Commander Hilton Marmaduke Spencer, O.G., K.L.M., D.S.C., sat finishing his Stolichnaya vodka neat. He could feel the throbbing in his temples, the throbbing that always signaled that he would soon kill again.
He finished off his drink, strode to a bookcase in a corner of the living room, and reached behind a slim copy of Italian War Heroes to press a button.
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Noiselessly, the bookcase slid into the room, opening like a door to display another small room. Its walls were lined with weapons, handguns and rifles and automatic pistols. There were hand grenades and small one-man rockets, all neatly labeled and stored for immediate use.
Commander Spencer decided he would take a lot of equipment with him and give those two bloody bodyguards a really rousing sendoff.
His temples kept throbbing and he knew the pain would not subside until he was packed and ready to go on his mission. Until that time, he hoped he met no one. He hoped no neighbors were on the street and he hoped no mailmen or deliverymen came to the front door, because while the temples pounded, he was not in control of himself. And he didn't want to kill anybody right-now. Not yet. Not until he had met these two bodyguards.
Twelve
At least at Kennedy Airport in New York, they had predictable hookers and muggers. But here, in the Bombay Airport, they had beggars and cows milling around the main passenger terminal.
"Ridiculous," Remo said. "This country's never going to make it into the twentieth century. Hell, it might not even make the nineteenth."
"You just don't understand spirituality," Terri Pomfret said.
"I understand cowshit," Remo said. "You're standing in it."
Terri looked down, saw she indeed was and tried to shake it from her shoe.
"Pray it off," Remo said. "Flash a buck and you'll have a thousand gurus over here to help you."
"You're back to being nasty," Terri said.
"Something about this country brings out the beast in me," Remo said.
He strolled off, picking his way through the cowchips, toward a bank of telephone booths on the far side of the terminal.
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The first seven phones had dial tones but no sign of sentient life on the other end of the line. When Remo picked up the receiver on the eighth phone, an operator answered him instantly.
He gave her the 800-area-code number in the United States.
"That is wonderful," the operator said.
"What is?"
"That you're calling America. I've never placed a call to America. Are you American?"
"Will it help me get my call through if I tell you yes?" Remo asked.
"You don't have to be sarcastic. No wonder you Americans are hated around the world."
Remo began to sing:
"In the good old colony days, when we lived under the king, lived a butcher and a baker and a little tailor . . . bring back the British."
"Vietnam," the operator yelled. "El Salvador."
"Cowshit. Dirt," Remo yelled back.
"Racism. Colonialism," the operator yelled.
"Please," Remo said, surrendering. "Just get my number."
He leaned against the wall and waited. He noticed a slight dark man, wearing a diaper around his midsection and a terrycloth turban, standing against the wall near the telephones, trying very hard not to be involved with Rerno, trying very hard not to look in Remo's direction, trying very hard not to be noticed. He had a small bale of
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cotton alongside him. He picked it up and placed it on his head, moved a few steps along the wall, closer to Remo, then put the bale down on the floor again.
After a lot of clicking, Smith's voice came on the phone. The operator said, "Imperialist pig calling you."
She clicked the phone loudly in Remo's ear as she got off the line.
"It's Remo. We're going to Spain. Right, Smitty, Spain. Don't ask me. She says Spain, we go to Spain. You're the one who told me to do this. I know. The world depends on it. Right, right, right, right, right."
After Remo hung up, he walked over to the man in the turban and diaper who had just replaced the cotton bale on his head. Remo rearranged it even more with a quick stroke of his hand, slamming the bale down around the man's ears so he looked like a walking sofa cushion.
"We're going to Spain," Remo said. "Just ask. It's not polite to eavesdrop."
They were the only people in the plane's first-class section and Chiun took his usual seat by the window so that he could concentrate on the wing and make sure it wasn't falling off.
While the plane was taxiing, he said, "You did well, Remo."
Remo and Terri were sitting across the aisle.
"Oh, how's that?" asked Remo.
"By not getting us on an Air India plane. I would not fly anything manipulated by these savages," Chiun said.
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"My honor," Remo said.
Chiun nodded and turned back to the wing.
"How can he be so nice sometimes and so mean other times?" Terri asked Remo.
"You think he's bad now?" said Remo. "Wait until you learn street Korean and find out what he's been saying behind your back."