Warren Murphy - Mugger Blood

"I don't suppose that would pose any problem to you?" Remo had been asked when given the assignment and told of the colonel's skills.

"Nah," Remo had said.

"He has the renowned black belt in karate," Remo had been told.

"Yeah, hmmm," Remo had said, not all that interested.

"Would you like to see his moves in action then?"

"Nah," Remo had said.

"He is perhaps one of the most feared men in Asia. He is very close to South Korea's president. We need him alive. He's a fanatic so that may not be easy." This warning had come from Dr. Harold W. Smith, director of Folcroft Sanitarium, the cover for a special organization which worked outside the laws of the land, in the hope that the rest of the system could work inside. Remo was its silent enforcement arm and Chiun the teacher who had given him more than American money could buy.

For while the assassins of Sinanju had rented out their services to emperors and kings and pharaohs even before the Western world started keeping track of years by numbers, they never sold how they did it.

So when the organization paid for Chiun to teach Remo to kill, they got their money's worth. But when Chinn taught Remo to breathe and live and think and explore the inner universe of his own body, creating a creature that used its brain cells and body organs at least eight times more effectively than normal man, Chiun gave the secret organization more than it had bargained for. A new man, totally different from the one sent to him for training.

And Remo could not explain it. He could not tell Smith what the teachings of Sinanju had given him. It would be like trying to explain soft to someone who could not feel or red to a person born blind. You did not explain Sinanju and what the masters knew and taught to someone who was going to ask you someday if you might have trouble with a karate expert. Does the winter have trouble with the snow? Someone who thought of Remo's watching movies of another fighter in action could not possibly understand Sinanju. Ever.

But Smith had insisted upon showing the movies of the colonel in action. It was taken by the CIA which had worked heavily with the colonel at one time. Now there was a strain between Korea and America and the colonel was one of the larger parts of it. They could not get to him because he had become familiar with American weapons. It was like a teacher trying to trick an old pupil who had grown too wise. It was just the sort of mission Smith thought the organization would be good for.

"That's nice," Remo had said and whistled an off-key tune in the hotel room in Denver where he had gotten the assignment for the Korean colonel. Smith, undeterred by Remo's indifference that had blossomed into yawning boredom, ran the movies of the colonel in action. The colonel broke a few boards, kicked a few younger men in the jaw, and danced around a bit. The movie was black and white.

"Whew," Smith had said. He arched an eyebrow, a very severe emotion on that normally frosted face.

"Yeah, wha'?" asked Remo. What was Smith talking about?

"I couldn't see his hands," said Smith.

"Not that fast," said Remo. After awhile you had to listen and observe people to find out where their limits were, because sometimes you just couldn't believe how dead they were to life. Smith really believed the man was fast and dangerous, Remo realized.

"His hands were a blur," said Smith.

"Nah," said Remo. "Stop the frames where he's flailing around. They're sharp."

"You mean to tell me you can see individual frames in a movie?" asked Smith. "That's impossible."

"As a matter of fact, unless I remind myself to relax, that's all I see. It's all a bunch of stills."

"You couldn't see his hands in still frames," Smith challenged.

"All right, fine," said Remo pleasantly. If Smith wanted to believe that, fine. Was there anything else that Smith wanted.

Smith dimmed the lights in the hotel room and put the small movie projector into reverse. The lights flickered into a blur, as the camera whirred and then stopped. There was the still frame. And there was the colonel's striking hand, frozen and clear. Smith moved the camera still by still to another frame, then another. The hand was picture-sharp throughout, not too fast for the film at all.

"But it looked so fast," said Smith. So regularly and consistently had he acknowledged that Remo had changed that he was not aware of how much had truly happened, how much Remo had really changed.

And Remo told him more that he thought had changed. "When I first started doing all this for you, I used to respect what we were doing. No more," Remo had said, and he had left that hotel room with instructions on what America wanted from the Korean colonel. He could have had a few hours' briefing on how the CIA and the FBI had failed to reach the man, what his defenses were, but all he wanted was a general description of the building so he could find it. And, of course, Smitty had mentioned the protection on the elevator.

So Remo watched the .38 Special come around toward him from the man in the blue suit and watched the man in the gray suit back away to let his servant do the job and that was good enough identification for him.

He caught the gun wrist with a forefinger, snapping it through the bone. He did this in such perfect consonance with the bodyguard's own rhythm, it appeared as if the man had taken the gun out of the holster only to throw it away. The hand didn't stop moving and the gun flew into the open crack between floors and down into silence. As Remo cupped his hand behind the head, he gave his fingers and palms an extra little twist. This was not a stroke he had been taught. He wanted to wipe away the grease from the elevator's undercarriage. He did that as he brought the guard's head down into his rising knee-one, pushing through with a tidy snap at the end, right behind the man's head toward the open wall; two, caught the returning body; and three, put it to rest quietly and forever on its back.

"Hi, sweetheart," said Remo to the colonel in English. "I need your cooperation." The colonel threw his briefcase at Remo's head. It hit a wall and snapped open, spilling packages of green American money. Apparently the colonel was heading to Washington to either rent or buy an American congressman.

The colonel assumed a dragon position with arching hands like claws, and elbows forward. The colonel hissed. Remo wondered whether there were sales on American congressmen like any other commodity. Did one get the votes of a dozen congressmen cheaper than buying twelve separately? Was a vote ever reduced to a bargain? What was the price of a Supreme Court justice? And what about cabinet members? Could someone purchase something in a nice secretary of commerce?

The colonel kicked.

Or perhaps rent a director of the FBI? Could a buyer be interested in a vice president? They were really very cheap. The last one sold out for cash in an envelope, bringing disgrace to a White House already full of it. Imagine a vice president selling out for only fifty thousand dollars in cash payoff. That brought shame to his office and his country. For fifty thousand dollars, one should get no more than a vice president of Greece. It was a disgrace to be able to buy an American vice president for so little.

Remo caught the kick.

But what could one expect from anyone who would write a book for money?

The colonel threw a kick with the other leg, which Remo caught, and returned the foot to the floor. The colonel sent a stroke that could crush brick at Remo's skull. Remo caught the hand and put it back at the colonel's side. Then came the other hand, and back it went too.

Perhaps, thought Remo, American Express or Master Charge might simply credit an account, or every freshman congressman would get one of the stickers of those credit agencies and attach it to his office door and when someone wanted to bribe him, he wouldn't have to carry cash out into the dangerous Washington streets, but just present his credit card and the congressman could take out one of those machines he would get when he swore to uphold the Constitution as he took office, and run through the briber's credit card and at the end of every month get his bribe through his own bank. Just bribing a congressman with cold cash was demeaning.