Political Pressure

22

"Ah," Chiun said appreciatively as they slipped through the front door into the vast old home in Topeka, which, they had been surprised to learn, was in the state called Kansas. Remo wasn't sure if he'd ever been to Kansas— he'd certainly forgotten about it if he had. In fact he wasn't sure if he had ever actually believed, before today, that Kansas was a real place and not a fictional land of monochrome misery invented for the opening scenes of The Wizard of Oz.

There was nothing monochrome about Senator Serval's home, which was one of the original great houses of the city and had never been allowed to fall into disrepair. The Serval family fortune had remained steady enough over the generations to maintain the home as a showcase, and now the home was a city icon.

"Makes my brain hurt," Remo complained. "What's with all the doodads and swirlies and embellishes?"

"They give the decor a richness, even if they are not to my taste," Chiun said. "You simpletons have no taste."

"This place puts the 'oh my God' in 'gaudy,'" Remo said.

"Grendel had a better eye for home decor," Chiun said dismissively.

"You mean Gollum?"

"I mean Grendel."

Remo stared at Chiun, uncomprehending, then grinned. "Beowulf

"You are truly learned."

"Thank the nuns who learned me."

Chiun turned away in disdain, roaming silently through the lower levels of the opulent home of the wealthy political pretender. In truth, this overindulgence of European-inspired gimmickry was not to his taste, but it was a contrast to his own home. Chiun was weary of the drab residence he shared with Remo in Connecticut. It was flavorless. There was no artistry to it. Just bland walls, no balanced spaces. When he sat in that dwelling and reached out with his senses, he found just hollow gray air.

Some new home was needed that would be worthy of housing a Master of Sinanju Emeritus, one that was appealing to his discriminating eye, invigorating to his refined sensibilities. But the choices in this land of white culture were severely limited.

Not a castle. Chiun was once lord of a true castle, in the city of beans and bad drivers, and that beloved dwelling was destroyed in flames. The memory galled him Chiun would not want a new home so big and grand it reminded him of Castle Sinanju.

One thing he had learned was that he didn't need so much space. His possessions, at least here in this ugly land of America, were few. Even this large house decorated in the style of the Victorian era was too large and too—stationary.

Chiun had begun to consider the potential of a home that was mobile. He would have scoffed at the idea at one time, but he had recently seen examples of such dwellings. Some moved upon the water and some moved upon land. Were he and Remo not constantly traveling anyway?

Remo was the proverbial pale pig in the ointment. Chiun sensed that his ungrateful protege would be unhappy with such a home, and when Remo disliked something he tended to bawl endlessly like a sick goat or a sick pig.

Remo came down from his search of the second and third levels of the home, keeping utterly silent despite the century-old wooden stairway he trod upon. "King Victoria and his concubine are fast asleep."

"Emperor Smith said this senator's wife is in Europe," Chiun remarked.

"Hope she finishes her business and comes home early." Remo grinned.

"Maybe that is her arriving now."

Someone was approaching the great Serval mansion, coming on foot, through the darkness, bearing gifts.

General William Chatto didn't feel very much like a general at the moment, sneaking through the shrubs in a funny-looking outfit. He felt like a burglar.

Truth was he had never really been a general. Or even a colonel or a major or, well, the truth was he'd been a staff sergeant when they kicked him out of the U.S. Army.

But, what the hell, they wanted to call him a general they could call him a general, as long as they paid him. It was just that they had these expectations that Chatto possessed leadership abilities and when the time came, he had to admit, he obviously didn't.

"Come on, you guys!"

"Hey, you think you can do any better, you carry the bitch!"

"That's insubordination, Baldwin," Chatto said stiffly.

"Fuck you, General."

"Shh! Shh! Shh!" Even as he was hushing his troops Chatto was thinking that a real general would never say "Shh!" to his men. "I want you to keep your voices down."

"I want you to get the fuck out of my face," Baldwin said, throwing down his burden, which was the front half of a drugged and unconscious middle-aged woman. The soldier with the rear half of candidate Martina Jomarca had no intention of carrying the burden on his own, so he dropped the rest of her.

The harsh exchange between Chatto and Baldwin was satisfied when Baldwin agreed to keep quiet and Chatto agreed to treat Baldwin as an equal.

Baldwin was sure real generals didn't treat their subordinates as equals.

His only relief was that they were nearly at the house, when he knew his men would fall in line, even Baldwin. They were all soldiers, and they were all paid well for their skills. None of them was stupid enough to allow their egos or their attitudes to get in the way of mission success.

In near silence they picked the back-door lock and entered one of the most famous homes in Topeka. The alarm system was a joke and was disabled with a pair of needlenosed pliers, then they fanned out through the lower level of the home, just to be sure there was nobody on the premises they hadn't planned on. Recessed lighting in every room of the house made the search easy, and proved that the lower level was empty except for hundreds of recently completed campaign signs.

They took their positions on the second level and then the stealthiest pair continued to the third floor and made a careful search. They accomplished it with only the tiniest of squeaks on the old wooden floors.

Chatto breathed more easily when the pair descended and gave him the thumbs-up.

Nothing left to do now except a little cold-blooded murder. Chatto had the knife. It was from the kitchen of Martina Jomarca. As the mercenaries crept into the senator's bedroom, Jomarca's drugged, unconscious, whiskey-drenched body was placed in a chair by the window. On the bed was a barely legal campaign worker huddled up in the armpit of the snoring senator. That little piece of sweetmeat was in for a nasty shock when she woke up. But it would be nastier for the old biddy in the chair. As for the senator...

The teenager had to be neutralized first. Chatto brought the handle of the knife down hard, but the knife never seemed to reach the girl's skull. His hand got stuck.

His hand wouldn't move because somebody was holding his wrist.

"Tsk-tsk," said the little scrap of a man who had to be half Chatto's weight, and maybe four times his age and a Chinaman to boot!

Then the little old Chinaman broke Chatto's wrist.

There was a commotion in the hallway, followed by a burst of gunfire. The senator woke up bellowing and the teenager shot to her feet, dancing on the bed naked except for the cheerleader skirt bunched up around her waist

Chatto staggered across the bedroom, landing in the limp lap of Martina Jomarca, but then the pain became a mechanism to focus his thoughts. He pushed himself up and groped with his good hand for the mini-Uzi on its shoulder strap. The senator barked in fear, and the cheerleader scrambled behind a chest of drawers.

Chatto found Baldwin and another soldier on the floor, facedown and toes up. He stepped over them and in the hallway witnessed what seemed to be a dozen specters flashing like shadows among his men, who fired their weapons crazily.

Before Chatto could issue a command that would grab their attention, his men were finished. The last one to die was Steve, the one who insisted they call him by his SEAL nickname, Scorpion. Scorpion was kneeling outside the bedroom with his eyes wide, his trousers soiled and his throat showing a tiny red cut encircling it.

Steve the Scorpion had to have died in a state of nearly perfect balance, but when he finally fell over his head rolled right off and came to a halt at Chatto's feet.

"Who are you guys?" Chatto demanded, surprised to find just two attackers in the hall.

"I'm the karate kid, and that's Miyagi," said the slender figure.

"Pah!" answered the tiny Asian.

"Old man, you broke my fucking wrist," Chatto said, waving the mini-Uzi threateningly at the pair.

"Had I known what you did with it, I would have broken something else."

Chatto knew there was something wrong here, but he couldn't figure out what it was. The two in the expansive landing didn't seem to care that they had a submachine gun targeting their guts. The little Asian was an inscrutable mass of wrinkles in the dim light. He had

his hands in the sleeves of his geisha dress, for crying out loud. The taller man...

Chatto couldn't see his face, really, but somehow he could see the eyes. It was like he was looking at pinpricks of death light.

Who were they? Were they even human? Because Chatto had seen them in action and it wasn't normal.

"Answer the question!"

"What was the question again?" asked the man with the dead eyes.

"Who are you!"

"I'm James. He's Jinx."

"What is Jinx?" the little Asian demanded of the tall dark figure.

"Shut the fuck up!" Chatto shouted. He hurt like hell. "One more smart-ass answer, and I'm gonna make somebody into dog meat."

'It is possible Remo would make acceptable dog meat," the Asian said. "He has certainly proved to be without value in most other capacities."

"And it's true you wouldn't make an appetizer fit for a Chihuahua," the tall man said, to Chatto's dismay. His world had made sense until about ninety seconds ago.

"You pieces of shit—"

"Not going well, is it, buddy?" the tall man asked sympathetically, stepping up and taking the mini-Uzi out of Chatto's hands so easily and casually that Chatto had to make a real effort to be surprised. He was even

more surprised when he saw that the mini-Uzi he had threatened them with had a corkscrew barrel. Now when had that happened?

"So, what's up? What's going on? Why're you here? You fans of the senator?"

The dark figure nodded at the bedroom, where Chatto heard the baritone sobbing of the senator and the comforting murmurs of the cheerleader.

"I'm not telling you—"

"Yeah, heard it a million times," the tall figure said. "And then I go like this—" Chatto felt his earlobe get pinched "—and then you go like this, 'Ouch ouch please stop I'll tell you everything ouch ouch'."

And that's exactly how it happened.