"What about this guy?" asked Ilsa.
"He looks Aryan. Put him out of his misery."
Ilsa placed the Luger against the man's forehead to smother the sound, said, "Nighty-night" sweetly, and fired once.
"Yuck! He splattered a little," Ilsa complained, looking at her formerly white blouse.
"You should never stand that close to your kills if you insist on being fussy. Come."
Ferris D'Orr lay dreaming. He dreamed that he was a gingerbread man. He had had that dream often as a child. He was a gingerbread man, and evil men who talked in funny voices were trying to cook him in a great big oven.
Ferris kept telling the men that they had the wrong person each time they pulled him from the oven and poked their fingers into his browning stomach that was decorated with huge M&M's.
"Put him in again. He's not done," they would say. And Ferris would shout the words that they refused to believe over and over again.
Ferris D'Orr woke up crying the words: "I'm not Jewish! I'm not Jewish!"
And for the first time, a voice answered his plea. It was a hoarse voice, an old voice, and through the hoarseness, Ferris recognized the guttural accents of his nightmares.
"Of course you are not," the voice said. "You are Ferris D'Orr, the brilliant metallurgist, and I am Konrad Blutsturz, here to enlist you in a great cause."
Light suddenly flared in the room and Ferris D'Orr saw the man who spoke. He was a hideous old man with a metal arm that clenched and unclenched nervously. It whirred like a dentist's drill as it worked. The man was in a wheelchair, his face leaning close to Ferris' own. Too close.
Ferris sat up suddenly, because as ugly as the man was, the red blanket that draped the stumps where the old man's legs stopped was uglier. In its center was the twisted cross of the Nazis.
The blond girl standing beside the old man also wore a swastika. It was on an armband circling her right arm, and the arm pointed a long-snouted pistol at his face.
"You must have great night vision," she said sweetly, to be able to see our colors in the dark."
Ferris D'Orr had only one thing to say, one word. The word was: "Momma!"
"Thank you far treating me, Little Father," Remo Williams said.
Chiun waved dismissively as he handed his American Express card to the restaurant cashier. Tonight his suit was maroon and gold. The tie was pink.
"You said you had not eaten," he said. "Now you have eaten."
The cashier took the credit card and filled out the charge slip. Then she placed both in the charge machine and ran the embossing handle back and forth with a loud chunking noise.
"Sign here, please," she told Chiun.
The Master of Sinanju took the proffered pen and signed with a flourish. He waited patiently. When the card was returned to him with the slip, he placed the card in his wallet and threw the slip into the nearest litter basket.
"Did you see that, Remo?" he asked once they were on the street. It was nearly four a.m. and there was not much traffic.
"Yes, I did, Little Father."
"I have been thinking," said Chiun. "I do not believe that even American merchants could be so foolish as to not realize I have not had to pay for their wares."
"Oh?"
"I think the card itself is not the wondrous thing after all. "
"No, then what is?"
"Why, my name, of course."
"Your name?"
"Yes, Chiun. See? Here is my name printed on this gold card. It says Chiun, my name. This is the magic thing, not the card. Obviously it is like the old seals of the Egyptians, intended to identify royal personages to commoners. When I show this card, they look for my name and see that they are dealing with the Master of Sinanju. Then they ask me to sign, using my signature for verification the way the Egyptian seals were once used. Thus, they do not ask for gold."
"It makes sense when you say it," said Remo good-naturedly.
"This means that America has finally learned to appreciate me. Smith must have told them. Yes, that is it. In the weeks when we were gone from his service, seeing that he no longer needed to keep our past employment with him secret, he has spread word of the good service that he formerly enjoyed from the Master of Sinanju. And subordinate Master, of course.'
"Of course," said Remo; hiding a grin. "By the way, what did Smith say about the bodies?"
"What bodies?"
"The three guys you eliminated, the kidnappers. Was Smith able to identify them?"
"He said something vague about their unimportance. I do not remember what."
"That's strange," said Remo. "Usually Smith's computers can identify anyone from fingerprints or dental records."
"I think these must have been special nonentities," said Chiun, hoping that Smith never found out about the bodies in the dumpster. "What difference would it make?"
"Knowing who they were might mean knowing if they were operating on their own or working for someone."
"Why do you bring this up?" asked Chum.
"I wonder if it was a good idea to leave Ferris alone."
"What harm is in it? Ferris is asleep, and Smith had obviously spread the word that he is protected by the Master of Sinanju. Our reputation does most of our work for us, you know."
Remo started to argue, but as he turned the corner he suddenly saw Ferris D'Orr.
Ferris was still asleep. But he was asleep in the arms of an old man in a wheelchair. The old man was being hoisted, wheelchair and all, into a waiting van. A blond girl in some kind of military uniform was working the lift. Remo recognized the titanium nebulizer rocking beside the wheelchair on the rising platform.
The blond slammed the side door closed and jumped for the driver's seat.
"They've got Ferris!" Remo said.
The van backed out of the space and barreled down the street.
Remo started after it and then noticed a man lying in the street beside a crumpled Mercedes that had been thrown up on the sidewalk.