Chiun smiled, and tugged Remo away from the woman.
Harrison Caldwell felt his stomach tighten. His palms moistened and his lips went dry, and once again he felt fear. But he could not show fear. To this man he could show neither fear nor dishonesty. He was the one man you did not lie to. Nor did you use him carelessly. Shrewdly, Harrison Caldwell had kept him in reserve for only the right times, only the right missions. For as the family had said:
"Money, without a sword, is a gift for whoever has one." Harrison Caldweli had not used him for the professor who translated the stone, nor of course for the divers. Harrison Caldwell only used Francisco Braun when it was absolutely necessary. He was the last step.
Harrison Caldwell was one of the few men who knew how to use an assassin. One did not squander him for one's ego, nor belittle him as a hireling.
"Treat your sword as your daughter, and you will die of old age." And by that, it was meant that one did not go to one's sword willy-nilly for every niggling problem, or even every killing. Harrison Caldwell was not a squeamish man, but Francisco Braun could turn a stomach of iron to jelly. Sometimes, since he had found him, Harrison Caldwell wondered if Francisco knew just how terrifying he was. He had found Francisco on the Barcelona waterfront. Knowing he would need a sword to attain great wealth, he had gone to the worst section of Barcelona and asked for the name of the most ferocious killer.
Popular opinion led him to the man who ran a heroin-refining operation, known to kill his competition by breaking in their ribs and puncturing their lungs, letting them die by drowning, so to speak, in the very dry streets of Barcelona. Harrison Caldwell offered one hundred thousand dollars to the man who killed him. Caldwell's explanation was that he was seeking revenge for a relative who had died through drugs. When one offered a hundred thousand dollars, one did not need a very good explanation.
Though Barcelona's streets became littered with still men and caved chests, still they came from around the world. Whites, blacks, yellows came and died in the streets of Barcelona. Harrison Caldwell himself read about these things safely from a Paris hotel suite.
Then, after three weeks of carnage, the drug dealer was found in bed with his stomach ever so neatly fricasseed, and a gentle blond man came to the hotel asking for his money. At first, Caldwell could not believe such a pretty young man could have been the killer. The concierge downstairs thought him a male prostitute, a homosexual prostitute, such was the gentleness of the features. But something about the man's ease told Harrison Caldwell this pretty young man had done the job.
"I promised a hundred thousand dollars," Caldwell said. "I lied. It is four hundred thousand dollars. One hundred thousand dollars now, and three hundred thousand dollars to come in a short time: in gold."
"Why three hundred thousand dollars?" said the young man.
"Because you will never work for anyone else again. You are my sword."
He waited while the young man thought this over. Caldwell knew that someone who could kill with this ferocity just might kill him for daring to say such a thing. But if he said yes, Harrison Caldwell would have his sword.
"Yes," said Francisco Braun. As soon as Harrison Caldwell discovered that uranium was the missing element, his sword had work. And precise work too. He could take out a man's eyes as easily as he could help someone "in his sleep." Francisco Braun could kill anywhere and at any time, and perfectly. Just the day before, as the gold had come finally pouring out of its destiny, Francisco Braun had killed the one link between the uranium trucks and his master. It was Francisco's idea to hire a thug to do the killing and then have him picked up. He was a murdering genius and though Francisco talked little about himself, what Caldwell had pieced together of his background confirmed that killing came naturally to Braun. He was the grandson of a Nazi war criminal who had fled to Uruguay and had joined the local police. Young Francisco, too, had joined the police, forming a squad of such ferocity that they made terrorists look pale. And then strangely one day, Francisco switched to the urban guerrilla army. And his explanation was:
"There were fewer rules as to how one killed." Caldwell did not press further. This day, he had the three hundred thousand dollars in gold ready for Francisco. But every time he thought of paying him, his due and extra, he felt his palms grow moist with fear. Of course, he had been trained not to show it.
"Mr. Caldwell," was all Francisco had said.
"Francisco," was all Caldwell had said, sitting erect in his chair as though enthroned.
Harrison Caldwell had little flat bars made for Francisco, bars stamped with the Caldwell imprint. Three hundred thousand dollars in gold didn't even cover the leather blotter on the rosewood desk.
Francisco looked at it and clicked his heels. Caldwell wondered if one day this beautiful, deadly young man would turn on him.
"Francisco," he said, "we have a problem. I believe some people in the nuclear facility at McKeesport, Pennsylvania, are beginning to establish a trail. It is our wish, Francisco, that since we cannot cover the trail completely, the trackers be removed."
Caldwell explained that the head of security, according to his reports, had found a trail of bills of lading that led to the trucks, indicating they were full, not empty. She had with her two men of apparent superior ability.
"On this matter, Francisco, I do not want attention."
"Yes, Mr. Caldwell."
"Do you have anything against killing a woman?"
"I like women," said Francisco Braun. He said this with a smile. "I like them very much."
The proud Islamic Knights didn't like the idea of killing a woman. Or a yellow man. The white would be no problem-in fact they might do him for nothing. There was general laughter in the holy mosque temple, a former jitterbug hall in Boston. A faggy white guy was putting up a lot of bread to off three people. The proud Knights had offed people just to see if a new gun worked. A white reporter came around one day, and they told him that Hitler should have killed all the Jews and then the rest of the whites. They dug Hitler. All those uniforms and concentration camps.
When some Jews called their statement vicious and anti-semitic, the newspaper attacked the Jews. After all, blacks were now the official oppressed minority. Jews were out. Blacks were in. The paper called the Islamic Knights a positive social movement.
The faggy white guy was offering a thousand dollars now in cash, and eighty thousand dollars when they were done. They all knew what they would do. They would take the thousand, off the three, including the woman and the yellow man, take the eighty thousand dollars and then rip off the man's watch, and maybe off the man.
Some of them thought he was pretty enough to keep. They kept people, usually women, in rooms with locks. Sometimes they sold them. Sometimes they bought them. They had nothing to do with any Arab movement or any real Islamic movement, although they tried. The police called it breaking and entering when they were caught stealing a rug from a mosque. They called it reaching out for prayer understanding.
Again, the local newspaper sent down the reporter, who saw all manner of integrity in the young men. When he heard a knocking in one of the closets, he asked what it was.
"She be wantin' food. Peoples say we be doin' slavery. We gotta feed dem ladies. We gotta keep 'em in clothes. Hell, it worse than keepin' a dog." Thus spoke the exalted imam, supreme leader.
The reporter was offered the woman as a friendly gesture. He returned to write about a misunderstood group seeking free enterprise, and called for a dialogue between the Knights and community leaders. He did not mention the desperate knocking coming from the doors. Nor did he mention that the rug belonging to the real mosque of Lebanese Sunnis was being sold right before his eyes. He had the black beat, and he didn't see how mentioning those unpleasantries would have any bearing on the stories. His story was about black men with the courage to stand up to pressure groups and criticism.
Francisco Braun knew what he was buying. He was buying very sloppy killers. They probably had practiced on relatives first, then neighbors, and then branched out. Braun understood that every judge who released these killers back into the community had probably been responsible for more black deaths than any Ku Klux Klan chapter during the height of lynchings at the turn of the century.
Francisco Braun did not care. He had seen their kind in the slums of the world. They did not even make good guerrillas. If Francisco Braun were to stage a black revolution in America, he would not use these, but those middle-class blacks who struggled to build homes and send their children to school. They were soldiers. This was garbage. But garbage was what he needed. Lots of it. "I want a massacre," said Francisco.
"De green gotta be seen, man."
"Certainly," said Francisco. He felt one of them sidle up close to him. To understand these people one had to know that a thousand dollars now was more important than a country later. They were probably thinking robbery, and possibly even male rape. Many men thought that when they saw the tender features of Francisco Braun.
Francisco smiled gently, and with a smooth, practiced motion, put a twenty-five-caliber Beretta into the bulging pants of the young man sidling up to him, and sent a slug into the bulge. There were some very pearlwhite teeth grinning back at him from an asphalt-black face.
Though a pumping red ooze seeped from the crotch of his pants, the pain had yet to show in the young man's face. The grin, Francisco knew, was the first reaction, the total disbelief of what had been done. The Islamic Knights understood they were not dealing with a social worker or a reporter. They were packed into three cars by evening.
They stopped to rape and pillage a farmhouse in New Jersey until the figure of Francisco Braun appeared at the doorway.
"Keep moving," said Francisco.
In Pennsylvania the three carloads complained that they had been without entertainment for fifteen hours. They were suffering withdrawal symptoms. Francisco asked for someone to enumerate all their needs. They picked the supreme imam leader. Francisco listened to all the requests politely, then shot out his eyes. The three carloads did not stop until they reached a suburb of McKeesport, and the address Mr. Caldwell had given him.
At that point, Francisco laid out machine guns, machetes, pistols, and a few hand grenades on the hoods of the cars. The young Knights could not believe their good luck. Not only were they going to off this white, they were going to cut him into pieces.
"They're loaded," said Francisco. "In that house, down there," he said, pointing from a ridge down to a ranch house with a lit living room and three figures present around a table, "are three people without weapons. I, on the other hand, have a pistol. I can kill at least three of you before you kill me. I won't tell you which three. Now the choice is between three defenseless people who have done nothing to you, and me, a man who would like nothing better than putting blood spots on your black skin. Your choice."
And then he smiled very sweetly. It took the Islamic Knights less than a full second to decide. With a cry of holy war they grabbed their weapons and ran screaming toward the ranch house in the little valley.
Francisco Braun knew that a mass attack like this could not be stopped. He had seen it before. No matter how bad they were, the fury of the Knights' assault, combined with numbers, would neutralize any skill. He would have liked to do the job himself, but Mr. Caldwell had stressed he wanted distance from the crime. Too bad. There was a woman there, too. He liked women. He would have liked that woman. She was so beautiful. He ached for a woman. Sadly he turned back to his car. He could not bear to watch the pack having all the fun.
Sometimes, he thought, money did not pay for all the longing in him. But he knew that working for Mr. Caldwell, there would always be more women. As Mr. Caldwell had said:
"Great wealth needs a great sword. You, Francisco Braun, are my sword. Plan on it being moist."
And Francisco knew he had found the one man he wanted to work for, knew it even as he knelt on one knee before his lord.
Sadly, Francisco got into his own car. The shooting should be starting now. He turned to his engine. Perhaps that had blocked the sound. He opened the window. Still no sound. He had given them AK-47's, an excellent field weapon, perhaps the best. Nothing. Not even a grenade going off or the sound of a machete. Francisco Braun got out of the car and looked down into the valley. An old man in flowing robes was returning into the house. Three carloads of ghetto youths lay in the driveway. There had not even been a yell. Not a cry.
Now loud sounds came from the house. A man was growling, something about cleaning up bodies. The older man, the Oriental, turned his back on the younger, the white. The white was complaining.