"Check," Remo said. "But don't call for a while. We're going out to eat first."
When he glanced at the Master of Sinanju, he saw that the old Korean was standing just inside the bedroom door. He was once more examining one of his blue ten-dollar bills.
"I'm paying," Remo added firmly as he hung up the phone.
Chapter 16
The information was damning enough to topple the United States government.
Mark Howard hunched behind his desk in the bowels of CIA headquarters. Although he stared at the swirling screen saver on his computer monitor, his thoughts were miles away.
All was quiet save the soft background hum of equipment. The murmuring voices were gone for the day. Few people haunted this part of the building so late at night.
The overhead lights had been dimmed. They'd been encouraging such penny-saving measures at the CIA for much of the past decade. The money saved could be redirected to buying field agents actual bullets for their guns.
In the shadows of his cubicle, Mark had read the report out of Boston twenty minutes before. Even though he'd been looking specifically for it, he hadn't expected to see it.
The feeling again.
Paul Petito was dead. Local authorities had found him on the floor of his basement. At first, they'd said the counterfeiter had died from a single gunshot wound to the head. That had soon been amended. Now they were saying his skull had been pierced by an object unknown.
To Mark, the details of Petito's death were irrelevant.
He'd couriered his Raffair dossier to the President this morning, after a personal phone call from the chief executive. In those documents was a fresh printout with Paul Petito's name. To replace the one Mark had doodled on.
Death. That's what he'd written next to Petito's name. And Petito was now dead. A secret arm of the executive branch, sanctioned to kill.
Anyone who knew about this was at risk. And now Mark Howard knew. Knew for certain.
For some reason, the President was involving him in this. Though he had tried to figure out why, no feelings came to him. The sense of dread swamped all else.
For a long time, Mark merely sat. A shadow among shadows. At long last, a leaden hand reached out and shut off his computer. The internal fan hummed to silence.
He thought of Petito. A hole pierced in his skull. Of Smith and his unknown agents.
His cubicle was eerily quiet. The dark walls, close.
He wouldn't be trapped. Couldn't allow thoughts of defeat. Fate was coming for him. He had to be ready when it arrived.
As he rose to his feet, the first hint of determination clenched his jaw. Mark Howard gathered up his topcoat. It was winter, after all. He didn't want to catch a cold on the way to meet his destiny.
Chapter 17
Johnny Fungillo knew enough to be scared. The others hadn't a clue. They had only seen the old one in action, and even so, they still thought he'd used some simple sleight of hand to take down Bear DiCrrotti. But Johnny Books alone had seen the young one up close and personal. Twice.
In East Africa, he'd managed to take down two of Johnny's oldest and dearest friends in the blink of an eye. If Johnny's guess was right, he was even faster than the old man. The second time he'd met the skinny guy with the thick wrists had been a complete shock.
Back in Africa, most of New Jersey's Renaldi Family had been wiped out by a bunch of crazy natives with spears. Johnny had been forced to scrape up this current gig from Sol Sweet, attorney to the wrongly incarcerated Don Anselmo Scubisci. He had been absolutely stunned when on the plane ride up to Boston he'd found himself staring into those dark, dead eyes again.
He couldn't move fast enough to avoid the man's darting hand. Before he knew it, the guy's finger was pressing his forehead.
That simple touch had completely paralyzed Johnny. While he wanted to scream at the doctors who stared down at him after he'd been transferred by ambulance to Boston's St. Eligius Hospital, Johnny couldn't budge an inch. Some were saying that he'd be stuck like this for the rest of his life. And he might have been, if not for a fluke.
His first and only night in the hospital, the nurses on his floor had ordered ice-cream takeout from Friendly's. The portly RN who was checking in on Johnny had been in a hurry to get out to her melting cookies-'n'-cream sundae. While struggling to reset his IV with one hand, the impatient woman had banged him on the forehead with the full bedpan she'd been clutching in her other hand.
It was a one-in-a-billion shot, but apparently the edge of the bedpan had hit him just right. The woman almost had heart failure when Johnny sat bolt upright in bed and demanded his pants.
When Johnny had showed up at Paul Petito's house twelve hours late and with a big swelling bruise on his head, no one had even bothered to ask what had happened to him. Such was the nature of their business. And Johnny Fungillo would have been happy to never, ever mention that skinny, dead-eyed stranger with the lightning-fast hands-if not for the damn surveillance pictures.
Johnny was new to the Scubisci Family. He couldn't risk not telling when he saw that face again.
Yet even when he and the others had set off in search of the young guy and the old Chinaman, Johnny had kept a low profile. He'd stayed in the car at Logan while the others circulated the pictures they'd gotten from the video; he'd hunkered down in the back seat after they'd learned their quarry had gotten a cab to Quincy; and he had said a silent prayer to the Madonna when the angry neighbor with the crying baby had pointed out the big ugly stone church on the corner.
Luckily, the occupants of the building weren't home. When the two men he had driven with came out to collect him from the floor of the car, Johnny had to first thank the Virgin Mary for not dropping him in the path of his antagonist again. He doubted he would have survived a third encounter.
Inside looked like a bunch of small apartment units that had never been used. Only a few of the rooms in the whole complex looked lived-in.
"Should we wait for them?" one of the Scubisci regulars had asked once the three of them had done another sweep and had turned up empty.
They were in one of the ground-floor kitchens. It looked to be the only one used in the whole building. A table that was set so close to the floor it looked as if someone had stolen the legs was pushed neatly against one of the walls.
"No way," Johnny Books insisted. He was sweating near the door. "Didja see all those fish tanks downstairs? These guys are heavy-duty weird. Can't we just-I don't know-leave them a nasty note or something?" He gave a hopeful, lopsided smile.
"That old guy was pretty fast," agreed the first man who'd spoken.
The third man in their party, Mikey Skunks, considered. Although he would never admit it, he was a little concerned about the old codger, too.
"Sweet never told us what to do 'xactly," he mused. "Maybe we just gotsta show 'em not to mess wit us no more."
Johnny felt a weight lift from his shoulders. "I'll look for a pen and paper," he enthused. He spotted some on a shelf near the phone and jumped on them.
"No," Skunks insisted as Johnny grabbed up the notebook. Skunks Falcone was examining the gas stove. "It's gotta be a stronger message."
When they finished their work ten minutes later, Johnny Fungillo was still wishing that they'd opted to leave a note. Something with a lot of very cross underlines and angry exclamation points. He was thinking this even as he ran with the others through the downstairs hall of the old church.
All three men were breathing through the tails of their untucked shirts. They passed through the main kitchen and hurried out the side door. The stove in the main kitchen hissed ominously as they ran by.
While Johnny and the other man caught their breath in the parking lot, Skunks went to the trunk of the car. He returned a minute later clutching a Coke can in his big paw. A gasoline-soaked rag hung from the open end.
The two others were climbing in the car even as Mikey Skunks was hauling back. He heaved the gasfilled can through the open door of the kitchen. When flame met hissing gas, the explosion was instantaneous. With a rumbling burst, the entire kitchen erupted in a ball of brilliant fire.
Windows exploded into the parking lot, spraying sparkling shards across their parked car. A wave of heat and flame belched through the open door even as Skunks was jumping into the front seat.
Shocks sank in protest to his weight. Another explosion sounded from deeper inside the church. More breaking windows. Up the short flight of stairs, flames curled up from the open door.
The fire ate a voracious path through the big building. When Skunks slammed his door, the entire first floor was already engulfed in flame.