Was he insane? Had fever and fatigue snapped his connection to reality? What if he stood his ground and waited for the monster where he was?
A heavy thrashing in the jungle answered that one for him, kept him moving as the beast pursued him. Could it see him in the darkness? Was it following his scent?
He ran as if his life depended on it, lost, surrendering to panic. Part of Hopper's mind was still coherent, though, and it was telling him that he'd been mistaken in his dreams. The dark, relentless hunter didn't snarl and roar. It hissed. A great steam engine racing after him, immense and indestructible.
He thought about the river, which lay somewhere to the north of camp. If he could only get his bearings, make it that far in the dark—a mile or two at most—he still might have a chance. It worked with bloodhounds in the movies; water threw them off the scent of their intended prey and gave the hapless fugitive a break. If nothing else, the river might be deep enough to slow his adversary down, perhaps dissuade the demon altogether.
His lungs were burning, and a rush of dizziness came close to overwhelming him as he stumbled to a halt. He braced himself against a tree trunk, leaving a bloody palm print as a signature, bent double to reduce the stabbing pain from stitches in his side. His feet were torn and bleeding. Hopper felt as if he were standing on a bed of razor blades.
And silence.
Had he done it? Was he safe? It seemed impossible, but how could anything that large move silently?
He felt the strike, a stirring in the air above his head, before the gaping jaws descended. Hopper squealed and threw himself aside, rolled over twice and vaulted to his feet. It was impossible for him to choose a direction; there was only life and death to think of as he turned and sprinted through the trees.
Behind him, hissing its rage, the predator came on, its nostrils flaring at the scent of blood and warm, wet flesh. It recognized no law but hunger, no imperative except to feed.
The forest swallowed Hopper up alive.
Chapter Two
His name was Remo, and he reckoned it should be a serious felony for any person weighing upward of three hundred pounds to wear the kind of skintight stretch pants that looked painted on, revealing every dimple, lump and divot on their grotesque derrieres.
The two Americans in front of him were prime examples of the problem. Matching rings told Remo they were married, and the way they clutched each other's hands suggested they were either newly weds or else intimidated by the act of wandering around a foreign city on their own. So far, they had confined themselves to window-shopping, browsing at the sidewalk stalls that offered everything from hand-stitched clothing, jade and native handicrafts to cobras stuffed and mounted in the posture of attack.
Between them, Remo guessed they must have weighed at least 650 pounds, most of it lodged below the waist. With matching horn-rimmed glasses, frizzy hair and garish tourist clothes, they looked a bit like cartoon figures, something from "The Far Side," and a number of the street merchants couldn't keep from giggling after they had passed. It would have been bad form to laugh in a potential buyer's face, of course, but after they were gone… well, what was there to lose?
He didn't know their names, but Remo thought of them as Fred and Freda Frump. It was a fluke that he had crossed their path, but Remo's tagging after them wasn't an accident. He was concerned about his cover, shaky as it was, and shied away from prowling through the city on his own. One round-eye in an Asian city was a curiosity, while three or more together made a tour group.
He hadn't spoken to the Frumps and didn't plan to. Remo didn't need a friend to help him see the city; he was merely riding in their slipstream for a while to see if he was being followed and avoid attracting undue notice to himself. The less his hefty escorts knew about his scam, the better it would be for all concerned. Let them draw the attention, while he moved unnoticed in their wake.
Malaysia had become a tourist destination almost by default in recent years. It had a hard time keeping up with Thailand, where the lures ranged from ancient culture—monks in saffron robes, surrounded by impassive gilded Buddhas—to the cutting edge of sex and drugs. Hong Kong and neighboring Macao eclipsed Malaysia when it came to international finance, and Taiwan offered more in terms of cut-rate souvenirs. Exquisite dancers stole the show in Bali, while Brunei hogged much of Southeast Asia's oil and gas. The Philippines and Indonesia offered island living at its best, for those who could afford the going rate.
Malaysia, in comparison to its successful neighbors, was a relative late bloomer in the rush for tourist dollars, and was better known from dated novels by the likes of Ambler, Black and Maugham than from reality. Of late, though, it had grown into a favored destination for the sort of tourist anxious to relax in an exotic land without the worry of outrageous prices, crowded sight-seeing attractions and daunting language barriers. Whatever might be lacking for the die-hard culture vulture was made up, and then some, by the first-rate service in hotels and some of the most striking beaches in the world. An additional benefit for safety-minded Western tourists was that Malaysia was also rated as the only Southeast Asian country where a round-eyed tourist could feel truly safe while touring in a private rental car.
No wheels for Remo, though, when he set out from his hotel to see the nation's capital. Kuala Lumpur—or "K.L." to its familiars—was a rapidly expanding base of education, politics and industry. The latest guesswork census placed the city's population at one million, but the tourist guidebooks estimated nearly twice as many residents packed into the onetime colonial town that had initially grown around tin mines and kept going from there.
Kuala Lumpur's name translated literally as "muddy river junction," for the nearby merger of the Gombak and Kelang, but there was little to recall those early years in modern-day K.L. The architecture was a blend of early-weird and modern-functional, the arabesque atmosphere of Kuala Lumpur's public buildings—the central railway station, town hall and national mosque—contrasting sharply with the sweeping, functional lines of the newer high-rise school. Both styles collided in the neighborhood of Market Street, along the banks of the Kelang, where the central market drew tourists and locals alike in search of bargains as iron filings are drawn to a magnet.
It was several hours before Remo had to meet the others. Wasted time if he remained at the hotel and tried to guess which way the game would go. He and Master Chiun had a nice room at the Hotel Merlin, on Jalan Sultan Ismail, and he couldn't have dragged Chiun out with a team of horses while the reruns of his beloved soaps were on the tube, much less to mingle with a population that was heavily Chinese in origin.
"At least they are not half-breed Japanese," Chiun had remarked while they were waiting for a taxi at the airport. From his tone, a perfect stranger could have guessed the frail Korean's view of half-breeds generally and the children of Nippon. For Chiun, the Japanese invasion of Korea, back in 1910, had more immediacy than the latest rumbles in Kuwait and Bosnia.
"It is unfortunate," he liked to say, "that they remember nothing of the lesson taught them in Korea."
"Back in 1945, you mean?" asked Remo. "When the U.S. Army and the Russians threw them out?"
"Your textbooks are predictably inaccurate. It was the Master of Sinanju who convinced the foul invaders to depart."
"And how did he accomplish that trick, Little Father?"
"Through a bargain with their emperor," Chiun replied. "The occupation troops withdrew, and Hirohito was permitted to survive."
"What took so long?"
Chiun's expression conveyed disappointment. "You still think like a white man when it comes to time. What is thirty-five or forty years compared to all eternity? The immortal House of Sinanju had more-important tasks than dealing with a few barbarian usurpers of the throne."
"Like earning gold?"
"The second-most-important task of any Master."
"And the first?"
"Pursuit of personal enlightenment," said Chiun, "about Sinanju."
At the moment, Remo would have settled for enlightenment about his current mission, but the final show-and-tell would have to wait a bit, until he met the others at the Shangri-la. Meanwhile, he had some time to kill before that rendezvous, and it would help to put his mind at ease if he could satisfy himself that he hadn't picked up a tail within the past two hours.
The Frumps would help him there, and all they had to do was be themselves.
The contract was a relatively simple one. It called for one dead round-eye, half the payment in advance, the rest when Sing Hop Ma returned with proof of execution.
Easy.
It could even be a pleasure.
He had picked up half a dozen Malay thugs to do the dirty work and make the hit seem like a random street crime. The police were strict about this sort of business, and the locals worked for pocket money—what the Yanks called chicken feed. If they were caught, he trusted them to keep their mouths shut, out of fear and the survival instinct.
Sing Hop Ma had been a red pole—an enforcer—for the local Ben Hoa Tong these past eleven years, since he turned twenty-one. He was a Malay-born Chinese whose father and grandfather served the tong before him, raising Sing to honor the traditions of his clan. The first time he had killed a man, at seventeen, he had been feted by the tong and welcomed to their brotherhood with open arms, a celebration that had nearly made his father weep with pride. Now, as a full-time soldier for the tong, he handled jobs and problems that required a certain killer instinct. Most arose from matters of internal discipline or economic competition, but a few—like this job—were accepted on a contract basis from outside. Another family, or even round-eyes, could procure the services of an assassin if they had sufficient cash in hand.
The target this time was a nondescript American. Six feet, dark hair, brown eyes, no visible tattoos or scars. Sing had a candid photo, taken from a distance at the airport as the target passed through customs, but it told him nothing of the stranger. He looked fit enough, without the bulging muscles that would mark a bodybuilder in the States. Only his wrists looked unusual, huge and sturdy. Perhaps he was a businessman or lawyer, dabbling in some enterprise that earned him lethal enemies.
It made no sense for Sing to speculate. He had no personal investment in the contract, other than the payoff for successful execution. Sing wasn't concerned with what may have provoked the killing, or the impact it would have on foreign shores. His reputation was at stake, dependent on attention to the technical details, but he had supervised this kind of work a hundred times before.
He was sure that nothing could go wrong.
His mark was staying at the Hotel Merlin, one more piece of information from his sponsors to facilitate the work. It had been simple for the Malay thugs to follow him when he went out, along Jalan Ampang, beside the river, walking south until he reached the central marketplace. Most round-eyes hired inexpensive taxis to conserve their energy, but this one liked to walk. He browsed in several shops, paused now and then to speak with sidewalk vendors, but he purchased nothing, even waved off the advances of a stylish prostitute on Market Street.
It would be best to kill him in or near the central market, Sing decided, passing the instruction to his Malay go-between and watching as the man slipped off to find his soldiers in the crowd. The kind of mugging Sing envisioned was uncommon, but it happened. Deaths were rare—the random murder of a round-eyed tourist almost unheard-of—but the only fair alternative would be a manufactured accident, and Sing Hop Ma did not trust his associates to pull it off. That kind of ploy would force him to recruit more soldiers from the tong, and thus reduce his private income from the contract. Better to be happy with the Malays, keep it simple and collect his payoff when the contract was fulfilled.
He could have done the job himself, enjoyed it for the rush of pride he felt whenever he was able to defeat a round-eye, but he didn't care to risk his life and freedom on a mission that had no importance to the family. If this man had done something to invite the wrath of the tong, it would have been a different matter. There would be no need for payment, nothing but a word from his superiors to send him on his way. Sing Ma still executed contracts on his own from time to time, when summoned by the hill chief of his tong, but that was always family business, when the master wished to send his enemies a special message. This was something else, a job for hire, and no sworn member of the tong would soil his hands if it could be avoided. Let the Malay mongrels do it for him, while he split the cash with his superiors.
He was a businessman, no different than a banker or attorney, with the sole exception that his stock-in-trade sometimes included sudden death.
What difference did it make? The men and women he had killed were all deserving of their fate, sworn enemies of Sing Ma's family. They were informers, turncoats, thieves, assassins, spies for the authorities—no good to anyone, themselves included. As for contract killings hired from the outside, he reckoned there must be an urgent motive—fear, perhaps, or hatred, even jealousy—to make a stranger part with so much cash.
Sing Ma was watching when his target fell in step behind the two obese Americans. They weren't friends, from what the tong enforcer could discover, watching from his vantage point across the street. In fact, they didn't speak at all, the two in front ignoring Sing Ma's target absolutely while they bartered with a sidewalk vendor over trinkets.
Three could make the job more difficult than one, if they were fighters, but a passing glance was all it took for Sing Ma to dismiss these bloated round-eyes as potential threats. In this case, he suspected that their presence might prove beneficial. Afterward, when it was done, police would think his hirelings had gone trolling for Americans in general, instead of picking out a special target from the crowd.
Another glance around the marketplace confirmed no uniforms in evidence. Unless the Malays bungled it supremely, they should have no trouble closing in, accosting the Americans, demanding cash and jewelry. There would be a struggle, with the target trying to defend himself, and one or more of the Malays would stab him. Once would be enough, if he was working with a skilled assassin, but Sing Ma had specified no less than half a dozen wounds, to guarantee the job was done. His proof would be the fanfare of publicity attendant on the slaying of a round-eye at the central market.
Perfect.
Sing Hop Ma didn't approach the target personally, hanging back a constant fifty yards to watch from a respectful distance. There was still a possibility, however slight, that something could go wrong. The Malays would be on their own in that event, with nothing but a heartfelt guarantee of slow, protracted death if they betrayed their master. Peasants that they were, they knew the reputation of the Ben Hoa Tong and would do nothing to provoke the massacre of their extended families.
Sing Ma was ready for the trap to close.
Let the festivities begin, Remo thought. He'd felt the executioners before he picked them out by sight; nothing about their superficial looks that would have made them stand out in the crowded marketplace. If pressed for a description of the feeling, Remo might have said they broadcast raw hostility, the same way other human beings radiated fear, anxiety or confidence. It took conditioning and practice to revive the special sense that most men lacked, an edge they had surrendered quite unconsciously along the evolutionary road from "savagery" to "civilization," but the study of Sinanju opened many hidden doors.
Before they came in striking distance, Remo knew that there were six of them, all Malays, traveling in pairs. They weren't total idiots, no shouting back and forth to keep in touch, but once he had them spotted he could read the glance they exchanged while closing for the ambush.
It was fairly well coordinated: two in front of Fred and Freda Frump, two more in back of Remo, with the final pair approaching from his right, across the open marketplace. The hunters broke formation as they closed the gap, forming a semicircle that enclosed the three Americans but allowed other Malays to slip through the cordon when they recognized the danger.
It took another moment for the Frumps to realize their path was blocked, so taken were they with the handmade jewelry offered by an aging sidewalk vendor. Only when the merchant started packing up his wares in haste did either of them realize that something was amiss. They looked around the ring of hostile faces, blanching at the sight of knives and bludgeons, trembling like two effigies constructed out of Jell-O.
"Kasi kita wang segala engkau," one of the assassins ordered. Give us all your money.
So, it was supposed to look like robbery, thought Remo, with the sidewalk merchant serving as a witness for police. No matter that a daylight mugging was among the city's rarest crimes. Assassination would be rarer still, and it required at least a nominal diversion if the killers meant to stay at large.
He tried to picture Fred and Freda as the targets, but dismissed the thought at once. They were innocuous, despite their violation of prevailing fashion codes, and they didn't look prosperous enough to make six hardened thugs risk prison for their pocket change. If anything, bad luck had brought them to their present circumstance.
Which meant the killers had been sent for Remo. That, in turn, suggested strongly that his cover had been blown, but he couldn't address that problem at the moment.
Not until he dealt with more-immediate concerns.
"Kasi kita wang segala engkau," said the leader of the thugs once more. He punctuated the command by jabbing with his wavy-bladed kris in the direction of the Frumps. They squealed in stereo and clutched at one another, sweating through their polyester outfits with the sudden rush of fear.
"Don't move," said Remo, stepping forward to confront the ersatz muggers as he spoke. His next words were addressed to the apparent spokesman for the group. "You're making a mistake."
The blade man stared at Remo, took a moment to absorb the warning and dismissed it like the oaf he was. His forward lunge was telegraphed by twitching muscles in his jaw and the shift of balance to his forward leg before he struck. It was too late to save himself, once he committed to the strike.
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