Power Play

Quickly the assassin moved from the porch and removed the knives from the dead body. The man stared at him blankly, his eyes rolling up into his head like a fish dying on a gaffing hook. He recovered his knives, wiped them clean on the white gi of the dead man, then dragged the body across the practice green and into the small stand of trees where he dumped it next to that of the mercenary colonel.

He went back to the porch. The whole killing operation had taken less than two minutes. He no longer tasted the green of the trees on his lips; instead his mind dwelt only on the satisfying thwack of knives hitting target. He saw in his memory the two bodies lying, bloodied, on the ground and for the first time that night, he smiled.

He wanted to do it again. It would be only seconds before the small arms man came around the corner of the building but those seconds ticked in his mind like a clock heading for eternity. He could not wait.

He walked off the porch to the corner of the building. He squatted low as he peered around the corner. The firearms expert was only five feet away, just walking again toward the back of the building. The assassin withdrew another clean, unused knife from his belt. He never liked to use the same knife twice, before using the others. He felt it was wrong not to spread the work equally over all the machinery. Hefting it in his right hand, he stepped out into the short cut grass next to the flower bed.

The firearms expert carried a pistol in his hand so the assassin was silent. He did not want him to get off a shot to alert anyone else. He raised the knife next to his right ear and let fly. The blade bit flesh and the firearms expert dropped. His gun fell uselessly onto the grass. Again the knife was cleaned and the body dragged across the putting green to be deposited with the others.

The assassin walked back across the green. It would be easy to go on, he thought. A houseful of sleeping people. Pruiss. Theodosia. The Indian. The two bodyguards. More blood for his knives.

His hand touched the front doorknob, then released it. It would be nice but it would be unprofessional. He would do what he was paid to do. He walked off back to the woods.

Theodosia slept. Remo had again gone to Step 22 of his 27 but she seemed to climax only when she wanted to climax and it jarred Remo that she had been invulnerable to him.

She slept now on his arm, knowing that Pruiss would not be out of his bed to surprise them together. Remo had reopened the hall door. He was lying in bed, thinking, when he heard a hissing sound.

"Sooooo," came the voice from the door, in a high pitch of indignation.

"Yes, Chiun," Remo said with a sigh.

"Here you lie rutting, as all you people do so well..."

"Don't knock it," Remo interrupted. "Step 22 tonight. First time ever."

"I am not interested in the vulgar details of your vulgar activities. Your life is a vulgarity and nothing in it would surprise me," Chiun said. "But perhaps you can spare me a moment so I can tell you something concerning why you are here."

Remo dropped Theodosia from his arm and sat up in bed. Her head hit the pillow with a thud and she woke up also. She looked at Remo, then at Chiun standing in the doorway, wearing his brown sleeping kimono.

"What?" she began to say.

Chiun ignored her. He looked at Remo. "The assassin has been here," he said.

Remo looked at him in something close to disbelief.

"Yes, that is right, white thing," Chiun said. "Look at me with your mouth hanging open. While you two were behaving like rabbits in a box, he was here."

"What happened?" Remo asked.

"He did not enter the building. He moved outside. He moved many times in many different directions. He practiced his art. He is gone now."

"Is Wesley all right?" Theodosia asked. She started to get out of bed.

"He is as all right as one can be who has a faithless woman," Chiun said.

"The bodyguards," Remo said.

Chiun raised his hand. "There is nothing to be done tonight," he said. "What has occurred has occurred. We will deal with it tomorrow."

Remo slumped back onto the pillow.

"Now, if you two can find it in yourselves, I would suggest some sleep," said Chiun.

Without even a whisper of sound, he left the room. Theodosia stared at the open door.

"How does he know what happened outside?" she asked.

"Because he is the Master of Sinanju," Remo said. "Go to sleep."

But he did not take his own advice.

Chapter eight

When he arrived at the small suite of offices that housed Rev. Higbe Muckley's operation, there was a sign on the inside door.

It read: PLEASE WAIT. COMMUNING WITH GOD.

Inside the i

"Oh, God, their hearts were hardened and they do not hear our message," Muckley said.

"Amen," said his secretary, who kept her back very straight because she had a tendency to fall over when she leaned too far forward.

"Open their hearts to Your goodness, so they will receive our message of the glories of faith," Muckley said. He reached his right hand around the back of his secretary and touched the side of her right breast, through the thin jersey material of her top.

"Amen," she said.

"Why do evildoers persist in the land?" the Reverend Muckley asked the piece of plaster on the wall. He cupped her breast in his right hand and felt its soft weight. It sent a tingle up his right arm as it always did.

"Amen," his secretary said. She leaned fractionally toward the right so all her breast could lay against Muckley's palm. He kneaded the flesh.

"Help us get rid of Pruiss and evil, etcetera etcetera, etcetera and I'll think of more later," Muckley said.

"Amen," the secretary said, as Muckley climbed on her.

"Don't forget 'Hallelujah,' Sister Cori

"First you got to give me a hallelujah, Reverend," said his secretary.

"Ask and you shall receive," said Muckley.

"Oh, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah," she said a few moments later.

The Reverend Higbe Muckley, A.B.D., A.C.D., B.C.D., and B.E.D., was sitting behind his desk when his secretary ushered Will Bobbin into the i

"Type those letters right up, Sister," he said.

"Yes, Doctor," she said. She winked at him, which Bobbin saw in the polished glass door of a wall-mounted bookcase.

He gri

Bobbin closed the office door.

"It's what I can do for you, Reverend," he said. He twisted the curl of hair over his right temple.

"What did you have in mind?"

"You've been bombing out," Bobbin said. "You've been here a couple of days already and nothing but yawns."

"It takes time to bring people to act against evil," Muckley said.

"Hogwash," Bobbin said. "You can't get these people riled up against Pruiss because he's cutting their taxes. That's the truth and you know it and I know it so let's not dawdle over that."

Muckley shrugged. "What do you have in mind, Brother?"

"I've got something that'll wake them up. Something more powerful than taxes. Something that'll get these people steamed and marching, just to make sure Pruiss gets his butt out of town."

"What would that be?" Muckley asked.

"More powerful than money," Bobbin said. "Sex."

Muckley looked up at him sharply.

"Picture this," said Bobbin. "Proof that Pruiss isn't out here for solar energy. He's out here to turn this nice middle-America, hogbelly and pancakes-for-breakfast county into the pornography capital of the United States? How about that?"