With a timid squeak, Gary Jenfeld came crawling out from under the table. He clutched a cardboard container of Zen and Gary's Chewy Newton Crunch in his shaking hand. Runny ice cream streaked his thick beard.
"Is it safe?" Gary asked worriedly.
"The plan's been bumped up," Zen said. "Since they're obviously on to us, it's time we told the oppressive regime in Washington what's expected of it."
"Um ...Zen," Gary said hesitantly. "Isn't that jumping the gun? Shouldn't you tell him about the dead people at Buffoon Aid? I mean, this is all his idea. Not to mention his money. Maybe he'd think different about this than you."
Zen dropped his voice low. "He knows, you idiot," he hissed. "HTB was airing Buffoon Aid, remember? Besides, this is going exactly according to plan."
With that, Zen spun away from his former partner. Without another word, he marched up the tunnel with the brisk stride of a revolutionary.
"His plan or yours?" Gary Jenfeld wondered softly.
Melting container of ice cream in hand, Gary huffed nervously up the dark tunnel after Zen.
Chapter 14
The frightened crowd from the civic center had fled screaming into the streets, only to stop at the town square. They stood in the shadow of Huitzilopochtli. Faces fearful, they clogged roads and sidewalks.
The Master of Sinanju had encouraged Remo to engage the Russians in the hall merely as a distraction. Blocked by their bodies, the old man had slipped out a side door. He emerged into the tightly packed crowd.
His hazel eyes scanned hundreds of faces for one in particular. He had nearly given up, thinking that his advanced years had somehow given way to hallucinations, when he caught a glimmer of movement across the square.
While most everyone's interest was focused on the hall, one figure skulked off in the opposite direction. The peaked black hood of an obscuring cape could be seen bobbing across the distant road that bordered the grassy square.
The hood slipped beyond the gleaming window of an apothecary shop. It turned up an alley and was gone.
Before the figure had disappeared, Chiun was off.
Pipe-stem legs pumped furiously as he bounded across the road in front of the hall.
The crowd seemed possessed by some reflexive instinct of preservation, for it parted as if connected to a single mind. The split formed across the park, beneath the giant statue's shadow and over to the distant street. And through the new-formed passage-a wall of human flesh on either side-flew the Master of Sinanju.
Sandals barely brushed sidewalk as he raced past the apothecary shop with its hanging crystals and jars of herbs. His path free of people and now at a full sprint, Chiun raced up the alley.
Hazel eyes searched for a face that mocked the grave.
The long alley was deserted. Chiun was a blur.
Past bundled trash bags and broken asphalt he ran. The Main Street alley fed into a narrower gap between a pair of two-story buildings. And on the street beyond, Chiun caught up with the fleeing figure.
The black hood was racing to a parked car. Upon exiting the alley, the Master of Sinanju stopped dead. The hems of his red silk kimono fluttered to angry stillness. Like a peal of furious thunder, his booming voice rang out across the empty street.
"Hold, deceiver of the Void!" Chiun commanded.
Chiun's tone was enough to freeze the black-clad figure in its tracks. Slender fingers clutched the handle of the driver's door.
With a few quick strides Chiun shed the shadowed mouth of the dark alley. He stopped behind the immobile figure.
"Why have you returned from the dead?" he demanded.
The hand finally slipped from the door handle. "I was never dead." Though the voice was soft, it was not apologetic. The shoulders remained proudly erect.
"My son thought you so, and so you were," Chiun said.
The figure turned slowly to him. The black hood hung low over eyes as cold as steel.
"Did you not think I was dead, as well?"
Chiun stomped his foot. "That does not matter," he insisted. "You were dishonest to make him believe you no longer lived. And now-at the most precarious time of his Masterhood-you return. Remo cannot afford you as a distraction. You will go. Now and forever. Leave this land and never return."
"You stop me only to order me to go?"
"Pah!" Chiun waved. "You were not going anywhere. You are on some fool errand for your Kremlin lords. Now that Remo has dispatched your men, you would be forced to lurch and blunder around yourself. I will not allow your path to cross my son's. I tell you now, leave not only this province, but this nation, lest you bear the wrath of the Master of Sinanju."
Two small hands reached up and the hood finally came down, revealing a short crop of honey-blond hair and a familiar high-cheekboned face.
"I cannot go. Not yet."
Chiun's expression began to harden when his sensitive ears suddenly detected swift footfalls behind him. With flashing hands, he grabbed for the door.
One bony hand clutched the handle, the other held firm to the cloaked figure's bicep when Remo came exploding from the alley mouth an instant later. The younger Master of Sinanju's eyes darkened when he spied his teacher.
"I've been looking all over for you," Remo groused. "Next time you badger me into snuffing out a Russian hit squad, I'd appreciate it if you did at least two seconds of actual work before punching off the clock for your afternoon rice break." Face still a scowl, he glanced at the figure Chiun was manhandling into the car. "Hiya," he added.
He looked momentarily back to Chiun. Then his face fell.
For an instant the world stood still. Remo's head snapped back around.
When his eyes alighted once more on the stranger's face, anything Remo might have wanted to say froze in his throat.
Eyes growing wide in shock, his jaw dropped open. He seemed desperate to speak, but could not. He looked the figure up, then down.
Remo wheeled on Chiun. The Master of Sinanju's wrinkled countenance was pinched into an unhappy knot.
"Chiun?" Remo asked, bewildered.
"Go back to the center of town and wait for me," the old man advised darkly. "No good can come of this, my son."
Remo spun back to the Institute director. "This can't be," he insisted.
With a frustrated hiss, the old Korean released his grip on the head of Russia's secret Institute. "Your eyes do not deceive," the Master of Sinanju insisted angrily.
The Russian agent nodded gentle agreement. There seemed a hint of shame in the movement.
It was almost too much for Remo to take. A swirl of emotion, confusion, amazement, spiraled around him in a crazed, impossible kaleidoscope. For what seemed an infinite moment, he lost all voice, all reason. When he finally caught up with his swirling thoughts, it was as if the one word he spoke echoed up a ten-year-old tunnel that led to the depths of his very soul.