Terror Squad td-10 Page 7

  "Are you beginning to forget everything?" asked Chiun and then Remo noticed it, down the path, that very special stillness he could normally sense in his blood.

  The stillness was behind a bush, perhaps fifty yards away. Chiun made a birdlike motion indicating he would stand where he was while Remo was to circle round whatever was creating the stillness in the wet spring fields of the Finger Lakes region.

  Remo knew Chiun would pretend to walk forward and not move; pretend to cut into the bush and not move; seem to do what he was not doing and thus totally absorb the interest of whoever was behind the bush.

  Remo moved easily off the path, as quietly as a morning sigh, across the rocks, body weighting only against that which did not snap or creak or rustle. He did not feel at home in the forest because like the true assassin, his home was the city where the targets invariably lived. Yet he could use this shrub-undergrowth and trees and soggy loamy soil-because the forest, too, was his tool.

  Remo saw the flash of a white shirt behind leafy green and kept moving at an angle. He saw the top of a reddish bald head and then a beefy neck. A rifle stock pressed into an overlapping red cheek and the barrel went forward, aimed at a kimono fifty yards away. Remo moved up to the man. The man's knee sunk into the wet spring soil. He was in kneeling position. An adequate-enough way to fire a rifle and an even better way to lose a finger.

  Oskar Gruenwald was not thinking about him fingers as he tried to sight on the kimono. He was wondering why he was having such a difficult time. He could not have forgotten what he was taught, not even after a quarter of a century. He could not have forgotten what was drilled into him and drilled into him and drilled into him. If you have two men, you pick the one behind the first, bang, squeeze off the next two shots against the leader, and then the fourth shot to finish the man you hit first. That was how he had been trained. him targets were the favourites of the Waffen S.S. Lithuanians or Ukrainians. It didn't matter. Oskar's instructor took him to the outskirts of a small village and told him to pick off men going to market. That was the first day of instruction. Oskar mistakenly shot the first, and the second had time to get away. It was then him instructor said:

  "You see. What you did wrong was not only give someone time to get away, but you committed the cardinal sin of a sniper ambush. You stopped to think. You must never stop to think, but must have your shots planned in advance. That way all you have to do is aim."

  It had worked well. It worked in Russia, then the Ukraine, then Poland, and then back to the borders of Germany. It worked his last day in Waffen S.S. uniform before he changed to the uniform of the regular Army and took a new name, which had lasted until that morning in his shop.

  But now it was not working. There were his two targets, the Oriental in back and the American in front. All right, pop one off at the Oriental. But he was beginning to move off the path. He was retreating. No. He was advancing. What the hell was that little yellow man doing? Now there was no more American. Where was the American? He wasn't on the path. To hell with it. Get the Oriental and then hunt the American. The old, cold feeling of competence returned to Oskar Gruenwald. The mechanical competence of the professional killer.

  He was just squeezing off a shot at the center of the kimono, when he realized this would be impossible to do. One needed a trigger finger for that sort of thing and Oskar Gruenwald now had only a bloody stump. No pain. Just no finger.

  "Hi there, fella," Remo said. "I'd shake but you can't. This yours?" he said and offered the shocked sniper his finger back.

  "Aaaargh," said former S.S. Captain Oskar Gruenwald, suddenly feeling the delayed pain where his finger used to join his hand.

  "All right, if you don't want me to dismember you piece by piece, tell me who sent you," said Remo.

  The sniper looked at his right index finger-in his left palm.

  "C'mon," Remo said. "I don't have all day."

  "A girl. She was a foolish girl. Do not blame her."

  "Her name?"

  "There has been enough death and you will kill her, I know."

  "Her name?" said Remo, and it was not really a question.

  Gruenwald lunged for the rifle with his left hand, but then his left hand no longer worked. He did not even see the American move, the stroke was so swift.

  "The girl?"

  "Her name was Joan Hacker," said Oskar Gruenwald. "But please don't kill her."

  "I don't kill if I don't have to," said Remo.

  "When one kills that becomes all he does".

  "It's only you amateurs who are menaces," said Remo.

  Oskar Gruenwald snarled back. "I was not an amateur, sir. Waffen S.S. Captain."

  "And I'm sure you were a very good Waffen whatever-it-is," said Remo consolingly, putting him away with a head shot.

  Chiun glided past Remo with a casual glance at the fat corpse sinking into the damp soil. The head stroke must have been, perfect, thought Remo, or there would have been comment.

  "First fat. Then thin," said Chiun. "Then the dead animals and then all my work for nothing, because of your impatience."

  "Now I understand," said Remo sarcastically. "First fat, then thin, then the dead animals, and then all your work for nothing. Why didn't you say so instead of talking in riddles?"

  "Even the morning sun is a riddle to a fool," said Chiun. "Now comes thin."

  "Of course, thin," said Remo. "What else comes after fat? I mean I could have told you that even before my training. Now thin."

  CHAPTER NINE

  "You don't think I'm too thin?" said Rodney Pintwhistle.

  Joan Hacker did not think Rodney was too thin at all. She thought he was aesthetic. Joan didn't go for all those muscles bulging around. She went for a man who was lean and lithe.

  "Really?" said Rodney Pintwhistle, a blush coming up behind a face of acne. He patted his almost empty sweater. "I mean, you really don't think I'm too thin?"

  "I'll show you how thin I think you are," said Joan Hacker. "Come on up to my room and I'll show you."

  Rodney Pintwhistle, whose main sexual activity was stroking himself while imagining co-eds like Joan Hacker inviting him up to her room, coughed up his strawberry milkshake onto the formica table top. People in the student union looked around. A waiter patted Rodney on the back.

  "C'mon, Rodney, let's get out of here," said Joan, flaunting her full and bouncing breasts as she rose.

  "Maybe I'd better have another milkshake."

  "Maybe you'd better come with me," said Joan, grabbing him by the wrist. She jerked. Rodney came.

  On the path to the dormitory, Rodney suggested that they get to know each other better.

  "This is the best way," said Joan, tugging his wrist.

  Maybe they should stop and talk more?

  "Talking is better after," said Joan.

  Rodney suddenly remembered he had a class.

  "Cut it," said Joan.

  Rodney couldn't. You see he already had two cuts and if he got a third cut, he might get below a B and then he wouldn't make the dean's list.

  "You never made dean's list, Rodney," she said.

  But this year Rodney had a chance. Really he did. He was taking easier courses and this year he really had a chance and if there was one thing he really wanted to do more than anything else in college, it was to make dean's list one year, at least one year. That's what he really wanted to do.

  "You're full of crap, Rodney," said Joan Hacker, for if there was anything that raised her anger, it was weakness in someone else. It brought out the tiger in her, that tiger which seemed to disappear when someone else assumed command.

  She tugged Rodney into the dormitory and then pushed him up the two flights of steps to her floor and then into her room. Her roommate sat on the bed, legs tucked under her bare bottom, a sweat shirt covering the raised knee tops.

  "Out," said Joan Hacker, in a rare display of authority.

  The roommate blinked, and never having seen the tiger in Joan before, dutifully got up, ap
ologized for being there, and left the room. Joan locked the door. Rodney giggled.

  "The nearer the bone, the sweeter the meat," said Joan, repeating a phrase she had heard in high school and resented years later as being oppressive and exploitative.

  Rodney backed against the window. Joan advanced. Rodney covered his groin. Joan yanked his hand away and stroked. Rodney brushed her hand away. Joan kissed him on his scrawny neck. Rodney said that tickled.

  Joan grabbed his neck and brought his head down forcefully to hers. She invaded his mouth. She manipulated one hand behind his neck and the other in front of his trousers. She manipulated, she worked, and when she had him ready, she eased him to the bed. Ploing. It was all over. She fell on him.

  "You're magnificent, Rodney," gasped Joan.

  Rodney averred that he hardly did anything at all He was just a natural, he guessed.

  "You must have hundreds of women, Rodney."

  No, not really. Could Joan believe that she was the first woman he had had at Patton College?

  "No. I couldn't believe that. You're so magnificent. But you don't love me."

  Rodney felt no passionate warmth toward this attractive co-ed who had transformed his fantasies into reality, but having been accused of not loving her, his reaction was instinctive and immediate.

  "That's not true. I love you."

  "No, you don't."

  "Yes, I do. I really do. I think you're . . . you're swell," said Rodney, and this was not like his fantasies at all.

  "If you loved me, you'd protect me."

  "I'll protect you," said Rodney.

  "Now, you won't. You're just using me for my body. You're exploiting me."

  "I'm not exploiting you. I'll protect you."

  "Really, Rodney? Do you promise? You're not just stringing me along, are you?"

  Rodney was not stringing her along and his promise was him bond. Thus it was that Rodney Pintwhlstle, who was excused from gym class because of asthma, chronic bronchitis, anaemia and what one gym instructor called "an awesome lack of coordination," found himself that afternoon standing before a hotel room with a knife in him hands, threatening America's primary secret enforcer and the greatest assassin ever to walk the face of the earth, the Master of Sinanju.

  Rodney took on the Oriental first because he looked easier.

  "What are you looking at?" yelled Rodney, waving the knife at the Oriental in the flowing kimono.

  "My hotel room," said the Oriental, "Please be so kind as to let me pass."

  "You're not passing anywhere, Charlie."

  "Have I offended you?" asked Chiun.

  "Yeah. You've been bothering Joan Hacker. If you guys don't stop this, I'll... I'll maybe use this thing."

  "We promise to stop," said the Master of Sinanju.

  "Oh," said Rodney Pintwhistle. "I mean, really,"

  "Really," said Chiun.

  "What about your buddy?"

  "He promises too," said Chiun.

  "Well, then I guess it's all settled," said Rodney. "You two guys aren't bad at all,"

  "Where is Miss Hacker?" asked Remo.

  "None of your business," said Rodney, and then feeling sorry for the taller man said: "I mean, she's on campus. But you won't bother her, will you?"

  "Do I look like someone who'd go where he's not wanted?"

  Rodney had to admit, the man didn't. Rodney fairly glided back to campus. The new Rodney Pintwhistle, lover, strong man, a man before whom women melted and men grovelled. Joan was surprised to see him.

  "Oh, Rodney, what are you doing here?" she asked as he strolled into her room.

  "Came to tell you you'll have no trouble from those two anymore."

  "The Oriental and the good-looking guy?"

  "He wasn't so good-looking."

  "You're sure you got the right two?"

  "I'm sure," Rodney said. "They apologized." He stuffed his hands in his pockets and waited for gratitude. Joan Hacker rose from the bed with a roundhouse swing at the side of his head. It connected with a crack. Rodney hurtled back into and over a chair. He held the side of his head.

  "All right for you," Rodney cried. "I'm telling. I'm telling. I'm telling that you gave me a knife and asked me to threaten someone."

  "You lied to me, punk," yelled Joan, kicking at the scrawny leg protecting his acne covered face.

  "I didn't. I didn't. They apologized."

  "You never even saw them. Liar. Liar."

  "Don't hit," yelled Rodney. "I have fragile bones."

  "Hit? I'll punch your heart out, you son of a bitch. I'll punch your frigging heart out. You tell anyone, I'll punch your heart out."

  And Rodney promised. The lad who had backed down the Destroyer and the Master of Sinanju promised he would not tell a soul, but in return he, too, wanted a pledge.

  "Just don't hit."

  CHAPTER TEN

  Joan Hacker was afraid. She dawdled down the street to the football stadium like a toddler forced to go to bed.

  First of all, it was not her fault. Rodney was the only thin, really thin, boy she knew. She couldn't foe expected to know right off that he would come back with a nonsense story. How could she know that? She did everything she could.

  And besides. Hadn't the German done what he was supposed to do? Everyone was talking about how old Henry Pfeiffer had been attacked by some strange beast that had bitten off his finger and crashed his head. Everyone. Absolutely everyone, and she hadn't said a word to anyone. She had done exactly as she was told. It wasn't as if she hadn't tried.

  Joan Hacker stopped in front of the rising concrete structure, so noisy on football Saturdays in autumn, and so quiet now. So . . . so imposing looking, she thought.

  She had done everything she was asked and now, because of that stinking Rodney Pintwhistle, she wouldn't be allowed to take any more real part in the revolution. It was downright oppressive. And she had done everything right.

  Joan reached into her windbreaker pocket, carefully opened the metal container and pinched some of the powder between her right fingertips. She withdrew her hand, put the powder in her left palm, and raised the palm to her left nostril. She sniffed hard. A stinging sensation showed that she had inhaled one of the cocaine crystals instead of just the powder. Her eyes watered. After a few moments, the pain passed, and in its place came a new resolve and new courage. Joan Hacker marched through the deserted darkened arch of Patton Memorial Field. She would not be oppressed, even though she was dealing with the Third World. But the man wasn't all that Third World, not into it really. He had said something nasty when she asked if he were Vietnamese. Very nasty.

  Joan entered the sunlight of the football field, her steps crunching on the cinder track. She looked along the Patton side of the stands. He wasn't there. Glancing toward the visitors' side, she saw him, standing right dab on the fifty-yard line. Now that wasn't a very good place for a revolutionary meeting. The forest by the canal was better. A car in an alley was better. Almost any place would be better. After all, if he could make a mistake like this, then who was he to blame her for Rodney?

  "Hi. Uhh, I've got a bit of ... well, not so nice news," said Joan as she reached the man in midfield. He was slightly shorter than she, with smooth yellow skin and hazel eyes. He wore a black business suit with a white shirt and black tie, like one of those little Japanese computer salesmen, only she had better not call him a Japanese again, because he had gotten angry about that too. Not angry angry, but a cold quiet angry. The man nodded to her.

  "I, well, I tried. And it wasn't my fault."

  The Oriental face was stone.

  "Really, it wasn't. I, well, I got the skinny one as you said, and the fat one worked well. Let me tell you. He did make an attempt on the two reactionaries, and they were there at the spot you told me to tell them about. You know, where the soul brothers trained and everything."

  "They were coming from the path or going into it?" asked the Oriental, in a thin, cold voice.

  "Coming, because Gruenwal
d or Pfeiffer or whatever he was, left after they left."

  "Good. They saw the rock."

  Joan Hacker smiled.

  "I did well on that, then?"

  "Truly revolutionary," said the Oriental and he smiled. It did not look like an approving smile to Joan, rather a contemptuous smile. But who could really tell with the Third World?

  "Well, after that I recruited the skinniest, absolutely the skinniest student on campus. He promised me he would threaten those two. He did. I swear it."

  The Oriental nodded.

  "But then he came back without even a scratch on him and he lied to me. He told me they apologized."

  "You did very well," said the Oriental.

  "I did?" said Joan in amazement. "I thought he never even went near them. I mean, I could punch out Rodney myself. Why would they apologize?"

  "Why wouldn't they, my child? I mean, my revolutionary heroine. The typhoon uproots trees and shatters boulders, but it does not harm the grass."

  "That's Mao?"

  "It is not the Chinaman. You have done well. There is more to do, and you must join me in doing it, because you are a great revolutionary heroine. You will come with me. But one thing. If the young American or the old man should seek you again, you must tell them the dead animals are next."

  "The dead animals are next," repeated Joan Hacker with a little nod. "I don't understand it."

  "It's revolutionary," the Oriental said. "A good revolutionary never asks questions, but strives to help the revolution."

  "But why don't we just off them?" asked Joan.

  "Because it is written that all must be quiet while the typhoon roars."

  She looked puzzled. "I know I'm not supposed to ask questions, but what does that mean? About the typhoon?"

  "You have done well, so I will tell you. The typhoon that has now come is dangerous in any alley or room or building. That is why we stand here this sunny day in the middle of a football field. When one speaks to our typhoon, one does not send a telegram or write a letter or make a telephone call. He sends the message in the way it will be understood. A sign that another typhoon has passed. Perhaps a chip on a rock that could only be made by the same training. A fat man and a thin man to show that the extremes of weight are no problem. They are an offering, their lives are."