“So what do you want from me? Weave a little. Come on, Little Father.”

  Amanda was hauling her luggage straps back up over her shoulders and cursing under her breath as the two Masters of Sinanju headed over to the long, flat building.

  The big hangar door was rolled open wide. When they paused near the corrugated steel wall, they sensed no one inside.

  “I smell oil,” Remo said. “Not more than normal, though.”

  Chiun was peering in at the shadowed ceiling of the hangar. “There are none of those devices for spraying acid,” he observed. His hands sought refuge in the voluminous sleeves of his kimono.

  Remo glanced across the tarmac. Amanda was halfway toward them, lugging her heavy bags.

  “Let’s hope it just doesn’t mean there’s a whole new surprise inside,” Remo muttered.

  Without another word, the two men slipped around the wall of the hangar and disappeared inside.

  From the Macapa airport security shed, Herr Hahn watched the two Masters of Sinanju duck inside the hangar.

  He was sweating and panting as he sat in his chair. It wasn’t fear, but exertion. He almost hadn’t gotten here before them. Even now his own private jet was cooling down on the other side of the airport.

  He was himself again. Back in full control.

  Oh, there was a moment or two back in Geneva when he had allowed fear to take control from reason. But even that had been exciting in a bizarre way.

  Other men in his profession had walked that uncertain path before—between success and failure, life and death. Possibly even Benson Dilkes himself, although Herr Hahn had his doubts about that. Since Hahn had known only success, his failure back in Switzerland had given him a certain twisted thrill. But that was gone now.

  These two celebrated assassins had become the challenge of a lifetime. Herr Hahn would meet that challenge with greater caution than he had ever exercised before. And in the end, the victory would be savored as none other.

  Hahn wasn’t sure what they were able to sense. He knew to his marrow that they’d felt his binoculars trained on them back in Geneva. Did whatever sense they possessed extend to electronic surveillance equipment?

  He had no way of knowing if they’d noticed the heat-sensing equipment at Hubert St. Clair’s chalet and had simply chosen to ignore it. If so, with luck, they might do the same thing here.

  There were only a few cameras at the small airport. Two at the main terminal, the rest positioned around the private hangars. Herr Hahn chose not to focus all cameras on the two men. Rather, he let the devices pan back and forth in their normal automated cycles.

  He saw them deplane, then missed them for a full minute as the woman got her luggage. The cameras rotated, and he caught just a glimpse of them on their way into the hangar.

  The woman was alone. She was heading in the direction of the Masters of Sinanju, but right at this one moment she was completely vulnerable.

  How easy it would be to slip out of the security shed unseen. A single bullet would put an end to her. Just as it had to the dead security officer who lay on his back on the floor near Herr Hahn’s briefcase.

  But a gunshot would bring the two men running. This wasn’t about the simple way out. This was all about tactics and victory. And maybe, just maybe, one last single moment of delicious fear before Herr Hahn achieved the greatest triumph in his professional career.

  Dense jungle foliage around the back and sides cooled the hangar by ten degrees. Alert now to the unexpected, Remo and Chiun made their cautious way around the CCS jet.

  The door behind the cockpit was down, the attached stairs almost welcoming them inside.

  “If it’s a trap, I’m not getting anything from it,” Remo said cautiously.

  The Master of Sinanju’s face was impassive. “I sense no danger, either,” he admitted.

  “Good,” Remo said. “If it starts shaking us like a paint mixer or launches us into space, we can both take equal blame.”

  “Very well,” Chiun agreed. “But if something goes wrong, the Sacred Scrolls will show your equal blame to be greater than mine.” He nudged Remo up the stairs at the point of a long nail.

  The recycled air inside the jet had grown foul the instant it was exposed to Macapa air. Remo noted another smell lingering along with the stale air. It was the same odor they’d picked up back in Switzerland.

  “I smell German,” Remo said. “Think it’s our guy?”

  The Master of Sinanju nodded. “It is too weak for whoever it is to have flown here on board this craft. The German who boarded this plane did so long after it landed.”

  Remo nodded. “Thought so,” he said. “He must have gotten here ahead of us.”

  They stepped more cautiously as they continued deeper into the plane.

  There was a conference area halfway down the jet. A big map of the Amazon had been left unfolded on a low table. Remo saw that a large circle had been made in blue ink around an area of jungle miles inland.

  “Well, they don’t think very highly of us,” Remo complained. “Why didn’t they draw a bunch of arrows and write ‘This is not a trap’ at the bottom?”

  Disgusted, he tried folding the map. It was like those from the gas station. He could never fold them back up right, either.

  “Chiun?” he asked after his third try.

  Frowning with his entire face, the old Korean snatched the map from Remo’s hands. It folded quickly before vanishing up a wide kimono sleeve. He twirled away in a flurry of robes.

  There was nothing else for them inside. When they went back into the hangar, Remo popped the door to the cargo hold. A vague whiff of ammonia told them where the seeds had been stored. The hold was empty.

  “We know for sure where he brought them now,” Remo said. “They just better be at that hotel, because I don’t feel like schlepping off into the jungle.”

  He was interrupted by Amanda Lifton, who chose that moment to stick her head in through the main hangar door.

  “Remo, Chiun, come quick!” she cried. “Hurry!” Fearing the worst as she ducked back outside, the two Sinanju Masters flew for the door. When they emerged into the sunlight, they found Amanda standing a few yards from the hangar, surrounded by her pastel pink luggage. She was staring across the tarmac, a look of near rapturous bliss on her sweating face.

  A new private jet had landed and taxied to a stop. People milled around the plane.

  “You’re not going to believe it,” Amanda said. “I just saw him.” She was craning her neck for a better look.

  “Who?” Remo asked. “St. Clair?” He looked hopefully at the small crowd.

  He didn’t see the head of the CCS. All attention seemed to be focused around the thin, balding man in sunglasses who had just stepped into view.

  When she saw the man reappear, Amanda grabbed Remo by the arm. Her digging nails pressed white finger marks in his skin.

  “Geez, lady, lay off,” Remo snarled.

  A single tap on the back of her wrist and her hand sprang back open. Amanda hardly noticed.

  “Don’t you recognize Prick?” she asked.

  Remo turned to the Master of Sinanju. “Did she just insult me again?” he said, assuming this was some new slang phrase he’d missed.

  “Do not look at me,” the old Korean said. “English when practiced by the modern British is confusing enough. I have long given up trying to keep track of whatever it is you Americans do to vulgarize it.

  “Prick is a world-famous singer,” Amanda explained. “You must have heard of him.”

  Remo looked back over at the new arrival, eyes narrowing. The man in the sunglasses wore an opennecked shirt and a pair of torn jeans. Remo realized that he had indeed seen him before.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, nodding. “He’s the one and only loudmouth in the music business who’s always spouting off about something or other like he’s the world’s freaking nanny. Good thing there’s not more like him or no one would ever take music stars seriously.”

  A pair of loincloth-wearing natives stepped down from the plane. They carried spears, blowguns and copies of Rolling Stone with their pictures on the cover. Remo recognized them from the Primeval Society benefit concert in New York.

  Amanda watched Prick eagerly as he and the tribesmen stepped over to a waiting limo. The flush to her cheeks was no longer due solely to the Brazilian heat.

  “He’s done a great job focusing attention on the plight of the rain forest,” Amanda breathed.

  “Beats working for a living,” Remo said. “You think he has to use that name because of truth-in-advertising laws?” To the Master of Sinanju, he said, “Chiun, can I see that map for a minute?”

  The old Korean produced the map they’d found on the CCS plane from the folds of his kimono, handing it to Remo.

  “He’s here for the big Pan Brazil Eco-Fest,” Amanda said as she watched photographers swarm the limo. Something big and papery crinkled in front of her face, blocking her view of Prick. “What’s that?” she asked. Leaning back, she saw it was a map.

  “Your buddy St. Clair and his hired killer left it for us to find,” Remo said. “Any idea what’s there?” He pointed to the circled section.

  Amanda shook her head. “No,” she said worriedly. “The CCS does a lot of work down here. It could be a project I don’t know about. Did you say the killer was here?”

  Remo nodded. “He must have got here just before us.”

  Suddenly, Prick was forgotten. “And you let me out here to fend for myself alone?” she said, aghast. “He could be anywhere, and you abandoned me? You—you incompetents!”

  Frantically, she grabbed up only one of her bags. Using it as a pink shield, she covered her head and went running for the terminal.

  Remo handed the map back to Chiun. “I’m glad we don’t really work for her,” he groused. “That servant-bashing is starting to get on my nerves.” He cast a raised eyebrow at Amanda’s abandoned luggage. “Should I?” he sighed.

  “Why?” the Master of Sinanju replied blandly. “There must be something in them the street urchins of this squalid land could use.”

  Turning, he padded off toward the terminal. Remo nodded. “Consider it the first shot in the battle for servants’ rights,” he said to himself. With a mental image of dozens of Brazilian beggars dressed in Amanda Lifton’s pink nighties, he struck off after Chiun.

  Herr Hahn watched them go. First the girl, then the men.

  Hahn had seen everything he wanted to see on the security monitors. They had taken the bait. The Masters of Sinanju had the map.

  It was still possible he could get one or two of them before they left Macapa but, if not, true success would inevitably come up the dark depths of the Amazon. Hubert St. Clair wouldn’t approve of his actions. But this was no longer about his employer.

  Leaving the body of the murdered security officer to rot in the heat of the small shed, Herr Hahn hurried out into the stifling Brazilian afternoon.

  Chapter 16

  The grand old-world style of the four-star Macapa hotel belonged to the Portuguese colonizers who had left Brazil one hundred years before. Remo and Chiun stepped easily through the revolving door. Amanda struggled to haul her last surviving bag inside.

  A huge chandelier hung over the central staircase. Red carpets stretched across polished marble floors. A fountain gurgled in the middle of the lobby.

  When she took one look around the ornate lobby, Amanda almost burst into tears.

  “Isn’t it magnificent?” she said with a melancholy sniffle. “I used to live in places like this. I practically grew up on room service.”

  For years Remo had lived the life of a hotel vagabond. His home of a decade had put an end to that nomadic existence. Now his house was gone. Smith had been tolerant of Remo and Chiun living at Folcroft, but that wouldn’t last forever. Remo knew as he looked across that fancy hotel lobby that he was looking into his own inevitable future.

  “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Remo muttered.

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” Amanda snapped. “You think a lunatic might be on the loose down here, and you left me out to fend for myself. Plus you left my bags to get stolen. Believe me, mister, Daddy’s going to get an earful about you. I was talking to Chiun.”

  She pointedly offered Remo her back. “Isn’t it magnificent, Chiun?”

  The old man’s hazel eyes were flat as he examined the lobby. “I will be waiting outside,” he announced abruptly.

  Turning on his heel, he headed out the front doors.

  “What did I say?” Amanda asked.

  “Don’t mind him,” Remo said. “It’s just a thing we both have about hotels.”

  As they headed for the front desk, Remo heard a commotion at his back. When he glanced over his shoulder he saw a familiar figure step through the revolving door.

  Prick surveyed the lobby like a visiting king. His entourage—including his two rain forest natives—hurriedly filed in around him.

  “We better hurry’ up,” Remo grumbled to Amanda. “It’s crowded enough in here without his ego.”

  Amanda was looking longingly back at Prick as Remo dragged her over to the desk.

  The clerk ignored them. He was staring excitedly past them, dark eyes directed at the singer at the door.

  Remo rang the bell.

  The desk clerk continued to ignore him.

  Remo took the desk clerk by the bow tie and stuffed his head into one of the mail slots behind the desk.

  “You’re violent,” Amanda accused.

  “You’re just noticing?” Remo asked blandly.

  As the desk clerk flailed frantically, another clerk and the hotel manager breezed in to help Remo.

  “Would you like a room, señor?” the manager asked, a nervous eye trained on his employee with the wedged head.

  “No,” Remo said. “What room is Hubert St. Clair’s?”

  “Ah,” the manager said, casting a glance over the register. “He is on the tenth floor. Room 1008. Shall I tell him he has a visitor?”

  “No,” Remo said. He held up a warning finger. “And don’t you go telling him we’re on our way up after we’re gone, or I’ll mail your head to Caracas.”

  The manager assured the very dangerous visitor that he wouldn’t dream of alerting Dr. St. Clair, thus depriving Dr. St. Clair of the unexpected joy of his surprise guest’s wonderful visit.

  “No cops, either,” Remo warned. “Your head to Caracas and your ass to Pittsburgh if I see one cop down here.”

  The manager had no idea why he should even consider summoning the police. He was sending his assistant to the kitchen to get some cooking grease in order to unstick the head of the desk clerk as Remo and Amanda left the desk.

  By now Prick’s entourage was fully assembled. He had just finished a quick photo session with the organizers of the concert he was to perform at and was sweeping across the lobby toward the desk.

  Amanda gasped. “He’s coming this way,” she hissed. “Pretend we’re not together.”

  “Isn’t he married?” Remo asked.

  “Right, like that means anything,” she mocked. “He’s got more money than God. Not as much as Daddy, but I’m sick of being poor. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “I’m rich in other ways,” Remo said.

  “Spoken like a pauper,” Amanda replied from the corner of her mouth. “How’s my hair?”

  Unseen by Amanda, as they walked across the carpet Remo slid his feet back and forth in a few blindingly fast sweeps. He touched his finger to her head, and the resulting static electricity sent every strand of hair sticking up wildly in every direction.

  “Perfect,” Remo said.

  “Good,” Amanda whispered. “Now stay back and look servile.”

  She was smiling at Prick as he walked by. She wondered why, instead of smiling back, his handlers hurried him away as if she were some kind of lunatic. She wondered about this only until she caught her reflection in a decorative lobby mirror and saw every hair on her head standing up on end.

  Like a shrieking tumbleweed, Amanda dove onto the elevator.

  Feeling good about doing two nice things for himself in the same week, Remo followed her on board.

  He watched them step onto the elevator.

  There were only the two of them—the apprentice Sinanju Master and the Lifton woman. The Reigning Master of Sinanju had gone outside.

  Herr Hahn didn’t know much about the Korean assassins. Probably their reputation was mostly just legends and tricks. The young Sinanju Master was certainly fast. He had seen that now firsthand.

  Hahn switched his attention to the front desk. Hotel employees were still trying to extricate the desk clerk’s head from the mail slot. Someone had a foot braced against the wall as others tugged at the man’s ankles. Another man was dumping a frying pan filled with grease over the back of the desk clerk’s neck.

  The American Master of Sinanju had speed and finesse. But he was, in the end, just a man. No matter what Herr Hahn’s mentor might think. He refocused his attention to Remo and Amanda.

  They were standing at the back of the old-fashioned elevator car behind the elderly lift operator. While the Lifton woman tried to push down her suddenly wild hair, the young Master of Sinanju just stared.

  His eyes were cold and dead. Herr Hahn had seen hints of such coldness in eyes before. In his own, in those of Benson Dilkes, in the eyes of a hundred other contract killers. But this was cold to a degree that even Hahn had not seen. To look in those eyes was to peer into the very act of sudden, violent death itself.

  “Just a man,” Hahn assured himself.

  He shifted his gaze from Remo’s dead eyes, turning attention to the tenth-floor monitor.

  The room he was in was cramped, the air fetid. A battered air conditioner labored loudly in the grimy window. It did nothing to cool the room or clean away the smell. For all the times he had delivered it, Herr Hahn never much cared for the stink of death.

  The body of a hotel security guard ripened on the floor behind him. The wide slit across his throat smiled red at the dirty ceiling tiles.

  The elevator car finally rose into view on the tenth floor behind a closed metal grate. The elevator operator pulled the gate open and ushered Remo and Amanda off the car. The elevator was descending as they made their way up the hall.