Warren Murphy - Syndication Rites

Remo looked down at his own wrists. They didn't seem so bad to him. "Yeah, well, if I had thighs like yours, lady, I wouldn't be commenting on anyone else's shortcomings," he said in an injured tone.

The First Lady didn't hear. She was drawing back her head to scream. When she opened her mouth, revealing twin rows of sharp teeth, she looked like a carefully coiffed hound getting ready to bay at the moon.

"Don't bother," Remo interrupted before she'd even sucked in enough air to fill her lungs. "The Secret Service has gone night-night for the time being."

The shriek died in her throat.

"What are you doing here?" she snarled. "Don't tell me those MIR morons blew it in Miami."

"Your soldiers have been vanquished by Sinanju, Your Majesty," Chiun replied.

"Sinny-what?" the First Lady demanded. She didn't wait for an answer. "Do you two know what you've done? You've delayed my ascension to the Puerto Rican throne. After the revolution, those greasy little wetbacks were gonna make me their queen. Now I'm gonna have to go out and find some more wrongly incarcerated revolutionaries for that worthless husband of mine to pardon within the next twenty-four hours."

Diving across the room, she grabbed for the phone on her dresser. A strong hand was already there, holding down the receiver. She looked up into Remo's hard face.

"Couldn't you just be content being a nuisance in regular America, and spare the protectorates?" he asked.

"Let me call!" she screamed.

As Remo held the phone, the First Lady pounded her furious balled fists against his chest. As she continued to punch him, he noticed a pin lying on her dresser. It was the same one with the weird parentheses-enclosing-a-circle design that all of his attackers had worn.

"What the hell is this, anyway?" Remo asked, unfazed by her attack. He picked up the pin. Panting, the First Lady fell back.

"It is a symbol of female gender superiority," she spit. "I was sick of you men with your phallocentric designs for everything from flagpoles to obelisks. That's a symbol of sisterhood designed by a female."

Remo looked at the button again. For the first time, he realized what it was.

"It's a woman's private parts," he said.

When he showed the button to the Master of Sinanju, the old man's eyes took on an appalled cast. Cheeks flushing, he covered his face with a billowing kimono sleeve.

"Put that smutty thing away," the old man insisted.

"It's nothing to get too worked up over," Remo said. "By the looks of it, the model was a robot."

"It's conceptual," the First Lady snarled.

"Not if it looks like that, it ain't," he said. He tossed the pin back to the dresser. "Okay, Cruella de Vil, let's get this over with."

"I will not be silenced!" she screamed, recoiling from his outstretched hand. "Everyone knew the Senate wasn't big enough to hold me! I'll be back!"

"Before then, remind me to buy stock in an earplug company," Remo said as he pinched a nerve on her shoulder.

Mouth still twisted open, the First Lady went rigid, then limp. Remo grabbed her as she fell, dumping her into a Louis Tiffany chair that had been bought for the White House by Chester Arthur. He brought his lips close to her ear.

"You're going to forget everything you know about CURE, Harold Smith and the two men you've been trying to kill this past week," Remo said. "You're going to forget all of this stuff forever, and you won't even be remotely interested in ever remembering. Do you understand?"

Her eyes closed, the First Lady nodded. She purred contentedly. It made her sound like a cat that had just eaten a particularly succulent rat.

Remo straightened. As he turned back to the Master of Sinanju, a thought suddenly occurred to him. He leaned back over the First Lady.

"And from now on, your role model for womanhood will be June Cleaver. You will cook, clean and bake cookies with a smile on your face and a song in your heart and you won't even be remotely interested in TV cameras, public life or inciting socialist rebellions. Oh, and you'll wear a frilly white apron wherever you go. Even in the shower."

When he stood back up, Remo wore a satisfied expression.

"America owes me big time," he announced. Leaving the soon-to-be ex-First Lady snoring complacently in her stolen chair-happy visions of vacuum cleaners and bundt cakes dancing merrily in her head-the two Masters of Sinanju slipped silently from the bedroom.

Chapter 34

In the predawn light of a small Missouri airport, a surplus Bell AH-1 Cobra helicopter hummed to life. The drooping rotor blades grew rigid, slicing air with violent purpose. Behind it, three more helicopters growled awake.

At the same time, from hangars draped in sheets of dying gloom, a stream of black vans rumbled forth, their occupants obscured by tinted windows.

On the runways, pilots in face-obscuring camouflage paint checked instruments with swift efficiency. When all was ready, the first chopper lifted into the sickly gray sky. A single streak of orange appeared over the eastern tree line.

The second helicopter lifted off, then the third and fourth. They regrouped above the black trees. Like angry hornets leaving a nest, the fully armed helicopters swooped down across the gray tarmac, briefly joining the convoy of vans before soaring back up over the distant trees.

Windows rattled in houses a mile distant as the helicopters tore away through the chilly air.

On the ground, the vans vanished down the road, drawing the last shadows of night in their wake. And then all was silent.

DON ANSELMO SCUBISCI burning the last of his Camorra correspondence in the toilet of his solitary-confinement cell when he heard the thunder. He checked his watch-6:00 a.m.

The first lonely booms grew in frequency and intensity until the very foundation of Ogdenburg Federal Penitentiary shook. The prison Klaxons blared to life.

And as the explosions grew closer and the prison erupted in the violence of panic, Don Anselmo Scubisci sat calmly on the edge of his bed. To await salvation.

AFTER LEAVING the First Lady's bedroom, Remo and Chiun had taken a direct flight to Missouri. Remo knew something was wrong the instant he saw the slivers of black smoke rising above the pines at highway's edge. His concern only grew worse when he saw three dozen men in orange jumpsuits running like mad through the woods. When they broke through the trees and saw the ravaged prison wall, Remo shook his head in angry disbelief.

Ogdenburg looked like Berlin after the war. The main walls were pulverized, collapsed into piles of rubble. The ruins of a downed helicopter sat like a squashed bug on the snow before the main entrance. Sirens blared even as more men in orange slipped through the many holes in the walls.

It looked as if rockets and truck bombs had been used to pierce the walls. One of the black vans hadn't exploded. Remo squealed to a stop beside it.

Behind the wheel was a man dressed in civilian attire. A dozen gold-and-silver crosses hung around his neck. For some reason, the General Mills logo was tattooed on the backs of his hands. He had missed reaching his target after being shot in the chest from a guard tower.

Blood gurgled from between the man's whitening lips. Holy Pauli Pavulla was breathing his last. "What the hell is this all about?" Remo demanded, already fearing what the answer would be. Holy Pauli gasped. "Don Scubisci..." he panted. His eyes were closed. "Had to spring Don Scubisci...."

Remo's face grew dark. "Where is he?"

At this, Holy Pauli's lips curled up. "Gone," he breathed. "Saw him get on the chopper with my own eyes. I did good by my Don." His eyes sprang open. He was staring through the cracked windshield at something far distant. "Sure, I'll step into the light," Holy Pauli gulped, his breathing becoming even more ragged. "But you silly rabbit, Trix are for... oh, wait, those ain't ears, are they?"