He reached behind him and with great effort tore it out from his shirt. It was a little metal spur with spikes. He pressed it in his fingers and then, to test its hardness, bit into it.
Alstein spun around and grabbed his stomach.
"It's burning, it's burning, it's burning," he cried.
"Turn away from Pitulski," said Gordons and with his fingers snapped the spur from Pitulski's mouth as if preventing a dog from chewing on some unclean thing.
Jellicoe watched Mr. Gordons's fingers reshape the spur and Alstein sighed with relief. So that was how Mr. Gordons found him in the bathroom of the O'Hare Airport, thought Jellicoe. The spurs were miniature transmitters—homing devices—and when Sergeant Pitulski had bitten into his, he somehow had changed the frequency to that of the two targets. Jellicoe felt around his back and his fingers closed on a beautiful sharp spur. He moved his hand away quickly. Apparently Mr. Gordons had not seen him. He would leave it there until he saw a chance of escape. And this time he would not carry his own beacon. He would throw it away and flee. When he had a chance.
"Buncha nuts," mumbled Alstein and then took a fast look at the photographs of the two hits. One, according to Mr. Gordons, was called "high probability Remo" and the other "high probability Chiun." The Oriental was Chiun. Mr. Gordons believed this because that is what he heard them call each other.
The photos looked as if someone had shot them head high but when Jellicoe picked up the two sheets of paper, black and gray ink came off on his right thumb in a smear like a small Greek shield. It shone glossy. They were not photographs. They were incredibly fine etchings. Done with ink.
Who was this Mr. Gordons? What were his powers and where did he get them? He was like a walking laboratory and manufacturing plant, all in one. Jellicoe shuddered and tried to think of more pleasant times.
"I'll be back in an hour with the job done and we can all go home," said Alstein. But he was not back in an hour. He didn't even find the house until sunrise. The vibrating button worked fine, but it seemed to vibrate right over, fields or directly up rocky inclines and it was dawn Before Alstein had worked out the correct combination of roads for his car and stood before a little wooden house with an excellent view of a wide jade-blue bay and the waters below. A long furry rat-like creature scurried under a banana palm. A small brown lizard clinging to the side of the house looked balefully behind his head with eyes that rotated.
Moe Alstein cocked his gun, knocked with his left hand on the door. No one answered. He knocked again.
"Who is it?" came a voice.
"Western Union," said Alstein. "I got a message for you."
"Who for?"
"A Remo something."
"Just a minute."
Alstein raised the gun and aimed just above the doorknob. When the knob turned and the door opened slightly he let go with the first shot that took off a fist-sized hunk from the edge of the wooden door. The door slammed open and Alstein moved in, looking for the wounded body. But there were only splinters and a big hole through the sliding glass door at the other end of the house. There wasn't even any blood. A bearded old gook stuck his head out of a door. Alstein squeezed off a shot at the bearded face. But no blood. No body smacked back as if hit by a sledgehammer. Just a big scoop out of the wall.
Where was the person who had opened the door? Where? Moe Alstein stepped back in sudden panic. He would retreat to the road and blast them from there. There was nothing in this house that could stop a .357 Magnum.
But what had happened? He had to have hit someone but there was no blood. And he had had the little gook perfect. He could take the bowl off a champagne glass at thirty feet; he wasn't going to miss a whole head. The door behind him had to have sent wood splinters into someone. You don't open a door without a hand. As Alstein stepped back, he felt a little stinging in his gun hand. He saw an arm over his shoulder coming directly down to his right wrist. There was a guy on the ledge above the door, resting on it as if it were a wide hammock.
"Hi. I'm Remo. You got a message for me? Well, just let me have it and don't sing. I can't stand singing telegrams."
Alstein tried to wrest his hand free but he could not. The gun dropped dully to the wooden floor. The Oriental appeared from the far doorway in front of the .357 Magnum hole. Not a whisker on the long wispy beard was damaged.
Chiun moved quickly to Alstein and his hands darted around the bigger man's body like butterflies gone amok. He felt the metal spur taped to Alstein's stomach, but kept his hands moving for another moment before stepping back.
"Who sent you?" asked Remo, hopping down from the doorsill.
"Mr. Gordons."
"He's here on the island? Where is he?" asked Remo.
But Alstein's mouth gave forth no words. It opened and then filled with blood. The Master of Sinanju withdrew a long nail from the throat and like a spigot unplugged, Alstein's blood gushed forth from the puncture hole in his throat.
"What'd you do that for?" asked Remo. "What'd you do that for? He was going to tell us about Gordons."
"Hear ye, hear ye," wailed the Master of Sinanju. "Gordons, we do not wish your death. Sinanju yields. The world is big enough for both of us. Hail the House of Gordons."
"Now I know why you killed him," said Remo. "You don't want me to find Gordons."
Alstein writhed on the floor, his blood soaking his jacket, his arms flailing uselessly. Remo stepped away from the growing, seeping dark puddle.
"That's blood," said Remo. "You know how hard it is to clean up blood? From dry wood, no less. You know how hard? Get him out of here."
But Chiun wailed again.
"No grief, no bill due do we hold against the glory of the House of Gordons. No wealth do we want. Sinanju yields."
"Shmuck," said Remo and with his good arm snared Alstein's belt and carried him at arm's length, so as not to get himself messed up, out to the porch where with one spinning heave he threw the body splashing into Magen's Bay.
"We got any Comet or Babbo or Fantastick in the house?" asked Remo. "Shmuck."
"Yield to Gordons. Peace we seek," said Chiun.
"Maybe some Lestoil?" said Remo.
In the Windward Hotel, the small television screen on a set without a case had transmitted Chiun's words of peace. The last picture it showed was of the sky. The fading morning stars seemed to be racing away, and then the picture shuddered, flashed an image of bubbles, and then only blackness and silence.
Jellicoe watched the set turn itself off. He shook his head and moaned. Sergeant Pitulski looked confused.
"I didn't see nothing. Just the door. The shot, the gook that should of gone down, and then the hand coming like it was suspended from up above, you know. You think they got some trick machinery in that house or something?"
"No," said Mr. Gordons. "Well, so much for metal. Now we try fire, Sergeant Pitulski."
"The Marines are ready to move out," said Pitulski.
"Stay more than an arm's length away," said Mr. Gordons. "If we go now, we may catch them in the house. Stay twenty-five yards away and hit the house from there. I think I saw a clearing on the television transmission, so they won't have the advantage of places to hide to come up on you. This may be effective."
Driving to the house overlooking Magen's Bay, the three did not take the experimental roads Alstein had tried. They knew the best way, because they had watched him wander all night over the little TV set. As the now hot morning made breathing difficult in the car, Sergeant Pitulski wondered why Mr. Gordons wanted to accompany him.
"Because you drink. There is nothing more unreliable than a human being with alcohol in his bloodstream."
"I fight better drunk than sober," said Pitulski.
"A chemical illusion," said Mr. Gordons as he drove up winding Mafoli Avenue; down behind them they could see Charlotte Amalie at the foot of the rising hill, and the fine white cruise ships docked in the bay.
"May I ask why we want to kill those two?" said Jellicoe. "I mean if you want to tell us."
"I have no desire not to tell you. The one without the beard, which would indicate he was younger, has extraordinary strength. He damaged my left side. Now if he could do this, then either he or the bearded one, or both together, could destroy me. Correct?"
"Correct," said Jellicoe. "But the Oriental said he didn't want to. That was the one thing he made clear. That he didn't want to tangle with you."