"Sweet had no knowledge of the masked men?"
"No," Remo admitted. "But don't think Raffair's off the hook. It could be the guy above Scubisci who's behind it."
"Doubtful," Smith said. "If there is another figure lurking in the shadows, he would be far above the men you've met so far. I find it impossible to believe that he would be informed enough to direct these assaults against you. The first one in New York happened much too quickly."
"Maybe," Remo said grudgingly. "But we can find out for sure from Scubisci."
"No," Smith said. "When I've sent you on assignment into prisons in the past, the circumstances were different. Anselmo Scubisci alive in prison is a valuable weapon against those who might choose a life of crime. He shows that the system is working. Dead, he is not a deterrent."
"Yeah, but he'd be out of business," Remo grumbled. "Which, by the looks of it, he isn't now."
"We will see. Please bring the letter to Folcroft at once."
Remo was already hanging up when Smith broke the connection. He found the Master of Sinanju at the door.
"You heard," he sighed. "Smitty wants us back home." He cringed the moment the word passed his lips.
Chiun gave him a baleful look. "Sorry," Remo said, his voice small.
"Yes, you are," Chiun agreed icily. With one leathery hand, he slapped open the door.
Remo followed him outside, shamefaced.
This time when they hit the street, the air was filled with a pall of thin black smoke. Fire trucks and police cars were visible far down the road. The Neighborhood Improvement Association building was fully ablaze. The money Remo had thrown out into the street had slowed the arrival of emergency vehicles considerably. He felt little satisfaction in the act of vengeance as he stepped down onto the sidewalk.
His loafer soles had barely brushed the concrete when he heard the squeal of tires. He looked up in time to see an old Buick racing toward him from across the street, twin clouds of rubber-scented smoke pouring from its screeching back wheels. As the car approached, he saw the by-now familiar black ski mask behind the wheel.
"Oh, not again," Remo groused.
Gawkers watching the fire had to jump away from the speeding car's grille. The car rammed aside a parked minivan on its way toward Remo. Bouncing the curb, it plowed over a fireplug. Water gushed high into the air. When the car was nearly upon them, Remo jumped to the right while the Master of Sinanju jumped to the left in a billow of kimono skirts.
The car screamed past them and slammed smack into the broad steps of the Mott Street Community Home in an explosive burst of crumpling metal and smashing windshield.
"And I am tired of your friends, as well," Chiun snapped across the shattered hood as the engine idled to silence.
Shooting him an exasperated look, Remo leaned into the driver's-side window.
"Well it's about damn time," he announced. Tearing off the door, he ducked inside. When he emerged a moment later, he was holding the driver by the collar of his jacket. The man's head hung limp in his ski mask, chin brushing his chest. Unlike those who had preceded him, this attacker was still breathing.
"We've got a heartbeat," Remo proclaimed. The geysering fire hydrant had dropped the water pressure all along the line. Farther up Mott Street, the gushing fire hoses that had been dousing the raging flames at the Neighborhood Improvement Association had become pathetic spurting trickles. Eyes were already scanning the area for the reason.
"Let's get this one back to Smith," Remo said rapidly.
Carting the unconscious assailant under one arm like a trophy, he and the Master of Sinanju hurried down the street to Remo's leased car.
Chapter 24
It was raining in Naples.
Ominous black clouds rolled in across denuded vineyards. In the distance, thunder rumbled.
Don Hector Vincenzo watched the fat rivulets of rain as they streaked down the glass of his closed patio doors.
The air had turned cold. The stone floor beneath his shoes chilled him up to his ankles.
Although he was Don of the Naples Camorra, the most powerful of all the Camorristas, he did not control the weather. In the dark center of his soul, though he would admit it to no one, he knew that there was precious little that he did control.
But that was about to change.
He eyed a single raindrop as it rolled down the length of a door pane. It seemed to take forever to reach the floor. As he watched, his mind drifted beyond the storm clouds, beyond Naples. To America.
It was all going according to plan. It would take some time-a few more years, perhaps-but in the end, he would succeed. Finally.
They had been second to the Mafia far too long.
It had not always been that way. There was a time when the Naples Camorra and the Sicilian Mafia had been equals. But that was before Mussolini.
It was not that Il Duce favored the Mafia over Camorra. Indeed, the dictator had labored to destroy both groups. But Sicily was an island, separate and safe. On the mainland of Italy, Camorra had had the misfortune of being too close.
Those had been brutal times.
Even so, the shadow organization had survived. Not as powerful as it had been, but alive. Unfortunately, Camorra could never again hope to compete with La Cosa Nostra.
While Camorra was still licking its wounds in the time immediately following World War II, the Mafia had thrived. The Americans had relied on the Mafia to help in the relief efforts. The Dons helped keep the social fabric from tearing while solidifying their own power. Weakened, Camorra could only watch it happen.
America herself had been Camorra's great mistake. The Naples syndicate had failed to expand into this virgin territory. And so, crippled by war and impoverished in peace, Camorra had struggled for decades.
No longer.
Don Vincenzo wasn't a young man. As his days on Earth dwindled, so too had his patience. Before his time ran out, he had vowed to see Camorra return to the greatness of old.
The grand scheme in East Africa had been part of the strategy. To this day, he still didn't know why that had failed. As it was, he had been lucky to escape that backward land with his life.
But this was his second chance. At his age, perhaps his final chance. Originally, he had planned it to be his introduction to the American market. However, with the Mafia still present there, it had been an easy enough thing to turn it into a weapon of attack.
Things were not as they once had been for his enemy. The Mafia had grown big and clumsy. The dawning of the new millennium had witnessed a weakened Cosa Nostra. And in that weakness was opportunity....
Lightning crackled suddenly through the black sky, startling Don Vincenzo. When he looked out at the clouds, he saw that a fissure had appeared in the gloomy canopy. Shafts of sunlight broke through the clouds, illuminating his hillside vineyard. The fat splattering raindrops that had been striking the patio tabletops and chairs began to die.
The clouds moved once more, and the sunlight vanished. But the rain near the house continued to slow.
It would stop soon. Then the sky would clear. Perhaps the day would be warm.
Don Vincenzo pulled himself to his feet. Someone would have to be found to dry off his chair outside.
The old Don shambled off into the mansion in search of a servant and a rag.