Warren Murphy: Market Force

Luo Pong was only five feet tall and nearly as wide, all muscle. In the name of state security, Luo Pong had been known to dismember uncooperative prisoners with his bare hands and, on occasion, eat the remains. Anyone in his or her right mind steered clear of that squat, terrifying man with hands like catcher's mitts and a taste for human flesh.

The general's aide had scraped up a replacement walkie-talkie for the lookout in the lobby. He was reaching for the doorknob when the hotel-room door suddenly sprang open.

Startled, the aide jumped back as something big and round rolled into the room.

The rolling round something had eyes.

When Luo Pong's severed head came to a stop at the toes of his shoes, General Zhii Zaw was already leaping to his feet. At the same instant, Alex Wycopf came stumbling into the room, propelled forward by a thick-wristed hand.

"What's a four-letter word for 'what you're all about to be'?" Remo announced to the gathered Chinese agents.

The agent near the door pulled a gun on Remo. Remo planted the man's own barrel so deep in his face loose brain matter dribbled out the back of his head like gray oatmeal.

"That's right," Remo said to the security officer with the revolver in his face and the gun-barrel blossom out the back of his head. "The correct answer is 'dead.'"

The reaction of the others in the suite had been slow until now. But when their comrade with a gun instead of a nose fell to the floor, nine hands flew to holsters.

Before a single weapon could aim for the man at the door, Remo was whirling into the crowd of Chinese agents.

"How about a four-letter word for 'how Chinese spies who steal American secrets will wind up from now on'?" Remo asked.

A pair of guns drew a bead on him. Remo ducked as the men squeezed their triggers. The two Chinese agents inadvertently blew each other's face off.

"That's right," Remo said. "Same answer. Dead." He was up in the air. His heel caught the top of a Chinese agent's head and with a twist he sent the man's chin cracking down through his own sternum. Even as brittle bones compressed, Remo was launching himself from the collapsing man. Two toes took out the throats of a pair of Chinese soldiers while simultaneous flashing hands reduced the beating hearts of another pair of soldiers to gurgling paste.

The final two security agents didn't even have time to process the sudden, brutal deaths of their comrades before Remo was on them. They saw black. Then they saw red. Then they saw nothing at all.

Remo turned from the last dead security agents. All that remained was General Zaw and the pair of scientists. The latter had been brought along to confirm as genuine the schematics and other data Alex Wycopf had stolen from his job as undersecretary in the U.S. Department of Energy. For good measure Remo mashed the heads of the two Chinese scientists through a wall. Their skulls cracked the porcelain tub in the adjacent bathroom in two.

In a matter of seconds, General Zhii Zaw of the People's Liberation Army saw his entire entourage of highly trained agents reduced to a pile of bloodied, twitching limbs.

The American who moved faster than the general's eye could follow turned his level gaze on General Zaw.

"You General Seesaw?" Remo asked.

The general pulled himself up tall. No American-no matter how fast-could make him surrender his pride.

"I am General Zhii Zaw," the general said, sneering. His jowls waggled with proud defiance.

"I kind of figured. Why is it all you big Chinese commie mucky-mucks look like you've taken the slow boat from Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum?"

"Your insults are nothing to me," the general insisted. "Do what you came to do, and let it be done." The old man puffed out his chest, awaiting the end.

Remo shook his head. "It's not gonna be that easy," he said. "I've got a little mission for you."

The general laughed. "You are mad if you think I will do anything for you, imperialist running dog."

At that, Remo smiled. It was a cold, evil smile. "Here is the message you will deliver. Tell those thieving rice herders in Beijing the next time they screw with America-" He thought carefully, trying to remember the exact phrase he'd been told to use. "'The Yangtze flows red with their blood.' Yeah, that's it. And tell them this isn't a threat. Tell them it's a promise. To them from me, personally."

General Zaw scowled derisively. "I will do no such thing," he mocked. "Who are you that you make such demands?"

And for Remo Williams, the words came, easier now than they had in the past. They were filled with pride of history and humility of responsibility.

"I am the soon-to-be Reigning Master of the House of Sinanju, duck droppings," Remo said. "And you live this day only because Sinanju requires a messenger."

The general's jaw dropped lower than his jowls. Eyes of brown grew very wide, stretching the big pouches that sagged beneath them.

"Sinanju," the general hissed. "You are legend." His voice trembled with the beginnings of fear. Remo fixed him with an icy stare.

Alex Wycopf was shivering in fright on the floor where Remo had first tossed him. China's top nuclear spy in the United States cringed as Remo dragged him up off the floor. Remo stood Wycopf before the People's Republic general.

"Here's a little visual aid," Remo said. "Paint this picture for those pajama-wearing Mr. Magoos you work for."

Remo placed his hand on Alex Wycopf's face, fingertips fanned out and pressed lightly to flesh. Wycopf inhaled fearfully.

Remo's hand remained still for a moment, so that the general could get a good clear mental image. With a sudden spin of his fingers, Remo proceeded to scramble Alex Wycopf's face.

Bones broke swiftly and cleanly, allowing Remo to shift them with delicate nudges. Thumb and fingertips kneaded flesh, shifting soft muscle beneath.

When Remo was through seconds later, General Zaw gasped in horror.

The general had no idea how the American had done it, but the traitor's nose was now on his chin, bracketed by a pair of misplaced ears. An eye was on the forehead, while the other eye butted up against the mouth, which was now where the nose had been. Remo had rearranged the features without even breaking skin. Wycopf looked like a living Picasso painting.

Alex Wycopf's misplaced lips puckered. Only one of his eyes still possessed the ability to blink. It did so, to freakish effect.

"Picture the entire Commie leadership in Beijing singing 'Nearer My Mao To Thee' from their kneecaps," Remo said.

He finished Alex Wycopf with a slap to the forehead so hard it made the traitor's entire brain splat like a wrinkled gray snowball against the balcony windows.

As the shell of Alex Wycopf dropped to the floor, General Zhii Zaw joined him.

"Master of Sinanju, forgive me!" the general cried. As he crawled on his knees, his hands encircled Remo's ankles. His dry tongue tried to lick the toes of Remo's loafers.

Remo kicked him away.

"A Master," Remo said. "Not the Master. Not yet. Consider yourselves warned. Next time, no Mr. Nice Guy."

His last word delivered, Remo slipped out of the hotel room and was gone.

Still on his knees, General Zaw looked around at the room smeared with blood and brains.

It had all happened in the wink of an eye. As the realization sank in, his terrified stomach clenched. General Zhii Zaw puked his breakfast onto the sensible blue carpet. Afterward he bowed his head deep into the puddle of his own stomach contents. In supplication to the awesome power of the glorious Masters of Sinanju.

WHEN REMO STEPPED off the elevator downstairs, he found a bunch of very pale vacationing American college kids crowded around the lobby television set. They were watching a show about a group of people who had been stranded in a remote location and were forced to use their wits to survive.