He slashed the braided steel cable with his fingernails, and the pod chain leaped ahead. Remo was snapped like a whip. His hand didn’t release its grip on the rear of the pod, but the rear of the pod couldn’t stand the opposing forces. It separated with a series of overlapping metal snaps, and Remo found himself floating along with a section of the jagged cage. The foam interior of the pod disintegrated and scattered its cargo of albinos.
Remo swam hard, trying to outrace the current again, heartened by the changing vibration of the water that told him the current was slowing and widening ahead of him. He shot to the surface in a wide cavern and slipped toward the gleam of green. Chiun had activated his own glow stick and was dragging the pod chain to an eroded rock landing.
Somebody was coughing. At least one of the captives had survived the ordeal.
Whiteslaw had been waiting for days in a sleazy Oklahoma hotel, doing nothing. It was driving him batty. No phone calls. He couldn’t even go to the bar for fear of being recognized. He had nothing to do but watch television, where the best thing on was a T & A soap opera from south of the border called
And he brooded. Here he was, on the verge of scamming himself into the presidency of the United States of America, and he was too afraid to leave his hotel room. Those assassins were his ticket to glory and the bane of his existence. Why couldn’t Fastbinder and his idiot-genius kid kill them already!
Fastbinder finally called.
“I gotta get out of here, Jacob,” Whiteslaw barked.
“There is a problem.”
Whiteslaw didn’t like the sound of that. “Don’t tell me you missed them again.”
“You have lied to us from zee very beginning about these assassins and what they can do.”
“We’ve been through this and through this, Jacob.”
“You never told us they could walk up zee walls, Senator.”
“What?”
“You never explained that zees men punch through brick walls with bare hanz.” Fastbinder’s accent always became more pronounced when he became excited. “Also, Senator, zee assassins are adapting to zee weapons we used on them.”
“So you missed,” Whiteslaw accused.
“If a Tomcat fighter plane fails to shoot down zee B-2 stealth bomber, would you say zee Tomcat missed? No. It was eluded by a great untzophisticated foe. Just so, we were outmaneuvered by superior cababiliteez. What else did you not tell us. Senator?”
“I told you all I knew from the start. Remember my telling you how the young one ripped the door off a limo and threw guys around like softballs. I never said I knew their limits. How would I know they could walk up walls, huh? The point is, your brat’s traps didn’t work—am I right?”
“Wrong. Jack’s traps did work, but zee assassins got around them. They destroyed zee last of zee large proton-discharge devices, but zee devices had negligible effect because zee assassins shielded themselves some way. We are back at square one.”
Whiteslaw should have been afraid, but he was just angry. “That idiot kid had the one weapon that would work and instead of killing those assholes at the very start he gave ’em just enough of it to teach them how to adapt.”
“Do you know what Jack thinks?” Fastbinder asked sardonically. “Zat these assassins are using something other than technology. He says they use some sort of highly enhanced human skills.”
“Like superpowers?”.
“Yes.”
“Like Batman?”
“Exactly, like Batman.”
“Fastbinder, your kid’s an idiot. I don’t know why you let him call the shots.”
Coldly, Fastbinder replied, “It is I who call zee shotz.”
“Who you trying to kid? That brat’s working you like a puppet. Lord knows why you let him do it. Take a look around you, Jacob. Who’s the real worm king, huh? Who’re the cavemen really afraid of? It ain’t you.”
“Senator—”
“Hey, Fastbinder, I’m giving you twenty-four hours to make those assassins dead. If you fail again, our cooperative relationship is dissolved.”
Whiteslaw felt good about the threat, and about the cold silence that followed. He had what he needed to spin the political parties into decades of chaos if they didn’t give him what he wanted. And once he was President, Fastbinder needed him as an ally. They both knew it.
“They will be dead in twenty-four hours,” Fastbinder stated.
“I have your word?” Whiteslaw demanded.
“You haff my word. I will see to it perzonally.”
“Why the long face, Pops?” Jack asked.
“Whiteslaw is showing his fangs,” Fastbinder said acidly. “He called you stupid for believing our assassins have supertalents, and he called me stupid for putting my trust in you. I am beginning to think he is right. You are only a boy. I’ve given you entirely too much leeway.”
“A boy? Gee, Pop, you could at least call me a young man, or even a teenager.”
