigarette up from the ashtray than I would miss my target."
Guerner then began his ritual, leaving the weapon unassembled in the case. He sat at the desk and rang for his butler by pulling a cloth cord that hung from the high beamed ceiling.
He hummed softly as he waited, not looking at Maria. She could never understand. She could not feel. And not feeling, she could not learn how to live.
The door opened and the butler entered.
"Thank you, Oswald. Please bring me my supplies." Only seconds later, the butler re-entered bearing another black leather case, similar to a doctor's bag.
As he carefully emptied the bag onto the desk, Guerner spoke. "Those who buy ammunition and expect uniformity are incredibly foolish. They buy approximation and therefore attain approximation. The expert must know each bullet."
He picked up a dullish gray slug from the desk and rubbed it between his fingers, feeling his finger oil coat the projectile. He stared at the bullet, absorbing its feel and its shape and weight and temperature. He placed it before him at the right of the desk. He picked up dozens of slugs, one at a time, putting most of them back into the black leather bag, and finally choosing four more which he placed with the first.
From a small wooden box on the desk, he selected a cartridge casing, held it momentarily, then replaced it. He took another, held it, rolled it between his fingers, and smiled.
"Yes," he murmured, and placed it with the slugs. He continued until he had five. "Perfect," he said. "Created to be joined together. Like man and woman. Like life and death."
With a small silver spoon, he began to ladle a white powder carefully into each cartridge. It swished in silently, a few grains at a time, giving each shell its explosive charge. When he had finished, he delicately placed a slug into the open end of each shell, and then placed them one at a time into a chrome plated device, which sealed them with a faint click.
"Now the cartridge, the bullet, the powder are one. Along with the maker. We will soon be ready."
Lifting the rifle barrel carefully from the case, he held it silently before him, peered through it, then put it down. He lifted out the stock, hefting it, holding it in firing position at his shoulder. With a soft murmur of approval, he placed the barrel on top of the stock and with a specially-tooled wrench began joining the two.
He stood up, extending his weapon from him in one hand. "We are done," he said, and inserted a bullet into the chamber, and pushed forward the bolt with a click.
"Only five bullets? Will that be enough for this job?"
"There are only two targets. Two bullets are
enough for this job. The other three are for practice. My weapon and I have been inactive for so long. Get the binoculars. Behind you. On the shelf."
Guerner moved to the window, looking out over his valley, rolling lawns in front, the last blooming garden off to his right. The autumn sun was dying red over the Hudson beyond, bathing the valley in blood.
Maria picked up the 7x35 Zeiss Ikon binoculars from the shelf and noticed there was dust on the lenses. Strange. He worshipped that rifle as if a woman, and let a fine pair of binoculars gather dust. Well, he had once been very good.
She walked to the open window by him and felt the late afternoon chill. A bird sang harshly off in the distance. She wiped the binocular lenses clean on her sleeve and did not notice that this drew a glance of contempt from Guerner.
He looked forward out the window. "Two hundred yards from here," he said,-pointing, "there is a small furry animal. I cannot see it too clearly."
She raised the binoculars to her eyes. "Where?"
"About ten yards to the left of the corner of the stone wall."
She focused on the wall and was surprised that through the lenses, the wall appeared better lit than to her naked eyes. She remembered this was characteristic of good binoculars.
"I can't see it," she said.
"It's moving. Now it's still."
Maria scanned the wall, and there perched on its hind legs, its forelegs tucked in front as though begging, was a chipmunk. She could barely make it out.
"I know what you're doing," she said, still looking. "You know little animals are always on that wall and when you shoot it will hide and you will say you shot it."
Maria felt the crack of the rifle at her left ear, just before she saw the chipmunk spin over as though slapped in the head with a paddle, a ball of orange fur bouncing backwards, rolling out of sight behind the wall, then rolling into sight again, the legs just as they had been, but without a head. The legs quivered. The white patch on the stomach still pulsated.
"That bird," said Guerner quietly and Maria again heard the painful crack of the rifle, and suddenly in a flock of dark birds far in the distance, perhaps 300 yards, one dropped. And she did not lift her binoculars because she knew its head was gone too.
"Another chipmunk," Guerner said, and the rifle cracked, and Maria saw nothing, partly because she had stopped looking.
"It is only possible if the target is alive," Guerner said. "That is the secret. One must sense the life of the target. One must feel it move into the orbit of your life. And then, there can be no miss."
He clutched his rifle to his chest, as though thanking the instrument.
"When do we perform against this fool this Remo who uses only his hands?" he asked.
"Tomorrow morning," Maria said.
"Good. My weapon can hardly wait." He squeezed it tenderly in his two large hands. "The target, the living target, gives itself to you. We want the living target to do it with. The secret is that you do it with the victim." His voice was smooth and deep and vibrant. As it had been 30 years before, Maria remembered, when they had made love.
CHAPTER TEN
Seventy thousand dollars. How did they arrive at that price? Remo hung up the phone in the booth and walked out to Adams Street.
The sun made Boston alive, a very dead city from the time the first settler designed the dirty, gloomy metropolis, to this September noon when the air was warm with just a hint of growing coolness.
He had done his morning exercises behind the wheel of the rented automobile, driving all night from Montreal to the din of Chiun and the young Mrs. Liu. At one point, while he was reinforcing his breathing, Mrs. Liu surrendered to angry tears. Chiun leaned forward and whispered in Remo's ear: "They don't like that. Heh, heh."
"Chiun, will you cut that out now?" Remo said.
Chiun laughed and repeated the phrase in Chinese that had caused the anger.
"My government has sent me here to officially identify my husband," Mei Soong said in English. "They did not send me here to suffer abuse from this reactionary, meddlesome old man."
"I show you how old I am in bed, little girl. Heh, heh."
"You are gross, even for a Korean. Do you still remember your last erection?"
Chiun emitted a warlike shriek and then poured forth verbal Oriental abuse.
Remo pulled to the side of the road. "All right, Chiun. Up front with me."
Stilled instantly, Chiun moved into the front seat and adjusted himself angrily. "You are a white man," he said. "Like mouldy dead grain. White."
"I thought you were mad at her, not me," Remo said, pulling back to the Thruway where cars were zipping by, most of them no longer under the control of their drivers. At 65 miles an hour in a soft-sprung comfort car, the operator was aiming, not driving.
"You embarrassed me in front of her."
"How?"
"By ordering me up front like a dog. You have no feeling for real people because you are not people. And in front of her."
"All white men are like that," said Mrs. Liu. That's why they need running dogs like you to work for them."
"Shit," said Remo, summing up the situation.
He had lost two of the three cars following him by pulling off the roadway. But the last car still was on his tail. With one hand, Remo unwrapped the red cellophane covering from a pack of cough drops on the dashboard. He smoothed it out as best he could, then held it in front of his eyes, peering through it as he drove through the pre-dawn darkness.
He continued looking through the red filter for a full two minutes, as he began to push the car to its limits. Sixty-five. Seventy. Eighty. Ninety. As he came to the top of a rise with the pursuit car some 400 yards behind him, he saw what he was looking for. As soon as he cleared the rise, he turned off his lights and dropped the piece of red cellophane. His eyes, now functional in the dark, saw clearly the Boston exit, and without lights at 90 miles an hour, Remo whipped around the turn, then began slowing down without hitting the brake.
In his mirror, he could see the pursuit car-its driver blinded by darkness-plow ahead on the Thruway toward New York. Goodbye car number three.
"Barney Oldfield," Chiun said. "A regular Barney Oldfield. Did it ever occur to you that your life would be safer if you stopped and did combat, Mr. Barney Oldfield?"
"You can fasten your seat belt."
"I am my own seat belt. But that is because I can control my body the way civilized people are supposed to. Perhaps you should fasten your seat belt. Heh, heh."
"Reckless, inconsiderate driving," said Mrs. Liu. "Do you know that driving at these speeds consumes gasoline more rapidly than driving at lower speeds? Besides, I want to find my husband, wherever he is, not precede him to heaven."
"Shit," said Remo, and it was the last thing he said until they reached Boston. He wondered if he had been wise to shake the tail. But his mission called for finding General Liu, not endangering the general's wife. His followers would pick him up again, if they hadn't already, and he wanted the meeting on his terms, when his decisions would not be warped because of the danger to the girl.
Now, he was in Boston, it was just after noon, and it felt somewhat exhilarating to know that someone thought you were worth $70,000 to kill. But as he walked back to his hotel, a vague anger began to grow. Only $70,000?
A basketball player recently was sued for jumping a team, the team claiming he was worth $4 million. Four million for him and his life, and only $70,000 for Remo's death. Inside the hotel lobby, Remo felt concentration on him. It was not strong and his anger had almost dulled his senses. Collecting the extra room key, he noticed a scruffy woman in a black dress and hat reading a newspaper. But her eyes didn't move across the columns.
Maybe he should sell tickets? He thought momentarily of collecting fees from everyone following him, Chiun and the girl. Maybe go up to the woman and say, "Uh, look. We're the in thing this week. We're going to be at Fenway Park on Saturday and you can't tail us without a ticket that night. I recommend a g
ood box seat so you can use a knife or even your hands if one of us should wander near the bullpen."
But Remo had been trained better than that. One never gave away the knowledge he was being tailed. One gives away nothing. As Chiun had said in the first weeks of training at Folcroft when Remo's wrists were still sore from the current of the electric chair:
"Fear is all right for you. But never induce it in your victim. Never exert your will on him. Never let him know you even exist. Give him nothing of you. Be like the strange wind that never blows."
It had sounded like any other of the many riddles Remo did not understand, and it took him years at his trade before he was able to perfect the skill of sensing people watching him. Some people experienced it occasionally, usually in crowded situations.
For Remo, it was everywhere, all the time. Like in the lobby of the Hotel Liberty. And the apparently harmless old lady putting the spot on Remo.
Remo strolled to the elevator. A crummy $70,000. The car stopped at the llth floor. A basketball player worth four million dollars.
The car door closed behind him. As the elevator started up, he went up in full jump, his chest stretched out to catch the nine-foot ceiling. And down he came again, dribbling an imaginary basketball, with a small cry of victory.
He had seen Lew Alcindor in a game once, and on that jump, Remo would have gone over him. On most jumps, he would have, Remo thought. What Lew Alcindor did better than Remo was stand taller. And, of course, find a better job. One, not only with retirement benefits, but with retirement.
Remo wondered, when that last day came, if they would ever find a trace of his body. "That's the biz, sweetheart," he said to himself and unlocked the door to his room.
Chiun was sitting in the middle of the floor, his legs crossed, humming happily to himself, a tuneless, nameless song that he used to express happiness at a joyous event. Remo was immediately suspicious.
"Where's Mei Soong?" he asked.
Chiun looked up almost dreamily. He wore his white robes of joy, one of the fifteen changes he had brought with him. Remo had a valise, the girl brought everything in her coat pockets, and Chiun had a steamer trunk.
"She's fine," he said to Remo.
"Where is she fine?"
Chinese Puzzle td-3 Page 7
