"Did you hear, Remo?"
"I heard," said Remo, coming out of his seat.
"You! Stand back! This is a hijacking."
"And this is a counterhijacking."
"You cannot counter my hijacking. I have the bomb."
Remo stopped in his tracks. He fixed the Iranian with his eyes and, holding his gaze, kept talking. "Just take it easy. We can talk this out."
"There is no time for talk, there is only time to die. Where is the evil one who dispenses un-Islamic death? Show yourself."
Chiun stood up and stepped out into the aisle. Bowing his head, he said, "I am Chiun, Reigning Master."
"You will never serve the enemy Iraqi."
"I have made no agreement with Baghdad."
"You lie. They call you Al Quaaquaa, the Ghost. And threaten us with your ways of death. But no more. You will die here and now, and I will dance with the houris."
Remo moved his feet in tiny steps that inched him closer and closer to the shouting terrorist but gave the impression of standing still. He was now four feet away, and inch by inch closed the distance.
The hijacker was raving now, in a mix of broken English and Farsi. He seemed determined to milk his hour of glory for all it was worth. Remo decided if the houris gave out Oscars, he was definitely in the running.
"Oh, please do not kill me, O dangerous one," said Chiun, and Remo kept the betraying smile off his face. The old reprobate was setting the guy up, and he didn't know it.
Two and a half feet from the hijacker, who was pounding his chest and shredding his shirt in a last expression of earthly penitence, Remo struck.
One hand closed around the fist that clutched the bottle of deadly liquid, and Remo brought it up to his bearded face. The hijacker was startled to see the bottle moving independent of his volition. He froze in the middle of a round vowel, and his mouth stayed round as his widening eyes saw with disbelief that the cap was no longer on the bottle's neck.
He heard the soft click of the stopper hitting the aisle carpet, and then the bottle neck was in his open mouth and his head was abruptly jerked back by his short black hair.
The contents of the bottle burned as it went down. He coughed. And out came a jet of bluish fire like his soul escaping.
He was dead when his flame-broiled lips hit the carpet.
"Okay, folks. That's it. Nothing to worry about," said Remo, picking up the body and stowing it away in an overhead bin.
He was applauded and took a brief bow.
Returning to his seat, Remo told Chiun, "Word getting around?"
"We will be rich beyond our wildest dreams. Oh, that I frittered the precious years working for Mad Harold."
"So where are we going next?"
From the pile of FedEx mailers on his lap, the Master of Sinanju lifted one emblazoned with a bloodred flag and a yellow sunburst with sixteen points.
Remo frowned. "I can't read the name."
"It is a name steeped in legend."
"Yeah?"
"Macedonia."
Chapter Twenty-eight
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff hadn't slept all night, and now a dangerous new day was dawning over the Potomac River.
He was in his twenty-eighth hour of wakefulness and he stopped counting the coffee cups. He only knew that every time someone dropped a pencil, his gut gave a caffeine jump and another shot of adrenaline coursed through his thick body.
The Mexicans were still on their side of the border. They weren't threatening. They weren't demanding anything. They just stood poised and waiting.
A knock on the door made the JCS chair want to jump out of his tired skin.
"What is it?" he snapped peevishly to the aide who poked his head in.
"We have a NOIWON, General."
"Christ! That is all we need," he said, picking up the telephone.
"This is General Shali. Go ahead," he said.
"It's called Ying Lung, and the Taiwanese are saying it's the counterweapon to the Red Chinese's East is Red!" a breathless voice said.
A second breathless voice interrupted. "Never mind that. The Hungarians—"
"General," a third anxious voice broke in, "our mole in the CSIS reports talk of a new Canadian superweapon called Wendigo."
"One at a time. One at a time, please. CIA. You start."
"Thank you, General. This is Foxworthy. We have reliable intelligence about the Ying Lung. That's Chinese for 'Shadow Dragon.' The Hong Kong press claim it's the counteracting weapon to the Red Chinese East is Red."
"East is Red. Why have I not heard about this before?"
"I have no information on that, General. But we think, based on the name Shadow Dragon, it's some type of stealth weapon. Probably not a plane. Maybe a missile."
" A stealth missile?"
"Our nomenclature analysis suggests this."
"Fine. Next."
"NSA here, General. We have intercepted a communication emanating from Hungary that talks of the Turul, which is some sort of mythological falcon, according to our research. The Hungarians are warning their neighbors that they will not hesitate to deploy Turul if threatened."