Unite and Conquer td-102 Read online

  His deadly nails retreating into the slaves of his kimono, the Master of Sinanju turned to address his pupil. "Your way would not have worked. He would have taken you as his next form."

  "How do you know what my way was going to-"

  Chiun smiled tightly. "Persons of correct fingernail length know all."

  Remo knelt by the mash of metal. It was not moving. It didn't look like anything so much as sliced and mashed slag.

  "I think he's down for the count."

  "Of course. Nothing can withstand the Knives of Eternity."

  "But I won't be satisfied until nothing is left. There's gotta be a way to make sure." And while they were thinking it through, a groan sounded behind them.

  Winston Smith lay on the rain-soaked ground, his face buried in one arm. He pounded the ground again and again and again with his fist, and he only stopped when Remo came over and knelt down.

  "This is the way the business goes sometimes," Remo told him in a quiet voice.

  They stood over him until he had cried himself out and was ready to pick up the shattered remnants of his life.

  The rain stopped before he did.

  WOODENLY Winston Smith set his feet on the pedals and took the blood-sticky collective in his hands. They had wiped the inside of the cockpit with rags until the red was only pink. He could see enough to fly. That was sufficient. Nothing else mattered.

  They flew north. Remo sat in the passenger seat, his face grim. In his lap he held a mass of metal.

  In the back the Master of Sinanju sat on his steamer trunk, legs folded modestly under the flowing skirts of his kimono.

  Beside him, wrapped in a shroud made of parachute silk, was a long red bundle. Winston didn't look at it. He couldn't. He just looked ahead, where a plume of smoke hung on the mountainous horizon.

  Mount Popocatepetl still smoked. The smoke was grayish now. The crater smoldered red and angry as the chopper neared.

  "Make a pass over it," said Remo.

  Winston nodded. He had the bird near its operating ceiling.

  Remo opened the cockpit door and held the metallic lump out. As they crossed over the crater, he let go.

  The lump dropped straight down, and through the thin gray haze there came a distinct flare as it splashed into the simmering bowl of lava.

  "Go around again," said Remo.

  Winston brought the clattering ship around while the Master of Sinanju tenderly passed the silkwrapped bundle to Remo. He refused to look at it.

  The cockpit door was still open. Remo held the bundle in his lap until it was time. The blistering heat of the crater came up to fill the cockpit interior, drying everything that was wet.

  Then Remo dropped it down.

  Tumbling, it fluttered like a bird. At the last second before it struck, the silk pulled away, showing the only recognizable part of what was left of Assumpta Kaax of the Benito Juarez Liberation Front. Her long, lustrous black hair.

  Winston gripped the controls tightly and closed his eyes.

  "Sorry, kid," Remo said. "Sometimes the book ends this way."

  Winston nodded stiffly. "One last thing."

  "What's that?"

  Winston tossed his Hellfire pistol into Remo's lap. Around it was wrapped the black ski mask of the Extinguisher.

  "Get rid of that stupid thing."

  "Whatever you say," said Remo, giving the ungainly weapon a casual toss. It zoomed out, then down, landing with striking precision into the crater.

  Winston choked back a sob. "Let's get the hell out of here."

  "Make for the border," said Remo.

  "What's up there that I should care about?"

  "Your future-if you want one."

  Winston pushed on the collective, and the chopper put Smoking Mountain and Mexico behind it forever.

  Chapter 54

  Sunny Joe Roam heard the helicopter in the distance. He came out of his hogan, his windburned face tense.

  He called out to his Sun On Jo braves, who were pitching pennies against a giant saguaro cactus.

  "Anybody expecting company?"

  No one did. So he set his white Stetson on his head and loped up to the settling chopper on his long, denim-clad legs.

  A man stepped out of the cockpit. He was young and blond, and there was something familiar about his eyes, but Sunny Joe couldn't place him.

  On the other hand, the two other figures were very familiar. A warmth broke over the sandstone lines of his face.

  He raised his booming voice. "Remo! Chief! What brings you two back to the reservation?"

  Remo waved without much spirit. Their smiles did not light in return. Frowning, Sunny Joe quickened his pace.

  "What's wrong?"' he asked as the rotor finished winding down.

  Remo shook his hand. "It's a long story. I have a favor to ask."

  "Ask away."

  Remo set a hand on the shoulder of the young blond man. "This is Winston Smith."

  "Howdy."

  The boy frowned with all of his face. "Don't call me Smith. It's not my real name."

  "This is my son," said Remo.

  The boy looked uncomfortable. "I won't fight it if you won't," he muttered to Remo.

  "No one's exactly in a hurry to match up DNA, so we're operating on pure rumor," Remo explained.

  Sunny Joe's sunsquint eyes blinked several time. "Damned if you don't have your grandmother's eyes."

  Winston asked, "Who?"

  "My wife. Long gone now."

  "Who are you?"

  Sunny Joe eyed Remo. "You didn't tell him, Remo?"

  "Tell me what?" Winston demanded.

  "If you're his son, I'm your grandfather," said Sunny Joe Roam.

  "You? You're an Indian!"

  "Got news for you," said Remo. "So are you. Get used to it."

  "I can't be an Indian."

  "Let me talk to you alone for a minute," Remo told Sunny Joe. They walked off together.

  As they did, Winston Smith looked at the Master of Sinanju. "That big guy looks kinda familiar."

  "He is a very famous actor."

  "He is?"

  "Yes."

  "Looks like a big Indian to me."

  "He is that, too," Chiun said.

  REMO FINISHED TELLING his story. "I have no right to ask this, but the kid's been through a rough time. He was raised to think his parents were dead. He's only starting to get an idea who he really is. He's confused, needs a home and someone to steer him along until he figures out where his life is going."

  "You want me to take him off your hands, is that it?"

  "I know this is kinda sudden," Remo said sheepishly.

  "That's a rabbity way to put it."

  "All he's ever known is military schools and the navy, war and violence. I won't want him to take the path I did. Teach him the ways of peace, Sunny Joe. He needs a lot of peace right about now."

  "Think he'll go for it?"

  Remo looked back at the Master of Sinanju and Winston silhouetted against the Gila Mountains of the Sonoran Desert. They were talking animatedly.

  "I don't see he has much choice."

  "Well, the way I see it, Remo, I never did exactly right by you. I guess I kinda owe you an upbringing. Since it's a mite late for that where you're concerned, I guess I can pay the debt to the next generation."

  "Thanks, Sunny Joe."

  "Don't mention it, son."

  They walked back.

  REMO PUT THE OPTION to Winston Smith.

  "No one will find you here. You won't have to worry about the navy or Harold Smith or any of it."

  Winston scratched his head. "I don't know.... This is sort of weird. What kind of Indian am I supposed to be?"

  "A Korean one," said Chiun.

  "Sun On Jo," said Sunny Joe.

  "Never heard of them. I was hoping I was a Cheyenne or at least a Sioux."

  "We're not warriors," Sunny Joe explained. "Fighting isn't our way."

  "I've seen my share of fighting. I want to do so
mething different." Winston's ice blue eyes scoured the vast, arid expanse of the Sun On Jo Reservation. "Where's the chief?"

  "Dead. I'm the Sunny Joe of the tribe. It's sort of a protector. The name's Bill Roam."

  "Roam. Roam. I know that name ...."'

  Sunny Joe grunted. "I did a little acting in my time."

  "Hey, I know you now! You're Muck Man! I saw every one of those pictures."

  "That's right. But my Muck Man days are behind me now."

  Remo spoke up. "So what it's going to be?"

  Winston Smith looked around. "I could give it a shot, I guess. You got horses here?"

  "Can you ride?" asked Sunny Joe.

  "No. But I can learn."

  "I'll teach you, then."

  "Not so fast. Got TV?"

  "All you want. But I have to warn you in advance-no squaws. You start hankering to take a wife, you'll have to look beyond these parts."

  "I'm in no rush in that department," Winston said quietly.

  "Good. It's settled." Sunny Joe put a big arm around Winston's shoulder. "So what do I call you?"

  "Big Chief Pain in the Butt, if you ask me," said Remo.

  Winston gave a thumb's-up sign. "Call me Winner. I'll come up with a last name later."

  "Well, come on, Winner. Let's get you settled in." Sunny Joe looked to Remo and Chiun. "What about you two? Planning on staying a spell?"

  "Can't," said Remo. "Gotta get back."

  "We will stay long enough to pay our respects," inserted Chiun. "Important work calls us. But we will not be rude."

  "We'll catch up," said Remo. "I left something in the chopper."

  "Suit yourself. Come on, Winner, let me tell you some tall tales of my wild and wooly days in Hollywood."

  Winston held back. His eyes met Remo's. They were full of pain and questioning. Deep behind these stormy emotions was a shine of gratitude.

  "Thanks. I can't thank you enough," he said awkwardly.

  "Don't mention it," said Remo.

  They started walking away. Then Sunny Joe remembered something. "Hey, Remo."

  Remo turned. "Yeah?"

  "Got any more offspring I should know about?"

  Eyeing Winston, Remo said, "Tell you about that some other time."

  Winston looked startled. "What's that supposed to mean? Don't tell me I have a brother! Do I have a brother? What's his name. Does he look like me?"

  "Later," said Remo. To Sunny Joe, he said, "Swap you a used helicopter for a lift into town?"

  "I might see my way clear to that."

  THAT EVENING, Remo was loading Chiun's lacquered trunk with the lapis lazuli phoenixes into the back of a Mazda Navajo jeep. The moon rose over the sandstone hump called Red Ghost Butte, washing the Sonoran Desert in a silvery wash of light.

  "Well, that's that. Gordons will never bother us again, Verapaz is a bad memory and, according to the news, Mexico is picking up the pieces. And the kid has a good home. There's only one last thing."

  Chiun lifted a thin eyebrow. "And that is?"

  "What's in this freaking trunk?"

  Chiun lifted his bearded chin resolutely. "That is for me to know and you to find out."

  "In other words, I'm doomed to lug this thing around for you until I break down and shit-can my nail clippers?"

  Chiun smiled. "Yes."

  "Never happen."

  "When the suspense becomes unendurable, we speak of this matter again."

  "Until then, do me a favor?"

  "What is that, my son?"

  "Next Father's Day, remind me to send Sunny Joe a card."

  "If you fail to send one to me, who is your father in spirit, great will be your shame."

  "Count on it." They climbed into the jeep. "Hey!" Remo said. "I wonder if I'll get one, too."

  "You should live so long," sniffed the Master of Sinanju.

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