Jack saw human remains and whooped happily.
But Fastbinder frowned. Jack’s pleasure was dampened instantly.
“It is just one man—and not one of zee assassins.” Fastbinder said.
Jack stared at the screen and zoomed in on the smoldering corpse—it was the Juber Club concierge.
The microphones picked up the sound of his sizzling flesh.
“Missed again,” Fastbinder said disapprovingly, even mockingly.
Jack wouldn’t look at the old man, his face hot with shame.
“Something warned them that there was danger in zee room,” Fastbinder pointed out.
Jack knew what the old man was really saying. You screwed up. You tipped your hand.
Then the screwup became even worse as the image on the screen grew brighter, as if somebody had just opened the drapes. Panning up. Jack saw a new hole in the wall—right where one of his proton-beam dispersers was installed. Nearby another hole came into being, and briefly his camera picked up the flying remains of the proton chisel that had been there. A face appeared in the hole.
“Jack, I’m home!”
It was the stalker, the young one, grinning like a moron. He disappeared, and Jack adjusted the camera with growing dread. His worst fear was realized when his third and last proton-beam chisel popped out of the wall, propelled by a clenched first.
“It’s like popping big nasty zits!” said the assassin through the hole. “You oughta know all about zits, Jack.”
“How is he doing that?” Jack demanded. “It’s fifty feet up! I put the chisels in the exterior wall just so’s he couldn’t get at them!”
“He is standing on zee ledge,” Fastbinder said with a shrug.
Jack tried to picture the ledge wrapping around every floor of the 476 Hotel—-just a shallow brick protrusion. “It’s three inches wide.”
“Yes, these men are very resourceful,” Fastbinder said morosely.
“How’d they get up there so fast—it’s impossible!”
“It is not impossible, because they did it.”
Jack would have laid the old man flat, right then and there, just to shut him up, but the assassin on the computer screen caught his attention.
“I’ve had about enough of you and your weird science experiments, Jack.” The man bashed his way inside, through brick and plaster. Jack could swear he used his bare hands.
“You’re not very good, Fast,” said the dark-haired man. “Not too bright, know what I mean? Kind of a dim bulb, huh?”
“Shut up!” Jack Fast exploded at the screen.
Of course, the man in the hotel room couldn’t hear him, but the man kept goading him. “Henry Mulligan you’re not.” The dark-haired man reached into the wall with one clawed hand—penetrated the plaster as if it were paper—and yanked out the pain beam. “Alvin Femald? He had way better inventions than you.” He lifted the decorative table that contained the speakers, crashing them into the lamps containing the strobe lights, and left wreckage when he was done.
“He is using only his hands,” Fastbinder murmured. “Jack, these men are more than we thought they were. Every time we feel we have their measure…”
“Anyway,” the assassin said, “let’s face it. Jack, everybody is better than you. Even I could come up with contraptions that worked better than you do. I mean this? What is this supposed to be?”
The stalker’s image flickered, and when the flicker was done his empty hands were holding a metal hunk of wriggling mechanical arms.
“What is that doing there?” Fastbinder demanded.
“I thought it would help,” Jack whined.
“Come on, a robot spider? You think this is going to stop anybody?” the assassin asked.
“It cost a million dollars!” Fastbinder exclaimed. ‘It was not for this purpose!”
“I mean, who came up with this lame-brained contraption?”
In a fury, Jack stabbed at the buttons controlling the Israeli-made assassination spider. On the screen, projectiles spit from below its alloy mandibles—and the stalker caught all three between his fingers.
“I see. It’s a poisonous spider. Real effective.” The stalker flicked the projectiles away, then plucked the eight legs off the spider like petals off a daisy. “Jack’s not a loser…Jack’s a big fat loser… Jack’s not a loser…Jack’s a big fat loser.” When he took off the last wriggling leg he showed it to the camera and said, nodding, “Jack is definitely a big fat loser.”
“I am not!”
“I guess even your mom knew that, huh, Jack?”
“Shut up!”
“See you soon, loser.” The remains of the spider flew into the screen and the video feed went black.
Chapter 36
“Well, am I a good goader?” Remo asked Chiun, who stood waiting on the building ledge with his hands in his robe sleeves, as relaxed as if he were standing among the gardens of deadly briars near the Sinanju cave of hermitage.
“Yes, it was adequately done.”
“I don’t know why you wouldn’t do the taunting.”
“The objective was to make the cretin angry,” Chiun said reasonably, “and this is one of your best skills, Remo. To irritate. To infuriate.”
“I see.” Remo nodded. “Skills you do not possess.”
“My demeanor is far too pleasant,” Chiun explained.
“Uh-huh.”
“But in this regard, you shine, my son.”
“So, maybe I’ll be recorded in the scrolls as the Master Who Rubs People the Wrong Way.”
“It would not be as uncomplimentary as it sounds.”
“Remo the Goader would be easier.”
“But uglier.”
Remo sighed and gazed out over the roofs of the nation’s capital. They were in one of the few upscale districts of the city. For the most part, Washington, D.C. wasn’t a safe place. Remo could feel the specter of the recent badness that had happened to him in this city. The funny thing was that, as awful as it was at the time, it hadn’t seemed so awful when he started recovering from it. If only Chiun hadn’t reminded him of it.
Well, that wasn’t fair. It would have come back to haunt him regardless, eventually.
“I am thankful that the mad pubescent scientist’s devices did not discharge as effectively as they did before,” Chiun commented as they strolled around the building to descend via the more conventional fire escape.
“Yeah. Jack’s losing his touch.”
“Maybe.”
“Also, they were pointed in, so I just got the leakage from the blast.”
“Perhaps so, but the emanations still felt as strong. Just not as debilitating.”
“You think we’re acclimating to the proton death beam?”
“I think so.”
“Wishful thinking, Little Father,” Remo said as they took the stairs to the sidewalk.
“Fine, thanks,” he said offhandedly to a worried throng of women, which had been gathering ever since one of them spotted the two men walking around the high building ledge.
“Fine? Why were you gonna end it all if you’re fine?” demanded a muscle-bound woman in a ponytail.
“I wasn’t gonna jump—he was.” Remo jerked a thumb at Chiun. “I goaded him into coming down.”
“In truth, he is the one who sought to end it all. I would never take the cowardly path of escape, however grim my life might become,” Chiun explained to the women. “Fear not. I am taking him back to the hospital.”
The bodybuilder didn’t look as if she believed either of them. “Stay put. Here comes the doctor.”
Remo realized that the gathering of women stretched as far back as he could see and most wore T-shirts promoting a three-day breast cancer charity walk.