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and then the last, between the metallic ridge of a nose and the place where a lip would have been on a human. It began to hum, flat and tinny, like synthetic music. Then the sound modulated wildly up and down, from ultrasonic shrieks to low rumbles like gears grinding.

It opened its mouth again.

This time it spoke.

"Hello is all right," it said.

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CHAPTER TWO

His name was Remo and he was catching bullets.

He was catching them in his palms the way some people with very fast reflexes could catch flies. Bullets came at you a lot faster than flies did, but the principle was the same. See them. Slap them down at a 90 degree angle at exactly the speed they're traveling. Smack them from below with a high bounce to cool them off.

Catching them was the easy part. Anyone who could move his arm at 870 feet per second could catch the bullet from a .38 Colt Special. It was seeing them, without seeing the motion of the trigger that released them, that made the exercise interesting, especially since the light wzzz sound produced in the bullet's wake came after the bullet itself. Rely on the sound, kid, and you're one dead assassin, Remo reminded himself.

He held five in his right hand now, their gray

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metal melted smoothly toward their charred rims. There were three bullets in his left hand.

Chiun was right. Remo did favor his right hand. That would have to be corrected.

Damn it, Chiun was always right, Remo said to himself as he flicked one of the bullets upward on his fingernail. It embedded itself in the plaster of the ceiling.

"Oh, hell," he said aloud. Now he only had seven bullets. And he had forgotten whether the one in the ceiling had come from his right or left hand.