Warren Murphy: Killing Time

After the crusted iron bars of his cell slammed shut, one of the beefy guards shook a finger at him. "Next time, wait till Monday morning," he said.

Chapter Eighteen

The pilot of the F-16 put on his best aviator's smile for his two civilian passengers as the sleek craft screamed over the Mediterranean.

"Sure sump'in' up here, idn't it?" he said in his avi­ator's fake Southern accent.

Chiun shrugged. "No movies," he said.

Remo focused in on the city of Anatola through the pilot's powerful binoculars. The mission. Don't think about anything but the mission now, he told himself. Posie was dead, and he might have been able to save her if... but don't think about that. It was over. She was dead. Period. From this distance, the city's white stucco walls and winding streets seemed almost washed clean of filth and dung and disease-bearing flies that were Zadnia's trademark the world over.

"Okay," Remo said. "You can park anywhere."

The pilot smirked behind his proteptive headgear. Civilians. Nonpilots. Well, who expected the lower forms of life to know beans from barnacles?

"Sorry, pal. That's Zadnia," he said.

"We know what it is," Chiun snapped. "Do you think we would fly in this noisy machine without even in-flight movies if we were going to Cleveland?"

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"Fine," the pilot said, "but you can't land in Zadnia. They'll blow us up before we hit the ground."

"All right," Remo said. "That makes sense. Where do you keep the parachutes?"

"We don't have parachutes," the pilot said.

Remo shook his head. "And you'd probably iose our luggage if we had any. All right. How low can you take this thing?"

"Low?"

"Weil, of course, low," Remo said. "Low."

"Right down to wave top," the pilot said.

"You don't have to go that low," Remo said. "Any­thing inside a hundred feet or so is good."

"What for?" the pilot asked, even as he pushed the control forward and moved the plane down toward the blue waters of the Mediterranean.

"What do you think for?" Remo asked. "Are your belts fastened?"

"Yes."

"Good-bye forever," Remo said. He punched out the plane's canopy, and then spilled out of the plane in a tumbling free fall, that quickly turned into a smooth eagle-soaring toward the white waves below.

"Sloppy," Chiun said. He moved up in his seat.

"You're not jumping, too, are you?" the pilot shouted over the scream of the wind.

"If you'd rather land. ..."

"Can't." It was the CIA. It had to be the CIA. Some kind of nutty suicide mission, with these two ninnies the victims.

Chiun stood up.

"I wish you could take a chute," the pilot said.

"Keep your advice on my bodily functions to your­self," Chiun said, then slipped gracefully out of the

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jet, his yellow robe billowing in the wind like a sail.

The pilot looped once to observe the final disap­pearance of his two former passengers into the Medi­terranean. The brass was going to want a report-and-a-half on this one and the details would be important.

Somehow, he noticed, the old guy in the bathrobe had managed to bring himself to the same level as the thin guy in the T-shirt.

The pilot looped again, and came in close. The two men were talking. The old one was waving his arms and shouting, while the young one shrugged and pointed up at the jet. The pilot could hardly believe it. Here they were, sailing toward the ocean, and these two loonies were having an argument. Then, without even taking time to scream in panic, the two crazy ci­vilians sank into the sea at precisely the same mo­ment.

Well, that was that, the pilot said to himself. Maybe two nuts the CIA had to get rid of. They had guts, though, he'd have to hand it to them. Neither of them had shown a trace of fear when they augured in. It had been a death worthy of an aviator.

He climbed into the sky and out of sight. Twenty seconds later, two heads bobbed out of the sea. "No movies, no lavatories, no free cakes of soap, no tea, and a foul-mouthed driver on top of it all!" Chiun shrieked. "I have had better rides in New Jersey taxi-cabs. How can you subject one of my delicate sensibil­ities to such a primitive mode of travel?"

"It was the fastest way," Remo explained for the fourth time since they'd left the F-16.

"Hurry, hurry," Chiun grumbled. "You have cast aside all the pleasures of life in the empty pursuit of

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speed. You have rejected the fragrance of the lotus in favor of the stench of the public bus. You have-"

"The sooner we get this over with, the sooner you can get back to your TV," Remo said.

"Can we make the eleven o'clock update?"

"Maybe."

"Stop dawdling," Chiun commanded, slicing through the water like a torpedo.

Dawn was rising in Anatola, casting pink halos around the white sun-baked buildings. Below the ha­los, the city's fat flies were beginning to stir, preparing themselves for another day's feasting in a land that seemed created just for them. They buzzed into the fetid streets, stopping to drink at the stagnant, sew­age-laden streams that ran freely along the narrow walkways. They lit undisturbed on the delicious three-day-old cow meat, already veiled with the thick scent of decay, hanging from the hawkers' stands. For des­sert, they swarmed over a tempting display of rotting fruit that would eventually be fed to the children of the wealthy after the flies had taken their fill. Another good day.

Remo swatted at the flies that buzzed in the city square like a cloud. The meat hawker scurried over to them, waving a stinking gray slab and burbling something through a mouthful of loos© brown teeth.

"You've got to be kidding," Remo said, and walked on. Chiun was silent. At the gates to the city, he had slowed his breathing to a point that wouldn't even reg­ister on a life-support system. He explained that it was preferable to experiencing Zadnia and the Zadnians at full consciousness.

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In the distance, the twelve towers of the Palace of Anatoia stood out like needles against the reddening sky.

"Guess that's where we're going," Remo said. "You might as well bring yourself up to capacity, Little Father."

"I'd rather not," Chiun croaked.

A high wail punctuated the endless drone of the flies. At first Remo thought it was one of the vendors on the street, beginning his day's supplication to what­ever idiots were desperate enough to buy the food in Zadnia, but it wasn't the call of a Middle Eastern sales-pitch. It was a cry of terror, and it was coming from in­side the walled boundaries of the palace.

"He can't shoot me," the voice cried. "It's not fair. I've done everything he wanted. Be reasonable. Take the hundred. Please."

As Remo listened, a second voice, high and sing­song, came from within the wall. "When you dead, we take hundred dollah anyway. We take rings off finger. We take gold from teeth. You not have to pay us now, very welcome."

Remo scaled the palace wall and peered over. Fac­ing the wall were twelve men in Zadnian uniforms, their weapons pointed at the solitary blindfolded figure in front of them.

"Ready," squeaked the commanding guard. The men raised their rifles.

"Inside line?" Remo whispered.

Chiun shook his head. "A waste. There are only twelve of them. We use the double-spiral air blow series."

"What for? That's a trick, shot."

"Aim."

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"All right," Remo sighed. "Whatever you say." He vaulted over the wall.

"Fi-aghhh." The commander's windpipe lodged into his nose as he twirled end over end above the heads of the firing squad.

"Higher," Chiun said. He grasped the rifles of two of the guards and, with a flick of his wrists sent their owners hurtling upward before they could release their weapons. The guards, looking like khaki-colored pinwheels, flew in two different directions up to twenty feet before their trajectory curved into two huge parab­olas. They met head-on in the air, their skulls cracking on impact. Chiun smiled. "A little art," he said.