He turned carefully. It all depended on how he handled the situation. Killing Millis was a priority but not the same priority as living. Living was Priority Number One.
"What did you say to me?" he repeated more firmly.
"I said I can't let you kill him," Remo said. His hands hung at his sides. They were his weapons, his surgical instruments, but here on this roof, in the dying sun, facing the man who shared his name, they felt old and useless.
"I heard what you said," the gunman replied. He rubbed the scar along the right side of his jaw. "That's not what I meant. "
"What are you talking about?" Remo said.
"Shouldn't that have been, 'I can't let you kill him, Dad'?"
"Dad?" Remo said. "I can't call you Dad. I don't even know you."
"Maybe you'd prefer 'Pop.' I hate 'Pop' myself, but if it's what you want, son . . ."
"Son . . ." Remo repeated softly. "Dad," he mumbled. He felt bewildered and shrugged. "I never called anyone Dad before. I was raised in an orphanage. Nuns took care of me."
"Not very good care," the gunman said. "They didn't even teach you how to address your own father. Instead I get threats. You were threatening me, weren't you?"
"I didn't mean to. But I can't let you kill someone in cold blood."
"Why not? I told you it was my job. You want to deprive your old man of a living? I'm not getting any younger, you know. What is this Millis guy to you anyway?"
"I don't even know him," Remo said.
"Fine. Then you won't miss him." The gunman turned and brought the weapon to bear again.
Remo took a hesitant step forward. "No."
"Okay, kid," the gunman yelled and tossed the weapon to Remo. "You do it then."
Remo caught the rifle instinctively. It felt ugly, awkward in his hands. It had been years since he had held any kind of weapon. Sinanju had taught him that weapons were impure, unclean things that defiled the art and ruined the man who used them.
He dropped it.
"I can't. Not that way."
"I might have known. I'm not around and you grow up to be a pansy. Look at you. You dress like a bum. You talk back. I ask you to do one little thing and you deny me, your own father."
"But . . ."
"I never thought I'd say this, especially right after finding you after all these years," the gunman said, "but I'm ashamed of you, son. Ashamed."
Remo hung his head.
"I thought you said you were a killer," the other man said. "Isn't that what you told me? And I said to myself, 'Remo, your son is a man. He's following in your footsteps.' That's what I said to myself."
The man spat disdainfully.
"I didn't know you were a wimp. Now are you going to let your father do his job? Are you?"
Remo did not answer. He looked toward the man and then toward the fire door that led down from the roof. His mouth worked and he was about to speak when there was a crash at the fire door and it popped up like a piece of steel bread ejected from a toaster. Pieces of hinge and padlock flew like grenade shrapnel.
A head appeared in the opening like a ghost rising from its grave, except this ghost wore a purple kimono instead of a shroud and spoke in a voice that crackled like a loose electrical wire.
"Remo! What are you doing with this man?"
"Little Father, it's-"
The gunman interrupted. "What did you call him?" he demanded as he reached for his Beretta, which still lay on the graveled roof.
"Well, he's not really my father," Remo said. "But he's been like a father to me."
"I'm your father, Remo. Don't you ever forget that," the gunman said.
"Lies," snapped Chiun, his face flushed with fury.
"No, Chiun," said Remo. "I think it's true."
"Stand aside," Chiun said. "I will deal with this most base of deceivers." He stepped up from the stairwell.
"No," Remo said.
The gunman grabbed his weapon. Good, if the kid keeps the old gook busy, I'll be able to wrap this up.
"You say no to me, Remo?" Chiun demanded. "Are you crazed?"
"Keep him busy, kid. I'll just be a moment," the gunman said.
"I can't let you hurt him, Chiun. I'm sorry."
"And I cannot let this amateur thug harm someone under the protection of Sinanju."
"Didn't you hear me, Chiun? He's my father. My father. I didn't even know he was alive."
"Not for long," Chiun said. He moved around Remo and instinctively Remo swept out a hand. The hand almost touched the person of the Master of Sinanju, when Remo's feet suddenly tangled together. He tripped and went down.
Remo bounced back to his feet as if he were on a trampoline.
"Chiun," he said and the Oriental whirled. A longnailed finger flashed warningly at Remo, then at the gunman. "I cannot let this man live."
"You knew he was my father all along, didn't you? Didn't you?" Remo cried.
"I am doing this for your own good," Chiun said. "Now stand back."
"This is why you didn't want me around here, isn't it? You and Smith knew about him. You knew he was my father, didn't you?"
"I am your Master," Chiun said. "Nothing else in the universe has a meaning in your life. Now leave us, Remo."
A kind of sick horror rode over Remo's features as he said, "You can't hurt him, Chiun."
"That man," said Chiun stonily, "has profaned the sacred personage of the Master of Sinanju." He touched the spot over his ear where the ricocheted bullet had hit him. "He has attacked someone under Sinanju's protection. He must die."
"Kick his ass, son," the gunman yelled. "1 know you can do it."
Remo looked at the gunman, then at Chiun. His decision showed on his face.
"You may not raise your hand against the Master of Sinanju," Chiun intoned gravely. "Though I love you as one from my village, Sinanju comes first."
"I don't want to fight you, Chiun. You know that."
"Good. Then wait below," Chiun snapped.
Suddenly a shot sounded and Chiun's bald head whirled, the tufts of hair dancing.
"Aiiieee," he shrieked.
"Got him," the gunman grunted. "One shot and picked him off clean."
"Murderer," cried Chiun and moved toward the man, but Remo dove between the two of them.
Chiun stopped and his hazel eyes narrowed as he looked at Remo.
"So be it," he said. "You have made your choice, Remo. You are lost to Sinanju and lost to me."
He watched only for a moment, before realizing that ordinary people could get hurt just by being close, and the gunman slipped out the fire door, collapsing his Olympic pistol into his briefcase on the way down.
He walked down, shaking his head all the way. He had never seen a fight like it. It had started like a ballet. The old man's movements were slow and graceful. A sandaled toe floated out and Remo's body became a blur as he avoided it. Remo's counterthrust was a lunging handspear that seemed to go wrong only because the old man sidestepped with such exquisite speed that he seemed not to move at all.
If they were master and pupil, the gunman thought, they were the two scariest people on earth. Remo's thrusts looked faster because the human eye read them as a blur, but the old man was so blindingly quick in his movements that the eye did not register them at all.
The gunman had had enough; all he wanted to do was to get away. When he reached the ground floor of the building he told the guard at the desk that there was a fight on the roof. He had been able to hear it from his own top-floor office, he said.
The guard did not recognize him, but guards everywhere responded to men wearing well-tailored suits and carrying leather briefcases.
The guard telephoned for a security team to go to the roof, then took out his pistol, checked the action, and rode the elevator upstairs.
When he got to the roof, he shoved his way through a crowd of uniformed guards who stood around the doorway. "What's the matter? Why aren't you doing anything?" he demanded.