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"Brutality! Brutality!" Shittman screeched, in the first understatement of his
public life.
Remo didn't know what was going on. When the policeman ran out of bullets, he
continued to click the trigger, barrel aimed square at Remo's chest. His eyes
were glazed.
Remo reluctantly surmised that-what with all the shooting and trying to kill
him and all-the cop wasn't going to be nice and let him out of Shittman's
cell.
"Why isn't my life ever easy?" Remo groused. Muttering to himself, he broke
the lock on the cell and banged the bars into the forehead of the vacanteyed
cop.
The police officer sprawled backward onto the cellblock floor. His gun
clattered away. As Remo exited the cell, he saw something pressed in the cop's
other hand.
He was surprised enough when he realized it was another palm-size television.
But he soon received a fresh shock.
"What the hell?"
There was a regular television broadcast in progress. On one of the morning
network talk shows, the hosts were discussing the violence in Harlem. But
there was something else on the screen. Two words flashed intermittently
beneath the talking heads. It was like the command to watch Winner that he'd
seen in the hotel lobby down in Mexico.
He realized now that he should have looked more closely in Cancun. It was
clear his Sinanju training alone allowed him to see what was there. The words
were being flashed at intervals too great for the normal human eye to
perceive.
The words read "Kill him." And, accompanying that phrase, pulsed too fast to
be seen on anything other than a subconscious level, was a flashing image of
Remo Williams.
Remo blinked, stunned.
The picture was a little off. Like a composite sketch run through a computer
to clean up the rough lines. But there was no mistaking who it was supposed to
be.
So shocked was Remo as he watched his own image being broadcast on a national
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network news program, he didn't even take note of the sounds of scuffing feet
at the far end of the cell block. He only knew that he had drawn more
unwelcome attention when fresh gunfire erupted in the Harlem station house.
His body tripped to automatic, flipping out around the first volley of
gunfire. Twisting, Remo saw a line of uniform and plainclothes officers framed
by the open steel door of the dingy cell block. The cops were firing like
madmen, eyes devoid of rage or even conscious thought.
With a sinking stomach Remo saw that many of the cops clutched miniature
televisions in their free hands.
This was too much to sort out. He had to get out of there. Had to contact
Smith.
Skittering through the gunfire, Remo raced down the dank corridor between the
cells. Through the barred doors came the frightened screams of men and women
Remo now knew to be innocent.
Running full out, Remo flew into the midst of the cops.
Dancing down the line, he sent the flat side of his palm into forehead after
forehead. Men collapsed like wilting daisies. As they fell, more flooded in
from the adjacent hallway to take their place.
Remo fought them back to a blind corner where an iron door was bolted shut on
an alley that ran beside the station. He kicked open the door, at the same
time snatching a radio from one of the unconscious police officers.
Remo tossed a couple of cops into the alley, ducked into an empty office and
hollered over the radio that the subject had escaped out the back door.
He got a clearer image of just how many men were under the thrall of the
television signals when the whole building began to rumble. Stampeding cops
flooded out exits. Car engines started outside. Sirens blared and tires
squealed.
When Remo made it back out to the squad room, he found the place cleared out.
The Master of Sinanju was still sitting on the lobby bench where Remo had left
him.
In their haste to leave, someone had dropped one of their TV sets at the old
man's sandaled feet. When Remo spied him, the Master of Sinanju was just
scooping it up.
Remo's heart froze.
"Don't look at it, Chiun!" he yelled.
He didn't bother with the door. He was across the sergeant's desk in a
fraction of slivered time. A hand too fast for even the Master of Sinanju's
eyes to perceive flashed out and the palm TV skipped out of the old man's
hand, smashing into a hundred pieces against the wall.
Chiun's hooded eyes saucered in outrage. "What is the meaning of this?" he
demanded.
Remo quickly told him about the subliminal signals.
"You couldn't see them, Little Father. If you did, you'd have gone nuts like
all the cops here."
"You looked on them with no difficulty," Chiun pointed out. "If these commands
are so great as to subvert a mind trained in Sinanju, why did you not kill
yourself?"
Remo hesitated. "Well, I...um..."
Chiun's expression grew flat. "I see," he said coldly. "Only the pupil's
enfeebled Master is at risk. How lucky I am, Remo, to have you to keep
weak-minded me from embarrassing myself."
Without another word, he turned on his heel. Kimono hems whirled angrily as
the old man stormed from the police station.
Alone, Remo let the air slip slowly from his lungs. "It sounded less insulting
in my head," he said to the empty station house.
Chapter 9
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