"I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Looncraft," she stammered as he stormed past her and into his office. His normally neat desk was in disarray, the morocco-leather blotter shoved aside. The message carved into the fine wood was like a long crazy wound.
Looncraft whirled, fixing his secretary with a cold, imperious glare.
"How could you let this happen?" he demanded.
"I didn't know how to stop him, Mr. Looncraft. He was a bear."
"He was no more a bear than I," Looncraft said acidly. "And you are fired, Miss McLean!"
"Yes, Mr. Looncraft," Miss McLean said timidly, backing out of the room. In her heart, she felt a curious elation. Mr. Looncraft had actually called her by name. She had waited years for him to do that. It made being fired almost worthwhile.
Looncraft brushed bear hairs from his executive's chair before taking it. He spent several minutes rearranging his desk, and his thoughts. When both were satisfactorily tidy, he engaged his Telerate machine. Its glowing green three-letter stock symbols and decimal-point quotations helped restore his sense of well-being. A pinch of snuff also helped. Then, turning in his chair, he brought up his personal computer and the Mayflower Descendants bulletin board.
The message on the screen said: "BOOK'S QUEEN TO KING NONE?"
Looncraft frowned. The message made no sense. There was no such chess move.
He typed the same message and added two question marks at the end. He pressed "Send."
The silent reply Looncraft got back had nothing to do with the game of chess. It read: "IDENTIFY."
Looncraft typed his name.
"HAVE YOU BEEN COMPROMISED?" was the response.
Looncraft typed: "UNKNOWN. WILL CHECK."
He called up a readout of all his files. Next to each was the date and exact time of the last update. He saw with a start that made his long face even longer that a key file had been accessed only this morning. Looncraft had not looked at that file in weeks.
He returned to the bulletin board, and typed: "ANSWER AFFIRMATIVE. HOSTILE PARTY IDENTIFIED. PERMISSION TO ACTIVATE CORNWALLIS GUARD AND MAKE REBEL PARTY REDUNDANT."
Looncraft pressed "Send." The answer bipped back instantly, despite thousands of miles of distance: "GRANTED."
Looncraft pecked at the keys with two long fingers, switching to another program.
He wrote: 'ACTIVATE. TARGET: NOSTRUM, INK. ASSEMBLE AT 1700 HOURS GREENWICH MEAN TIME. ERADICATE ALL RESISTANCE AND MAKE CEO REDUNDANT."
Then he pressed "Send" and leaned back, a bitter smile creeping into his grim expression.
All over greater New York and New Jersey, and in parts of lower Connecticut, personal computers and office mainframes repeated the message on silent screens. Men excused themselves from work, from family obligations, and took cars or boarded commuter trains, clutching bundles tied with string under their arms.
They were all headed for Manhattan.
William Bragg of the Connecticut Braggs received his activation orders while at his desk in his New Canaan real estate office.
"Right, then," he said, going to the office safe. He pulled from a double-locked drawer a neatly folded white wool garment and a scarlet coat. In the privacy of his office he carefully changed his clothes. The white breeches fitted as snugly as his wife's panty hose. The matching waistcoat was also a perfect fit. He attached the black horsehair neck stock around his collar before donning a long red coat that almost touched the floor with its viper's-tongue tails. After he finished buttoning the front, he anchored the tails to his back with silver hooks so they wouldn't trail, and pulled on the white shoulder belts. They formed an X over the coat after he attached the regimental buckle stamped with the letters CG. Finally he stepped into his black half-gaiters, enjoying the feel of real footwear for the first time in what he mentally called "a dog's age."
William Bragg pulled loose-fitting trousers over his leggings and, flattening his heavy turnback lapels, drew on a rumpled raincoat, buttoning it to the top so no hint of scarlet peeped out. He carried an oilskin-wrapped package to his waiting car.
On his way to New York City, William Bragg hummed the familiar melody every American schoolboy learned as "America" under his breath. Occasionally he broke out into song. But the words were not the words of the national anthem. Instead of "My Country 'Tis of Thee," he sang "God Save the Queen."
Bragg parked in a lot near Wall Street and carried the oilskin package from the car. He walked briskly to the Nostrum Building, the morning sun glinting off the cloisonne flag button on his lapel. He didn't notice-or perhaps care-that the American flag was upside down.
As he climbed the short broad steps to the Nostrum entrance, a taxi pulled up and a man in a business suit alighted, clutching a paper-wrapped package similar to Bragg's. He, too, wore an American flag on his lapel. It, too, was upside down.
Bragg waited for the man to approach the lobby.
"Bragg," he said, low-voiced. "Commanding."
"Braintree, sir. I hope I'm not late."
"Let us see for ourselves, shall we?"
In the Nostrum lobby, six others stood about, looking at watches, all dressed in business clothes and all clutching packages of various sorts close to their upside-down U.S. flag buttons.
Bragg strode up to the knot of expectant-faced men. They were a tall lot, sound of limb, he saw. Well-bred, and fighters to a man-if William Bragg was any judge of men.
"Colonel William Talbot Bragg here," he said, executing a sharp salute. When his right hand snapped to his forehead, it showed palm-out.
The others returned identical awkward salutes.
"All ready, then?" Bragg asked.
"Right, sir," they whispered.
"Follow me, and step smartly," Bragg said, leading them to the elevators. The next available cage was empty. They stepped aboard, and as it ascended, the men hastily removed their outer clothing to reveal cotton waistcoats and white breeches. The package wrapping tore under busy fingers and dropped to the floor like paper scabs. Those who came in business suits donned red coats with royal-blue regimental facings. White-powdered wigs and black cocked hats went on their heads.
When the overhead indicator flashed that they had reached the eighth floor, they were grimly checking their Sterling machine pistols.
The steel doors rolled apart and Bragg exited first.
"Look smart now, lads," he barked.
The others jumped out and formed a line on either side of him. Their gun muzzles rose. Fingers caressed triggers.
Then, like a sinuous red centipede, the line of men advanced down the corridor to the Nostrum trading room.
The Master of Sinanju heard the sounds of automatic weapons as they penetrated the soundproofed sanctity of his office. He came to his feet as if sprung from a box. Glass shattered. A hole punched in the door, exploding the insulated window behind his aged head.
His hand reached for the doorknob. But the door flew inward. A red-suspendered trader flung himself in.
"What is wrong?" Chiun demanded, trying to see past him.
"It's a massacre!"
"What kind?"
"A real one. They're slaughtering the floor."
The Master of Sinanju flew past the man and took in the awful sight of his trading room as glass partitions shivered and sprayed shards under punishing bursts of automatic-weapons fire.
The firing was coming from a handful of red-costumed gunmen who stood ruler-straight, like a firing squad, inside the door.
"Take that, you traitors!" one shouted. He wore the gold-fringed epaulets of an officer. The stringy fringe shivered in sympathy to his firing.
Huddling traders crawled for safety before the Master of Sinanju's outraged eyes. Faith Davenport squeezed herself into a corner, crying, "I'm not a trader! I'm a secretary! Please don't shoot me."
A palm-size shard of glass flicked toward Chiun. He caught it, redirecting its flight with a casual continuous gesture. The shard ended up in the face of one of the red-coated assailants, bisecting it with mat
hematical precision.
He dropped his weapon and eased himself onto the rug to die, shivering from polished toe to powdered wig.
"I am Chiun!" the Master of Sinanju cried above the carnage. "Perhaps it is me you seek with your cowardly bullets. "
"That's the one," the officer said, pointing. "Take him, lads. "
The firing stopped, the smoking muzzles focusing on Chiun, who took a single step forward.
Remo Williams finished hiding his bear suit under the passenger seat of his car and got out. He walked toward the Nostrum Building, a mass of computer printouts clutched in his hand.
The lobby was calm when he entered. But when an elevator opened, it spilled terrified Nostrum workers, who fought and clawed at one another to escape the cage.
Remo grabbed one by the suspenders and demanded, "What the hell is going on?"
"We're getting murdered!" he said, tearing free.
Remo dropped the suspenders and called after him, "Maybe it's only a correction."
He shrugged, and took the elevator. He was anxious to show Chiun what he had found at Looncraft's office.
Two floors below the Nostrum office suite, the tang of gunsmoke infiltrated the elevator. Remo dropped to one knee and got ready, in case the doors opened on an ambush.
He was unprepared for being knocked off his feet by a torrent of stampeding Nostrum workers.
"What's going on?" he shouted as the doors closed and the cage sank.
"Massacre!" several voices wailed at once. One of them he recognized. Pushing his way toward it, he took Faith Davenport by the arm.
"What's happened?" Then Remo noticed the blood on his clutching hand. It was coming from Faith's torn sleeve.
"Machine guns," Faith gulped between breaths. "It was horrible. They're killing traders for no reason."
"What about Chiun?" Remo asked urgently as the car opened on the lobby.
"He's fighting them. Oh, poor chief!"
Just then a shattering of glass came from outside the building.
A scarlet figure struck the sidewalk with bone-pulverizing force. For a heartbeat of fear, Remo thought it was Chiun dressed in a scarlet kimono. But then he remembered that Chiun had worn emerald this morning.
Remo rushed out to the sidewalk, stopped, and turned the body over so he could see its face. There was no face to speak of-just a red ruin. It almost matched the long red coat with its regimental facings and large silver buttons.
Then a white-powdered wig plopped on the face, covering it.
"That's one of them," Faith said, cupping her mouth in her hands.
"One of what? He looks like an extra in a historical movie. "
"One of the killers. They kept calling us 'traders' like it was a dirty word."
Remo reacted to the first concussion before the sound of the exploding window glass warned that another costumed killer was on his way down. He hustled Faith back into the lobby. The second body landed beside the first, but Remo didn't wait to see it hit. He flashed inside an elevator, stabbing the eighth-floor button impatiently and saying, "Come on! Come on!"
This time he heard gunfire on the way up. It was sporadic.
Remo charged out of the elevator without regard for his own safety. His eyes were wide, taking in everything. Time seemed to slow down, but he was moving like a flash of light up the corridor, every sense attuned to his surroundings.
Two red-coated gunmen suddenly came in his direction. They were marching backward, shoulder to shoulder, their pistols making short spiteful sounds at whatever they were in retreat from.
Remo skidded to a stop and let them come to him.
"Curse you, ye heathen wog!" one of them spat. He wore gold epaulets on his shoulders.
Remo waited until he was almost on him before he tapped him on the epaulet. The man whirled as if electrified, his lips peeled back to expose snarling teeth.
Remo broke every tooth in his mouth with a quick upward stroke of his hand. The officer dropped his machine pistol and grabbed his throat. He began vomiting teeth. Remo left him to that and shattered the other man's kneecaps with two rapid-fire kicks.
He swept past them and into the trading room.
There the Master of Sinanju had another gunman by the throat. The man was on his knees, so he and Chiun were eye-to-eye. Chiun was leaning into his stranglehold and the man's face was purpling like an animated bruise.
"I got two," Remo called, looking around the room. He saw bodies. More red coats. But several bloody Nostrum employees too.
Chiun looked up from his work. "Do any of them live?"
"Who?"
"The vicious ones."
"Yeah, I didn't waste them."
"Then we do not need this dog," Chiun said, snapping the struggling man's neck with a quick sideways motion. Chiun kicked the twitching corpse away.
Remo went among the wounded, feeling for pulses. He found few. From outside came the whine of approaching sirens.
"That's probably the police," Remo said quickly. " I can't stick around. My face would end up on every newscast from here to Alaska."
"There is time yet," Chiun returned. "We must learn who these savages are."
Remo followed Chiun out to the corridor, where the officer had finished emptying the contents of his stomach onto the rug. He whimpered as he tried to pick his teeth out from a sour puddle of cream-of-asparagus soup.
The other man was moaning as he clutched his shattered knees. Chiun stepped on his throat on his way to the other one. His windpipe collapsed without a sound. So did he.
Remo pulled the red-coated officer to his knees.
"Unless you want your brains to join your lunch," Remo said fiercely, "you're going to tell us who sent you and why. "
"Damn you, you traitor," the man said mushily through bleeding gums.
"I'm not a trader," Remo said. "And what have you got against traders?"
"He not say 'trader,' " Chiun intoned. "He is calling you a traitor." "How can you tell? Without teeth, he sounds like Grandma Moses."
"Because he also shouted 'traitor' when he had his teeth," Chiun added. "Your name, dog."
"Bragg, William. Colonel."
"And who is your master?"
" I am pleased to serve on Her Majesty's Cornwallis Guard, wog."
Chiun slapped the bloody sneer from Bragg's face.
"Call me not a wog, murderer."
Bragg fell silent. His eyes were sullen.
" I asked you to name your master," Chiun repeated sternly.
" I owe my allegiance to the queen," Bragg said sullenly.
Remo looked to Chiun. " I just came from Looncraft's office. He wasn't there. So I left a message. I think this is his answer."
"There is one way to find out," Chiun said, girding his emerald skirts.
He made a pass at Bragg's face with one long-nailed hand, his hazel eyes hard and glittering.
"Know, murderer," he intoned, "that any one of these nails can inflict exquisite pain. But for you, I shall employ them all."
"Do your worst," Bragg spat.
And Chiun's hand clutched the man's face. His nails dug in at brow, cheeks, and jaw. Bragg threw his head back in anguish. His howl actually caused hanging glass in the next room to fall to the floor.
"Speak!" Chiun demanded. "Who sent you?"
"I . . . don't know . . . name," Bragg screeched. "I am a soldier!"
Chiun's nails dug in more deeply. Bragg threshed and fought, but the old Oriental's grasp was unshakable.
"Damn you!" he cried. "Curse your black heathen soul!"
" I don't think he knows," Remo said unfeelingly.
"Then he will suffer," spat Chiun.
But Bragg did not suffer. He suddenly clutched up and his bloodshot eyes began to jerk about in his head. His arms flapped like a wounded bird trying to fly. His kneeling legs went slack.
Then all movement ceased, and the Master of Sinanju realized he was holding up inert flesh.
"Dead?" Remo asked.
Chiun nodded. "His wicked heart could not stand the strain, he has dropped his body."
Chiun released Colonel William Bragg's head. It swayed forward with sickening slowness. Bragg hit the rug with his face. His body curled like a hunched red question mark.
Down the corridor, the humming elevator doors released a cacophony of shouting voices.
"The cops," Remo said. "I gotta go."
" I am going with you," Chiun said.
"No, you gotta keep Nostrum going. Just leave me out of it. I'll be at the hotel. Check with me after this is over."
And Remo drifted back into the trading room. He stepped out through a shattered window and used the molding between windows to get him to the roof. There he walked to the back of the building, where the alley below was empty of official vehicles.
Remo began his spiderlike descent to the ground, his face hard.
Chapter 18
Dr. Harold W. Smith was monitoring the stock market when three things happened simultaneously.
His secretary buzzed him.
The first bulletin telling of the massacres at Nostrum, Ink, flashed on his computer.
And the news of P. M. Looncraft's successful takeover of the Global Communications Conglomerate appeared beside the first bulletin.
For a rare moment, Smith sat paralyzed, uncertain what to deal with first.
His eyes on the screen, he fumbled for his intercom.
"Yes?" he snapped harshly.
"Mr. Winthrop calling. Again."
"I've no time right now. Tell him I'll call him back."
"Yes, sir."
Smith's widening eyes followed the twin bulletins. As an electronic facsimile of the New York Stock Exchange broadtape marched across the top of the screen, two text windows below it scrolled out news digests.
Smith tried to read them both simultaneously. As a consequence, he had the momentary impression that P.M. Looncraft had massacred the stockholders of Global Communications Conglomerate.
Smith squeezed his eyes tightly, striking a key that froze the Looncraft bulletin. He recalled the Nostrum digest from the top, and started over.
According to the bulletin, there had been a massacre on the trading floor of Nostrum, Ink, resulting in casualties. The assailants had all been killed during the attack, which the New York police were blaming on disgruntled investors wiped out by Dark Friday. The CEO of Nostrum was answering questions, but was unable to shed any more light on the attack.
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