“Hi,” said the slim, dark man in a beige T-shirt, chinos and expensive-looking leather shoes. He was following a silent figure who was as small as a young boy, but as old as Stonehenge.
Around them was a charnel house. The SEAL team commander had never thought he would actually see the gutters running with blood but that was certainly the case here.
“What happened?”
“There was a fight,” said the younger man. “Maybe you noticed the folks of London town having it out.”
“Yeah, but not like this. Who won?”
“Nobody won. They wiped each other out completely.”
“You mean no one got away? Not one person?”
“Don’t think so. Anybody escape, Little Father?”
“I let no one escape,” squeaked the old Asian man indignantly. “You insult me.” The tiny senior citizen stepped from the street into the Sea Hawk, five feet off the ground. He made it look effortless.
“Is he saying he killed all these people?” the commander asked.
“Humor him,” said the younger one. “He’s very, very old and—” The younger man finished by twirling one finger in the vicinity of his ear.
“You should live to be as old and half as wise,” retorted the old Asian, who was now out of sight inside the rumbling helicopter. The old man couldn’t possibly have heard what the young man said.
The SEAL commander couldn’t make any of this fit together. None of what his eyes saw meshed with any explanation he could muster. And the implication that the old man had wiped out this crowd of rioters—impossible! This pair wasn’t even armed.
And yet they were VIPs who rated a personal and immediate U.S. government transport, even when all British-based equipment and personnel were supposed to be helping the U.K. in their time of crisis.
“They ain’t shot,” murmured one of his SEALs.
The commander didn’t know what his man was talking about, then he gave a last glance at the field of the dead and understood. There were some gunshot wounds, but nearly all the dead had been killed—quite obviously—by some form of horrific manual damage. A head torn off. A chest cavity smashed in. Lots of cut throats and foreheads with unnatural-looking holes in them.
Was the old man telling the truth? Had he truly, honestly wiped out all those rioters barehanded?
The SEAL team leader got into the helicopter and called for the pilot to take off, then sat and examined his two VIPs as he would have watched a pair of poisonous snakes. This lasted until the old man said something to his companion in a language the SEALs didn’t know.
Remo sighed. “He says take a picture, it will last longer.”
The SEAL team leader was startled. After all, Chiun had his back to the SEALs, so how could he know he was being stared at? The SEALs began looking at everything except Remo and Chiun.
“That is not what I said,” Chiun added, speaking in Korean. “You failed to relay my promise of decapitation.”
“They got the message and you’re not supposed to decapitate SEALs, remember?” Remo also spoke Korean, the only language besides English in which he was fluent.
“I am certainly permitted to act in self-defense,” Chiun sniffed.
“Since when is being looked at an attack?”
“It is an affront.”
“An affront is not the same as an attack.” Remo thought it over and added, “Is it?”
“Yes.”
“Next time, deliver your own threats.”
Chapter 11
There was more to Loch Tweed Castle than met the eye. The magnificent castle, home to British royalty for centuries, had become a dual-purpose palace in 2003.
Nobody was paying much attention to the castle. Nobody ever paid much attention to it. It was big but had deteriorated. There were more impressive castles in this part of Scotland. It was on private land, its historical importance was minor and its original furnishing had been lost in a bad fire in 1961, so there was nothing to study. There was almost no good reason for anyone to want to come to Loch Tweed Castle—and that was just how it was supposed to be.
The Tweed-Smythe branch of the old family had the place now. They liked the extra income from the British government, and it was quite easy to look past the Armageddon devices in the basement.
Hector Tweed-Smythe was smoking a pipe when he came to the front doors. His houseman was right about the large number of unexpected callers. Not a friendly-looking lot, either.
Tweed-Smythe spotted a familiar face in the crowd and waved the man over. For some reason, his old chum was on horseback.
“Good lord, Cottingsharm, this is a party you’ve got! Are you hunting, then?” Tweed-Smythe tried to sound friendly.
“We’re hunting backstabbers, Tweed-Smythe,” declared the belligerent on horseback.
“Well, before you’re off, care to come in for a spot?”
“You’re trespassing,” said the man on the horse.
Tweed-Smythe stumbled over his words. “You’ve gone a little daft, old man. This is Loch Tweed Castle. Been in my family as long as I know of. A man can’t trespass on his own land.”
“This home was stolen from my family by yours.”
“Oh, come on!” Tweed-Smythe was too perplexed to remain unruffled. “This was Cottingsharm land once, I believe. Is that what you’re talking about?”
Cottingsharm smiled disdainfully. “You’re putting on a lousy act, Tweed-Smythe. ’Twas a Cottingsharm built this castle—”
Tweed-Smythe dropped his pipe hand. “What?”
“Only to have it stolen from him by the blackmail of your first Lord Gracel.”
Tweed-Smythe protested. “What are you saying? Gracel built this castle himself. He gave your family a good price for the plot, as I recall. Where did this fairy tale come from?”
“Not a fairy tale, but God’s own truth,” Cottingsharm insisted. “Here!” He thrust a few stapled pages at Tweed-Smythe, who was just now recalling a bit of news about angry Scots that he’d overheard on the tube last night in the kitchen. Hadn’t thought much of it other than to joke to himself that maybe the Scots were starting a war of independence.
“These are made on a copy machine,” Tweed-Smythe protested. “I think they’re from Kinkos.”
“They’re evidence of theft!”
“I’m seventy-one and I never heard tell of a claim by the Cottingsharm to the castle.”
“Your family erased the evidence. Now I have come to reclaim what rightfully belongs to me and my family. Every man here is my blood kin, and you owe every last one of them payback for the wealth that the Cottingsharm line should have shared these last centuries.”
Tweed-Smythe was aghast. Damned if it wasn’t the pansy-arsed Cottingsharm clan, every adult male in the village. The county was rife with stories, both recent and ancient, about their, er, gentle nature. The Cottingsharm folk were notoriously passive and famously cuckolded by the wives from other villages. How in blazes had Frederick convinced this bunch of sheep-lovers to take up arms?
Maybe they were ill. The look in their eyes, and in Frederick Cottingsharm’s eyes, was shiny and sickening. Tweed-Smythe became very afraid.
“Maybe you ought to see what the courts have to say about this, Cott.” Tweed-Smythe handed the pages back to his acquaintance. He remembered his pipe and he put it back in his teeth.
“The courts?” Cottingsharm snarled. “The English courts? They no longer have jurisdiction!”
The pipe came right back out. “I beg your pardon?” Tweed-Smythe asked.
Cottingsharm answered by pulling out his sword. Tweed-Smythe chuckled nervously. “Really, Cott! Come inside and we’ll talk this out.”
“Here’s a better idea.” Cottingsharm thrust the sword into the old man’s heart. Tweed-Smythe died thinking that Freddy Cottingsharm wasn’t quite a pansy-arse after all.