"I'm not strangling anyone," Remo said tightly.
"You will do as you are bidden," Kimberly returned. Then, "You will use the Sinanju blow known as the floater stroke."
Remo flinched inwardly. It was the most dangerous blow in Sinanju. The unforgiving blow. Once unleashed, the pentup power of it rebounded on the attacker with fatal results if the blow did not land. And as the scent of Kali choked his nostrils, Remo knew that he would deliver it upon command.
He also understood he had the option of missing-and thus executing himself. Kimberly's muted laughter told him she appreciated his dilemma too.
The crowd was settling down now, assisted by Iraiti crowd-control police wielding kidney-punishing truncheons.
And then, from a grumbling APC that braked before the reviewing stand, came Reverend Jackman and Don Cooder. They were arguing.
"I go first," Reverend Jackman insisted.
"No, me. Me. Me. Me."
They were brought up to the reviewing stand, where the burnoose-clad figure of Maddas Hinsein turned to greet them. He smiled widely. His dark eyes sparkled.
The cameras strategically positioned around Arab Renaissance Square zoomed in for the moment of high drama to come.
The victims were made to halt before the burnoosed figure. Muttered words came from under the shadowy kaffiyeh. Brown hands lifted as if to bless the dead.
"With all due respect, President Hinsein." Don Cooder pleaded, "as the highest paid network anchor in the world, I respectfully, humbly, and sincerely request the right to die first."
"As a fellow third-world brother," Reverend Jackman piped up, his eyes protruding like turtle eggs emerging from a mudbank, "I claim that right."
"I don't think he understands English," Cooder whispered.
"I'm with that," Reverend Jackman said. He lifted his orator's voice. "Any of you folks speak English?"
The Revolting Command Council maintained their stiff, full-of-dread expressions. They, too, were picturing themselves swinging on the ends of U.S. ropes. The big woman in the abayuh standing directly behind the man they took to be Maddas Hinsein faded backward, her feet clumping like a soldier's.
Then, under the prodding of the guards, Reverend Jackman and Don Cooder were made to turn around until they faced the phantasmagoric figure of Remo Williams.
"Address your victims," Kimberly Baynes whispered to Remo.
Remo stepped forward. The crowd went still. Even the birds in the sky seemed to go quiet.
Remo stood nose-to-nose with Reverend Juniper Jackman.
"This isn't personal," Remo said stiffly.
"Amen."
Remo stepped sideways until he was looking into Don Cooder's worried face.
"But you," he growled. "You, I'm going to enjoy."
"What'd I do!" Don Cooder demanded, suddenly scared.
"Remember the neutron bomb you had built?"
Cooder's mouth fell open. "How'd you know about that?"
"That's why."
And then Kimberly spoke up. She hovered very near.
"Execute!"
Remo stood frozen for a full minute.
Deep within him, he fought to resist the order. Sweat broke out on his brow and trickled coldly down the gully of his spine. He lifted one hand, forming a spearhead with fingers and thumb.
He drew back. The power of the sun source that was Sinanju began to build within the column of bone and sinew that was his arm. His eyes flicked from Don Cooder's trembling face to the shadowy visage of Maddas Hinsein towering by a full head behind him.
"Now!"
Remo released the blow with a vicious snap of his forearm.
The energies, coiled like a viper, rippled down his arm as Remo drove hard fingertips toward the unprotected throat of his intended victim. There was no stopping it. One of them would die.
Remo's mind froze. If there was ever a time I needed you, Little Father, he thought wildly, I need you now.
What happened next happened too fast for human eyes to ever comprehend, and although it was recorded on video and broadcast throughout the world, no one saw it clearly.
A millisecond from striking the blow, long-nailed hands reached out to snatch Don Cooder from the path of Remo's strike.
The speed was blinding. Elegant. Hauntingly familiar.
Chiun! Remo thought, even as Cooder faded from his sight and the force of his blow continued traveling in a straight line-through the empty space where Don Cooder had trembled and directly for the exposed breast of Maddas Hinsein, tyrant of Irait.
The burnoosed figure took the blow like a scarecrow shot with an elephant gun.
Arms jerking crazily, he was jolted backward, his burnoose flying like green wings. He fell backward over the railing to land with a mushy thump on the pavement below.
Grinning, Remo turned, joy in his heart.
"Little Father . . ." he began.
His grin washed away like a sand castle before a dam-burst.
For standing there was not the Master of Sinanju, but the abayuh-clad figure of Kimberly Baynes, holding Don Cooder with two long-nailed hands as two more pairs emerged from the ebon garment, snapping a yellow scarf between them.
"But I thought . . . ." Remo began. And he remembered. The Master of Sinanju was dead.
With a careless fling of yellow-nailed fingers, Don Cooder was thrown aside, and the silken scarf snapped around Remo's exposed neck. Kimberly wrenched. The force was quick and brutal.