Wylings opened his mouth, and the sound that started coming out was a foghorn blast. Remo quickly pinched the man in the neck, locking up his voice box and freezing his body in position.
Chiun kept squeezing.
Inside of Sir James Wylings, a lifetime of civilization and humanity was erased in a blind, burning, dismal wall of agony that was so immense it seemed impossible even as he was feeling it. No source for it, just pain everywhere that went on for an eternity and made him into a madman.
Remo winced. Chiun was giving Wylings a king-size jolt to the nervous system—worse than was necessary or even wise. “Little Father, we want him to be able to talk, at least”
Chiun stepped away. Wylings was still locked in position, his face wet with tears, his breathing labored.
Remo cranked his neck and the arms fell and the man began to whimper like a wounded terrier. It was the word “no,” breathed out over and over again.
Remo got worried. “Wylings? You still in there?”
“No no no no no no.”
“Talk to me, Jimmy.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Not again. Don’t let it happen again. I can’t stand for it to happen again.”
“Hey, snap out of it, Majesty.” Remo stimulated the nerves along Wylings’s spine, provoking a jolt of adrenaline that brought him back into the real world.
“Now you know the gift Sinanju can give,” Chiun said. “There are many more coins in our treasure chest.”
Remo wasn’t sure when he had last seen Chiun so vengeful. When Chiun really wanted to kill a man, he usually just did it. This time, his hand was stayed, and he was practically vibrating with his wrath. “That’s right, Wylings, you want to avoid a repeat performance, you cough up the goods. We want to know where your nanobots are tucked away.”
“I can’t tell you. It would ruin everything!”
And then, Wylings experienced it again, the pain of a thousand hells—the reprisal of a Sinanju Master angered.
They left him in the carriage, and they left him alive. Slipping unseen from the golden coach, they blended into the crowds who were disappointed at being unable to see inside. The curtains were now drawn back, just a little, on each side, and the people caught just the briefest glimpse of their new king. He was sitting in the carriage, watching the world go by. His waving hand had to have gotten tired.
The elevated walkway was sparsely traveled, and in fact most of the city was empty of pedestrian traffic as the Londoners gathered in homes and pubs to watch historic events unfolding.
“That’s a lot of people sitting around watching a slow-moving stagecoach,” Remo observed.
Chiun replied by vaulting lightly over the side rail of the walkway and vanishing. Remo leaped after him, his feet touching down on an irregular, broken stone wall, part of a small complex of ancient Roman ruins nestled on grassy lawns.
“Begin searching this place quickly!” Chiun said. “It is in a high crevice!”
Remo stepped down into gap between a pair of freestanding stone walls, his eyes piercing the shadows and the bricks and the hollows in search of the thing Wylings described—a thin steel tube inside of plastic outer casings, with a small black charge adhered to the end. The blast was designed to discharge the nanobots in a deadly mist that would carry far on the breeze.
It was difficult to picture the device. When they found the first one, they would know what to look for.
It occurred to Remo he was looking in the wrong place. He was in the center of the ruins. Wylings would have put the device somewhere that he would have been able to reach when he paid his ha’penny and was roaming the grounds like any normal sightseer. He wouldn’t have tried sneaking into the off-limits interior of the ruins.
Remo made his way out of the craggy corridor and stood examining the grounds. All Wylings said was that it was in a high crevice in the ruins.
His eyes wandered to the admissions hut. It was also of brick, but constructed in the past century or so. It stood beside the gated entranceway.
“Why are you wasting time when time is so precious?” Chiun demanded as he slipped like a shadow among the alcoves of the ancient labyrinth.
“There.” Remo bounded down from the bricks and across the lawn. In a high crevice in the brick building, just under the eaves, was the plastic container he had spotted. He withdrew it with care as Chiun arrived alongside him.
“Heat must be used to destroy them,” Chiun said. “Remove the metal tube from the plastic. Create heat with friction.”
Remo looked at him.
“It is not the first time I have had to destroy these same entities,” Chiun explained.
“Oh, really?”
“Do it.”
