"Yes," Smith said thinly. "In any event, the target is across the Arkansas River and up Route 161 near Furlow. Did you get enough of the rest?"
"Enough. I've already got my squashing shoes on."
"Good, Please report back to Mark when you are finished. Sinanju rules do allow that, don't they?" There was a hint of thin sarcasm in his voice.
"Yes, that's kosher," Remo sighed.
"I don't understand why you've become so prickly lately in regard to Mark. I thought you had worked through your difficulties with him."
"I've got nothing against the kid, Smitty. I just liked it better when it was you, me and Chiun. Although right now Chiun isn't that much of a help."
"Is there something wrong with Master Chiun?"
"Nah. He's just being Chiun again. He came with me to Little Rock, but now he's sitting in a hotel room. He said he was contemplating his place in the cosmos or something. As if being the pain in my neck wasn't full-time job enough."
"Very well," Smith said. "Just remember, Remo. Nothing stays the same forever. Things change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not, but change is inevitable."
He was interrupted by a distant voice.
"Harold," Smith's wife called. "Dinner's ready."
"I have to go," the CURE director said. "Good luck. "
With a soft beep, the line went dead.
Remo held the cold phone loosely in his hand. He stared down at the permanent marks imprinted in the steel tray.
"Preaching to the choir, Smitty," he said softly. He hung up the pay phone.
THE TWIN-ENGINE CESSNA had flown up through the Gulf of Mexico. Staying low to avoid radar, the small aircraft hugged much of the shared border of Louisiana and Texas, finally breaking out across the Ouachita Mountains in southwestern Arkansas. It hummed into the Arkansas River Valley on the way to its evening rendezvous.
When it first appeared out of the cool, late spring night, it was as a sound rather than something visible to the eye.
The lone man waiting at Furlow's small airport heard the noise. Behind him, a red, white and blue banner slung from the side of a tin hangar advertised the Happy Apple Pie American Patriotic Flight School And Good-Time Hotdog Stand.
The man on the ground had come up with that name himself. The secret world in which he lived had become far more treacherous of late. Everything was about being inconspicuous now. Faysal al-Shahir was as proud of the very inconspicuous, very American-sounding name of his business as he was of his own false identity.
Faysal al-Shahir had cleverly picked his American cover name at random from a telephone book. He was now known as John Smith. That was much better than the first name he had cleverly picked at random out of the phone book. His contact in the radical al-Khobar Martyrdom Brigade had read him the riot act when Faysal al-Shahir had requested a false driver's license and credit cards under the name Jiffy Lube.
But that teeny mistake had been months ago. Faysal had learned much about fitting in since then.
He had been forced to shave his beard. His dark hair had been colored with blond highlights. Gone were his midnight-black eyes, disguised with blue contact lenses. His forearms had five-o'clock shadow from daily shaving.
Even Shahir's clothing had been Americanized. His first week in the hated den of vipers that was the devil West, Faysal had been delighted to find a store that sold typical American clothes at a price that would not break his allowance. His first trip there he had bought a garbage bag full of beautiful clothes. Now, months later, decked out in his Salvation Army Thrift Store finery, Faysal al-Shahir was as wholly inconspicuous as the next puke-green leisure-suited, bell-bottomed American flight-school instructor.
Although day had bled away, the rim of the twilight sky was still colored in shades of pinkish gray. It was out of the gloaming that the plane finally appeared.
"They are here," Faysal announced in Arabic. Three other men had been sitting on wooden crates inside the door of the hangar. Like Faysal, they were dressed in decadent Western garb. With fat lapels on ghastly colored polyesters, they looked like a 1970s prom band.
At Faysal's announcement, the men hurried outside.
It took several more minutes for the plane to reach the airport. By the time the Cessna came in for a landing, shades of gray had seeped into enveloping blackness. In darkness, guided only by soft runway lights, the plane touched down with a shriek of rubber. It sped toward them.
Faysal offered a wicked grin. "It begins," he said. He was turning to roll the hangar doors wide when one of his companions spoke.
"What is that?" the man hissed.
Faysal glanced back. The man who had spoken was pointing a wholly inconspicuous, mood-ring-disguised finger down the runway.
The Cessna was rolling toward them, slowing as it came.
When Faysal saw what his associate was pointing at, his eyes grew so wide he nearly popped his blue contacts.
A man had appeared from the dark woods next to the plane. He loped along in the wake of the small aircraft.
Faysal felt his stomach tighten.
"Who is that?" he demanded, wheeling on the others.
"I do not know," his men replied in chorus. Faysal looked from the men to the runway. The stranger was gaining on the Cessna.
"Should we shoot him?" one man asked. Rifles and handguns were already being raised. "No!" Faysal snapped. "We cannot risk hitting the plane. Besides, are you forgetting there are houses beyond the woods? We cannot draw the authorities to us. Not now."
Light from the plane and runway enabled Faysal to glimpse the stranger's face. It was cast in cruel shades. Above high cheekbones, the eyes were blacksmeared sockets. It was more a vengeful skull than a human face.
He ran with a gliding ease that seemed slow, but which propelled him forward ever faster. As Faysal watched, the stranger caught up to the left wing. Hands attached to abnormally thick wrists reached out for the shuddering tip.
"What is he doing?" asked a fearful voice in Arabic.
"It does not matter," Faysal hissed.
Faysal's mind was finding focus. All was not lost. After all, this was just one man. He was certainly not from the American government. The United States came at you as polite agents in suits who worried about search warrants and due process and extending civil liberties to terrorist noncitizens. They fretted over how their behavior would look to Amnesty International, the CBS evening news and the editorial board of the New York Times. Real U.S. government agents were so panicked about doing what all these groups considered to be the right thing that they forgot that the right thing first and foremost was protecting their fellow countrymen from maniacs who would blow up buildings and murder innocent Americans.
No, Faysal knew with growing certainty, this man running toward them up the runway and about to touch the tip of the Cessna's wing-heaven knew what he intended to do once he reached it-was not with the United States government. He was just an average American. And in this holy war, all Americans were targets.
"He is just some harmless fool," Faysal said. "When he gets close enough that there is no risk of hitting the plane, shoot him. Use a silencer. We will dispose of the body in the woods."
Faysal tightened his jaw, which, despite a morning ritual of Nair and painful home-hair-removal strips, was still speckled with the dark stubble of a Riyadh street beggar.
Faysal was certain all would still go exactly according to plan. He was certain of this straight up until the moment the running stranger ripped the wing off the Cessna.
The cluster of Arabs near the hangar blinked, stunned.
It was true. Their eyes had not lied.
The stranger's fingers had seemed to barely brush the surface of the wing. With a shriek of metal, it tore away from the main body, leaving ragged strips on the fuselage.