The plane’s motors strained under the weight of the cargo, putting unwitting populations at risk with each town the plane passed over.
The jet had but one passenger, and the stewardess (who had become resigned to the fact that the passenger was never going to use the phrase “flight attendant”) was wheeling the catering cart for the third time from the galley in the back. She had wondered why such a large quantity of food was being loaded before takeoff, especially for a chartered flight carrying just one man. Now she wondered if they had packed enough, and whether the tires would survive the impact with the tarmac when the pilot and co-pilot finally brought them in for a landing. She knew one thing for certain—she wasn’t going to be anywhere nearby when they were looking for someone to clean the restroom.
The mid-seat armrests had been removed, opening up the row of three seats for the girth of Asashoryu Hakuho. A paper bucket sat in the aisle, overflowing with the shiny calcium carcasses of chickens who had given their lives for the benefit of The Big As Ho. “Stewardess!” he grumbled in a deep baritone that shook through the plane like turbulence.
The pert little blonde sighed. Chin up, shoulders back, tits out, she thought to herself as she pushed the cart up beside The Big As Ho, nudging the chicken bucket away with the tip of her flats.
“More chicken, Mr. Hakuho?” she asked. She hoped not, as the rotisserie was now an empty cage of grease droppings.
“When do we land?” he growled. He untied the garbage-bag sized bib that protected his shirt from dribbles. Nothing protected his chins, however, so he used a fistful of wet napkins to push crumbs from the furrowed expanse of rubbery flesh that ran from his lower lip to his collarbone.
Not soon enough, she thought. As if in answer to her silent prayer, a chime sounded and the pilot’s voice came through the speakers. “We’re about 90 kilometers out from Jersey Airport, and should be touching down in about 20 minutes. We hope you’ve enjoyed your flight and will keep us in mind the next time you need air travel.”
The stewardess rolled her eyes. Frank’s laying it on a bit thick for a single passenger, she thought. Then again, he gets the lion’s share of the money, so why shouldn’t he?
The Big As Ho smiled to himself. “Just enough time for dessert,” he rumbled. “Bring the pies,” he said.
“Right away, sir,” she said, with her best plastic smile. The pies were stored in a rolling pie safe in the galley. “Do you want the apple, cherry or coconut crème?”
The Big As Ho turned toward her, his cheeks all but obscuring his eyes.
“Yes,” he said with complete sincerity, and he licked his lips in anticipation.
· · ·
Remo could have ordered in. He could probably have asked Avital. Hell, a call to Smitty, and he could have had a personal chef sent to the room. But as much as he didn’t want to leave Chiun’s side, he also needed the air, to stretch his legs—to breathe.
He purposefully took a route that avoided pedestrian traffic. With every passing hour, he could feel his center slipping. He paused beneath a tree, and inhaled, inhaled until his lungs were stretched to capacity, and held it. Then he released it, all at once, with a scream that was as much a part of his basic Sinanju training as it was a much needed release of frustration.
Almost instantly, he felt more centered—so much so that he was surprised at how off-centered he had become. He noticed his skin was more sensitive to the air currents. He noticed the sound of the leaves brushing against each other at the top of the tree.
He noticed the SUV.
· · ·
The SUV had the rear seats removed to make room for The Big As Ho. The girls had told him that his target had been followed to a charter plane in Syria, and that this plane had filed a flight plan to Jersey. They had described the man with the skinny body and the thick wrists, but it was The Big As Ho who figured out a man of such power would demand a place that bespoke such power. The driver of the SUV had grown impatient, but was too afraid to leave the car after his first attempt had earned him a crushed shoulder from a beefy paw. Fortunately he had the extra-large cup that had begun its day full of coffee, and which having been emptied was now approaching being full of kidney-filtered coffee.
When the skinny man with the thick wrists stepped out the front of La Haule Manor, it was with a mixture of dread and relief that the driver obeyed the grumbled order to follow him, slowly and at a distance. The vehicle shook, and the driver wondered if they were experiencing aftershocks from the recent earthquake that still had everyone talking. When he checked his rearview mirror, he saw that the shaking was caused by his passenger, who was chuckling giddily as he watched the man in the khaki slacks wander off into the open park away from the road.
The walking man then stopped and seemed to sag, then released a roar into the sky. They’re both crazy, the driver decided.
“Park here,” The Big As Ho growled, when the thin man turned and looked directly at the SUV. “I will only be moments.”
“Yes, sir,” the driver lied.
· · ·
If Chiun weren’t nearly dead, this would kill him, Remo scolded himself when he realized just how out of tune he had become. He had foolishly thought that the only symptom he was experiencing from the global quakes was the persistent waves of nausea—and, of course, there was the impending coma he had to look forward to. The other symptoms had been so subtle he had not even noticed them. Now that he knew about them, he couldn’t help but be keenly aware of how muffled they were getting.
He could feel the gazes coming at him from the SUV just long enough to be alerted to its presence. Now that he stared back at it, he saw the passenger door slide open. The SUV disgorged a gelatinous mass of flesh and black silk. Once the opening was cleared, the SUV took off with a squeal of its tires, the passenger door sliding almost shut from the inertia.
The blob of flesh stood and took on a form something like a man. The face appeared pinched and tiny on the blob that passed for a head, but Remo realized it was a regular sized face—it was the head that was fat.
The face grinned as the shoulders sloughed off the black silk kimono, showing off the rolls and rolls of flesh. Only a shimmering black mawashi kept the figure on the legal side of decency.
A thick beefy arm raised and pointed directly at Remo. Somewhere a storm must have been coming in, because a sound like thunder rolled across the park, sounding an awful lot like “You!”
“About time somebody sent somebody after me,” Remo said. “I was starting to feel unappreciated. Care to tell me where your check comes from? I probably already know who signed it, but knowing where they are would really save me a lot of time.”
The Big As Ho assumed his attack stance, coming at Remo. He stomped once. Then he stomped with the other leg.
And, because the gods have a sense of humor, when he stomped the third time, the ground shook across the entirety of the island. In the distance, Remo could hear people screaming and things crashing, as the P-waves washed over his body, bringing renewed disorientation and nausea. Somewhere somebody was laughing, and Remo realized the sound was coming from the nearly-naked giant who had somehow appeared right next to him.
Two fleshy arms with the girth of tree trunks and the consistency of bags of pancake batter wrapped themselves around his shoulders, crushing in on him with an elephantine weight. Remo made quick strikes with the fingertips of both hands where he hoped the man’s kidneys were. He broke the skin and sank his fingers into the knuckles.
The man only laughed harder and squeezed tighter. Remo wanted to vomit—partly because he thought about all the human grease that now coated his fingers. His vision blackened around the edges until all he could see was the leering face of the human python. His range of motion was limited, and every nerve cluster he considered striking, he realized, was buried under so much insulation that they were almost impossible to reach. Nearly all of the man was padded.
Nearly all, Remo realized. He drew his neck back and struck with his forehead hard against the bridge of the walking whale’s nose. He felt the satisfying crackle like popping a wad of bubble wrap, and felt a rush of wetness against his face. As he dropped to the ground, he rolled on impact and rose to his feet in a single smooth action.
Free from the crushing grip and able to breathe once more, Remo now had infinite opportunities to finish his opponent quickly. Quickly, however, wasn’t the way Remo wanted this to go. Someone had obviously sent this guy after him, which meant he had to be getting close to Walker, and this guy was going to tell Remo everything he needed to know to find him.
The man-mountain reached blindly for Remo, blood from his nose painting his face and stinging his eyes. Since that seemed to irritate him, Remo’s arm flashed out and his fingernails grazed the brute’s forehead. A thin red line appeared and began to weep redness down over his eyebrows.
“Come on, sweetheart,” said Remo. “Tell me where the preacher is while you can still talk.”
In reply, The Big As Ho lunged for Remo, flailing blindly. Remo sidestepped him easily, but in the fat man’s current state almost anyone could avoid him. Remo tripped him just for fun, then wished he hadn’t as the impact with the gravel path through the greenspace caused his mawashi to slip and expose more than just his gelatinous glutes.
Remo stood by patiently as The Big As Ho pushed himself back to his feet. “Enough!” he roared. “Now you will face the power of The Big As Ho!”
Remo rolled his eyes. It was always the worst when they named themselves. “Normally, I could go on like this all day, lardass, but I’m on a bit of a deadline,” Remo said. He glanced around, and his eyes fell on the knee-high posts that lined the walkway. They were each tipped with solar lamps so that the path would be lit in the evenings. “So are you going to tell me where the reverend is or not?”
The Big As Ho shook as he chuckled. “Why do you continue to ask for a holy man? Is it because you know you are going to die?”
Remo sighed. “Let’s see if I can jog your memory,” he said. He stepped in close to The Big As Ho, slipping his leg behind one ankle, ducking his head out of the range of the groping arms, and pushing against his alternate shoulder.
The Big As Ho was swiveled about, and brought to a crunching seated position. His eyes grew wide and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
Having a two-foot post shoved up his backside gave The Big As Ho an amazing amount of total recall. Remo took advantage of this situation with a quick interrogation and learned:
“I don’t know about any reverend. Please help me.”
“It was the women. I think I’m dying.”
“They wired the money to my account. I’m going to be sick.”
“They did not say where they were. Oh God.”
“Exact words? One said ‘Goodbye.’ The other said ‘Do svidaniya’ and laughed, and the first one told her to shut up. I need a doctor.”
When Remo knew he wasn’t going to get any more information, he put his hand on The Big As Ho’s shoulder and pulled him forward, stepping back and walking away as he did. The results of the angular extraction left The Big As Ho with what the attending medical examiner would write down in his autopsy notes as “the worst case of rectal prolapse in known history.”