"How could they?" Remo asked. "They were already dead."
"Already?"
And from a back pocket Remo pulled out a blowgun. "I took this from my guy. One of them, anyway."
"You . . . YOU . . . " Chiun sputtered.
"Neat, huh? I figured, why screw around with them? Well, aren't you going to say something? Aren't you proud of the slick way I handled my end?"
"Proud?" Chiun screeched. "Do you know how this will look in the Book of Sinanju? This was the last battle with these creatures."
Remo's face acquired an injured look. "Why should I care how it will look? I got them. Dead is dead."
"It was ridiculous. And you used a weapon. What will the High Moo say?"
"He'll say it's about time. He thinks you forgot your weapons."
"I am mortified," Chiun said huffily.
"You're just pissed because when you write in your dippy scrolls how Sinanju conquered the last octopus worshiper, I'll get all the credit."
"Glory hound," Chiun spat.
"I knew it," Remo laughed. And laughing felt pretty good after all he had been through.
Chapter 20
Remo finished lashing the bamboo poles together.
"I think it's long enough now," he called to Chiun. "Then bring it here," Chiun said testily.
Remo hefted the pole onto his shoulder. To his surprise, it held.
The sun was coming up. Pinkish rays tinged the Pacific. There were birds calling now. Not the twittering birds of the States, but the cacophony of jungle birds. Mynahs. Parakeets. Terns.
The Master of Sinanju finished lashing the hands of one of the octopus worshipers behind his back with a vine. "Give it to me," Chiun said.
After Remo had handed over the pole, the Master of Sinanju ran it up under the man's bound feet. It passed up his back, under his tied hands, to the next pair of bound ankles, and then to the next lashed wrists.
Remo lifted the hands as necessary, until the pole's end bumped the shattered skull of the topmost man.
"This is ridiculous," Remo said for the twelfth or thirteenth time as he examined the monstrosity that lay on the ground.
All nine octopus men had been joined into one huge octopus man. Remo had been harangued into retrieving the group he had knocked into the water. They had been easy to handle because they had stiffened into position from the effects of the poison darts.
But the others had to be reassembled one by one and their limbs set and then broken so they were locked into place. Chiun had done that. He knew how to crush bone and joints so that they fused.
"Now what? As if I can't guess," Remo asked.
"Take your end. I will take mine."
"On a count of three," Remo said, bending down. "One, two, three. Lift!"
The bamboo pole groaned, but it held. The bodies hung off it like slaughtered chickens. Tongues lolled. Some of the eyes stared glassily.
"Now, carefully," Chiun said, "back to the palace."
"The mighty hunters return, huh?"
"Say nothing about the blowgun," Chiun said in a sour voice.
They trudged down to the water, sloshing inland and through the jungle. Dead Moovian heads bounced like overripe fruit. They stopped to pick up the other bodies they had vanquished along the way, piling them unceremoniously atop the others. When they neared the village, Chiun suddenly called a halt.
"Lay it down," he ordered.
"Tired, Little Father?" Remo asked solicitously.
"Do not be ridiculous," Chiun countered, joining Remo in front of their burden. "I am reigning Master. To me goes the honor of entering the village first."
"Oh," said Remo. "I guess that means the back of the bus for me." And without another word he took Chiun's place at the end of the bamboo pole.
When they entered the village outskirts, Chiun began to call out in a loud singsong voice.
"Arise, O children of Moo. See what Sinanju has brought you. No longer need you fear the darkness. For the last of the spawn of Sa Mansang, known to you as Ru-Taki-Nuhu, has been vanquished! Arise, O children of Moo, to greet a new day and a golden era."
The children were the first to poke their heads out of the grass huts. Then the adults. Runners were sent to the palace, and Chiun smiled.
Amazed voices lifted at the sight of the round red sucker marks that decorated Remo's chest and arms. "Ru-Taki-Nuhu!" they whispered. "The white one has fought Ru-Taki-Nuhu and lives!"
When they at last came to the feast circle in front of the Royal Palace, the High Moo stood waiting with folded arms. His daughter hovered at his side.
Red Feather Guards stepped forward as Remo and Chiun set down their burden. They poked and stabbed at the corpses with spears, seeking signs of life.
"All are dead," one reported to the High Moo. The High Moo strode up to the Master of Sinanju. "You have brought me twelve kills, and twelve is the number the traitor of a royal priest swore served Ru-Taki-Nuhu. The octopus cult is no more. You have lived up to your word, Master of Sinanchu and have earned the full fee due to you."
"Payable on demand," said Chiun.
"I will be glad to store it for you in the royal treasure house for the length of your stay," the High Moo suggested.
"And I accept," Chiun said with a quick bow.
"The full hospitality of Moo is yours."
"My ... slave and I are weary. We have had a long journey and ate much this evening. We require rest. A few hours only."
"Come, rooms have been prepared in my palace. Dolla-Dree, show Remo to his room. I will escort the Master of Sinanchu to his quarters personally."
"Hello again," Remo said when the Low Moo came to take him by the arm.
"Will you tell me how you vanquished them before you sleep?" she asked, admiring the red marks on his arms.
"Sure," Remo said.
"Do not believe all he says," Chiun warned. "He will try to take more credit than is his due."
"No, I won't," Remo said, winking at the Low Moo. "Chiun helped. Some."
And Remo hurried into the palace ahead of Chiun's flurry of invective.
Chapter 21
It was raining when Dr. Harold W. Smith's flight landed at Boston's Logan Airport.
He waited ten minutes at the underground exit of Terminal B for a free MBTA bus to the Blue Line subway stop. He rode the rattling train five stops to Government Center, walked upstairs, and switched to a Green Line trolley, riding it one stop to Park Street. The rain had tapered off to a sullen sprinkle when Smith emerged on the corner of Tremont and Park streets at the edge of Boston Common. He walked down Tremont.
The office of Michael P. Brunt was above an antiquarian bookstore on West Street. Trudging up the dingy steps, Smith found an empty reception room.
He stood for a moment, uncertainly clutching his briefcase. He wiped rainwater off his rimless glasses. He cleared his throat.
The inner door opened and a square-faced man built along the lines of a refrigerator in a blue serge suit poked his unshaven chin out.
"You Mr. Brown?" he demanded.
"Yes," Smith lied.
"You look more like Mr. Gray. But come in anyway. Sorry about the secretary. I sent her out for some bullets. I kinda ran out on my last case."
The office was cluttered, Smith noticed, as he entered. Papers overflowed a wastepaper basket. The window was a film of grime that looked out over row of graying buildings so nondescript they might have been painted on the glass by an indifferent artist.
Mike Brunt dropped behind his desk. His wooden chair squeaked loudly. The set looked as if it had once seen service in a high school. He leaned back and set sizethirteen brogans on the desktop, showing Smith the color of his left sock through a hole in the sole. It was white. On the wall behind him was a framed cloth saying: "When in Doubt, Punt, Bunt, or Shoot to Kill." It was done in needlepoint.
"I will come right to the point," Smith said, seating himself primly on a vinyl chair, his briefcase on his knees.