Warren Murphy: Misfortune Teller

"Where is your brother now?" Remo asked.

"Vaiting for us," the cop said. "Somevere safe."

"Does anyone else know about this?" Remo asked.

The cop looked up, abruptly annoyed. "Dat is irrelevant. Ve vill go now," he said.

The Master of Sinanju was growing impatient. "Dispatch this one, Remo," he said.

"We've got to find out if anyone else knows," Remo insisted.

"No one knows but this imbecile Hun and his untrustworthy sibling. Make haste."

"You. Qviet," the officer said to Chiun. He pointed his gun at the Master of Sinanju.

"Buddy, wait-" Remo began. Too late.

The gun had been the last straw. In the instant the barrel had been aimed at his frail chest, Chiun's fingers flew from the confines of his kimono sleeves. Fingernails like deadly talons and as sharp and strong as titanium knife blades swept around to the officer's neck. The first rush of nails took out half the man's throat. Blood erupted in a gushing font onto the nearest crate of gold.

As he felt the shock of raking pain in his neck, the officer tried to shoot. Only then did he realize that his gun was no longer there. Nor, it seemed, was the hand that held it.

Chiun's other hand had dropped down onto the man's wrist, severing the policeman's fist just below the cuff of his blue uniform. The impulse to squeeze the gun that was no longer there caused spurts of blood to pump from the raw wrist stump. In another moment, the officer joined his hand and gun on the floor of the truck, a tiny bubble of crimson at the center of his forehead indicating where Chiun's final blow had been struck.

The Master of Sinanju stepped away from the body as it fell to the damp floor.

"Couldn't you have waited another second?" Remo griped. "We don't know how many more like him are out there."

"They are irrelevant. My gold is all that matters." He turned to go. "See to it that that thing does not bleed on my treasure," Chiun added. Kimono skirts billowed as he hopped down from the truck.

Muttering, Remo rolled the body away from the crates.

Moments later, with the truck's rear door sealed once more, Remo joined Chiun in the cab.

"What did you do with the brigand's vehicle?" the Master of Sinanju asked.

"What did you expect me to do, eat it?" Remo asked. "I shut off the lights and locked it up."

"It will be noticed," Chiun said, concerned.

"Well, duh," Remo said.

Chiun rapped his knuckles urgently on the dashboard. "Hurry, Remo!" he insisted. "Make haste to Berlin lest some other highwayman attempts to take that which is rightfully mine!"

"Sure. Lock the barn door after the horse is at the glue factory," Remo grumbled.

Leaving the persistent light mist to accumulate on the parked police car, Remo pulled the truck back into traffic.

Berlin was still some sixty miles away.

Chapter 3

He had awakened more than two hours before.

The shock of his being kidnapped by Loonies had worn off the second time around, so when Mike Princippi opened his eye only to see a fat pale toe peeking from the end of a cheap sandal two inches from his face, he had merely blinked at the digit. The toe wiggled back.

Princippi pushed his cheek from the floor of the van. The imprint of a metal truck seam lined his grayish skin.

Kneeling, the former governor eyed his captors.

They looked back at him with benign-almost deranged-smiles. The men were jostled on their plain seats as the van continued to speed down the unseen road to a destination known only to the Loonies.

Princippi cleared his throat. "What-?" The words caught for a moment. He coughed again, trying to work up his courage. "What do you want from me?" he asked.

One of the men smiled. Princippi recognized him as the man who had spoken to him in his driveway, though with the matching clothes, haircuts and insipid smiles it was hard to tell for sure.

"Want?" the young man asked. "We want nothing of you, friend Michael. What we want is to give you something."

Princippi licked his lips. "Can't you give it to me here?" he asked. He eyed the closed van door. "Stop the car and we'll have a little presentation ceremony right now."

"The gift we give you cannot be given by us," the man said. "I am Roseflower, by the way. If by knowing my name you will become more at ease."

"Roseflower, huh?" Princippi scoffed. "Is that the name your parents gave you or is it your Loonie name?"

The former governor seemed to have found the one thing that erased the smiles from the faces of the men around him. As one, the mindless grins receded into pale faces, replaced by expressions of pinched disapproval.

"That is not an acceptable term," Roseflower said

"What isn't?" Princippi asked. He racked his brain, trying to remember what he had just said. The gathered men did not seem to want to help him in any way. All at once, the light dawned. "Loonie!" he announced.

The expressions grew more dour. Seeing this, Princippi frowned, as well.

"We do not appreciate that appellation," Roseflower said stiffly.

"I thought that's what you were," Princippi said, his voice betraying uncertainty.

"The proper name is Sunnie," Roseflower insisted. "That other is a derisive designation created by the enemies of our leader."

"Okay, so you're Sunnies," Princippi conceded with a shrug of his slight shoulders. "Can I see a little more of the name reflected in your dispositions?"

The rest seemed to follow Roseflower's lead. His smile returned, thinner now than before. Bland grins appeared on the faces of the others.

"Are we friends again?" Princippi asked hopefully.

"Of course," Roseflower said. His idiotic smile widened. The others followed suit.

"Friends would do anything for one another, wouldn't they?" Princippi asked hopefully.

"I'm not going to let you go, Michael."

Dejected, Princippi's shoulders sunk even farther into his slight frame.

"Some friend you turned out to be," he grumbled.

He spent the rest of the long trip in gloomy depression.

THE VAN DID NOT STOP for several more hours. When it finally did, Princippi hoped it was at a gas station. The minute he heard the words "Fill it up," he planned to scream for all he was worth.

Hope gave way to despair when the rear doors of the van were at last pulled open.

Cool air and bland artificial light poured into the fetid interior. Princippi noted that the air smelled vaguely of gasoline and car exhaust.

His legs ached from alternately kneeling and sitting on the hard floor of the van. Helpful hands brought him to his feet and guided him down onto a cold, flat concrete floor.

It was a parking garage. Underground by the looks of it. Black oil stains filled the spaces between angled parallel white lines. A large red number 2 was painted on the wall near a set of closed elevator doors, and 2nd Basement Level was stenciled in cheery green letters beneath it.

His Loonie escort guided Princippi to the elevator. The doors opened as if by magic. He was whisked upward.

The elevator carried them from the subbasement parking garage up to the seventh floor. When the doors opened once more, they revealed a sterile corridor of eggshell white. Princippi was trundled out onto a rugged blue wall-to-wall carpet.

As he was hustled along the hallway, the former governor noted several large signs spaced along the walls that read Editorials, Features, Advertising and the like. Arrows below the names indicated the direction in which one might find each department.

He began to get a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach far deeper than the one he had felt all day. If this was what he thought...

Doors parted at the end of the corridor, and he was escorted into what was obviously the city room of a large newspaper. Unlike most papers this size, however, there was not a hint of staff on duty.