Remo and Chiun were walking over to the far corner. The way they moved, it was as if theirs were a single mind, connected by a string of unspoken thought.
As they strode past the door leading into the front office, a huge figure suddenly lunged in at them like a wounded bison. Mark fell back into the wall, startled.
Fabio Gabinetto had been shot in one shoulder, yet he still lumbered forward. His arms were stretched out wide, ready to ensnare Remo in a crushing bear hug.
Remo didn't even seem to notice. At the moment when Fabio's arms should have encircled his chest, he simply ducked out of the way. Fabio's forward momentum couldn't be slowed. As he thundered impotently past, Remo snagged him by the scruff of the neck. His legs continued pumping as he dangled in midair from Remo's outstretched arm.
"There," Remo pronounced.
The rest rooms stood side by side in the corner of the room. Remo aimed a finger at the closed ladies' room door.
A few yards back, Mark was amazed to see that there was no sign of strain on Remo's face as he held the still cantering Fabio a foot off the floor. "Put that down," Chiun clucked.
"Huh?" Remo asked. He looked over at Fabio as if just realizing he was there. "Oh."
Whipping the gangster around, he planted his head neck deep in the nearby wall. The body went slack, toes barely brushing the dirty floor.
Chiun was already at the restroom door. He opened it with a simple hand slap.
A man was hiding inside the small room. When he saw the two men framed in the doorway, his eyes grew wide inside his ski mask. Something flashed in his hands.
Behind Remo and Chiun, Mark Howard caught the glimpse of movement. "Gun!" he yelled in warning.
As soon as he shouted, he threw himself at the floor, aiming his own weapon between the two men. Fresh pain from his broken wrist shot up his arm.
In the instant Mark winced, Chiun's hand snapped down. The CIA agent's eyes opened just in time to see the old man's fiercely sharp fingernails sail through the commando's gun barrel. Mark watched in astonishment as a section of rifle clanked on the tile floor. It was joined by two others. Sitting on the toilet in the single-stall room, the masked man suddenly found his hands grasping air.
"Thanks for the warning," Remo said dryly to Mark. "And if you wanna make a bang noise when you point that thing at people, you might want to take the safety off."
Turning back to the commando, he pulled off the man's black mask. The terrified face of General Rolando Rodriguez cringed from his darting hands.
"Okay, I've had it up to here with you nimrods trying to kill me six ways to Sunday," Remo said with a scowl. "I want to know why you're after me and I wanna know now. Otherwise, you're going headfirst into that bowl, and I won't stop flushing until there's nothing left but a pair of really smelly Che Guevara boots."
Rodriguez wanted to lie. But he had seen the result of this man's work at MIR headquarters back in San Juan. Fresh fear of the thin young man and his terrifying Asian companion supplanted all other concerns.
"She made me come after ju," Rodriguez blurted. His soles were on the toilet seat and he hugged his knees, shrinking from Remo and Chiun. "After what ju did to MIR in Puerto Rico, ju became a threat to her ambition."
"These attacks had nothing to do with Raffair?" Remo asked, surprised he'd been wrong all along. Rodriguez shook his head.
"No," he insisted. "She just told us where ju would be. In Boston, we knew you would be coming soon, but at the places like this we were told to wait. She did not know when you would arrive, only that you would come."
"Okay," Remo said. "Here's the twenty-thousand-dollar question-who's 'she'? The only one who knows about us is our boss, us and..." His voice trailed off. It struck him like a bolt out of the blue. "Oh," he said quietly.
He turned to the Master of Sinanju. There was a hint of a knowing look on the old man's otherwise inscrutable face.
"She's your-" Rodriguez began.
They were the only words he managed to get out before the hardened finger pierced his occipital lobe. All speech, thought and life ended at the same time for the revolutionary leader. When Remo pulled his finger free, General Rolando Rodriguez toppled sideways into the wall of the toilet stall.
Remo spun. His face was a dark thundercloud. "Let's go," he said to the Master of Sinanju. Behind them, Mark Howard had climbed back to his feet. He'd been listening to the commando's words with growing fascination, but when Remo and Chiun swept toward him, the CIA man backed nervously against the wall.
Chiun breezed past him without even acknowledging his existence. Remo stopped before the young man.
For a moment, Mark held his breath, unsure what his fate might be. When Remo raised a hand, he flinched.
Remo extended a cautionary finger. "Forget everything," he warned. "It beats me having to kill you."
That was it. The hand lowered and he was gone. Out into the main office. A minute later, Mark heard the sound of an engine turning over. The car faded into the night.
Only when the sound had died completely did he exhale. As he leaned against the wall, his shoulders sagged. He hugged his broken wrist as he tried to catch his breath.
He'd done it. He had faced down the fear of his own destiny and had survived.
Smith and his agents were irrelevant to his future-at least for now. Surprisingly, fate had brought him here to learn something else entirely. Something that went to the character of the man who had found him toiling in anonymity at the CIA.
MIR. The Puerto Rican separatist group. A huge controversy over a year ago. And here were the terrorists now, apparently sent after one of Smith's agents.
Mark knew the truth. And he also knew that no matter what he was asked to do by the President of the United States between now and Inauguration Day, he would not allow himself to be corrupted. Ever.
Still bracing his arm, he pushed away from the wall. His breathing was close to normal.
The authorities would be here soon. He'd better get his holster and get out before they arrived. Leaving the bodies of Fabio Gabinetto and Rolando Rodriguez, Mark C. Howard headed for the back of the tomb-silent Raffair office.
Chapter 32
Remo called Smith from the plane.
"You were right, Smitty," he announced. "Those Puerto Rican terrorists are the ones who've been trying to kill me all along."
"I know," the CURE director replied. "The man you brought back here regained consciousness a few hours ago. I tried to call you during your flight from New Orleans to Miami, but the plane's system was down."
"The navigator probably shorted it out when he accidentally spilled his rum and Coke," Remo said dryly. "So did he tell you who's behind it?"
"Yes," Smith replied, thin distaste in his voice.
"Oh." Remo sounded disappointed. He had wanted to be the one to tell the older man. "We're giving a pass to the other Raffair offices," he said. "Chiun and I are flying back to New York. We'll hit her first and then put this whole goose chase to bed."
Smith's reply surprised him. "No," he said. "No matter what the motivation was to involve us, Raffair is still a danger. I have had no luck tracing Anselmo Scubisci's benefactor. Once you are finished here, I want you to go to the federal penitentiary in Missouri and find out from him who is behind this."
Remo sighed. "Okay."
"And, Remo," Smith warned. "Do not kill her." He wanted to make his orders clear, so he did not substitute a euphemism for the distasteful word.
"Kind of figured that," Remo replied. "But I'm looking forward to this inauguration like I've never looked forward to one before, and if I miss it because of jet lag, I'm gonna insist that Chiun start listening to country music again. And since we're house guests of yours for the foreseeable future, you'll have half the staff of that nuthouse up on the roof banging down loose shingles."
Chapter 33