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lived. But Chiun was at rest with himself, and it made Remo envy his peaceful composure.
Chiun, still shuffling his feet through the limestone powder, had reached Remo. His sandaled foot touched Remo's.
"Move your feet, retard," Chiun said.
Remo looked down. His feet were in Chiun's way.
So much for inner peace, Remo thought. Give me confusion every time.
Chiun kicked him to make him move his feet.
Commander Spencer was among the first passengers to leave the plane in Madrid, but he had stopped short inside the boarding area when he saw another metal detector he would have to pass through.
He had no more mock doctors up his sleeve, but he allowed himself a smile when he thought of what he actually had up his sleeves: two heat-seeking portable missiles, designed for hand firing.
He turned back to the ramp to reboard the plane. The last passengers were leaving, giving the obligatory thanks to a male flight attendant of spurious goodwill and indeterminate sexual preference, whose primary contribution to the flight's bonhomie was to refuse anyone who asked a second bag of peanuts.
Spencer brushed by him.
"Left something on my seat," he said apologetically.
"Someone always does," the steward sniffed.
Spencer went toward the back of the plane, past his seat and into the small restroom where he
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locked the door, leaned against the sink, prepared himself and waited.
Five minutes later, the steward knocked on the door.
"Are you in there? You really shouldn't be in there. There are restrooms in the airport terminal. I must ask you to leave the plane now."
The restroom door opened and a strong arm reached out and yanked the steward inside.
With one smooth motion, Spencer cut his throat, then leaned the dying body over the sink, so that the blood from the wound would run into the sink and not down onto the steward's uniform.
Cramped in the close quarters, Spencer stripped the steward's uniform.
"Bloody look like bleeding pilots they do," he mumbled to himself. The uniform was not much of a fit, particularly over his blue pinstriped suit. But it would do.
He opened the door and peered out. The passenger cabin was empty. He shut the door behind him, ripped the lid from one of the passenger seat's ashtrays and jammed it as a wedge into the base of the door. It wouldn't keep anyone out, but it would hold long enough to convince somebody that a tool kit was needed to fix the recalcitrant door. By that time, Spencer would be gone.
A few moments later, he fell in with a group of blond stewardesses who had just gotten off a Pan-American plane. He listened to them chatter in some dogbark accent about the best places in Madrid to snare rich men. They all walked past the airport's metal detector and Spencer waved to the
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young woman on duty there. She smiled back at
him and winked.
Boring, he thought. It was all so deadly boring. He hoped that the Yank and the Chink would at least be a moderate challenge, something to lift his flagging interest.
"Young woman, it is here," Chiun said.
Remo saw Chiun standing in front of a section of wall that looked to Remo no different from any other section. Terri, thirty feet away, hurried down to Chiun.
She shone the flashlight on the section of wall and said, "I don't see anyth . . . oh, there. Under the dirt."
"Yes," said Chiun.
With a handkerchief from her back pocket, Terri began to rub away at the gritty grime on the wall. Remo saw the first faint glimmering of gold begin to appear, reflecting dully in the beam of her flashlight.
Chiun backed away, toward Remo, to watch.
"How'd you know it was there?" Remo asked.
"The powder on the ground."
"Yeah? What about it?" Remo asked.
"You are really dense sometimes," said Chiun. "There was not as much of it there as elsewhere."
"What does that prove?"
"Is it not enough that I found the golden plaque? Must I be subjected always to this merciless cross-examination?" Chiun said.
"I just want to understand how you think," Remo said. "That's not merciless. Except to me."
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"It is intrusive," Chiun said. "Everything is there for you to see. Why do you not see it?"
"Because I don't know what I'm supposed to see," Remo said.
"And if a man with his eyes screwed tightly closed asks what color the sky is and someone tells him, does that mean he can see the next sky with his eyes still closed?" asked Chiun.
"I don't know what the hell that means," said Remo.
"That is your problem, Remo. That is always your problem and it is why you will never amount to anything. You do not know what anything means."
"I'm not that bad. You're just ticked off because that Jap didn't have a Space Invaders game for you to play."
"Yes, you are that bad. But because it will be the only way I will ever have any peace on this earth, I will explain it to you. There is less of that lime powder on the wall here than there is anywhere else. What does that mean?"