It took them seconds to come upon the rearmost bus, which had a number of visible differences. Welded-on steel plating, extra-thick glass for added blast resistance. It was also guarded, but the guards never even got the chance to deny admittance to the Masters of Sinanju. Remo gave them each a blow to the chest that flattened their hearts as if their chests were compressed by a toppled snack machine. The door wasn’t a standard bus door, but a locked steel vault door.
The weak spot was in the bolt, which possessed a minuscule structural defect in the cast-alloy housing. Remo found the defect and gave the housing a few fingertip taps. The defect was transformed by the perfect vibration into a crack in the metal. The housing fell apart
“Sir Mutha? You home?”
Chiun heard a tiny creak of metal above and chose not to follow Remo into the bus. He placed his fingers against the plating and pushed the bus down, which effectively lifted the old master up. His sandals were noiseless when he touched the roof, and he padded to the round porthole without creating so much as a squeak.
The porthole was apparently a complicated affair in the opening. Chiun folded his legs beneath him to await the port opening. Finally, the wheel ceased turning and the mechanism clicked. The port opened six inches, and a pudgy black face looked into the face of Chiun, the ancient Master of Sinanju.
Chiun smiled his warmest smile. “Good afternoon, Sir Mutha.” He closed the porthole lid, which made a deep musical note against the head of the famous pop star.
Sir Muffa Muh Mutha felt the blackness almost claim him, but he somehow managed to hold on to consciousness. He pushed himself off the floor of the War Room, the electronics hub from which his war was coordinated.
When he was sitting upright, he saw the same old Chinaman, smiling at him in exactly the same way.
“Good afternoon, Sir Mutha.”
“Who are you devils?” shrieked Sissy Muh. “Who are you?” She cut savagely at the arm of the younger white man, who was holding her off the ground by her long French braids. Sissy wasn’t short, and the white man wasn’t extra tall; still, he managed to keep his arms out of the reach of Sissy’s mean-looking hunting knife.
“Come on, let me cut you!”
“No, thanks, sweetheart.” The white man pinched the blade with two fingers and flicked it out of Sissy’s grasp. It buried itself in the plastic interior walls—ten feet away.
“Devil!” She kicked and clawed but she contacted nothing but air, every time, until she was as furious and wild as a hooked eel landed in a rowboat.
The white man sighed and snatched at Sissy’s neck as if he were flicking a switch. Sissy stopped, as if she had been turned off, and she slumped into one of the console chairs.
“Did you kill ’er?” Mutha asked.
“Naw, she’s still alive and kicking on the inside. See?”
Sir Mutha observed that his security chief’s eyes were flickering around the room like a wild animal’s, but her body was absolutely limp.
“You paralyzed her!”
“Not permanently. The peace and quiet is nice, though, isn’t it? And now to restore some peace and quiet to Kingston town. Would you call off your coup, Sir Mutha, please?”
Sir Muffa Muh Mutha careened to his feet, overtaken by the urge to self-defend. Joining his hands into a club, he walloped the little Chinaman with all his body weight, but the Chinaman was gone. Sir Mutha felt himself carom off the plastic wall and descend onto his knighted backside once more.
And the Chinaman was right back where he had been, and he was giving Sir Mutha the same Chinaman smile.
“Sissy’s right—you be devils! Demons!”
“Not I, Sir Mutha,” the Chinaman said cheerily. “He is another story.”
“Don’t go there,” the white man said. “Time to call off the dogs, you Mutha.”
“Never!”
“Fall back. Retreat. This is Mother. I’m calling off the holiday. Repeat. I am calling off the holiday.”
“Get them out of Jamaica,” Remo added. “And tell them not to come back.”
Sir Mutha urged his soldiers to evacuate, then Remo sat the British pop star down for a chat.
“Even you are not a Reagan,” Chiun pointed out. He was still smiling, and the smile had Sir Mutha’s flesh crawling…
“Iya, dunno…a what?”
“A Reagan. You are not. She is not, although she has one long hair thong, at least.”
Sir Mutha couldn’t make sense of it. “As in reggae music?” Remo asked, seeing the light. “Don’t think they call them Reagans, Chiun. Some are Rastafarians. Some are just Jamaicans. This mutha, I have no idea. What are you?”
“I’m an artist.”
“’Course you are. You go right on believing it. Me, I like to pretend I’m master of my own destiny. Now, here’s the important question. Who put you up to this?”
“Nobody. I’m my own man.”
“Your turn, bad cop.” Remo nodded at Chiun, who intensified his smile and took Sir Mutha by the elbow again. Seconds later, Mutha was begging them to let him speak.
