Dangerous Games

Mullin said quickly, "All right, lads, let's go." As they went out the door, he added: "The American is next. This Remo Black."

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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Josie Littlefeather approached the balance beam for her third performance in the preliminaries and the crowd in the big gymnasium hushed.

Already she had done something no other American gymnast had ever done before: she had scored two perfect scores of ten in the preliminary competitions.

Remo nodded to himself with satisfaction as he saw her mount the bar with obvious assurance, and then with a physical happiness that bordered on lust, he watched her go through the turns and jumps and twists and somersaults of her routine, before leaving the bar with a twisting one-and-a-half-somersault dismount, that brought the crowd to its feet, roaring cheers of approval for the little-known American gymnast.

Josie ran to Remo and hugged him tightly.

"You were great," he said.

"Thanks to you," she said. As he looked over her shoulder, he saw the scores posted on the far side of the gymnasium. The audience erupted into more applause and cheering.

"Another ten?" she asked.

"Better believe it," Remo said. "Get out there and take a bow. Your audience is calling you."

Josie ran out onto one of the mats in the center of the floor and waved to the crowd, turning a slow circle, smiling honestly and brightly at the audience,

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and then she ran back over to join Remo on a bench near the spectators' seats.

"When do you compete?" she asked him.

He had not even thought about it. His first run was today too. In fact, they might even be looking for him. Missing the race now and disappointing Chiun would mean he would never hear the end of it.

Then he looked up and saw Chiun walking toward them, a grim look on his wizened face.

"Today," he said. "But don't come and watch. You'll only make me nervous."

She hugged him again and said, "Good luck, even though you don't need it. I have to go talk to somebody."

As she walked away, Remo rose to meet Chiun.

"It's okay, Chiun. It's okay. I won't miss the race."

"Did you find the bombers?" Chiun asked.

"Yeah. It's the Baruban team," Remo said.

"And you told the security chief of these games?"

"Not exactly."

"What not exactly?" asked Chiun.

"I told the guy who was tailing us. I told him to tell his boss."

"And then you came here so that you could watch that woman perform?"

"You've known about her," Remo said.

"How could I not know about her?" Chiun demanded. "The turmoil in your heart and head has made such a racket that I have not slept a wink since you met that woman. But she does not matter now."

"What does?"

"The security chiefs have been killed. I have just heard," Chiun said. "I guess your message about the terrorists was not delivered."

"Damn," snapped Remo. He felt responsible and he felt bad. He had been responsible for the death of

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many men, but this was from negligence, not by design.

He looked up at Chiun. "Let's go get those damned terrorists and put them out of action for good."

Chiun raised his hand. "No. I will go and find them. You will do what you came here to do. Get over to the sports field and win your race. Put all else out of your mind until you win."

"Chiun-"

"Shhh. This is important. You go win. This is not for the gold medal yet. It is just a preliminary. But you win it. And set a new world's record while you're doing it. Not a big world's record, but just a little one. Save the good stuff for later. But remember. Don't go on television until I get back. That is important, because you will probably say all the wrong things. Do what I tell you."

"Yes, Chiun," Remo said, and the two men walked off in separate directions, Chiun to hunt, and Remo to run.

The event was the 800-meter run.

Remo arrived barely in time to avoid being disqualified and was glared at malevolently by three other American runners.

Remo debated whether or not he should wave at Dr. Harold W. Smith, who was probably watching at home, but decided against it. Smith probably already had apoplexy from seeing Josie Littlefeather run over after her balance beam performance and hug Remo.

Remo was still wearing chinos and loafers. One of the field judges said to him, "Where is your uniform?"

"This is it," Remo said. "I'm representing the Tool and Die Makers Athletic Club of Secaucus, New Jersey."

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The judge shook his head in disbelief and stepped away from the starting line.

Remo was in lane four, next to the east German runner, Hans Schlichter, who had seen Remo in the gymnasium showing Josie how to master the balance beam. The East German leaned over to him and said, "It is nothing personal, you understand."

"Of course," said Remo. "Just in the spirit of Olympic competition."

"That is right," said Schlichter.

The runners took their place in the starting blocks, except for Remo who chose to stand at the start line.

When the gun sounded, Schlichter, instead of exploding from the blocks, swerved out to the right. This made room for another East German runner to move inside, past Schlichter and alongside Remo, pinching the American between himself and another East German runner on Remo's left.

Remo started slowly down the track, and the two East German runners kept swerving in and out of their lines, bumping him, pinching him between them. One tried on a forward stride to dig his running spikes into Remo's right calf, but Remo dodged.

Up ahead, he saw Hans Schlichter racing into a large lead, and as Schlichter cut over toward the rail, he glanced back at Remo and the look on his face said clearly, "Sorry, pal, but that's the way it is."

And Remo got angry.

He started running in an exaggerated motion, swinging his arms up and forward, and then he brought his left elbow back into the midsection of one East German runner who gasped out his air. Remo's right fist slapped downward and hit into the left thigh of the runner on Ms right, and the runner shouted his pain, slowed up, and then tried to run off the pain. But it was too late. Remo was past them, chasing Schlichter and the three Americans who held

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second, third and fourth places behind the East German star.

As he ran, Remo shook his head. What ever happened to sportsmanship? he asked himself, and he put out of his mind the necessity of winning the race and gave himself just one goal: get rid of that East German sucker.

Running easily now, Remo came up behind the three American runners halfway through the second and last lap of the race.

The crowd began to roar as Remo moved past the three Americans. Schlichter thought it was for him, until he saw Remo pull up alongside him. His eyes widened and he tried to turn on some extra energy to leave Remo behind him, but Remo stayed right with him effortlessly.

"Communists suck," Remo said.

Schlichter kept running.

"You look like Hitler. You related?" Remo said.

Schlichter glanced angrily to his right, his face beaming hatred at Remo.

They were near the backstretch now and the smooth stride of Schlichter started to get choppy. Remo felt the three American runners closing behind them.

"Your mother still turning tricks at the Berlin Wall?" Remo asked Schlichter as he matched him, easy stride for tortured stride.

Schlichter turned to Remo and hissed, "You are a Yankee bastard."

"Crap," Remo said. "Ich bin ein Berliner. You're a schmuck."

Schlichter tried to concentrate on his running, but the three Americans now were running alongside them.

"A running dog of the Communist butchers," Remo said. "Remember Hungary. Remember Czechoslovakia. Free Poland."

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And incredibly, Schlichter stopped running and jumped toward Remo, flailing punches at him. Remo ducked and trotted off from the East German, watching the three Americans cross the finish line ahead of him almost shoulder to shoulder, and it was only when the roar from the crowd signalled that the race was over that he realized he had blown it and would have to face Chiun.

Behind him, Schlichter did not even bother to finish the race. He stopped and walked off the track, joined by the other two East Germans, all eliminated in the competition's first heat. They looked toward Remo and he tossed them a salute.

He congratulated the three successful Americans, and one of them threw his arms around Remo.

"You cooked him good, pal. You could have won this thing, don't think we don't know that. But why?"

"Ah, you guys deserve it." Remo said. "Besides, you're getting old. This is your last shot. I'll be back in four years and maybe I'll even buy a pair of sneakers and blow everybody out." The three runners, all fifteen years younger than Remo, laughed.

"Yeah, but we'll get medals this year. What'll you get?"

"Satisfaction," Remo said. "That's all I wanted."

He turned and saw Josie Littlefeather standing in the crowd of people who had spilled onto the track. He could see hurt in her eyes, and he was sad that he had disappointed her by losing, but even that could not make him regret what he had done.

He walked toward her, calling her name: "Josie." She turned away, blindly plunging through the crowd and quickly becoming lost.

"Josie," he called again, but she did not stop.

His first thought was that she would get over it. His second thought was to hell with her if she didn't.

Then he remembered that while he was standing

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there, thinking about his running antics, Chiun was out hunting killers.

And damn him, Remo thought, he'd better save me something.

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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The center of the Olympic village was filled with tourists and athletes, strolling from arena to arena, gymnasium to gymnasium, but Jack Mullin did not see them. What he saw instead was hundreds of policemen and soldiers, moving through the crowd, scanning faces, as if looking for someone.

He became nervous. He pulled his four men close to him and said, "I think, lads, it's tune to plant our little packages and get out. Agreed?"

He scanned their impassive faces. Not a muscle moved in any of them.

"Too many police. So we'll do what we have to do. You plant your little gifts where we decided and I'll keep looking for the American. When you're done, we'll meet in the back of the big hall where they're holding the weight-lifting competition. Get on with you, now."

The four men scurried off and Mullin turned to continue his search for Remo.

So things were a little ahead of schedule, but so what. That was what made a good commander, Mullin knew, the ability to adapt plans to actual conditions. Plans were fine, but they could work to the letter only in a hermetically sealed world and he didn't live in one of those.

He wondered where Remo might be. He had missed him at the running track. But he'd find him and kill him, and that would be that. He and his men

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would be on their way back home, and if everything went the way it should, the Jimbobwu Mkombu revolution should get a big leg up on toppling the governments of Rhodesia and South Africa.

And then Jack Mullin would topple Mkombu. Not too long now, h(r) thought. But first the American, Remo Black, and the old Oriental.

The four bogus Baruban athletes were walking through the crowded village with their equipment bags of explosives.

And then there were three.

The African who had impersonated Sammy Wanenko, the Baruban boxer, felt a hand around the back of his neck. He wanted to call out to his companions to stop, but no sound would come. When the hand lightened its grip, he turned and saw standing before him a small, aged Oriental.

"Where is your leader?" Chiun asked.

"Who wants to know, old man?"

Chiun explained who he was by slapping his right hand to the side of the African's cheek. Nothing he had felt that day in the ring while he was on his brief way to a first round knockout had felt like that. His face felt aflame; he could almost hear the skin bubbling and sputtering where the old man had slapped it.

Then Chiun was in close to him, his left hand buried in the African's belly, and the African was babbling about Lieutenant Mullin, and what he looked like, and where he was going, and how his target was Remo Black, and how Ms three companions were on their way to set bombs in the American athletes' dormitories, and then the African died in a lump on the village pavement.

Chiun walked away from the body. Should he go after the three Africans with the bombs? Or after Jack Mullin? He decided on Mullin. The athletes'

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dormitories were empty now and would be for some time; there would be no danger for a while. But Mul-lin could be dangerous to Remo, particularly if Chiun's young disciple was still wandering around with his head in the clouds, mooning over that Indian woman.

He saw Mullin outside the entrance to one of the gymnasium buildings and Chiun moved through the outskirts of the crowd, until he came to view in front of Mullin. He kept his back to the Englishman, so that the Englishman could think that he had found Chiun on his own.

Mullin saw the brocaded robe on the tiny Oriental with his back to him.

"Hey, old boy," he called.

Chiun turned and stared at Mullin. His face was expressionless. Mullin slipped a knife from his pocket, held it to Chiun's belly, and said: "Move alongside the building." They were in an alley with large dump containers of garbage. Mullin herded Chiun along and the old man obeyed, still without expression. No wonder they called Orientals inscrutable, Mullin thought.

When they were out of sight of the crowd, Mullin said, "Where's the American?"

Chiun was silent.

"C'mon, you blasted old chink, where is he?"

Still no answer. Mullin sighed and slashed with his knife to take out the old man's throat.

He missed.

That was impossible.

He slashed again.

Again he missed.

Bloody impossible. The old fool was standing right there. He hadn't even moved. How could he miss?

Or had he moved?

Mullin slashed at him again, but watched very closely. He caught just a faint whisper of a move-

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ment, as if in a fraction of a second the old man had withdrawn from the path of the knife and then slid back to his original position.

Mullin put the knife back into its pocket sheath and pulled his .45 out from under his bush jacket. Time to stop fooling around.

"Okay, old man. One last time. Where is the American?"

Silence.

Mullin pulled the trigger. The shot exploded in the alley with a booming crack.

And missed.

"Damn it," Mullin snapped. How could he have missed? The old man couldn't duck a bullet. Could he?

He fired another shot. The old man just stood there, unharmed.

Mullin looked at his gun as if it were the gun's fault, then back at the old man.

Inscrutable? No. Inhuman was more like it.

Mullin felt a twinge of an emotion he was not used to: fear.

He was not in control of himself as he backed away, slowly at first, then faster, until he was almost running, all the while hearing his mind berate him for running from a scrawny old man.

But this was not a normal old man.

Chiun smiled as he followed. He had succeeded in persuading Mullin to give up the search for Remo and to join the other terrorists. Now Chiun could round them up and hold them for Remo, who would want to ask questions and do many other silly things, but Chiun would forgive them all today because after all Remo was going to win him a gold medal.

He hoped that Remo did not win his race by running at top speed. He wanted Remo to break the world's record bit by bit through the preliminaries

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and then shatter it in the final race for the Olympic gold.

Mullin ran at top speed. He was trying to think of some reasonable explanation for what had happened. He was also trying to regain control of his body, which was continuing to rush forward, even as his mind commanded it to slow down. This feeling, this panicky flight from a frail old Chinaman, was totally alien to Jack Mullin. Gradually, he got his body back under control, talking away the fear. Once I join up with my other jour men, he told himself, we'll take care of the Chink and the American.

He checked his watch. The explosive charges should be set by now and his men should be waiting for him at the back of the main hall, where the weightlifting was being held.

He was walking now and felt back in control . . . of everything but his neck.

He could not quite get it to let his head turn around to take a look behind him.

Remo pushed through the crowd in the village, hoping mostly that he could find Chiun and partially that he would never see him again so that he did not have to tell him about this afternoon's race which had eliminated Remo from Olympic competition.

From the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of flashing blue disappearing into the main hall. He knew it was Chiun's brocaded blue robe.

He followed.

Alexi Vassilev put powder on the inside of his massive thighs as the Russian coach told him, "You are the greatest, Alexi. The greatest that ever was."

Vassilev grunted. His grunt would be enough to knock some men over. He was six-foot-three and weighed 345 pounds, and for two successive Olym-

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pics he had been the super heavyweight weightlifting champion of the world.

But today he was worried. He was thirty-eight years old and the pulled muscles and the hyper-extended tendons and ligaments no longer healed as quickly as they once did, and also he felt on his neck the hot breath of a world of lifters who had come finally to realize that Vassilev was human and might, just might, be beaten.

In the past he had disdained setting world's records. He owned every record in the world, but he never tried to lift for a record. He had always lifted only enough to win.

But today, at thirty-eight and nervous, he was going to lift a record. He was going to set a mark that would intimidate generations of weight-lifters and would guarantee that even when his aging body gave out and he lost a competition, his government would not respond as they had with so many failed athletes in the past, by taking away their apartment and their car and shipping them off to live someplace where man could not live. They would continue to honor his record.

There was a saying among the athletes on the Olympic Russian team, "Training is hard, but so is Siberian ice."

His coach kept babbling. "You are the greatest, Alexi. The greatest." Vassilev nodded but he was not listening.

His primary opponent today would be an American lifter who had won a television competition as "Mister Strongman," which title he earned by carrying a refrigerator up a hill. That this task was accomplished every day by dozens of moving men in the city of San Francisco seemed to have been lost on the judges.

But despite Ms bogus credentials, the American was a good lifter, Vassilev realized.

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"I must win," he mumbled aloud.

"Of course you win," said his coach.

"This will be my last Olympics," he said. "I crush that American today. I will show the glory of Soviet Socialist Republics."

He looked at his coach carefully, making sure that the man had caught his words properly so he could report them back to the secret police which kept a close eye on an athlete's actions and words.

"You will win for Mother Russia," his coach said.

And for me, Vassilev thought.

It was time.

He walked out onto the platform to thunderous applause. His face was stolid, unmoving, and he characteristically ignored the audience, concentrating solely on the weight before him. It was loaded with 600 pounds and the crowd hummed with anticipation. Vassilev was going to try to jerk 600 pounds, for in excess of anything anyone had ever lifted before. It was the equivalent of a three-minute mile.

Breathing deeply, rhythmically, Vassilev bent down and placed his hands on the cold bar, flexing his fingers around it for the right grip, finally grabbing it tightly. With one explosive gasp of air he brought the weight to his chest.

He took a deep breath. He felt Ms hands sweating and he knew it was time to jerk the bar overhead before it slipped. He blew out the air, pushed the weight up over his head, but before he could lock his elbows to hold it in place, it slid from his damp hands and hit the wooden platform in front of him with a crashing thud.

Vassilev cursed inwardly. He had failed on the first of three lifts.

The relief that Mullin had felt when he spotted the mam hall had annoyed him. It was a disgrace, he thought, that a soldier who had been decorated in

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Her Majesty's Air Force was running from an old man, trying to join up with four blackamoor toy soldiers, and feeling relief that he had almost reached them.

He was ashamed of himself. It was all that Chinaman's fault.

He stopped at the door to the hall and cursed out loud, wishing for a moment that something would will him to go back and take that Chinaman on alone, this time hand to hand, and cut him into bits. But no voice inside him said to do that and so he opened the door and walked inside the great hall, looking around in the back for his men. He did not see them.

On the platform, he recognized the strongest man in the world, Alexi Vassilev. With his great potbelly, the center of gravity that was so valuable to weight-lifters, Vassilev had hoisted weights no other man was capable of, and yet, Mullin thought, I could defeat him hand to hand with no problem. And still ... a scrawny old Chinaman . . .

He walked around the back of the hall, behind the crowd. Suddenly he heard the gasp and the sound of the weight hitting the platform. He looked up to see Vassilev with a look of pain on his face, after failing to hold the weight.

That's okay, Alexi, he thought. We all have our bad days. You and I are the best but we're just having a bad day.

He felt better suddenly. A bad. day, that's all it was. Maybe even just a bad moment.

Sure.

And with that thought, he was able to turn his neck and take a look behind him.

What he saw made his blood go cold. That damned Chinaman. He was standing just inside the door, staring at Mullin with those cold hazel eyes.

"Damn you," Mullin shouted, but nobody heard

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because Vassilev was again approaching the weight. Mullin ran.

Vassilev was going to try again. This was Ms last chance, his third attempt. His coach wanted him to rest before trying another lift, but he waved his handler away and simply walked around the weight and began to stare straight ahead, into space, over the heads of the audience.

Get it over with, he told himself. Do it now. Win or lose now.

His hands were sweating and for the first time in many years, he felt the pinch of nervousness in his stomach as he bent over and placed his hands around the cold textured steel of the bar.

Mullin ran down the left side of the hall, toward the stage, and the back door leading outside. The crowd was dense and there was no way for Chiun to get through without hurting someone. He ran down the right side of the building. He saw Mullin slip through a back door to go outside.

There was only one way to follow him: Across the weight-lifters' platform.

Remo entered just as Chiun hopped up onto the platform. He watched as Chiun stopped before a thick television cable that crisscrossed back and forth, barring his path. Chiun grasped the cable in his two small hands and ripped the inch-thick strands cleanly in half.

Sparks flew. TV technicians shouted. Chiun ignored them and started across the platform just as Alexi Vassilev hoisted the 600-pound barbell to his chest.

Vassilev felt a rush of relief as he took a deep breath, exploded it outward, and hoisted the weight

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overhead. He locked his elbows and held the weight.

How foolish he had been to be nervous. Who but the great Vassilev could ever lift such a weight and hold it with such ease?

The audience exploded with cheers, and Vassilev gave them a rare small smile, but he waited for the judges to signal that he had held the weight long enough for the lift to count. Then he saw the audience's eyes move off him. He looked toward his right, toward where all the people were looking, and saw a blue-robed Oriental running across the platform.

Staggering under the weight, still awaiting the judges' signal, Vassilev stumbled two steps forward in the Oriental's path. How dare this little man detract from Alexi's great moment?

He was standing right in the Oriental's way.

"How dare you?" he bellowed in Russian.

He could not believe what happened and the next day in the hospital he would not be able to explain.

He heard the Oriental say in perfect Russian, "Out of my way, gross meat-eater," and then he was being lifted up-he and the great 600 pounds he held-they were being effortlessly lifted by this frail old Oriental, who tossed them both through the air toward the rear of the platform, and then continued to run off the stage, as the audience sat in shocked silence.

Remo watched in amusement as Chiun hoisted the thousand pounds of Vassilev and steel and threw them out of his way as if they weighed no more than a child's slipper.

The weight slipped from Vassilev's hands as he sailed through the air, so the two did not land together. Remo was hard put to figure out which of the two bounced higher, but Vassilev remained stationary and the weight hit and rolled.

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Remo ran down the left side of the hall and met Chiun at the rear door.

When Jack Mullin had run outside, he had found his men waiting for him. Only three, not four, and the fools as usual had misunderstood his instructions. He had told them to meet him in the back of the hall. They had interpreted that to mean they should meet him in back of the hall. He would skin them for that one day.

They ran toward him as he came out into the bright sun. They were all armed with handguns.

"The Oriental will be coming through that door in a moment," he explained. "Cut him down when he does. All the explosives are planted?"

"Yes, Lieutenant."

The four men aimed their automatics at the door. Mullin felt his palms sweaty and slick. Perspiration was also flowing down his forehead and dripping from his eyebrows.

C'mon, Mullin mumbled toward the closed door. Get out here and get it over with.

"They are probably outside waiting," Chiun told Remo.

"So what?" Remo asked.

"If they fire, the bullets might hit somebody in here. Smith would not like that," Chiun said.

Remo thought of that for a moment, then nodded.

"All right. Then up we go."

He grabbed hold of a rope that led to a second-floor window and raced up it, like a trained monkey, climbing with just Ms hands, feeling behind him the speed of Chiun following him.

"Where is he, Lieutenant?" one of Mullin's men asked.

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"He's coming through that door," Mullin said. "There's no other way."

"No?" said Remo from behind Mullin and as the Briton turned, Remo said, "Surprise. Surprise."

When Mullin saw Chiun standing next to Remo, his control snapped.

"Kill them. Kill them," he screamed.

The four men leveled their automatics at Remo and Chiun, but before they could squeeze triggers, Remo and Chiun were among them and bullets could not be fired without risking hitting one of their own men. The four terrorists pulled their knives from their belts.

Or three of them did. One had the knife in his hand and his hand on the way up, when his wrist collided with the side of Chiun's hand, flailing downward in the classical hand-ax position. The knife went clattering one way; the hand bounced off in another direction; and the terrorist, looking down at the bleeding stump of his wrist, fell backwards into a sitting position on the hard pavement.

"How much did you win by?" Chiun called over his shoulder.

"What?" Remo asked. He had moved inside one of the terrorist's knives, continued past him, then slammed back with his right elbow into the man's right kidney. Before the man could fall, Remo had the body under the armpits.

Chiun said, "You heard my question. How much did you win by?"

Remo lifted the body and swung it out at a third terrorist who slid back out of range.

"Actually, Chiun, I didn't win," Remo said, moving forward on the third terrorist.

Chiun was moving in on Jack Mullin. He stopped and turned to Remo, hands on his hips, his hazel eyes narrowed until they were mere slits in his parchment-yellow face.

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"Explain yourself," he demanded.

"Chiun, I'm a little busy," Remo said, as he threw the dead terrorist in his arms at the third terrorist. The weight crashed the man to the ground.

"Nonsense, busy," Chiun said. "You stop fooling around with those creatures and talk to me."

Remo turned toward Chiun. The third African, carried to the ground by the weight of his dead partner, extricated himself, rolled to his belly and aimed his automatic at Remo's stomach.

"You lost," Chiun accused.

"Let me explain," Remo said.

"You lost deliberately."

"For a good reason, Chiun."

"There is no good reason for a Master of Sinanju, even such a worthless one as you, to lose. That is without honor."

Just as the third terrorist squeezed the trigger, Remo, without turning, kicked out with his left foot and buried his shoe into the man's skull, in the thin spot between the eyes. The brain no longer ordered the finger to squeeze the trigger and both man and gun clattered onto the ground.

That left Jack Mullin.

"Losing today was a matter of honor, Chiun," Remo said. He was glancing at Mullin, who was backing away from the two men, trying to get far enough from them, so he could be sure to take them both out with bullets from his .45.

"All that training wasted by an ingrate, a white ingrate, a dead-white-like-a-dead-fish-pale-piece-of-pig's-ear-ingrate."

"Dammit, Chiun," said Remo.

"C'mon," Mullin yelled. He was fifteen feet from them now. His eyes were rolling wildly in his head. He pointed the automatic at first Chiun, then Remo. "C'mon," he yelled. "I'll get you. I'll take you both."

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"You be quiet," Chiun said. "I'm not ready to deal with you yet. First this ingrate."

"I know that gold medal meant a lot to you, Chiun. You've got to believe I didn't just lose it on a whim."

Chiun was disgusted. He threw his hands in the air in exasperation, turned, and walked away from Remo and Mullin. The Englishman carefully aimed his automatic at Chiun's thin back.

This time, he would not miss. This time, that old man was his. Let's see how inscrutable he'll be when he's dead, Mullin thought.

He forgot Remo and as his finger tightened on the trigger, he felt the gun slapped from his hands and saw it bounce away along the thin blacktop pavement.

"Aaaaaaarghhhhhh," screamed Mullin, his voice quivering in anguish.

"Where'd you plant the bombs?" Remo asked.

"Find them yourself," Mullin said. Remo buried Ms hand in Muffin's left side and the Englishman screamed in pain.

"The bombs," said Remo.

"Around the American barracks," Mullin said.

"So long, Major Blimp," said Remo, and he slowly removed his hand from Muffin's left side and Mullin felt a flash of cool air there and realized that his side had been opened and his vital organs exposed, but before he could wonder how Remo had done that without a knife, he fell dead to the ground.

Remo wiped his hand on Muffin's shirt. Forty yards away, Chiun was still marching resolutely off.

"I saved your life," Remo yelled. "I really did. He was going to shoot you and I saved you."

And Chiun's voice wafted back toward Remo.

"Blow it out your ears," called the Master of Sin-anju.

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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

It was the next-to-the-last day of competition. The bombs had been removed from the American athletes' quarters without incident. The Russian secret police had announced that they had apprehended the terrorists, but refused to give details beyond their announcement that "again the forces of reactionary racist capitalist imperialism had succumbed to the superior intelligence and dedication of the Soviet socialist system."

And Remo had not spoken to Josie Littlefeather since the day he had lost his race.

But he was sitting near the bench as her competition was slowly winding down to its final day. Josie had continued to stun the crowd by scoring nothing but tens on the balance beam. She was far ahead in that contest, and her score on the beam had kept her respectably close with an outside chance for a silver medal in the overall gymnastic competition.

Remo watched as Josie applied rosin to her hands and approached the beam. She mounted it cleanly and performed brilliantly, and Remo saw, by the confidence with which she moved, that the imaginary red line down the center of the imaginary wide wooden bar was still there in her mind.

Her dismount was perfect. So was her score. All tens. Just one more day to go for the gold.

As she came off the floor, she was surrounded by

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reporters who wanted to talk to her. Remo saw someone in the crowd pushing the reporters back, making room for her. His stomach fell when he saw who it was. Vincent Josephs, the sports agent, who had wanted to sign up Remo and manage his career.

Remo saw Josephs walk toward the arena exit and the press tent. Josie Littlefeather followed him, ignoring the questions of the trailing pack of reporters.

Remo tagged along. He wanted to hear her tell her story about how winning the gold medal would bring pride to her tribe of Blackhand Indians.

When Remo entered the tent, he almost bumped into Vincent Josephs, who was checking to make sure that all the major press outlets were represented.

"Stand in the back, kid, and don't talk," he told Remo. "This tent is for winners."

"She hasn't won yet," Remo said.

"It's a chip shot," Vincent Josephs said. "Tomorrow is a breeze."

Josie saw Remo standing in the back of the tent and when his eyes met hers, she quickly looked away. With Josephs at her side, she began to field the reporters' questions. She remembered all the answers she had been taught.

Her uniform, made by Lady Bountiful, fit perfectly and gave her the freedom for her championship performance.

She owed her conditioning to krisp-and-Lite breakfast cereal, which she had eaten every day since childhood.

She protected herself against slipping by using Shur-Fire Rosin, the stickum of champions, and when she wasn't competing, she liked to rest around the wigwam in her perfectly comfortable, wanning Hotsy Totsy Slippers by Benningham Mills, made of the new wonder knit, More-on.

She never mentioned Remo, which did not hurt his

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feelings. She never once mentioned winning the medal for the Blackhand Indians, which did hurt Re-mo's feelings.

Remo waited by the entrance to the tent so Josie would have to pass by him when they left. Reporters wanted her to come outside, and do a couple of handstands and cartwheels for publicity photos. She would be America's first woman gymnast gold medalist in history. The only way she could lose tomor-roe would be to fall off the bar and stay off.

He blocked Josie's way as she came toward the tent entrance.

"Congratulations," he said. "I'm sure all the folks back home on the reservation will be proud of you, even if you did forget to mention them."

She tossed her long hair back over her shoulder and stared at him, as if he were an autograph hound bothering her in a restroom.

"You were right," she said, "when you said that if I could work my way off the reservation, so could they. I have an opportunity now with Mr. Josephs to make a name for myself."

"And a lot of money," Remo said.

"Right. And a lot of money and there's no law against it. Maybe I'll see you around, Remo. Now, the photographers are waiting."

Vincent Josephs went ahead of her and as she passed Remo he reached out and delicately touched her lower back.

She turned. "What was that for?" she asked. She felt strangely uncomfortable. She knew he'd only touched her lightly, but for some reason she could still feel it and it seemed to be spreading through her body.

"You'll never forget that touch, Josie," said Remo. "It's very special. Any time you try to perform any kind of gymnastic move, you'll remember that touch. When you mount a balance beam, you'll think of it,

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and when you do, you'll think about that beam and you're going to know it's not two feet wide with a red stripe down the middle. You're going to remember that it's only a piece of wood, four inches wide, and every time you try to climb on it, you're going to fall off, right on your lovely ass."

She frowned at him. "You're crazy," she told him, not wanting to believe it.

Suddenly, Vincent Josephs was back.

"Hey, honey, come on outside. They want some pictures, you know, handstands and flips and stuff. C'mon, let's go tantalize them . . . champ."

She hesitated.

"Go ahead, Josie," said Remo, with a cold smile. "Go do a few flips and handstands for them. And for me and the folks back home."

Josephs grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the tent and Remo walked out behind them, then turned and walked away.

Behind him, he heard the photographers laugh. He turned to watch.

Josie tried a handstand and lost her balance and fell over.

The photographers chuckled and Vincent Josephs laughed it off.

"Just nerves, fellas. Come on, Josie, put on a show for the boys."

She looked up and her eyes met Remo's. She looked apprehensive.

She tried to do a cartwheel, a children's exercise in a schoolyard, and fell heavily to the ground.

The photographers laughed and Remo walked away, back toward the room which he and Chiun would soon leave for a plane to London.

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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

In the fifth floor room at London's Dorchester Arms, Smith was trying to talk, but Chiun sat silently in the middle of the floor, arms folded, eyes staring into eternity, and Remo was watching the women's gymnastic competition on television.

"So it has ended reasonably well," Smith said. "The explosives were all removed, and the Russians have decided not to protest against our obviously having sneaked some agents into the games without their permission."

He got the feeling he was talking into an empty cave. Chiun did not move, not even so much as flickering an eyelid. Remo remained glued to the television set. An announcer, presumably chosen for hyperthyroidism, was shouting: "Now, here's the surprise star of the games. Josie Littlefeather. This little red woman hasn't been anything but perfect since she first set foot on the balance beam here in Moscow. All tens."

And homing in on his voice was the voice of a young woman commentator who was herself an ex-athlete but tended to forget it in the flood of gee-whizzes and wows which made up her broadcasting vocabulary. "That's right, folks," she said, "and, gee whiz, all Josie's got to do right now is score an eight . and she's got this balance beam competition all locked up."

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"Scoring an eight shouldn't be hard, should it?" said the male commentator.

"All you've got to do is stay on the beam and you'll get an eight," the girl said.

"Yeah?" snarled Remo to the television set. "Watch this."

Smith shook his head. Both Remo and Chum had been acting strangely since they returned last night from Moscow. He leaned over on his couch seat to look over Remo's shoulder at the television set. He saw an Indian girl with her hair tied up in a bun apply rosin to her hands, then move to the balance beam, put her hands on it, and lift herself up to the narrow plank of wood. Then her hands seemed to slip, and she fell to the matting surrounding the beam.

"Way to go, Josie," shouted Remo.

The girl leaped back up to the beam, but her foot slipped and she landed heavily on her backside. She grabbed the beam desperately to stop herself from falling off.

"Swell, sweetheart," Remo said.

Finally she raised herself to a standing position on the beam. She took a step forward, planted her right foot, tried to do a forward walkover, but her left foot slipped and she fell off the beam onto the mat.

"She's blowing it," the young woman commentator said. "Wow, folks, Josie had it all in her hands and she's blowing it."

"I guess she's blowing it," said the male announcer, not to be outdone in technical analysis.

Josie Littlefeather got up quickly and made one last attempt to mount the beam, but as her feet hit it, they slid out from under her and she fell to her backside, then rolled off onto the mat, then got up and ran off the floor, out of the arena. She was rubbing her back.

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"Yaaaaay," yelled Remo. He stood up and kicked off the television with his toe. He turned to Smith. "You were saying?"

"Why were you cheering that poor girl's disaster?" Smith asked.

"Just collecting a due bill," Remo said. "What about the Russians?"

"They are not going to complain that our country sent some agents into the games without their permission."

"That's big of them," Remo said. "They got all the bombs out?"

"Yes. They were in the ventilation shafts in each of the building's wings. It would have been a disaster."

"Good," Remo said. "And who were the terrorists?"

Smith dug in his attache case and brought out a photo, which he handed to Remo. "I think it was him."

Remo looked at him. "I thought Idi Amin had been disposed of."

"That's not Idi Amin. That's Jimbobwu Mkombu."

"Who's he?"

"He leads one of the terrorist armies that have been trying to overthrow the governments of South Africa and Rhodesia."

Remo nodded. "I got it. Make it look like the South African whites were trying to upset the Olympics and kill American athletes. Get the world ticked off at them, and then move in and take over."

"That's about it," Smith said.

"What's going to happen to him?"

"Nothing," said Smith. "In the first place, we can't be 100 percent sure that he sent this Lieutenant Mul-lin and the other four men to disrupt the games."

"He sent them," Remo said.

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"I think so too, because Mullin had been working for him for three years. But we can't prove it."

"What about the Russians?" asked Remo.

"Well, they've been supporting Mkombu's revolution. They're not about to announce that one of their own tried to mess up their games. That's why they're not announcing the identity of the terrorists."

"So Mkombu's going to get away with it," Remo said.

Smith shrugged. "Apparently. He might even get some good out of it for himself. Without any contradiction, much of the world is still going to believe it was the whites in Southern Africa who tried to blow up the games. That might strengthen Mkombu's hand."

"That's not fair," Remo said.

"Hah," said Chiun. "A fitting end to these games, then. Nothing is fair."

He continued to look straight ahead and Smith looked toward Remo for an explanation.

"He's ticked 'cause I didn't win a medal," Remo said.

"Nothing has gone right in these Olympics," Chiun said. "Nothing has happened the way I planned."

The self-pity oozed from his voice and Remo wondered if he should tell Smith what had happened. Yesterday, returning from Moscow, Chiun had become philosophical about Remo's defeat, and when Remo had pressed him, he found out that Chiun had figured out a new way to gain fame and fortune from the games. Chiun had decided that the entire world saw him lift Vassilev and the six hundred pounds of weights and this should bring the offers of endorsement contracts to him immediately in great floods. It was only when they reached London that Chiun found out that the television had blacked out at just that moment, and no one had seen him toss Vassilev

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around like a rag doll. Remo had not had the heart to tell Chiun that it was Chiun's own fault: that when he snapped the television cable that was blocking his way, he had stopped the TV transmission of the weight-lifting competition.

"I'm sorry for that, Chiun," Smith said.

Chiun eyed the ceiling in disgust, and Remo felt sorry for him. Chiun had not gotten Ms gold medal, had missed out on all his endorsement contracts, and had experienced nothing but disappointment because of Jimbobwu Mkombu. And Mkombu might turn the entire thing into a great success for himself.

That wasn't fair, Remo decided.

"So Mkombu's going to get away with it," he said to Smith.

"Probably."

"Maybe," said Remo.

At that moment, he decided the job was not yet done.

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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Carried by jungle drums, passed in whispered word from one soldier to another, the story spread through the jungles above South Africa and Rhodesia that a slim white avenger stalked the jungles, seeking vengeance.

The stories said he was able to move unbelievably fast; that he was there one moment and gone the next. That bullets could not hurt him. That he smiled when he killed-smiled and spoke of vengeance for the sake of honor.

And Jimbobwu Mkombu's soldiers worried, because the trail of bodies was coming through the jungles toward them. And the soldiers asked themselves, "Why should we die this way for Mm? On a battlefield, yes, because we are soldiers, but at the hands of a white avenging spirit who smiles when he kills? That is no way for soldiers to die."

"He wants the general," one soldier told another. "Why should we die in his place?"

The other soldier heard a noise and fired a shot into the brush. Both men listened, but heard nothing.

"Do not let the general hear you speak that way," the second soldier warned. "He would have you shot or have your head torn off. He is very nervous these days."

"Of course. He knows this white avenger is coming for him."

"Silence, you fools," roared Mkombu's voice from

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above their heads. "How can I hear what is going on in the jungle if you keep whispering and mumbling? Be quiet, you dogs."

The first man leaned over to the second soldier. "He's drunk again."

The second man nodded and both looked up at Mkombu's window.

They were Mkombu's personal guard. They were also his sons.

Inside the building, Jimbobwu Mkombu was finishing his second bottle of wine. When the bottle was empty, he smashed it against the wall, as he had done with the first, and opened a third bottle.

These fools, he thought. How could he hear anyone coming if they always babbled? Maybe he would have them shot in the morning. As he lifted the bottle of wine to his mouth, he wondered how it had gone wrong. Even though his men had been killed before they could eliminate the American Olympic team, things still had seemed to work out in Mkombu's favor. The world, never informed who was behind the planned murders, was infuriated with South Africa and Rhodesia, calling for a multinational force to enter both countries and overthrow the governments. Mkombu would soon be ruler.

And then this . . . this white avenger had appeared and Mkombu's world had turned upside down.

Suddenly, patrols began to disappear. Search parties never returned. An encampment was wiped out. Thirty men killed. No survivors. Then another encampment.

The story of the white avenger spread through the jungle like a summer fire. He was heading after Mkombu and Mkombu was frightened. What did he want?

They said he spoke of vengeance, but vengeance for what?

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Mkombu drank more wine. He heard voices in his head, arguing.

When he finally arrives, offer him money, one voice said.

A spirit does not need money, a second voice said. Offer him power.

A spirit has power. Wealth and power can buy anyone.

Not a spirit, not an avenging spirit, not a white avenging spirit.

"Damn," snarled Mkombu and threw the bottle of wine against the wall, where it shattered. He watched the red wine run down the wall, spreading like blood from a wound.

"You down there," he shouted out the window,

"Yes, General," a voice answered.

"I want more men around the house. Many men. Men all around the house."

"That will take many men, General."

"I want many men, you idiot. Forty, fifty, no, sixty men, all around the house. Now hurry, you imbecile."

Mkombu went to the closet and took out Ms gun-belt and strapped it on. He made sure the .45 was loaded. He took out an automatic machine gun and made sure that it too was loaded. He hung grenades on his uniform for easy use.

When a knock came on the door, he almost pulled the pin on the grenade in his hand.

"Who is it?" he shrieked.

"The house is surrounded by men as you ordered."

"Idiot. Get out there with them where you belong," Mkombu shouted. "Make sure no one enters. No one, you hear?"

He sat in a chair facing the door with the machine gun across his lap.

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Let him come, he thought, let this white avenger come. We are ready for him.

Into the night, he could hear widely spaced shots from outside, as his men shot at shadows, and with each shot he jumped. He felt hot and began to sweat under all the equipment he wore, but he kept it on. Better to be wet than dead. He regretted having broken his last bottle of wine.

He could go out and get one.

No. He would stay right here until morning. Right here, awake.

Five minutes later he was asleep.

Outside, sixty men ringed the small building.

The officer in charge of the detachment was talking to his second in command.

"It is the only way for us to stay alive," he said.

"I suppose," the second man agreed. "I will discuss it with the others." Ten minutes later, he returned and said, "Everyone agrees."

"It is the only way," said the officer in charge, and the two sons of Jimbobwu Mkombu looked at each other and nodded. The only way to live was to kill Mkombu. Then, when the white avenger came, he would find Mkombu dead and would have no reason to kill all of them.

"The only way," the second man agreed.

Mkombu awoke several times with a start, staring around the room in stark terror, firing his machine gun at shadows.

The walls of the bedroom were riddled with bullet holes. His dresser had pieces gouged out of it, and stuffing protruded from the mattress. But he was still alive.

For a moment he wondered if he really had anything to worry about. Those stories must be exaggerated. How could one man, one white man, be so awesome a force?

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Impossible, he thought, crossing the room and peeking in the closet.

Preposterous, he told himself while he crouched down to peer under the bed.

He checked the locks on the windows and the door, then sat back down, fondling a grenade as if it were a woman's breast. Perhaps he needed a woman to relax him. And then perhaps these wild irrational fears would cease.

Outside, the officer in charge said, "It's time. We might as well get it over with."

"Who goes?" said the second officer.

"All of us," said the officer in charge.

"All sixty can't fit into the house."

The officer in charge thought about this for a moment. "All right, six of us will go in, but the others will stand in the hallway. They are part of it too."

"Of course. I'll stand in the hallway."

"You'll come with me," said the officer in charge to his brother. "Pick four more men."

A moment later, six of them were creeping up the steps toward Mkombu's bedroom.

Jimbobwu Mkombu heard a noise. He awoke but he could not move Ms head. He realized that he was paralyzed by fear. All these weapons he wore to protect himself and he was paralyzed by fear anyway.

It must have been a dream, he thought. A terrifying dream. I'm dreaming that I can't move. Just wake up. Then I'll be all right. It's just a dream.

When people are dreaming, do they know they are dreaming? He didn't know.

But then he remembered that, since boyhood, he had never dreamed.

He wasn't dreaming now.

With a monumental effort of will, he overcame his fear and turned his head.

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And there in the shadow behind him, he saw a face. A white face.

He opened his mouth to cry out hi terror, but no sound came out.

Outside Mkombu's door, the six soldiers held a convention. The door was locked and they were split three-three on kicking the door in, or knocking and trying to get Mkombu to open it by subterfuge.

"If I knock on the door, he probably won't start firing," said the officer in charge. This bit of logic started a landslide of votes toward knocking on the door, which eventually carried, six-zero.

The officer knocked.

Silence.

He knocked again.

Silence.

He knocked and called, "General." He paused, then called, "Father."

Silence.

"He knows why we're here," one of the other soldiers said.

The officer nodded. One last time. "General," he shouted, and when there was no answer, the six men threw their weight against the door and the flimsy wood gave way and the door swung open.

Jimbobwu Mkombu sat in a chair facing them. His eyes were wide open.

"I am sorry, Father, but we do not wish to die," the officer said.

"I'm sorry too, Father," said the second officer.

Mkombu did not move or speak.

"General?" the first man said.

The soldiers moved into the room and in the shadows they saw a piece of paper pinned to Mkombu's chest.

"The avenger," someone hissed.

"But how . . ."

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The officer in charge walked toward Mkombu and as he reached out his hand to touch the note, he slightly jarred the body and Mkombu's head rolled off his shoulders, hit the floor with a bounce, and rolled along the floor until it came to a stop next to his pile of copies of Playboy magazine.

The soldiers screamed.

"He is dead," said the officer in charge. He plucked the note from Mkombu's chest.

"Can you read English?" he asked his brother.

"You're the lieutenant," his brother said. "I'm only a sergeant."

"I'm an African lieutenant. I don't have to read English."

"I read English," said one of the soldiers in the back.

"Here, read this," ordered the officer in charge.

The soldier looked at it several times, turning it often in his hand to make sure he had the words right side up.

"Well? What does it say?" demanded the officer.

"It says, 'Vengeance is mine.' It is signed . . ." and he peered closer at it to make sure he was reading it right.

"It is signed, 'Everyman.' "

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CHAPTER NINETEEN

Chiun was still depressed but he seemed happy to be heading back to the United States on the British Airways plane.

"Russia is a land of barbarians," he said. "So is the United States, but at least the United States does not hold Olympic games there."

"They will in four years," Remo said.

Chiun looked at him.

"The '84 Olympics will be held in Los Angeles."

Chiun nodded. "Next tune," he said, "we will not let that lunatic Smith talk us into entering just one event."

"Next time?" asked Remo.

"That's right," Chiun said. "And next time, I will accept no more excuses from you."

"Little Father," said Remo.

"Yes."

"In my heart, you'll always wear a gold medal," Remo said.

"Really?" said Chiun.

"Really," said Remo, feeling warm and expansive.

"I'm sure that will warm me in my old age as I starve to death," Chiun said. "Next time, you win a real gold medal."

"Whatever you say, Chiun."

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