A creeping numbness came over his hands. He looked down at them. And blinked. Blinked several times rapidly.
There was no understanding it, at first. He had been holding his rifle. Now it was no longer there. Had he, in his passionate fantasizing, dropped it? He turned around to look . . .
. . . and the gnarled yellow hand that had casually relieved him of his weapon reached up and seized the exposed back of his neck. The hand-Carlos did not know it was a hand-exerted such force that Carlos had the weird impression of a vise seizing his neck. This, of course, was impossible. He decided he had been shot. That was the only explanation. A bullet had struck his magnificent body, forcing him to drop the rifle. Now a second bullet had entered his neck from the back, severing his spinal cord and paralyzing him with cruel finality.
The anti-Esperanza devils were attacking!
Carlos fell face-first into the gravel. The fact that it did not hurt convinced him his spinal cord had been severed. Not that there was any doubt.
Out of one eye, he saw a pair of white sandals pad past. They were followed by a pair of feet encased in ordinary shoes. There were only two of them-two assassins.
Carlos tried to shout a warning, to alert his patron of danger, but no words came. Only tears coursing down the humiliated face of Carlos Lugan, the loyal.
He saw, as if dreaming, his compadres succumb to the pair, an Anglo and an Asian. The Asian meant his worst fears were true. There was bad blood between Hispanics and Asians in Los Angeles.
The Asians were out to stop Esperanza, fearing him.
They carried no weapons. They simply deployed, slipping up stealthily behind the other guards and bringing them to the same humiliation that had visited Carlos Lugan, by taking them by the backs of their necks and lowering their faces into the gravel.
Then, like ghosts, they slipped up to the sliding glass doors of the penthouse suite, where Esperanza was plotting strategy with his campaign manager.
Certain he was dying, Carlos Lugan said a silent prayer. Not for himself, but for Enrique Espiritu Esperanza.
Remo paused at the sliding glass door. He turned to the Master of Sinanju, whispering.
"Okay, Little Father. Here comes the tricky part."
"I will handle this," Chiun said, girding his blue kimono skirts.
"Remember," Remo cautioned. "We are just good citizens out to help a candidate."
Chiun gave the sliding door a firm tug. It shot along its track and shattered into a thousand pieces.
Seated around a coffee table on which a map of L.A. County was laid out, Enrique Espiritu Esperanza and Harmon Cashman looked up. Their mouths dropped open at the sight of a tiny wisp of an Asian man followed by a lean, unhappy Caucasian, stepping through the suddenly open door.
Harmon Cashman bolted from his chair and flung himself across the body of Esperanza.
"Assassins! Stop them!" he shouted to the guards.
From an inner room, two hulking Mexicans came charging out. They resembled a pair of Lou Ferrignos, with extra coats of tan. They brought up Uzi machine pistols while vaulting over the furniture.
The Asian and the Caucasian separated. The pair didn't appear to move. Yet suddenly they were five feet apart, utterly unconcerned and outwardly not seeming to hurry. Their movements appeared casual, even slow. Except they were unexpectedly in places far from their earlier positions, without, apparently, having crossed the intervening space.
The phenomenon befuddled the two bodyguards. They continually repositioned the muzzles of their weapons. Each time they were about to fire, the targets floated out of their sights.
One man beheaded a lamp, because his brain had been too slow in translating the image his retina had picked up: the image of empty space where a skinny white guy had been an instant before.
The two Mexicans quickly became so used to the utter confoundedness of their targets that they were too surprised to be surprised when the pair, synchronizing their actions to the nanosecond, simply swept in from their blind sides and rendered the weapons useless.
They used their hands. They floated up and around the Uzis unseen, and the two ringing claps came as one.
The Anglo and the Asian stepped back, joined up once more. The white man folded his arms defiantly, a cruel smile tugging at his lips. The Asian simply tucked his hands into his wide blue sleeves. He looked unafraid.
And the two bodyguards lifted flattened and useless weapons to firing position and depressed the triggers. The triggers refused to pull. They looked down.
It was then and only then that they comprehended the intriguing fact that their weapons were much, much thinner than they had been. In fact, they resembled gray palm leaves studded with rivets.
"Let me give you a hand," the Caucasian told Harmon Cashman, reaching out with his hands.
Before Harmon could respond, he was lifted to his feet. The other hand pulled Enrique Espiritu Esperanza to his feet.
"To what do I owe this intrusion?" Enrique asked blankly, his liquid eyes taking in the bizarre sight of his guards attempting to brain the tiny Asian.
The old man-all five feet of him-turned to bow in Esperanza's direction. The bow coincided with a strenuous attempt to brain him, with strangely wide and flat Uzis, on the part of the two Mexican bodyguards.
"I am Chiun, Master of Sinanju," said the old man in a low voice.
When he straightened, the weapons were coming down again.
Esperanza raised broad palms to quell the violence. He might have saved the energy. His towering guards had missed again. One fell on his face. The other, rearing back for a third attempt, suddenly dropped his useless weapon and grabbed his left foot, howling. He hopped on his right foot, as if the left had been hit by a jackhammer.
He hopped right out of the room and never hopped back.
"I have heard of Sinanju," said Esperanza quietly.
Remo, standing beside the white-coated man, blinked.
"I have been sent by a person I cannot name to safeguard your life," Chiun said placidly.
"I see."
"I have vanquished your guards to show the superiority of our services."
"I accept," said Enrique Esperanza. "Name your price."
"Grant the gorgeous creature named Cheeta an audience, and no further payment will be necessary."
"Done."
As Remo watched, his mouth dropping with each syllable spoken, the Master of Sinanju bowed gravely. Enrique Esperanza returned the gesture with the elegance of an Aztec lord.
Harmon Cashman sidled up to Remo.
"You with him?"
"Yeah," Remo said unhappily.