Political Pressure

14

Remo cursed himself and cursed Chiun. If he had been listening more closely to what was going on around them, instead of eavesdropping on Chiun's game-playing with the rich idiots with the lawsuits, maybe he would have heard the guns earlier.

No. That wasn't fair to either of them. There were people all over this place. Cops and media and interested public and lawyers and court personnel. The gunners had taken their positions outside the rear entrance to the courtroom and in the judge's chambers, and only then did they extract their weapons and create the distinctive noise of firearms.

The gunners weren't wasting time and they weren't taking chances. The crew in the judge's chambers started shooting without even opening the door, and the torrent of bullets mangled the bolt and shoved it open.

There were two gunners, one crouched and one standing, and when they saw the flash of movement coming straight at them they concentrated their gunfire on it.

Remo dodged and spun and slithered around the bursts of autofire, moving as fast as he dared without intercepting one of the rounds himself. It took just an instant to reach the gunners, but how much gunfire had he allowed to spray into the crowded courtroom?

The two gunners were too slow to think about the bullet-dodger before he struck them dead. One expensive Italian shoe shattered the skull of the crouching man while the standing gunner got the finger. The finger penetrated the bridge of his nose and opened a channel into the brain itself. Remo's finger found the brain switch and turned it from on to off.

There was another gunner just behind them, where he had failed to see all that Remo did. The bodies of his companions had only started collapsing before he found his submachine gun removed from his hands and twisted with a groan of metal.

The gunner faced not a man but a dervish. A whirlwind. A creature too fast to be human tossed the gun into the wall, where it embedded itself, then grabbed the commando by the hair and began slashing him with a knife, but the knife moved too fast to see.

The commando's battle harness, his handgun holster, his blacksuit and white gloves and mask—all were shredded and seemed to disintegrate from his body like water flowing off him.

The commando found himself standing stark naked in the judge's chambers.

Remo snatched up the items that resulted from his quick disrobing of the gunner. He came up with a handgun, a knife, a magazine for the rifle and a walkie-talkie. He twisted the gun, dismantled the radio and snapped the knife. No explosives. Hidden in the bullets? Seemed unlikely.

"Where's the suicide charges?" he demanded.

"The what?" the naked man asked.

"They've got you rigged to blow up if you blow the job, Dinky," Remo said. "Didn't you hear about yesterday's screwup?"

The naked commando looked blankly at Remo. "Huh?"

"Very helpful." Remo didn't have time to deal with it. Maybe this guy didn't have a self-destruct mechanism, but that didn't mean the two corpses weren't booby-trapped.

"Come on, Dinky." Remo lifted the commando by his hair and propelled him into the courtroom. Chiun was nowhere to be seen, and crowds crammed to get out the back entrance of the courtroom. Almost nobody noticed Remo until the bailiff swung in his direction, his revolver in a two-handed grip that meant serious business. The judge cowered behind him.

"Who the hell are you?" the bailiff queried.

"Justice Department," Remo blurted, since he couldn't remember what kind of ID he was carrying today. "Get the judge away from here—those bodies are rigged to blow."

"What the hell are you doing with that guy?" the bailiff cried at the sight of the naked guy.

"Dammit, get to the back!"

"I don't trust you for shit!" the bailiff shot back.

"Fine, I'll handle it. God forbid anybody lift a finger but me!" Remo slipped into the bailiff's personal space in an eye blink, batted the revolver skyward and snatched the officer of the court by the collar and belt.

The bailiff grunted, then heard, "Bailiff coming!"

Remo tossed the man with a quick flick of the wrists and sent him careening down the center aisle of the court. Budget cuts had made floor waxing and polishing a less-than-monthly event, and the bailiff screeched as the friction heated his flesh through his shirt and trousers and instantly burned his forearms.

"Judge coming next," Remo warned even as the bailiff bowled into the legs of the crowd and brought down eight gawking bystanders. Remo knew a seven- ten split when he saw one and he whipped the judge right down the middle of the aisle, giving the throw just enough English to send the judge into a last-second swerve that brought him lengthwise, taking out more of the panicking rabble. The judge's robes at least protected him better from friction burns.

"Sorry, Dinky," Remo announced to the shell- shocked, clothing-optional commando.

The man was a soldier, veteran of Gulf War Version 1.0, Bosnia and Afghanistan, and he had laughed at death, but now, finally he knew utter terror. He saw the burned arms of the bailiff and knew his own immediate future.

He tried to run, but the madman that was Remo Williams snatched him off his feet and got him the hell out of the blast range as fast as he knew how to do.

The commando was screaming even before he hit the floor at roller-coaster speed. He didn't slide on the unpolished floor so much as scorch across it, every inch an agony of fire as the great speed and the inordinate amount of exposed human flesh resulted in skin-peeling heat and friction of a massive degree.

Remo would have liked to watch, but he didn't have time. In all the chaos and screaming and movement, Remo had sensed something that didn't belong.

It took him two precious seconds to realize what it was. Air shifting, not ventilation, something strange and out of place, something from above.

A commando was looking down from the roof, where an opaque plastic skylight bubble had been removed. The commando was taking action—he had a remote control.

"Grenade!" Remo shouted, because he couldn't think of anything to better mobilize this herd of morons.

As he shouted, he leaped away from the rear of the courtroom where the two commando corpses were sprawled in the door to the judge's chambers. He saw the flash of light come from that direction a microsecond before the shock wave rolled into him and he plummeted into the third row of the court benches. As the crunching impact of the blast traveled across the courtroom, Remo wondered if maybe, just maybe, the commandos were booby-trapped with explosive suppositories.

Far-fetched, yes, but dammit if that wasn't the way his luck had been running of late.

He filed away the thought, unpleasant for more reasons than he could count, and his hands came away from the bench back in front of him holding a foot-long splinter of shattered wood. It was two inches thick at the base.

Remo leaped to his feet, spotted the commando on the roof aiming his weapon at the crowd at the rear of the courtroom and let the splinter fly. It seared the air, moving at bullet speeds, but Remo's luck had wandered away a heartbeat earlier in search of somebody more deserving. The man at the skylight pulled away fast, never seeing the missile until it missed his sternum and penetrated clean through his pectoral muscle.

Remo heard the scream and followed it.