Nancy looked to Remo. "Look me up in the States?"
"Maybe," said Remo.
The engines started to whine. The Master of Sinanju slipped from the wingship. Remo ducked out after him, his face a storm cloud. The pontoon bridge was cast off and the hatch was slammed unceremoniously shut.
Remo and Chiun stood on the beach to watch.
The great dorsal cargo doors were settling into place. At the tail, the two props began turning, each in the opposite direction. They built up speed and the craft inched forward.
Remo turned to Chiun.
"What's the idea? We could have hitched a ride home."
"Hush. I must watch. It is possible the craft will sink and an entire thigh bone will be mine for the taking."
Remo folded his arms. The prop backwash was beating the remaining pepper gas away from the patch of sand where they stood.
The Orlyonok was moving now. The two props pulled it into the harbor. Fishing boats got out of the way.
There were two giant turbofan exhausts set on either side of the nose. They began roaring and blowing, angling forced air under the wingroots.
The wingship leaped ahead and was suddenly floating above the waves. It skimmed out to sea at a steady speed.
"Guess it works after all," Remo muttered, watching it. "And you can kiss that thigh bone sayonara."
Chiun narrowed his hazel eyes at the departing tail.
"Come, Remo." And the Master of Sinanju leapt toward the water.
He lifted his skirts and soon was splashing into the surf. Then, as if finding submerged steps, he was racing across the waves, employing the same technique Remo had used to run atop human heads without breaking human necks.
Remo plunged after him. His feet found the water's natural buoyancy and he used this to propel himself forward.
The ekranoplane was still building up air speed. They overhauled it after a five-minute run, and first Chiun, then Remo caught up with the starboard wingroot and leapt onto its shiny surface.
There they lay flat, adhering like stubborn starfish as the slipstream buffeted them.
The Orlyonok skimmed out into the Atlantic.
No one noticed that it carried two extra passengers. Until Skip King happened to look out a starboard window hours later and imagined he saw the aged Korean calmly sitting on the trailing edge of the wing, his back to the slipstream, which pressed his clothing so flat king could almost count the bumps along his spine.
King blinked. Imagination. It had to be. Without telling anyone, he took a seat on the opposite side of the wingship.
There, he thought he saw the other one-Remo stretched out on the wing, sunning himself as if on a huge aluminum lawn chair.
Some sixth sense caused Remo to become aware of King's eyes on him. Abruptly, Remo sat up and gave a little wave. King lifted his hand to wave back, then had a sudden change in priority.
The sound of his heaving and wretching floated out of the washroom for the next hour. Intermittently.
Chapter 15
The ekranoplane Orlyonok thundered across the Atlantic Ocean in exactly eleven hours, twenty-eight minutes, and sixteen seconds.
Her nose engines began to throttle down, and Remo, who had passed the trip stretched out on the port wing, sat up. The reduced slipstream threw his dark hair around, and he kept his face turned away from the blasting air.
Shore breezes brought a conglomeration of smells to his sensitive nostrils-smog, food odors, car exhaust. Civilization. The ekranoplane was nearing land. It was night. The moon outlined a shelf of pale sand. A beach.
Then the nose engines cut out and the wingship settled into the water, her tail propellers pulling her toward shore.
Remo stood up. It was possible to stand up now. Over the prop roar, he called, "Hey, Little Father. Ready to make landfall?"
"The tardy cook dinner," Chiun squeaked back.
And Remo jumped off the leading edge of the blunt wing. His feet carried him in front of the wingship. Once past the gleaming white nose, he spotted the Master of Sinanju, pipestem arms pumping, legs flying under his broad kimono skirts, keeping pace.
Remo pushed himself harder. The wavelets under his feet felt like slippery elusive pebbles that tried to repel footing. But Remo's flashing feet moved on so quickly that they found purchase enough to keep him moving ahead, but not enough to break the surface tension of the water.
Then there was a chunking of hard-packed beach sand under his shoe leather.
"I win!" said Remo, turning toward the water.
Chiun was nowhere to be seen. Remo saw the big wingship coming in, but out on the water there was no Master of Sinanju.
"Oh man," said Remo, starting back. He had just set both shoes into the cold water when behind him, Chiun's squeaky voice said, "You were slower than usual."
Remo whirled. There was Chiun, standing there, pointing to Remo's sopping shoes.
"And you have wet your feet."
"They're wet because I thought you'd fallen in."
"Anyone who would think that deserves to walk about with his shoes full of seawater."
Remo walked back, his shoes simultaneously squishing and making gritty sounds.
"I didn't see you overtake me," he said.
"And if you do not learn to see with both eyes, you will never see the hand that strikes you dead," retorted Chiun, a faint light of triumph in his hazel eyes. "We will have fish tonight," he added blandly.
"Maybe there's a good restaurant around here, wherever here is."
They looked around. The beach and docks looked unfamilar. The wingship continued gliding toward the empty beach. Tugboats were chugging to meet it. The Orlyonok settled into a slow glide and the tugs bumped at its wings, stopped it, then backed off as other tugs began nudging the wings from behind.
Slowly, they guided it toward the beach. The craft nosed onto the gritty sand, crushing sea shells and driftwood, and its hull made an extended grating sound before it came to a dead stop.
"Let's pretend we're a welcoming party," Remo suggested.