Summit Chase Read online

  But his instinct told him something else. It called something from deep inside his memory and he remembered a voice once telling him that “one should consider the bamboo. It is neither thick nor sturdy. Yet, when come the winds that fell the trees, the bamboo laughs and survives.”

  This old man in front of him was the bamboo. He could feel the vibrations; they were strong and strange, and he knew the old man felt them too, that those vibrations would add up to a fight that P.J. Kenny would never forget. If he survived it.

  He rocked up onto his toes. Then he heard a sound behind him, and he wheeled and faced the door, somehow totally unconcerned about any need to protect his back against the old man. The door pushed open and Maggie stepped in.

  She was wearing a light blue dress with nothing under it, and Remo took her by the shoulder.

  “I thought I told you to wait.”

  “I was worried,” she said.

  “There’s nothing to worry about. Now go back to the room.” He moved to usher her out and he felt her small shoulder bag slap against her leg. There was more weight in it than there should be; he gauged the weight as just about the right amount for a .32 caliber automatic.

  He marched her out into the hall and called over his shoulder, “You wait here, mister.” Remo walked Maggie back to the room and pushed her inside roughly. “Now you wait here, this time,” he said, and his voice allowed no appeal.

  He slammed the door angrily behind him and started back down the hall to Room 2527. He wondered if the chink would still be there, and somehow he knew the chink would be there.

  He was there, standing still as a statue, waiting, the wisp of smile playing around his mouth. Remo closed the door behind him and suddenly was moved by pity for the old man. He was so old.

  “All right, old man, you’re coming with me,” Remo said.

  “And where are we going?”

  “That’s none of your business. But when your friend Williams finds out, he’ll come after you. And then I’ve got you both.”

  “You have always been a master of logic,” the old man said. He smiled, remembering that beautiful passage in the Western Bible where God orders Abraham to kill his son.

  Chiun was not Abraham; he would not have refused. He was glad that the Gods had heard his prayers and that he would not have to kill Remo.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  IN THE LOBBY, REMO STEERED Chiun through the phalanxes of gunmen and bodyguards, who looked at the unlikely pair with curious eyes.

  Since last night, some of them had obviously gotten word that P.J. Kenny was in the hotel and some surmised that this dude in the tennis shoes might be him, because they took great pains to avert their eyes and look elsewhere when Remo and Chiun passed.

  The old man allowed himself to be led quietly outside, which was good for him, Remo told himself. Remo got behind the wheel of the Porsche and began driving off toward the edge of the city and the road that twisted up to Nemeroff’s castle.

  Next to him, Chiun chuckled.

  “What’s so funny, old man?”

  “It is a lovely day for a drive. I thought we might go to the zoo.”

  “If you think this is a pleasure trip, you’re in for a surprise,” Remo said. “As soon as Williams comes for you, zzzzt! The two of you get it.”

  “What have we done to deserve such a fate at your hands?” Chiun asked.

  “Nothing personal, old man. My boss, Baron Nemeroff, says you go, so you go. That’s it.”

  “And of course, like a good assassin, you must do your duty?” Chiun asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Good,” said Chiun. “I believe you have more character than Remo Williams. He is always letting sentiment interfere with his work.”

  “That’s too bad for him,” said the man who thought he was P.J. Kenny. “There’s no room for sentiment in this business.”

  “How true. How true. And what weapons have you reserved for our demise?”

  “I haven’t decided yet,” Remo said. “Generally, I work with my hands.”

  “Very pure,” Chiun said. “Purity is the essence of the art. I never liked this Remo Williams anyway. May I give you a hint as to his weakness?”

  “Hint away,” Remo said.

  “Hit him in his gross American mouth.”

  “Can’t take it in the face, huh?” Remo said.

  “Probably his mouth will be filled with all kinds of forbidden foods. Sweetnesses and alcohols and meats with blood.”

  “Nothing wrong with those things,” Remo said. “What else would he eat?”

  “Why not rice? Why not fish?” Chiun asked.

  “Hey,” Remo said. “I had that last night for dinner. It wasn’t very good. I don’t even know why I ordered it.”

  “You would think so, my son,” Chiun said in disgust. “Tell me of the assassin’s life. Is it rewarding? Why do you do it?”

  “I do it for the money. It’s just a job.”

  “I see. And the money? Is it adequate?”

  “It’s more than adequate,” Remo said. “I’m a rich man.”

  “I am sure you are,” Chiun said. “Rich, not only in possessions but in purity of spirit. Your mother must be proud of you.”

  “I think you’re on the snot, old man, for some reason I don’t know,” Remo said. “So why don’t you just zipper your face.”

  “I am sorry, my son. It must be my nerves, stretched to the breaking point in terror at the thought of death at the hands of the one and only P.J. Kenny.” Chiun cackled like a chicken, in high good humor.

  “Shut up a minute, will you?” Remo said. “We’re being tailed.” He kept his eyes on the rearview mirror as he moved into the outskirts of the city, varying his speed. Sure. There was a black Jaguar on his tail, keeping up with him, sometimes right behind him, sometimes letting a car or two slide between them. He made a left turn and slowed. Seconds later, the Jaguar made the same left turn and dodged into a parking spot to hide, but the driver had gotten close enough to be seen.

  It was Maggie.

  “Now what the hell’s she doing following us?” Remo said.

  “Perhaps she heard you were going to give a demonstration of your killing prowess,” Chiun suggested sweetly. “The whole countryside may come to watch you dispatch me and my poor friend, Remo.”

  “I’ll give them their money’s worth,” Remo said.

  “A noble ambition, my son. One I have attempted to follow all my life.”

  “Three cheers and a tiger for you. I always knew you Chinamen were smart.”

  “I am a Korean,” Chiun informed him, haughtily.

  “Same thing,” Remo said. “Kissing cousins anyway.”

  “To have a Chinese for a cousin would make the strongest stomach ill. To kiss one would be beyond revulsion.”

  “Well, that’s your hangup,” Remo said. “I always kind of dug their women.”

  “Yes,” Chiun said. “You would.”

  Remo tooled the car, crisscrossing, in and out of the narrow streets of the old Mustapha quarter of the city, until he was sure that he had lost the Jaguar.

  Nemeroff had told him the girl was a British agent, but he had not told him to kill her. And until that word came, the man who thought he was P.J. Kenny wanted to keep Maggie alive, for personal reasons.

  He glanced in the mirror again as the Porsche whizzed up the hillside, heading out of the city. The road behind him was clear, so he tromped on the gas pedal and headed for Nemeroff’s castle. Today was the big day. The top level meeting of gangland with Nemeroff. The announcement that he would be the man running the show in Scambia. He wanted to be there for that.

  · · ·

  At the castle, Nemeroff was bidding goodbye to a visitor.

  He stood on the roof, under the gently revolving blades of a helicopter and clasped Vice President Asiphar’s hand in both of his.

  “I trust you have enjoyed your visit, my vice president,” he said.

  Asiphar’s black face broke in
to a broad grin. “Very enjoyable, Baron.”

  “I know that your pleasure was shared by your companions.”

  “They will not forget me,” Asiphar said.

  Nemeroff privately agreed. The two girls Asiphar had used would remember him forever. They would remember him on their trip into total drug addiction, and they would remember him as they were pressed into service in the cheapest of brothels. Perhaps—sometime—they would question their memories and ask if it had happened: if they had really stayed in a castle; if they had been mistresses of a man who became president of a country. But when they mentioned it, they would be laughed at and they would one day stop mentioning it. But they would always remember it. So would Nemeroff; he had television tapes of their performance.

  He thought these things as he wished Asiphar godspeed.

  “Return to the palace now,” he said. “And await our arrival. Within forty-eight hours, you shall be president. Within forty-eight hours, the world will know your name and begin to feel your power.”

  Asiphar smiled again, noontime teeth in a midnight face and then clambered heavily up the steps to the helicopter’s front seat, the plane rocking as he climbed aboard, and strapped himself in for the ten-minute flight back to Scambia.

  · · ·

  The helicopter was vanishing in the distance when Remo drove up the dirt road, leading to Nemeroff’s castle.

  The guards at the sentry post stepped in front of his car, and it skidded to a stop. The guards aimed their rifles at Remo and dogs chained to the sentry boxes began to snarl and pull at their bonds, to get at the car.

  Remo rolled down his window and said to the nearest guard:

  “Come on, for Christ’s sake, you know the car.”

  “I know the car,” the guard said, “but I don’t know you. What’s your name?”

  “P.J. Kenny.”

  “And the old geezer?”

  “My prisoner.”

  The guard went back into the sentry box and picked up a telephone. While he called, Remo looked at the dogs. They had stopped snarling, and their snouts were lifted in the air. They sniffed the air, delicately, questioningly. Then they both lay down quietly, shivering, whimpering.

  “What happened to the dogs, I wonder?” Remo said to Chiun.

  “They know the hour of the cat is near,” Chiun said softly.

  “The hour of the cat? And who is the cat?” Remo asked.

  Chiun turned slowly and met his eyes, and then he smiled. “You will soon find out,” he said.

  The guard replaced the phone and came back to Remo’s side of the car. “All right, Kenny. You can go through. The baron’s expecting you.”

  “Thanks for nothing,” Remo said.

  “Hey,” the guard said, “what the hell’d you do to spook these dogs?”

  Remo said: “It’s almost the hour of the cat. Didn’t you know?”

  The guard said, “If there’s any cat around here, they’ll tear it apart and you better believe it.”

  Then Remo was gone, his car scratching gravel behind him. In the rearview mirror, he saw the guards follow him with their eyes, and the dogs lying still, still cowering, frightened.

  Remo pulled into the broad veranda area that served as Nemeroff’s parking lot. Already half a dozen cars were there, all black Mercedes limousines identical to the one Namu had first picked up Remo in. The baron’s visitors had started to arrive.

  Remo left the car in front of the steps, got out, and motioned Chiun to follow. The old man slipped out of the car and slowly followed Remo up the broad stone stairs, his feet under his brocaded blue robe, shuffling softly on the steps.

  Nemeroff was seated on the edge of the patio, eating, alone and he waved at Remo who nodded.

  “Will you join me at breakfast?” he asked.

  “No thanks.”

  “Who is this man?”

  “This is one of the men you wanted. Chiun.”

  “I wanted him dead,” Nemeroff said, chewing on the end of a cinnamon roll.

  Remo nodded. “He’s as good as dead whenever you want him dead. But I brought him here to try to get his partner, this Williams, to follow. He must be hiding somewhere. There’s no sign of him yet.”

  Nemeroff considered this as he chewed. Before he spoke, he was interrupted by the ring of the telephone at his side.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I see. All right.”

  He hung up the telephone and turned a smile on Remo.

  “Already, your plan has borne fruit. The guards have captured an agent on the grounds.”

  “Good,” Remo said. “Maybe it’s Williams.” He turned to Chiun. “Still think it’s going to be the hour of the cat, old man?”

  Chiun said softly, “The cat has not yet unsheathed its claws.”

  Nemeroff clapped his hands and a ferret-faced man in a white suit appeared on the balcony.

  “Accompany Mr. Kenny as he brings this man to our…visitors’ quarters,” he said. The man smiled and said, “Yes, sir.”

  “And prepare for other guests,” Nemeroff added.

  The guard turned into the building and Remo grabbed Chiun’s arm, following him through the study, into the hallway, past the hidden elevator and to a flight of steps in the back of the building.

  The steps were damp and musty; the walls were stone and they sweated. The steps zigzagged back and forth, through four landings, until they were in a dungeon deep underground, below the level of Nemeroff’s armory.

  The steps opened into a narrow passageway, bordered oil each side by heavy wooden doors that had heavy steel locks. The doors were open; the cells stood empty. There were no windows and the only illumination came from bare overhead light bulbs, glittering yellow in the musky air.

  “Am I to stay here?” asked Chiun.

  “Afraid so, old man,” Remo said.

  “I will catch my death of cold.”

  “You’ll be gone before the first sniffle,” Remo said. “I promise.”

  “You are always thoughtful.”

  The guard led them down the dank passageway, the moisture on the stone floor muffling their steps. He stood aside to let Chiun pass, then placed a hand on the old man’s shoulder to push him into the last cell on the right.

  The guard pushed, but nothing happened. It was as if he had leaned against a wall. He pushed again. Chiun turned toward him.

  “Restrain your hands, ferret-faced one,” he said.

  “Abuse I take from the fearsome P.J. Kenny, but you take no such liberties.”

  He turned his back then on the surprised guard and stepped into the cell. It held a narrow wooden cot with a limp, springless mattress. There was a sink and a toilet.

  “All the comforts of home,” Remo said, standing in the door.

  “Thank you,” said Chiun. “I will remember you with fondness.”

  “Now why don’t you try telling me where Williams is?”

  “He is near,” Chiun said. “He is near.”

  Remo heard footsteps coming down the corridor toward them and turned. Along the passageway came Nemeroff, pushing Maggie Waters along in front of him, towering over her in the dim light of the dungeon like some powerful monster from a dream.

  He pushed Maggie with one last thrust and she fell against Remo.

  “You look surprised, Mr. Kenny,” Nemeroff said. “She is the agent that was captured on the grounds.”

  “I didn’t think she had followed me,” he said. To Maggie, he said: “A British agent? And I thought you just wanted me for my body.” She refused to look up and buried her head against her blue short dress.

  Maggie did something very unagentlike. She began to weep.

  Nemeroff pushed her again, this time into the reach of the guard. “Put her in a cell,” he said, “and make her comfortable.” The guard smirked.

  He pushed Maggie in the cell opposite Chiun’s. She staggered to the middle of the floor, then stood there quietly. Slowly, she lifted her head until she was standing proudly erect
.

  “Attagirl, kid. Keep a stiff upper lip,” Remo called.

  She turned to him with a look of total hatred. The guard meanwhile had taken manacles down from a hook on the wall. He snapped a pair on her wrists, and then another pair around her ankles.

  All the while, he talked, a soliloquy to himself.

  “The little lady’s going to like this. Englishwomen always like to show off. The little lady’s going to get a chance. To show off everything. Will the little lady like that?”

  He kept talking as he took from the same wall hook, a short length of chain with a padlock hung open on its end. “Wait till the little lady sees what I’ve got planned for her. The little lady’s going to be proud to show off the merchandise, isn’t she?”

  He grabbed the cuffs around Maggie’s wrists and pulled her toward the back wall of the cell. Imbedded in the stone floor was a large iron ring, and the guard pressed Maggie’s upper body downward, until her wrists were near the ring. Then he looped the chain through the wrist manacles, under the ring, through the chains on Maggie’s ankles, and fastened it with the padlock.

  “Does little lady like that?” he said. Maggie was facing the rear wall now, bent over from the waist as if trying to touch her toes during her morning exercises. Her short skirt had ridden up over her buttocks, and she wore no undergarments, and Remo could almost sense her embarrassment at the view her jutting posterior gave to the men behind her.

  The guard still talked. “Little lady going to be nice to her friends, isn’t she?” and he rubbed his hand down one soft buttock.

  Nemeroff turned to Remo. “You have enjoyed her. Perhaps I shall give my men that same opportunity before she is sent to her death.” He turned again to look at Maggie. “An inviting target, is it not?”

  The man who thought he was P.J. Kenny grinned. “I’ve scored some bulls-eyes on that range,” he said.

  “And now our Chinese friend,” Nemeroff said, turning toward Chiun who still stood motionless in the center of the cell. “Bind him also,” he told Remo.

  Remo approached Chiun and led him to the ring in the back of the cell. The old man did not resist, and he showed no interest when Remo pulled down the manacles and chains from the wall. Instead, Remo could heard him talking under his breath.