“No. Emperor Smith requests us to not engage the street thugs in London. Instead, we are to go directly to the Scottish castle.”
“Why?” Remo demanded.
“The Emperor will explain it all when we are on the helicopter.”
“What helicopter?”
Chiun’s breath control was perfect. He didn’t need to sigh, but he did sigh, the sound of a man who has endured unfathomable irritation for an eternity. “The helicopter that will take us to the castle in Scotland.”
“Where are we supposed to catch the helicopter?” Remo asked. “Wouldn’t the airport have been a likely place?”
Chiun explained as if he were teaching a child to keep his hand away from the open flame. “The Emperor did not see much chance that I would intercept you at the airport. Therefore he bade me to travel to the Piccadilly battle zone and locate you there. The helicopter is standing by.”
“Got it,” Remo said. “So Smitty’s not expecting us to phone in right away. We’ve got some extra breathing room.”
“I do not require extra breathing room. I breathe perfectly.”
“I’m pretty good at it, too. Here we are.”
The streets were deserted and they soon began showing the telltale signs of battle. Destruction. Bodies. Remo stopped the cab when they reached the outskirts of the violence.
Troublemakers in bloodstained kilts had a scraggly band of riot police trapped against a brick wall. The cops’ riot gear was now in the hands of the Mad Scots, who were using the clear acrylic shields to bash the London police in the head and face. There were only a couple of survivors left; bodies were everywhere.
“Watch this!” barked a happy killer as he brought the shield down on the face of a riot cop who was begging for his life. The cop’s face flattened against the shield. The bloody, crushed expression was vivid for a moment, then the face slid off and the man collapsed in a pile. “Lookit that! Haw!”
“Let me try.” Another Mad Scot raised his shield over his head, but his would-be victim wasn’t cooperating. He protected his head with both arms.
“Put your face up, bobby.”
The riot cop was mewling wordlessly.
“I said, show me your fucking face!” The Scot kicked the cop in the back. The cop went rigid, grabbing for his back, and the Mad Scot brought the shield down on his momentarily exposed face.
The cop whined and his assailant barked happily, and then everything went into a wild reversal. The shield changed direction and flattened against the face of the Scot who was holding it.
But this time the face really flattened, like a soft clay face under a rolling pin.
“Hey, wank, he was one of us,” complained another Mad Scot.
“But I’m not one of you,” Remo explained.
“He’s a Yank, not a wank! Get ready for sleepy time, piece of American shit.”
“I’m ready, but first I just have to ask. What’s this all about?”
“What do you care?”
“Yes, what do you care?” Chiun stood on the sidelines looking peeved.
Remo opened his mouth, closed it. “Even if one of them did give me an answer, it wouldn’t mean anything, really.”
“You have gained great wisdom,” Chiun said, and he stepped forward, striking out in both directions. His hands seemed to reach three times their length, and his fingernails plunged into living flesh and bone like dipping into a bowl of tepid water. He rotated his wrists with a flick and was back standing where he had been.
Two Mad Scots lost perfectly circular sections of bone, heart muscle and meat, as if the cavity had been formed with the sharp end of a sawed-off beer can. Blood flooded out and their bodies collapsed into it.
Remo moved into the attackers with deft, efficient movements. Some he touched lightly on the chest and neck, and they dropped hard. Others he pushed and shoved with finesse, sending the Mad Scots flying into garbage cans, walls and each other. They hit with such tremendous force they were crushed or broken beyond repair. In seconds there was nothing left living in this small corner of London except for a few cowering riot police.
The Masters of Sinanju strolled along the street, intercepting pockets of fighting that amounted to nothing more than one-sided cop beatings. Remo’s ire was rising with every murdered policeman he counted.
“You know what?” he announced. “I changed my mind again. I do care.”
He was talking to a Mad Scot whose tartan was sodden with blood. Blood oozed from his sash. Blood trickled from his skirt. It dripped from his farm boots to the ground, which was a long way down. Remo had one hand flattened against the gangbanger’s massive stomach with such force it kept him firmly pinned against the wall of a clothing store.
“Can’t breathe,” the fat Scot gasped.
“Neither can that guy. Or that guy. Or those guys in the gutter. Answer the question.”
Chiun waited in repose.
“Don’t know what yer talking—”
“Don’t be stupid. It’s a simple question and I want a simple answer. Why?”
“Why what?” the fat man gagged.
“Hands off, Yankee fucker,” ordered one of the fat Scot’s friends.
Remo wondered if the Mad Scots accepted only chronically obese members.
“Fine,” Remo snapped, and took his hands off the four-hundred-pounder, but not before giving him a little extra bit of a shove—which smashed his abdomen with force akin to being rolled over by a big truck. The four-hundred-pounder made a grotesque noise, then his body fell heavily and permanently.
“You fu—”
Remo snatched the leader of the Fat Pack by the face and held it tight—so tight the others heard the cracking of skull plates. The leader swung his crowbar and his handgun at Remo’s arm, but Remo shook him by the head with enough force to render him semiconscious. He hung, suspended by his face.
“Are any of you not as stupid as you are fat?” Remo demanded.
“Fuck—”
Another foulmouthed fatty was on the verge of triggering his 12-gauge at Remo from ten paces away. Remo crossed the distance, flipped the gun, nudged the man’s trigger finger and returned to the fat leader before the leader fell six inches. The shotgun blast disemboweled the gunner.
“I want an answer and I don’t want to hear the word ‘fuck’ again. Got it? Now answer.” He aimed one deadly finger at the closest Fat Scot.
“What’s the question?” the gangbanger stuttered.
“Why. The question is why.”
“Why what?”
The stuttering Scot was backhanded with such ferocity he never saw it coming and he never felt it hit. The others saw it. They saw the crushed head detach messily and arch into the night.
The rest of them ran but they didn’t run far. Something pummeled into them and sent them sprawling onto the bloody streets. It was the body of their huge leader.
“You. Answer,” Remo ordered the fallen leader.
Dimly aware of what was going on around him, the leader of the Fat Pack said, “We’ve been wronged. The British enslave us.”
“Not good enough.” Remo pulled him to his feet by his head and twisted it 180 degrees. “See those cops? They’re dead. You murdered them. I used to be a cop. I don’t like it when people murder cops. I especially don’t like it when they murder cops without even having a good reason. Now I want to know why.”
The leader had lost his ability to speak—or breathe or think—when his spine was twisted out of its socket. He was dumped and Remo went to the others, who were now lying paralyzed among heaps of the dead police.
“Well? Got an answer? You give me a good answer and I’ll let you live. How ’bout you? No?” Remo snapped his palm into a skull and broke it. “Next! You?”
“Uh—uh—uh—”