“Who’re you?” one of the men grunted as they approached the trio.

  “We’re the survivors from that wreck,” Remo said.

  “G’wan,” one of the men said, waving his gun. “Nobody coulda come out of that crash alive.”

  “Would I lie to you?” Remo said amicably, kicking one pistol out of sight and crushing the other into gravel in his hands. “Now can the tough guy crap and take us to your books.”

  The man who had held the disintegrated gun looked at the pieces lying on the ground, then at his companion, and shrugged. “I’m not going to give you no trouble,” he said, “but Big Ed don’t let nobody see his books.”

  “Let’s let Big Ed decide that.”

  Big Ed was a strapping middle-aged hippie with a mane of frizzy blond hair flowing down to the middle of his back like a Saxon warrior’s. He was a giant, more than six and a half feet tall, with a crushed nose and the mien of a man who had eluded the law for decades.

  He spoke only one word by way of greeting: “F-A-A?”

  “No,” Remo said. “P-I-S-S-E-D O-F-F. What’s the idea of not letting us land?”

  “This is a private airport,” Ed growled.

  “A Lear jet landed here this morning.”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “It picked up a passenger. I want to know where it took him.”

  “That’s confidential information,” Big Ed said. He whistled. From behind the counter appeared four Cubans who looked as if they spent their spare time pulverizing bowling balls with their teeth. “Boys, show this dude the door.”

  Remo moved toward the exit. “I can show myself the door.” He turned toward the door, opened it, and tore if off its hinges. With one swing, the Cubans lay sprawled, unconscious on the floor. “This is the door. Now where are your records?”

  Showing no trace of surprise, Big Ed pressed a button. A loud wail, like an air raid siren, sounded around the airport. Heavy footfalls rumbled toward them from all directions.

  “Commandos,” Ned said shakily, looking out the doorway.

  Chiun sighed. “And all with boom shooters.” With barely a movement, he knocked the old pilot to the floor. “Stay out of the way.”

  Ned crawled to a corner. He looked up at Big Ed meekly. “Don’t suppose you got a bar around here.”

  The blond giant drew a German machine pistol from behind the counter.

  “Didn’t think so,” Ned said.

  The Cubans were coming to, one by one. “You do the outside,” Remo said to Chiun. “I’ll take care of Conan the Barbarian.”

  Big Ed snorted, the closest thing to a human response Remo had seen him manage. “You had your chance,” he said, gesturing toward Remo with the weapon. The four Cubans advanced. One of them prepared for a roundhouse right in front of Remo. Another circled behind him. With perfect timing, the man behind him squeezed his arms around Remo while the other struck. Only at the moment of contact, the man behind Remo was squeezing dead air where Remo once was, and the one in front blasted his mighty blow directly into the face of his companion. The two others, scrambling in for the kill, found themselves suddenly in midair, hurtling through the windows at high speed.

  The shooting began. Big Ed’s auxiliary troops stationed outside the building opened fire as soon as they saw the Cubans fly out like two human cannonballs. The back wall filled up with plugs of spent ammunition as the bullets missed the frail figure of the old Oriental standing in the open doorway. He was a point-blank target, but still nothing could touch Chiun. He dodged each bullet with a movement so small and quick that it was impossible to follow. To the men firing from outside, the old man seemed to be absorbing the bullets like a foam rubber target, unhurt and unkillable.

  When the firing stopped, Chiun went outside. There was a scream, and then the thud of bodies breaking. From the broken window, Remo could see the guards falling, in twos and threes and fours, as the Master of Sinanju went about his work.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” Big Ed muttered, thrusting the machine pistol in front of him. He opened up on Remo. The thin figure in the T-shirt seemed to feint once to the right, and then was transformed into a blur, walking forward slowly. The pistol clicked, its magazine empty. Not one bullet had come close enough to Remo to muss his hair.

  “Couple of spooks,” the blond man said. “That’s some karma you two got, man.”

  “It comes from thinking good thoughts.”

  Ed threw the pistol and ducked out of sight behind the counter.

  Remo caught it with one hand. “Okay. Party’s over,” he said, following him. “Now, where are the…”

  There was no one there. Where the big blond man had stood, nothing remained but the black and white tiles of the floor. From the corner of the counter came a faint scratching sound. Remo turned toward the noise.

  It was Ned, crawling along the floor. “Is the coast clear?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Remo said, disgusted. “It’s clear, all right. The creep’s disappeared.”

  “Thank the Lord.” Ned spread out flat on the floor with a sigh of relief. “Hey,” he said, lifting his head. He was rubbing something on the floor. He dug at it with his fingernails. Surprisingly, the tile lifted, along with six others. Ned pulled it upward. A large square panel came away, revealing a deep hole with steps leading down. “What do you know,” the old pilot said. “A trapdoor. Something these dope wackos would put in, all right.”

  “Ned, you’re a saint,” Remo said. “Chiun! Over here.”

  Remo scrambled into the hole. Ned scurried in behind him. Above, Chiun speeded up his work with the few die-hards who remained to fight for their missing boss. Remo heard three more screams, then silence.

  Chiun met them at the end of the passageway leading from the trapdoor to the open shore of the ocean. Docked a half-mile away was a glittering eighty-foot yacht, rising majestically out of the sea beside a bobbing dinghy. Its small outboard motor was still running.

  “That’s where he went,” Remo said.

  “And he’s going to keep on going,” Ned said. “That ship’s pulling out.”

  He was right. The yacht was turning slowly, preparing to head out for open sea. “You’ll never catch him now. Ain’t no other boats here.”

  “My pupil and I do not require boats,” Chiun said haughtily. With that, he was in the water, heading toward the yacht at porpoise speed as Ned watched in amazement.

  “Why don’t you get back and call the police,” Remo suggested.

  “The cops? After what I seen you do, I’m calling Ripley’s Believe It or Not.”

  “Better make it the cops,” Remo said. “By the way, don’t bother mentioning my friend or me. We don’t exist.”

  “Anything you say,” Ned said, smiling. “Hope you get where you’re going. If you ever want to fly anywhere, call me. I’m in the book.”

  Remo smiled once and then vanished below the water.

  Moments later, they were on deck. Big Ed was at the helm, the wind streaming through his wild hair; he was oblivious to the silent approach of the two men behind him. All he knew was that, within a fraction of a second, the ocean stretching in front of him was replaced by a close-up view of Remo’s face, inches away from his own, and that his windpipe had inexplicably ceased functioning.

  “I can kill you, or I can let you live,” Remo said. “What’ll it be?”

  Big Ed pointed to his throat.

  “Talk?” Remo asked. Ed’s blue lips opened and shut like a flounder’s. His head slapped back and forth in a nod.

  Remo kept his finger on the man’s windpipe. “Where’d the Lear jet go?” He released the tension slightly.

  “Abaco,” the man gasped. “The Bahamas. About an hour east of Grand Bahama Island.”

  “Who was flying it?”

  “A woman. Don’t know her name. Had a big scar running down her face. That’s all I know, honest. Look, take the boat. It’s yours. Just don’t kill me, okay?”

  “That’s a deal,” Remo said. “Now, don’t forget to go straight home.” With a heave, he sent the man arcing high over the side of the ship and into the ocean with a splash like a fountain.

  He slapped his forehead. “The dinghy! He can escape in the dinghy.”

  “That has been taken care of,” Chiun said.

  By the time Big Ed reached the small boat, the fist-sized hole in the bottom had let in enough water to submerge all but the rim. He swore once, and looked up in despair at the two figures on the deck of the yacht.

  “You can make it to shore if you swim in a straight line,” Remo called.

  “The cops will help you ashore.” He waved as the sodden blond turned away and began the long swim back to land.

  The air crackled with the roar of a jet taking off. A few seconds later a small, sleek craft whistled overhead. It looped around and dipped low, buzzing just above the ship. The man in the pilot’s seat saluted. It was Ned.

  “Looks like he found a way home,” Remo said.

  Chiun nodded. “Let us hope we can say the same for Emperor Smith.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  GREATER ABACO ISLAND, it turned out, was not appreciably larger than the Houston Astrodome. If it hadn’t been for Chiun’s relentless search for TV antennae, Big Ed’s powerful boat would have passed it by in minutes. As it was, though, they arrived, with, Chiun estimated, plenty of time to catch the 3:00 P.M. airing of Ways of Our Days.

  “Quickly, a hotel,” Chiun said restlessly to Remo. “Preferably with cable reception. Also a vibrating bed.”

  Remo looked around at the unpainted shacks appearing at infrequent intervals between stretches of rock and greenery. From the deep natural harbor where they’d left the yacht, they had made their way to a single-lane dirt road where chameleons scattered before their feet. This, it seemed, was the island’s main thoroughfare.

  “I don’t think that’s going to be so easy, Little Father,” Remo said. “Besides, we don’t have time for soap operas. Smitty’s trapped here someplace.”

  “He who has no time for beauty is but half a person,” Chiun said.

  “And you won’t need the vibrating bed, either. Wait a minute. Someone’s coming.”

  Down the road, a tall black man was ambling gracefully toward them. When Remo jogged to meet him, the man’s face lit up with a broad smile.

  “You run too fast,” he said amiably. “’Round here, plenty of time for walking, taking things easy. That is the island way.”

  “I’m looking for someone,” Remo said, glad that the only person he’d managed to find seemed to be a cooperative fellow.

  “Yes? Maybe I know him. Abaco is a small place. Most folks know each other. ’Cept for South Shore, of course.”

  “Who’s at South Shore?”

  The black man chuckled. “Nobody you want to know. They put up the big fence, nobody can come in. The folks there, they stay inside the fence alla time.”

  “Doing what?”

  The man stuck his thumb in his mouth and threw his head back. “Drinking.” His eyes twinkled mischievously.

  “Oh,” Remo said. “Well, Smith’s not there.”

  “Your friend’s name is Smith?” He beamed. “I know Smith.”

  “You do?”

  “Naturally. Everybody here know Smith. Fat man, very sweaty, girls on him alla time?”

  “Wrong Smith,” Remo said. “This Smith is tall, gray haired, but he wears a hat…Actually, he’s pretty ordinary looking,” he mused half to himself. “But he might be with someone. A woman.”

  “White woman?”

  “I think so. All I know about her is that she has a scar on her face. A big one, I guess, running down the side…What’s the matter?”

  The smile had faded from the man’s face. He backed off, making the sign against evil with his fingers.

  “Do you know her?”

  “I don’t know nothing,” the man said. “I don’t see nothing. The South Shore not my business, okay?” He turned so quickly that he skidded on the dirt surface of the road, then headed at breakneck speed into the thick foliage of the hills.

  “Your charm has worked its usual magic, I see,” Chiun said as Remo walked back.

  “I don’t understand it. I just mentioned the woman with the scar, and he went berserk. But he said something about a place called South Shore. It doesn’t sound like Smitty’s kind of place, but if he was kidnapped, he might be there.”

  “It is as easy to walk south as north in this place,” Chiun said glumly.

  He was ecstatic by the time they’d walked a mile. South led into the village of Abaco, comprised of a grocery, a hardware store, and the Greater Abaco Beach Hotel, providing six rooms complete with television.

  “Twenty minutes to spare,” Chiun said, checking the sun. “Go and check us in at once.”

  “Come on, Chiun. What about Smitty? What about the way that guy freaked out when I mentioned the woman with the scar? Aren’t you even interested?”

  “I am interested in whether or not Dr. Sinclair knows that the wealthy widow he has just treated for manic depression is his long lost daughter,” he said angrily. “Besides, you want scar-faced white girls? Bring her along.”

  “Who?”

  “In the car,” Chiun said impatiently.

  Although there were only two automobiles on the road, a major traffic jam was in progress. One of the vehicles was a battered Land Rover, parked and empty in the middle of the street. The other was a white Opel, driving up onto the turf to pass the first car. Remo squinted through the bright sunlight to catch a glimpse of its driver.

  It was a woman. With a long scar on the side of her face.

  “How could you see that from here?” Remo asked.

  “How couldn’t you?” Chiun said, equally astonished.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ve got to stop her.” He ran toward the car, which had passed the blockage and was speeding up the road.

  Chiun sighed and picked up a small stone. “The brain of a tuna,” he said resignedly. He cast the stone.

  It spun through the air with a sound like a whip cracking. A split second later the Opel’s right rear tire burst and flattened, and the car shimmied to a halt.

  Remo stopped short. He turned back to Chiun. “Thanks, Little Father,” he said sheepishly. “I should have thought of that.”

  “The hotel,” Chiun reminded him.

  “Um…do you think you could register us?”

  “I? I do one favor for you and suddenly the Master of Sinanju is reduced to servant’s work?”

  “Then just wait inside for me,” Remo said, looking back quickly at the girl. She had gotten out of the car and was looking hopelessly at the blown-out tire. “You know how it is,” he said confidently. “Women are my specialty. I figure if I can have a few minutes alone with her, she’ll lead us to Smitty.”

  “Such is the power of your sex appeal?” Chiun’s face was bored.

  “Something like that. Just leave it to me.” He swaggered off toward the car.

  “Hi. Need some help?” He gave her his most winning smile.

  She returned it. Point one, Remo said to himself, taking in the woman’s face. She was a real beauty, all right. If anything, the scar made her look more interesting.

  “You’re staring,” she said. The deep sultriness of her voice pulled him out of his reverie.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right. I’m used to it. And yes, I accept your kind offer.” The accent was subtle and hard to place. She opened the trunk, and Remo lifted out the jack and the spare tire.

  “Do you live here?” he asked, hoping for a clue as to her origins.

  “Sometimes. But you don’t. I’ve never seen you before. A tourist?”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “A rare breed in these parts.”

  Remo jacked up the car and removed the tire, going slowly enough to give him the time he needed. “Say, I’ve heard some stories about the South Shore here. I guess that’s really a swinging place.”

  She hesitated. “I’m afraid you are mistaken,” she said cautiously, the rich voice losing its cheer.

  “Oh, I heard it was pretty wild. Lots of parties—”

  “I’ll finish that,” she said, reaching for the tire iron. Remo held it away from her.

  “C’mon. What kind of gentleman would I be if I didn’t finish the job? Why, just the other day I was telling my friend Harry Smith…”

  He saw her stiffen. “Oh, do you know him?” he asked casually. “He travels a lot. Tall guy, gray hair but wears a hat—”

  “I don’t know him,” she said harshly.

  So Big Ed was telling the truth. The woman was going to lead him directly to Smith.

  “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m rather in a hurry,” she said briskly.

  “Almost finished.” He placed the final lug nuts in place and stood up. “You know, I’m new here, and I’d really appreciate it if I could buy you a drink.”

  “I don’t drink,” she said.

  “Then how about dinner?”

  “It’s three o’clock in the afternoon.”

  “An after-school snack?” He brushed her left wrist. She shivered.

  Long ago the old Master had instructed Remo in the ancient arts of pleasuring women. It was one skill in which Remo excelled immediately. There were many ways of bringing a woman to ecstasy, but all of them began with the left wrist.

  Plays like a harp, he thought. Scar or no, this was one seduction he was going to enjoy.

  “I—I think not,” she stammered.

  In a seemingly accidental movement, he touched the outside of her thigh. “It would be a pleasure to see you,” he whispered close to her ear. The small hairs at the nape of her neck stood on end. “A pleasure.”

  “Perhaps you had better finish with the tire,” she said breathlessly. Her breasts swelled beneath the thin fabric of her dress. She was ready.

  “And then?”

  She brought her mouth to his. The sensation of her full lips pressing against him felt like electric velvet. “I’ll wait for you in the car,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Bingo. Five minutes, ten tops, and she’d tell him everything there was to know about Harold W. Smith. He stopped beside the jack.