“But I can get you with this finger,” Remo replied, and he used it to tap the plastic in a few places. Even over the sounds of confusion he could hear and feel how the plastic resonated with each tap, until his brain had identified a weak spot in the plastic. Then he tapped that spot quickly, creating a destructive vibration. The plastic shattered.
“Son of a—”
That was as far as the driver got. Remo palmed his head by the helmet and withdrew him from the cockpit, stretching him out and dragging him into the jagged shards of leftover plastic. He moved the driver in a circle, gashing his throat open completely all the way around.
Remo spotted the smoking ruins of another column of cars and glimpsed the rapid flash of Chiun heading toward the podium. Remo was already on his way—and it was already too late. Another column of cars was already reaching the podium, reaching it from the side opposite himself and Chiun. A pair of cars was making widening circles around the podium, driving back the crowds and cutting off the officials on the podium.
Remo heard another sound above the whine of the racers. A helicopter was coming. That couldn’t be good news.
Remo came upon a flame-throwing car so quickly the driver never saw him. He leaped, landed and took the front wheel of the racer in both hands, bringing it to a sudden halt. The other front wheel tried to move but shuddered on the pavement as the rear end flew up. The driver wore a shocked look. The racer landed upside down, flamethrower still spurting and creating a pool of flaming liquid under the car.
The second flame-throwing racer came straight at him, revving up, spurting flame, and Remo ran to meet it. It looked like a suicidal game of chicken. Remo was feeling a great deal of satisfaction from the fact that the crowds had fled. He had lots of room to work with. He skirted the line of flame and walked onto the cowling of the grand prix racer, grabbing the flamethrower nozzle and making a quick adjustment.
The driver yanked the car into a series of quick swerves, but the g-forces didn’t dislodge the attacker. The man simply jogged over the top of the car, perfectly balanced, which was impossible. Right? The driver pulled the car into a hard U-tum and found the stranger running toward the podium faster than was humanly possible. But the race car was faster than that. It had to be. The driver accelerated and jabbed the flamethrower. He’d barbecue the intruder yet.
The driver noticed too late that the flame nozzle was now pointed straight up, and the column of flame that flew skyward became a mushroom. Burning incendiary liquid rained down.
The driver forgot the man he was trying to kill and focused all his concentration on attempting to outrun the fountain of flame coming from his own car.
Ayounde Prime Minister Shund Beila couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. His people were being herded out of the square at gunpoint. The attackers were using race cars, of all things, and the race cars were turning out to be extraordinarily effective.
“Where’s the emergency-response units?” Beila demanded.
“Assembling, Prime Minster.” Minister of Internal Security Antoine Fudende looked in every direction, except into Beila’s eyes.
“Assembling? What’s that supposed to mean? Why are they deploying now?”
“They were, uh, dispersed,” Fudende reported. “So it seems.”
“So it seems? You’re supposed to know!”
“They were, against orders, not in a state of readiness. Watching the race, Prime Minister.”
The prime minister stared at him. Then turned back to the spectacle. The grand prix racers had cleared a path through the crowds. The PM’s own honor guard engaged the cars, and the ministers saw the sparks of ricocheting gunfire. The cars deflected everything the honor guard had to send them.
Beila had already seen the racers use gunfire, but they didn’t return fire on the honor guard. Instead, they waited until they were in range to use their flamethrowers and let loose with streams of flame. The soldiers in the honor guard—all brave, proved fighters—died writhing and screaming.
Beila began to pray silently. The minister of finance leaned over the railing of the large podium and was sick over the edge.
“Oh, shit, there’s a video crew! They shot they whole thing!” exclaimed the minister of tourism. “We’re not going to have vacationers in this country for ten years!”
Beila wanted to belt him, but he was pulled away by another development. More columns of attacking racers were now visible—and they were being defeated. But Beila couldn’t see who was defeating them.
“I thought I just saw a little old man in a dress disable that car,” said one of the executive assistants.
Beila saw him, too. He was little. He was in a colorful robe. He was light skinned. He disabled a heavily armed grand prix racer with a flying kung fu kick that flattened the cockpit and crushed the driver.
