Remo shook his head, uncaring that the past Masters were watching him. "Some family we are. Always mercenaries."
"Yes," Chiun replied. "And the children back in Sinanju thank us daily for that fact."
Remo had been to Sinanju. Not once had he heard so much as a single word of thanks from the inhabitants. He had heard backstabbing and sniping. He had heard slander and toadying and fear, followed by a break for lunch and an afternoon free for more sniping. But he had never once heard anything remotely approaching a sincere thank-you. He was about to bring this up when he was suddenly distracted by something up ahead.
A garish yellow car had pulled to the curb.
Remo didn't know what triggered the sense. It was experience honed in training. All he knew was that the person behind the wheel seemed interested in him.
The windshield was strangely reflective. Even his sharp eyes had a difficult time seeing through it. Sunlight gleamed from the mirrored glass. Remo thought the driver was a man. At least he assumed so, given the fact that he could make out just the faintest outline of a bowler hat.
"We've got company," Remo said as they walked. For the moment he was more curious than concerned. Chiun said nothing. His slivered eyes were fixed on the car that was still a hundred yards away.
People on the street passed by the parked Bentley with the idling engine. No one seemed terribly interested in it.
As Remo and Chiun continued up the sidewalk, a hand slowly reached out the driver's window of the Bentley. Clutched tight in the pale fingers was a cylindrical metal object the size of a small can of spray paint.
Although the eyes were hidden by the glass, Remo could sense that the driver's gaze never wavered from him.
Remo knew something was wrong. Before he could speak his words of sudden concern, the driver pressed a tiny button on the top of the canister and let the metal device slip from his fingers. It bounced to the sidewalk with a sharp clank.
The instant the canister hit, it began spinning. A cloud of purplish gas erupted from both ends, shooting up into the faces of stunned pedestrians.
Panic came at once. As the cloud grew; people screamed.
Remo had started to run when the first body fell. It was a woman with shoulder-length black hair in a skintight leather cat suit. She crumpled to the sidewalk, screaming and writhing in her death throes. As soon as the driver had dropped the canister, the car tore away from the curb. As the gas can spit and people scattered in fear, the Bentley flew across lanes of traffic. Tires squealed and horns blared angrily. Remo wheeled. "Little Father," he snapped.
"Go," Chiun commanded. "I will see to the device."
As Chiun flew up the sidewalk to the hissing gas canister, Remo bolted into traffic after the fleeing Bentley.
They had walked nearly to the Royal Mews on Buckingham Palace Road. Directly across the wide road from the Doric archway that led into the Mews was the four-star Steen Hotel.
The Bentley didn't attempt to flee very far. After cutting across rows of traffic, it bounced the sidewalk in a sideways squeal that slid it on smoking rear tires to the entrance of the hotel's subterranean parking garage. Tearing down a strip of black rubber, it flew into the darkness.
Remo raced to follow. Though cars sped along, he dodged and jumped and somehow managed to be wherever they were not. In a few great strides he was across Buckingham Palace Road. On flying feet he raced down the incline into the Steen Hotel parking garage.
It was two levels deep. When Remo didn't spy the Bentley on the upper level, he ran down the ramp to the lower. The yellow car was nowhere to be seen.
He paused, clenching and unclenching his fists. The exit was located up near the entrance. There was no way a banana-colored car could have slipped past Remo undetected. It couldn't possibly have gotten out.
At the far rear wall of the lower level were several slight indentations in the concrete. Each was about the size of a garage door. They all looked solid. But as Remo walked past the last one, he felt something not quite right. Despite the solidness of the wall, he sensed hollowness beyond.
It was then that he noticed the fresh tire marks imprinted on the oil-softened floor.
He stomped his foot. The vibrations that came back confirmed his suspicions. He ran to the wall. Pressing the flat of his palms against the surface, he pushed. With a creak of protest and a single snap, the false door popped open, sliding up into the ceiling-The secret panel opened on another parking garage.
Remo slipped inside.
The smaller garage had room for only about twenty cars. A private elevator was at the rear, its door open. The tiny lot was full. Most of the cars were Bentleys painted different loud colors, although there were a few sports cars and a single white Rolls-Royce. A powder-blue Lotus Elan S3 was parked in the space nearest Remo.
The yellow Bentley Remo had followed from the street was parked in the spot farthest from the secret entrance. And standing calmly before it was Thomas Smedley.
The Source agent wore a coolly superior smile. His black bowler was tipped slightly toward his left eye. His umbrella was hooked to his forearm.
"Very good," the British agent said, impressed. "Being American, I assumed I would have to wait until you summoned fifty thousand troops with surface-to-air missiles to blast apart greater London to locate me. Jolly good show."
"Stuff the twaddle, Jeeves," Remo said as he marched across the garage. "You wanted to get my attention. Who are you and what do you want?"
"I, sir," Smedley said, "am your killer. As for the rest of your question, one hopes you can work it out from there. But, then, one hopes so much with Americans."
His gloomy tone and sadly shaking head made clear his disappointment on that front.
As he spoke, Smedley unhooked his umbrella from his arm. Continuing to shake his head, he aimed it like a weapon.
Remo barely had time to note the tiny hole at the silver tip when a trio of sounds like three clapping gunshots rang through the big basement room. Three bullets fired from the tip of the umbrella.
Although surprised, Remo's instinct took over. He dodged the first two bullets. The third he caught with the hardened tip of one index fingernail. With a flick and a snap, he sent it zinging back from whence it had come.
Remo had directed the bullet back down the barrel of the umbrella gun. But at the last moment it seemed to get a mind of its own. A few yards before it reached the Source agent, the bullet banked upward, impacting hard into the front of Smedley's bowler. It hit with a loud ping.
The bullet didn't tear the fabric. It made a little dent, but failed to penetrate.
Smedley seemed stunned. The impact of the bullet knocked him back against the Bentley. Blinking back his surprise, he quickly got his bearings.
"Magnetized," he explained to Remo's puzzled look. "And bulletproof. Handy to have in our business. Just one tool in an arsenal, my good man."
The umbrella was aimed again. With a slight manipulation at the handle, he sent another missile flying from the tip. This one was round and hard and came in slower than the bullets. Remo was still a few dozen yards from Smedley. The pellet arced to the floor and struck at Remo's feet. When it hit, a cloud of gas exploded up around Remo.
Across the garage Smedley yanked the brim of his bowler. A plastic gas shield came down, covering his face. He offered a sympathetic smile.
"Gas mask," the Source agent said. "Pity I only have the one. And I'm not keen to share. You'll find the gas is quite lethal. I shouldn't want to get much of it on my skin if I were you. Seeps in through the pores. Floods your lungs. The pain is excruciating, I've observed. You'll be dead in five or six seconds, if that's a comfort."
As he spoke, Smedley pulled on a pair of gloves that he had fished out of his pocket. As he awaited the American's inevitable death, he smiled behind his plastic shield.
The smile began to fade when the American didn't grab his throat and drop dead on the garage floor. In another second, as the American persisted in his stubborn
refusal to die, Thomas Smedley's smile of success melted completely away.
For the first time in his professional career, he felt a fluttering hint of deep concern.
Across the room Remo stood in the smoke. Even though it kissed his bare arms and face, it seemed to have no ill effect. He shook his head in disgust.
"What is it with you people and gadgets?" he complained. "All the time gadgets, gadgets, gadgets."
Stooping, he picked up the smoke-spewing pellet. There was no risk of the poison seeping into skin. As soon as the danger was detected, his pores had shut down, closing out the harmful effects of the gas cloud.
Remo flicked the pellet off his thumb. It launched up into the ceiling vent, there to hiss and die harmlessly.
Near the rear wall, Smedley's jaw hung slack. He quickly recovered.
With the tip of his umbrella, Smedley poked a button on the wall near the elevator. Fans above their heads kicked on, sucking the gas from the parking garage.
"Hmm. I am loath to admit it, but I believe I might require a spot of assistance here, Mrs. Knight," the Source agent called over his shoulder.
The reply came from the open elevator doors. "I thought you'd never ask, Mr. Smedley." Remo had sensed another person lounging inside. From his angle he couldn't see inside. He was surprised when it was a woman's voice that spoke. Even more so when he saw who it was that stepped casually out to join Smedley.
Her long legs and thin arms were wrapped in tight black leather. Her neck was a porcelain pedestal for a perfect face. She was the same cat-suited pedestrian who had fallen to the ground in agony on the sidewalk near the Royal Mews.
As Smedley tucked up his bowler gas mask and pulled off his gloves, the woman stopped in a karate crouch beside him.
"You recognize our Mrs. Knight, I see," Smedley said. "Her performance on the sidewalk was just a cunning plan to lure you to your doom. The other pedestrians were frightened but unharmed by our little game. Well done, Mrs. Knight."
"Did you expect anything less, Mr. Smedley?" she asked.
Remo was nearly on the two Source agents. When he was close enough, Mrs. Knight made her move. Her attack was surprisingly quick. A graceful back flip and she was before Remo, her hands flashing like mallets in killing blows.
"You sure you're English?" Remo asked, tipping his head to examine her face even as he deflected her blows. "You're pretty okay looking. What passes for sexy in England is usually 'yikes' in the brush-and-floss parts of the world."
She tried launching a crushing knee into his sternum. Remo took the occasion to feel her up. "Nice," said Remo.
"Arrggghhh!" screamed Mrs. Knight.
Behind her, Thomas Smedley still had one trick left up his sleeve. As his partner fruitlessly fought Remo, the Source agent slipped the fabric off his umbrella, revealing a long stainless-steel sword. Its deadly sharp blade gleamed in the fluorescent light. He tested the weight of the blade over his head once before extending the sword before him.
"En garde!" Smedley challenged.
Mrs. Knight was still kicking and punching. By now she was sweating in her cat suit.
Remo looked at the sharpened tip of the umbrella sword. It was directed at his chest. He turned to Mrs. Knight.
"You work for him or is it the other way around?" he asked.
"I work for Britain." She tried to gouge his eyes out.
"Hey, here's a tip," Remo said. And, taking Smedley's wrist, he plunged the sword through Mrs. Knight's heart.
"Oh, dear," Smedley said as his dead partner slipped off the end of the sword. "Bad show."
"Worse movie," Remo said.
He flicked the sword from Smedley's hand. The Source agent seemed surprised to see it flying away. It buried two feet deep in the concrete wall. The sword wobbled in place.
"Now it's question-and-answer time," Remo said.
Smedley wanted to bolt, but before he could even take a single step, Remo had grabbed him by the hand. Remo pinched the fleshy web between Smedley's thumb and forefinger.
The pain was awful. Blinding. Worse than anything Thomas Smedley had ever experienced in his entire life.
"Eeeeeeaaaahhhh!" Thomas Smedley shrieked.
"That's level one," Remo explained as he squeezed. "It goes to one hundred. If you make it to fifty, you get a bonus of an umbrella suppository. Who do you work for?"
Remo increased the pressure. He made it as far as level one and a half before Thomas Smedley fell blubbering to his well-tailored knees.
"Source!" Smedley shrieked. "I work directly on order from Sir Guy Philliston."
"Philliston sent you to kill me?" Remo asked.
Smedley nodded. "I believe he was following orders from higher up." He gasped at the pain in his hand. "Please, go down from level one hundred. I can't bear it."
Remo scowled. "One hundred? I backed off before I reached two. What kind of girlie spy are you anyway?" He released the Source agent's hand.
With a disgusted look on his face, he collected the two sections of Smedley's umbrella. He wondered briefly after pulling the sword from the wall if it meant he now had to rule this damp sponge of a country. He hoped not. The climate was hell on leather loafers and he doubted he could get used to the stench of haggis blowing in from Scotland.
He slipped the gleaming silver sword back in the standard umbrella with a click.
Panting, Smedley pulled himself up on the Bentley's grille. "I've got a slight problem with pain," he admitted as Remo toyed with the umbrella. "It showed up on some of my early Source tests. Never had cause to worry about it before. Nasty bit of luck."
"No kidding?" Remo said. "How'd you score for getting umbrellas stuck through the head?"
He stuck Smedley's umbrella through Smedley's head.
If dying with a dumb look frozen on his face could have been judged high on the Source entrance exam, Thomas Smedley would have gotten perfect marks.
Remo opened the umbrella and gave it a little spin. It was still spinning above the head of Britain's former top assassin when he left the secret garage.
Chapter 8
Remo found the Master of Sinanju waiting for him in the back seat of a taxi out in front of the Steen Hotel. The driver was of Middle Eastern descent. He wore grimy white pajamas, a swatch of cloth on his head that looked like he'd mugged a dog for its sleeping blanket, and a surly, suspicious expression. When Remo slid in beside Chiun he noticed that the cabbie seemed to take particularly keen interest in him in the rearview mirror.
"Okay, what's the deal here?" Remo demanded of the Master of Sinanju as the car pulled into traffic. "If you are referring to the cost of this carriage ride, you may work out the details with our driver," Chiun said. "I forgot my purse at home."
"Bull," Remo said. "And don't get cute. That hat bastard said he was sent by Guy Philliston to kill me."
"Really? How interesting."
"Yeah, real interesting. Interesting, too, how that babe who was dying out on the sidewalk-you know, the one you went to help by stopping that can of spraying poison-showed up downstairs as healthy as a horse."
Chiun waved his hands in praise before his weathered face. "Thank the awesome ministrations of the Master of Sinanju, deliverer and banisher of death, for restoring life to her ravaged body. All hail splendiferous me."
"Ditch the sales pitch. She was fine and you knew it. This is part of the game. We didn't fly all the way to England just so you could look up an old girlfriend. That guy in the bowler said Source was getting orders to kill me from someone higher up." He tapped the back of the driver's seat. "Hey, Gunga Din. Drop us off at Buckingham Palace."
They were heading away from the palace. The cabbie gave no sign that he even heard Remo.
"I have already told him to take us to the airport."
"No way I'm leaving without an explanation. First the queen tries to kill me, then she has Philliston send someone to do it for her. If you won't spill the beans, she will. Buckingham Palace," he ordered the driver. "And don't spa
re the camels."
"He cannot understand you," Chiun stated. "He speaks Pushtu and understands very little English." The Master of Sinanju said something to the driver in a language that Remo didn't understand. The man didn't nod, didn't say a word. He continued to stare at Remo in the mirror. There was a look of hate in his dark eyes.
"Did you just say 'Heathrow' in the middle of that gobbledygook?" Remo demanded.
"We are going to the airport."
"No way, Jose. Not unless you're willing to let me in on what's going on." He noted the look of determined silence on his teacher's face. "Okeydoke."
He smacked the driver on Fido's bed linen. "Buckingham Palace. You've gotta speakie enough English for that. Big house? Nice old lady in a frump dress lives there? Take us there now."
Across the seat, the Master of Sinanju pursed his lips. "Why must you always be so difficult, Remo?" he asked, a hard edge creeping into his voice. "Why can you not simply sit back and enjoy our most holy tradition?"
"Our most holy tradition is cash up front," Remo said, annoyed now with both the Master of Sinanju and the cabdriver, who was still ignoring his orders.
Remo was about to order the cabbie back to the palace once more when the taxi suddenly swerved sharply in traffic.
They were on Westminster Bridge. Traffic hummed along. Remo looked up in time to see the driver leaping over the seat at him, a wild glint in his dark eyes.
The cabbie had a knife in his hand, clutched in white knuckles. That wasn't all.
The man had lit a match a moment before. When Remo absently noted the sound, he had assumed it was for a cigarette that he was going to have to pluck from the stubble of the man's face and toss out the window. But he saw now it was not a cigarette between the driver's lips. A fat red stick of dynamite was clenched between the cabbie's yellowing teeth. The lit fuse sputtered rapidly down.
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