Forward momentum kept the needle going. Before she could stop it, the needle swept around, burying deep in the thigh of the prime minister.
The PM let out a yelp that was all jutting teeth and bugging eyes. He slapped a hand to the spot where the queen had harpooned him. For a moment he just stood there. Then he pitched forward on his pale face.
"What the cripes was that all about?" Remo demanded.
Sir Guy Philliston rushed over to check the pulse of the deceased PM.
Chiun tsk-tsked. "That is not permitted, Your Majesty," he scolded the British monarch.
"Bet your ass it's not," Remo snapped. "The frickin' queen of England just tried to kill me. That pin had some kind of poison on it. Lookit. What'shis-face is dead." He pushed a toe against the late prime minister.
Chiun's face grew mildly impatient. "Didn't you hear me? Didn't you hear me tell her it was wrong of her to do so?"
"We beg forgiveness," the queen interjected.
"Pipe down, hairdo," Remo growled at Her Majesty. To Chiun, he said, "Let me guess. This has something to do with the Sinanju Time of Succession."
"What else would it have to do with?" the Master of Sinanju replied in Korean. "Now be still. You are embarrassing me in front of the queen."
"Fine. In that case, I'm gone."
He started to march away. In an instant he changed his mind and wheeled around.
"Screw it," he said. Dodging Chiun, he marched up to the throne and snatched the queen's purse from her hands. "I've always wanted to know what the hell's so important you gotta schlep this around all the time."
Flipping the purse upside down, he shook it out over the steps.
He expected snotty hankies or some secret lease that would turn Boston over to the redcoats in 2076. Instead, a single, small framed picture dropped out. Remo grabbed up the silver frame. He looked at the picture.
He looked at Chiun.
He looked back at the picture.
When Remo looked once more at the Master of Sinanju, astonishment had overtaken anger.
"It's you," he said in amazement.
The picture was of a Chiun much younger than Remo had ever known him. The man in the photograph had black hair and an unwrinkled face. But there was no mistaking who it was.
The old Korean snatched the picture from his pupil's hand. A faint blush had risen in his cheeks. He handed purse and picture back to the queen. With a bow and an embarrassed goodbye, he quickly left the throne room.
Remo didn't know what to do. He didn't bother to bow to the queen or glance at Philliston. He left the small throne room and hurried back into the hall after his teacher.
As soon as they were gone, Sir Guy Philliston fumbled a cell phone from his pocket.
"They are on their way," he said. "Yes, just the young one. Be alert. He is better than anything you've ever seen." He clicked the phone shut. "Source's top agent will be in position momentarily, Your Majesty."
The queen said nothing. She was staring at the picture in her hands. After a lingering moment, she dropped the silver frame back inside her purse, snapping it shut with a crisp click.
Chapter 7
The elegant man in the black bowler hat had parked in the no-parking zone in front of Harrods department store in the heart of London. The car the man leaned against as he waited was a yellow classic Bentley that looked like a shiny wheeled lemon in the bright midday sun.
He had been parked there for some time. A manager from the store who had spied him through a window was going to send someone to chase him away. But when the store employee saw how elegantly the man was dressed and how regal was his bearing, he had second thoughts. The stranger was so lordly it just seemed wrong to disturb him. So even though it was hip these days to scorn the landed aristocracy, the upper classes were in full cultural retreat and the hereditary peers in the House of Lords had been downsized back to the Dark Ages, the Harrods manager had given special instructions to ignore the man next to the gleaming yellow Bentley.
When a policeman walking up the sidewalk paused to question the man, the bobby was offered a cool smile and a glass of Dom Perignon champagne from the bottle that was chilling on ice in the Bentley's back seat. The officer accepted the smile, refused the drink and-by the time he headed up the sidewalk-was apologizing profusely for disturbing the well-dressed man.
The man waiting at the car was used to such reactions. Thomas Smedley had been getting them all his life.
Smedley was a true gentleman. In a world that had been surrendered to the coarse and profane, he exuded the once common and laudable Britishness that had gone out of vogue long before the dying days of the previous century.
"We Smedleys were gentlemen when the rest of the lower orders were still eating fleas out of each other's fur," his father was fond of saying. "Which, by Smedley time, was about quarter to three yesterday afternoon."
Even as a lad in kneesocks and knickers, Thomas Smedley was already a gentleman.
He was a gentleman at Eton, a gentleman during his stint in the British army guards regiment and a gentleman into his life's work as a top spy for Her Majesty's government.
Most people who knew him as a spy suspected he worked for MI-5 or MI-6. People connected with those agencies, who knew perfectly well Thomas Smedley didn't work for either, joked that he must be employed by MI-6 and a half. Only a handful knew that Thomas Smedley was the top counterespionage agent for the highly secret British organization known only as Source.
Those who passed him on the street this day had no way of knowing that beneath that cool exterior beat the ice-cold heart of Britain's most lethal killer.
Smedley couldn't count the number of times he had killed for queen and country, nor did he care to venture a guess. The fact that they were all dead meant that he was still alive and that was just fine with Thomas Smedley.
Smedley sipped champagne as he waited.
In addition to his black bowler, Smedley wore an impeccably tailored double-breasted navy-blue suit with brass buttons. A neatly knotted blue tie with white polka dots hung over his lavender shirt. In spite of the fact that the sun had decided to put in a rare and welcome appearance above London, a black umbrella dangled from Smedley's forearm.
As he sipped his champagne, he checked his pocket watch. A single raised eyebrow showed his displeasure.
The instant the eyebrow went up, the front door of the store opened. A thin, curvaceous woman, her arms stacked high with colored boxes, strode into the sunlight.
At the woman's appearance, every man on the street stopped and stared. They couldn't help it. She had the kind of beauty that could only be described as dangerous. Perfect smile, perfect cheekbones, perfect nose. Her eyes were brown pools flecked with green. As she walked, her shimmering black hair skipped across her proud shoulders. The men who saw her wanted her. The women envied her. As she marched from Harrods, she scorned them all. Silver shoes were matched by a silver clasped belt that hung around the waist of her burgundy, long-skirted top. Her red silk palazzo pants shimmered with every step as she stepped coolly over to the waiting yellow car.
"You're late, Mrs. Knight," Smedley said as he popped the rear door for her.
"Mr. Smedley," the woman said liltingly in reply, "threats to the crown come and threats to the crown go, but a sale like this is a once-in-a-year event."
Mrs. Knight dumped her boxes in the back of the car. As Smedley returned his champagne glass to the bar, she passed her lips very close to his cheek in something that might have been a kiss or a whisper. With a devilish smile, she dropped, giggling, into the back seat.
Leaving her in the rear, Smedley marched crisply around to the driver's side and slipped in behind the wheel. He set his umbrella on the seat beside him. In another moment he was pulling out into London traffic.