Blood Ties td-69 Read online

  "That's because I've made a discovery," Drake Mangan said, summoning up all the sincerity he could muster. "I love you, Myra."

  "You do?" She hiccuped.

  "Passionately. And I want to marry you." He took her clammy blotched-skin hand in his. "Will you marry me, dearest?" He felt like throwing up but business was business.

  "This is so sudden."

  "I can't wait. Let's get married tonight. We'll find a justice of the peace."

  "Tonight? With my brother gone? He'd want to be there. "

  "He'll understand. Come on, let's get going." The justice of the peace was reluctant.

  "Are you sure you want to marry her?" he asked dubiously.

  "Of course," said Mangan. "What's wrong with her?"

  "Your intended can barely stand up."

  "Then we'll have the ceremony sitting down. Here's the ring. Let's get on with it, man."

  "Are you sure you wish to marry this man, miss?" the justice asked Myra.

  Myra giggled. "My brother's gone but he won't mind."

  The justice of the peace shrugged and performed the ceremony.

  There was no honeymoon. Just a funeral for Brant Cranston. Even after the funeral, there had been no honeymoon, and now, almost thirty years later, Myra Cranston Mangan was still, as far as her husband knew, a virgin.

  But Drake Mangan didn't care. He now had control of Cranston Motors and he kept control of it during all the buyouts and mergers and reorganizations that got rid of the classic old Big Three and created a new Big Three: General Autos, American Autos, and National Autos, which Mangan now headed.

  President of National Autos. Drawing his million-dollar-a-year salary. It was all that mattered to Drake Mangan. Except, maybe someday, getting into his wife's pants. Just to see what it was like.

  After the attempt on Lyle Lavallette's life, the police had offered him protection. He turned them down. He had declined to brief the FBI about his personal life and habits. "No one is going to try to kill me. Really," he said.

  His wife in a sober moment suggested he hire extra bodyguards.

  "I already have two bodyguards, which is two more than I need," he told her.

  The two bodyguards were a pair of former Detroit Lions linebackers. Drake Mangan had hired them for two reasons: they were tax-deductible and he was a football fan and liked to hear their war stories over lunch. The rest of the time, he kept them cooling their heels in the first-floor lobby of the National Autos building while he held sway in his twelfth-floor office. They were nice guys but when they were bored, they had a tendency to play with their guns.

  Which was why, when Drake Mangan heard gunshots drifting up from the lobby via the elevator shaft, he was only mildly interested. Certainly not surprised and definitely not afraid. Things like that happened, and sometimes several times in a slow week.

  Nevertheless, Mangan ordered his executive secretary to call the lobby.

  "Ask Security what's going on down there."

  The secretary came back into his office almost immediately, looking worried.

  "Mr. Mangan, there seems to be some trouble."

  "What kind of trouble? Has one of those walking sides of beef shot himself in the foot again?"

  "No, Mr. Mangan. One of them shot a security guard."

  "Damn. Don't they know what that does to our insurance rates?"

  The secretary shrugged and Mangan said, "Well, get them up here and let's see what's going on."

  "I can't. They were shot too. By the other security guards."

  "What the hell's going on down there?" he said. "How many people are shot? Who did you talk to?"

  "I'm not sure. He had a funny little voice. Kind of squeaky, Oriental, maybe. He said he was the one they were shooting at."

  "Anything else?"

  "Yes, sir. He said he was on his way up."

  "Up? Up here?"

  "This is the only up I have any knowledge of, Mr. Mangan."

  "Don't get smart. Get the police."

  At that moment, the muted hum of the elevator rose to their floor.

  "It's him," said Drake Mangan, looking for a place to hide.

  The elevator doors purred open. A figure glided out and appeared in the office door.

  Drake Mangan leveled an accusing finger at the figure. "You! Assassin!" he shouted.

  Chiun, Master of Sinanju, smiled at the rare display of recognition from a white man.

  "I do not sign autographs," he said. He wore a peach kimono tastefully trimmed in black. His hazel eyes were birdlike in their survey of the room. "I will need an office if I am to stay here," Chiun said. "This one will suffice."

  "This is my office," Mangan said stonily.

  "For a white, your taste is almost adequate," Chiun said.

  "What did you do with my bodyguards?"

  "Nothing," Chiun said, examining cut flowers on a long table. "They did it to themselves. I merely informed them that I was here as a personal emissary of their government and they refused to admit me. Then they began shooting one another. They were very excitable."

  Mangan looked incredulous. "They shot one another trying to shoot you?"

  Chiun shrugged expressively. "I would not call it real trying."

  Mangan nodded to his secretary, who slipped back out into her reception area. A push-button telephone began beeping electronically.

  "What did you say about the government?" Mangan asked in a loud voice, hoping it would drown out the sound of his secretary dialing for help.

  Chiun looked up from the flowers and decided to ignore the telephoning.

  "You are most fortunate," he said. "Ordinarily I am employed to protect the Constitution. Today, I am protecting you."

  "Protecting me? From what?"

  "From wrongful assassination, of course," Chiun said. "Is there any other kind?"

  Chiun spat on the Oriental rug, which he recognized had been made in Iran. "Of course. Killing with guns is wrongful. Killing without payment is wrongful. Killing-"

  "Who sent you?" interrupted Mangan when his secretary poked her head back into the office and gave him a thumbs-up sign. Good. Help was on the way. He just had to stall this old fool.

  "I cannot say," whispered Chiun and pressed an index finger to his lips. "But he secretly rules this land on behalf of your President. Just do not tell anyone, or your government may fall."

  "I see," said Mangan who did not see at all. Gingerly, he slipped into the padded leather chair behind his massive desk. It was a big substantial desk, excellent for ducking behind in the event of shooting, which Mangan expected momentarily.

  "Perhaps then someday you may explain it to me," said Chiun. "Now. Down to business. Have you had any contact with anyone calling himself Remo Williams?"

  "No. Who's Remo Williams?"

  "Remo Williams is my pupil. He is Korean, like me. Possibly as much as one-sixteenth Korean. But there is another who is calling himself Remo Williams. This one means you harm and I am here to protect you from him."

  "And you work for the President?"

  "I work for no one," Chiun snapped. "I have a contract with the emperor. He works for the President." Chiun smiled. "But I'm sure the President knows I am here. "

  Just then, the elevator doors opened and four policemen ran into the office, guns drawn.

  "Start shooting," Mangan yelled. "Everyone's expendable but me." As Chiun turned toward the door to the office, Mangan ran out, past his secretary's desk and into a small alcove, where he picked up a telephone.

  Behind him, he heard one of the policemen say: "Now don't give us any trouble, old-timer, and you won't get hurt." He heard an answering chuckle.

  "Let me talk to the President," Mangan said into the telephone.

  The White House operator asked, "Is this an emergency, Mr. Mangan?"

  "I'm a personal friend of the President's. I poured seven figures' worth of corporate profits into his reelection. I don't need an excuse to talk to him."

  "One moment, please, s
ir."

  Mangan held the phone, expecting to hear shooting from inside his office. But there was nothing but silence.

  In a few seconds, the President of the United States was on the line. "Good to hear from you, Drake. What's on your mind?"

  "I have a situation here, Mr. President. I know this is going to sound wild but did you, by any remote chance, send some Chinaman here to protect my life?"

  "Describe him."

  "Maybe five feet tall, maybe eighty years old. Dressed in some kind of colored dress or something. He just trashed my entire security force."

  "Good. Then he's on the job," the President said.

  "Sir?"

  "You can relax now, Drake. You're in good hands."

  "Good hands? Mr. President, He's old and wrinkled."

  "It hasn't stopped me," said the President. "I had him sent there to protect you."

  "From what?"

  "From the same nut who shot Lavallette," the President said. "We can't very well have all of Detroit's brains wiped out, can we?"

  "We use a Chinaman for protection?"

  "A Korean. Never call him Chinese," the President said. "I can't be responsible. Is the young fella there too?"

  "The old man's alone," Mangan said.

  "Well, one of them's enough," the President said. "Let me know how this all turns out. Regards to the wife. And by the way, I wouldn't mention any of this to anyone. I've already forgotten this conversation."

  "I understand, Mr. President. I think."

  Mangan dropped the receiver and ran back to his office. Christ, the old gook was from the President and Mangan had turned four Detroit cops loose on him. If he was dead already, how would Mangan explain it to the President? Chiun was not dead. He was sitting calmly behind Mangan's desk. The four police officers lay in the center of the office carpet, all their wrists bound together with their own four sets of handcuffs.

  They were writhing around on the floor, trying to get loose. Once of them saw him and yelled, "Mr. Mangan. Call for reinforcements."

  Mangan shook his head. "That won't be necessary, men. Heh, heh. Just a case of mistaken identity. The old gentleman here is part of my security team."

  "Then get us out of here," another policeman called. Mangan dug into their pockets for the handcuff keys and freed them all, even though he did not like touching members of the proletariat.

  "You sure this guy's all right?" one of the policemen asked Mangan. The officer was rubbing his wrists, trying to get circulation back into his fingers.

  "Yes. He's okay. It was all my error," he said.

  "You know we're going to have to file a report on this," the cop said.

  Mangan smiled and said, "Maybe we can work something out."

  In the hallway outside his office, he worked something out. The policemen would each be able to buy their next new cars at half-price. In return, they would just simply deal with the unfortunate shootings down in the lobby as accidental gunshots. And they would forget the old man.

  He saw the policemen on to the elevator and then went back into his office.

  "Mr.-"

  "Chiun. Master Chiun, not Mister."

  "Master Chiun. I've checked you out. You are who you say you are."

  "I could have told you that and saved us both a great deal of trouble," Chiun said petulantly.

  "What's done is done. If you're here to protect me, what should I do?"

  "Try not to get yourself killed," Chiun said.

  The rescue helicopters came during the night. Remo was the first to hear them and he quietly woke Lorna from her sleep.

  "The planes are on the way," he said.

  "I don't hear them," she said.

  "You will in a minute."

  "Good. It'll be wonderful to get back to civilization," she said.

  "Truth is, I'll sort of miss you all," Remo said.

  "What do you mean?"

  "This is where I get off," he said. "Last stop."

  "You're not going back with us?" She paused; the first whirrings of the approaching helicopters were now faintly audible over the broad desert.

  "No," Remo said. "People would ask too many questions. "

  "Where will you go?" she said. "This is the desert."

  "I know, but trust me, I can find my way out. No problem at all."

  "You can't do that."

  "I have to. I just wanted to say good-bye to you. And ask a favor."

  "Name it."

  "Don't mention my name. You're the only one who knows it and if anybody mentions me, just don't mention my name. Let me just be a passenger who wandered off. "

  "You sure you want it this way?" she said.

  "I do."

  She threw herself into Remo's arms. "I won't ask you any questions," she said. "But you just be careful."

  "I will. And take care of that little girl," Remo said. He squeezed the woman once, then turned and ran off across the sand, just as the rescue craft's light became visible a mile away across the desert.

  Remo ran just until he was out of sight, then slowed down and began loping north at a casual pace. A few miles away, Remo climbed onto an outcropping of rock and looked back. Two giant helicopters were parked on the sand, next to the burned-out jetliner. He could see people being helped aboard the two craft. He nodded to himself, in satisfaction, and turned away again.

  The sun was coming up off to his right, turning the dunes to rose color. Later, as the sun went higher, it bleached the sand white. It was late afternoon when the sand gave way to rock. Remo spent the time thinking. In a curious way, he already missed the scene of the aircraft wreck. He had been raised an orphan and had never had a family; they had looked up to him; they had relied on him. It was a strange, but a pleasant, feeling, and once again he pitied himself for all that he had missed, and would always miss, in his life.

  "Ah, that's the biz, sweetheart," he growled to himself and started to run northward.

  He found the town just after sunset and used a pay phone in the local tavern. No matter how small a town was, he thought, it had a tavern. Maybe that's what created towns; maybe somebody built a tavern and then a town grew up around it.

  He dialed Chiun's hotel in New York but got no answer in the room. Then he dialed a special code. The call went through a number in East Moline, Illinois, was rerouted through a circuit in Iola, Wisconsin, and finally rang the telephone on the desk of Dr. Harold W. Smith.

  "Yes?" Smith's lemony voice said.

  "Smitty, it's me," Remo said. "I'm back." There was a long silence.

  "Smitty? What's the matter?" Remo said.

  "Remo?" Smith said slowly. "Is Chiun with you?"

  "No. I just called his number but he didn't answer. I thought you'd know where he is."

  "I'm happy to hear from you, Remo," Smith said.

  "Then why do you sound like you just got a call from your dead grandmother?"

  "Are you still in Detroit?"

  Remo looked at the receiver in his hand as if it were personally responsible for the stupid words coming through the earpiece.

  "Detroit? What are you talking about? I'm in Utah."

  "When did you arrive in Utah, Remo?"

  "Yesterday, when my goddamn plane crashed in the desert. And stop talking to me like I'm Jack the Ripper, will you?"

  At Folcroft Sanitarium, Smith keyed a one-word command into his terminal: TRACE.

  The green letters blinked and a telephone number appeared almost instantly on the screen. Smith saw that it was a Utah area code. The computer also told him that Remo was calling from a pay phone.

  "Hello. Smitty. Whistle if you hear me."

  "I heard you, Remo," Smith said. "What was that about a plane crash?"

  "My flight went down in some desert about eighty miles from here."

  "Flight number?"

  "Who cares about the freaking flight number? Listen, I just saved a planeload of people out in the desert. And I got out alive. Why are you being so annoying?"

  Smith
's computer, on command, began scrolling the facts of a Los Angeles-Salt Lake City flight that had disappeared the previous day.

  "Did your flight originate in Los Angeles?"

  "Of course. I did that guy, the way you wanted, and then I got out of there on another plane right away."

  "And you haven't been in Detroit?"

  "Why would I be in Detroit? I buy Japanese."

  "Remo, I think it would be best if you returned to Folcroft right away."

  "You sound like you want to stick me in a rubber room," Remo said.

  "You should be debriefed on your experience."

  "Debrief this. I was in the desert and it was hot and everybody's safe and I planted the skyjacker in the sand and that's that. End of debriefing."

  "Don't get upset. It's just that I wanted to talk to you."

  "Where's Chiun? Talk about that."

  "He's away," Smith said.

  "He didn't go back to Sinanju again, did he?"

  "No."

  "He's where, Smitty? Where is he?"

  "He's on an errand," Smith said.

  "An errand? Chiun wouldn't do an errand for the Shah of Iran if he came back to life. Is he on assignment?"

  Smith hesitated a moment. "Something like that."

  "Where is he?"

  "I can't really tell you that. Now if you'll just-"

  "Smitty," said Remo, "I'm going to hang up. But before I go I want you to listen carefully."

  "Yes?" said Smith, leaning into the phone.

  In Utah, Remo brought the palm of his hand to the telephone speaker with such force that the receiver snapped into pieces.

  Smith howled in pain but he howled into a dead telephone. Remo was gone.

  Chapter 8

  The black car pulled up so silently that he did not hear it coming.

  The tinted window on the driver's side opened just a crack. He could not see the driver.

  The gunman with the scar down the right side of his jaw stepped from his own car and walked over to the other vehicle. Every window, even the windshield, was tinted so dark that in the weak light of the underground garage on the Canadian side of the Detroit River, he could not see the driver, except as a deep shadow in the deeper darkness of the car's interior.

  "Williams?" the invisible driver asked.

  "Call me Remo," the gunman said. "Nice car. Never saw one like it."