Return Engagement td-71

by Warren Murphy

  And it had happened. Remo had died during a mission. But Chiun, sensing a change in Remo revived him. Remo had come back from the dead less white than he had been when he had lived. He had come back Sinanju.

  It was then that Chiun knew destiny had delivered into his aged hands a greater future for the House of Sinanju than he had ever dreamed there would be. Delivered to Chiun the Disgraced, the old Master who should have retired but was stuck in a barbarian land so backward even the Great Wang had never known of it. Chiun understood he had the greatest Master, the avatar of Shiva, in his care.

  Chiun had poured his heart and his love into the training of Remo Williams after that, and Remo had grown through the stages of Sinanju. Now he was a Master himself, tied to the village by bonds of tradition and honor.

  Chiun would never have believed that when Remo finally agreed to settle in Sinanju, it would be the beginning of the greatest pain he would ever know: ignored by his ungrateful villagers, cast aside by Remo for a mere girl. All that he had worked for had turned to smoke.

  And so, because he dared not admit his unhappiness, he had fled to America and tricked Harold Smith into another year's service, confident that Remo would follow him. And he had.

  Yet now Remo was leaving again. He was actually returning to Sinanju, alone. Chiun would not see him again for a year, or longer.

  The Master of Sinanju walked to a window. A clear full moon hung in the sky. Chiun wondered if that same moon shone down on the aircraft now carrying Remo back to Sinanju. Just the thought made him feel somehow closer to his pupil.

  Chiun had gambled that Remo's love for him would be stronger than his love for Mah-Li. He had been wrong, and now he was prepared to pay the price-a year of separation.

  Out in the hallway, the elevator door opened. Chiun cocked his head in the direction of the door.

  A soft padding sounded on the carpet. It was not the heavy tread of American-shod feet, or the crush of bare feet. It was an eflortless gliding that only one pair of feet other than Chiun's could make.

  The Master of Sinanju burst into the hallway in his sleeping kimono.

  "Remo, my son! I knew you would return. You cannot live without me."

  "My flight was canceled," Remo said sourly.

  The Master of Sinanju looked stricken. Then he slammed the door in Remo's face like an offended spinster.

  "I didn't mean it like that," Remo said exasperatedly. There was no answer from the other side.

  "Look, I'll make you a deal," Remo called through the panel. "I'll stick around until this Ferris thing is over, then we'll talk to Smith and get this straightened out. Okay?"

  The door opened slowly. Chiun stood framed in it, moonlight silvering his aged head. His face was impassive, and his hands folded into the sleeves of his sleeping kimono.

  "Deal," he said, his face lighting up.

  Chapter 21

  Ilsa Gans sent the specially equipped van circling the block for the last time.

  "It looks clear," she called back over her shoulder. Peering through the privacy glass, seeing but unseen, Konrad Blutsturz searched with avid eyes. There were no signs of guards in the lobby of the Lafavette Building, no obvious FBI agents posted an foot or in cars. No danger.

  It was night, the perfect time. konrad Blutsturz decided everything was perfect.

  "On the next pass," he told Ilsa, reaching down to unbolt his wheelchair restraints, "park."

  Coming around the block, Ilsa looked for the open space she had picked out in the parailel-parking zone, the one with the spray-painted stick-figure-seated-on-a-half-circle-wheelchair-symbol-the universal sign of handicapped-only parking.

  A blue Mercedes suddenly pulled ahead and cut her off.

  "He took it!" Ilsa said suddenly.

  "Who took what?"

  "The space," Ilsa answered. "The handicapped space. That guy in the Mercedes just scooted right in. He knew I was going for that space."

  "Is there another?" demanded Konrad Blutsturz anxiously.

  "No," Ilsa said miserably. "That's the only one."

  Konrad Blutsturz banged his hand on the armrest. "There is always only one," he yelled. "What is wrong with this country? Do they think we handicapped travel only one at a time?"

  "What do I do?" Ilsa moaned.

  "We must park here. Is there another space of any kind?"

  "No, and even if there was, it wouldn't be wide enough to offload in."

  "Ram the car, then."

  "Okay," said Ilsa, turning the van around until its rear wheels rode up on the opposite sidewalk. She pointed the van at the rear of the Mercedes in the handicapped space. The driver was just stepping out.

  Ilsa sent the van shooting forward.

  The van hit the back of the car like a tank, which, being built of bulletproof materials, was what it really was. The van pushed into the parking slot.

  The Mercedes lurched forward, throwing the driver off his feet. He picked himself off the ground, swearing. "Hey! What do you think you're doing?" he demanded.

  "This is a handicapped space!" Ilsa yelled indignantly. "Are you handicapped?"

  "It's the middle of the night, lady."

  "They don't regrow their legs after dark, you know," said Ilsa, stepping out.

  "I'm a lawyer, and I'm going to sue you for this!"

  "He's making too much noise," Konrad Blutsturz said. "Kill him."

  Ilsa reached for her Luger.

  "No," hissed Konrad Bltststurz. "Quietly."

  "Right," Ilsa said, extracting her swastika-shaped letter opener from the glove compartment. Its edges gleamed in the moonlight.

  "Catch," said Ilsa.

  The man caught it. In the throat. He went down clutching himself, his fingers splitting open where they touched the multiple blades. He writhed and gurgled in the gutter.

  "That'll teach him," Ilsa said, opening the side of the van. "The inconsiderate bastard."

  Konrad Blutsturz sent his motorized wheelchair onto the van's hydraulic lift. Ilsa grabbed the control levers and jerked it first one way, then the other. The steel platform, carrying Konrad Blutsturz, lifted out through the side door and settled to the street with a low hissing release of sound.

  He sent the wheelchair scooting to the building entrance.

  "Let's go." he called.

  "What about this guy?" asked Ilsa.

  "He looks Aryan. Put him out of his misery."

  Ilsa placed the Luger against the man's forehead to smother the sound, said, "Nighty-night" sweetly, and fired once.

  "Yuck! He splattered a little," Ilsa complained, looking at her formerly white blouse.

  "You should never stand that close to your kills if you insist on being fussy. Come."

  Ferris D'Orr lay dreaming. He dreamed that he was a gingerbread man. He had had that dream often as a child. He was a gingerbread man, and evil men who talked in funny voices were trying to cook him in a great big oven.

  Ferris kept telling the men that they had the wrong person each time they pulled him from the oven and poked their fingers into his browning stomach that was decorated with huge M&M's.

  "Put him in again. He's not done," they would say. And Ferris would shout the words that they refused to believe over and over again.

  Ferris D'Orr woke up crying the words: "I'm not Jewish! I'm not Jewish!"

  And for the first time, a voice answered his plea. It was a hoarse voice, an old voice, and through the hoarseness, Ferris recognized the guttural accents of his nightmares.

  "Of course you are not," the voice said. "You are Ferris D'Orr, the brilliant metallurgist, and I am Konrad Blutsturz, here to enlist you in a great cause."

  Light suddenly flared in the room and Ferris D'Orr saw the man who spoke. He was a hideous old man with a metal arm that clenched and unclenched nervously. It whirred like a dentist's drill as it worked. The man was in a wheelchair, his face leaning close to Ferris' own. Too close.

  Ferris sat up suddenly, because as ugly as the man was, the r
ed blanket that draped the stumps where the old man's legs stopped was uglier. In its center was the twisted cross of the Nazis.

  The blond girl standing beside the old man also wore a swastika. It was on an armband circling her right arm, and the arm pointed a long-snouted pistol at his face.

  "You must have great night vision," she said sweetly, to be able to see our colors in the dark."

  Ferris D'Orr had only one thing to say, one word. The word was: "Momma!"

  "Thank you far treating me, Little Father," Remo Williams said.

  Chiun waved dismissively as he handed his American Express card to the restaurant cashier. Tonight his suit was maroon and gold. The tie was pink.

  "You said you had not eaten," he said. "Now you have eaten."

  The cashier took the credit card and filled out the charge slip. Then she placed both in the charge machine and ran the embossing handle back and forth with a loud chunking noise.

  "Sign here, please," she told Chiun.

  The Master of Sinanju took the proffered pen and signed with a flourish. He waited patiently. When the card was returned to him with the slip, he placed the card in his wallet and threw the slip into the nearest litter basket.

  "Did you see that, Remo?" he asked once they were on the street. It was nearly four a.m. and there was not much traffic.

  "Yes, I did, Little Father."

  "I have been thinking," said Chiun. "I do not believe that even American merchants could be so foolish as to not realize I have not had to pay for their wares."

  "Oh?"

  "I think the card itself is not the wondrous thing after all. "

  "No, then what is?"

  "Why, my name, of course."

  "Your name?"

  "Yes, Chiun. See? Here is my name printed on this gold card. It says Chiun, my name. This is the magic thing, not the card. Obviously it is like the old seals of the Egyptians, intended to identify royal personages to commoners. When I show this card, they look for my name and see that they are dealing with the Master of Sinanju. Then they ask me to sign, using my signature for verification the way the Egyptian seals were once used. Thus, they do not ask for gold."

  "It makes sense when you say it," said Remo good-naturedly.

  "This means that America has finally learned to appreciate me. Smith must have told them. Yes, that is it. In the weeks when we were gone from his service, seeing that he no longer needed to keep our past employment with him secret, he has spread word of the good service that he formerly enjoyed from the Master of Sinanju. And subordinate Master, of course.'

  "Of course," said Remo; hiding a grin. "By the way, what did Smith say about the bodies?"

  "What bodies?"

  "The three guys you eliminated, the kidnappers. Was Smith able to identify them?"

  "He said something vague about their unimportance. I do not remember what."

  "That's strange," said Remo. "Usually Smith's computers can identify anyone from fingerprints or dental records."

  "I think these must have been special nonentities," said Chiun, hoping that Smith never found out about the bodies in the dumpster. "What difference would it make?"

  "Knowing who they were might mean knowing if they were operating on their own or working for someone."

  "Why do you bring this up?" asked Chum.

  "I wonder if it was a good idea to leave Ferris alone."

  "What harm is in it? Ferris is asleep, and Smith had obviously spread the word that he is protected by the Master of Sinanju. Our reputation does most of our work for us, you know."

  Remo started to argue, but as he turned the corner he suddenly saw Ferris D'Orr.

  Ferris was still asleep. But he was asleep in the arms of an old man in a wheelchair. The old man was being hoisted, wheelchair and all, into a waiting van. A blond girl in some kind of military uniform was working the lift. Remo recognized the titanium nebulizer rocking beside the wheelchair on the rising platform.

  The blond slammed the side door closed and jumped for the driver's seat.

  "They've got Ferris!" Remo said.

  The van backed out of the space and barreled down the street.

  Remo started after it and then noticed a man lying in the street beside a crumpled Mercedes that had been thrown up on the sidewalk.

  "He's dead, Little Father," said Remo. Remo didn't notice that Chiun did not answer because Remo suddenly saw the shiny object embedded in the man's throat. He removed it, and found himself holding a steel-bladed swastika.

  A car screeched to a stop beside Remo's crouching form.

  "Hurry." a voice called from the car.

  Remo got to his feet. There was no one behind the wheel. Remo lifted on tiptoe. His head barely topping the dashboard, the Master of Sinanju gestured frantically. The passenger door popped open.

  "Quickly," Chiun said anxiously. "They are getting away."

  Remo jumped in, and the car took off down the street, careening like a drunken tiger.

  "Where did you learn to drive?" Remo asked.

  "Back there," Chiun said.

  "Back where?" asked Rerno. "Back where I picked you up."

  Remo suddenly noticed the ignition had been popped. "Wait a minute. You mean you don't know how to drive!"

  "What is to learn?" asked Chiun, lifting himself up out of the seat to better see over the steering wheel. "You point the car and it goes."

  "Right," said Remo, grabbing the wheel with one hand. "I'll help you point."

  "You might also help me with the brake," said Chiun as they took a corner on two wheels.

  "What's wrong with it?"

  "Nothing. But I cannot reach the pedal with my feet."

  Remo shot out a foot and the car slowed and stopped, knocking over a mailbox.

  Remo got out and jumped over the hood to the driver's side. "Scoot over," he said.

  The Master of Sinanju folded his arms defiantly.

  "If you will not let me drive, neither of us will drive. "

  "Fine," said Remo. "Then you can be the one to tell Smith that you let Ferris get away."

  Chiun slid over and Remo got behind the wheel. The car leapt forward.

  "This would never have happened if you hadn't gotten hungry," scolded Chiun.

  "Save it," said Remo, pushing the speedometer to sixty. He spotted the van pulling onto a major highway. Unfortunately, it was in the opposite lane. Remo sent the car over the lane divider and did a U-turn.

  "I think that is against the rules," Chiun pointed out. Remo ignored him. He piloted the car onto the ramp and sent it hurtling after the van.

  When the van came in sight a half-mile away; Remo accelerated. Streetlights flashed past. He overhauled the van with surprising ease. Even as the blond girl stuck her tongue out at them in defiance, she did not push the van past sixty-five.

  Remo found out why when he tried to force the van off the road.

  His left-front fender crumpled against the side of the lumbering vehicle. The van didn't even wobble. It was too heavy. Too heavy to speed and too heavy to stop. "This is not how it goes on TV," Chiun pointed out. Remo tried again, but this time the van came at him. Remo felt the steering wheel wrench under his fingers. He compensated against the twisting of the front wheels as they careened out of control. The steering wheel broke off in his hands.

  Remo hit the brakes, and the car spun around like a big metal top, as the van continued on into the night. When the car stopped scraping sparks of the guardrail, Remo and Chiun got out of the wreck.

  "You okay?" Remo asked Chiun.

  Chiun straightened his pink tie. "Of course. How could you let them get away like that? I will be shamed before Emperor Smith."

  "That thing was a tank," Remo said. "Let's find a pay phone."

  "I am not reporting failure to Emperor Smith," said Chiun.

  "You don't have to. I will."

  "Done. Just be certain you place the blame where it belongs, on your shoulders. I told you I should have driven."

  Ferris
D'Orr woke up. He found himself lying on a fold-down cot inside a plush-lined van. He rubbed his stinging shoulder. The last thing he remembered was being in his bed in the penthouse and having a blond girl shoot something into his veins.

  "Ughh," Ferris said.

  A mechanical whirring attracted his attention. Ferris saw the old man, the one from his nightmare.

  "Ah, Mr. D'Orr. I am glad you are awake."

  "Where am I?"

  "That does not matter. It should concern you only that we are nearly home."

  "My home?"

  "No, mine," said the old man. "We will be under way shortly, I assure you. My Ilsa is running an errand." A few minutes later, the blond girl jumped back behind the driver's seat.

  "This is all I could find," she said breathlessly, waving a sheaf of papers. "Most of the pay phones were vandalized. Honestly, don't people respect property anymore?"

  Konrad Blutsturz took the papers in his steel fist and riffled through them.

  He shook his head. "There are so many of them," he said in disgust, and threw the papers to the floor.

  One of them landed on Ferris' covers. He picked it up. It was a page of telephone listings. Ferris noticed the van's interior was littered with similar pages.

  Oddly, there was one name on every page Smith. As the van got under way, Ferris D'Orr pulled the blanket over his head and shut his eyes until they hurt. He hoped that he would wake up back in his penthouse bedroom. But he didn't think that he would.

  Chapter 22

  Dr. Harold W. Smith awoke on the first ring.

  He awoke the way he always did, like a light bulb switching on. He lay there for the briefest of instants. Recognizing that he was in his office at Folcroft Sanitarium, he got off the office couch. His wristwatch, which he wore even to bed, read 4:48 A.M. as he picked up the desk phone.

  "Yes?" he said, his voice as astringent as lemons.

  "Smitty? Remo."

  "Yes, Remo," Smith said uninterestedly.

  "We lost Ferris," Reme said abruptly.