Remo The Adventure Begins (25 page)

With the glass weakened by a central hole, Remo shattered the rest of it, then pulled Major Fleming through.

And then he encountered the one great disadvantage of Sinanju. When one worked on a person’s chest to restore breathing one did not employ the strokes to induce copulation for the purpose of reproduction.

Major Fleming apparently realized this also, because when she came to she thanked Remo, one officer to another.

George Grove heard about the death in the gas chamber over a light salad with a fine California dressing and a Greek wine in General Watson’s private room. A captain interrupted. There had been an accident in the gas chamber. Grove was dining with both General Watson and his assistant, Wilson.

Wilson asked:

“What happened?”

He was happy to let the captain tell George Grove of his success.

“One of your assistants, Mr. Wilson, was killed in an accident in the gas chamber. A man named Stone, sir.”

Wilson spilled the Greek wine on his paisley tie. The wine did not match.

As soon as Major Fleming’s blouse was buttoned securely, Remo hustled her out of the building and due west, toward the woods. But Major Fleming was reluctant to go anywhere she would not find General Watson. She wanted the man arrested and she wanted to file a report right now.

“I’m not here for paperwork, Major. Come on. Don’t slow up. It’s good for your lungs.”

“What are you going to do?”

“You don’t have to know. And you don’t want to know. I am going to take care of this thing. That’s all.”

“I want to report . . .”

“Sorry to pull rank on you, but we are going to do it my way. No red tape. No inquiries. Done nice and solid and final. How does that sound?”

“Sounds fine to me. Slow down. You run funny.”

“I run funny? You’re the one who can’t keep up,” said Remo. What was he supposed to do, pound his legs into the soil as though he were some form of ground basher?

“How do you run like that, that shuffle?”

“You just move. Move. Don’t think. Move. Believe yourself, believe in yourself. Trust your essence.”

“What?” said Major Fleming.

“Run like you always do—I’ll wait.”

But there was not much time for waiting. The greatest advances in the technological age were about to be thrown at them on the proving grounds of Mount Promise.

General Scott Watson was going to direct this operation. It felt strange and exhilarating, commanding forces. It was pure soldiery.

Not that General Watson would want to do this for a living. “Gentlemen, I cannot overemphasize the importance of your task. Military secrets have been stolen and a man brutally slain. Major Fleming has been listed missing.”

“How did they get in? What are they doing?” asked a major. “This post has never been penetrated.”

“It may be part of an overall attack on our research capabilities. We have suffered losses already in a West Virginia site. Some of you may know about it.”

“The same ones are here now?”

“We think so,” said General Watson. “And that is the luckiest thing that ever could have happened to us. We have located them, we have bracketed them. Heat sensors have picked them up running within the perimeter of the camp.”

A defense contractor many of the officers recognized stood beside General Watson. He was George Grove. He nodded agreement with the general.

“You must apprehend them now. You cannot let them get away. You have the equipment and with it you have an overwhelming advantage. There is no excuse for not getting them,” said General Watson.

“If there is resistance, can we return fire, sir?” This from a captain.

General Watson hesitated. He was cool enough not to show his surprise when George Grove spoke for him.

“The security of the United States is at risk, soldier. What do you think?” asked Grove. The young officers rushed to their equipment. It was a grand opportunity to practice on live targets.

But Remo’s concern was not new technology as he moved through the woods. Something deadlier than a computer chip was in the woods.

He kept Major Fleming from stumbling as they moved down the mountainside. He spotted some edible berries as they ran. They were not as perfect as rice but he had not eaten that day. Major Fleming didn’t want any berries. She just wanted to keep her balance. She told him her first name. It was Rayner.

The berries were good.

“Haven’t eaten this good for weeks,” said Remo.

Rayner Fleming ran with her legs breaking the downward run. Remo told her to allow her body to move, not to worry about the legs. She tried it. She fell into his arms. The legs had gone. Funny, it seemed so easy to Remo.

“Better use your legs to run,” said Remo. “Do what you can. We should hit the lake and the road pretty soon, then we can get you . . ."

Remo halted. He listened. Rayner Fleming heard nothing. But then her lungs were gasping for air so hard that she couldn’t hear anything but her breath. But this man knew something was around. He signaled for her to remain still, and then with the silent move of a cat, feet like slow, careful paws, Remo moved toward a large pine tree. He began to circle it. Rayner saw him move a hand forward as if to touch something on the far side of the tree. Suddenly Remo was in the air, flying up twice the height of a man and then landing on his back.

He had been thrown in such a way that he lost his center. Only one man knew that it was just the thing he needed to land on his feet. And only one man could have done that to him.

A delicate oriental figure came from behind the pine. It was Chiun. Remo knew the Master of Sinanju had come to kill him.

15

“A
re you deaf?” asked Chiun. “I have been stomping around for ten minutes while you talk nonsense with this woman.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, too,” said Major Fleming.

“Even worse,” said Chiun, ignoring her. “You and this woman gorged yourself on sweets.”

“Excuse me, but I do have a name,” said Rayner Fleming.

“Women should make babies, not talk,” said Chiun, still angered at the clumsy way Remo had moved through the forest. He had never taught him to move that way. Who had taught him to move that way?

Rayner Fleming had never been treated like this.

“I see you two went to the same charm school,” she said.

“He always talks like that,” said Remo. “He’s Korean.”

“I see. And I suppose that explains why he lives in a forest,” she said.

“Actually, he came here for a special purpose. To kill me,” said Remo.

“Kill you?” said Chiun. “You kill yourself. You eat sweets while you run. You take up with women for their looks. I do not have to kill you.”

“Then why did you come?” said Remo.

“I am here to see that you do not bring shame to the House of Sinanju.”

“And if I do, you’ll kill me,” said Remo.

What could Chiun say? That Remo was too good to be allowed to die just for a single emperor? After all, the world was full of kings and presidents and tyrants, but at most, there were only two real assassins alive at the same time. Chiun had already put in a lot of work. Where would he get another Remo?

This of course could not be uttered. Who knew what Remo would tell the devious and cunning Smith? Whites were too free with the truth and the truth was the last thing one told an emperor under any circumstances. So Chiun could not yet trust Remo with the fact that he would never kill him for a mere leader. No matter how his feelings were hurt.

“Yes, I would kill you,” said Chiun. “Reluctantly, of course, because you have been a good pupil . . . for a white man.”

“Oh, I see. Well, don’t think that makes everything okay,” said Remo. “Because it doesn’t. Not here. Not with me.”

“You’re skinny,” Chiun said to Rayner Fleming. If Remo were going to breed, he should have considered correct womb size.

“You’re not square with me,” said Remo, getting up from the ground.

“You’re mad,” said Chiun. “How typical. You don’t ask me who you should breed with, or whether you should reproduce at this time, or whether there is a nice Korean girl available to you from a family we know something about. You dwell on your own private little injustice.”

Chiun waved a hand. He didn’t want to hear any more about it. He had already heard once today that Remo was unhappy about the possibility of Chiun killing him, and he didn’t want to hear it again. There were things to do. Properly.

All three moved down the mountain, Remo staying close to Rayner, Chiun making sure Remo’s hands helping her were being used for balance only.

Rayner didn’t even see it until it was too late, until actually she was safe. She was busy trying to keep up when suddenly there was a clanging scream of metal, and a giant bear trap closed beneath her knee. But there was no pain. Was that the first numb reaction? She saw her leg behind her, the heel up. Her knee hurt. But it was because Remo was holding it firmly behind her. The bear trap had closed on a log and she hadn’t even seen Remo’s hand move.

“Correct,” said Chiun.

“That was fantastic,” said Rayner. “Who are you guys?”

“Fantastic is not another word for correct,” said Chiun. “Remo, you must stop hanging around with your own kind.”

Rayner noticed that Remo seemed pleased with the old man’s simple comment, “correct.” Were they crazy?

Just beyond one of the test ranges, they saw a logging truck. Chiun turned to Remo.

“She doesn’t run well,” he said with a nod toward the major. “We’ll have to drive her.”

“I qualified for my physical,” snapped Rayner Fleming. “I passed every obstacle course.”

“For whom?”

“For the Green Berets, the toughest fighting men in the world,” said Rayner.

“They’re soldiers, about twice as good as the average soldier,” Remo explained to Chiun as they helped Rayner run. “Twice as tough. Twice as smart. Twice as well-conditioned.”

“Twice?” asked Chiun.

“Right,” said Remo. “I’ll get the truck.”

A logger was on his back trying to fix it when he saw the whole caboodle take off above his head down the road. Remo kept his foot on the floor. Chiun watched from the passenger’s side, curious at how these machines moved. Rayner sat between them waiting for the whole rig to go crashing off the side of the road. Remo drove like a madman.

He drove them right toward a logging conveyor, right toward the logs.

His solution for that was jumping for their lives.

He made it, taking Rayner with him. Chiun, however, went down with the cab of the truck. It crushed trees underneath like twigs as it gathered momentum down the mountainside, spinning like a toy but landing, finally, like a truck, on its side, with a heavy crash.

Remo called down to the twisted metal and smoke, “You okay?”

There was no answer. He put Rayner Fleming down so that she could stand, and ran down to the truck.

“Oh, God. Chiun. Chiun. Are you okay?” yelled Remo.

Slowly, a twisted door moved, and Chiun emerged, somewhat shaken, a door handle in his palm.

“Chiun, are you all right?”

“In Korea, door handles do not break,” said Chiun.

“Are you hurt?”

“No. Of course not, my son,” said Chiun.

“What did you call me?” asked Remo. He heard the words. He had been called a son by the Master of Sinanju.

“I called you a clumsy oaf. You drive like a monkey in heat.”

But Remo had heard the right words first. Chiun could not erase them. The world was good. The sun was above them, and all the trees and water of the lakes were in their gloriously right places. Remo threw back his head and laughed. He would have hugged Chiun, but he doubted he could get a grip on him.

“You have a job to finish,” snapped Chiun.

“I’ll leave you the girl, the skinny one,” said Remo.

“What are we going to do now?” asked Rayner.

“You’re going to stay with Chiun. He’ll probably teach you to breathe. I have a job to finish.”

“I am not skinny,” said Rayner Fleming.

“Don’t embarrass us,” said Chiun.

“I won’t, little father,” said Remo.

Rayner Fleming saw only a few fast movements before Remo disappeared into the trees. The oriental called Chiun was still watching him. There was a sense of pleasure on his face. She had seen that before, that joyous inner pleasure of mothers outside schoolyards watching their children learn to play for themselves.

• • •

The command center had the target triangulated. They notified General Watson in his staff car.

Grove and Wilson were with him.

“They have triangulation on him,” said Grove.

Wilson nodded. A vast array of weaponry was trained on the target even though that target was within Mount Promise’s own technological sites. But their nuisance was a dead man. That was guaranteed. All General Watson had to do now was say fire. But General Watson hesitated.

George Grove explained almost with the tiredness of talking to a not-too-alert child:

“Scott, it’s your ass, too. We go. You go. Jail, Scott, can be a real career problem.”

“Swat him,” said General Watson.

“Good for you, Scott,” said George Grove.

Remo was alone in the woods when the first ugly whine of a devastator shell reverberated through the forest. Remo did not know what the shell could do. But he knew where it was going to land, and that spot was very close to him.

There were no caves or rocks to hide behind. A blanket of shrapnel could not be dodged. Even worse, shells landing in woods made the very trees into pieces of shrapnel. There was nothing on this desolate piece of ground but Remo and an anthill and neither of them had much prospect of making it to the next second.

But an anthill meant earth. They didn’t build in rock. Remo gathered himself, took two smooth steps, and moved down into the mound, deep into the darkness of the earth, as though it were sand, as though this were training, as though his only purpose in life was correct. The earth was dark and rich to the senses, and when the shell landed, it was as though someone had jumped on him while he was curled under a blanket.

Above ground the devastator cleared the trees, cleared the grass and removed the anthill. It had made Mother Nature ready for a parking lot. All one needed was the asphalt.