Dangerous Games

Ancient wrestler Miros obeys Plinates’s order to lose an Olympic final, then discovers that the victors’ celebration has opened Kuristes’s wall to attack. In the modern plot, Mkombu and former RAF officer Jack Mullin fabricate a Southern African group’s threats against U.S. athletes at the 1980 Moscow Games. CURE sends Remo undercover as an athlete with Chiun as trainer. Sands hijacks the Baruban team’s plane and kills its coach; Mullin kills Sands, the pilot and Sammy Wanenko, and his men kill the other athletes and assume their identities. After a refreshment-stand bombing, Chiun identifies clues and Remo traces them to the false Baruban team.

An impersonator kills the Russian agent carrying Remo’s warning, and the conspirators murder security chiefs Bechenbauer and Sorkofsky. Remo sacrifices attention to winning his Olympic heat while retaliating against East German interference. He and Chiun confront Mullin’s team; three operatives die directly, a fourth loses a hand, and Remo kills Mullin after learning where the barracks bombs were planted. The bombs are removed, while Soviet authorities conceal the attackers’ identities. Remo has coached Josie Littlefeather to perfect scores, but deliberately disrupts her concentration after her sponsor answers omit her Blackhand community; she falls repeatedly. Chiun’s hopes of televised weightlifting fame fail because he cut the broadcast cable himself.

In London, Smith suspects Mkombu but cannot prove his involvement, although the narrator has revealed the conspiracy. A white avenger subsequently terrorizes Mkombu’s headquarters, and his sons find him decapitated with an Everyman note. Remo’s responsibility is strongly implied, with no directly depicted killing. On their return flight, Remo and Chiun discuss the 1984 Los Angeles Games four years away.