Warren Murphy: Dangerous Games

He walked toward her, calling her name: "Josie." She turned away, blindly plunging through the crowd and quickly becoming lost.

"Josie," he called again, but she did not stop.

His first thought was that she would get over it. His second thought was to hell with her if she didn't.

Then he remembered that while he was standing

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there, thinking about his running antics, Chiun was out hunting killers.

And damn him, Remo thought, he'd better save me something.

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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The center of the Olympic village was filled with tourists and athletes, strolling from arena to arena, gymnasium to gymnasium, but Jack Mullin did not see them. What he saw instead was hundreds of policemen and soldiers, moving through the crowd, scanning faces, as if looking for someone.

He became nervous. He pulled his four men close to him and said, "I think, lads, it's tune to plant our little packages and get out. Agreed?"

He scanned their impassive faces. Not a muscle moved in any of them.

"Too many police. So we'll do what we have to do. You plant your little gifts where we decided and I'll keep looking for the American. When you're done, we'll meet in the back of the big hall where they're holding the weight-lifting competition. Get on with you, now."

The four men scurried off and Mullin turned to continue his search for Remo.

So things were a little ahead of schedule, but so what. That was what made a good commander, Mullin knew, the ability to adapt plans to actual conditions. Plans were fine, but they could work to the letter only in a hermetically sealed world and he didn't live in one of those.

He wondered where Remo might be. He had missed him at the running track. But he'd find him and kill him, and that would be that. He and his men

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would be on their way back home, and if everything went the way it should, the Jimbobwu Mkombu revolution should get a big leg up on toppling the governments of Rhodesia and South Africa.

And then Jack Mullin would topple Mkombu. Not too long now, h(r) thought. But first the American, Remo Black, and the old Oriental.

The four bogus Baruban athletes were walking through the crowded village with their equipment bags of explosives.

And then there were three.

The African who had impersonated Sammy Wanenko, the Baruban boxer, felt a hand around the back of his neck. He wanted to call out to his companions to stop, but no sound would come. When the hand lightened its grip, he turned and saw standing before him a small, aged Oriental.

"Where is your leader?" Chiun asked.

"Who wants to know, old man?"

Chiun explained who he was by slapping his right hand to the side of the African's cheek. Nothing he had felt that day in the ring while he was on his brief way to a first round knockout had felt like that. His face felt aflame; he could almost hear the skin bubbling and sputtering where the old man had slapped it.

Then Chiun was in close to him, his left hand buried in the African's belly, and the African was babbling about Lieutenant Mullin, and what he looked like, and where he was going, and how his target was Remo Black, and how Ms three companions were on their way to set bombs in the American athletes' dormitories, and then the African died in a lump on the village pavement.

Chiun walked away from the body. Should he go after the three Africans with the bombs? Or after Jack Mullin? He decided on Mullin. The athletes'

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dormitories were empty now and would be for some time; there would be no danger for a while. But Mul-lin could be dangerous to Remo, particularly if Chiun's young disciple was still wandering around with his head in the clouds, mooning over that Indian woman.

He saw Mullin outside the entrance to one of the gymnasium buildings and Chiun moved through the outskirts of the crowd, until he came to view in front of Mullin. He kept his back to the Englishman, so that the Englishman could think that he had found Chiun on his own.

Mullin saw the brocaded robe on the tiny Oriental with his back to him.

"Hey, old boy," he called.

Chiun turned and stared at Mullin. His face was expressionless. Mullin slipped a knife from his pocket, held it to Chiun's belly, and said: "Move alongside the building." They were in an alley with large dump containers of garbage. Mullin herded Chiun along and the old man obeyed, still without expression. No wonder they called Orientals inscrutable, Mullin thought.

When they were out of sight of the crowd, Mullin said, "Where's the American?"

Chiun was silent.

"C'mon, you blasted old chink, where is he?"

Still no answer. Mullin sighed and slashed with his knife to take out the old man's throat.

He missed.

That was impossible.

He slashed again.

Again he missed.

Bloody impossible. The old fool was standing right there. He hadn't even moved. How could he miss?

Or had he moved?

Mullin slashed at him again, but watched very closely. He caught just a faint whisper of a move-

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ment, as if in a fraction of a second the old man had withdrawn from the path of the knife and then slid back to his original position.

Mullin put the knife back into its pocket sheath and pulled his .45 out from under his bush jacket. Time to stop fooling around.

"Okay, old man. One last time. Where is the American?"

Silence.

Mullin pulled the trigger. The shot exploded in the alley with a booming crack.

And missed.

"Damn it," Mullin snapped. How could he have missed? The old man couldn't duck a bullet. Could he?

He fired another shot. The old man just stood there, unharmed.

Mullin looked at his gun as if it were the gun's fault, then back at the old man.

Inscrutable? No. Inhuman was more like it.

Mullin felt a twinge of an emotion he was not used to: fear.

He was not in control of himself as he backed away, slowly at first, then faster, until he was almost running, all the while hearing his mind berate him for running from a scrawny old man.

But this was not a normal old man.

Chiun smiled as he followed. He had succeeded in persuading Mullin to give up the search for Remo and to join the other terrorists. Now Chiun could round them up and hold them for Remo, who would want to ask questions and do many other silly things, but Chiun would forgive them all today because after all Remo was going to win him a gold medal.

He hoped that Remo did not win his race by running at top speed. He wanted Remo to break the world's record bit by bit through the preliminaries

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and then shatter it in the final race for the Olympic gold.

Mullin ran at top speed. He was trying to think of some reasonable explanation for what had happened. He was also trying to regain control of his body, which was continuing to rush forward, even as his mind commanded it to slow down. This feeling, this panicky flight from a frail old Chinaman, was totally alien to Jack Mullin. Gradually, he got his body back under control, talking away the fear. Once I join up with my other jour men, he told himself, we'll take care of the Chink and the American.

He checked his watch. The explosive charges should be set by now and his men should be waiting for him at the back of the main hall, where the weightlifting was being held.

He was walking now and felt back in control . . . of everything but his neck.

He could not quite get it to let his head turn around to take a look behind him.

Remo pushed through the crowd in the village, hoping mostly that he could find Chiun and partially that he would never see him again so that he did not have to tell him about this afternoon's race which had eliminated Remo from Olympic competition.

From the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of flashing blue disappearing into the main hall. He knew it was Chiun's brocaded blue robe.