Though dawn was still a few hours away, the soft Spanish voice still droned incessantly in the background. Just as it had for the past twelve months. Even at night she'd been allowing the soft words to penetrate her brain. But though the faceless man had recited ceaselessly-day after day, week after week-she just wasn't getting it.
"iEsta Susana en casa? Si, esta con una amiga. Donde esta en la sala. No, en la cocina. "
The metallic man's voice stopped short. There was a soft whir and a click, followed by silence. From her bed, she snaked out a hand. Fumbling around the nightstand, she popped the front on the portable tape player. She pulled out the ninety-minute cassette. Printed on its side was the phrase: "Learn Spanish just like the diplomats do! It's easy, fun and fast!"
She flipped the tape and dropped it back in the machine. When she pressed the Play button, the man continued to recite the same dialogues she'd been listening to for months.
For some reason, the words just weren't sticking. There was no reason why she shouldn't be picking it up easier. After all, she was the most brilliant woman ever to set shoe to soil. Time, Newsweek, Eleanor Clift and all the major networks had told her so for the past eight years.
But in spite of her penetrating intellect, so far the only words she'd learned were hola and si. And though no one in the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria dared tell her, she still mispronounced both of those.
"Stupid language," she muttered under her sleep mask. "My first edict will be to make that filthy little island an English-only zone."
When a voice answered her from out of the night, she was stunned that it did not come from her tape player.
"Does that include the name Puerto Rico, too? 'Cause the only ones who really stand to benefit from that are the mapmakers."
When she whipped off her mask, she winced. The bedroom lights had been turned on.
Two men stood near the door. She recognized them at once. "You," the First Lady of the United States screeched.
Remo's face was hard. "And everyone knows that the mapmakers are still sitting on the sacks of gold they made after Russia collapsed," he concluded.
Beside him, the Master of Sinanju offered a polite bow. "Madam," the old Asian said.
The First Lady didn't return the courtesy. In a flash, she shot up out of bed, planting her bare feet firmly on the ornate Oriental rug that had been stolen from the White House Map Room. With an ungodly howl, she ripped the nightstand tape player up and flung it at Remo's head.
He plucked it from the air, carefully pressing the Stop button before placing it to the floor.
She threw a lamp at the Master of Sinanju. The old man ducked to one side, and the lamp shattered against the wall.
Panting, she wheeled on them, all bobbing pageboy hair and flashing teeth.
"I knew it was you," the First Lady hissed. "I only met you those couple of times, but as soon as that spic Rodriguez mentioned those freaky wrists of yours, I knew it."
Remo looked down at his own wrists. They didn't seem so bad to him. "Yeah, well, if I had thighs like yours, lady, I wouldn't be commenting on anyone else's shortcomings," he said in an injured tone.
The First Lady didn't hear. She was drawing back her head to scream. When she opened her mouth, revealing twin rows of sharp teeth, she looked like a carefully coiffed hound getting ready to bay at the moon.
"Don't bother," Remo interrupted before she'd even sucked in enough air to fill her lungs. "The Secret Service has gone night-night for the time being."
The shriek died in her throat.
"What are you doing here?" she snarled. "Don't tell me those MIR morons blew it in Miami."
"Your soldiers have been vanquished by Sinanju, Your Majesty," Chiun replied.
"Sinny-what?" the First Lady demanded. She didn't wait for an answer. "Do you two know what you've done? You've delayed my ascension to the Puerto Rican throne. After the revolution, those greasy little wetbacks were gonna make me their queen. Now I'm gonna have to go out and find some more wrongly incarcerated revolutionaries for that worthless husband of mine to pardon within the next twenty-four hours."
Diving across the room, she grabbed for the phone on her dresser. A strong hand was already there, holding down the receiver. She looked up into Remo's hard face.
"Couldn't you just be content being a nuisance in regular America, and spare the protectorates?" he asked.
"Let me call!" she screamed.
As Remo held the phone, the First Lady pounded her furious balled fists against his chest. As she continued to punch him, he noticed a pin lying on her dresser. It was the same one with the weird parentheses-enclosing-a-circle design that all of his attackers had worn.
"What the hell is this, anyway?" Remo asked, unfazed by her attack. He picked up the pin. Panting, the First Lady fell back.
"It is a symbol of female gender superiority," she spit. "I was sick of you men with your phallocentric designs for everything from flagpoles to obelisks. That's a symbol of sisterhood designed by a female."
Remo looked at the button again. For the first time, he realized what it was.
"It's a woman's private parts," he said.
When he showed the button to the Master of Sinanju, the old man's eyes took on an appalled cast. Cheeks flushing, he covered his face with a billowing kimono sleeve.
"Put that smutty thing away," the old man insisted.
"It's nothing to get too worked up over," Remo said. "By the looks of it, the model was a robot."
"It's conceptual," the First Lady snarled.
"Not if it looks like that, it ain't," he said. He tossed the pin back to the dresser. "Okay, Cruella de Vil, let's get this over with."
"I will not be silenced!" she screamed, recoiling from his outstretched hand. "Everyone knew the Senate wasn't big enough to hold me! I'll be back!"
"Before then, remind me to buy stock in an earplug company," Remo said as he pinched a nerve on her shoulder.
Mouth still twisted open, the First Lady went rigid, then limp. Remo grabbed her as she fell, dumping her into a Louis Tiffany chair that had been bought for the White House by Chester Arthur. He brought his lips close to her ear.
"You're going to forget everything you know about CURE, Harold Smith and the two men you've been trying to kill this past week," Remo said. "You're going to forget all of this stuff forever, and you won't even be remotely interested in ever remembering. Do you understand?"
Her eyes closed, the First Lady nodded. She purred contentedly. It made her sound like a cat that had just eaten a particularly succulent rat.
Remo straightened. As he turned back to the Master of Sinanju, a thought suddenly occurred to him. He leaned back over the First Lady.
"And from now on, your role model for womanhood will be June Cleaver. You will cook, clean and bake cookies with a smile on your face and a song in your heart and you won't even be remotely interested in TV cameras, public life or inciting socialist rebellions. Oh, and you'll wear a frilly white apron wherever you go. Even in the shower."
When he stood back up, Remo wore a satisfied expression.
"America owes me big time," he announced. Leaving the soon-to-be ex-First Lady snoring complacently in her stolen chair-happy visions of vacuum cleaners and bundt cakes dancing merrily in her head-the two Masters of Sinanju slipped silently from the bedroom.
Chapter 34
In the predawn light of a small Missouri airport, a surplus Bell AH-1 Cobra helicopter hummed to life. The drooping rotor blades grew rigid, slicing air with violent purpose. Behind it, three more helicopters growled awake.