Chinese Puzzle

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Remo was uncomfortable.

Peking was making Mm edgy. Everywhere he and Chiun went with their escorts, people noticed them, and stared. Now it was not the noticing that made him uncomfortable, not that. Their eyes were telling him something, even in the crowded shopping areas, the broad pin-neat streets. But he didn't know what.

And something else was bothering him. They had delivered General Liu and received thanks. Two Chinese generals of Liu's Army had looked at Remo very closely and mumbled with Liu. And one of them had said, in obviously mistaken English, "Destroyer… Shiva," which was probably a Navy captain or something.

And that afternoon, they would formally be shown the Working People's Palace of Culture, in the Forbidden City, as a special honor.

Chiun was unimpressed with the honor. He had been noticeably cool ever since Remo had expressed heartfelt hurt that Chiun would kill him. Chiun was emotionally distressed that Remo would take it that way.

It had come to a head after Remo had telephoned Smith to tell him the mission was successful. Smith had been silent for a long moment, and then had ordered Remo to tell Chiun his blue butterflies had arrived.

"Can't you think of a better signal than that?" Remo had asked.

"It's for your own good. Inform Chiun of that."

So that afternoon in their hotel room, Remo thought he would bite the bullet once and for all, and see what happened. He was not totally unprepared to take on Chiun, given, of course, that nothing he had been taught would be new to Chiun and that Chiun's attack would be based on that. But Remo had a secret weapon, one the old man might not expect. A right cross to the jaw, as taught in the CYO boxing team of Newark, New Jersey. Not a perfect weapon, but it might have a chance.

He readied himself in the middle of the room to make Chiun come to him. Then he said softly, "Chiun, Smith says your blue butterflies have arrived."

Chiun was sitting in the lotus position watching the television set, absorbed in whether a young doctor should tell the mother of a leukemia victim that her daughter had leukemia, an especially difficult task because the doctor had once had an affair with the woman and was not sure if it was his daughter or the daughter of Bruce Barlow who owned the town in which they all lived, and who had just contracted a venereal disease, possibly from Constance Lance whom the doctor's stepfather was engaged to, and who had a weak heart which any shock might destroy. Besides, Barlow, as Remo had gathered from two days of that pap, was considering a gift to the hospital to buy a kidney machine which Dolores Baines Caldwell needed desperately if she were to live to finish her study of cancer before her laboratory was repossessed by an as-yet-to-be-introduced Davis Marshall whom the leukemia victim had met on a holiday in Duluth, Minnesota.

"Chiun," Remo repeated, ready to see the last of the world in a sterile hotel with air like ice and bed spreads of drab white ruffles, "Smith says your blue butterflies have arrived."

"Yes, good," Chiun said without looking up from the set. Remo waited for the show to end but Chiun still did not move. Did he want to catch Remo in his sleep?

"Chiun," Remo said as Vance Masterson pondered with James Gregory, district attorney, the fate of Lucille Grey and her father, Peter Fenwick Grey, "your butterflies are in."

"Yes, yes," Chiun said. "You've said that three times. Quiet."

"Isn't that the signal for you to kill me?"

"No, it's the signal for me not to kill you. Quiet."

"So you would have killed me."

"I will kill you now with pleasure if you do not silence your mouth."

Remo walked over to the television set and with the edge of his hand cracked the back of the tube and Chiun sat horrified as the picture sucked itself into a dot of light, then disappeared. Remo dashed out of the room and down the long hallway. On a straightaway, he could beat Chiun. He scrambled down a flight of stairs, along a hallway, and stopped near an open window and laughed until he cried. He sneaked back to the room that evening, and Chiun was sitting in the same position.

"You are a man without heart or soul," Chiun said. "Or intelligence. Angered by the truth of what you know should be true, you foolishly take vengeance on someone who would do something that would be more painful to him than his own death. And neglectful, because I am left to guard the general in the next room and you should be doing that."

"You mean you would rather die than kill me?" Remo asked.

"And that makes you feel better? I do not understand you," Chiun had said. And he had been cold and distant all the way to Peking.

Now, on a Peking street, Remo realized what was bothering him about the peoples' stares. "Chiun," he said. "Stay here and watch me. Tell the guards to stay with you."

Remo did not wait. He hitched his casual blue woolen sweater down over his light tan slacks and walked casually into the main thoroughfare with its occasional cars, its shop windows, under giant posters with Chinese characters, past the rows of Mao pictures, then walked directly back to Chiun and the two guides. One of the guides was on the pavement, his hands to his groin. The other was smiling politely and desperately.

"He said you couldn't be allowed to go alone," Chiun said, nodding at the man in pain on the ground.

"Were you watching?" Remo asked.

"I saw you."

"Did you watch the people?"

"If you mean, did I realize that your theory of General Liu's disappearance in the Bronx was ridiculous, correct. No two men took him anyplace. They would have been seen. He disappeared alone. And like you, just now, aroused no interest at all."

"Then if he disappeared alone…?"

"Of course," Chiun said. "Didn't you know that? I knew it immediately."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Interfere with Chief Ironsides, Perry Mason, Martin Luther King, William Rogers and Freud?"

So, thought Remo, Liu had not been kidnapped. He had ordered the drivers off at Jerome Avenue. Then shot them. Then walked away from the car, caught the train and met his cohorts in Chinatown. He had sent people after Remo because Remo had represented the one threat to his plan to sabotage the President's trip. And he had killed Mei Soong, who had known about it, before she could spill what she knew. And now he was back in Peking, a bigger hero and a bigger threat than ever.

"The question is, Chiun, what do we do?"

"If you wish my advice, it is this: mind your own business and let the world of fools hack themselves to death."

"I expected that from you," Remo said. Maybe he could tell someone with the American mission. But no one on the mission knew him. All they knew was that he had return tickets for two to Kennedy Airport and was not to be bothered.

Perhaps call Smith? How? He had enough trouble trying to call him from New York City.

Leave it for the Chinese to settle. But it galled him, right to the gut, it galled him. The son of a bitch shot his wife, and didn't care that millions might die in another war. He wanted this. That was bad. But worse was that he dared to do it. That he thought he had a right to do it, and that bothered Remo deep into Ms soul.

He looked around the wide clean street with drably-dressed people scurrying to their trivia of the moment. He looked at the clear China sky, unshrouded by air pollution because the people had not yet advanced enough to pollute the air, and thought that if Liu had his way, they never would be granted the gift of dirty air.

Chiun was right of course. But because he was right did not make it right. It was wrong.

"You're right," Remo said.

"But you do not feel that way in your soul, do you?"

Remo didn't answer. He looked at his watch. It was almost time to return for their grand tour of the Working People's Palace of Culture.

General Liu's aide, a colonel, had stressed what an honor it was. The Premier himself would be there to meet the rescuers of the people's general, the colonel had said.

Chiun's advice on that subject was "watch your wallet."

The Forbidden City was truly a spendor. Remo and Chiun and their two guards walked past the stone lion guarding the Gate of Heavenly Peace, for 500 years the main entrance to the city which had once housed emperors and their courts.

They walked across the vast cobbelstone plaza toward the yellow pagoda roofed building which now housed the main museum but which had been a throne room. In a section of the plaza off to their left, Remo saw young and old men exercising in the highly disciplined moves of T'ai Chi Ch'uan, the Chinese version of karate.

The building was beautiful. Even Chiun, for once, had nothing slanderous to say. But its contents reminded Remo of one of those New York auction houses that seem to be devoted exclusively to large and ugly porcelain figures. He did not listen to the rambling explanations of dynasties or thrones or vases or clumsy looking objects, all of which showed that China had discovered this or that or something else way back when Remo was still painting himself blue.

By the time they reached the central vault where General Liifand the Premier waited for them, Remo had been verbally painted blue with enough coats to lather a Celtic army.

Standing in the central vault under the fifty foot high ceiling, the Premier looked like a display porcelain. He was more frail than his pictures. He wore a plain gray Mao suit, buttoned to his neck, but while the suit was plain, the tailoring was immaculate.

He smiled and offered a hand to Remo: "I have heard much about you. It is a privilege to meet you."

Remo refused the hand. "To shake hands," he said, "is to show that I have no weapons. To shake hands therefore would be a lie." The hell with him. Let him and Liu play their goddam war games with the President's staff; they got paid to deal with these devious bastards.

"Perhaps someday, no one will have to bear a weapon," said the Premier.

"In that case, it will no longer be necessary to shake hands to show you have no weapon," Remo said.

The Premier laughed. General Liu smiled. He looked younger in his uniform, but then, that was the reason for uniforms. To make the nasty business of killing impersonal and institutional, something separate from men and pain and all the other hassles of day to day life.

"With the Premier's permission," said General Liu, "I would like to show our guests a most interesting exhibit. I hope you two gentlemen do not mind that we have soldiers present but the Premier must be protected at all costs."

Remo noticed on a narrow step a few feet away were eight soldiers, all of them seeming rather old for the privates' uniforms they were wearing. They had their guns trained on Remo and Chiun. Well, sweetheart, Remo thought, that's the biz.

General Liu nodded with stiff politeness and walked to a glass case, containing a stone-encrusted sword. His leather shoes made clacking sounds on the marble floor and his holster slapped against his side as he walked. The room itself was chilly and badly lighted, blocking out the sunlight and its joy.

"Gentlemen," said General Liu. "The sword of Sinanju."

Remo looked at Chiun. His face had no expression, just an eternal calm that hid wells deeper than Remo's reasoning.

It must have been a ceremonial sword of some sort, Remo thought, because not even a Watusi could wield a sword seven feet long, and flaring out to become as wide as a face, before it came abruptly to a point. The handle was encrusted with red and green stones. It appeared as unwieldly as a wet sofa. If a man's hands were tied to that weapon, you could spit him to death, Remo thought.

"Do you gentlemen know the legend of Sinanju?" General Liu asked. Remo could feel the Premier's eyes upon them.

Remo shrugged. "It's a poor village, I know that. Life is hard there. And you people never treated them very fairly." Remo knew Chiun would love that.

"Truth," said Chiun.

"But do you know the legend? Of the Master of Sinanju?"

"I know," said Chiun, "that he was not paid."

"This sword," said General Liu, "is the sword of the Master of Sinanju. There was a time when China, weak under the monarchistic system, hired mercenaries."

"And did not pay them," said Chiun.

"There was one master of Sinanju who left this sword after slaughtering slaves and then a favorite concubine of the Emperor Chu Ti. "

Out of the side of his mouth, Remo whispered to Chiun: "You didn't tell me about the nookie."

"He was assigned the concubine and was not paid," Chiun said aloud.

General Liu went on. "The emperor, realizing how foreign mercenaries were destructive to the Chinese people, banished the Master of Sinanju."

"Without paying him," said Chiun.

"Since then we have prided ourselves in never asking for the services of the Master of Sinanju or his night tigers. But imperialists will hire any scum. Even create the destroyer for then- evil designs."

Remo saw the smile disappear from the Premier's face as he looked at General Liu with questioning.

"In a society where the newspapers function as an arm of the government, word of mouth becomes the believable truth," said General Liu. "Many people believe that the Master of Sinanju is here, brought by the Imperialist Americans. Many believe he has brought Shiva, the Destroyer, with him. Many people believe that the American imperialists do not seek peace but war. That is why they have sent the Master of Sinanju and his creation to kill our beloved Premier."

Remo noticed Chiun look to the Premier. There was a slight shake of Chiun's head. The premier remained cool.

"But we will kill the paper tigers of Sinanju who have killed our Premier," General Liu said, raising a hand. The riflemen on the balconies aimed their weapons. Remo looked for a display case to dive under.

Chiun said, looking at the Premier: "The last Master of Sinanju to stand in this palace of emperors was not paid. I will collect for him. Fifteen dollars American."

The Premier nodded. General Liu, still holding one hand in the air, took his pistol from its holster with the other.

Chiun laughed then, a resounding, shrieking laugh.

"Rice farmers and wall builders, hear you now. The Master of Sinanju will teach you death." The words echoed through the high ceilinged chamber, bouncing hollowly off the walls and corners and coming back, until it seemed as if the voice came from everywhere.

Suddenly, Chum became a blurred line, his white robes swirling about him as he moved toward the Premier, then left across General Liu's line of fire. And then the glass case was shattered and the sword seemed to fly into the air with Chiun attached.

The sword swished and blurred with Chiun, whose voice rose maniacally in ancient, high-pitched chants. Remo was about to dart up to the step to go after one of the riflemen and work from there, when he noticed the guns were no longer pointing at him or at the Premier or at Chiun.

Two men clung loosely to their weapons, one whose pants showed a dark wide blotch, growing wider. The other just trembled, his face whitening. Another was vomiting. Four had run. Only one still aimed his rifle but the butt was pressed firmly to a shoulder that had no neck, just a round, dark gushing wound where a head had been. Remo spotted the head, one eye still squinting, rolling to the base of a cabinet where it stopped rolling and stopped squinting. And the sword, now dripping blood, spun faster and faster in Chiun's hands.

The Premier's face was impassive as he stood, his hands folded in front of him. General Liu squeezed off two shots which chipped into the marble floor then bounced into walls with dull thumps, sounding through the museum. Then he stopped squeezing shots, because where his trigger finger had been, there was only a red stump. And then the hand itself and the pistol were gone as the sword continued to whistle through the air with Chiun seeming to dance under it.

And then, with a shriek, Chiun was without the giant sword. He stood motionless, his arms at his sides, and Remo heard the sword whirring above him, toward the ceiling. Remo looked up. The sword seemed hung in history just a breath from the ceiling, and then it descended, the giant blade turning slowly, until in one last graceful turn, it come down into Liu's looking up face.

With a whunk, it split the face and drove straight down through the body, stopping only a foot from the hilt. The clean tip of the blade nicked marble, and then began to gather blood from above. It looked as if General Liu had swallowed too completely the seven foot sword of Sin-anju.

In awesome silence, he tottered, then backward fell, skewered on a sword, creating small flowing lakes of blood around him on the gray marble floors. The hilt seemed to grow from Ms face.

"Fifteen dollars American," said the Master of Sinanju to the Premier of the latest China. "And no checks."

The Premier nodded. So he was not part of the plot. He was one of the peacemakers. In blood was peace sometimes baptized.

"Sometimes, according to Mao," said the Premier, "it is necessary to pick up the gun to put down the gun."

"I'll believe it when I see it," said Remo.

"About us?" asked the Premier.

"About anyone," Remo said.

They escorted the Premier to a car outside and Chiun anxiously whispered to Remo:

"Was my wrist straight?"

Remo, who had barely seen Chiun, let alone his wrist, answered, "Sloppy as hell, little father. You embarrassed me no end, especially in front of the Premier of China."

And Remo felt good.