DeJuin waited, then waved the men to seats on the couches and chairs in the room.
"Our first goal is to get close to these two, this American and the aged Oriental. From them we will move against their organization and expropriate its power. The question is, how 'do we infiltrate? How do we get close to these two men?"
He looked around the room. He had expected puzzled looks, but instead he found smiles that showed satisfaction. He looked to Uncle Carl.
Carl rose. "We have ways of getting to those two."
He smiled.
"Two ways," he said.
CHAPTER NINE
Remo carefully addressed the large trunk to an oil company operating in Nome, Alaska. By the time the trunk reached the company, it would be winter in Nome. The trunk would go into the warehouse, and not until summer would someone notice the funny smell and eventually the body of the Justice Department official. Who had almost caught Remo off guard. But in this business, "almost" meant flying to Nome in a trunk because you kept better till next summer.
"Return address, sir?" said the clerk at the railway station.
"Disneyworld, Florida," said Remo. The clerk said he had always wanted to go to the place, and asked if Remo worked there, and Remo said he was president of the Mickey Mouse union.
"Mickey Mouse for short," said Remo. "Actually it's the International Brotherhood of Mickey Mice, Donald Ducks, Goofies, and Seven Dwarfs of America, AFL-CIO. That's dwarfs, not dwarves. We may go on strike next week over our mistreatment by cartoonists. Not enough lines."
"Oh," said the clerk suspiciously. But he nevertheless sent William Reddington III, assistant director, northern district, New York, on his Nome vacation with two loud pounds of a rubber stamp.
Reddington had been the strangest assault. He came padding in to Remo's hotel suite in a four-hundred-dollar blue striped suit with vest, a Phi Beta Kappa key, and light brown hair immaculately combed to casualness.
He was sorry to bother Remo at that hour, and he knew the tension everyone in the room must be suffering, but he had come to help.
Chiun was asleep in one of the bedrooms. Remo had not been sure the two women would be safe if he just turned them free after the slaughter at the museum, so he told them they must stay with him for a while. Valerie had started sobbing at that moment, and when Reddington arrived, she was still sobbing, staring straight ahead in a state of shock. Bobbi Delpheen watched the late late show, starring Tyrone Power as a handsome but destitute Italian nobleman. She had also watched the late show where Tyrone Power had starred as a handsome but destitute French nobleman. Power had died, Bobbi commented, while making the greatest picture of his life-the story of a handsome but destitute Spanish nobleman.
Remo nodded for Reddington to enter.
"I'm from the Department of Justice," he said. "I hear you've been having some trouble."
"No trouble," said Remo, shrugging.
"Whaaaaa," said Valerie.
"Are you all right, dear?" asked Reddington.
"Oh, my god," said Valerie. "A sane person. Thank God. Thank God. A sane human being." And her gentle sobs released in a heave of tears, and she stumbled to Reddington and cried into his shoulder as he patted her back.
"She's all right," said Remo. "You're all right, aren't you, Valerie?"
"Drop dead, you freaking animal," cried Valerie. "Keep him away from me," she said to Reddington.
"I think someone is trying to kill you," said Reddington. "And I don't even know your name."
"Albert Schweitzer," said Remo.
"He's lying. It's Remo something. I don't know the last name. He's a lunatic killer. You don't even see his hands move. He's murderous, brutal, cold, and sarcastic."
"I am not sarcastic," said Remo.
"Don't listen to that broad," called out Bobbi. "She doesn't even play tennis. She sits around and cries all day. She's a punk loser."
"Thank you," said Remo. Bobbi raised her right hand in an okay sign.
"He kills people with his hands and feet," said Valerie.
"I take it you're a karate master of some sort," said Reddington.
"No," said Remo, and in this he was honest. "I am not karate. Karate just focuses power."
"And you use it for self-defense?" Reddington asked.
"He uses it on anyone in sight," said Valerie.
"I haven't used it on you," said Remo.
"You will."
"Maybe," said Remo, imagining what Valerie would look like with a mouth removed from her face. It would be an improvement.
"As I said," Reddington explained, "I've come to help. But first I must see your weapons. Are your hands your only weapons?"
"No," Remo said. "Hands are just an extension of the weapon we all share. That's the difference between man and animals. Animals use their limbs; man uses his mind."
"Then you're an animal," said Valerie, creating a large wet spot of tears on Reddington's lapel.
"Just your body, then?" said Reddington musingly. He excused himself for backing away from Valerie Gardner, and she was the first to see the .45 caliber automatic come out of Reddington's neat pinstriped jacket. She realized she was between the gun and the lunatic behind her and all she said was "To hell with it." A man from the Justice Department was making her a shield in a shooting gallery. Her, Valerie Gardner, she had to go and meet the only US Attorney who doubled as a hit man.
"Go ahead and shoot the damned thing," she yelled.
"Come on, fella. Is this any way to act?" Remo said.
"Right," Valerie shrieked, wheeling from Reddington to Remo and back. "Right. That's the way to act. Shoot the damned thing. Get this homicidal maniac before he gets us all."
"Quiet," said Remo. "I'm going to get to you later." He smiled at Reddington. "We should sit and reason together," he said hopefully.
Reddington backed off a step, beyond the reach of Remo's arm and leg, so he could not be disarmed by a sudden move.
"There is nothing to discuss," he said, "with one who has laid hands on the high priests of Uctut."
"What priests?" said Remo. "Those loonies who were trying to open my chest without a key?"
"Shoot," shrieked Valerie. "Shoot."
Reddington ignored her. His eyes seemed fixed on Remo with a cold stare, his lids too icy to blink.
"Through the ages. there has been Uctut," he said to Remo. "And there have been those of us who have defended him against the desecrators who would do our God evil."
"Wait a minute," Remo said. "You were the guy standing guard outside the congressman's office when he got it, weren't you?"
"Yes. And I lifted his heart from his chest myself," Reddington said.
Remo nodded. "I thought so. I wondered how a flock of two-hundred-pound canaries could have sneaked past a guard."
"And now it is your turn," Reddington said.
"Nixon made me do it," Remo said.
"It is past excuses."
"Bobby Kennedy?" Remo offered. "Jack Kennedy? J. Edgar Hoover?"
"It will not do," said Reddington.
"Don't say I didn't try," Remo said.
Reddington backed up another step.
"Shoot, will you?" yelled Valerie. "Off this violent lunatic."
Reddington held the gun professionally, near his right hip. This was the way taught by the Justice Department to prevent its men from being disarmed by someone just reaching out and slapping or kicking the gun away.
But for every counter there is a counter, and when Remo went into a sudden move to Reddington's left, Reddington found that the gun could not home in on Remo as it should because Reddington's own hip was in the way. He wheeled to his left to keep the gun on Remo, but when he turned, Remo was not there anymore. He turned - again, this time to the rear, and there he found Remo, but he had no chance to celebrate his discovery with a one-gun salute because the gun, still held properly against his hip, was pushed back above the hip, through his side, past his abdominal cavity, and into the center of Reddington's right kidney, where it came to rest.