Warren Murphy: Blood Ties

"That'll be $49.25," said the driver. The fare was three times what it would have been if he had been permitted to drive on the interstate.

"That is a reasonable fare," said Chiun. He reached into the folds of his kimono and brought forth one of the new United States gold pieces in the fifty-dollar denomination.

The driver looked at it and said, "What's this?"

"What it appears to be. Coin of the realm. Fifty dollars gold. American."

"Where's my tip and don't give me any of that 'don't-have-children' routine. I already got nine of them. That's why I need a tip."

"Yesterday's gold fixing on the London market was $446.25," Chiun said. "Surely, $397 is enough of a tip for following directions."

"How do I know this is real?" said the driver.

"Because when you die in five seconds because of your insolent tongue, I am going to take another just like it and place them over your eyelids to smooth your journey into the other world. I would not use counterfeit coins to do this."

"You mean, it's real?"

"Isn't that what I've been saying?"

"And it's really worth $440?"

Chiun corrected him. "$446.25."

"Want me to wait to bring you back to the hotel?" the driver asked.

"No," said Chiun.

The guard at the gate to the large empty Dynacar parking lot wanted to know what Chiun's business was.

"It is my business and not yours. Let me pass."

"You're not an employee, not dressed like that. I can't let you in without a visitor's pass. You got a visitor's pass, old-timer?"

"Yes," said Chiun, raising his open palm for the guard to see. "Here it is."

The guard looked, expecting to find an ID card in the old man's hand, but he saw nothing. He saw nothing twice. First he saw nothing because the Oriental's hand was empty. Then he saw nothing again when Chiun took his nose between thumb and forefinger and squeezed until the man's sight clouded and he fell back on the seat inside his small guardhouse.

As he slipped from consciousness, the guard had a half-second realization of what was happening. He had heard of nerves in the human body that were so sensitive, they triggered unconsciousness when pressed in a certain way. But he had never heard of any such nerve in the tip of the nose.

When he woke up three hours later, he was still thinking that thought.

Lyle Lavallette was sitting behind the wheel of the Dynacar in the big empty plant, making "vroom, vroom" noises with his mouth. The first inkling he had that he was not alone was the slight tipping of the vehicle on the passenger side.

He looked over to see an elderly man with Asian features, dressed in a flower-emblazoned red brocade robe, sitting beside him.

"I am Chiun," the Oriental said. "I am here to guard your worthless life."

Lavallette recognized the man. It was the same Oriental who had used his own body to shield James Revell from the gunman's bullets at the Dynacar demonstration the previous day.

"What are you doing here?" Lavallette said.

"I have just told you. Have you wax in your ears? I am here to guard your worthless life."

"I'm worth over ten million dollars. I don't call that worthless."

"Ten million dollars. Ten million rocks. It is the same thing. Worthless."

"Savage!" Lavallette yelled through the open car window. Colonel Brock Savage, sitting with his men in a small room off the main garage floor, heard the shout. He slipped the safety off his Armalite rifle and gave his men the hand signal to follow him as he trotted up to the driver's side of the Dynacar.

Lavallette, a panicked expression on his face, mouthed the word "him" and pointed toward Chiun.

"Surround the car," Savage ordered his men. "You! Out," he barked at Chiun, pointing his Armalite through the window so that, if he had to fire, he would riddle the unarmed Oriental.

Lavallette realized Savage would riddle him too because he was directly in the line of fire and shouted, "Get over the other side, you maniac. Don't shoot me."

Savage ran around the car and Chiun pointed a finger at him. "Do not point that weapon at me," he said.

"Get out, gook."

"And do not give me orders. I do not take orders from whites who dress like trees," Chiun said.

"I'm a private merc, idiot. The highest-paid merc in the world. And I'm trained to kill."

"No," said Chiun. "You have been trained to die." To Lavallette's eyes, it looked as if the old man had simply walked through the closed car door, but in fact Chiun had opened the door so quickly that Lavallette's slow eyes still held the afterimage of the closed door simultaneously with registering the Oriental's leap from the car.

Brock Savage squeezed the Armalite's trigger. Chiun squeezed Savage's trigger finger and the weapon dropped from the big man's hands. Chiun picked it up and snapped the barrel in half.

Savage reached for his combat knife, a ninja butterfly knife that opened like a folding rule. He flashed his hands around and the blade snapped from concealment. Then it too was on the floor next to the gun barrel.

Savage looked at the broken blade and dove for Chiun's throat, hands extended in front of him.

"Ki-ai," he shouted, but he quieted as he hit the floor with Chiun pressing a finger against an artery in his temple. Then he was unconscious.

Chiun turned to the other mercenaries.

"He is not seriously hurt," he said. "I do not wish to hurt any of you. Please take him and leave."

Two mercenaries ran forward, grabbed Brock Savage's unconscious form, and pulled him away.

Chiun led Lavallette through a door that led to the office wing of the Dynacar plant and told the automaker to take him to his office.

Inside the office, Chiun said, "You are fortunate to have me here. You were not safe surrounded by those private jerks."

"Mercs," corrected Lavallette.

"Only one of us is correct," Chiun sniffed. "And I do not think it is you."

Chapter 27

The gunman had fallen asleep on the sofa, watching television, and when he awoke, he glanced at his watch, picked up his briefcase, and walked quietly from the hotel room.

Let Remo sleep. The kid, with his eternal questions, would just be a drag if he came along. He was already a large-size headache with his rice-eating, no drinking, "I can't-explain-to-you-how-I-do-what-I-do" routine.

When this hit was over, the gunman was leaving, and to hell with Remo Williams. Who needed that grief? Let him go back to his Chinaman friend.

The guard outside the parking lot at the Dynacar plant appeared to be asleep in his booth. The gunman had planned to park nearby and sneak into the property, but he had learned early on never to look a gift horse in the mouth. A sleeping guard was a gift from heaven, so he drove into the lot and parked his car near the main building.

He took his Beretta Olympic from his briefcase and slipped it into his spring-clip shoulder holster. He left the rifle add-ons in the briefcase. They would not be necessary. This, he thought, was a television hit: "up close and personal."

He walked through a large warehouse-type building where the Dynacar was sitting alone in the middle of the otherwise empty floor. His body was tensed, all his senses focused on what was in front of him. Were there guards? Could this be a trap?

But he saw nothing and he never realized that behind him, Remo had slipped out of the backseat of the car where he had been hidden and was now following him into the plant.

The gunman, if asked, would have admitted to some confusion. Until this minute, he had been certain that he had been hired by one of the company presidents who had been on his target list. But he had killed Mangan and he would have killed Revell if it hadn't been for that crazy old Oriental. That left Millis and Lavallette as his possible employer. Now, with Millis dead, there was only Lavallette. It would have been simple except his employer had called and told him to kill Lavallette today.