Warren Murphy - Missing Link

Chiun said this was wasteful. "If he is supposed to get twenty dollars, that little box there should

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say twenty dollars. Why do you give him twenty dollars when the little box says fourteen dollars?"

"That's a tip. It's an American custom," Remo said.

"What is?"

"To pay somebody extra for good service."

"Do you pay less for bad service?" Chiun asked.

"No."

"Then you are an idiot. Get your change."

This conversation took place in the back seat of the cab. The driver, who did not have the latest New York City inventions—bullet-proof electrified glass partitions that separated him from his passengers, and alarm lights and bells on top of the cab that could be seen from four miles away and heard from halfway around the world—leaned over his back seat and paid attention. He was rooting for Remo.

He nodded approvingly as Remo told Chiun, "No, I don't want the change."

"I do," said Chiun. He looked at the driver. "Change, please."

The driver shook his head. "It's an American custom, fella. Listen to your friend there. He's telling you right Good drivers like me always get a tip. A little something extra."

"You want something extra?" Chiun said.

The driver nodded.

Chiun grabbed the back of the front seat, his hands on each side of the gouge Remo had taken from the vinyl and foam. The old Oriental wrenched with his hands, gently. Two more big rips of material came from the seat. Chiun opened the door and stepped outside onto the sidewalk.

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Behind him, Remo gave the driver two more twenties. "Fix your seat," he said.

On the sidewalk, he said to Chiun, "You're in a fine mood."

"It is your fault for making me meet that creature who makes children into criminals. It spoiled my night."

"It didn't do much for his either," Remo said.

As they walked to the automatic terminal doors, a black car pulled up at curbside behind their taxi cab. Two men in dark blue business suits got out.

As they passed through the doors, Chiun asked Remo, "Are you aware?"

Without turning, Remo said, "Yeah. Two of them. This might be a break."

Chiun nodded. He and Remo walked off toward the south end of the terminal, moving slowly, waiting until they were sure the two men from the black car had not lost view of them.

"I know what you're so ticked about," Remo said. Chiun was silent. "You're just upset "cause I won't ask Smitty to send you to the Olympic games."

"It is all right," Chiun said. "I am working on an alternative."

They went up an escalator. As they were stepping off, Remo felt under his feet the weight of two men stepping on the escalator below them.

They turned to the left. Ahead, Remo saw a door marked "no admittance." He and Chiun moved quickly inside. Remo saw it was a room used for record-keeping by the baggage handling staff. It was empty of workers.

Remo held the door open long enough for their two pursuers to get off the escalator and follow

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them. Then he let the door swing closed. He moved against the far wall of the room and told Chiun, "Now behave yourself."

"I will not lift a finger," Chiun said. He looked out the window and folded his arms.

The two men came into the room, their hands in their pockets, obviously holding guns.

They were startled when they saw Chiun with his back to them and Remo leaning against a wall casually, as if waiting for them.

"Come on in," Remo said. "Plenty of room for you too. Don't be shy."

The two men were swarthy with dark hair and thin mustaches. One smiled as the door closed tightly behind them. Both men withdrew their hands from their pockets. Heavy automatics were cradled in their fists.

"All right," Remo said. "Now who are you? You better talk, before I unleash my friend here."

The two men smiled. Chiun remained with his back to the room.

"It is not who we are," one said with a thick accent that Remo had heard very recently. "It is who you are."

"Oh, us," Remo said. "I'm Remo. This is Chiun. We're secret agents for the United States government. Now who are you?"

"We are representatives of—" one man begun. "Ahmir," the other spoke sharply, interrupting him and cautioning him to silence.

"That's your last word on the subject?" Remo said.

"The last word you will ever hear," the man said. He leveled his automatic at Remo's chest. The

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other man aimed his weapon at Chain's unmoving back.

"Chiun, are you going to stop fooling around?" Remo said.

Chiun raised his arms over his head in a motion that suggested Remo get lost. Remo shook his head. He watched the men's hands. He was nine feet away from them. The one aimed at Chiun showed tension in his trigger finger. The other's index finger was still loosely held inside the trigger guard. As Remo watched, the trigger finger on the weapon aimed at Chiun tightened.

Remo made a movement to the right, a sudden curl of his body that forced his man to swing his gun to the side, and squeeze off a shot at him. But even before the shot had been fired, Remo was moving back left, diving through the air, his body parallel to the floor. His hand closed on the weapon aimed at Chiun just as the trigger was depressed, but the bullet fired harmlessly into the floor. The second man had swung around, again aiming at Remo, but this time, before he could get off a shot, Remo's right foot lashed out. The tip of his right toe caught the underside of the weapon and drove it around and upward so that it plunged barrel-first into the gunman's throat. The man's eyes opened saucer wide, and then, as Remo watched, they seemed to cloud over and the man slumped to the floor.

The man whose gun hand Remo was gripping pulled free. He tried to club down on Remo's skull with the heavy automatic. It was a simple reflex attack, to lash out with the closest weapon at hand, and Remo's response was equally reflex. Without

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thinking, he pushed his right hand up deep under the man's sternum, until he felt ribs and organs crack and crush, and the man fell to the floor dead. Both dead. Remo stood up and looked at both of them in disgust.

"I hope you're satisfied now," he told Chiun. "I am, I am," said Chiun. "I never saw this before. Did you know the baggage for people on the plane comes down a long chute and then goes around and around in a circle on a special carrier? Look, Remo, this is really interesting." He was standing on tiptoe, craning to get a better look at the baggage return, pointing below, and signaling for Remo to come look.

Remo ignored him. He quickly frisked the men's pockets and found the identification he had been looking for.

"Look at this, Remo," Chiun called again. "This is really good. The bags come down and then go all around and people take them off and if they miss, they come around again. Why is it that I have never seen this before?"

"Because you're too lazy to handle your own bags," Remo said.

"That is unkind," Chiun said. He turned back toward the window.

"Like that, huh?" Remo mumbled under his breath. "Like watching the baggage carousel, huh? Watch this."

He lifted the two bodies under his arms and pushed through a connecting door into the cargo staging area, where he tossed the two men onto a conveyor belt. A moment later, eyes wide open in death, their bodies contorted in the throes of their

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last moments, the two mustachioed men pitched headfirst down the baggage chute and hit the carousel. The bodies piled up for a moment in a lump, and then one at a time began rotating around the baggage pickup area. Women screamed. Children ran forward to get a closer look. Men looked at each other, puzzled, then looked around for 'a police-

man.

Back inside the cargo office, Chiun watched, then turned from the window and glared at Remo when he reentered.