Chiun couldn't hide his disappointment at the feebleness of Remo's memory. It was so poor that he couldn't recall the contributions of one of the greatest men to ever draw breath.
"King Sejong, your fifteenth century," the Master said. He was prepared to go into a lengthy lecture on the scientific and cultural achievements of the Yi Dynasty monarch known as the "Leonardo of Korea." But his one and only pupil was focused on the task immediately at hand.
"No way we can get to Chiz and Puma now." Remo continued. "Smith wants us to pick up the little dipshit attorney instead. Apparently, he's up to his eyeballs in this mess."
Smith was the magic word. It made Chiun forget all about the urgent need to reeducate Remo.
"By all means," the Master said, giving the car's steering wheel an impatient wave of his hand, "let us fly to the dipshit."
Chapter 26
Jimmy Koch-Roche had to sit on his hands to keep from chewing his nails and ruining a 250-dollar manicure. He was watching the big-screen TV in his private office. A special news bulletin had interrupted regular programming. The live video picture was shot from a helicopter circling over the Sepulveda Mall. It showed an army of black-and-white police cruisers, SWAT vans, paramedic and fire units in the mall parking lot. At the bottom of the screen was the computer-generated headline MegaStars On Mall Kill Rampage.
The TV reporter in the helicopter was rehashing what little information she had while the pilot flew around and around the parking lot. "At about 5:30 p.m.," she said, "Chiz Graham and Puma Lee, both recently arrested for murder, evaded their armed escort and entered the mall at the south entrance. What happened next is still unclear, but authorities believe it precipitated the deaths of at least five more people, shoppers at the mall. The earlier reports we had of automatic-weapons fire inside the mall are all still unconfirmed at this time. The police have sealed off the area and are not answering any questions until the situation on the ground is resolved." The camera cut back to the woman reporter, who was grimacing as she pressed her earphone tighter to her ear. Then she said, "Okay, Jeff, uh, we have located an eyewitness on the ground. I'm breaking to Filberstan Wanajinji. Go ahead, Fil..."
The video switched to a swarthy-looking young man in shirtsleeves standing in front of a gas station. The male reporter turned to a bleached blond, crewcut, nose-ringed youth next to him and said, "You were inside the mall when the incident happened. Can you describe it for our audience?"
"Big movie stars started kicking butt, that's what happened," the boy said. "Royal kick butt, man."
"You saw the violence?"
"Look at my threads, man," he said, lifting the hem of his superbaggy, monochromatic plaid sports shirt. "See that?"
The reporter leaned in for a better look. "Uh, not really..."
"That there's blood. It was flying everywhere. Chiz Graham, man, when he splattered that guy, he ruined my threads."
"What guy?"
"Some dude with a shotgun and strange helmet."
"A police officer?"
"Don't know. Whoever he was, Chiz killed him good."
"We've heard rumors about gunfire inside the mall. Can you tell us anything about that?"
"Oh, man, it was way cool, like a firing squad. Cops lined up on one side, and Puma Lee and Chiz on the other."
"Did Puma and Chiz have guns?" the reporter asked. "Did they do any of the shooting?"
"Nah, they just got the holy crap blown out of them."
"You saw that?"
"Hell, yes. It was like World War III. The cops just cut loose on them. Bullets and guts went everywhere. See this here...?" He held up another part of his shirt. "This is some of Puma, I think."
As the reporter waved the camera in for a closeup, Jimmy Koch-Roche shut off the TV.
To say things weren't going well for the diminutive attorney was a major understatement. First, there was the as-yet-unexplained death of Bradley Boomtower after an attack on the L.A. Riots' training headquarters by two unidentified men claiming to be assassins. Assassins sent by whom, no one knew. But Boomtower had most certainly gone down. Then came the disappearance of Senator Baculum while under the protection of both private and federal security. Despite a three-state manhunt, no trace of him had been found. It was a lucky thing that there had been so many witnesses to the senator's abduction, or Koch-Roche himself might have been suspected in helping the man flee the murder charge.
Again, a two-man team had committed the attack. Probably the same one that had gone after Boomtower. That a pair of men, one of them reportedly Oriental and ancient, could overpower and disarm more than seven trained men was difficult to understand. That one of them could take Boomtower's life without using a weapon of some sort seemed impossible.
The big question was, who sent them? But the huge question was, who was next?
Clearly, someone out there was targeting the high-profile users of WHE. The possibilities gave him cause to sweat. Koch-Roche pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his dripping face. The effort had to be unofficial, as the compound wasn't illegal yet. Perhaps some other drug cartel wanted in on the hormone action, maybe even one of the Golden Triangle gangs. Or some other pharmaceutical house, or a clandestine arm of the U.S. or other government that wanted to nip the new drug in the bud. Whoever they were, they were willing and able to use deadly force, seemingly whenever and against whomever they wanted. It was something that made his twenty percent commission on hormone drug sales seem suddenly way too small.
The intercom on his massive wood desk bleeped. He stabbed the Talk button with a thumb.
"Leon, I told you not to disturb me!"
"Mr. Koch-Roche, I'm sorry," said his executive assistant. "I have Mr. Korb here in the outer office. He would like to see you at once."
The little attorney was not in the mood for the multibillionaire. Like most barristers, he had a low opinion of his clients. An opinion that bordered on contempt. Generally speaking, they were worse liars and thieves than he was. Which is why he always made them pay up front. Before Dewayne Korb had started taking the drug, he'd been an insufferable bore, obsessed with stopping the theft of his intellectual property, and conversely, with defending himself against a mountain of similar claims against him. After taking WHE for a week, he was not only an insufferable bore, but a dangerous one. Though his physique had never been imposing, now all Korb could talk about was the size of his abs, lats and glutes.
Before Koch-Roche could tell his assistant to send the man away, that he'd already gone home for the night, the double oak doors to his office burst off their hinges and came crashing down on the Persian carpet.
Dewayne Korb, the world's richest man, strode over the fallen doors and into the lawyer's private office. "Get rid of your flunky," he said, indicating the male secretary with a jerk of his head, "or I will."
"Go, Leon," Koch-Roche said, shooing him away. "You should have gone home hours ago, anyway."
"I still have a few things to clear up, sir. I'll be outside if you need me for anything."
When the assistant had left, Korb advanced on his attorney's desk. In his case, the change wrought by WHE was particularly spectacular because the original article had been such a complete and total mush ball. Now he was anything but a mush ball. The computer billionaire was easily as wide as Boomtower across the shoulders and back, only he stood seven inches shorter, at a modest five foot ten. Having discarded his trademark cords and loose-fitting crewneck sweater, he wore a kind of turquoise bib-front swimsuit made out of spandex. His bare calves were the size of Smithfield hams.
Korb was no longer the constant butt of computer-nerd jokes.
He was the constant butt kicker.
No matter. Koch-Roche felt secure behind his huge battleship of a desk. The wood it was made of was so hard and so rare, coming as it did from the depths of the endangered tropical rain forest, that it was sold by the ounce. He felt powerful, too, because his desk was on an elevated dais, four steps above the floor of his office. It made Koch-Roche appear to be of slightly taller than normal height.
He loved his dais.
"As you probably know, it's been a rough day for me, Dewayne," the attorney said, holding his ground as the billionaire advanced on him with menace in his eye. "So I'd appreciate your getting to the point."
"The point," Korb said, leaning across the desk, "is that I need some more patches."
Koch-Roche was incredulous. "But I gave you a one-month supply just a week ago."
"I ran out yesterday."
"What's going on, Dewayne? You were given directions about how to use the patches. You've got to level with me."
The billionaire shrugged his massive shoulders. "I figured if one patch was good, then four were four times better. And I was right. Check this out." Korb flexed his right biceps. It was like a huge, oiled piston gliding under Saran Wrap. "Jimmy, I need some more."
"That's gonna be a problem."