"Don't," Remo said, stepping between the encircling gun muzzles and the Master of Sinanju. "I got him calmed down now. You'll only set him off again."
"He's surrendered, right?"
"He's agreed to surrender to the FBI," Remo corrected.
"I have watched their television program and it has struck fear my fearless heart," cried the old Korean in a high voice.
"Look," Remo said anxiously. "I gotta get him to FBI headquarters fast. I need to borrow a car."
Rebello waved his men back and shouted, "Get an unmarked unit over here!"
A nondescript sedan was brought up. Keys were surrendered.
The old Asian went meekly into the back. The door was clapped shut and FBI Agent Reynolds took the wheel, saying, "Thanks. You'll get a full report."
And as the way was cleared, the unmarked car disappeared from sight.
Lieutenant Rebello took a deep breath. "All right, let's sweep the building."
The FBI van arrived within fifteen minutes. The doors popped and slid open, and out came a team of agents in blue windbreakers with the letters FBI stenciled on the back.
"Who are you?" Rebello demanded of the agent who appeared in charge.
"Hostage negotiation team."
"You're a little late. Agent Reynolds took care of it. Talked the guy out clean."
"Reynolds?"
"Yeah. One guy. Never seen anything like it."
"I don't know any agent Reynolds."
"First name Remo. The guy was slick. Deserves a commendation."
The hostage negotiation team conferred among themselves. No one had heard of a Remo Reynolds.
"He must be with some other office," Lieutenant Rebello suggested in a tone that suggested diminishing confidence.
"We were told to liase with Division Chief Bundish."
"He was around here earlier. I haven't seen him since Reynolds . . ." Lieutenant Rebello swallowed. "That's right! Bundish. What the hell happened to him?"
Then, a voice called out, "Hey, there's a guy sleeping in this alley in his underwear," and Lieutenant Rebello's promising career in law-enforcement took a sharp, sudden drop into the toilet. In later years, he swore that at that exact moment he heard a distinct flushing sound.
Chapter 23
Remo Williams ditched the unmarked car and street clothes on Park Avenue South, his face tight with anguish.
In his earlier life, he had been a cop. An ordinary cop. Nothing special. Except that he had been honest. He knew what it was to put on the blue uniform and stand between society and lawlessness. It was a long time ago, so long Remo had forgotten all but the rough outlines of those days when he had worn an extra twenty-five pounds and a face that had not been altered by plastic surgery and had espoused a simple, if naive, concept of justice.
What he had found in the basement of the ANC building had left him sickened: The sight of the Master of Sinanju standing red-faced and steely-eyed among a pile of headless corpses.
"Jesus Christ, Chiun!" Remo had exploded when he came upon the carnage. "What are you trying to do? Get us both killed?"
"It is not I who am at fault," Chiun had said tightly. "I have been attacked from the moment I set foot in this den of unrepentant Canadians."
"You killed cops. Honest, hardworking cops."
The Master of Sinanju looked down upon the piled dead.
"How do you know they are honest?" he asked.
"Skip it. Look, I gotta get you out of here in one piece. Those cops out there are hot to shoot you on sight."
Chiun drew himself up proudly. "I am not afraid."
"You'd better be. If they all come charging in-hey, who's this?" Remo asked, noticing one body in particular.
"Who is what?"
"This dead guy," Remo said pointing to a pair of bare legs sticking out from under a pile of miscellaneous dead. The legs were half-covered in gray knee socks, but they weren't what had caught Remo's eye.
He reached down and grabbed the body by the ankles and pulled it free, fully exposing a brown tartan kilt. Remo continued pulling and found that the rest of the body was attired in a cheap coat and tie.
The body had no head.
"Where's the head to this one?" Remo had asked, looking around for the missing item.
"Why do you wish to know?" Chiun had asked thinly.
"Because it's important," Remo snapped, lifting up head after head and tossing them aside after a moment's examination.
"Why is it important?"
"Look, we don't have much time. The place is completely surrounded. There are sharpshooters on every roof. There's no way out of here unless you come out as my prisoner."
"Never! What would Cheeta think?"
"That's another thing. There are cameras everywhere. We can't just walk out in full view of everyone. Even if we make it out alive, Smitty'll have us both under a plastic surgeon's knife by sundown."
Chiun stamped a sandaled foot.
"I am not leaving until Cheeta is brought to me. Such are my demands and I must abide by them or be shamed."
"Will you cut the crap?" Remo had said, continuing to look for a matching head. There were too many heads. And they were too scattered about. It was as if everyone had blundered into a head-husking machine, which dropped the bodies where they stood but sent the heads flying.
"Look," he said, giving up, "just do whatever I say and we'll work this out."
The tightness in Chiun's visage had loosened at that point. "I will go along," he had allowed, "but I will defend myself if provoked-even against the blue centurions of Emperor Smith."
"Okay, just sit tight," Remo had said. "I'll negotiate safe passage. And don't kill anyone else."
Remo had worked it all out, but he was still sick about it. In the earlier days of their association, these things tended to happen a lot. Bellboys maimed for nicking Chiun's luggage, telephone repairmen killed for interrupting his soap operas. Gradually, the Master of Sinanju had become accustomed to the odd ways of America-including the difficult-to-comprehend concept that ordinary citizens-peasants, he called them-were actually considered valuable and were not to be killed.
Such inconvenient incidents had long ago tapered off, but the occasional security guard, soldier, or police officer still managed to meet an untimely end. Usually when they caught Chiun in a foul mood.
This, however, was major even by Chiun's standards.
"Look, think hard," Remo was saying as he hailed a cab. "The guy in the kilt-who was he?"
"They were so many . . ."
"But only one in a freaking kilt. Now come on."
The cab slid to a stop. The cabby looked happy to see them. His radio was hissing static.
"Airport," said Remo.
"Which?"
"The nearest one. We're not fussy."
"Newark it is."
As they rode uptown, Remo asked in a tight low voice. "Now tell me who wore the kilt."
"It was that ballast," Chiun said.
"The what?"
"You know-the one who reads news."
"The anchor?"
"Yes. The deceiving Canadian anchor."
"You decapitated Dieter Banning?"
"He refused to confess his crimes. I demanded to know the whereabouts of Cheeta the Fecund, and he resisted, showering vile curses and imprecations upon my person. So I snuffed him."
"You put pressure on him first, right?"
"Correct."
"And he still insisted he had nothing to do with any of it?"
"He did not say that. He cursed me."
"You've been cursed at before. Usually you remove a few fingers. Sometimes a tongue. What's the big deal?"
The Master of Sinanju grew silent. His lower lip pouted out. "He spoke ill of Cheeta. He called her a slant-eyed goop."
"He ranked her out and you went ballistic?"
"I avenged the honor of a fellow Korean," Chiun sniffed.
"And lost the only lead we had."
"He was no lead. He had nothing to do with anything."