Ruby

"You'll never get away with this!" Sarah Slate snarled.

"Don't you be talkin' to me 'bout not getting away with something," the dark figure spoke from the shadows.

Sarah squirmed in the chair, trying to loosen the cords binding her.  "Why don't you just kill me and get it over with?"

"I'm in no hurry.  I want to have a talk with you first." 

A woman emerged from the shadows, tall and lean.  The long cascade of blond curls wasn't obviously a wig; anyone would have had to examine it very carefully.  Made from real human hair. A bargain at $469.99, though she hadn't paid that.  Owning a wig factory would have been too dangerous, but she still had connections, and she liked looking fine.

"Why didn't you stay away?  It's dangerous for you here.  Whether you kill me or not, you'll never make it out alive."

"I left cause I got bored, but I been keeping an eye on them, all these years.  The old gentleman, I figured he'd be ok, but those skinny white fools..." She shook her head.  "I knew it was only a matter of time till they fell flat on their faces."

"Chiun and I are friends.  Why are you being like this?  I'm here just like you were!"  Sarah tried to bring up some tears, but only succeeded in looking sick.

"You just like me?  You--just like me?" 

Sarah winced.  The voice had moved from low and well modulated to a high pitched shriek that hurt her ears.

"You listen up, I first come across these sorry fools, they were flat on their a***s and about to get killed.  I knew they were trouble, they weren't CIA, I knew it was something top secret and I was just askin' for trouble sticking around them.  I was soft in the head, but call their boss anyway, knowing I got to be eliminated, that he knows I know too much.

"When I get back to the United States, I had to do some fast talkin'--convince Smitty I should be workin' for him.  Didn't take me but two minutes; he had enough sense to see how much he needed me."

Sarah would have been relieved that the voice had modulated a little, but the woman put her face down close to Sarah's.  She knew she had little time left.

"Now, you--you just waltz in here like you own the place, suddenly you givin' orders, shackin' up with that young kid, and there's no questions asked?  Smitty don't worry about security?  Remo and Chiun never think about having to eliminate you?  Everybody actin' like you get the Sinanju Symbol, that gonna make you untouchable?"

"I am untouchable!"  Sarah pulled herself up straighter in the chair.  "You can't kill me either--they'll be after you."

"Oh, give me a break!" she screeched.  "The day I can't handle them, that day I deserve to die!"

Sarah winced; the voice was much closer to her ears now.

"That symbol never mean that!  That just a gift to me from the old gentleman.  He wants me to have the fool's baby to train for Sinanju.  If I had, I'd have been part of the House, maybe, but I was never that desperate for money.  I knew I couldn't just quit, I knew Chiun would have to kill me.  He would have done it too, it in the contract.  I respected that and I respected them; I found myself a way out that let them off the hook.  I never figured I fooled Chiun.  It enough I give him a good enough reason to tell Smith that I'm dead."

She pulled off her wig.  "I got a soft spot for the old gentleman, for the young fool, too, I suppose.  Even that tight ***.  I gonna help 'em out one more time."

Later that evening a handsome woman with short black hair walked out the front door of Folcroft.  Ruby had brought a change of clothes and another wig in the big cloth bag she was carrying.  She walked briskly to her car and pulled on her sunglasses.  As she started the engine she looked over at the big stone building. She missed them, she supposed, but she wasn't prepared to go back to that life.

As she pulled out of the parking lot she reflected that they'd know immediately.  She supposed leaving a wig stuffed down the woman's throat was a pretty obvious calling card. Vanity; her way of saying hi.  Ruby laughed as she sped down the road toward the airport.  They'd be ok, and she would be too; she knew a few things about hiding and staying hid. She didn't think the Masters would be looking all that hard anyway.