Dangerous Games td-40 Read online

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  "Strong, but no brains," Remo told Josie. She laughed.

  Masters pushed the barbells at Remo. Josie's sharp intake of breath echoed in the hushed gymnasium. Remo bent slightly and with a flick of a wrist, assisted the weights hi sailing over his head. The barbell bit on the floor with a jangling crash.

  "Bad throw, big mouth," said Remo. Masters's face reddened. He yanked up another weight, this one loaded at 200 pounds. He got it to his chest and began to walk toward Remo.

  "Chuck, stop it," Josie shouted. "Stop it."

  "Here. Try this one on for size," Masters said.

  Remo said to Josie, "No brains. He even talks like a comic book."

  Remo turned back in time to watch the 200 pounds of weight leave Masters's hand and sail through the air toward him. He smiled slightly as he reached out his right hand and caught the barbell with it and held it there, straight out in front of him with one hand.

  Masters's eyes goggled.

  "What the-"

  "My turn, bigmouth. I'll pitch, you catch."

  "Now, listen-" Masters started but it was too late. To him it looked as if Remo had simply opened his hand but the barbell was coming back at him. Fast. He snapped his hands up to his chest to protect himself. Masters caught the barbell awkwardly in both hands but the force of Remo's toss pushed him back and down and as he bit the floor, the barbell slipped out of his hands and off his chest and rolled upward so that it straddled his neck, pressing lightly on his Adam's apple.

  "Take this off me," Masters pleaded. But instead, Remo stepped up onto the bar, his feet on either side of Masters's chin. The slight pressure of his weight bent the center of the bar slightly and it bellied down

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  even more against Masters's throat. The blond man screamed.

  "Do yourself a favor," Remo said coldly. "Don't ever come near us again." He felt himself almost shiver with anger and quickly he turned back toward Josie.

  "Curfew," he told her. "We'd better go."

  "What about him?" she asked. There was fright in her eyes as she looked at Remo, as if she were seeing him for the first tune.

  "Leave him. He'll get it off when he stops panicking. Don't worry about him."

  He led her to the gymnasium door. At the exit, she looked back at Masters, but Remo pulled her outside. They walked to her hotel in Copley Square without saying a word to each other. Remo knew what was wrong. He had changed during those few moments with Chuck Masters, and Josie had caught a glimpse of a different Remo and she was confused and perhaps frightened. Remo did not try to speak to her. He didn't know how he could tell her that it was only her presence that had kept Masters alive to pester someone else another day. He simply left the Indian girl at her door and told her he would see her in Moscow. And continue her balance beam lessons.

  Chiun was waiting for Remo when he got back to his own room. He was pacing the floor.

  "Where were you?" he demanded.

  "I broke training," Remo said.

  "So. This is how it starts. Five minutes late now. Ten minutes tomorrow. Soon you will be staying out to all hours of the night, coming home looking like something the cat does doo-doo in, and there goes my gold medal."

  "Your gold medal?"

  "Yes," Chiun said, without acknowledging Remo's sarcasm. "My gold medal. My endorsements. My fame. The security for my old age."

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  "Get off my case," Remo said. "That creep from the race, that blond guy, pestered me."

  "And what did you do?"

  "I just played with him a little."

  "You did well. I do not know it I could have been that lenient with him. There was a time when you would not be so lenient either."

  Remo realized that Chiun missed nothing.

  "Is there something you wish to tell me?" Chiun asked.

  "No, Little Father, I just want to sleep."

  "As you wish. Emperor Smith is pleased. Arrangements are being made for Moscow. Go to sleep. Athletes, even those blessed with brilliant trainers, need to rest."

  "Good night," Remo said. He went to bed, thinking that in Moscow, he would tell Chiun about Josie Littlefeather, who had made this assignment for Remo a very important, very personal matter.

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  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Fires crackled in big holes dug into the sandy shore. Droplets of flame splashed into the night air as fat from the pigs turning on spits over the fires spattered down into the pits, caught aflame and flared upward.

  Drums and bamboo flutes inserted sensuous melodies into the night and a dozen girls in tight, one-piece wraps danced back and forth across the white sand, plying large circles around three men who sat on the sand on tufted mats, watching the women with appreciation.

  The biggest of the three men was Sammy Wanenko, who, along with the other two athletes, would represent his South Pacific island country of Baruba in the Moscow Olympic Games.

  The hour neared midnight and soon the king of Baruba would select the three winners in the dancing competition. The three chosen women would spend the night with the three Olympic-bound athletes.

  The island-country's custom was that all women of child-bearing age, whether married or not, must compete in the dance competition, and the hundreds of women had been narrowed down to these twelve finalists. The custom had just been invented, since this was Baruba's first Olympics, the country only recently having been accepted into the United Nations.

  Baruba's membership had come after a week of debate. The non-aligned bloc in the UN demanded that Baruba change its name to the People's Demo-

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  cratic Republic of Baruba, which the king agreed to after being assured that the name had nothing to do with democracy, but was merely a way for Communist dictatorships to recognize each other.

  The second requirement for membership was that the king of Baruba had to issue a statement, which would be written for him, attacking the United States for its colonial, imperialistic, warmongering policies toward the Baruban people. The king had no trouble with this since he had never met an American, had only the vaguest idea where America was, and had been cautioned that if he didn't, the United States might sneak into his country some night and steal all the pineapples.

  The third requirement for UN membership was that the delegate to the United Nations refrain from showing up at the sessions of that international body with a bone in his nose. The foreign minister was reluctant to agree to this because he felt undressed without a bone in Ms nose, but he was mollified when the king promised him that he could wear a shell necklace instead and it would be the biggest shell necklace that anyone in Baruba had ever worn including the king.

  There was a fourth potential requirement but it was voted down by the United Nations general assembly as racist, imperialist, Zionist-stoogeist and war-mongerist. This was the tart suggestion of the British delegate that the Barubans stop eating each other.

  So on a warm Tuesday, the Peoples' Democratic Republic of Baruba was admitted to the United Nations. On Wednesday, its UN representative made a speech, written for him by the Russians, attacking the United States as racist. On Thursday, Baruba filed a request-written by the Russians-with Washington, asking for reparations for psychological damage suffered by the Barubans because of the im-

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  perialist Vietnam war. And on Friday night, they held a dancing contest to see which three women would sleep with the three Olympic-bound athletes. The three athletes enjoyed watching the dancing girls and Sammy Wanenko particularly liked watching a young girl named Lonie who was married to an older man who had been unable to compete for the honor of going to the Olympics because of his age. Baruba's king had decided the country would send only its very best athletes. He set the cutoff age for competition at twenty-one, which he said was the prime of life. The king was twenty-one.

  Lonie had been casting longing eyes at Sammy for the last six months, every time their paths crossed on the small island. She was seventeen and ripe bu
t Sammy had stayed away from her, respecting her status as a married woman. But now, he knew that when she won the dancing competition she would be his.

  An hour later, the king presented her to Sammy for the night. Eyes downcast in shyness, she was about to walk off with the athlete when a voice rang out from the fringes of the smiling crowd. "No!"

  Hundreds of heads turned, their smiles instantly frozen on their faces. A large man with muscled sloping shoulders, large rippling arms, and short powerful bull-like legs stepped out of the darkness at the edge of the crowd, where the pit fires had begun to burn down.

  "It is Polo," someone hissed. "Lome's husband," said another. "This means trouble."

  Polo pushed his way roughly through the crowd to the king's throne chair. He was twenty-seven years old.

  "I will not allow it," Polo shouted. "If this Wanenko child wishes to sleep with my Lonie, he

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  will have to defeat me. I will show you he is not the greatest athlete in Baruba. That honor belongs to me." He turned and stared at Sammy, only feet away from the feather-robed king. Lonie shrank away from the two men. Polo sneered at Sammy. "Let this pup defeat me. Then you may call him the greatest."

  Sammy looked at Polo, then the king. He found that the king was looking at him quizzically. Sammy turned and saw Lonie watching him. He saw her flashing eyes, her ripe young breasts, her full mouth, and he knew he wanted to have her, almost as much as he wanted to go to the Olympics.

  He turned back to Polo. "I agree," he said.

  The king looked up at Polo and said "What sport . . ." but before he could finish, Polo lashed out with a thundering right hand that caught Sammy high on the cheek. With a laugh, Polo shouted, "Brawling is my sport."

  The blow knocked Sammy off balance and sprawling. Polo moved after him, swinging wildly, trying to finish the younger man early. But Sammy ducked and the blows went over Ms head. He straightened up from his crouch and pushed a short left into Polo's stomach, ridged hard with muscle. It drove some wind from the bigger man.

  Both men regained their balance and turned to face each other again, moving about, feinting, trying to grab the feel of the other's movements. Sammy waited until the older man made his move.

  As he had guessed, Polo had muscle but no speed. When he threw a right at Sammy, the younger man moved his head aside and scored with a left to Polo's nose. And again. And again. Polo's nose turned red and began to bleed.

  The blood trickling down his face seemed to anger him and he charged Sammy and wrapped his muscular arms around him, pinning Wanenko's own arms to his side. Sammy felt the backward pressure. It

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  seemed as if his spine would snap. Polo increased the pressure and Sammy, clearing his head, suddenly stopped trying to fight the strength in those massive arms and instead brought his knee up into Polo's crotch. The older man let out a scream of pain and Sammy broke free. Once he did, the young champion hacked three consecutive lefts into Polo's face, each one snapping the man's head back until, after the third blow, Polo fell to the ground and lay still.

  The crowd cheered the young champion. So did Lonie, who could not wait to feel him on her body.

  The king motioned to Sammy and Lonie that they might leave. The feast was over.

  Polo was left lying in the sand while the three athletes went off to their homes with the three young women. As Sammy lay down with Lonie, she asked with a laugh, "Why did you not use your right hand? You defeated Polo with only one hand."

  Sammy laughed. "I did not want to damage my right hand. I will need it to win my gold medal. In boxing."

  Lonie turned away from him in mock anger. "For a mere gold medal you will use two hands. But poor Lonie, she is only worth one hand."

  "No," Sammy said. "Two hands and two arms and two legs and this and this and this . . ."

  Flight Lieutenant Jack Mullin searched the sky for the airplane. It should be arriving soon, he thought. He turned and looked at the other four men with him. They were beginning to get restless, anxious for some action, and this pleased Mullin. He had drilled them long and hard and they were his four best. Everything should go perfectly.

  The four light-skinned blacks also scanned the sky, searching for the plane, occasionally glancing at the British mercenary to see if he, too, was showing any signs of nervousness.

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  Mullin smiled to himself as he thought how odd it was that his life had brought him here. In his life, he had had three loves and one great hate. He hated blacks and the thought almost made him laugh, because here he was, being paid by Jimbobwu Mkombu, the blackness of whose skin was matched only by the blackness of his heart. But Mkombu's money was very green and that was one of Mullin's three loves. Money, whisky and women. Right now, he had money in his pocket and fine Irish whisky in his canteen, so he thought back to the last woman he'd had. The African women in Mkombu's compound were all enthusiasm but no technique, willing to do anything Mullin wanted, but still poor replacement for an Irish lass. Or, for that matter, an Englishwoman.

  The woman he was remembering was a red-haired, green-eyed woman with the biggest . . .

  There it was.

  His ears picked up the approaching plane even before he saw it. He got to his feet and called out: "Get ready, lads."

  The four blacks got to their feet and held their breath to hear the plane. They soon spotted it, a tiny, faraway speck coming toward them, glinting golden in the sky where the morning sun reflected off it.

  The first step in the slaughter of America's Olympic athletes was about to be taken.

  Sammy Wanenko sat aboard the rented airplane, smiling. He had never had a night like that before and now he was ready for the Olympics. He was ready for any boxer the Russians or the Americans or the Cubans could send against him. He was ready for anyone or anything.

  The plane had been rented, because Baruba did not have an air force or even an airplane, preferring until that very week to regard airplanes as manifesta-

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  tions of the great island god Lotto. This had changed when a plane had arrived on the island to take the UN ambassador to New York. The ambassador, still miffed at having to give up the bone in his nose, was reluctant to get on the plane. He pleaded with the king to let him swim to New York. Finally, the king forced him aboard, the plane took off, and the air age had reached the People's Democratic Republic of Baruba.

  For their athletes, they rented the plane and the services of an Australian pilot, Johnny Winters. Winters was in his mid-thirties, unmarried, and for the past ten years had eked out a living transporting cargo and/or people, legal or illegal, for whoever would pay the freight.

  His assignment was to fly the Baruban team to Melbourne, Australia, where they would board the jetliner that would take them to Moscow. His takeoff had been delayed that morning as he waited for his young co-pilot, Bart Sands. Sands was twenty-two, married, and with a second child on the way. He had been trying to make enough money on the horses to pay all the hospital bills and as a result, he was into both the bookies and the loan sharks.

  Sands had been with Winters for about a year and had not learned a thing. He had managed to bail out from under his debts once, with a huge score at the track. But he just ignored Winters when the older man told him that lightning very rarely struck at all, let alone twice, and he should quit gambling.

  Sands ignored the advice. When he arrived at the plane, Winters said, "I thought I was going to have to leave you behind. What happened? You have to get in a bet on a hot horse?"

  "Something like that," Sands said. "C'mon, let's get this crate off the ground." There was a look on his generally smiling face that jarred Winters. There was something wrong. He didn't know what it was.

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  Sands hoped that Winters had not noticed anything strange about him. He also hoped that Winters didn't notice the bulge the .45 automatic was making under Sands's jacket.

  Soon, he thought. Soon all my money .problems will be over and then
I'll square it up with him. He'll understand it was the only way.

  The DC-3 landed on the beach at Baruba and Sammy Wanenko came aboard, along with the other two athletes, brothers named Tonny and Tomas and their coach, Willem. They waved from the windows of the plane until they were airborne. At last, Sammy thought, I am on my way to win my gold medal.

  After they were in the air for half an hour, Bart Sands knew it was time.

  Think about your pregnant wife, he told himself. Think about what they said they'll do to Janie if you don't pay up. And the kids. It's quick money, he told himself. Quick money. That's all it is, with no one getting hurt.

  He took the .45 from under his jacket and pointed it at his friend, Johnny Winters.

  Winters couldn't believe what he saw, but then he realized why the strained look had been on his friend's face when he had boarded the plane.

  "Bart . . ." he began to say.

  "Please, Johnny, don't," Sands said. "I promise you. No one will get hurt. This is the only way. And I promise, we'll split right down the middle."

  Sands was talking too fast. Winters had never seen him this nervous. His hand was shaking uncontrollably. Winters hoped that he could just keep the kid from killing somebody by accident.

  Willem, the Baruban coach, chose that moment to come up to the cockpit. He saw the gun and asked, "What is wrong, please?"

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  Sands got up from his seat, pushed Willem back into the passenger cabin, and waved the .45 at the four Barubans.

  "Don't any of you move if you don't want to die," he said. Sammy Wanenko looked up into the barrel of the .45. He thought the man looked very nervous. Before he could think anymore, Willem, the coach, leaped from his seat at Sands.

  Sammy saw the gun in the white man's hand jump. He saw Willem fall, clutching his stomach.

  Sands could not speak for a moment. He was as surprised as anyone else when the gun in his hand went off. Could it possibly be that easy to kill a man?

  Finally he found his voice. He told the three Barubans, "The same for you, if any of you move." He went back into the cockpit and told Winters: "Now you do what I say, if you want to live."