Warren Murphy: Terror Squad

"But that flies in the face of our ideology," Joan sputtered.

"As well it might," the yellow man said. "Because in this world, there is no ideology. There is only power. And power comes from life."

He stood up behind the small desk and leaned forward to Joan, who inexplicably recoiled in her seat. "I will share with you a secret," he said. "All these preparations, all these deaths, all have been undertaken with one purpose in mind. Not the glorification of some lunatic revolutionary ideal; not the bringing to power of unlettered savages whose unworthiness to rule is proven by their willingness to follow where ideology leads. Everything you and I have done has had only one purpose: the destruction of two men."

"Two men? You mean, Remo and the old . . . the old Oriental?"

"Yes. Remo, who would take unto himself the secrets of our ancient house, and Chiun, the elderly Oriental as you call him, who is the reigning Master of Sinanju and whose existence will always stand between me and my goals."

"I don't think that's revolutionary a bit." Joan Hacker sniffed. Suddenly she did not like this at all. It wasn't noble, like liberating an airplane or bombing an embassy. It was like murder.

"The man who wins can apply any labels he wishes," the yellow man said, his hazel eyes glinting. "Enough now. He will soon be here."

The fourth floor was empty and so was the third. Remo thought of the last time he had seen the museum, many years before. Remo was Just another faceless kid in a crowd of orphans, who had never seen anything. It was back before cultural enrichment was considered an alternative to learning to read and write, and it was only when the satire class had mastered reading and writing that the nuns agreed to take them to the museum. Then it had been packed and noisy, but today it was empty and still, cold drafts were sweeping down the high broad corridors and stairwells, and it seemed a fitting place for the legend of the dead animals to end.

Remo remembered how the entire class had suffered and waited while Spinky, the class idiot, had suffered through reading lessons until he finally grasped the concept of words. Every day had seemed like a month. Well, Spinky was long behind him now; so was Newark and the orphanage and his childhood. All that was left of the Remo who had been was a first name. Not even a face or a random fingerprint existed to say that he had been here. And now as he moved smoothly down the wide twisting flight of steps to the second floor, he thought he would trade in everything to be back in the orphanage, to be wearing one dollar surplus Army sneakers along these halls, instead of thirty-four-dollar leather tennis shoes.

He stopped in the middle of the last flight of steps. At the bottom stood a big black man, wearing a dashiki. He looked up at Remo with a smile, then began up the stairs. Remo backed up until he was on the landing, midway between the third and second floor,

Right. He thought so. Another big black man was heading down on him from the third floor.

"Howdy," Remo said. "Ah come to jine up with yo third world."

"Ave atque vale," one of the men said. "That mean, hail and farewell," the other said.

"Good," Remo said. "Now do you know the 'Whiffenpoof Song'? If you want, I'll hum a few bars. Let's see. Through the tables down at Morey's ... or is it to the tables. Anyway, it goes, la, da, da, da, to the place where Louie dwells. . . ." To their blank look, Remo said, "Don't know that one, huh? How about 'The Crawdad Song'? If you sing it, I'll yodel in the high spots."

Remo's back was now against the marble wall on the landing. It felt cold against his back, through his thin shirt, and he tensed his muscles against it, feeling them writhe against the stone.

Then the two big men were in front of him, and without warning, they fired heavy fists at his face. Remo paused, waited, then slid under the two punches. Rather than hit the wall with their fists, the men recoiled, but Remo was now between and behind them. He leaped into the air, and then flailed back with both elbows. Each elbow hit the back of a head, and the force of Remo's blows drove the faces forward into the unyielding cold marble. He heard two separate sets of cracks: one set as his elbows hit the men's skulls; the second set as their faces splashed and broke against the stone wall.

He stepped away without looking and heard them sink to the floor behind him. Then he was moving down the stairs again, three at a time.

At the bottom of the stairs, he stopped and then he heard it. Clap, clap, clap. A small and delicate round of applause. He looked to his left. Nothing. He moved to the right, following the sound, until he stood before the open doors leading to a large gallery. A broad balcony ran, around the gallery, overlooking the first floor. Standing in front of him, near the stairs that led down to the well of the gallery, was Joan Hacker. And with her. . . , Remo grinned. He had been right It was Nuihc.

He stopped clapping as him hazel eyes met Remo's deep brown ones.

"I knew it was you," Remo said.

"Did Chiun not tell you?" Nuihc asked.

Remo shook his head. "No. He has this funny idea that your name is not to be mentioned except in a funeral service. Something about your being a disgrace to his teaching and to him House."

"Poor old Chiun," Nuihc said. "In different times, in different circumstances, my father's brother would have been quite a man to know. But now, he is simply... well-out of it, to use your idiom."

Remo shook him head. "I have a hunch that the graveyards of the world are filled with men who decided that Chiun was out of it."

"Yes. But none of them are named Nuihc. None of them is blood of Chiun's blood. None of them is from the House of Sinanju. And none of them...."

"None of them is a traitor to his heritage; none of them the kind of animal who recruits these poor mindless things to murder and rape for him. Why, Nuihc? Why terrorism?" Remo asked.

Joan Hacker's eyes had followed their conversation as if it were a tennis match. Now she turned again from Remo, as Nuihc laughed. He leaned back against the marble railing and laughed heavily, a high piercing laugh that reminded Remo eerily of Chiun's high-pitched cackle. As he threw his head back, Remo could see behind him the cables holding the ninety-foot replica of the giant blue whale, largest animal ever to live on earth. The whale's shadow darkened the room.

"You still do not know, do you, white man?" Nuihc asked.

"Know what?" Remo said. And for the first time, he was uneasy.

"None of this has anything to do with terrorism. Did Chiun not tell you of the dog that barks and the dog that bites?"

"So?"

"So all the terrorism has been the dog that barks. The dog's bite was aimed at you and your aged friend. You two were the targets. Everything was aimed to that end. The plane whose hijackers insisted that they go to Los Angeles. That was so that I could be sure your government would call you in. The attack on the airport and the attack on the three colonels. Designed to bring you in closer and closer, deep into the target ring."

"It's one thing to name a target," Remo said. "It's another to hit it."

"But that is the beauty of it," Nuihc said. "You will hit it for me. You have no doubt dispatched poor Chiun to the United Nations, there to save the lives of diplomats whose lives are worthless. And there Chiun will do what Masters have been trained to do. He will move into and among the enemy. And then, too late, he will find that not the diplomats, but he himself, is the target." Without looking at the watch he wore on his delicate wrist, Nuihc said: "It is ten forty-two. We can watch if you wish."

He motioned to Joan Hacker, who stepped aside and turned on a small battery-operated television set which was propped on the marble raffing that ran around the balcony. The sound came on instantly-the roar of people chanting-and seconds later, the picture swirled on, showing the crowd milling about in front of the United Nations building, held back by squads of uniformed New York police.