Remo failed to notice the catch in his teacher's voice.
"I'm not," Remo said firmly. "Just said so." Chiun's slivered gaze never wavered. "Binoculars, right?" Remo said absently. "If you ask me, binoculars are just a big fat cheat. Oh, they're gone. Good riddance to Bolshevik rubbish." Whoever had been watching them had abruptly stopped. Remo felt the cessation of pressure waves on his body. He didn't seem interested in the least in their silent observer.
The auditorium was large, the seats filled nearly to capacity. Given the three-day nature of the marathon event, people didn't feel as obligated to stay put as they otherwise might. Streams of concertgoers were coming and going up and down the six long aisles that ran the length of the big hall.
The houselights were dimmed, the stage lights up full.
Remo was busy watching the man onstage. To his surprise, he had found upon entering that he actually liked the comedian who was performing.
The portly old man wore a black suit and red tie. He had once starred in a movie about a successful businessman who enrolled in college to be closer to his estranged son. Even though it was now more than ten years old, whenever he passed by that movie on TV Remo still stopped to watch it.
"Let's find some seats," Remo said.
Chiun's somber weathered face did not reflect his pupil's uncharacteristically bright tone.
When the binoculars had lowered, their owner had already been darting back into the balcony box. The old man had seen just a flash of a face. But it was enough.
Chiun looked as if he had seen a ghost.
Far down the hall a set of doors opened. In the general commotion of the hall, they went unnoticed. Six men hurried through them and began marching up the aisle.
"The Russians are coming," Chiun observed. He cast a wary eye at his pupil. He seemed relieved to find that Remo had not so much as glanced at the balcony. The younger Master of Sinanju had not seen the specter in the box.
The Russians were coming full steam ahead, elbowing people aside in their haste to reach the back of the room. Although they had not yet unholstered their side arms, the hands of all but the leader strayed under their jackets.
"Russians, schmussians," Remo griped. "I'm sick of Russians. Don't they know they're not even topical anymore? They should have the decency to be Chinese. C'mon, there's two empty seats down there."
He had no sooner spoken than the man onstage completed his act. There was a round of thunderous applause during which the comedian departed and a slight, balding man with a curly fringe of black hair stepped up to the microphone.
"Oh, balls," Remo griped when he saw who it was.
Bobby Stone was a film actor, occasional Oscar host and one of the three regular emcees of Buffoon Aid. He had been in one hit film about a group of middle-aged men who signed aboard a ship as merchant mariners for a two-week adventure vacation. Aside from Land Lubbers, Stone's movies were generally bombs so large the studio should have fired their PR team and replaced it with a demolition squad.
As Stone lapsed into a painfully unfunny improvisational routine, Remo spun to the Master of Sinanju.
"Let's get out of here," he griped.
Chiun remained motionless. "Smith would want us to see why those Russians are here," he said.
"Since when do you give a turd in a tailpipe what Smith wants?" Remo said. "And besides, they're coming up to nab that other Russian who's stinking up the fourth row." He shot a thumb over his shoulder, roughly to where Yuri Koskolov sat. "You coming with me or what?"
The old man shook his head. "You cannot leave."
"Course I can," Remo disagreed. "I can ignore whatever they're going to do and go outside and sit in the grass in the shadow of that chunka-chunka scary rock. Bye."
He hadn't taken a single step for the exit when he heard the first shout in Russian behind him. It was quickly followed by a single gunshot. After that, pandemonium.
"Well, crap," Remo observed, slamming on the brakes. Placing firm hands to his hips, he spun. The seated Russian was now trying to claw his way across the panicking row toward the center aisle. In his wake came the gaggle of men who had raced up the aisle. A hulking member of the hit squad carried a smoking gun in his paw.
The single, ill-advised warning shot had sent a flood of concertgoers to the exits. The first wave was racing toward Remo and Chiun. The crowd broke around the unmoving men, crashing through the gleaming exit doors behind them.
Remo shook his head in disbelief. "They don't leave for Bobby Stone's Ricardo Montalban impersonation, but they stampede over one single gunshot?" he complained.
"Quickly," the Master of Sinanju pressed.
The center seats were empty by now. Chiun bounded from the floor. Toes barely brushing the top of one of the back seats, the old man launched himself forward.
With a resigned sigh, Remo followed, toe to chair to air. The two men propelled themselves to the fourth row down, spinning in midair. In a heartbeat they landed on either side of the pack of armed Russians.
The huge Russian with the gun was running along in front of the other five. Lumbering toward his fleeing countryman, he was startled to suddenly find himself staring down into a pair of hard, deep-set eyes. Halting, the SVR agent quickly twisted his gun, aiming it into Remo's face.
"Here's where I've got a problem," Remo said. "My country's falling apart, sure. No argument there."
As a pudgy finger squeezed the trigger, something went wrong. Instead of aiming toward the little American's face, the gun was now pointed in the opposite direction. The hulking SVR agent didn't have time to ponder the significance of this strange turn of events before the bullet fired by his own hand blew off the top of his Soviet-era head.
"But your country," Remo continued as he bounded over the falling mountain of flesh and into the next man in line.
The next Russian came up short, stunned by both his collapsing comrade and the stranger leaping over him.
"Now if we want to talk a real mess, that's the shithole to end all shitholes," Remo said as he planted a finger deep into the second man's occipital lobe. "I mean, rather than pester me, why don't you use this energy where it might do some good? Take a mop and a pail to the Urals and don't stop until you reach Iran."
When he crushed the third man's chest to jelly and found a fourth one beyond the toppling agent, Remo frowned. There were only six in all, and he was up to four.
"What, you sitting this one out, Little Father?" he complained loudly as he planted a gun deep into the next man's pumping heart.
Chiun didn't respond. The row was too narrow. Remo couldn't see the Master of Sinanju beyond the next two men.
With a punishing overhand blow, Remo sent the penultimate agent's head down deep into his thoracic cavity. Collapsing vertebrae clicked together like fastening Legos. His chin now nestled onto his sternum, the suddenly short SVR agent tipped forward onto the floor.
All that was left behind the man was one very shocked Vadim Zhdanov.
The Master of Sinanju was nowhere to be seen. When he realized he alone was left standing among his SVR agents and that a man who fit the description given by the director of the Institute was wading through the bodies of his team toward him, Vadim Zhdanov did the only thing he could do under the circumstances.
Gulping audibly, the Russian agent placed his own gun to his own temple and pulled the trigger. As the last body fell, Remo scowled. "Typical," he said to the man with the smoking hole in his head.
"He gets me all rah-rah worked up and then takes a powder."
Still frowning, he turned.
The crowd had all but dispersed. A few stragglers were pushing through the doors near the stage. Remo was grateful that there weren't any cameras aimed his way. Most were directed at the stage, but some were positioned to get audience-reaction shots. But the crew from the cable network airing the Buffoon Aid special had fled, as well.