Warren Murphy - The End of the Game

"Not really," Remo said.

"Let me out," Pamela shrieked. "I'll call the police. I'll--" Remo threw a lamp at the door. She quieted for a moment.

"The girl?" Smith asked.

"Yes."

"Get rid of her. I told you before."

"All right, all right, I will," Remo said.

"You can't have her go with you. That's final."

"I said I'd take care of it, all right? Now where and when?"

Smith gave him the directions that he had received from Abner Buell. "Noon tomorrow," he said. "Chiun will meet you there," he added casually.

"Hold on," Remo said. "Chiun will meet me there? I thought you said I shouldn't have anybody with me."

"Chiun hardly qualifies as a pesky bystander," Smith said.

"He can be," Remo said. "And he's ticked at me anyway."

Smith sighed. Remo could visualize him at this moment, pressing the steel rings of his eyeglasses to his face with an index finger. "I thought-- this is important enough-- I thought it would be best if the two of you were there."

Pamela had started screaming again and there were no more lamps to throw.

"All right," Remo said. "I'll look for Chiun there. If he's there, we'll work it together. If not, I'll work it alone."

"At noon sharp," Smith said. "Chiun will be there."

Remo thought his voice sounded cracked and hoarse but the telephone clicked dead in his ear before he could make sure.

Smith sat at his desk for a few minutes afterward, the dead telephone cradled in his hand. Then, feeling very old and very tired, he walked to a locked cabinet and removed a Dutch Barsgod fragmenting shell pistol. The next fifteen hours were going to be the saddest of his life, but no one had ever said that saving the world would be a barrel of laughs.

The guard at Folcroft's front gate said, "Finally going home, Dr. Smith?" and Smith almost said, "No. To save the world," but he didn't.

As had always been the case in his life, the bodies would tell where he had been and what he had been doing.

"It's about time," Pamela said after Remo freed the bathroom door and let her out. "Who was that? The President?"

"Wrong number," Remo muttered. "When I finish working the obscene-calls patrol, I'm going to get transferred to wrong numbers."

"A wrong number that you talked to for ten minutes?"

"All right It was my Aunt Millie. She likes to talk."

"Really?" Pamela said archly. "What did you talk about?"

"She said the weather is good in Butler, Pennsylvania."

"It took her ten minutes to tell you that?"

"Yes," Remo said. "In Butler, that's big news. It's worth talking about."

"I don't believe it was your Aunt Tillie," she said. She wound a strand of Remo's jet-black hair around her finger.

"Millie," he corrected.

"Or Aunt Millie." She nuzzled his neck. "I'll bet I can make you tell me who you were really talking to," she purred.

"Not a chance," Remo said. "I'm beyond tempting."

"We'll see about that," she said. She eased him back on the bed and fiddled with the zipper of his pants.

Remo let her undress him and as her hands strayed over his body, he said, "Seduce away. It'll do you no good."

Long ago, in the early stages of his training, Chiun had taught Remo the thirty-seven steps for pleasuring a woman. They began with the inside of the left wrist and ended with the woman shrieking in ecstasy, although very few women were not shrieking in ecstasy by step seven or eight; it was a male fantasy come true, but it had also made sex boring, mechanical, and routine for Remo, and he rarely thought about it anymore.

"You like being controlled by a woman?" Pamela said as she straddled his body.

"Beats a sharp stick in the eye," he said.

She toyed with his body, with finger and tongue, then stopped. "Are you ready to tell me yet?"

"Not if you're going to stop," Remo said.

"I'll stop if you don't tell me," she threatened.

"Don't stop," Remo said.

"I will. I swear I will."

"Will you?" Remo said. He turned and touched the inside of her left wrist. He forgot the steps in order but he followed with her elbow, a spot on her right thigh, and then a cluster of nerves in the small of her back.

She moaned louder with each successive step. Her breasts were arched forward, her body twitched and convulsed with need. Remo satisfied that need, holding her down by the hands as the rest of her body bucked in a feverish, wanton frenzy.

Done, she lay exhausted on the bed, spent, glowing with perspiration. Remo touched a small nerve in her throat, toyed with it, and she closed her eyes and fell asleep.

He touched her face gently. "Maybe I'll see you again," he said softly before he left. But somehow, and he didn't know why or how, he didn't really think he would.

He was on the road to Hernandez when he understood, and so shocking was the revelation that he had to pull off to the side of the road to consider it.

Smith had been lying about Chiun's presence. Remo was sure of it, but he hadn't been able to figure out why. Now he had.

Remo was going to die.

It was part of Chiun's contract with Smith, he knew. Gold in perpetuity went to the village of Sinanju, but there was one large string attached: Chiun would have to kill Remo when Smith gave the order.

But why? He had done nothing to endanger the organization or the country. Why? He had no answer, but he knew, deep inside his mind, that Smith had given the order. And somewhere, even deeper than that, he knew that Chiun would obey it.

He felt his breath coming hot through his nostrils and looked down at his hands. His knuckles were white where they clenched the steering wheel. He was afraid.

How long had it been since he had felt fear? He couldn't remember. But it was not the fear which clawed at his stomach and tore at his throat and brought moisture to his eyes. It was sadness and the sadness was pure and terrifying.

Remo had never had a family. He had been raised by nuns in an orphanage. As a child, he'd tried to think about his parents, to imagine their faces, but there was nothing inside him. No memories, no images. Whoever had spawned and borne him had made no impression on his mind whatever.

And so he did not have a father until he was a fully grown man and Chiun had first come into his life. Chiun had taught him how to trust, how to obey, how to believe, how to love. And now, Remo knew in the depths of his heart that the trust and obedience and belief and love had been no more real or lasting than a shower on a sunny day.

He squeezed the wheel harder. All right, he said to himself. Let him try. Remo had been a good student. He was a Master of Sinanju too and he could do most things as well as Chiun. He would fight the old man. Chiun was a great Master, but more than eight decades of his life had come and gone. Remo could win. If he attacked first, he could--.

He covered his face with his hands. He could never attack Chiun. Not on anyone's orders. Not for any reason.

But he could run. The thought flashed through his mind like a rocket. He could tromp on the gas pedal of this car and speed off, keep going until he reached the Atlantic Ocean, and then hop a steamer and hide out in the mountains of some obscure country. He could run and hide and run some more, run until there was no place left to go.

The rocket of an idea dulled and fizzled. Remo was not trained to be a fugitive. He had spent ten years with the Master of Sinanju so that he would also be a Master, and a Master did not run.

There was no alternative. Chiun would have to kill him, as he was bound to do.

And in the end, Remo thought, it didn't matter anyway. The most important part of him had already died.

He turned the engine back on and pressed the pedal to the floor and headed toward Hernandez.

sChapter Fifteen

In the pitch dark of a cloudless night, just before the first hint of dawn lightened the sky, Harold Smith raised his infrared binoculars to his face. The area outside Hernandez was flat and barren except for scrub grass and a few mangy bushes.