Inside, federal agents were phoning their personal lawyers to see if they were allowed to make an arrest concerning the killings below since
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technically the sidewalk might be city property, not federal property, and some local prosecutor might want to make a name for himself by prosecuting another federal servant. Increasingly in America, nobody ever got prosecuted for letting a criminal escape. The people were getting what they had been assured were civil liberties that would usher in a new golden age of love. Shootouts in what used to be their cities, while lawmen fearfully looked over their shoulders.
When the shots had first rung out, window shades were hastily drawn in the FBI building.
Viola Poombs looked to the building and no one came out. And then she saw something that made her retch.
Remo was drinking blood.
"What is wrong?" asked Chiun.
"He's drinking that man's blood," she said.
"No. He is touching his finger to it and smelling it. Blood is the window of health. In it you can smell, and therefore see, whatever is wrong with a person. Although he did not have to do that. Because in its gracious wisdom, Sinanju already knows the actions were those of a drugged man. He probably, before he killed himself, thought he had killed us."
"You can read minds too?"
"No," said Chiun. "It is really simple if you have seen it before. If you throw a pebble and hit a gong, and throw another pebble and hit a a gong, and throw another pebble and missed a gong, what would you do?"
"I'd throw another pebble at the gong I missed."
"Correct. And when the dead man shot at me " and missed, he did not shoot again at me, but shot
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at Remo, and when he missed, he did not shoot again at Remo, but at himself, to eliminate the link to those who used him. But he did not fire at us again because he thought he had hit us. When one hires Sinanju, you may write, what may seem expensive is really economy. For how expensive is a failed assassination? We will show you for your book."
"Aren't assassins supposed to be secret?"
"Amateurs need secrecy because they are refuse. The world suffers because of amateur murders who pretend to be assassins. Look at your two western wars, the first started by an amateur at Sarajevo, and the first leading to the second which will lead to the third."
"You mean the world wars?"
"Korea was not in them," said Chiun and this meant that since the most important country was not involved, he didn't care what Europeans and Japanese and Americans did to themselves. One had to have perspective. What those wars had done was to loose thousands of lunatics with weapons of vast destructiveness upon each other, instead of the neat, healthful, and useful, clean assassination that is done, buried and out of the way, with the body politic all the better off for the cleansing of nuisances.
Viola Poombs looked back toward Remo and saw the three bodies and the child so helpless and she became dizzy until the long fingernails of Chiun worked the nerves in her spine and she saw sunlight and the people clearly again. The Oriental had cleared away her fear-caused dizziness with a brief massage.
"We talk about seeing," said Chiun. "Now what is moving differently ground here?"
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Viola looked around. People were screaming. One had passed out in front of a small hydrant. A large crowd was forming. A car nearby slowly pulled out into the street, quite evenly and quite smoothly.
"I know this sounds crazy but that car is different."
"Exactly," said Chiun. "It does not respond to the hysteria around. You might point out in your book that an amateur assassin does not notice these things. Cheap help never notices these things. I know you are a craftsman and should not be told how to do your work but in your book you might want to describe this as 'The Master of Sinanju cast his glorious gaze upon the sea of milling whites, scurrying helpless in their confusion. "Lo," he cried. "Fear not for Sinanju is among you."' You can use your own words, of course," Chiun said helpfully.
Viola saw Remo take off after the car she had noticed. He didn't run like other men she had seen. Others pumped their legs. They strained and jammed. This was more of a float.
She did not see his lean figure start. Eather she knew he was running after he had begun to move. At first she thought he was going very quickly for someone who was running so slowly and then she realized that he wasn't running slowly at all. There was just such an economy of motion, it appeared slow.
Remo met the car like someone becoming glued to the side of it and then pop, bang, and out came a door and one man went crashing into a fire hydrant. The hydrant didn't move. The man moved a little. He let the blood flow out of the big hole in his chest that had met the hydrant. It had ap-
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peared as if he were shot out of the car by hydraulic compression.
"Wow," said Viola.
The car stopped. A thick-wristed hand beckoned to Viola and Chiun.
"Wow what?" asked Chiun. "Why are you excited?"
"It looked like he was shot out of that Buick Electra."
"What is a Buick Electric?"
"Electra. That car your friend just threw that guy out of."
"Oh," said Chiun. "Come. Let us go. He beckons."
"How did he do that?" asked Viola.
"He put out his hand and waved for us to come. It is a signal we use. Anyone can do it. Just wave your hand," said Chiun.
"No. Throw that guy out of the car so hard. How did he do that?"
"He threw," said Chiun, trying to pinpoint her wonder. When one properly did what one was taught and it was correct for the situation, one could hit almost any object with a person. Perhaps she was amazed that Remo had hit the American street water device so accurately. "If the car is moving, you have to lead the target so that you will hit it and not miss," Chiun said.
"No. The force of it. How'd he do that?"
"By listening to the wisdom of the House of Sinanju," said Chiun, who was still not altogether sure what Miss Poombs meant. Often people who lacked control of their bodies and their breathing were amazed by the simplest thing the human body could do when it did things properly.
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Chiun guided Viola into the rear seat. A man with his hand on a .45 caliber revolver sat in the far corner of the rear seat. The gun lay on his lap. He had a small smile on his face. Very small. It was the sort of smile one gives when one realizes he has done something very stupid. In the case of the man with the .45 on his lap, the stupid thing was trying to fire the gun at the man with thick wrists who had invaded the car.
His life had ended mid-attempt. There was a small concavity above his left ear, just enough to compress the temporal lobe back into the hy-pothalamus and optic chiasma. Those were parts of the brain. The message the brain got when the temple stopped caving in was "All over. Stop work, fellas." It had been a very fast message. The heart had given two reflexive pumps, but ' since the vital organ of the brain had stopped, it stopped too.
The kidneys and liver, not getting blood from the heart to make them function, were preparing to shut down also. This general strike of the body was known as death.
"It's all right, Miss Poombs," said Chiun. "He won't bother you."
"He's dead," said Viola.
Remo, sitting with his arms over the front seat, next to a driver who was exercising an overwhelming call to be incredibly cooperative with the man who had emptied the car of all other living things, took offense at Miss Poombs' tone.
"He's not dead. He will live in the hearts of those who make stupid moves forever."
"What did he do that you killed him?" asked Miss Poombs. That man with the gun was dead.
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Totally dead. Forever, unchangeably dead, and what did he do, other than be in a car that drove away from a killing scene at a controlled, smooth pace?