"I bet the reason has something to do with murder," Remo said.
"Damn right. I've been weeks tracing down these bugbirds. They're behind the killings on the airplanes," Baynes said.
"Odd you didn't think about going to the police or the FBI," Remo said. They were in Baynes's steel-walled office.
"Don't tell me, pal," Baynes said. He sat heavily in a chair and dropped his head into his hands. "I wanted to get proof, and I waited too long. Now my wife is dead and my kids are missing." He looked up at Remo and there were tears in his eyes. "I swear to you, mister, I'm going to get these bastards. Every last one of them."
"I'm sorry, Baynes," Remo said. "What do you know about the statue? Is it true, all that magic stuff?"
Baynes shook his head, a sly insider's smile on his mouth. "Hah. I'll show you how true it is," he hissed. "Come on."
He opened the door to the ashram, and the scent curled in, attacking Remo's nostrils, and he hung back. But in a sudden movement, A. H. Baynes grabbed his wrist and yanked him out into the ashram. Remo could not resist. The strength was gone from his body and he felt like a rag doll.
Baynes, with no more effort than he would have used to steer a child around the aisles of a department store, tossed Remo onto the platform at the foot of the statue, leaned over close, and whispered, "It is true. It's true," he said. His eyes glistened with excitement. "She is Kali and She loves death."
A small helpless cry escaped from Remo's lips. He could feel Her, close to him. She was suffocating him. "Baynes . . . Chiun . . . yellow cloth . . ." Remo mumbled, trying to preserve a part of his mind from the stupefying influence of the stone statue, but Her scent was filling his body, blocking out everything except a wild maniacal lust he felt swelling inside him.
The room swirled. Nothing existed for him except the statue. She was the goddess Kali and She owned him.
"Bring me death." He heard the voice again, but this time it did not seem to come from inside his own mind, but from the lips of the statue. And this time he knew he would obey Her.
A. H. Baynes watched Remo move like a zombie toward the door to the street and then go outside. He waited. Then he took the miniature camera from inside his shirt pocket, extracted the tiny roll of film, and put it into his pocket.
Inside his office, he made a telephone call. It was the first time he had ever used the number. The receiver on the other end was picked up but there was no greeting.
"Hello? Hello?" Baynes said.
"One favor you are allowed," the androgynous whisper said. "Then the statue is mine."
"A deal," Baynes said. "I've got a man here. He's a fed and he's got to go."
"I understand."
"I don't care how you do it," Baynes said.
"I will tell you how."
A half-hour later, Baynes met his contact at the site of a condemned building. The person was swathed in cloaks and wore gloves. Baynes passed over the roll of film.
"His name's Remo," he said to the invisible stranger. "This is what he looks like."
The figure nodded.
"I guess that's it, then," Baynes said.
"Prepare the statue."
"What if you fail?"
"I will not fail."
Baynes started to leave, then hesitated. "Will I see you again?"
"Do you want to?"
Baynes gulped and said, "Maybe not. Tell me, though. Why do you want that statue so badly? It's not worth a million dollars."
"I want many things . . . including you." The figure's hands went to its cloaks and began to open them.
Chapter Twenty
Remo careened crazily down the darkened street. The only sound he heard from the sleeping city was the insistent thrum of his heartbeat, and it seemed to be speaking to him, saying, "Kill for me, kill for me, kill for me."
His hands hung rigid at his sides. He staggered up the street like a man dancing with death, insensate, drunk with a lust he did not understand. Don't listen, a smaller voice inside him said, but it was too faint to hear now. And then it was stilled.
A pigeon startled him as it flew off its perch on a telephone line and fluttered to the ground in front of him. It walked in jerky circles, unused to the night.
Bring me death, Kali's unspoken voice called to him. The pigeon stopped and cocked its head to one side, then the other.
Bring me death.
Remo closed his eyes and said, "Yes."
The pigeon, only amused by the sound, looked at him quizzically as Remo crouched. Then, seeming to sense the power of the human who moved without sound, who could hold a position as still as a stone, the pigeon panicked and flapped its wings to soar upward.
Remo sprang then, leaping into a perfect spiral in the manner he had learned from Chiun, a way to cut through the air without creating countercurrents that pressed back against one's body, forcing it downward. It was pure Sinanju, the effortless bound, the muscles pulling in flawless synchronization as the body turned in the air, the hands reaching up to halt the pigeon in flight, the sharp snap that broke the tiny creature's neck.
Remo held the limp, still-warm body in his hands, and the sound of his heartbeat seemed to explode in his ears. "Oh, God, why?" he whispered, and fell to his knees on the oil-slick street. A car blared its horn as it swerved past him, setting his ears to ringing from the shock of the sound. Then it settled and his heartbeat slowed. The night was silent again and he still held the dead bird softly in his hands.
Run, he thought. He could run away again as he had before.
But he had come back before, and he knew he would again.
Kali was too strong.
He stood up, his knees weak, and walked back to the ashram. With each step, he realized he had disgraced Sinanju, had trivialized it by using its techniques to snuff out the life of a poor harmless creature whose only sin was getting in his way. Chiun had called him Master of Sinanju, the avatar of the god Shiva. But he was nothing. He was less than nothing. He belonged to Kali.
Inside the ashram, which still hissed with the sounds of the sleeping members, he placed his offering at the foot of the statue.
She smiled at him. She seemed to caress him, sending out unseen tendrils of passion to this man who gave Her his strength and had brought Her the bloodless death She craved.
He moved closer to the statue, and Her scent, like the fragrance of evil flowers, filled him with a blinding desire. For a moment the other face he had seen before hovered behind the statue's. Who was she? A crying woman, a real woman, and yet, the image of the weeping woman was not real. But somehow it made him ache in pain and loss. And the statue itself reached out toward him with Her strangling hand, and on his lips he felt Her cold kiss and he heard Her voice say, "My husband," and he was weakening, suffocating, giving in....
With a violent wrench he pulled his arm back and struck one of the statue's arms. As it fell to the floor with a shattering clatter, a horrible pain welled up inside him. He doubled over, sinking to his knees. The statue's hand leapt upward and fastened itself around his throat. He yanked it loose and turned, running toward the door of the ashram.
The devotees had been awakened by the noise, but he was out onto the street before they could react.