"He is already history," said Chiun, repeating a phrase he had picked up from American TV.
"Just so the Lincoln Memorial isn't."
Several minutes passed without another person showing himself.
"Guess we might as well get this over with," Remo breathed. "Remember what I said about the detonator." When he got no answer, Remo looked at the next bush. Chiun was not in sight. Then he saw the Master of Sinanju slip around the side of the Lincoln Memorial. "Oh, Christi Chiuni What are you trying to do to me?"
And Remo glided toward the huge illuminated stairs of the Lincoln Memorial. He threw himself up against one of the huge Doric columns. He listened. He heard breathing. Low, tense. The breathing of nervous men. Three of them. He waited. Where the hell was Chiun? Then suddenly there were only two men breathing. What the hell? Remo thought.
Then only one man's breathing could be heard. "Damn!" Remo cursed. He had no choice now. He moved in.
A man slouched in the lee of the entrance to the sanctuary housing the great seated figure of Abraham Lincoln, his AK-47 held in both hands. The figure looked relaxed, the gun muzzle pointing to the limestone flooring.
Remo, sensing no breathing, walked up to the man. His eyelids were lowered, but not closed. He seemed to be looking down the muzzle of his weapon. But when Remo placed a palm under his nose, he felt no exhalation.
The man was dead. Chiun's handiwork. But what was he trying to do? Prove himself to Smith? Remo moved on. The sanctuary looked empty. He made for the statue anyway.
Easing around behind the Lincoln statue, Remo sensed rather than heard a presence. It was close. It was not behind the statue. Nor was it outside.
A pebble struck him on the head and Remo jumped like a cat.
"Shhhh!" a voice hissed. Remo looked up. The Master of Sinanju was perched on Lincoln's shoulder. "What are you-!"
Chiun laid a finger before his lips. He leapt, floating to the ground like a colorful human parachute.
"I have immobilized two of them. What have you accomplished?" Chiun asked smugly.
"I just got here."
"No rice break for you."
"Shove it. Where's the guy with the detonator?" A hissing voice answered for him.
"Walid! Mehdi! Where are you?"
"Back that way," Remo whispered, gesturing. "He's our man. This time, no freaking grandstanding, okay?"
"I leave him to you."
"And what are you going to do?"
"Watch. If you are successful, the House of Sinanju will have learned something."
"And if I'm not?"
"This," whispered Chiun, lifting closed fists to Remo's face. Remo looked at them closely, his face uncertain.
Chiun suddenly opened his fingers. "Ka-boom," he said. "Heh, heh, ka-boom."
Remo's face snapped back, scowling. "I knew that already."
"Then why did you ask?"
"Because I-" A voice diverted Remo's attention. It was the remaining terrorist. "Better get to cover," Remo said over his shoulder. When there was no answer, he looked back. Chiun had vanished again.
"Thanks a lot for helping me in my hour of need, Chiun," Remo muttered.
A whispered "You are welcome" reached his ears. It was so soft that it sounded inside his head, like telepathy. Remo decided he needed a vantage point. He went up Lincoln's back like a spider. He rested, his arm around the Great Emancipator's cool white marble neck. He spotted the second terrorist, stiff as a plank on the floor. Chiun had obviously come up from behind him, applied a Sinanju death grip, and carefully lowered him to the ground. The Master of Sinanju hadn't taken any chances that either man had the detonator. He had used a paralyzing death grip that accelerated the rigormortis process.
"Walid!" It was the third terrorist. "Biya enja! Come here!" His voice had risen two octaves. He was very nervous. Remo zeroed in on him. He crouched in one of the side rooms, beyond the dividing wall of Ionic columns. He had no rifle. But his hands squeezed a black object that looked a little like a flashlight. From the bottom, wires trailed off in three directions. Remo followed one of the wires with his eyes. It led to a satchel charge of some kind strapped around the man's waist. The other wires probably went to two strategic locations.
There was no approach to the terrorist other than a direct one. Remo took it. He scrambled down off the statue, landing at Lincoln's feet. Then, casually, his hands hanging loosely at his sides to show that he was unarmed, Remo stepped into the next chamber, where the Gettysburg Address was carved into a wall.
"Hi, there!" Remo called. He smiled. He gave it his disarming best. There would be no room for mistakes now.
"Stay back, you ... you American. You Satan!" the terrorist warned. He clutched the device in his hands more tightly, all but concealing it in his big fists. His thumbs were linked over the device's top. Probably where the button was, Remo decided.
"Satan? Me? You're the guy who's threatening U.S. government property. Don't you know there are laws against this kind of stuff?"
"Come no closer. I will blow up this entire place. Allah Akbar! And you with it!"
"Don't want that to happen. I sure don't want to die. I'll bet you don't want to either. Right, buddy? What's your name? Mine's Remo."
"Do not play with me. Allah is against your kind."
"And I suppose you have a direct line to him. Well, I don't see Allah around here. What say we just talk this out?" Remo made a show of gesturing broadly with both hands. The terrorist's black eyes shifted back and forth between them. He didn't notice that Remo was creeping infinitesimally closer, taking rnicrosteps. "Why don't you tell me what this is all about?" Remo went on calmly. "Maybe I can help you."
"Either the Shaitan called Eldon Sluggard is brought here for punishment, or I will destroy this infidel shrine."
"Sluggard?" Remo asked. "Didn't he run for President last year?"
"I know nothing of that. Est! Stop! Come no closer!" Remo obliged. He was very close to the terrorist now. But not close enough.
"Go! Go! Leave this place. Come back with Sluggard. I will negotiate no further. We demand ghassas, an eye for an eye!"
"Look, pal. . . ,"
"Ta kan na khor! Don't move. See?"
And the terrorist opened his locked thumbs. For a millisecond Remo froze.
"Ten-second fuse!" the terrorist shouted. "Ten seconds, and if I do not push the trigger back down, we all die!"
Remo moved then. He came in on a straight line, his hands like spearheads aimed at the crouching terrorist. He reached the man, slapped his hands apart, and in the split second when the detonator hung in the air, Remo grabbed it.
He jammed the detonator button down.
Then he felt the surge of electricity the detonator gave.
The terrorist's eyes went sick. "Na! Na! Na!" he cried.
"Oh, dog-doo!" Remo groaned. In an instant, he realized three things. The terrorist had lied about the detonator. The explosives were about to go off. And there was nothing he could do to save the Lincoln Memorial, never mind himself.
"Run for it, Chiun!" Remo cried. "I blew it!"
Chapter 6
Dr. Harold W. Smith pressed the button that caused the computer terminal to drop into a well in his desk. He adjusted his Dartmouth tie, plucked the worn leather briefcase from his desk, and-calmly walked from the office where he ran Folcroft Sanitarium, the cover for CURE.
He passed the guard at the door with a curt nod of recognition and, walking past his car, strolled over the immaculate lawn to the dilapidated docks that fronted Long Island Sound.
Mindful of his gray three-piece suit, Smith clambered aboard a worn rowboat, and taking up the oars, began rowing down the shore of Rye, New York. His briefcase lay at his feet.
When he reached a secluded inlet, he beached the rowboat and stepped out. Taking his briefcase, he walked a quarter-mile through uninhabited woods.