Warren Murphy - Created, The Destroyer

"What's my number?"

"Nine-one. You mean you didn't know that? For crying out..."

"I forgot."

She chattered on. "It's a good system. The group leaders encourage it. Nobody gets involved and everybody is satisfied."

Remo glanced at her. She was dressed again and bounding toward the door in her low-heeled shoes. "Just a minute," Remo said, smirking. "Aren't you going to kiss me goodbye?"

"Kiss you?" she said just before she slammed the door. "I don't even know you."

Remo didn't know whether to laugh or just go to sleep and forget about it. He did neither. He vowed never to do his loving in Folcroft again.

That had been more than a week ago, and now he was anxious to get on with the assignments. Not that he relished the work. He just wanted to get out of Folcroft, get out of the cozy little jail.

He rammed the slipper against the gym floor again. There was probably some reason for slippers. There was a reason for everything. But he didn't give a damn anymore. "Well, how about it?" he yelled over to MacCleary.

"Just a minute now. Ah, here he comes."

When Remo looked up, he almost laughed. But the figure shuffling in was too pathetic for laughs. He was about five feet tall. A white uniform with a red sash hung loosely over his very skinny frame. A few white wisps of hair floated gently around his emaciated oriental face. The skin was wrinkled like old yellow parchment.

He wore slippers, too, and carried two thick boards that clapped hollowly with his shuffling gait.

MacCleary, almost deferentially, fell in behind the man. They stopped before Remo.

"Chiun, this is Remo Williams, your new student."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Chiun bowed. Remo just stared. "What's he going to teach me?"

"To kill," MacCleary said. "To be an indestructible, unstoppable, nearly invisible killing machine."

Remo threw his head toward the ceiling and exhaled loudly. "C'mon, Conn. Get off it. Who is he? What's his line?"

"Murder," MacCleary said calmly. "If he wanted, you would be dead now, before you could blink."

The chrysanthemum scent was strong. So it came from the Chink. Murder? He looked like an outpatient from an old age home.

"Want to shoot him?" MacCleary asked.

"Why should I? He's not long for this world anyway."

Chium remained impassive, as if he did not understand the conversation. The large hands folded over the thick wooden planking showed bulging veins. The face, even the slanted brown eyes, revealed nothing but eternal calm. It was almost a violent calm in the face of the recent offer. Remo glanced at MacCleary's dull gray revolver. Then he looked back into the eyes. Nothing.

"Let me see the .38." He removed the revolver from MacCleary's hook. It rested heavily in the palm of his hand. Remo's mind automatically rolled through the pistol qualifications as they had been drilled into him during training. Range, usual accuracy, percentage of misfires, impact. Chiun would be a dead man.

"Is Chan going to hide behind something, or what?" Remo asked. He spun the barrel. Dark shell casings. Probably extra primer.

"It's Chiun. And no, he'll be in the gym chasing you."

MacCleary's hook rested on his hip. It was a sign he had a joke in store. Remo had seen the "precede" several times before. They had trained him to look for the precede in every man. Everyone had it, the instructors said, you just had to learn to find it. The hook on the hip was MacCleary's.

"If I finish him, do I get a week out of here?"

"A night," MacCleary answered.

"So you think I might be able to do it?"

"No. I'm just stingy, Remo. Don't want you to get too excited."

"A night?"

"A night."

"Sure," Remo said, "I'll kill him." He kept the revolver close to his body, about chest high, where they taught him firing was most accurate and the gun safest from fast hands in front.

He aimed the barrel at Chiun's frail chest. The little man remained motionless. A faint smile seemed to gild his face.

"Now?" Remo asked.

"Give yourself a chance," MacCleary said. "Let him start at the other end of the gym. You'd be dead now before you pulled the trigger."

"How long does it take to pull a trigger? I have the initiator's advantage."

"No, you don't. Chiun can move between the time your brain decides to shoot and your finger moves on the trigger."

Remo backed away one step. His forefinger rested gently on the trigger. All .38's of this type had hair firing mechanisms. He lowered his gaze from Chiun's eyes to his chest. Perhaps it was by hypnosis through the eyes that Chiun could slow down his movements. One instructor had said some Orientals could do that.

"It's not hypnosis either, Remo," MacCleary said. "So you can look in his eyes. Chiun. Put down the boards. That'll come later."

Chiun lowered the boards to the floor. He was slow, yet his legs seemed to remain motionless as the trunk descended to the floor. The boards made no sound as they touched the wooden floor. Chiun rose, then walked away toward the far corner of the gym where white cotton stuffed mats were hanging against the wall. As Chiun retreated, Remo's arm extended for accuracy. He did not have to keep the gun close to protect it.

The old man's white uniform was lighter than the mats. Still the coloring was no problem. The afternoon sun glinted off the red sash. Remo aimed just above it. He would go for the trunk and when Chiun was squirming in a blood puddle on the floor, Remo would take five steps closer and put two bullets into the white hair.

"Ready?" MacCleary yelled, stepping back from what would become the firing pattern.

"Ready," Remo called out. So MacCleary didn't bother to check the old man. Maybe this was one of the frequent tests. Maybe this old man, unable to speak English, pitiful in his frailty, was the victim offered to see if Remo would kill. What a pack of bastards.

Remo sighted by barrel instead of the "V". Never trust the sights on another man's gun. The distance was forty yards.

"Go," yelled MacCleary and Remo squeezed twice. Cotton chunks flew from the mats as the shots thunked where Chiun had been. But the old man was coming, moving quickly, sideways up the gym floor, like a dancer with a horrible itch, a funny little man on a funny little journey. End it now.

Another shot rang out in the gym. The funny little man kept coming, now crawling, now leaping, shuffling, but moving. Give him a lead. Crack!

And he kept coming. Fifty feet away. Wait for thirty. Now. Two shots reverberated through the gymnasium and the old man was suddenly walking slowly, with the shuffle with which he had entered the gym. There were no bullets left.

Remo in rage threw the pistol at Chiun's head. The old man seemed to pluck it from the air as if it were a butterfly. Remo didn't even see the hands move. The acrid fumes of spent powder drowned the scent of chrysanthemums as the old man handed the pistol back to Remo.

Remo took it and offered it to MacCleary. When the hook came close, Remo dropped the revolver to the floor. It landed with a cracking sound.

"Pick it up," MacCleary said.

"Stuff it."

MacCleary nodded to the old man. The next thing Remo knew, he was flat on the floor getting a close look at the grain of the gym's wooden flooring. It didn't even hurt, he went down so quickly.

"Well, Chiun?" Remo heard MacCleary ask.

In delicate, if not fragile, English, Chiun answered, "I like him." The voice was soft and high-pitched. Definitely oriental yet with clipped, British overtones. "He does not kill for the immature and foolish reasons. I see no patriotism or ideals, but good reasoning. He would have slain me for a night's entertainment. That is a good reason. He is a smarter man than you, Mr. MacCleary. I like him."

Remo got to his feet, bringing the gun with him. He didn't even know where he had been hit until he attempted a mock bow toward Chiun.