Grom pointed. "See that entrance?"
"Uh, yes, sir."
"We're going to pull in there."
The bus driver started to protest, but Grom was already making his announcement to the entourage. "Listen up, people! This is a security alert! Everybody take cover!"
Mayhem followed as men and women pushed and shoved to get under bunks and tables.
"What's going on, Mr. President?" one of the security agents demanded.
"We've got hijackers on board the bus," Grom said acidly. "If you people had provided me with adequate protection, you would know this by now."
The agents were flabbergasted. "Where are the hijackers?"
"On the roof."
"What?" the lead agent almost squealed.
"Prepare to apprehend," he commanded his partner.
"Too little and too late," Grom declared. "I've got my own enforcement team ready to handle the situation."
"That's unacceptable! We will handle this."
Grom snorted in the agent's face. "Listen, dim bulb, you leave this bus and you'll be a target. The people I've hired won't care who you are or what branch of the federal bureaucracy you crawled out of."
The former Secret Service agent gave Greg Grom a haughty twitch of the lip. "We'll see about that."
Chapter 26
"Olly Outlander's Old Tyme Opry," Remo Williams read. "Temporarily Closed for Remodeling-Open Again Soon Folks. What are we doing here?"
"I believe the signage is misleading," Chiun observed.
"Yeah, this place looks like it's been locked up since Dubya's daddy was running things," Remo said. The bus nevertheless rolled across the weed-grown parking lot and headed around the dilapidated lobby entrance. "You know, I have a feeling they're not really remodeling this place, either."
"There you are mistaken, my son. Here are the carpenters now."
The bus came to a halt in the middle of the empty lot. The brakes squeaked and the engine idled.
"You know, Little Father, I don't see any trucks. Just motorcycles. I don't think a real carpenter could carry all his tools on a motorcycle."
Chiun stroked his wisp of a beard thoughtfully. "You have a point, my son."
Remo shrugged. "Let's ask 'em. I think they're coming over for a chat."
Chiun nodded. "We will put on our friendliest faces." The Masters of Sinanju stepped from the bus and plummeted fourteen feet, but their feet touched down almost without a sound and neither of them stumbled. The bikers didn't seem impressed.
"How y'all doin'?" the Reigning Master said with a friendly wave.
"Wipe them out. Wipe them out," came the menacing chant.
"Wipe who out?" Remo asked.
"You're to blame," accused the barrel-chested giant at the head of the pack. "It's your fault!"
"What's my fault?" Remo asked.
"Everything!" The man had a heavy length of chain, which he whirled faster.
"You've been listening to the old Korean fart."
"We'll wipe you out!"
The bikers formed a half circle. Remo and Chiun were in the middle, backs to the bus.
"You are trapped," the leader growled. "Now you die."
"Maybe it's the leather jackets," Remo observed. "Nice warm day like this, they must be making you all hot and cranky."
The biker with the huge chest broke from the circle and bore down on Remo and Chiun, then with a roar he aimed the chain at his two victims. The massive weapon damaged only the side of the bus-Remo and Chiun were no longer there.
"It is your fault," Chiun said. The two Masters were now standing on the opposite side of the bus. Not a biker in sight. "You are to blame. Even strangers sense this."
"They're bonkers," Remo replied. "Whatever they say is obviously the opposite of reality."
"The deranged often possess their own vivid wisdom," Chiun noted.
"Or claim to."
The old Korean gave his protege a look hot enough to cause sunburn.
"Here they are! Wipe them out!" There was a chorus of boot steps coming around both ends of the bus. The Masters retreated across the parking lot.
"Why are you guys called the Smoking Hogs?" Remo called, reading sloppy jacket decals. "Is that like a Dixie version of a Sweat Hog?"
"Wipe you out!"
"Because the Sweat Hogs has been over for, like, decades."
"Sweating does appear to be their only talent," Chiun noted.
The bus lurched to life and spun in a circle. Remo wasn't about to let it escape. He led the herd of Hogs into position to block the bus's exit.
"You run like a dog!" the barrel-chested biker taunted them.
"This is as good a place as any to get wiped out, I guess," Remo said. The Masters were suddenly at a standstill, and the bikers bore down on them with amazing speed.
Remo watched the leader come at him with the chain. The man moved fast. Too fast for an overweight, beer-sodden thug in a restrictive leather jacket.
Not that he had anything to worry about. As the mass of metal careened at his head, he simply ducked beneath it, then reached up, grabbed it at precisely the right point and gave it a nudge for added momentum. Donald Deemeyer saw it coming at him and dropped his mouth wide in surprise. The chain hit. There was a liquid crunch, and then his jaw was all that remained intact of D.D.'s head.
Another biker howled and brought together a pair of crowbars, intending for Remo to be between them. Remo allowed the crowbars to clang together, then he gave them a hard shove. The bars drove forcefully into the guts of the man holding them.
More of them came, their rage spurring them to greater speed. Remo sidestepped a red-eyed, cross-eyed machete wielder and sent the big blade rocketing skyward with a quick kick. The maniac stumbled and looked around wildly for his lost weapon.
"Little to the right," Remo said, stepping in close and giving him a small shove. "Hey, look!"
Remo pointed up. The maniac looked. The machete was falling with tremendous velocity when it went in his mouth, out the bottom of his jaw and into his chest.
Two more stabbed at Remo from either side with more conventional cutlery, but the knives disappeared from their hands, and he inserted a finger into an eye on the left, then the right.
There was a gunshot. Remo stepped around the bullet, then ran at the shooter. Only one more shot slid past him before he had taken possession of the handgun and bent it into a horseshoe. He did the same thing to the shooter until he heard vertebrae crunching.
"Weapons are for amateurs, Remo. Have I taught you nothing?" Chiun grumbled. He had finished off his fair share of leather-clad Smoking Hogs.
It was the machete wielder he was referring to. The man had somehow extracted the weapon from his face and neck and was bearing down on Remo, the howls of outrage bubbling out of his neck. Remo stepped around him and whacked him hard on the back of the head. The machete wielder became airborne, dead already.
Chiun tsked over the body when it fell. "Very messy."
"I was just playing around," Remo protested.
"Are you prepared yet to enter the bus? Or should we take our rooftop perch again and see what other surprises they have in store for us?"
Remo sighed. "I guess we go in. But let's try not to kill everybody, Little Father."
Chiun sniffed. "Don't insult me."
Chapter 27
"Why is everybody screaming?" Amelia demanded.
"Shut up and listen!" Grom barked. "We're going with emergency Plan B."
"But why, Mr. President?"
"Just come get me!"
"Okay-two minutes!"
Grom couldn't believe he was putting his life in the hands of Amelia Powlik.
He strapped on the gas mask. Nobody noticed. Half the staff was cowering under tables while half found it impossible to tear themselves away from the horrors outside.