Terror Squad Page 12

  She got up and turned to Remo again. “A dinosaur,” she said. “And just like all the dinosaurs that couldn’t accept change, you’re going to be dead.” Her voice was an angry hiss.

  “I’m going to wait for you,” Remo said. “Right here. We’re not done talking yet.”

  She stomped away from him and went into the backroom. Remo went to the counter at the front of the shop, sat on the stool nearest the door, and ordered coffee.

  But all hopes he had of hearing what went on behind the door were shattered as one of the customers put a quarter in the jukebox, and it began to blare out the music of a Latin band that sounded as if it had one hundred men on first trumpet

  Behind the door, Joan Hacker looked around the room, into the nut-brown faces of twenty-five young Puerto Ricans, swallowed and explained what she wanted.

  “Why you come to us?” one young man, with more medals and insignia than the others asked.

  “Because we’re told that you are tough and smart.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said, with a toothy grin, “we are toughs girl. That is because we are men. The men of the streets. And we are smart too. We understand that is why you did not get Negritos for this work.”

  She nodded, even though she felt it was not proper for them to feel that way about blacks. After all, they were part of the same Third World. Perhaps if she had more time, she could have made them see that they and the black men were brothers. But she did not have the time.

  Others around the room now were nodding, babbling. “Right. We smart. Not like the others.” Another said, “Damn right, we men. Lady, you want us to show you how much man we are?” Many of them chuckled; Joan felt their eyes on her thinly clad bosom and wished she had worn a jacket

  The leader said: “Do you have the money?”

  “I have half the money. The other half comes after,” she said.

  “And for this, we are to demonstrate at the United Nations tomorrow?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But no violence.”

  “That is much money, just to hold a parade,” he said cautiously.

  “There will be more, if your demonstration is big enough.” Joan Hacker thought of Remo sitting outside. “There is one other thing,” she said.

  “What is this one other thing?” the leader asked.

  When the door opened, Remo turned, expecting to see Joan Hacker. But again, the slim Puerto Rican was there. He looked around the room, his eyes lighted on Remo, and he said: “The girl wants you.”

  Remo hopped off the stool and followed the youth into the backroom. But inside, he saw that Joan Hacker had gone. There was a back door leading from the large meeting room. That door was now blockaded by ten youths. Remo felt a hand press between his shoulder blades and push. He allowed himself to be propelled forward into the middle of the floor. Behind him now were another dozen young men.

  “Where’s the girl?” Remo said, trying to sound inoffensive. “I thought you said she wanted to see me.”

  “When we are done with you,” the young leader said, “no one will ever again want to see you.”

  He looked around the room. “Who wants him?”

  There were shouts from both sides.

  “You, Carlo,” the leader said, and another youth, taller and huskier than the rest, stepped away from the rear door, his face split wide in a grin.

  He reached into a back pocket and brought out a black-handled knife, then pressed the button and a six-inch blade snapped forward into place, glinting white and shiny under the overhead fluorescent lights.

  He held the knife in front of him, holding it correctly, like the right hand on a golf club, and began to wave it back and forth in front of him.

  “You want him in big pieces or little pieces, El Jefe?” he asked.

  The leader laughed and while the others chuckled, he said: “Bite size chunks.”

  “Hold on a minute,” Remo said. “Don’t I get a knife too?”

  “No.”

  “I thought you guys believed in fair fights. How fair a fight is it if I don’t have a knife?”

  “You want a knife?” said the youth known as El Jefe, “You shall have a knife.” He snapped his fingers. “Juan. Your knife.” A tiny youth, no older than sixteen, handed him a knife from his pocket. El Jefe snapped it open, looked at its long blade, then turned and slipped the blade in the crack between the door and the jamb. Then he wrenched the handle to the left, snapping off the blade and leaving only the handle.

  He turned with a grin and tossed it to Remo. “Here, gringo. Here is your knife.”

  Remo plucked the handle out of the air. “Thanks,” he said. “That’ll do.” He curled the knife into his right fist

  “Go get him, Carlo!” shouted El Jefe. “Cut the maricon.”

  Carlo jumped into the attack like a fencer. Remo stood his ground. Only three feet separated them now. Carlo waved his knife back and forth in the slow hypnotic movements of a cobra, following the snake charmer’s flute.

  Then he lunged. He aimed the knife point at Remo’s solar plexus, and moved forward, knife, hand and arm. Remo moved aside, and as Carlo turned to cover, Remo’s left hand darted out and flicked off the bottom of Carlo’s right ear lobe.

  “Lesson number one,” Remo said. “Don’t lunge. Slash.”

  There was a collective sip of air around the room. Carlo felt the blood trickle down his neck. He went wild, jumping forward toward Remo, his knife slashing air back and forth. But then Remo was behind him, and as Carlo turned to him, Remo put his left thumb into Carlo’s cheekbone. The loud crack as the bone popped resounded through the room.

  “Lesson number two,” Remo said. “Don’t take your eyes off the target.”

  Carlo now was frantic, rage fighting with fear for possession of his body. With a scream, he raised his knife over head and ran at Remo, planning to plunge it down into Remo’s body.

  Remo stood his ground, but then as Carlo reached him, Remo went up into the air. His right arm, which he had not thus far used, went up over his head, and then the hand came down on the top of Carlo’s skull. The unbladed knife crashed against the top of Carlo’s head, and then the pressure carried the handle through the bone, and the knife was imbedded deep in his brain. Carlo staggered once, then fell to the floor.

  “Lesson number three,” Remo said. “Don’t screw around with me. I’m El Exigente, and I won’t buy your beans.”

  He walked to the front door, and the twelve Puerto Ricans scattered to let him pass through. As he walked out, Remo grabbed El Jefe by the windpipe and dragged him along behind him.

  In the street outside the coffee shop, El Jefe decided to tell Remo everything. The girl was obviously an idiot; she had agreed to pay two thousand dollars for The Gauchos to picket the United Nations tomorrow. No, they would not commit any violence. And no, if Senor did not want them to show up, they would not even show up, because maintaining the social order was more important than money to them.

  “Show up,” Remo said, gave El Jefe’s windpipe a squeeze of remembrance, and walked off down the street

  No point in looking for the girl; she had gotten away by now. But the main line tomorrow was to be an attack on the delegates; he and Chiun would be there to stop it.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE STREETS WERE ALREADY speckled black with dots of people as the sun rose over the East River.

  The United Nations building loomed cold and foreboding over the crowd, an architectural cigarette pack, but then the crowd warmed and came alive as the building’s black wedge of shadow raced backwards along the streets to rejoin the base of the building.

  The demonstrators were young—many blacks, many Puerto Ricans, but mostly white—all mindlessly carrying placards and signs.

  YOU CAN’T OUTLAW LIBERTY.

  WE’LL FIGHT FOR FREEDOM.

  And yes, Remo saw one marked, PEOPLE UNITED TO FIGHT FASCISM, and he recognized the sign wielder as one of The Gauchos he had played with yesterday.

  The an
ti-terrorist conference was scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. The few people who would get the seats in the gallery had already been herded behind ropes near the building’s main entrance. Still the mob of demonstrators continued to swell and surge out in front of the building in which men tried usually to keep peace in an unbalanced world, but today were to attempt the just-as-difficult task of outlawing hoodlumism on an international scale.

  Remo turned from the television set in disgust as the demonstrators spotted a camera on them and broke into an organized chant:

  Hey, hey, hey, hey.

  People’s wars won’t go away.

  Chiun smiled. “Something intrudes upon your sense of order?” he said.

  “Sometimes it seems we spend all our time trying to protect our country…”

  “Your country,” Chiun interjected.

  “My country from nit-nats. The politicians won’t let us build new jails, but how about one big asylum? That’d end most of our social problems.”

  “It would only start them,” Chiun said. “I remember once, many years ago…”

  “No, China, not again,” Remo said. “I’m filled up to here with typhoons, and with fat, and thin and dead animals, and dogs that bark and dogs that bite, and I just don’t need anymore.”

  “Have it your own way,” Chiun said mildly, returning his gaze to the television. “I suppose we must go out there today In the midst of all those lowlifes.”

  “Yes,” Remo said, “and we’ve got to leave soon. Somebody’s going to make an assassination try on the delegates; we’ve got to stop it”

  “I see you have not reconsidered your dismissal by Dr. Smith.”

  “We both know, Chiun, that that doesn’t work. I’m in this for life, whether Smith likes it or not.”

  “A strange kind of loyalty in which one disobeys his employer?”

  “My employer is the United States,” Remo said, “not Dr. Harold W. Smith.”

  Chiun shrugged. “I must have slept through the referendum in which two hundred million people expressed their confidence in you.”

  “It wasn’t necessary.”

  “Those two hundred million people do not even know you exist,” Chiun said. “Dr. Smith does; he pays your salary; you report to him; therefore he is your employer.”

  “Have it your own way. After this is over, we’ll file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.” Remo tumbled into a one-hand hand-stand against the far wall, and called upside down to Chiun: “C’mon. We’ve got to limber up.”

  “You limber up. I will watch and make comments.”

  But Chiun was silent as Remo went through almost an hour of gymnastics around the living room floor. Finally, he stopped and said: “Time to go. What makes it worse is that Smith is going to be skulking around, probably with six hundred agents. We’ve got to be careful we don’t knock off any of his men.”

  “It will be easy,” Chiun said. “Be on the lookout for the men wearing trench coats and carrying knives in their teeth.” He allowed himself a smile, as he followed Remo to the door.

  He watched Remo’s smooth glide approach to the door, and again he worried. Not for himself, but for Remo because the force against them was powerful enough to kill the young American who would one day be Master of Sinanju. And Remo should recognize that force, but he did not. Yet, if Chiun should tell him, Remo’s mistaken pride would force him to go onward, exposing himself to danger. As painful as it was, he must wait for Remo to find out himself.

  “Do you never wonder who is behind all this terrorism?” Chiun asked Remo.

  “I don’t have to wonder,” Remo said. “I know.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes,” Remo said. “It’s the dog who barks but sometimes bites, who will bite fat but prefers thin and who waits at the place of the dead animals for PUFF, the magic dragon.”

  “Let us hope he does not wait for you. Because while we protect these men today, nothing will be changed unless the one responsible for this is destroyed.”

  “That’s next,” Remo said.

  Chiun shook his head sadly and moved into the doorway. “It can never be next. It must always be now.”

  Remo started to answer but was interrupted by the telephone behind him.

  As Chiun waited at the doorway, Remo stepped back into the apartment to answer the call.

  A girl’s voice said, breathlessly, “Remo, you’ve got to come. This has all gotten out of hand.”

  “Joan,” Remo said. “Where are you?”

  “At the place of the dead animals. At the Mu…”

  And the phone went dead.

  Remo looked at the receiver for a moment, then slowly replaced it. It was the face-to-face he’d wanted. But where? And how? He turned to Chiun who saw the look of puzzlement on Remo’s face, and said gently: “It will come to you. It has been planned that way.”

  Remo just stared at him.

  On the other side and at the other end of town, Joan Hacker hung up the phone with a self-satisfied smile.

  “How did I do?” she asked.

  “Magnificently, my revolutionary flower.” The man who spoke was small and yellow-skinned. His voice was even and placid

  “Then you think I fooled him?”

  “No, my dear, of course you did not fool him. But that does not matter. He will come. He will come.”

  Remo and Chiun began the long walk uptown toward the United Nations Building. Remo tried to rebuild the girl’s words in his mind; twice he bumped into people on the street; twice Chiun clucked disapprovingly.

  They slowed down slightly as they heard the happy shouts of children playing in a playground. Remo turned to watch. A set of boy-girl twins were at the top of a large fiberglass slide. It was shaped like a brontosaurus, that biggest, fattest of prehistoric dinosaurs, and Remo noticed for the first time how perfectly its smooth sloping back had been designed for use as a slide. He smiled absently to himself, then looked again. Something about the shape of the slide; it was familiar; he had seen that shape in just that way before. Then it hit him—where Joan Hacker had called from, the place of the dead animals. And, for the first time, it also came to him who was behind the terrorists. Who it had to be.

  He stopped and put his hand on Chiun’s shoulder.

  “Chiun,” he said. “I know.”

  “And now you go?”

  Remo nodded. “You have to go on and protect the delegates to the conference.”

  Chiun nodded. “As you will. But remember, care. Yours is the dog that bites; the ones I seek only bark.”

  Remo squeezed Chiun’s’ shoulder and Chiun averted his eyes at the rare display of affection. “Don’t worry. Little Father. I’ll bring back victory in my teeth.”

  Chiun raised his eyes to meet Remo’s. “The last time the two of you met, I told you he was five years better than you,” Chiun said. “I was wrong. You are equal now.”

  “Only equal?” Remo asked.

  “Equal may be good enough,” Chiun said, “because he has fears that you do not have. Go, now.”

  Remo turned and moved away from Chiun, quickly, melting and disappearing into the early-morning work-bound crowd. Chiun watched him go, then said a silent prayer to himself. There were so many things that Remo must yet learn, and yet one could not coddle the next Master of Sinanju.

  Around the corner, Remo looked down the street. Every cab he saw had at least one head, and sometimes two in the back seat. Waiting for an empty might take forever.

  He moved to the corner and when one cab slowed to pass workmen who were digging up the street, he grabbed the doorhandle, pulled the door open and slipped into the back seat, onto the lap of a young woman carrying a model’s hat bag. She was beautiful, placid and serene and she said:

  “Hey, creep. Wotsa mattuh witcha?”

  “It’s good to know your beauty’s not just skin deep,” Remo said, as he leaned across her, opened the door on her side, and pushed her out into the street. He slammed the door again and said: “Museum
of Natural History and step on it”

  From the driver’s seat, P. Worthington Rosenbaum started to protest. Then, in the rearview mirror, he caught a glimpse of Remo’s eyes, and decided to say nothing.

  Remo sat back and thought of the Museum, which he had last visited on a bus trip from the Newark orphanage where he’d grown up. The square blocks of buildings. The floor after floor of exhibits. The glass cases showing different forms of life in their native habitat. And the room where the dinosaurs were. The brontosaurus with the playground-slide back. Tyrannosaurus with his foot-long teeth. Exact skeletal reproductions of the animals as they had been when they lived.

  Joan Hacker had tried to tell him yesterday when she told him he was a dinosaur. She had been trying to tip him, but he was too dumb to grasp it.

  And the call today was another put-up job, to try to get him there.

  Well, now, Remo had an edge. The man who was behind it all had wanted Remo to come; but he could not be sure that Remo was coming. Surprise might be on Remo’s side.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THERE WAS SOMETHING WRONG with the entire thing, Chiun thought, as he moved speedily, but not even seeming to move, through the crowd milling around at the United Nations building.

  There had been too much advertising of the attack upon the delegates to the anti-terrorist conference. Too many people knew. Dr. Smith knew and in his present state that might mean that half the people in the United States government knew. Remo knew. Chiun knew. That poor, simple girl knew.

  It was not the way the thing should have been done. For was it not one of the precepts of Sinanju that the ideal attack must be quiet, merciless and unexpected? And this one violated all those rules, but especially the most important one—being unexpected. If one wished to assassinate the delegates to an anti-terrorist conference, one did not wait until they were assembled behind the protective screen of thousands of policemen and special agents and what have you. One assassinated them in their beds, upon planes, in taxicabs, in restaurants, all more or less upon a given signal. The Americans had a proverb for it too, although he thought it might have been Korean: do not put all your eggs in one basket.