"It is your fault," Chiun said. The two Masters were now standing on the opposite side of the bus. Not a biker in sight. "You are to blame. Even strangers sense this."
"They're bonkers," Remo replied. "Whatever they say is obviously the opposite of reality."
"The deranged often possess their own vivid wisdom," Chiun noted.
"Or claim to."
The old Korean gave his protege a look hot enough to cause sunburn.
"Here they are! Wipe them out!" There was a chorus of boot steps coming around both ends of the bus. The Masters retreated across the parking lot.
"Why are you guys called the Smoking Hogs?" Remo called, reading sloppy jacket decals. "Is that like a Dixie version of a Sweat Hog?"
"Wipe you out!"
"Because the Sweat Hogs has been over for, like, decades."
"Sweating does appear to be their only talent," Chiun noted.
The bus lurched to life and spun in a circle. Remo wasn't about to let it escape. He led the herd of Hogs into position to block the bus's exit.
"You run like a dog!" the barrel-chested biker taunted them.
"This is as good a place as any to get wiped out, I guess," Remo said. The Masters were suddenly at a standstill, and the bikers bore down on them with amazing speed.
Remo watched the leader come at him with the chain. The man moved fast. Too fast for an overweight, beer-sodden thug in a restrictive leather jacket.
Not that he had anything to worry about. As the mass of metal careened at his head, he simply ducked beneath it, then reached up, grabbed it at precisely the right point and gave it a nudge for added momentum. Donald Deemeyer saw it coming at him and dropped his mouth wide in surprise. The chain hit. There was a liquid crunch, and then his jaw was all that remained intact of D.D.'s head.
Another biker howled and brought together a pair of crowbars, intending for Remo to be between them. Remo allowed the crowbars to clang together, then he gave them a hard shove. The bars drove forcefully into the guts of the man holding them.
More of them came, their rage spurring them to greater speed. Remo sidestepped a red-eyed, cross-eyed machete wielder and sent the big blade rocketing skyward with a quick kick. The maniac stumbled and looked around wildly for his lost weapon.
"Little to the right," Remo said, stepping in close and giving him a small shove. "Hey, look!"
Remo pointed up. The maniac looked. The machete was falling with tremendous velocity when it went in his mouth, out the bottom of his jaw and into his chest.
Two more stabbed at Remo from either side with more conventional cutlery, but the knives disappeared from their hands, and he inserted a finger into an eye on the left, then the right.
There was a gunshot. Remo stepped around the bullet, then ran at the shooter. Only one more shot slid past him before he had taken possession of the handgun and bent it into a horseshoe. He did the same thing to the shooter until he heard vertebrae crunching.
"Weapons are for amateurs, Remo. Have I taught you nothing?" Chiun grumbled. He had finished off his fair share of leather-clad Smoking Hogs.
It was the machete wielder he was referring to. The man had somehow extracted the weapon from his face and neck and was bearing down on Remo, the howls of outrage bubbling out of his neck. Remo stepped around him and whacked him hard on the back of the head. The machete wielder became airborne, dead already.
Chiun tsked over the body when it fell. "Very messy."
"I was just playing around," Remo protested.
"Are you prepared yet to enter the bus? Or should we take our rooftop perch again and see what other surprises they have in store for us?"
Remo sighed. "I guess we go in. But let's try not to kill everybody, Little Father."
Chiun sniffed. "Don't insult me."
Chapter 27
"Why is everybody screaming?" Amelia demanded.
"Shut up and listen!" Grom barked. "We're going with emergency Plan B."
"But why, Mr. President?"
"Just come get me!"
"Okay-two minutes!"
Grom couldn't believe he was putting his life in the hands of Amelia Powlik.
He strapped on the gas mask. Nobody noticed. Half the staff was cowering under tables while half found it impossible to tear themselves away from the horrors outside.
The ex-Secret Service agent turned and was about to make some sort of a pronouncement. Instead he said, "What's that for?"
Grom brandished a stainless-steel canister: It had been a part of the special package delivered for him just that afternoon at the mountaintop restaurant. It looked like a can of Pledge without the label. He shot the agent in the face.
Hope this works, Greg Grom thought. Before long he was spritzing everybody on the bus and issuing orders. He had never used the stuff in aerosol form before, and he wasn't one hundred percent sure it would work. Also, he had never used this specific formula. Who knew what it would do?
Soon twenty-three employees and hirelings of the United States Protectorate of Union Island piled from the bus and ran screaming in different directions. All the security agents jumped off with a hooded figure held hostage, their guns pointed at the figure's head. The bus jerked into motion, heedlessly rolling over dead Hogs.
CHIUN STOOD with his hands inside the sleeves of his kimono, which fluttered in the diesel fumes coming from the tour bus's tailpipe. "It is the prerogative of the Reigning Master of Sinanju to determine our next course of action."
"Of course it is," Remo said in exasperation. "You go after the bus, I'll get the hostage. Then we both go round up the civilians. Unless you have a better plan."
"I will do as you ask," Chiun said agreeably.
Remo bolted after the Feds, muttering. "Why am I not surprised that this is the one time you're going to let me make up strategy?"
He stooped as he ran and picked up a pair of rocks, then let them fly after the trio of agents. They never saw the rocks coming, and they never got the chance to fire their guns at their captive. Both awoke hours later in the Pigeon Fudge Lutheran Hospital with huge headaches and no memory of what had happened after lunch at that nice restaurant up in the mountains.
Remo pulled the hood off their hostage and found himself staring at a young woman named Betsy Shak, assistant in the Union Island budgeting department. She kept walking until Remo pulled her to a stop. Then she just stood there, smiling slightly, eyes closed and snoring. "Ah, crap!" Remo exploded.
Even that didn't wake up Betsy Shak.
REMO AND CHIUN INTERSECTED seconds later, both sprinting at speeds that would have broken Olympic records.
"Any luck, Little Father?"