Warren Murphy: Dangerous Games

"I'm sorry," she told him haltingly. "I guess I'm just not very experienced."

"My fault," he said, letting his hands drop. "I shouldn't have done that." He did not like the way he felt. He was like a schoolboy with a crush. He turned back to the beam to mask the confusion on his face. "Why don't you do a routine for me and let me watch?"

"After what you just did? I'd feel like a cluck."

"Lesson number one," Remo said. "Don't think about anything except what you're doing. What were you thinking about when you did your last routine today?"

She looked sheepish. "I was thinking I needed a nine-three to qualify."

"Right. And that's why you almost didn't get it. From now on, you think about now. You don't even think two seconds ahead when you're on the beam." Even as he said it, he knew it was a lie and the wrong advice. He was trying to give her the art of Sinanju which required such a deep ingraining of technique that technique was never thought of consciously. One didn't think at all. Physical things were best when they flowed instinctively from one's body without thought. That was Sinanju and Chiun had given it to him, but it had taken more than ten labo-

64

nous years. Remo could make Josie Littlefeather the best balance beam artist in the world, but he could not give her Sinanju, not in time for the Olympics. But he vowed to try.

As she walked toward the beam, a voice bellowed through the gymnasium, echoing off the walls and quonset-curved roof.

"Well, well," the voice said and Remo turned to the door. It was the blond runner, the one who had promised to feed Remo dust and had wound up being pulled across the finish line. He seemed to have recovered both his wind and his sneer.

"What's this, Pops?" he asked Remo. "Getting into girls' activities now? Or just trying to get into the girl?"

"I never got your name," Remo said.

"My name? Chuck Masters. The guy you screwed and the guy who's going to kick your ass back to wherever you came from."

"What good's that going to do you?" Remo asked.

"I break you up some and you have to pull out of the games. As next finisher, I move up into your spot and go to Moscow. We can do it my way or you can just volunteer to drop out. What do you say?"

He looked at Remo with his hands raised in a questioning gesture, a small nasty smile on his mouth.

"Go stick a javelin in your ear," Remo said. He turned back to Josie and Masters called, "Don't turn your back on me. And you, Littlefeather, what are you doing hanging out with him?"

"None of your business," she said.

Remo wondered how they knew each other and how well. He liked Chuck Masters even less now. He turned back in time to see Masters hoisting up to his chest a weightlifter's barbell, loaded with 150 pounds.

65

"Strong, but no brains," Remo told Josie. She laughed.

Masters pushed the barbells at Remo. Josie's sharp intake of breath echoed in the hushed gymnasium. Remo bent slightly and with a flick of a wrist, assisted the weights hi sailing over his head. The barbell bit on the floor with a jangling crash.

"Bad throw, big mouth," said Remo. Masters's face reddened. He yanked up another weight, this one loaded at 200 pounds. He got it to his chest and began to walk toward Remo.

"Chuck, stop it," Josie shouted. "Stop it."

"Here. Try this one on for size," Masters said.

Remo said to Josie, "No brains. He even talks like a comic book."

Remo turned back in time to watch the 200 pounds of weight leave Masters's hand and sail through the air toward him. He smiled slightly as he reached out his right hand and caught the barbell with it and held it there, straight out in front of him with one hand.

Masters's eyes goggled.

"What the-"

"My turn, bigmouth. I'll pitch, you catch."

"Now, listen-" Masters started but it was too late. To him it looked as if Remo had simply opened his hand but the barbell was coming back at him. Fast. He snapped his hands up to his chest to protect himself. Masters caught the barbell awkwardly in both hands but the force of Remo's toss pushed him back and down and as he bit the floor, the barbell slipped out of his hands and off his chest and rolled upward so that it straddled his neck, pressing lightly on his Adam's apple.

"Take this off me," Masters pleaded. But instead, Remo stepped up onto the bar, his feet on either side of Masters's chin. The slight pressure of his weight bent the center of the bar slightly and it bellied down

66

even more against Masters's throat. The blond man screamed.

"Do yourself a favor," Remo said coldly. "Don't ever come near us again." He felt himself almost shiver with anger and quickly he turned back toward Josie.

"Curfew," he told her. "We'd better go."

"What about him?" she asked. There was fright in her eyes as she looked at Remo, as if she were seeing him for the first tune.

"Leave him. He'll get it off when he stops panicking. Don't worry about him."

He led her to the gymnasium door. At the exit, she looked back at Masters, but Remo pulled her outside. They walked to her hotel in Copley Square without saying a word to each other. Remo knew what was wrong. He had changed during those few moments with Chuck Masters, and Josie had caught a glimpse of a different Remo and she was confused and perhaps frightened. Remo did not try to speak to her. He didn't know how he could tell her that it was only her presence that had kept Masters alive to pester someone else another day. He simply left the Indian girl at her door and told her he would see her in Moscow. And continue her balance beam lessons.

Chiun was waiting for Remo when he got back to his own room. He was pacing the floor.

"Where were you?" he demanded.

"I broke training," Remo said.

"So. This is how it starts. Five minutes late now. Ten minutes tomorrow. Soon you will be staying out to all hours of the night, coming home looking like something the cat does doo-doo in, and there goes my gold medal."

"Your gold medal?"

"Yes," Chiun said, without acknowledging Remo's sarcasm. "My gold medal. My endorsements. My fame. The security for my old age."

67

"Get off my case," Remo said. "That creep from the race, that blond guy, pestered me."

"And what did you do?"

"I just played with him a little."

"You did well. I do not know it I could have been that lenient with him. There was a time when you would not be so lenient either."

Remo realized that Chiun missed nothing.

"Is there something you wish to tell me?" Chiun asked.

"No, Little Father, I just want to sleep."

"As you wish. Emperor Smith is pleased. Arrangements are being made for Moscow. Go to sleep. Athletes, even those blessed with brilliant trainers, need to rest."

"Good night," Remo said. He went to bed, thinking that in Moscow, he would tell Chiun about Josie Littlefeather, who had made this assignment for Remo a very important, very personal matter.

68

CHAPTER SEVEN

Fires crackled in big holes dug into the sandy shore. Droplets of flame splashed into the night air as fat from the pigs turning on spits over the fires spattered down into the pits, caught aflame and flared upward.

Drums and bamboo flutes inserted sensuous melodies into the night and a dozen girls in tight, one-piece wraps danced back and forth across the white sand, plying large circles around three men who sat on the sand on tufted mats, watching the women with appreciation.

The biggest of the three men was Sammy Wanenko, who, along with the other two athletes, would represent his South Pacific island country of Baruba in the Moscow Olympic Games.

The hour neared midnight and soon the king of Baruba would select the three winners in the dancing competition. The three chosen women would spend the night with the three Olympic-bound athletes.