Child's Play

She sighed again as she walked from the classroom.

Remo had taken a wrong turn and instead of being in a stairwell going down, he was in a stairwell that went only up. Feeling the stones under his feet, he ran to the top of the stairs.

Behind him, he heard the corridor door open again. "He's gone up," he heard a young voice whisper.

The angled stairway ended at a door. It had once had a pushbar to open it, but. that was back when there had been students in the school. The pushbar was now removed and the door was locked. Remo grabbed the handle of the door and turned slowly and removed it from the metal door as easily as removing the top from a once-opened catsup bottle.

The roof smelled of a fresh tar coating, and he could feel the small pebbles imbedded in the sticky surface. A three-foot-high wall surrounded the roof. There were no stars, no moon, and the roof was as dark as the inside of an inkwell, its level surface broken only by a question-mark-shaped large pipe from an old unused ventilator system.

If Remo hid behind the pipe, it would be the first place the children would look.

Remo hid behind it. He heard the voices as the boys ran onto the roof.

"Hey," one hissed. "He's got to be hiding behind that pipe. Everybody be careful. Don't let him get your guns away from you."

Remo peered out from behind the pipe. As he did, he saw a splash of light come onto the roof from the open door. One of the boys apparently had found the light switch in the stairwell. Then the light faded as one of the boys pushed the metal door shut with a heavy clang.

Behind the pipe, Remo now heard the feet moving toward him, shuffling over the pitted roof. He heard the footsteps split into two groups and move around to come behind the ventilator from both sides.

Timing his footsteps to coincide with the soft shuffling of the boys' feet, Remo backed off from the ventilator shaft toward the far wall of the roof. He felt the railing around the roof behind him, then moved silently to his right, a dark shadow in a night of dark shadows, to the right angle corner of the railing, then back toward the center of the roof and the door that led downstairs to safety.

He was near the shedlike structure of the door when he heard the voices back in the darkness.

"Hey. Where is he? Charley, be careful, he ain't here."

The door was unguarded. Remo opened it and slipped inside, closed it softly behind him. He turned to go downstairs. Halfway down the steps was a boy, perhaps nine years old.

"Charley, I presume," said Remo.

"You're dead," Charley answered. His pistol was pointing at Remo's stomach.

It was a small-caliber weapon. Remo could take one bullet in the belly and get away with it, but the full cylinder of the gun would mincemeat him, and the knowledge of it, the galling rotten knowledge that he was about to be done in by a nine-year-old boy, made Remo angry rather than sad. He did a smooth reverse foot spin and the boy looked to the left where Remo's body had moved. But Remo was already back on the right, moving down the steps, not seeming to rush, but taking all the steps in one motion. Then he was beside the boy and the gun was ripped from the boy's hand, and Remo lifted him under one arm.

The boy screamed. Remo stuck the gun into his belt and slapped the back of the boy's head, hard, and the scream turned into a wail.

Remo stopped short. He had hit the boy. Whatever had blocked him from striking a child, he had overcome. Like a dog with a toy, he slapped the back of Charley's head again. And again.

Then he turned and still carrying the boy like a balsa log under his arm went up the stairs and toward the door leading to the roof.

"Hey, let me down. You let me down or.. "

"I'm going to smack your head, kid," Remo said. He did. Charley cried.

Remo tossed the boy through the door onto the roof just in time for Charley to smash into three boys approaching the door, carrying them down to the roof surface.

Then Remo was low, moving through the door, and jamming it behind him so no one could escape.

As the door closed, the roof was swallowed up in darkness again. Remo opened his pupils wider than normal pupils were supposed to dilate. He could see almost as if the roof were lighted. He moved through the crowd of boys.

He slapped a face and took a gun and jammed it into his belt.

"Ooooh, shit, that hurt."

"Good," Remo said. "Try this."

He slapped again, then turned and kicked a behind and took another gun.

"Son of a bitch," the boy snarled. He was ten years old.

"Naughty, naughty," Remo said. He slapped the boy alongside the ear. "No cursing in school."

The boys spun around on the rooftop, like puppies looking for a hidden piece of meat that they could smell but not see, afraid to fire for fear of hitting each other, and Remo moved among them, hitting, smacking, slapping, spanking and collecting guns.

"Hey. That fucker's got my gun."

"Mine too."

"Anybody got a gun?"

Smack!

"Mustn't go calling names, big mouth," Remo said. "I'll send you to the principal's office."

"Who's got a gun?" someone cried, in a voice that bore more anguish than it was possible to experience in eleven years.

"I have," Remo said. "I've got them all. Isn't this fun?"

"I'm getting out of here. Fuck Kaufperson. Let her do her own dirty work."

"You get away from that door," Remo said, "while I put these guns away."

The biggest boy on the roof, thirteen years old, got to the door and yanked. One second he was yanking, the next instant he was sitting on the gravel-topped roof, the sharp small stones pressing into his rear.

"I said stay away from that door," Remo said. "And no peeking for the guns. That's not the way you play huckle buckle beanstalk."

Remo slipped the top grate from the ventilator shaft and dropped the small handguns in the top. He heard them slide and then thump below, as the first one landed, then the clicks as the later ones landed atop other guns. He didn't know where the chute led, but wherever it ended was exactly seventeen-and-one-half feet away, his ears told him.

Behind him, he heard whispering. It was meant to be too soft for him to hear.

"The door's jammed. I can't open it."

"All right, we'll rush him."

"Yeah. Everybody jump him. Stomp him in the balls."

The boys huddled around the door as Remo walked back. They were able now to make out his silhouette even in the dark. Remo saw them as if it were light.

"Can all of you see all right?" Remo asked. "No? Let me fix that."

The boys nearest the door felt nothing except a brush of air by their faces, then they heard a thud and a ripping sound and then a splash of light as beams shone on the roof from a hole Remo had just torn open in the metal door with his bare right hand.

"There," said Remo backing up. "That's better, isn't it?" He smiled at the boys. His teeth glinted gravestone marble white in the dim light, and there was not a sound as the boys looked first at him, then at the hole in the door.

"Attention, class," said Remo, wondering how Sister Mary Elizabeth would have handled this bunch back at the Newark orphanage. Probably with a ruler across the backs of their hands, and Remo had a hunch it would still have worked. It was decades of time and social light years away from Sister Mary Elizabeth and her corporal methods of teaching, but Remo guessed that if she had had these children when they were smaller, they would not now be huddled frightened on a roof with a man they had just tried to murder.

"You're probably wondering why I called you all here," Remo said. "Well, at the board of education, we've been getting bad reports on you. That you're not doing your homework. That you don't pay attention in class. Are those reports true?"

There was only sullen silence. From the darkness, Remo heard a half-whispered, "Go fuck yourself."

Remo singled out the whisperer for a blinding smile. "That's not exactly the answer I was looking for," he said, "but we'll get back to that. All right, now, what is the capital of Venezuela? Anybody who knows speak right up."

Silence.

Remo reached forward to the nearest two faces and slapped them hard, across both cheeks with his left and right hands.

"You're not trying, class. Again. The capital of Venezuela?"

A voice ventured: "San Juan?"

"Close, but no cigar," said Remo, who did not know the capital of Venezuela but knew it was not San Juan.

"All right now, all together, the square root of one-hundred-sixty-eight. Come on, don't be shy. The square root of one-hundred-sixty-eight."

He paused. "Nobody knows. Too bad. You don't know arithmetic, either. That'll have to go into my report to the board of education."

He smiled again. "Let's try grammar. Is 'walking' past tense or an infinitive?" asked Remo, who would not know either if it was mailed to him in an envelope.

"Hey, mister, can we go home?"

"Not while class is in session. What kind of child are you, wanting to miss out on your education? 'Walking.' Past tense or infinitive? Don't all speak at once."

There was deathly silence on the roof. Remo could hear only the worried shallow breathing of ten frightened boys whose decision to jump him and stomp him had evaporated when he put his bare hand through a steel door.

"I've got to tell you that this is probably the worst response I've had in all my years in the classroom."

"You ain't no teacher." It was the same voice that had told Remo to fuck himself.

"Oh, you're wrong," Remo said. "I am a teacher. True, I didn't go to teachers' college to avoid going to Vietnam. That explains why I'm not wearing jeans and peace buttons. But I'm a teacher. For instance. You,.. come out here."

"Me?" said the same voice.

"Yes, dummy, you." The boy, the oldest and biggest, got to his feet and shuffled slowly forward. Even with the light behind the boy, Remo could see his animal eyes, sizing up Remo, thinking maybe about a quick kick to the groin to disable Remo or at least to put him down.

"I'll prove I'm a teacher," Remo said. "Like right now, you're thinking about trying to kick me. So go ahead."

The boy hesitated.

"Go ahead," Remo said. "Here. I'll turn around. That'll make it easier."

He turned his back on the boy. The boy paused, leaned back and jumped into the air, both feet aimed at Remo in a two-foot flying kick right out of the UHF televised wrestling matches.

Remo felt the pressure of the feet coming near him, turned and leaned back just far enough so the feet stopped an inch short of his face. He grabbed both feet in his hands and dragged the boy to the edge of the roof. He tossed him over, hanging onto the struggling boy by one ankle.

When the boy realized that he was hanging, head downward, fifty feet above the pavement and that his only support might let him go if he fought, he stopped struggling.

Remo turned to the other boys. "Here's your first lesson. No matter how good you are, there's somebody better. That's true-except for one person in the world, but that doesn't matter to you. So before you get smartassed again, you better think about that. Your second lesson is that you're too young to be in this business. Now, one at a time, I think I'm going to put you over this roof so you get a taste of what dying slow is like. Would you like that, class?"

There was silence.

"I can't hear you," Remo called.

"No. No. No," came scattered voices.

"Good," Remo said. "Except you mean, 'No, sir,' don't you?"

"No, sir. No, sir. No, sir. No, sir." More voices this time. Remo looked over the edge of the roof at the boy who lay still. "I didn't hear you," Remo said.

"No, sir," the boy said. "Pull me up. Please. Pull me up."

"Let's hear you say it again."

"Please pull me up."

"Pretty please?"

"Pretty please."

"With sugar on it?"

"With sugar on it."

"Good," said Remo, He raised the boy with one simple upward move of his right hand, as if there were a yoyo attached to it instead of a one-hundred-twenty-pound boy. On the street below, he saw Sashur Kaufperson's Mercedes and realized he had been spending a lot of time on this roof.

The boy came over the railing and Remo dropped him onto the roof headfirst. The boy scurried away, crablike, afraid to get up without permission, but more afraid to stay close to that madman's feet.

"All right, class," Remo said. "Your final lesson of the evening. Every one of you bastards will be in school tomorrow morning. You're going to be nice and polite and say yes, sir and please and thank you. You're going to do your homework and you're going to behave yourselves. Because if you don't, I'm coming back to rip your frigging tongues out. Got it?"

"Yes, sir." The answer this time was a shouted roar.

"All right. And remember. I know your names and your schools, and I'll check on you. When I do, I hope you won't have done anything to make me mad."

"We won't. We won't, sir. No, sir, we won't."

"Good," said Remo. "And now I think it's past your bedtimes and you young fellas ought to be getting home. Would you like that?"

"Yes, sir," in unison.

"All right," said Remo. He walked to the locked door.

"And just so you don't forget me."

Remo put both his hands into the hole he had smashed into the metal door, twisted his arms in opposite directions, setting up a rhythm in the metal. When it was vibrating in ways it was not made to vibrate in, he leaned back and ripped the door down its side, almost like ripping the flap off an unsealed envelope.

The roof was suddenly bathed in light. Remo stood there looking at the boys, holding the door in front of him as if it were a waiter's tray. He smiled. For the first time, all the boys could see his face clearly. He made it not a nice face to look at.

"Don't make me come after you," he said.

"No, sir." One final shout and then the boys were running down the stairs, down toward the street, and home.

Remo watched them go, then tossed the door off onto another part of the roof.

He smiled. If those kids were scared now, they should have tried lipping off to Sister Mary Elizabeth.

Remo went to the side of the building and over and down to the street. He used a light telephone wire running down the side of the building to, steer himself. The wire was too light to hold his weight, but Remo did not put his weight on it, not pulling downward, but using it instead to slow him as he moved bouncingly off the wall, back to the wall, out again, each time dropping four or five feet.

Below him he saw Sashur Kaufperson getting into her Mercedes. She was pulling away from the curb when Remo got to the car, pulled open the door and slid into the passenger seat.

"Hi," he said as she looked at him in panic. "That's the one thing I always liked about teaching. The short hours."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Sashur Kaufperson had decided to come clean. She hadn't been telling Remo the truth, the whole truth. Well, not exactly.

When she had told Remo that Warner Pell was the boss of the kids-for-killing operation, she had indulged in a slight mental reservation. Pell was her boss, but she knew he was not the head man. She had no idea of who the head man was.

She had been telling the truth when she said that Pell had panicked when the heat was put on and had threatened to hand her up to the authorities.

She had been shocked, stunned, frightened, but she had never entertained the thought of having one of the children kill Pell. At least not until she got a telephone call.

The caller was Pell's boss, the head of the operation. She did not know the man, who did not identify himself.

Remo groaned in disgust as Sashur kept driving.

"I have had just about enough of this almost-but-not-quite and I'm not sure and some secret voice over the phone. Who was the guy?"

"I'm coming to it, Remo," she said. "First, he told me to have Alvin eliminate Pell. He said it was the only way to save myself."

"And so at great sacrifice to yourself, and even more to Pell, you did it," Remo suggested.

"Your being sarcastic doesn't help," Sashur said.

"Gee, I'm sorry. I must have lost my manners back there when those kids were trying to kill me."

"You have to understand. I didn't train those little bastards; Pell did that. He taught them hand-to-hand fighting and weapons and other stuff. God knows what."

"And you just took roll call every morning?"

She shook her head as she made a left-hand turn.

"I'm a qualified psychologist. Pell had me work with the children on discipline, the need not to talk. I had to motivate them."

"You did great," Remo said. "I can't remember ever seeing such motivated children."

Sashur pulled the car to the curb and stomped on the footbrake.

"I'm telling you the truth," she blurted out. "Why don't you just kill me now and get this all over with? I'm too tired to hold it all in, and I'm tired of worrying. And I'm tired of trying to explain it to you without your listening."

Her shoulders heaved and her face went down against the steering wheel and she wept.

"Stop it," Remo said. "I hate women who cry."

"I'm sorry," she said and sniffled. "I'm just so tired. So tired of all this… the lies, the deceit, the… I'm so tired."

Remo patted her shoulder consolingly. "Come on. Calm down. Just tell me what happened."

She shook her head, as if splashing away tears, and began to drive again, checking carefully in her rearview mirror before pulling into the roadway.

"Anyway, I helped Pell train by doing motivation work on the children. Then one day I got a call. I told you, this was just after Pell said he was going to make me the scapegoat."

"And?"

"It was a man I never heard before. He didn't give his name. But he told me just what I was doing and what Pell was doing and then he let me know he was Pell's superior. And he told me that if I wanted Pell kept quiet, I would have to do it myself. Otherwise, I would go to jail. Oh, Remo, it made me sick. But I had to do it. I was afraid. So I told Alvin to shoot Pell."

"They listened to you? When Pell was their trainer?"

"But I was their motivation expert. They believed in me."

"And?"

"That's it," said Sashur.

"Not quite," Remo said. "What were you doing with those kids tonight?"

"Oh," Sashur Kaufperson said. "I nearly left out the most important part. The man who called me about Pell? Well, he called me about you and the Oriental earlier today. He told me you two would be coming, and I should have you killed. But this time I wouldn't do it. No, I wouldn't do it."

"Did you tell him that?"

"No. I just made like I'd go along with anything. But as soon as I got off the phone with him, I called the police and told them I needed protection. From you two. I thought you were killers."

"Me? A killer?" Remo asked.

Sashur smiled. "That's what I thought. And then you came to my apartment and right after that the police I had called broke in and they let me out of the closet."

"And you still don't know who this big boss is? The one who phoned you with your orders?"

"No, I do. I do. I just found out tonight."

"Who is it?"

"I saw him on television," Sashur said. "Maybe you saw him too. General Haupt. I'd know that voice anywhere."

"Good. I've got business with General Haupt," Remo said.

Remo had, of course, been aware of the car following them. The steady illumination of the interior of Sashur's car by headlights reflected in the rearview mirror, vanishing momentarily whenever they made a turn, then resuming was such a tipoff Remo hadn't even bothered to turn around to look.

So Remo was not surprised that as Sashur parked in front of his motel, the car behind them pulled around and nosed into the curb in front of them.

"Oh, balls," said Sashur.

"What?"

"It's George."

Remo saw the man getting out of the gray Chevrolet and recognized George as Sashur's boyfriend who had tried to follow them the night before, when they were leaving Sashur's apartment.

He was standing now alongside Remo's door.

"All right, you, get out of there." His voice was an attempt at a growl but too high-pitched to sound anything but playful. It was a puppy's bark.

"Sure," said Remo through the partially opened window.

Sashur restrained him with a hand on his arm. "Don't go," she said. "He's got an awful temper. George, why don't you just get out of here?"

"I'm tired of your cheating on me," George whined. Remo noticed he was a fattish man, who moved sloppily on his feet. As he talked to Sashur, he was swaying from side to side impatiently.

"Cheating on you?" she said. "Even if I were, which I haven't been…"

"Very good," Remo said. "Subjunctive mood. Condition contrary to fact." He turned to George. "Would a woman who was cheating on you be cool enough to say 'if I were' instead of 'if I was'?"

"If I were, which I haven't been," Sashur repeated, "how could it be cheating? We're not married."

"Name the day," said George.

"Any day but today," Remo said. "She's going out of town with me today."

"Okay, fella, that's it for you. Get out of there," George said.

"I was just coming," Remo said. He pushed open the door and moved lightly onto the sidewalk. George backed up to make room for him.

Sashur leaned across the seat to call, "Watch out for him, Remo."

Remo looked at George and saw his eyes were glistening brightly. He had tears in his eyes.

This poor nit loved that poor nit, Remo realized. Maybe they were made for each other.

"You gonna leave her alone?" demanded George.

Yes, he loved her. No doubt. Maybe she could learn to love him too.

"Make me," Remo said.

"You asked for it," George said. He threw a roundhouse right-hand punch of the variety used by brown bears to catch swimming fish.

Remo let it hit him high up on the left side of the head, moving his head just a fraction of an inch on contact. Like all noncombatants George stopped his punch as soon as it touched target. Remo felt the knuckles touch his skin, and he recoiled slightly as George pulled his hand back for another punch.

Remo leaned against the trunk of the car as if he had been knocked there.

"Had enough?" George asked.

"I have not yet begun to fight," Remo said.

George jumped forward, his body as open as a dinner invitation, and threw another right hand. Remo let this one get him on the shoulder and made a display of rolling over on the fender of the car and groaning.

"Ooooohhh."

"George, stop," Sashur yelled. "You'll kill him."

"Damn right, I'll kill him," George said. His voice was lower now, huskier. "And you too, if you cheat on me again."

"Oooooohhh," groaned Remo.

George nodded at him for emphasis and danced around to the left, throwing his left jab at air. "Want anymore, guy?"

"No, no," said Remo. "Enough for me."

"Okay. Keep your hands off my woman. This is the second time I caught you. There won't be a third time." George leaned into Sashur's car. "I'll be at the school tomorrow when you get off work. You're coming to my place and you're staying the night."

"In a pig's…"

"No arguments, baby. You heard me. Tomorrow after school."

Heavy-footed, George stomped away. As he drove off, he peeled rubber.

Remo waited until George's car had turned the corner before he got off the fender.

Sashur came to him. "Remo, are you hurt?"

"Never laid a glove on me." Remo touched his jaw as if it were tender. "Come on," he said, "we've got to go upstairs."

He led Sashur Kaufperson into the motel, pleased with himself for perhaps having made the course of true love run a little smoother in Chicago.

Chiun was awake when they got to the room and Remo was immeasurably pleased, because he did not enjoy the prospect of waking the Master of Sinanju at 3 a.m.

The old man turned as Remo and Sashur entered. He had been standing at the window, looking out.

"Oh, Remo," he said. "I am glad you are here. Safely."

Remo squinted. "Safely? Why safely?"

"This is a terrible city."

"Why? Because it's not Persia where people like us are appreciated?"

"No. Because there is terrible violence," Chiun said. "Just now, for instance. I saw two men fighting out in the street. A terrible battle. A fat man was pummeling a skinny one into mush. Awful. Terrible. The skinny man took a terrific beating. I do not know how he was able to survive it."

"All right, Little Father, knock it off," Remo said.

"And I was so frightened. I thought, Remo might come home any moment and he might be attacked by these two terrible warriors, and I worried so. I am glad you brought this woman to protect you. She is the woman of the gold coins."

"Right. This is Sashur Kaufperson," Remo said.

"How do you do?" said Sashur, who had been watching the conversation from just inside the motel suite door.

"Sashur Kauf is a very strange name," Chiun said.

"It's not Kauf. It's Kaufperson," Remo said.

"There is no such name as Kaufperson," Chiun said. "Never had I heard it, even on the picture box where the names have all forms of foolishness such as Smith and Johnson and Jones and Lindsay and Courtney."

"It's Kaufperson," Sashur said.

"I suppose you cannot help it."

"I'm glad you're up, Chiun," Remo said. "I'm going to call Smitty, and then we've got to get ready to go."

"Where are we going?"

"Back to Fort Bragg."

"Good," said Chiun. "Anything to get away from this violent city. Oh, you should have seen the battle. Epic. First the fat man threw a most fearsome punch. It was like this." Chiun waved his right arm around him like a stone on the end of a string.

"Frightening," Remo agreed.

"It hit the stupid man…"

"Wait. Why stupid?" said Remo.

"One can tell. Even at a distance. A pale piece of pig's ear is a pale piece of pig's ear. The blow hit the stupid man alongside the head. It would have scrambled his brains, had he any."

Chiun jumped back, as if shadow boxing.

"The fat man continued on the attack with another brutal blow. Oh, the damage it would have done had it too landed on the head. But fortunately the stupid man took the blow on his shoulder. He surrendered instantly."

"Not a moment too soon, I guess," Remo said.

"He might have suffered permanent injury if he continued," Chiun said. "His hamburger eating apparatus might have been broken. The physical centers that control his sloth, his ingratitude, his selfishness might even have been injured, and how then could a white man carry on in life?"

"You're right, Little Father. This is a violent city, and we have to leave. I'll call Smith."

But when he looked for the telephone atop the desk, he could not find it.

"Chiun. Where's the telephone?"

"The what?" said Chiun, turning again to the window.

"The telephone."

"Oh. The instrument that brawks through the night when elderly people are trying to gain a few moments of god-sent rest from the travails of the day? The instrument that interferes with…"

"Right. Right. Right, Chiun, right. The telephone."

"It is no more."

"What'd you do with it?"

"I suffered its intrusion upon me the first time. The second time I decided to end its brawffing misery."

"And?"

"It is in the wastepaper basket," Chiun said.

Remo looked into the wicker basket. In the bottom of its white plastic liner was a pile of dull blue dust, all that was left of a powder blue Princess phone with touch-tone dialing.

"Good going, Chiun,"

"I did not ask it to ring. I did not telephone the servant below and ask him to ring the telephone at certain intervals."

"Oh," said Remo.

"Indeed 'oh.' One who would do that should be beaten up in the street."

"May I sit down?" asked Sashur Kaufperson, who was still standing just inside the door.

"Sure," said Remo. "The chair's over there. On top of the couch. But don't get too comfortable."

"Why not?"

"You're going with us. To see General Haupt."

CHAPTER TWELVE

So it was, that without notifying Dr. Smith, Remo, Chiun, and a reluctant Sashur Kaufperson headed for Fort Bragg, North Carolina. They arrived in a rented car in mid-morning, and the new army military policeman at the entrance to the post, deciding that the hard-faced white man and the elderly Oriental that General Haupt had labeled as secret assassins were obviously not the same as a hard-faced white man, an elderly Oriental, and a good-looking woman with big boobs, waved them through after only a perfunctory look at Remo's identification which listed him as a field inspector for the Army Inspector General's Office.

They found General William Tassidy Haupt inside a field house, where he was inspecting his troops for the benefit of the photographer for the post newspaper, this being Clean Uniform Month in the new army.

General Haupt stood inside the big barn-like building, facing a line of forty men. A small squad held M-16s at the ready. Clusters of grenades were clipped to their belts. Another squad held rocket launchers. Next to them were four men holding flamethrowers.

"I think you men with the flamethrowers ought to get on the other end," General Haupt called out. He wore an immaculate khaki gabardine uniform. His trouser legs were tucked into the tops of his highly polished airborne boots. On his head he wore a white helmet with two gold stars stenciled on it. On his side he carried a .45 pistol in a brown leather holster that matched exactly the color of his boots.

"We get better symmetry if we've got the tall flame-tossing junk at one end and the tall rocket things at the other end," he said.

The four men with flamethrowers dutifully moved to the far right side of the line. The major in charge of the squad wondered if he was being moved to get him into a position from which he could easily be cropped from the picture. What had he done, he wondered. He would have to keep an eye on General Haupt, just in case he had somehow made the general's crap list.

In the center of the forty-man line stood assorted squads with hand weapons, two-man bazookas, mortars, rifles, and automatic weapons.

The captain in charge of a four-man bazooka detail said, "General, should we get on an end too?" The major from the flamethrowers smiled to himself. That's why the other officer was only a captain, volunteering to put himself in a bad position.

"No," replied Haupt. "Stay where you are. This way we've got a tall element at one end of the photo and a tall element at the other end and a semi-tall element in the center. That lends balance to the picture. I think it's going to turn out real well."

"Major, how long are we going to have to hold these heavy things?" a master sergeant, sweating under the load of a flamethrower, asked the major.

"Don't worry, corporal. It's just a few more minutes and we'll have you right back at your personnel desk."

"I hope so," pouted the sergeant. "It's sergeant, sir, not corporal."

"Right. Sergeant."

"I don't know why I get all these details anyway," the sergeant said.

"For a very simple reason," the major said. "You're six feet tall and you weigh one-hundred-ninety pounds. The general wants people just that size for this picture. Sort of a Graeco-Roman ideal. There's a good chance this picture might be used across the country. Billboards. Recruiting posters."

"If it is, do I get residuals and modeling fees?" asked the sergeant.

"Afraid not. This is the Army."

"I'm going to ask the union anyway," the sergeant said.

"All right, men," General Haupt called, facing the line of troops. "Time to look alert now."

General Haupt turned to the man from the post newspaper, a corporal in gabardine uniform who stood holding an old Speed Graphic camera.

"How does that look?" the general asked.

"Fine."

"What are you going to shoot at?"

"I thought F 5.6 at a hundredth."

"I don't think there's enough light in here for that," said General Haupt.

"Well, I've got slave strobe units on both ends of the line."

Haupt mused for a moment. "Yes, Corporal, that might do it. But be sure and shoot a couple at a fiftieth too."

"Yes, sir."

"All right. How do you want us?"

"I'd like to shoot from behind you, General, at the line of men."

"Will you be able to see me?" asked Haupt.

"Part of your profile," the photographer said.

"Okay. Then shoot from my left side. My left profile's better."

"Hey, general," called a voice from the ranks. "Is this almost a wrap? This rifle is getting heavy."

"Yeah," came another voice. "I've got to work out the PX entertainment schedule for the next week. I can't stay here forever."

"Almost ready, men. Just stay with it a while."

Remo, Chiun, and Sashur stood inside one of the large double doors of the fieldhouse, watching the troops shuffling into the right positions.

"Is that him?" Remo asked Sashur.

"That's him. I'd recognize that voice anywhere."

"All right," Remo said.

"Carefully, my son," said Chiun.

Remo walked across the highly polished basketball floor of the fieldhouse to the general and stood behind him. The photographer, eye to his viewfinder, swore. Who was this person breaking up his picture just when he had it composed correctly?

"General Haupt," said Remo.

The general turned. The look of concerned alert vibrancy that he had carefully constructed on his face for the photographer's benefit disappeared.

"You," he said.

"Right. Me. A little matter about murders."

Haupt looked at Remo's face for a moment, then jumped back. He grabbed the camera from the photographer and threw it at Remo. If he got him, that would do it. He knew that kind of camera would hurt, because once he got hit by an Associated Press .35mm camera with a .235 millimeter telephoto lens, and it was real heavy because it went down to F 2.8.

The camera missed.

"Use your men," Sashur Kaufperson shouted from the corner of the room where she had sidled away from Chiun and stood watching.

But General Haupt had already thrown the only weapon he knew how to use. He began to back away from Remo. Over his shoulder, he called to the major at the end of the line:

"Call someone from a combat battalion."

"The combat battalions are off for the day, General," the major yelled back. "Remember, you gave them the day off for finishing second in the inter-Army shoe shining contest?"

"Oh, yeah. Hell," said Haupt.

He was now backed against the wall. Remo stood in front of him.

"Use your troops," Sashur Kaufperson yelled again.

"Troops," General Haupt yelled. "Protect your commander." He got those words out just as Remo dug a thumb and two fingers into Haupt's collarbone area.

Back in the line, the major with the rocket launchers asked the captain next to him "Do you think we should call the police?"

The captain shrugged. "I don't know if the police will come on the post. Federal property, you know." He turned to a young lieutenant from the judge advocate's office who stood in combat infantryman's garb, holding an M-16.

"Freddy, can the city police come onto the post?"

"Not without express permission from the commander."

"Thanks." The captain looked at General Haupt, who was writhing against the wall, his face contorted in pain.

"I don't think he'd want to sign a paper now inviting the city police in."

"No, I don't think so," the major agreed. "Maybe we could call the Marines. Marines are federal."

"Yes, but the nearest Marine base is far away. They couldn't get here in time."

General Haupt was on the floor now. Remo knelt alongside him.

"I wish violence was my classification," the lieutenant from the judge advocate's office said. "I'd like to put a stop to this."

"Yes," said a captain in the middle of the line. "I would too but I don't know how human relations would apply to this situation." He was a psychiatrist.

A lieutenant with a mortar suggested wrapping Remo up in telephone wire. He was in communications.

The major at the end said, "Perhaps we'd better wait for further orders."

The officers nodded. "Yes. That's probably best," the captain said. He felt sorry that there was nothing in the manuals to cover this situation.

Remo knew something that wasn't in the manuals either. He knew that when you wanted to get someone to talk, fancy wasn't important. Pain was. Any kind of pain, inflicted any way you wanted. Beat them with a stick. Kick them on the knee until it was puffed and bruised. Anything. Make them hurt, and they would talk.

He was inflicting pain now upon General William Tassidy Haupt, but the general was still not talking to Remo's satisfaction.

"I tell you I don't know anything about any children killer squads," he gasped. "The Army's minimum recruiting age is eighteen."

"They're not in the Army," Remo said, twisting the bunched mass of nerves just a little tighter.

"Ooooh. Then what would I have to do with them? Why did you pick me?"

"That woman over there. She identified you." Remo jerked his head toward the door.

Haupt squinted. "What woman?"

Remo turned. Sashur Kaufperson was gone.

Chiun was walking slowly toward the line of troops.

"Well, she was there," Remo said.

"Who is she? What branch is she with?"

"She's not with any branch. She's with the school system in Chicago."

"That settles it then," said General Haupt. "I don't know any school teachers in Chicago. I haven't even talked to a school teacher for twenty-five years."

Remo twisted again and Haupt groaned.

"You're telling the truth, aren't you?"

"Of course, I'm telling the truth," Haupt said.

Remo looked at the general, then let him go. He knew nothing. And it meant that Sashur Kauf person had lied to him again.

He left the general lying on the floor and turned back to the line of troops. Chiun was walking up and down the line, inspecting uniforms, straightening a pocket flap on one soldier, adjusting the field cap of another.

"Shoes," he said to the lieutenant from the judge advocate's office. "Your shoes could be shined better."

"Yes sir," the lieutenant said.

"Take care of it before we meet again," Chiun said.

"Chiun. You about ready?" Remo asked.

"Yes. I am done. This is a nice army." He turned back to the line of troops. "You have beautiful uniforms. The nicest army since the Han Dynasty. You look very good."

Remo took Chiun's arm and steered him away.

"Chiun, where is Sashur?"

"She said she went to the persons' room."

"She lied."

"Of course, she lied," said Chiun.

"Why didn't you stop her?"

"You didn't tell me to stop her," Chiun said.

Remo shook his head. "Did you ever think of enlisting? You'd go far."

"I do not like armies. They solve problems by killing many when the solution to all problems is to kill one. The right one."

The MP at the gate told Remo, yes, sir, he had seen the woman leave, sir. A man in a car had come up to the gate, looking for her, had driven inside, and a few minutes later had left with the woman, sir.

"Who was the man?" Remo asked.

"Heavyset man. I took his name down. Here it is. George Watkins, sir. From the Justice Department."

"What'd you say?" Remo asked.

"From the Justice Department. He had credentials."

"Thanks," Remo said, driving past the guard booth. It all came together now. George. The Justice Department leak.

"Where are you going?" Chiun asked.

"After George."

"If he beats you up again, do not look to me for help."

"Hmmmppphhhh," Remo grunted.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Remo's rented blue Ford caught up with George's rented green Ford two miles from the Army post.

As he drove up close behind George's car, Remo saw Sashur Kaufperson sitting in the front passenger seat swivel her head around continuously, watching Remo as if she were wishing he would somehow vanish.

Remo planted himself right behind George and began to blow his horn.

George turned to look. Remo motioned him to pull over. Sashur, with her left hand, turned George's head forward to look at the road. With her right hand, she gave Remo the finger. Up close, he could see her well. Her mouth was working, sputtering. He could imagine the words pouring out of it.

"Hold tight, Chiun," Remo said, as he swerved left to pull out around George's car on the narrow two-lane road.

"No," said Chiun. "Hold tight is wrong. Loose is the secret to safety. Loose. Free to move in any direction."

"All right, already," said Remo. "Hold loose if you want to."

He was alongside George's car now, riding on the left side of the road. Again he leaned on his horn and began motioning to George to pull to the side of the road.

He saw Sashur Kaufperson's right hand come up slightly to hold the bottom of the steering wheel in George's hands. Then she gave the wheel a strong counter-clockwise twist. George's car swerved sharply to the left, just as Remo feathered the brake with his toe. George's car shot across the road in front of Remo, hit a low steel guard rail, and bounced along the rail for fifty feet before rolling to a stop.

Remo pulled his car in behind George, but before he could even turn off his key, George was out of his car, stomping angrily back toward Remo.

He stopped outside Remo's door.

"All right," he said. "I've warned you for the last time. Get out of there."

"Is there anyone you wish me to notify, Remo?" asked Chiun.

Remo growled and shoved open his door. It hit George square in the midsection and drove him backward over the guard rail. He landed on his shoulders in a small patch of roadside tiger lillies. He got heavily to his feet.

"That's not too smart, buddy," he said. "You'll pay for that."

"George," said Remo. "I want you to know that I think you're an asshole."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Is that right?"

"That's right."

"Who says so?" demanded George.

"You work for the Justice Department, don't you?"

"That's right, and you better not fool around with me, pal."

"And you know where the Justice Department is hiding out its big witnesses, don't you?"

"That's none of your business, buddy," said George heatedly.

"And for a little nookie, you spill it to that leather-lunged bitch in your car…"

"Hold it. Hold it right there," George said. "I don't have to…"

"Yes, you do," said Remo. "I just want you to know why you're going to die." Behind him Remo heard a car's engine racing. "And do you know she's been killing off the government's witnesses?"

George laughed. "Sashur? My Sashur? Killing witnesses? Really, fella. Now that's too much. Sashur is the kindest, sweetest, most gentle…"

"George," said Remo. "You're too stupid to live."

Behind him Remo heard a car pull away. In front of him, George went into a shoulder holster to pull out an automatic.

Between removing the weapon from his holster and getting it into firing position, an unusual thing happened to George. He died as Remo jumped over the guard rail with an elbow thrust that carried George's enlarged stomach organs before it and mashed them against George's backbone.

"And besides," Remo said, looking down at George's corpse, "you annoy me."

"Good, Remo," called Chiun through the open door of the car. "I was afraid he might beat you within an inch of your life."

"Oh, blow it out your ass," mumbled Remo. He looked at George's body, lying like a large mound alongside the road, and realized he couldn't just leave it there. It was certain to be spotted and to draw attention, so Remo lugged the body back, over the guard rail and shoved it into the rear seat of his car.

He got behind the wheel, and Chiun pointed a long-nailed finger at the windshield. "She went thataway," he said.

"Thanks, coequal pardner." Remo found Sashur's car three-quarters of a mile down the road, where the narrow two-lane blacktop road had widened into a four-lane divided highway. The green Ford was parked alongside the highway and was empty.

As he sat in his car behind the other auto, wondering where Sashur had gone, Remo saw a state trooper's squad car go by in the opposite direction.

In the back seat was Sashur Kaufperson. As the squad car passed Remo, she turned and looked out the rear window and gave Remo the finger again. And a victorious smile.

Then, with a whoop of its sirens, the squad car was off down the road at high speed.

After Remo had followed the car to a nearby hospital, into which a smiling Sashur was aided by two state troopers, he called Smith.

He told him that George was the Justice Department contact and that Sashur had been in charge of the kids for the killing operation. He told Smith where she could be found, but Smith ordered him not to bother her in any way.

"Leave her to us, Remo. We should be able to get some information from her that's worth having."

"All right," said Remo. "And take care of George too, will you? He was a shmuck, but he shouldn't be left to rot in the back seat of a car."

"Leave the car in the airport parking lot. We will see to George," Smith said.

Remo hung up, but instead of feeling satisfied over a job neatly wrapped up, he felt disquiet.

He talked to Chiun about it on the plane back to Chicago.

"This is all over, completed, finished," he said.

"If you say so," Chiun said, refusing to interrupt his usual flight routine of staring at the left wing to make sure it was not falling off.

"Then why do I feel rotten about it?" asked Remo.

"It has been a complicated matter, with many ends that are loose," Chiun said.

"That's no answer," Remo said.

"Then you are not ready for an answer. When you are, you will not need me to give it," Chiun said. "I think that wing is loose."

"If it falls off, you can float to earth on a cushion of your own hot air," Remo said sullenly.

"Do not blame me for your ignorance," said Chiun. "There is some learning that must be done alone. No one can teach a bird to fly."

On a scale of one to ten, the consolation that thought brought Remo was a minus three. He was dissatisfied throughout the rest of the plane flight, dejected when he reached Chicago, and disgusted when he and Chiun went to Atlantic City for a rest. Chiun was overjoyed to find that Atlantic City's streets were the inspiration for the game of Monopoly, even though his joy dissipated when he passed the Boardwalk and Baltic Avenue six times in one day and no one gave him two hundred dollars.

Ten days later Remo was still down when he talked to Smith.

"Everything has been taken care of," Smith said. "Our friend George was unfortunately killed in a car accident. However, his widow will collect his Justice Pension."

"What about Sashur?" Remo asked.

"She is now in custody," Smith said.

"What's she being charged with?"

"That, unfortunately, poses a problem. We cannot try her. The publicity would tear our anti-crime program apart, and who knows how many mental cripples would try to follow her act?"

"You mean, she's getting off scot free?" Remo said in dull surprise.

"No, not exactly. Ms. Kaufperson has been very helpful to us in preparing cases against those people with whom she contracted for… er, work. Many of them may be going away for a while as a result of her information."

"But what about her?"

"I don't know," Smith said. "After it's all over, maybe a new identity, a new start. Obviously, we couldn't send her to prison. With the people she's offended, she wouldn't last twenty-four hours."

"Where is she now?" asked Remo.

"The Justice people have her safely away, out of harm's reach," Smith said.

"Where?" Remo asked casually.

"She's squirreled away in a little town in Alabama. Leeds," Smith said. "And how are you do-"

Smith was cut off by the click of the telephone.

Remo turned and looked across the hotel room to where Chiun sat on the threadbare carpet, meditating.

"This bird is learning to fly, Little Father,'' Remo said.

Chiun looked up and smiled. His hands opened and the fingers moved upward like a blooming flower.

"The blood of Sinanju runs in you, my son, as strongly as if you were born hearing the waters of the bay. When you were first attacked by those children, you could not respond because you were but a child yourself in the ways of Sinanju."

"I know," said Remo. This time he did not feel insulted when Chiun spoke of his ignorance.

"But you quickly grew," Chiun went on. "And you are growing still."

"It is a terrible thing to teach children to kill is it not?" Remo asked.

"It is the worst of all crimes because it not only robs the present of life, it robs the future of hope."

"I know," said Remo.

"Then you know how it must be answered."

"I do now," Remo said.

Leeds' main real estate broker was delighted to show the young man some of the property for sale in the town, but unfortunately the house on the hill overlooking the town had just gone off the market.

"Oh? Who bought it?" the young man asked.

"Fella from up north. Said he needed rest and quiet. Didn't look sick though. Heh, heh. Nothing too sick about a man who pays cash for a house."

In the house on the hill that night, Sashua Kaufperson felt good. Even though she was disgusted with Alabama television and its good old boys with their "hiyalls" and their "golly gees," and even though the Justice Department man assigned for her protection had rejected her offer of bed and bod, she felt on top of the world.

A few more sessions and she'd be clear, with some money, a passport, and a new identity. She would be off to parts unknown and eventually to Switzerland where several hundred thousands of dollars waited for her in a numbered account.

As she lay in bed listening to the crickets outside her window, she smiled. She had challenged the system and won. Free. And rich.

As she thought of all the things the future had to hold for a rich, liberated female-type person, she did not notice the crickets hush. Nor did she hear her window open quietly.

She only realized someone was in her room when she felt a hand clasp over her mouth and another hand move into her collarbone and press nerves that made it impossible for her to move,

"Killing is bad enough," a voice whispered to her. "But making children into killers is the worst crime of all. The punishment is death."

When he had finished her, the killer took her body into the bathroom, where he ran a bath, forced water into Sashur's lungs, and left the body crumpled in the tub.

Then as silently as he had appeared, he went out the window, closing it behind him. He moved into the deep grass, where his shadow blended with the other shadows of the night, and only the sudden stilling of the crickets marked the movement of the youngest Master of Sinanju-in that ages-old house, hardly more than a child himself.

A happy child.