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  "But not all the Spaniards," said Remo.

  "No. Because he who leaves vengeance to others will never slake his thirst. But Sinanju, as you know, is not vengeance. Vengeance is a foolish thing. Our art of Sinanju is life. To live is what we are. Our very services of death are purposed in the survival of the village. That is what makes us powerful. He. who lives is strong. Look verily at the many black faces on these islands, brought in chains they were. Whipped they were. Set here on these barren lands to harvest sugar for others. But who survived? The proud Caribbe Indians seeking vengeance by their gods, or the blacks who day by day bore their children, built their homes, and tethered their anger? The black lives. The mongoose lives. The green snake and the Caribbe Indians are no more."

  "What sort of pride did the green snake have?"

  "It is a story that you should not be thinking about vengeance with Mr. Gordons. It is a story that you should follow the lessons of survival which is Sinanju's training. It is not a story about green snakes."

  "Sounded like green snakes to me," said Remo, knowing this would rile Chiun, and he was not disappointed for he heard snatches of Korean which amounted to the inability of transforming a pale piece of pig's ear into silk, or mud into diamonds. It would, Remo knew, become an evening lecture on how thousands of years of Sinanju had come down to a waste with a white man. But Remo would not pay attention to those words. For what Chiun had said by his actions had been spoken loud and clear.

  The aged Korean had left his belongings in the States: his robes and, more importantly, his special television setup provided by upstairs on which Chiun could watch his daytime soap operas without missing the ones that ran concurrently. The device taped the other channels so Chiun would have hours of uninterrupted soap opera. Chiun had also left his autographed picture of Rad Rex, star of As the Planet Revolves, who at this very moment, Chiun had noted, was pondering whether or not to tell Mrs. Loretta Lamont that her daughter's abortion had disclosed a cancerous tumor that somehow would prove Wyatt Walton was innocent of leaving his wife and seven children in Majorca before he came to Mrs. Lament's house as a spiritual adviser. Chiun was missing this, he noted.

  And if Chiun could leave his daytime dramas, certainly Remo without second thought could leave the organization. But on this point Chiun had not dwelled too long. Survival was what he had daily lectured to Remo since they had come to St. Thomas almost a week before. But it was leaving the organization that bothered Remo to his very essence.

  On the other end of the island at the Harry Truman Airport, an American Airlines jet was landing with another person who was bothered to his very essence. But unlike Remo, Robert Jellicoe showed it. While all the other passengers went to the front of the airplane, Robert Jellicoe went to the rear into the little lavatory and upchucked again. He did not bother to lock the door or even stay and hide, but flushed, left, and stumbled back down the aisle of the plane and down the debarking ramp into the terminal where Mr. Gordons, Moe Alstein, and Sergeant Pitulski were waiting. Alstein noted that the mugginess made his suit feel like liver. Sergeant Pitulski said the only cure for that was a shot of Seagrams Seven and a bottle of Bud.

  Mr. Gordons forbade drinking. In the Windward Hotel overlooking the port, Mr. Gordons asked all three to wait for him a few moments. There was some shopping he had to do. Sergeant Pitulski told Mr. Gordons to take his time and when he was gone, ordered a bottle of Seagrams and a case of beer and proceeded to go shot and quaff until he confessed that today's Marines weren't really Marines. The real Marines didn't fight in Vietnam, otherwise America wouldn't have had to pull out, leaving unfinished business. The real Marines were those who served at San Diego, Japan, Cherry Point, North Carolina, and Parris Island.

  "You serve at those places?" asked Moe Alstein.

  As a matter of fact, Sergeant Pitulski had, Sergeant Pitulski admitted.

  "Thought so," said Alstein.

  Jellicoe was quiet. Alstein offered him a drink. Jellicoe refused. Alstein asked what the matter was.

  "Nothing," said Jellicoe.

  "You know, I don't like working with you either, you anti-Semitic sonuvabitch," said Alstein. "You're an amateur. Amateurs. I could get killed with amateurs."

  "Could?" said Jellicoe.

  "Whaddya mean amateurs? I'm a Marine."

  "You're a rummy," said Alstein.

  "You don't know what Marines can do," said Pitulski.

  "Get drunk and lose fistfights," said Alstein. "Jeez, I wish I had my weapon with me. I wish I had it."

  "You will," said Jellicoe.

  "Naah," said Alstein. "He took it in Chicago. That Gordons is a funny guy. I bet he brings me some cheap piece of shit that I have to stick in the hit's nostrils to get a piece of the nose. You'll see. Everybody laughs at the chrome plate and the size of a .357 Magnum, the chrome being my own idea. But with that little doozy, I'm king."

  "You'll get your gun back," said Jellicoe.

  "Bullshit. He couldn't get a gun through customs. I know. They're spooky about those flights that go past Cuba."

  "Marines could get guns into Cuba," said Pitulski. "As a matter of fact we got them there. Gitmo. God bless the United States Marines," he sobbed and moaned that he had deserted the only family he ever had, the Marines, and for what? Money. Filthy, dirty rotten money. Even stole a flamethrower—which the Marines would miss. Not like the Air Force where you could lose a fleet of planes and the government would resupply five squadrons. The Marines treasured their weapons.

  "Shut up," said Alstein. "You're worried about a dinky six-hundred-a-month job and I've got a whole career riding on this."

  "You'll both get your weapons," said Jellicoe.

  "Not the same one," said Alstein. "Not the same feel."

  "The exact feel," said Jellicoe.

  "Not the same serial numbers."

  "The same serial numbers. Right down to the pits in the chrome," said Jellicoe.

  When Mr. Gordons returned to the hotel suite, he carried valises, swinging them slowly and easily. He instructed everyone to bring the packages he had given them back in Chicago and which had passed inspection at the airport, into his room. When he saw Pitulski stumble drunkenly, he put the bags down lightly.

  "Negative. Cease. Not that much drink. Overabundance. Cease. Cease," said Mr. Gordons, and twice smacked the reddish face of Sergeant Pitulski, making the crimson cheeks shine just a little more brightly. He upended him and walked him to a closet where he locked the door on the upside-down Marine.

  "Excessive drinking is dangerous, especially when people have tools in their hands and are responsible for the survival of other things," said Mr. Gordons.

  "He didn't have any tools," said Alstein.

  "I'm talking about his skills as tools and my survival," said Mr. Gordons. He nodded to the bags and Jellicoe bent down, gripped a handle, and jerked—himself to the carpeted hotel room floor. The valise wouldn't move.

  "That is a bit excessive for you, isn't it?" said Gordons. "I will take them," and, as if the valises were filled with woven wicker and handkerchiefs, Mr. Gordons lifted them and walked them smoothly into the other room.

  "You're pretty weak there, Jellicoe," said Alstein.

  About a half-hour later, as Alstein read a magazine in the suite's living room and Jellicoe stared dumbly at the door that Mr. Gordons had locked behind himself, the door suddenly opened.

  "What's that?" asked Mr. Gordons.

  "Nothing," said Alstein.

  "I hear something."

  Alstein and Jellicoe shrugged.

  "I hear something. I know I hear something," said Mr. Gordons. A canvas cloth covered his hands, at least where his hands should be, but the vague outline under the canvas was that of tools attached to his wrists. "Open that closet."

  When Alstein opened the closet door, they all saw Sergeant Pitulski, upside down and red-faced. Alstein lowered an ear.

  "He's humming 'The Halls of Montezuma,'" said Alstein.

  "Right side him up,"
said Mr. Gordons. "And for him, no drinks. You others seem capable of drinking without wanting to become disorderly, so you may drink. But not Pitulski."

  "How we gonna keep him from drinking if we drink?" asked Alstein.

  "You mean just because a person sees someone else drink, he wants to drink?"

  "It works that way," said Alstein.

  "Feed that in," said Jellicoe.

  "I just have," said Gordons.

  "As a seventy-three percent positive," said Jellicoe.

  "How are you using that?" asked Mr. Gordons.

  "As in seventy-three percent of the time that would be accurate."

  "Done, but with the standard deviation for human inaccuracy," said Mr. Gordons and disappeared into his room. When he returned, he held in his two hands—they appeared normal now to Jellicoe, as he had expected they would—a .357 Magnum with the bullets clutched in his palm, and the spear guns. The flamethrower was strung around his left arm; the scuba tanks and rubber suit hung from his right. The flamethrower sloshed. It was filled.

  He gave Alstein the gun, Jellicoe the underwater gear, and put the flamethrower down at Pitulski's feet. Pitulski was snoozing in an armchair.

  Alstein looked at the shiny chrome. He bounced the gun flat on his palm. He spun the cylinder. He looked at the cartridges and with his fingers isolated one and held it up to the light.

  "Same gun, same bullets," said Alstein. "I know this cartridge. Two days ago I was loading and I became fascinated by the bronze case. I always am. Bullets are beautiful. Art. Really beautiful. And with a pin, for the hell of it, I scratched my initials in it. Not deep. I don't want to weaken the shell. But here it is."

  "I was wondering about that," said Mr. Gordons. "I thought perhaps you had some special system. But I see you are about to put it into a different chamber."

  "The chambers are all the same," said Alstein.

  "They are not. Neither are the bullets. They are all different in size and shape but you cannot perceive that. Here. Let me load the same way you had them loaded."

  Alstein watched and commented that he couldn't see how Mr. Gordons could tell. But that wasn't the first crazy thing and it wasn't the last. It was not only the first time Alstein had gone on a team hit, but also the first time that he was wired and given what Mr. Gordons called a tracker. He made Alstein stand in the center of the room and turn around slowly. When the button-like thing taped to Alstein's stomach vibrated, Mr. Gordons said the two targets were in the direction Alstein was facing.

  "You mean, here in the room?"

  Mr. Gordons laid out a map of St. Thomas. "No. Roughly either the Peterborg Estates or over Magen's Bay. When you're pointed toward them, you'll feel the vibrations. They will get stronger as you get closer."

  Sergeant Pitulski yawned and blinked his eyes and attempted to focus his mind. Something was caught in the back of his shirt.

  He reached behind him and with great effort tore it out from his shirt. It was a little metal spur with spikes. He pressed it in his fingers and then, to test its hardness, bit into it.

  Alstein spun around and grabbed his stomach.

  "It's burning, it's burning, it's burning," he cried.

  "Turn away from Pitulski," said Gordons and with his fingers snapped the spur from Pitulski's mouth as if preventing a dog from chewing on some unclean thing.

  Jellicoe watched Mr. Gordons's fingers reshape the spur and Alstein sighed with relief. So that was how Mr. Gordons found him in the bathroom of the O'Hare Airport, thought Jellicoe. The spurs were miniature transmitters—homing devices—and when Sergeant Pitulski had bitten into his, he somehow had changed the frequency to that of the two targets. Jellicoe felt around his back and his fingers closed on a beautiful sharp spur. He moved his hand away quickly. Apparently Mr. Gordons had not seen him. He would leave it there until he saw a chance of escape. And this time he would not carry his own beacon. He would throw it away and flee. When he had a chance.

  "Buncha nuts," mumbled Alstein and then took a fast look at the photographs of the two hits. One, according to Mr. Gordons, was called "high probability Remo" and the other "high probability Chiun." The Oriental was Chiun. Mr. Gordons believed this because that is what he heard them call each other.

  The photos looked as if someone had shot them head high but when Jellicoe picked up the two sheets of paper, black and gray ink came off on his right thumb in a smear like a small Greek shield. It shone glossy. They were not photographs. They were incredibly fine etchings. Done with ink.

  Who was this Mr. Gordons? What were his powers and where did he get them? He was like a walking laboratory and manufacturing plant, all in one. Jellicoe shuddered and tried to think of more pleasant times.

  "I'll be back in an hour with the job done and we can all go home," said Alstein. But he was not back in an hour. He didn't even find the house until sunrise. The vibrating button worked fine, but it seemed to vibrate right over, fields or directly up rocky inclines and it was dawn Before Alstein had worked out the correct combination of roads for his car and stood before a little wooden house with an excellent view of a wide jade-blue bay and the waters below. A long furry rat-like creature scurried under a banana palm. A small brown lizard clinging to the side of the house looked balefully behind his head with eyes that rotated.

  Moe Alstein cocked his gun, knocked with his left hand on the door. No one answered. He knocked again.

  "Who is it?" came a voice.

  "Western Union," said Alstein. "I got a message for you."

  "Who for?"

  "A Remo something."

  "Just a minute."

  Alstein raised the gun and aimed just above the doorknob. When the knob turned and the door opened slightly he let go with the first shot that took off a fist-sized hunk from the edge of the wooden door. The door slammed open and Alstein moved in, looking for the wounded body. But there were only splinters and a big hole through the sliding glass door at the other end of the house. There wasn't even any blood. A bearded old gook stuck his head out of a door. Alstein squeezed off a shot at the bearded face. But no blood. No body smacked back as if hit by a sledgehammer. Just a big scoop out of the wall.

  Where was the person who had opened the door? Where? Moe Alstein stepped back in sudden panic. He would retreat to the road and blast them from there. There was nothing in this house that could stop a .357 Magnum.

  But what had happened? He had to have hit someone but there was no blood. And he had had the little gook perfect. He could take the bowl off a champagne glass at thirty feet; he wasn't going to miss a whole head. The door behind him had to have sent wood splinters into someone. You don't open a door without a hand. As Alstein stepped back, he felt a little stinging in his gun hand. He saw an arm over his shoulder coming directly down to his right wrist. There was a guy on the ledge above the door, resting on it as if it were a wide hammock.

  "Hi. I'm Remo. You got a message for me? Well, just let me have it and don't sing. I can't stand singing telegrams."

  Alstein tried to wrest his hand free but he could not. The gun dropped dully to the wooden floor. The Oriental appeared from the far doorway in front of the .357 Magnum hole. Not a whisker on the long wispy beard was damaged.

  Chiun moved quickly to Alstein and his hands darted around the bigger man's body like butterflies gone amok. He felt the metal spur taped to Alstein's stomach, but kept his hands moving for another moment before stepping back.

  "Who sent you?" asked Remo, hopping down from the doorsill.

  "Mr. Gordons."

  "He's here on the island? Where is he?" asked Remo.

  But Alstein's mouth gave forth no words. It opened and then filled with blood. The Master of Sinanju withdrew a long nail from the throat and like a spigot unplugged, Alstein's blood gushed forth from the puncture hole in his throat.

  "What'd you do that for?" asked Remo. "What'd you do that for? He was going to tell us about Gordons."

  "Hear ye, hear ye," wailed the Master of Sinanju. "Gord
ons, we do not wish your death. Sinanju yields. The world is big enough for both of us. Hail the House of Gordons."

  "Now I know why you killed him," said Remo. "You don't want me to find Gordons."

  Alstein writhed on the floor, his blood soaking his jacket, his arms flailing uselessly. Remo stepped away from the growing, seeping dark puddle.

  "That's blood," said Remo. "You know how hard it is to clean up blood? From dry wood, no less. You know how hard? Get him out of here."

  But Chiun wailed again.

  "No grief, no bill due do we hold against the glory of the House of Gordons. No wealth do we want. Sinanju yields."

  "Shmuck," said Remo and with his good arm snared Alstein's belt and carried him at arm's length, so as not to get himself messed up, out to the porch where with one spinning heave he threw the body splashing into Magen's Bay.

  "We got any Comet or Babbo or Fantastick in the house?" asked Remo. "Shmuck."

  "Yield to Gordons. Peace we seek," said Chiun.

  "Maybe some Lestoil?" said Remo.

  In the Windward Hotel, the small television screen on a set without a case had transmitted Chiun's words of peace. The last picture it showed was of the sky. The fading morning stars seemed to be racing away, and then the picture shuddered, flashed an image of bubbles, and then only blackness and silence.

  Jellicoe watched the set turn itself off. He shook his head and moaned. Sergeant Pitulski looked confused.

  "I didn't see nothing. Just the door. The shot, the gook that should of gone down, and then the hand coming like it was suspended from up above, you know. You think they got some trick machinery in that house or something?"

  "No," said Mr. Gordons. "Well, so much for metal. Now we try fire, Sergeant Pitulski."

  "The Marines are ready to move out," said Pitulski.

  "Stay more than an arm's length away," said Mr. Gordons. "If we go now, we may catch them in the house. Stay twenty-five yards away and hit the house from there. I think I saw a clearing on the television transmission, so they won't have the advantage of places to hide to come up on you. This may be effective."