Line of Succession td-73

by Warren Murphy

  Remo was the first to reach the ledge. The castle ruins covered it. Once sparkling battlements had lifted to the sky. Now only one turret stood. The rest had fallen into great broken blocks like a city lost for thousands of years.

  Down in the ruins, the Dutchman walked, his purple clothes loose against his body, his short blond hair sticking up like a cartoon of a man who has jammed a wet finger into an electrical socket.

  Remo climbed onto a block of granite and called down to his enemy.

  "Purcell! "

  The Dutchman did not react. Something in the sky held his attention.

  Remo looked up. High in the early-morning sky, like a diamond in a jeweler's case, the planet Venus shone like a star.

  Chiun came up behind Remo. "What is he doing?" he asked.

  ''Search me. He's just staring at the sky."

  "No, at that star."

  Down below. the Dutchman pointed an accusing finger at the bright planet. His harsh voice ripped up from the center of the ruins. "Explode! Why don't you explode?"

  "You're right," said Remo. "He has gone around the bend."

  "We must stop him," declared Chiun.

  "That's my idea," Remo said resolutely.

  Chiun hurried after him. "No, not for revenge. Remember the Dutchman's other powers. The ones that are not illusions. "

  "Yeah, he can make things catch fire or explode. All he has to do is think it."

  "He is trying to make Venus explode. With his mind."

  "Can he do that?" Remo asked, stopping suddenly. The concept shook him out of this grim certainty.

  "We do not wish to find out. Because if he can, he will not stop with Venus. He will put out the very stars in the sky, one by one, until only our world lies spinning in the Void. And then he will obliterate this world too. I know madness. He is full of power, Remo. Our lives no longer mean anything against this threat. Come."

  And the Master of Sinanju surged ahead. But Remo overtook him.

  "Purcell!" Remo yelled. His voice bounced off the ruins like an echo in a deep cave. "Purcell. Forget that crap. I've come for you."

  The Dutchman turned his electric-blue eyes toward them. They seemed to take a long time to focus.

  "I will be with you in a moment, my old enemy. It seems that putting out a star requires more concentration than I realized. "

  "You don't have that kind of time," said Remo, jumping into the ruins.

  "Inside line," said Chiun. And Remo nodded, taking the inside-line approach. He went at the Dutchman in a straight line while Chiun circled around in back. Distracted, the Dutchman reacted to Chiun's circling attack. But Remo was faster. He gathered the Dutchman up in his arms, taking him under one shoulder and around a thigh. Remo spun him like a baton.

  The Dutchman stopped his midair cartwheel with a reaching hand. He took Remo by the throat, bringing Remo into the momentum of his spin and throwing Remo against a shattered turret.

  "I am more powerful than you," said the Dutchman, picking himself up. He wobbled on his legs dizzily. "I am the Dutchman. I can extinguish the universe with a thought!"

  The Master of Sinanju saw that his pupil lay unmoving. There was no time to see if he lived. Chiun moved in on one of the Dutchman's knees. The fourth blow would no longer be denied.

  The Dutchman turned, dropping into a fighting crouch. But Chiun did not put up a matching defense. Let the Dutchman have a free strike. Just as long as the Master of Sinanju had his fourth blow.

  Chiun felt his toe connect with the Dutchman's knee at the same time the flat-handed blow struck his temple. Chiun rolled with the impact. Both combatants fell.

  "You have thrown in your lot with Shiva," the Dutchman said bitterly, trying to rise to his feet. "You should have known better. You could have been father to a god." And the Dutchman, disdaining Chiun's prone form, turned his attention back to the beckoning gleam of Venus, the morning star.

  As Chiun watched, the Dutchman lifted his arms to the purple sky, first imploringly, then with a face shaken by rage and wrath. The sky seemed to vibrate.

  But all around them another voice suddenly reverberated, deep and full in strength. A voice the Master of Sinanju had heard before. The only voice he had ever learned to fear.

  "I am created Shiva, the Destroyer; Death, the shatterer of worlds. The dead night tiger made whole by the Master of Sinanju. "

  And the Master of Sinanju smiled grimly. For standing on a ruined turret, a block of granite the size of a small car held over his head, stood Remo Williams.

  "Who is this dog meat who challenges me?" Remo said in the voice of Shiva.

  The granite block accelerated through the air like a bullet. The Dutchman executed a backflip, landing on top of the block a mere second after it crashed onto the spot where he had been standing.

  "Not good enough," crowed the Dutchman. And then it was Remo who was flying through the air.

  The two men collided, irresistible force meeting immovable object. They grappled, hand to wrist and toe to toe. They strained against one another like wrestlers, their faces warping and contorting. The sudden wave of sweat-smell coming from the spot where they struggled told the Master of Sinanju of the terrific force being expended. Then, under their quivering feet, the ground cracked and buckled.

  The Master of Sinanju crawled to avoid a widening tear in the earth. He found his feet with difficulty and moved to one side of the ruined castle.

  This was a battle of gods on earth. There was no place in it for a mere Master of Sinanju. With pained eyes Chiun watched the display of naked power and prayed to the gods of Sinanju that he would not be asked to carry a body down the mountain this day.

  Remo Williams struggled mightily. He had one hand around the Dutchman's wrist and the Dutchman had his opposite hand around Remo's other wrist. They pushed and strained against one another, their feet stepping and locking like horses trying to pull a too-heavy load.

  The Dutchman suddenly brought one foot down on Remo's instep. Remo responded with a circle kick. The Dutchman jumped with both feet. He let go of Remo's wrist, but Remo did not let go of his. With a swift floating motion Remo caught the Dutchman's other wrist. He had them both now.

  When the Dutchman's feet touched ground, Remo pushed him. The Dutchman's weakened knees started to buckle. "This is for Mah-Li," Remo said angrily.

  "You kill me and you die!" snarled the Dutchman, his face working with fury. His eyes grew wilder still. His legs quivered as they were forced further and further down. One knee touched the earth, sending shooting pains up the Dutchman's injured leg.

  "No!" he screamed. Beneath their feet, the earth cracked again. A serpent jumped out of the earth, long as a train and bigger around than a redwood. Its orange-brown translucent body writhed like an earthworm. And out of its massive jaws, yellow flames seared.

  "You'll need more than your tricks to beat me now, Purcell," Remo said. "You're finished."

  "No!" shouted Jeremiah Purcell. And the voice was the voice of the beast within him, but the cry was tinged with fear. He felt his other knee sink inexorably, humiliatingly to the ground. "I am stronger than you! Greater than you! More Sinanju than you!"

  Colors swirled around him and the discordant music swelled. The Master of Sinanju put his hands over his eyes to block out the awful glare. The ground bubbled, as if it had turned to lava. Blocks of granite stood up on caterpillar legs and marched toward the center of the ruins, where the combatants were locked in a death grip.

  The Master of Sinanju watched in horror, not knowing what was real and what was not.

  It had seemed as if Remo were winning, but now, with the music rising to a manic crescendo, the Dutchman suddenly had Remo in a chokehold. Remo's arms flailed, his mouth gulping air like a beached fish. Chiun watched as, brutally, like a python squeezing its prey, the Dutchman continued his cruel hold until Remo's face darkened with congesting blood.

  "Remo! Do not let him defeat you!" Chiun cried. He started for them, but with a callous glance th
e Dutchman made a line of granite blocks between them explode into a thousand pieces. The Master of Sinanju retreated into the shelter of a fallen castle wall. He remained there while the fragments of stone peppered the ruins around him.

  When he emerged, the Dutchman stood triumphantly, holding Remo by the scruff of the neck, shouting at the top of his voice.

  "I am invincible. I am the Dutchman. There is no greater Master of Sinanju than Jeremiah Purcell. Do you hear me, Chiun? Can you see me, Nuihc, my father? I am supreme! Supreme! "

  In his hands, Remo hung limp and unconscious. And the heart went out of the Master of Sinanju.

  "You will not live to drink the nectar of your victory," declared Chiun, drawing himself up.

  "Supreme!" cried the Dutchman as he dropped Remo scornfully. He flung his arms out as if to offer his glory to the universe. His uplifted face, almost beatific in its exultation, saw the taunting gleam of the morning star hanging in the purple sky.

  "Supreme," he whispered, focusing all his energy on one point of tight millions of miles away.

  Chiun bounded over fallen blocks, his feet leaping, his blazing hazel eyes focused on the Dutchman's imperious form. But he was too late. The music grew. And high in the sky Venus became a tiny flare of silver that swelled and swelled until it filled the mountaintop with unholy light.

  The Dutchman lifted triumphant fists. "Supreme!"

  And as the dissonant music grew unbearable, the ground opened up beneath the Dutchman's feet.

  "No!" cried Chiun. But it was too late. The Dutchman fell into a widening crater, arms flailing as he screamed his final words. They echoed deep from the earth.

  "Supreme! Supreme! Supreme!"

  And with his agitated purple figure tumbled the limp body of Remo Williams.

  When they were lost from sight, the ground closed up with a finality that silenced everything. Including the mind music of the Dutchman.

  Chiun landed on the crack. He threw himself upon it, digging and clawing frantically.

  "Remo! My son." His fingers excavated the edge of the crack. But he only succeeded in scratching it. The crack had closed fully.

  Head bowed, the Master of Sinanju was silent for long moments. Finally he scratched a symbol in the dirt with a long fingernail. It was a bisected trapezoid, the sign of Sinanju. It would forever mark the resting place of the two white Masters, the last of the line.

  Resignedly the Master of Sinanju got to his feet. He wiped the red earth from his kimono, muttering a prayer for the dead under his breath. He turned to walk away from Devil's Mountain, empty-handed, realizing that there was a worse thing than carrying a dead son down a mountain. And that was leaving him there.

  A voice stopped him outside the ruins. "Leaving without me, Little Father?"

  Chiun wheeled at the sound. His face widened in such surprise, his wrinkles smoothed out.

  "Remo!" he breathed. Then, louder, "Remo, my son. You live?"

  "More or less," Remo said nonchalantly. His face was streaked with dirt and sweat. Under one arm he carried a lifeless figure in purple whose wrists were bound by a yellow sash. Jeremiah Purcell.

  "I saw you both swallowed by the earth."

  "Not us," said Remo. He tried to crack a smile, but Chiun could see that it was an effort. The Master of Sinanju walked to Remo's side and touched first his arm, then his face. "You are real. Not a cruel illusion designed to prolong my grief."

  "I'm real," said Remo.

  "But I saw this carrion defeat you."

  Remo shook his head. "You saw what the Dutchman imagined. What he wanted to believe. You were right, Chiun. He had gone around the bend. Remember when the colors got really bright?"

  "Yes. "

  "I had him then. And he knew it. I think his mind really snapped then. He knew he couldn't win. He couldn't bear to lose, so he created the illusion that he was winning. I saw it too. I had him on his knees. Suddenly he collapsed. Then there was another Dutchman and another one of me and they were fighting. When I realized what was happening, I stepped back and watched just as you did."

  "But the pit?"

  "An illusion. Maybe you could say the pit was real in a way. It was the pit of madness and the Dutchman finally fell in. All I know is that here I am and here he is."

  "Not dead?" wondered Chiun.

  "He might as well be," Remo said, laying the Dutchman across a block of broken stone. Jeremiah Purcell lay, breathing shallowly, only the faintest of lights in his eyes. His lips moved.

  "He is trying to say something," Chiun said.

  Remo placed his ear to the Dutchman's writhing lips. "I win. Even in defeat."

  "Don't count on it," Remo told him. But just before the last light of intelligence fled from his eyes, the Dutchman reared up as if electrified. "You will never save the presidential candidates now!" Then he collapsed.

  Chiun examined him carefully.

  "He lives. But his eyes tell me that his mind has gone."

  "He won't menace us again. I guess I did it, Chiun. I stopped the Dutchman without killing him or myself."

  "Do not be so boastful. The Dutchman's last words indicate that he may have the final victory yet."

  "If we hurry," Remo said, hefting the Dutchman into his arms, "we might be able to get back in time."

  "No." Chiun stopped him. "I will carry him down. I have waited many years for this day of atonement. "

  And together they descended Devil's Mountain, the clear light of the morning star hanging in an untroubled blue sky above them.

  Chapter 36

  Every major network and cable service carried Decision America, the election-eve presidential debate broadcast live from a Manhattan television studio. The candidates had been introduced and the Vice-President had given his opening statement, ending with a reaffirmation of his promise to put an end to all covert operations by American intelligence agencies.

  Governor Michael Princippi led off his remarks with a solemn vow to expunge all black-budget projects from the federal books.

  In the middle of his statement, television screens all over America went black.

  The Secret Service had every entrance to the television studio covered. Heavy, bulletproof limousines were parked bumper to bumper all around the block instead of the usual clumsy concrete barriers. They were prepared for anything.

  Except for a skinny white man and a frail Oriental who jumped out of a screeching taxi, bounded over the limousines, and passed the Secret Service without even stopping to say: May I?

  The agents yelled, "Halt!" and fired warning shots.

  "No time," said the white man as he and the Oriental ducked around a corner a flick ahead of a storm of bullets. At the door leading into the debate studio, two Secret Service agents reacted to the intrusion with lightning speed. They drew down on the pair and for their pains were put to sleep with chopping hands.

  Remo Williams slammed into the studio, where three cameras were dollying back and forth before the presidential candidates. There was a small studio audience of selected media representatives.

  "The cameras first," Remo yelled. "We don't want this on nationwide TV."

  "Of course," said the Master of Sinanju.

  Separating, they yanked out the heavy cables that fed the three television cameras. Consternation broke out in the control booth when the monitor screens all went black.

  "You again!" screeched the Vice-President, jumping out of his chair.

  "Later," said Remo, pulling him from his chair so fast that his lapel mike came loose.

  "What do we look for?" asked Chiun, plucking Governor Princippi from his seat.

  "I don't know. A bomb. Anything," snapped Remo, ripping the chair from its mooring. "Nothing under this one." he said throwing the chair away.

  "Bomb?" said the director. The panic was immediate. People flooded out of the studio. They made a human wave that blocked the Secret Service from coming in.

  "Anything?" Remo shouted.

  "No!" said Chiun, tearing up
the planks of the stage. They flew like toothpicks in a storm.

  Desperately, Remo looked around. The heavy spotlights inhibited his vision. He could hear the frightened voices of the studio audience as they tried to get through one door, and the angry orders of the frustrated Secret Service for them to clear a path. The three cameras pointed at him dumbly. Then one of them dollied forward.

  Remo had a split-second thought that the stupid cameraman must not realize transmission had been cut off, when the camera clicked and a perforated metal tube jutted out under the big lens.

  "Machine gun!" Remo yelled.

  The Master of Sinanju threw himself across the huddled presidential candidates and held them down.

  Remo twisted in midair, avoiding a rattling stream of .30-caliber bullets, and landed on his feet. The camera shifted toward the three crouching figures on the stage and aimed downward.

  Remo leapt. There was no time for anything fancy.

  Behind him the curtained studio backdrop shivered into rags as the bullet stream sank lower and lower.

  Herm Accord jockeyed the camera, certain he had gotten the skinny guy in the white T-shirt. Now, where were the others? It wasn't easy to sight down a TV camera. The lens was larger than the gun muzzle he had installed into the camera the night before. It gave him too big a field of vision, like trying to center on a mosquito through a drainpipe.

  Frustrated, he held fire and stuck his head around the camera.

  The face of the skinny guy was an inch from his own. Herm Accord started to say, "What the-" when the soft consonant of the next word raising from his throat encountered his teeth as they careened down his gullet.

  He jumped back, grabbing his throat, coughing spasmodically. He didn't know that a bicuspid, traveling faster than a bullet, had already fragmented in his throat. He didn't know and he didn't care. He saw the hand reaching for his face. It became a looming mass of pink, and for Herm Accord, like America, the lights had gone out.

  Remo didn't bother to check the assassin's body after it fell. He jumped to Chiun's side. The Master of Sinanju was helping the Vice-President to his feet.