One touched her pale cheek curiously. He pushed Kimberly's head upright. When he withdrew his dirty fingers, it tilted left again. They laughed uproariously.
"They don't speak English," Kimberly muttered nervously. "What do I do, O Kali?"
Go with them.
Worry quirking her lips and violet eyes, Kimberly Baynes allowed herself to be taken to one of the half-standing large buildings, even though she was certain they were only going to gang-rape her.
Her suspicions were confirmed when they stacked their rifles in a corner and started unbuckling their belts.
One of them had her bag. He pulled out a long yellow silk scarf.
"What do I do? What do I do?" Kimberly whispered.
Show them your tits.
"Here," Kimberly said, reaching for the scarf. "Let me show you how this works."
The soldier let her loop the harmless silk around his throat. The others laughed, anticipating a long afternoon with the unsuspecting blond American servicewoman.
"Ready?" Kimberly asked.
Without waiting for an answer, she pulled the ends of the scarf in opposite directions. The fabric made his throat muscles balloon around it. His face went scarlet. The Iraiti gurgled his horror. His tongue slid from his gagging, yawning mouth.
The Iraitis laughed, thinking their fellow soldier was having sport. The girl was very slim. She did not look strong at all. Besides, she was a female, and every Arab man knew how weak the other sex was.
When his face turned blue, they changed their minds. They converged on the woman, who oddly enough let their comrade fall into a swoon and began unbuttoning her blouse to expose her prodigious brassiere.
It was the type that fastened in the front. She unhooked it. The Iraiti eyes brightened in anticipation of the pale breasts that were about to be revealed.
Their anticipation turned to horror when two long crablike arms unfolded themselves, snapping a silken scarf between them with nervous, predatory tugs.
As one, they took a step back.
By then it was too late. The unclean heathen thing leapt for them, and they all fell to the floor in a gang throttle in which everyone participated, but only one person survived.
Kimberly Baynes emerged from the damaged building modestly buttoning up her uniform blouse and commandeered one of the sand-colored trucks.
She drove due north.
Somewhere, there would be an Iraiti detachment that spoke English. And she would find it.
Not that Kali complained about the delay. She was enjoying the ride immensely.
"Did I do better that time?" Kimberly asked.
They writhed magnificently, Kali told her.
Chapter 21
The house was dark.
Remo had walked all the way from Folcroft. He had not started out for the house. He had never expected to set foot in it. Ever again. Too many memories, as he had explained to Smith.
What had happened was that he had started to feel the call in his blood. The call of Kali. He had first dragged out a silken scarf to satisfy his craving. But it had only made him yearn for her more.
Jerking every scarf from his pockets, he threw them against the walls.
"You don't own me!" he cried. "You'll never own me."
The scarves slipped into little piles like limp discarded hand puppets'-which was exactly how Remo felt inside his soul. Limp. Helpless. Cast off.
A cold shower had not helped, so he had stepped out into the hot night to walk, wearing underwear three sizes too small so his uncontrollable tumescence wouldn't be too obvious.
The heat only fired his blood. So he walked.
And in time he found himself on the tree-lined residential street that lay snug under the hills of the Folcroft Golf Course, where he had been living in a Tudor-style house. Remo had purchased it on recommendation from Chiun, only to learn later that he had been tricked into becoming Harold Smith's neighbor. For Smith owned an adjoining home. The Master of Sinanju had explained this away with a flowery platitude about the royal assassin needing to dwell close to the seat of power.
Remo's was a modest house. Nothing fancy. Not even the white picket fence he had once dreamed he'd have. It wasn't a white-picket-fence kind of neighborhood.
As he passed through the zones of the pale yellow streetlight illumination-nightfall had come to Rye, New York-Remo's eyes went to the dark blank windows.
It looked empty, that house. As empty as Remo Williams felt.
He walked past it, his eyes glued to the windows, half-hoping, half-fearing to see a familiar wrinkled face in a window. He had lived there less than two years-an absurdly small segment of his total life, but such an overwhelming wave of nostalgia washed over him that Remo abruptly turned up the walk.
It was, he thought, as if he were drawn to the place.
At the door, Remo dug around in his pockets. Then he recalled that he had thrown the house key away in Tacomaor was it Chicago?
The Yale lock cylinder resembled a brass medallion in the painted wood. Remo simply set his hard fingers around the edges. He twisted.
Slowly the lock turned like a flush dial. Wood and metal squealed, settling into a long low groan of protest. A panel split under the powerful force exerted by his inexorable fingers.
Wounded and beaten, the door fell open.
Remo stepped over the theshold, flicking a light switch that produced no light.
"Smith," Remo muttered. "Cut the electricity to save two cents." Remo grunted. At least Smith was consistent.
He went from room to room, his visual purple adjusted to the darkness. In the bare living room the big-screen TV lay idle, a video recorder and several stacks of tapes resting atop it. Chiun's British soaps. His latest passion.
No, Remo thought sadly, last passion.
Remo's bedroom was a simple room with a reed mat. Remo glanced over it without feeling or connection. It had only been a place to sleep. He skipped Chiun's bedroom and went to the kitchen with its simple dining table and long rows of cabinets. He opened them, touching the sacks and canisters of uncooked rice of all varieties.
It was here, Remo thought morosely, that he and Chiun had enjoyed their best times together. Cooking and eating.
And arguing. Always arguing. It had become a ritual with them. And now he missed it terribly.
Remo left the kitchen, going to the storage room.
And he knew then what had impelled him to return.
Chiun's steamer trunks. Fourteen oversize lacquered trunks in every ungodly color imaginable. Emblazoned with dragons, phoenixes, salamanders, and other exotic creatures. They had been a pain in the ass to truck around during their vagabond days. But Remo would carry them to the moon and back for another combative afternoon with Chiun, listening to his carping and eating steaming bowlfuls of pure Javonica rice.
Dropping to his knees, he threw open a lid at random. Remo was not surprised to see that it contained an assortment of junk-restaurant giveaway toothpicks in colored cellophane, swizzle sticks, coasters, towels emblazoned with the crests of scores of hotels from around the world. Remo closed it, feeling sad. All this stuff carefully collected. And for what?
The next trunk contained rolls of delicately packed parchment scrolls, each tied closed with a different-colored ribbon. Here was the history of Chiun's days in America. These were what had called Remo to the house. He would have to return them to the village of Sinanju, where they would join the histories of past Masters.
Remo reached down to pluck one up. It looked to be the freshest.
He held it in his hand for a long time, fingers poised over the emerald ribbon.
Finally he simply replaced it unread. It was too soon. He could not bear to reexperience their days as seen through Chiun's jaundiced eyes. Remo closed the trunk.
The next one opened up on a sea of silks and fine brocades. Chiun's ceremonial kimonos. Remo lifted one-a black silk kimono with two orange-and-black tigers stitched delicately onto the chest, rising on their hind legs, their forepaws frozen in eternal combat.