Father to Son

"After we spoke I tried tracking down Remo and Chiun," Howard offered as Smith typed, "but they're missing in action right now. Remo used his Visa card at a restaurant about two hours ago." He snapped his fingers. "Oh, I forgot. The French assassin is gone."

"That isn't unexpected," Smith said as he worked. "Master Chiun told me that this trial Remo is undergoing is merely a formality. Historically there is no real risk to the Apprentice Master of Sinanju. Remo shouldn't have any problems with any of the assassins he is scheduled to meet. It is more a demonstration of technique to potential employers, as well as a reminder that Sinanju is in the world. It is also a nuisance I could do without at this point in my life. But I learned many years ago the futility of arguing with the Master of Sinanju. As long as their activities remain below the world's radar, that is the best I can hope for." He finished typing. "There, we're tied in."

He picked up the blue contact phone. It was the line Remo used to call in. There was no dial on the phone. That didn't matter. The moment he picked up the receiver, the CURE computer was already dialing Chiun's special 800 number.

The phone rang a dozen times before someone finally picked up. Even away from the phone Mark recognized the desperately wailing woman.

"Hello," Smith said. "Master Chiun is not available at the moment. Is there something wrong?" There was more crying, more babbling. As the woman spoke, Smith eyed his computer.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand," the CURE director said. He spoke slowly and loudly, knowing full well the futility of doing so for the benefit of a person who obviously spoke no English. "May I speak with Master Chiun's caretaker? Please put Pullyang on the phone. Pullyang."

This drew a reaction from the woman. The crying turned into shrieks of agony. The woman wailed as if in pain for a few minutes, shouting her anguish into the phone, before hanging up amid a series of pitiful sobs.

Smith quickly cradled the phone. Spinning back to his computer, he tapped a few keys and then leaned back.

"I tapped the line and dumped her voice directly into the mainframes," he explained. "The translation will not be perfect, but we should at least see-"

The computer beeped and a window opened. Through narrowing eyes, Smith scanned the text. As he read, his lips thinned to razor slits of tight concern.

When he was finished, he leaned back in his chair. Mark Howard was still scanning the monitor, absorbing the data.

"Am I reading this right?" Howard asked. "This looks like she was saying her father was murdered."

"Apparently she is Pullyang's daughter," Smith said, his voice perfectly even. He adjusted his wireless glasses. "The mainframes are unable to translate all of the dialect peculiar to Sinanju, but that would seem to be the reason for both her calling here and for her emotional state."

"Wow," Mark said, shaking his head slowly. "This isn't going to sit well with Chiun. He must have told me a hundred times how the village is safe because of him. And this was the guy he trusted to watch his stuff? I'd hate to be in the shoes of whoever did it."

Smith could not disagree with his assistant's assessment. On a few occasions over the years Sinanju had been vexed by outside forces, invariably involving meddling by representatives of the Communist North Korean government. Since Pullyang was in charge of keeping watch over Chiun's treasure, Smith wondered if yet another North Korean agent had allowed greed to overcome wisdom.

The other option was a murderer among the citizens of Sinanju itself. To Smith's knowledge in the thirty years he'd known the Master of Sinanju there had not been a murder in the tiny fishing village on the West Korean Bay.

There was no doubt about one thing. This crossed a line none before had ever dared venture past.

"So what do we do?" Mark asked. "Chiun doesn't know. Do we let them finish what they're doing before we tell him?"

Smith released a sigh that was a mixture of bile and burned meat loaf.

"It would be easier," he admitted. "Certainly this is a complication none of us needs. With Remo and Chiun already skipping around the world for the Time of Succession, their activities are already too close to public. A rage-fueled vendetta on the part of the Master of Sinanju possibly directed against the North Korean government is not something I would like to see added to the mix right now."

"So we don't tell him," Howard said.

Smith shook his head. He offered something that might have started as a weary laugh but came out a tired moan.

"The only option worse than telling him would be to keep the knowledge from him." Smith sighed. Rolling his chair firmly into the desk foot well, the CURE director stretched his hands to his keyboard.

REMO CAUGHT UP to the Master of Sinanju on the steps of Czar Alexis's dingy French apartment building.

"What's wrong?" he asked, bounding down the stairs.

"I must think," Chiun replied tersely. He swept across the sidewalk to their waiting taxi.

"This can't be because of that Russian stink machine in the black bathrobe," Remo insisted. "Chiun, don't let him rattle you. I saw better hustlers than him rigging three-card-monte games on Coney Island when I was a kid."

But the Master of Sinanju didn't respond. He flung the rear door open and slipped into the cab. Remo hopped in beside him as the old man was barking orders at the cabbie.

"A little bad breath and mood lighting and you're running like French cheese?" Remo asked as the cab drew away from the curb. "That's not like you." The Master of Sinanju shot him a dark glance.

"Did you not hear the words of the wicked monk?" he snapped.

"See? There's my problem. If you'd said good monk, or happy monk or goddamn Dopey, Doc or Grumpy monk, I might put some stock in what he had to say. As it is, I listen to wicked monks about as much as I listen to crack-smoking mullahs."

"You would be wise to heed the words of this one," Chiun insisted. "He has been bestowed a gift, imparted to him by the dark forces with which he is aligned. My father knew well of him. The monk sees the future."

The words were said with such gravity that Remo dared not disagree.

"Okay, so he's a fortune-teller. So what? If he wanted to impress me, he'd predict himself a bar of soap."

"Do you not have eyes?" Chiun demanded. "Explain to me what just happened in that apartment." Shrugging exhausted surrender, Remo dropped his hands to his knees.

"I don't know, Little Father. I really don't. Maybe it was trick lighting. Maybe it was something more. Maybe you rigged it all somehow just to pull my leg. If you want to know the God's honest truth, whenever this sort of stuff happens I do my damnedest not to think about it."

"Is that what I have trained? A gangly legged ostrich with his big, dumb head stuffed in the ground? Have you seen nothing in your years as my apprentice? By now you should know well that there are forces at work in the universe that are beyond the comprehension of mere mortals. Apparently for ostrich you, that is doubly true."

"Fine," Remo said. "You want to know what I saw? I saw exactly what you did. Which is to say I don't know what the hell I saw. A hundred-year-old crown prince who looks like he's late for gym class and a Svengali monk who can Casper his way in and out of rooms. So I accept it. There. And he can tell the future. So what did he say? Watch out for the night and watch out for the day. What's that supposed to mean other than typical ambiguous fortune-telling gibberish?"

"He told us to beware the false night and day," the Master of Sinanju insisted.

"Okay, so what does that mean?"

"I don't know. But we must further beware of the hand that reaches from the grave. Darkness comes from the cold sea. For both of us, for he said Masters of Sinanju."

"Are you telling me you bought into that bullshit about someone being alive who was dead?"

"It seems unlikely," Chiun replied. "While the secret to true necromancy was supposed to be known to the priests of ancient Egypt, it was lost many years ago."

"I know necro is dead. Who the hell's Nancy?"

The old Korean gave a withering look. "It is the raising of the dead, numskull."

"I hate to break it to you, Little Father, but if the world starts vomiting up the living dead at us, it won't exactly limit either one of us. We've been tossing bad guys overboard to the sharks for more years than I like to think about. And there's a whole slew of dead chambermaids and bellboys who got in the way of your TV over the years. Not to mention ex-girlfriends, pissed-off gods and the occasional poor slob who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. If we've got some oogidy-boogidy from the great beyond stalking us, he's going to have to take a number. "

"It does not necessarily mean direct involvement by someone either of us has dispatched," Chiun said, stroking his thread of a beard with slender fingers. "Maybe it means a trap an enemy set before we delivered them to the Void."

"Like what?" Remo asked.

Chiun's wrinkled forehead creased. "I do not know," he admitted. "But he said that we are already stalked by death. Whatever it is may already be out there."

"Could be he's just talking about the Time of Succession," Remo suggested, hating the fact that he was being drawn into the demented monk's predictions. "We've got hit men already hiding behind every mailbox."

"Perhaps," Chiun said. He did not sound convinced.

Remo could see that his teacher was deeply disturbed. He touched the old man's shoulder.

"Hey, don't worry, Little Father," he said, his tone reassuring. "I don't put as much faith in Raspoopin as you do, but we've gone up against worse prophecies before and we're both still here to tell the tale. Let the world throw whatever it's got at us. We'll come out fine. I promise."

Chiun looked deep in his pupil's open, confident face.

Still so much a child. The boy had come to the edge, yet still had so much to learn.

Chiun knew. His father had told him. The monk was gifted. The monk was never wrong. And according to his words, two Masters of Sinanju were destined to die. Master and student, father and son.

Remo and Chiun.

Sitting in the back of the Parisian taxi, the old Korean studied the innocent, smiling face of the man he had trained. The man who was going to die. His son.

Grief overtook him. As Remo smiled, Chiun gave a brief nod, quickly turning away.

As Remo settled in for the cab ride, the old Korean stared out the window at the passing Paris lights.

Chapter 16

Benson Dilkes was certain he was a dead man.

He had been driven from comfortable retirement in Africa, hired to kill the next Sinanju Master by a man he had met only once and came back to the world he had fled for a contest that was as unwinnable as it was unavoidable. As far as he was concerned, his fate was already sealed.

But when the small Korean standing in the bedroom of his Boca Raton apartment did not make a move toward him, Dilkes began to get a new sense. It was the name that finally did it. When the man mentioned his name, Benson Dilkes dropped his handgun to the carpet.

"Did you say Nuihc?" Dilkes breathed.

"There is nothing wrong with your hearing, Benson Dilkes," replied the Korean in the black business suit.

Dilkes's palms were sweating. He could feel the prickly sensation. Dilkes rarely perspired. Most days it took him an hour of kneeling out under the blazing hot sun in his rose garden back in Zimbabwe to even break a sweat.

Dilkes swallowed. "Forgive me, but the Master of Sinanju once had a pupil named Nuihc. I heard of him because, unworthy as I am, I traveled in some of the same circles as he did. Not that I was ever deserving to do so." He paused, heart racing. "Are you him?"

"Why do you ask questions when the answers are known to you already?" the Korean replied.

It was him. Dilkes could scarcely believe it. He felt his heartbeat quicken even more. He tried to will it to slow.

"I beg indulgence for my persistent impudence, O unequaled one," he said, bowing, "but it was my understanding that you had disappeared many years ago. It was assumed by many in my profession-I do not call it 'our' profession, for it sullies your great and hallowed reputation to be likened to worthless bunglers such as myself-that you had died."

The Korean's hooded eyes were flat. "Spare me that flowery foolishness," he droned. "You are not good at it, and I do not require songs of flattery to stroke my ego. I am not my uncle, decrepit and needy of validation. As for that other, I was asleep. That is all you need know."

Dilkes could see he had given offense.

"I beg forgiveness," he said. "It's just that you caught me by surprise."

The Korean nodded quiet understanding. "That is a rare thing for you, Benson Dilkes. I have heard of you. You are too cautious to be surprised. That is a good thing. The price of failure is high, given the work you do, yet you have survived longer than most. I am impressed."

"You honor me, sir."

"The proper term is 'Master.'"

"Forgive me, Master," Dilkes said.

The American assassin's eyes strayed to door and window. The window was sealed and wired. The same for the door. They would take precious seconds to disarm. Not that it mattered. Even if he made a dash for it, he was certain there was no way he could hope to make it past the Korean.

But even as the wild thoughts flew through the brain of Benson Dilkes, the Asian was shaking his head. It was as if the man in the business suit had read his mind.

"Do not make me question my faith in you," the Korean said. "You know full well that if I wished it you would be dead already. Therefore, I must not want you dead."

"But the contest..." Dilkes began, confused. His voice trailed off.

He was suddenly distracted, a worried look on his tan face. Dilkes had finally noticed the other person who had somehow stolen into his bedroom unannounced.

The other stranger had likely been standing near the Korean the whole time. It was easy enough to miss him, the way he loitered in the dark corner near the door. As it was, Dilkes had to squint to make him out.

The man was obviously not Asian.

He was white. Thin and pale. A mane of flowing blond hair like tousled corn husks hung down to narrow shoulders. His face was so sunken he looked like the hollow projection of a human. Even though he was younger than the Korean, he somehow looked older than his years. He didn't speak or move. Just clung to the dark. A subservient ghost.

"Who is that?" Dilkes breathed.

The man in the suit didn't turn. Didn't acknowledge the presence of the other man.

"No one. A failure. A tool that broke. A shadow of what he was supposed to be. Pay him no mind."

"As you wish, Master," Dilkes said.

The word fit comfortably on his tongue.

Many men, alive and dead, would have been surprised at the ease with which the great Benson Dilkes had accepted so subordinate a term. Even among those in his profession who knew of Sinanju, few fully understood what it was. Dilkes knew. For this reason the word Master came easily to him.

The man who called himself Nuihc padded across the room. Dilkes backed against the bureau, allowing a wide path for the small man to pass. The Korean stopped before the line of corkboard maps. Face upturned, he studied the many red pins.

The blond-haired man stayed back near the door. As still as death, the blond man studied the small Asian. For the first time Dilkes saw the Caucasian's eyes.

If a Caribbean sea could catch fire, that was the color of the younger man's eyes. They were blue. Brilliantly so. As the young man studied his Master, his electric-blue eyes sparkled with a vitality far greater than the pale, emaciated face in which they were sunk.

Dilkes found himself so entranced by the younger man's eyes that he missed something the Asian said. "Excuse me?" he asked.

"I said this is not accurate," the Korean repeated. He waved a hand across the big maps, pointing, one, two, three. "There, you missed some in India and China. Several in Lobinia. Here, in San Francisco and New York."

The reality hit Benson Dilkes. This was a Master of Sinanju. Of course he would know all the little pin marks in Dilkes's absurd maps. He had doubtless made many of them.

"You were there," Dilkes said.

"For a few," the Korean admitted. "Not for most. But I, like you, kept track."

Dilkes frowned. "But you're the pupil of the Master of Sinanju. And these-" he hesitated, searching for the right word "-events have spanned the past thirty years. Shouldn't you have been there for most of them?"

The Korean still studied the maps. At Dilkes's question, there was a slight twitch at the corner of the Asian's mouth. A hint of buried emotion. When he spoke, his voice was so soft Dilkes had to strain to hear.

"I was Master before any of these took place," the Korean said coldly. "I was Master when you first began your pitiful business of breaking necks and setting fires for money in barbarian African backwaters. These are all the result of an anomaly. The handiwork of an old man who stayed beyond his time. One who would betray everything he claims to hold dear. A pathetic shell of dust and bone who would take as a pupil a worthless white mongrel and present it to the world as something other than the unfit cur that it is." He shook his head. "This will end."

With that the Asian raised his foot five inches off the floor. With a look of icy determination, he dropped the sole of his black leather shoe hard to the carpet.

The thunder rattled the room. The vibrations seemed to find focus on the wooden easels that held up the world maps. One by one the tiny red tacks popped out, clattering to carpet like hard rain. The last tack to rattle loose was that of Jean-Pierre Sevigne. The plastic-capped pin that had become a grave marker for the French assassin fell to the floor and was lost in the scattering sea of red thumbtacks.

"It is one thing to follow a trail," said the Asian. "Quite another thing to blaze one. We are going to tear down a house and build a new one on its foundation."

As he spoke, the small man walked over and retrieved the plastic case from the nightstand.

Dilkes shook his head. "I don't understand."

The Asian turned. "You and the pins in this box are going to help me, Benson Dilkes. When I am done, not one stone will be left on another. Our task is a simple one. Builders do it all the time. The destruction of a house."

The Korean took two fresh pins from the case. Rolling them in his palm, he brought them over to the map. One after the next, he flipped them to the tip of his thumb and flicked them with his index finger. With near simultaneous whirs they flew at a map, burying themselves deep in the corkboard.

Dilkes saw that the tacks had embedded themselves near the Korean peninsula. Just at the edge of the curve of the West Korean Bay. When he turned back to the Asian, there was a look of excited wonder on his face.

Dilkes had been dragged from Africa, from the comfort of retirement. Practically kicking and screaming. He had thought his new life of leisure suited him. He was wrong.

Benson Dilkes-the man who lectured others about the power of the House of Sinanju, the man who twenty-five years before had run rather than encounter the most feared practitioner of that most ancient art-felt an old tingle in the pit of his fluttering stomach.

He thought it was long gone. The excitement of youth. The thrill of the kill. Replaced by drudgery and mechanics and, finally, by retirement, by uselessness. But it was back. Blazing bright and newborn. In a flash, the certainty of death that had loomed above his head all these months was replaced by the exciting possibility of ultimate success.

Benson Dilkes turned to the Korean, his tan face flushed with youthful energy.

"I understand, Master," Dilkes drawled, his Virginia twang suddenly as thick as the day he had made his first kill. "Just tell me what you need. I am yours to command."

The killer offered a deep, formal bow of submission.

And, unseen by Dilkes, in the corner of the room the silent, blond-haired man flashed a demented smile.

Chapter 17

Remo was hoping that Chiun's gloomy mood would dissipate by the time they reached Charles de Gaulle International Airport. But the old Korean remained somber and silent from the cab to the curb to the terminal. His dour mood was infectious. Remo felt his own spirits sink with every cheerless step.

"Where to next?" Remo asked glumly as they headed to the ticket windows.

"Germany," the wizened Asian replied. He screwed his mouth up, refusing to say more.

"Great," Remo grumbled. "Snails for schnitzel. At least we're trading up the food chain."

He ordered the tickets at the counter, paying with his Remo Bednick American Express card. The two Masters of Sinanju had walked only a dozen feet away from the counter when a squat airport representative with a thick neck and a thicker French accent touched Remo on the elbow.

"Please excuse the intrusion," the man said, "but monsieur has a telephone call. If you would come this way."

Remo shot a glance at the Master of Sinanju. Chiun seemed uninterested. It was apparent he was still worrying about the words of the Russian monk.

"I'm warning you," Remo said to the Frenchman.

"I'm on my way to Germany. If this isn't on the level, I'm gonna throw a bratwurst over the Rhine and holler 'fetch.'"

The confused airport employee insisted he was telling the truth. With a sigh of surrender-the first ever uttered by a foreign national on French soil-Remo followed the man to a private lounge and a waiting telephone.

Remo expected the phone would be wired to sizzle him with electricity or spit poison gas. When he heard the bile-fueled wheezing on the other end of the line, he realized it was even worse than an assassin's booby trap.

"What is it, Smitty?" Remo sighed.

"Remo, thank goodness," said the lemony voice of Harold Smith. "We have been searching for you for several hours. Until you used your credit card, we were unable to find you."

"I'll have to remember to pay cash from now on. What do you want? And make it snappy, 'cause somewhere in Germany there's a killer waiting to zap me, and we all know how patient Germans are."

"Actually I was not looking for you. I need to speak with Master Chiun. Is he with you?"

Remo glanced at the Master of Sinanju. The old Korean was at the window of the lounge. Button nose upturned, he was staring out at the plane lights in the night sky, his face a mask of mummified concern.

"He's here," Remo said warily. "But he's not exactly in a chipper mood. I don't know if he wants to talk."

Twenty yards across the crowded lounge, the Master of Sinanju waved an angry, dismissive hand. His back remained to Remo as he studied the night.

"He wants me to take a message," Remo said. Smith cleared his throat.

"There has been an incident in Sinanju. I am afraid Master Chiun's caretaker is dead."

If Remo had even for a moment thought he might have to repeat Smith's words to the Master of Sinanju, he knew for certain in the next instant that it would not be necessary.

Across the room, the old man's head whipped around. Hazel eyes frowned in deep concern. The old Korean flounced across the lounge, snatching the phone from his pupil's hand.

"Speak," he demanded.

"Oh, Master Chiun." Smith did his best to mask his worried disappointment. Although he had called in search of the Master of Sinanju, he preferred to talk to Remo. "I was just telling Remo about your caretaker, Pullyang."

"Yes, yes," Chiun hissed. "What happened?"

"Well, his daughter called here a few hours ago," Smith said. "I believe her name is Hyunsil."

In the French airport lounge, the Master of Sinanju rolled his impatient eyes heavenward. Of course he knew the name of his caretaker's daughter. Just as he knew the names of all the villagers who lived under his protection. What was it in the white mind that made them state the obvious?

"How did my caretaker die?" Chiun pressed.

He was prepared to hear that natural causes or an unfortunate accident had claimed the life of his elderly caretaker. The answer he received startled him to silence.

"According to his daughter, he was murdered." Remo was still standing next to the phone. At Smith's words, he shot a concerned look at his teacher.

The color had drained from Chiun's parchment face. His hand was a knot of petrified ivory as it clutched the black receiver. His wisps of hair shook with vibrations that emanated from the very core of his shocked being.

For a long time he couldn't speak. All words he might have said shriveled and died within the compressing cage of his stunned chest. Hot breath slipped from between his lips.

The phone squawked in his hand.

"Hello? Master Chiun?" came the lemony voice from the line. "Hello?"

Remo gently pressed his hand to the Master of Sinanju's bony shoulder. "Little Father?"

At long last the old Korean found his voice.

"The treasure," he breathed. "Is the treasure safe?"

"I didn't think to ask," Smith said. "The translation program wouldn't have worked fast enough anyway. She hung up the phone too quickly. I could try calling back, although that really is not necessary now that you-"

Whatever else Smith said, neither Master of Sinanju heard. Chiun had hung up the phone. Lost in thought, the old man turned slowly to his pupil.

"I must return to Sinanju," he announced.

Remo nodded. "I understand," he said. "I'll get us two tickets to South Korea. We'll postpone this Time of Succession stuff for later."

"No," Chiun insisted. "You will continue alone. I will deal with whatever has happened in my village."

Remo's face clouded. "That's nuts," he said. "You have to go with me for this."

"You are a full Master of Sinanju, not an infant needing me to hold your hand," Chiun spit. "You will go alone."

Remo felt the world spinning away from him. He shook his head. "Is that even allowed?"

Chiun nodded. "There have been times in the past. Extreme circumstances where the pupil went alone. Usually they involved the death of the Reigning Master before the time of the pupil's introduction to the courts of the world. It is rare, but not without precedent."

Remo shook his head. "I can't do this by myself. I know two languages, English and Korean. I know govnyuk is 'shithead' in Russian, but we've already done the czar, so even that won't come in handy unless we're going to Moscow."

"No, we are not," Chiun said.

"All right, then."

"You are."

The tiny Asian's voice was firm. Remo could see that there would be no arguing. His shoulders slumped.

"Why don't you at least call home first before you waste a trip?" he said with a sigh. "Get a heads-up on what's going on. He was pretty old, Chiun. Maybe Smitty got it wrong. He said he was using some translation something-or-other. Maybe Pullyang died in his sleep."

"To call first might alert the dastards who did this wicked thing," Chiun insisted, "for the village telephone is in the Master's House and if they killed my trusted caretaker for my treasure, they are surely there plundering it now. If it is as you suggest and he met a natural end, I must still go, for he has been a good and faithful servant to me for many years. I must pay my last respects."

The words were spoken in a clear and reasonable tone. But they were a lie.

Another is dead already.

That was what the monk had said. At the time, the words had confused Chiun. Now he understood. The monk knew.

Another is dead already. Pullyang. Two Masters of Sinanju will die.

Whatever was coming for them had its beginnings in Sinanju. Perhaps it would be possible to cheat fate. But first Chiun had to learn exactly what the danger was.

"I don't even know where in Germany I'm supposed to go," Remo said. He seemed lost.

The old Korean looked up into his pupil's face. It was leaner now than it had been when they'd first met so many years ago. The baby fat had long since burned away. But it was still a young, innocent face. Guileless and unlined. Despite the buffeting hardships of a sometimes vicious and heartless world, it remained open and honest.

"I will tell you where to go," Chiun said softly.

"Super," Remo grumbled. "While you're at it, tell me what to do when I get there."

"I do not have to," the old man said. "For you will do as you always do. You will make me proud." And this time, unlike back at their Connecticut duplex, Remo Williams knew to worry. For this time the old man did not erase his words of praise with an insult.

Chapter 18

The chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany paced back and forth on the stone floor. The soles of his black dress shoes clicked sharply with each step.

"You said we were ready," the chancellor snapped. His breath formed puffs of gray steam in the chill morning air.

Wind blew cold through the open window in the old castle, cutting to the bone. The chancellor hugged his crossed arms tight to himself as he glared at the portly man in the heavy woolen overcoat.

"We were ready," the defense ministry man insisted. "Up until yesterday. But he has not arrived this morning. He was supposed to meet with me over an hour ago."

"Call him," the chancellor commanded.

"I have already tried calling a dozen times."

The leader of Germany strained to dull the furious edge in his voice, "Try again," he snapped. Nodding, the red-faced man waddled off to a dank corner, cell phone in hand. As the man pressed out a number on the disposable phone he intended to throw away later that morning, the chancellor stepped to the window.

The land he looked out on was primeval forest. The acres of wilderness were as untamed as they had been a thousand years before when this castle was a stronghold of the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.

The history of ancient Germany was stretched out before the chancellor's eyes. The German leader didn't seem to appreciate the view. That Frederick I had stood at the same window and looked out on the same forests was the last thing on the chancellor's mind this morning.

The leader of Germany was irritated. Why wouldn't he be? He had every right to be upset. They were supposed to be prepared. Until yesterday he had been assured over and over that Germany was ready.

He had flown by helicopter to this secret spot in the dark of night, secure in the knowledge that this bizarre business had been handled.

The special throne was already in place. It had been carted from its government storage facility in Berlin. The ancient wooden throne had been carved from the trees of this very forest. Lovingly preserved, it had been handed down from one generation to the next for centuries.

The throne weighed over a ton. It was part of the ceremony. The men who had been charged with hauling it to this lost castle had no idea what it was for.

But it was here. In place. As everything else was supposed to be. All that was supposed to happen from this point forward were formalities.

Only when the black night sky had begun to feed the ugly grays of dawn was the chancellor informed that his country might not be ready after all.

Far below the castle walls, the twisted trees stirred in the morning breeze. Somewhere close a bird began to shriek. Its cry was answered from far away in the forest depths.

As more birds took up the call, a muttered curse came from the corner of the big room. The chancellor turned from the window and the growing dawn. "Anything?"

Phone still pressed to his ear, the defense ministry man shook his head. His sagging jowls wobbled worriedly. "It now says that the number has been discontinued."

The chancellor's eyes opened wide with rage.

The fat man understood why the German leader was upset. He had done research. He knew exactly what they were dealing with. For weeks leading up to this, he had been having nightmares about what might happen if things went wrong.

The fat man held up a staying hand. "I know another number," he promised. "Give me a moment." As the ministry man dug through his pockets for the second number, the chancellor turned back to the window.

He couldn't believe his bad luck. How many chancellors had there been since the last time? Any one of them should have had to deal with this. Mocking fate had dropped him in office at this time.

At first the German leader thought he could dispense with all of this in a quick, efficient German manner. But his first chosen champion-the talented Swiss assassin, Olivier Hahn-had met an untimely end. After a scramble to find a replacement, they found the best money could buy. Better, perhaps, than the dead Swiss killer. And now this.

Behind him, the defense ministry man had found the backup number. The chancellor heard the beeps of the cell phone. The German leader tried to tune out the sound.

Across the forest the sky continued to brighten. The castle was a sacred spot. Ever since the time of Frederick Barbarossa this had been the traditional meeting place between the leaders of Germany and the mysterious assassins from the East. The castle had been maintained better in the earliest centuries. The outer walls and outbuildings had begun to crumble four centuries before. The modern age had brought the inner hall to partial ruin. But through many years, from the rule of the Hapsburgs through the reunification of East and West Germany at the end of the twentieth century, much of the castle still remained.

In the modern age the upkeep expenses were part of a black budget. No one outside a tight circle within the government even knew of the castle's existence. The small stipend earmarked for the Barbarossa castle was barely enough to maintain the main structure. Still, in spite of the ravages of time, it remained one of the best preserved castles of its age in Europe. And one that no government bureaucrat, college professor or camera-carting tourist would ever see.

For an instant as he looked out the window of the great hall, the current chancellor of Germany felt a tiny touch of the specialness of this place.

And as quickly as it came, the bubble that was his brief connection to the history of his country popped. "Hey, Sergeant Schultz, is this Barbarella's castle?" asked an American voice.

The German chancellor whirled.

There was another man standing in the vast hall. The intruder had come up the east stairs. Silently, for neither the defense ministry man nor the chancellor had heard him approach. The stranger was addressing the fat man on the phone, a perturbed look on his cruel face.

The fat man looked desperately from the stranger in the black T-shirt and matching chinos to the chancellor of Germany. The ministry man didn't know what to do. He had not expected to be interrupted in so clandestine an affair.

"Yo, Pudding Pop, I'm talking to you," Remo said, waving a hand in front of the man's frightened face.

"You cannot be here," the chancellor called. Remo glanced up as Germany's leader approached. The chancellor got between Remo and the throne, as if partially blocking the massive piece of furniture in the ancient stone hall would somehow hide his purpose.

"This is not a place for tourists," the chancellor said.

"Tell me about it," Remo groused. "It's not on any maps. Next world war you guys should hide out here. It'd take us a hundred years to find you. You in charge?"

The chancellor wasn't sure what to do. He had brought no security. His helicopter pilot was the man with the phone. The fat man was shrugging helplessly.

The chancellor stood straight, stiffening his shoulders. "You are trespassing," he said. "I order you to leave this place at once."

"Sorry, Fritz," Remo said. "Not German. I don't do that whole blindly-follow-orders thing. And it sounds like you're in charge. Here's the deal. I'm the first Master of Sinanju in a thousand years who's had to do this on his own, I've got some spooky prophecy dogging me and I'm in the kind of mood you people get in just before you annex, invade or write an opera at someone. So let's get this over with."

The chancellor took a surprised step back. With one hand he steadied himself on the throne.

"You are the Master of Sinanju?"

"Transitional Master for the moment," Remo said. "And the faster I get through here the faster I can transition to Reigning Master. Not that that's going to be all peaches and cream, but it's time to move up and there's nothing I can do about it. So let's get this over with. Where's your guy?"

"Ahh..." the German chancellor said. He glanced worriedly at the defense ministry man.

"That him?" Remo asked. Frowning, he stabbed his thumb at the man with the cell phone.

"No!" insisted the fat man. Panicked, he fell back against the wall, clutching his phone to his chest.

"Calm down, pie haus," Remo said. He turned his attention to the chancellor. "So where is he?"

"We, ah, had someone in mind," the chancellor began.

"I bet. Must've been a real challenge finding a maniacal, bloodthirsty German killer. What did you have to do, look out the window?"

"Actually we had two people," the chancellor said. Despite the cold, sweat broke out on his forehead. "The first was a Swiss. Very good with mechanical devices. He would have presented a real challenge for you."

"Not much of one. That plug got pulled last year." The chancellor blinked dull understanding.

"Oh," he said, his voice small. "We did manage to find another. His skills were different than the one you-than the other one."

"And?" Remo asked, noting the man's fearful quaver.

The chancellor gave a helpless shrug. "Our contestant has not arrived." In German, he barked a question at the ministry man on the other side of the hail. "He has vanished," the chancellor admitted to Remo in English, his voice sinking to low levels of despair. Remo could see the man was telling the truth.

"Well, what am I supposed to do now?" Remo muttered at the cold stone walls of the ancient castle hall.

"Show mercy on we lowly ones, O great and awesome Master of Sinanju," said the chancellor. "Be quick, bitte."

The chancellor's voice sounded strange. Remo looked down.

The German leader was down on his knees, his face pressed to the mossy floor. There was a grunt behind Remo. When he turned he saw the fat man had prostrated himself, too.

"What are you nits doing?" Remo asked.

"We have insulted Sinanju by not finding an assassin," said the chancellor. "Don't you want to kill us?"

Remo frowned. "That what I'm supposed to do?"

"I do not know. In a thousand years my country has never failed to field a champion. I assumed the future head of the House of Sinanju would take our failure as an insult and exact a blood debt from us."

"Maybe," Remo said. "On the other hand, blood debts are a bitch to wash out of cotton fabric."

Frowning contemplation, he turned silently on his heel.

After a long moment, the German chancellor looked up from the ancient stones.

The American was gone.

The chancellor pulled himself to his feet. Nearby, the defense ministry man climbed up on wobbly legs. The fat man's face glistened with sweat. There seemed to be an odd pain shooting up his left arm. Not that it mattered. They were alive.

"Thank God," the overweight man whispered.

Remo stuck his head back around the corner. "Hey, can I hitch a ride back with you guys?" he asked.

He noted the fat man flopping to the stone floor clutching his chest.

"I hope Tubby the Tuba's not driving," Remo said.

HAROLD W. SMITH WAS at his computer in his Folcroft office when the phone rang.

It was still the dead of night on the East Coast. Through the picture window at his back, silver starlight sparkled across the inky black water of Long Island Sound.

Smith had sent Mark Howard home hours ago. It would be several hours before the younger man came back in to work.

Pursing his lips in displeasure, Smith picked up the ringing phone. "Yes," he said with mild annoyance. "I need some help, Smitty."

Smith had almost been hoping that the caller would be the frantic woman from Chiun's village. The Master of Sinanju would not be home yet. When he heard Remo's voice, the CURE director exhaled disapproval.

"I do not like being involved in this," Smith said unhappily, straightening with fussy annoyance in his chair.

"Join the club," Remo grumbled. "I've got a problem, Smitty. The guy Germany was supposed to use as cannon fodder has taken off. No one knows where he is."

Smith breathed hotly through pinched nostrils. Once it was decided that Chiun would return to Sinanju to check into the matter of his caretaker, Remo had hastily called Smith back, turning the phone back over to his teacher. Chiun had given the CURE director an encyclopedic list of people, places and tradition to help guide Remo through the Time of Succession. At first Smith objected, but threats from Remo to quit CURE if he didn't help finally brought him around, albeit reluctantly.

"I do not appreciate being blackmailed," Smith said, restating his earlier objection.

"No kidding," Remo replied. "I missed that the first hundred times you said so."

Smith spun in his chair, staring out at the night. "It is not as if this is a CURE matter," he said, more to himself than to Remo. "If the two of you wish to go off like this, it should be your business, not mine."

"Earth to Smitty," Remo snapped. "I need help." Smith exhaled loudly.

"You say the German assassin has rejected Sinanju's challenge?"

"I'd say chickened out, but your way works, too."

"Chiun informed me that this happens from time to time during this ritual."

"So what do I do?"

"Traditionally you would go in search of the individual who has fled to avoid confrontation. I understand there was a Master- Wait." Smith turned back to his keyboard, pulling up the relevant files. "Yes, Master Hwyack. Apparently he spent eighteen years searching for a Vandal champion who ran away from the contest."

"Pass," Remo said.

"Chiun was quite clear on this, Remo," Smith insisted. "The chosen champion must be defeated."

"Smitty, do you really want me to waste the next six months knocking on the door of every gingerbread house in the Black Forest to see if Germany's best assassin is hiding under the bed?"

Humming thoughtfully, Smith tapped a finger on his desk. "That would not be an effective use of time," he agreed.

"Fine. It's settled. I'm all finished here. Put a check on the chart next to Germany."

"I doubt Chiun will be satisfied with this outcome," the CURE director pointed out. "But you are right. I would prefer to limit the amount of time you waste on this matter. Perhaps we can approach this more efficiently. I will see if Mark can track him down. You continue to your next destination. Do you have the German assassin's name?"

"Wilhelm von Murderstrasse, or something like that. Wait a sec. They told me on the chopper. Let me find it."

"What helicopter? Who were you with?"

"Couple of Germans," Remo said absently as he searched for the name. "I think one of them was chancellor or something. Didn't have a little mustache, though. It was all I could do to keep the other guy alive till we got back to Berlin. Germans have heart attacks real easy. Found it."

In the dark of his Folcroft office, Smith had been pinching the bridge of his nose. He pulled his hand away, readjusting his glasses.

"What is it?" he sighed.

"Hermann Heyse," Remo said, obviously reading the name.

Smith typed the name into the computer along with the rest of the data he had compiled on the Time of Succession.

"Very well. I will have Mark track him down. In the meantime you may continue to your next destination. "

The CURE director read a quick summary of the where and who of Remo's next appointment. With instructions to call if there were any questions, he broke the connection.

Once the blue phone was safely back in its cradle, Smith sank tiredly back into his leather chair.

Remo had been on a helicopter with the chancellor of Germany. Another name to add to the growing list of world leaders CURE's Destroyer had met.

The only thing that was keeping Smith's sanity intact was the knowledge that no one in any of these foreign lands could allow word of what they were involved in to get out. Despite the requirements of this particular ritual, from Master to Master, Sinanju had remained successfully hidden from the eyes of the world for millennia. Smith trusted that the secret would remain hidden. It had to.

Smith sat back up in his chair. It squeaked. It hadn't done that for some time.

Taking odd comfort in the noise, the CURE director stretched his hands to his keyboard.

Chapter 19

Kim Jong Il, Leader for Life of North Korea, was in his office in the concrete bowels of the People's Palace in the capital city of Pyongyang when he got the terrible news.

"How soon?" the premier demanded.

"The plane will be arriving in approximately thirty minutes," replied his secretary, an army colonel.

A flush came to the premier's cheeks.

The colonel who stood before his desk looked worried. The officer had just learned that a commercial jet had been "borrowed" in South Korea. That was the term the South had used. In this age of heightened awareness over hijackings, it was a very odd choice of words.

The highest leadership in the South had called the highest leadership in the North to tell them about the plane. In that urgent call they had mentioned one word the significance of which the colonel didn't understand. That word was Sinanju. The colonel was told that it didn't matter that he didn't understand. He had been informed that the premier would know what it meant.

It seemed as if the caller from the South had been correct, for at the mention of the word the North Korean premier's face visibly paled.

Sitting behind his desk, the premier had to grab on to his seat to steady himself. "Half an hour," he lamented.

"Less than that by now, my premier."

The premier had a clump of knotted hair that, left to its own devices, stood at bizarre attention on his head. With the news from his secretary, the premier's face had begun to match the impression of cartoon shock given off by his plume of sticking-up hair.

"They're early," Kim complained. "He swore to me they wouldn't work their way to Asia for another couple weeks."

"Sir?" questioned the confused secretary.

The premier didn't even hear the question. "Quick," he snapped. "Get on the phone to General Kye Pun of the People's Bureau of Revolutionary Struggle. Tell him the Sinanju schedule's been moved up. Tell him I need his special boy at the airport ASAP."

"Yes, sir. Now, about this rogue plane. Do you want to give the order to shoot it down?"

The premier's panic was so great it looked as if his spikes of hair might start launching at the ceiling. "Hell no," he snapped. "He's mad enough when I don't fire missiles at him. I don't even want to think about how pissed off he'd be if I shot a plane out from under him. Now, hurry up and make that call to Pun."

As his secretary hurried from the office to place the call to the head of North Korea's intelligence service, the Leader for Life was rummaging in the bottom drawer of his desk. He pulled out a bottle and a crystal tumbler. With shaking hands he poured himself a good stiff belt.

"Why do bad things happen to good dictators?" he moaned to his office walls.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, when the plane appeared as a little black dot in the pale white sky, Kim Jong Il was shivering at the Pyongyang airport.

He wore a big furry hat that covered his wild hair. A heavy coat didn't block the wind that whipped the tarmac.

The booze hadn't helped. The dulling effects were mostly burned away by the bitter cold. The rest evaporated the instant he saw the plane.

North Korea's Leader for Life was not alone. He had a small entourage with him, which included several soldiers. General Pun, the head of North Korean intelligence, was there. Pun's special man stood beside the security officer.

In a land for which famine was common, the man to General Pun's left was a healthy aberration. Shan Duk had been born and bred in the slums outside of Pyongyang. A hulking brute of a man, Duk stood six feet four inches tall and was nearly as wide. His broad face was as flat as a frying pan. Angry flesh bunched above his eyes, lending the brute a perpetual squint.

At one point during a particularly devastating famine a few years before it was discovered that Shan Duk was hoarding food. This was when the young man was a mere guard at the People's Bureau of Revolutionary Struggle headquarters. To fuel the massive machine that was his body, Duk had been going from door to door in his neighborhood, shaking down neighbors for portions of their meager rations. When that wasn't enough to sate him, he brought the practice to work. On their way in to work every morning, half-starved coworkers at the PBRS were forced to line up and turn over large chunks of their food allotment to the behemoth. As the starving, hollow-eyed government workers watched Shun Duk gorge himself on their rations, their empty bellies grumbling, the big man always insisted, "Take heart. It is in the interest of the people's glorious revolution that I not go hungry. Is there any soup in that thermos?"

When the complaints about the young guard filtered up to General Pun, the head of Korean intelligence considered disciplining the young soldier. But how? A reprimand seemed too weak for such an infraction. He doubted there was a prison strong enough to hold the monster. He would have had him shot if he thought it just wouldn't have made him mad. In the end Pun had opted for the most prudent alternative.

Shan Duk's promotion to personal bodyguard of General Kye Pun was a win-win situation. Kye Pun got the toughest bodyguard on the Korean peninsula, and Shan Duk got an increase in pay that lessened the need to shake down the intelligence agency staff. He now only did so when he was really, really hungry.

At brutality, few men on Earth showed as much natural talent as Shan Duk. When it came time to select the champion who would carry the banner for North Korea in the Sinanju Time of Succession, there was only one logical choice.

Some found it odd that the premier hadn't recruited the big man for his personal security force. Although Shan Duk was clearly the most formidable individual in the North Korean government, Kim Jong 11 had never considered bringing the man over to work for him for one simple reason: Shan Duk scared the living bejesus out of the Communist leader.

As the plane from the South landed, the premier stood at the center of his entourage, a few men away from the fearsome intelligence officer. On a good day he kept his distance from Shan Duk. But for a moment as the final alcohol buzz burned off, he wished that the most terrifying thing he had to face was a half-starved brute of a bodyguard.

Sober and shaking, Kim Jong Il listened to the plane tires squeal. It rolled to a stop before the group of men.

The air stairs were quickly put in place. When the door opened a minute later, a lone man stepped into the cold air.

At the sight of the Master of Sinanju, Kim Jong Il felt his bowels clench.

"It's show time," he said with a reluctant moan. Entourage in tow, he headed to the base of the stairs.

The Master of Sinanju descended like a floating mummy. His eyes were as hard and cold as the Korean terrain.

"Master of Sinanju!" Kim Jong Il enthused, a phony smile plastered wide over his face. "Welcome home. We weren't expecting you so soon. So where's that sonny boy of yours?" He stood on tiptoes, looking worriedly up the stairs.

Chiun's voice was glacial. "He is not here." A spark of hope lit the Korean premier's eyes. "Oh, no," he said, attempting a sympathetic tone as insincere as his vanishing smile. "I sure as heck hope no one got the better of him in this contest thing."

Chiun gave him a cancerous look that told the Korean leader that Remo was alive and well.

"Sorry," Kim Jong II said, holding up his hands in apology. "I can't help it. That kid of yours gives me a serious case of shit-the-pants. The way he's always smacking me around, busting the place up when he's in town. I don't think he likes me. But you and me. That's a whole 'nother story. We understand each other."

Smiling again, he offered the Master of Sinanju his hand in friendship.

Chiun took the premier's hand. The premier was glad Chiun took his hand. Shaking hands was nice. Friendly people shook hands. And they were both Koreans, after all. Koreans understood each other with the sort of understanding that was sealed with friendly handshaking niceness.

"There." Kim Jong Il beamed. "One, big happy Korean fam- Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!" He was down on his knees before he even realized that Chiun hadn't warmed to a shared bond of Korean niceness after all. He hadn't shaken the premier's hand. Instead, the old man took the web of flesh between the premier's thumb and forefinger and squeezed. The pain was unbelievable. Blinding.

Kim Jong Il's shocked brain couldn't register what had happened. To help it along in understanding, the Master of Sinanju squeezed again.

"Ahhhhhhhh! " Kim Jong Il screamed again.

All around came metallic clicks, like winter crickets suddenly popping from hibernation.

Kim Jong Il's eyes grew wild.

"Hold your fire!" he yelped at his troops, who had quickly taken aim with rifles and handguns on the little man who had brought the Leader for Life of North Korea to his knees on the bitterly cold tarmac of Pyongyang airport. "Back off, back off! That is a goddamn order! Ahhhhhhhhh!" he cried anew, falling farther to the ground. He propped himself up with his free hand. "What's wrong?" he begged.

The old man's eyes were frozen hazel shards. "Are you responsible?" the Master of Sinanju demanded. The premier didn't have time to answer.

As ordered, the men with the guns had backed off. They stood at a short, anxious distance, unsure what to do. But amid the crowd one man had decided on a course of action.

Puffs of angry white steam shot from the flaring nostrils of Shan Duk. He looked like a Korean bull. And like a bull, Shan Duk charged, howling with rage.

No one there was quite sure what happened next. Things moved so quickly they saw only the result. They were certain that Shan Duk had attacked the little old man. They were reasonably certain that he had succeeded in crushing the tiny man to paste, for the old man vanished very briefly underneath the towering mountain of meat that was Shan Duk.

But then Shan Duk was in the air. Floating. And then they saw the bony arm.

It held the mighty North Korean Communist warrior in the air by his back like a waiter's serving tray. The arm was attached to the little old man who, with his free hand, continued to assault North Korea's Leader for Life even as he held the big bodyguard aloft.

Shan Duk was like a turtle on his shell. His big arms were useless as he tried to grab around to the bony hand that propped him up by his meaty back. His tree-trunk legs kicked helplessly at the air.

There was no strain on the hard face of the Master of Sinanju. He continued to stare cold accusation at Kim Jong Il. The premier cowered under the huge, flailing shadow of Shan Duk.

"Are you responsible?" Chiun demanded once more.

"For what?" the premier begged.

"There was an atrocity committed in my village. A man is dead who was more honest and decent than any born of the slatterns in this brothel city. And so I ask again, on pain of a thousand deaths, are you responsible?"

"No!" Kim Jong Il shrieked. "God, no! I swear on a stack of outlawed Bibles. Sinanju is off-limits now. I made sure everyone knows that."

Chiun detected no deception coming from the North Korean premier. He released Kim Jong Il's hand, spinning in a whirl of kimono silk.

For an instant he suddenly seemed to remember Shan Duk, all 270 pounds of which was still balanced on his fingertips. As an afterthought, Chiun lobbed the bodyguard-who was thrashing by this point into the mob of soldiers. The men fell like bowling pins.

Chiun twirled through the toppled mass of men, heading across the tarmac. As he walked he shouted, "I require an automobile."

And all around, terrified men produced jangling sets of car keys. Mostly Chryslers and Subarus. The finest cars the Communist leadership of North Korea could buy.

IT WAS GENERAL KYE PUN who was elected to drive the Master of Sinanju home. Chiun remained silent in the back seat of the car.

A major highway, the likes of which existed nowhere else in all of North Korea, led to the coast. It stopped dead at a frozen mud road.

When the intelligence officer slowed to a gravelly stop at the end of the paved road, the Master of Sinanju got out of the back. He padded wordlessly away from the car.

The car turned for the ride back to the capital. When General Kye Pun looked in the rearview mirror, he saw the solitary figure of the elderly Master of Sinanju walking up the old mud path between the clumps of winter weeds.

"May we never cross paths again, old one," the general muttered to himself as he drove back down the road.

Alone on the path, Chiun heard the general's softly spoken words. He listened to the sound of the car engine driving away. It was an ugly sound. A modern intrusion into a place otherwise untouched by time.

The automobile sound faded, replaced by the howl of the wind and the roar of the nearby sea.

As always when he returned to the village of his birth, Chiun soaked in the history of his surroundings. Countless centuries ago, the sandals of the first Master of Sinanju had walked this very path. Chiun returned along that road. The same path he had walked as a young man when first he ventured out as Reigning Master.

Usually a return to Sinanju was cause for rejoicing. But this was not a happy homecoming. With a heavy heart he walked the path of his ancestors to the village proper.

The homes and shops were closed up tight. Windows were shuttered against the relentless wind. No one was about.

It was not the elements that kept the people inside. Chiun had sensed it even before he reached the village. Fear hung heavy in the cold air.

He walked through town unchallenged.

The House of Many Woods sat on a bluff beyond the far end of the main road. Buffeted by wind, Chiun climbed the hill and entered the house of his ancestors.

The treasure was where it belonged. To his sharp eye it was clear nothing had been disturbed.

That he had not been robbed was a small consolation. There were things larger than mere robbery. Greater even than if bandits had come in and whisked away all the centuries' worth of accumulated treasure.

He was coming out of a back room when he heard the sound of the front door opening.

An old woman waited for him in the main room. Her eyes were dark from lack of sleep. She was draped in the traditional white garments of mourning.

Chiun needed only to gaze upon Hyunsil, daughter of his caretaker, to see that Smith had been right. "So," the Master of Sinanju said quietly. "It is true."

Hyunsil nodded. "Yes, Master," she said, her voice heavy with sorrow. Though burdened, she tried to straighten herself. "Hail, Master of Sinanju, who sustains the village and keeps the code faithfully, leader of the House of Sinanju. Our hearts cry a thousand greetings of love and adoration. Joyous are we upon the return of him who graciously throttles the universe."

That in her sorrow she would remember the traditional greeting for a returning Master of Sinanju-the greeting her father had taught her-filled Chiun's heart with love.

"You honor me, child, to remember the words," he said, padding over to her. "Even more, you honor the memory of your father. But do not bother with formalities now."

"As you wish, Master," Hyunsil said, studying the dust on the floor with tired eyes.

Chiun sensed her spirit. "You blame the Master for your father's death," he announced, nodding sagely.

The old woman looked up with a start, shocked that her secret heart had become known. But then she realized to whom she was speaking.

"My father would be angry at me for thinking such a thing," Hyunsil said, hanging her head in shame. "He taught me to revere the Masters of Sinanju, whose labors have sustained our village for generations."

And the Master of Sinanju did take great pity on the old woman. Reaching out, Chiun took Hyunsil's chin in his slender fingers. He gently raised her eyes from the floor.

"Your father was a good man," Chiun said. "Not great, for that is another thing altogether, most often bestowed by shallow men who are easily impressed by flash and showmanship. In many ways it is more difficult to be good than great. Your good father taught you well. He was right to tell you that Sinanju survives by the labors of the Masters of Sinanju, the sworn protectors of our village." The old man offered a wise smile. "But in this matter, daughter of Sinanju, it is not wrong for you to blame the Master, for you are correct, as well. I have failed."

This time when she looked up, there was amazement in the old woman's bloodshot eyes.

"You are surprised that I would admit to failure," Chiun said. "I tell you now it is so, for if I had not failed in some way this terrible thing would not have happened."

And although he did not say it to the woman, his thoughts were of the reputation of the House of Sinanju. A reputation that had kept the village safe for generations.

Somewhere was someone who scorned that reputation. Who dared visit death to the Pearl of the Orient.

All this did Chiun think but did not say. He turned his attention to the crone who stood before him.

"I would see the body," intoned the Master of Sinanju.

THEY FOLLOWED the remote path from the main village.

Chiun knew at once where they were heading, for the road led to one place only.

"He was missing for many days," Hyunsil said as they walked. She struggled to keep strength in her voice. "At first a few of the other women from the village helped me look. But they gave up after a day. After that no one would help me search. They said he was an old fool who had probably stumbled into the bay and drowned. Someone saw blood on the shore that morning. But he did not drown." Her head hung low. "I was alone when I found him."

The hut of the dead shaman was at the end of the path.

Chiun knew well the family that had called the pathetic pile of stone and thatch home. The last shaman had died many years ago. His daughter, Sonmi, who had been the last of the family's pure bloodline, had vanished many months ago.

As he approached the crooked little path that led to the front door, the Master of Sinanju could not help but think of another who had once called the hut home.

The ghosts danced cold around his ankles. For this reason did Chiun approach the building with quiet care.

This was a place where few in the village dared venture. It was not a surprise that this was the last place Hyunsil had looked for her missing father. Halfway up the path, Hyunsil stopped.

"He is inside," the old woman said. Tears welled anew in eyes tired from weeping.

Chiun took her hands in his, patting them gently. He left the sobbing woman on the path.

It was cold in the hovel. Colder than outdoors. Ice formed on the insides of the stone walls.

The freezing temperature had preserved the body. With great sadness Chiun looked on the frozen corpse of his faithful caretaker.

Pullyang lay on his back in peaceful repose in the center of the dirt floor. As if arranged by a mortician. The daughter had said that he had been murdered. For the sake of delicacy Chiun hadn't asked the method of death, not wishing to further upset the woman. But upon initial examination he couldn't see anything obvious.

Perhaps the head. There was something not right with the way Pullyang's head sat in relation to his body.

Chiun circled the body.

He saw instantly. It had been obscured by Pullyang's clothing.

The head was no longer attached. It had been made to appear natural. The killer had tucked the head back up to the neck. A taunt. A grisly joke waiting to be discovered.

No tools or weapons of any kind had been used.

The initial blunt trauma to the bluish flesh of the neck indicated that the head had been removed by hand. The blow that had been used was unmistakable. Chiun quickly left the body, hurrying back out into the weak sunlight. Hyunsil was still on the walk, her back to the hut. She jumped when Chiun touched her elbow.

"Did you see anyone near here?" he asked sharply.

"No," she replied. "He was alone when I found him. "

Hyunsil could see the look of deep worry that had suddenly appeared on the face of the Master of Sinanju.

"Master," she asked, "is something wrong?" Chiun had been glancing around the area. As if looking for something to jump at them from the scrub brush.

When he spoke, the Master of Sinanju's voice was grave.

"Go back to your home, daughter of Sinanju," he intoned, adding darkly, "and barricade the door."

Chapter 20

Remo's flight from Berlin dropped him in Madrid late in the morning. It was just over an hour's drive from the capital of Spain to his next meeting spot.

The Alcazar at Segovia was a massive castle that seemed to grow up out of solid rock. If it seemed postcard perfect, that was only when viewed from the comfortable side of civilization. The castle was largely gray and functional, built at a time when strong fortifications oftentimes meant the difference between life and death.

Remo parked his car far down the road from the castle. Ducking into the woods, he found the little clearing just where it was supposed to be. For generations groundskeepers at the Alcazar had no idea why they were ordered to keep this one lonely spot in the middle of nowhere neatly mowed.

Remo found the tallest tower of the castle. It rose up high in the air, casting shadows across the rock. He felt the watchful eyes of the deceased Masters of Sinanju following his every move. As usual, a vague sense of dissatisfaction emanated from the spirits of the Masters' Tribunal.

"You've all done this before," he grumbled. "You'd think one of you could rattle a chain in the right direction."

Careful to keep the tower over his right shoulder, he began walking away from the palace, counting as he went.

"...seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty."

He stopped at an angled wall of rock. It jutted from the ground far from the castle.

He looked back. The very top of the tall tower peeked at him over the nearby treetops.

Pushing aside the bushes that grew wild in front of the rock face, he found a cave entrance. Beyond the opening was a long tunnel. The scent of stale earth and old moss drifted from the tunnel's ancient mouth. "About damn time something went my way."

Whistling a happy tune, Remo ducked through the weeds and disappeared inside the ancient tunnel.

THE PRIME MINISTER of Spain was the first to hear the sound. He cocked an ear, listening intently.

It was difficult to isolate over the cooing of the birds. He strained hard, but the sound was gone. He had to have imagined it. Small wonder. The ancient room in the gloomy old castle had everything but a rack and a black-masked torturer wielding a cat-o'-nine-tails.

"What was it?" asked a nearby voice as the prime minister fussed, irritated, at his jacket cuffs.

"Nothing, Your Majesty. My ears playing tricks on me."

The king had arrived early that morning. He had been waiting on his throne for hours in the secret chamber of the Alcazar that was opened only once in a generation.

The king of Spain's throne was set back under a stone arch in order to avoid the sloppy white pigeon droppings that fell from the ceiling. The floor was thick with a paste of bird waste, fresh and drying intermingled.

When that room was opened to the first assassin from the East, there weren't pigeons. The first Master of Sinanju to stand in that room was the fifteenth-century Master, Lee-Piy, assassin of Pope Calixtus III. Near the hidden room was the very spot where Isabella's coronation as the queen of Castille had taken place. Secret tales of both assassin and queen had been passed down from one Spanish ruler to the next, all the way down to the modern constitutional monarchy.

The current king checked his watch as he settled back in the unfamiliar throne.

"They should be here soon."

The prime minister barely heard the king's words. He was listening to the walls once more.

The sound was back. Stronger this time. Much louder than the bird noises that came from the rafters. It seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

This time when he glanced to the king it was clear that Spain's monarch had heard it, too. And though both men knew well the sound they heard, neither could understand why the walls of the Alcazar were whistling.

"What is that?" the king asked in wonder.

"I am not certain, Your Majesty," the prime minister replied worriedly. "But it sounds familiar." For a moment as the walls whistled, the prime minister's fearful mind conjured an image of a group of cherubic cartoon dwarfs marching with picks and spades to work. And then the whistling abruptly stopped and a man stepped out of the solid rock face. "Hi-ho, hi-ho," said Remo Williams.

The shocked prime minister thought he glimpsed a hidden passage. It closed up behind the stranger. "My God," the Spanish prime minister gasped.

"Nope, already got a job," Remo replied. "You the guy I'm supposed to meet?"

It took the prime minister a moment to get his bearings. "Oh, I see. You are Sinanju. But you are white."

"I try to make up for it by thinking impure thoughts." Remo looked around the chamber, his nose wrinkling at the mess on the floor.

The room was small and square. Massive wooden beams crossed far up the high ceiling. Pigeons fluttered near the filthy rafters. Small slits for windows allowed a little gray light to slip inside. The windows had been arranged to focus light on a single piece of furniture-the only piece in the room. Remo aimed a thumb at the throne.

"Who's that goomer?" he asked the prime minister.

The prime minister hurried to the throne. "This is his majesty, King Juan Carlos de Borbon y Borbon."

"No fooling?" Remo said, surprised. "I thought you guys fired your king to give the socialists free rein to wreck the country. Mission accomplished, by the way."

To Remo he didn't look like much of a king. He seemed like just any older gentleman in a business suit, plucked from the street and dropped on a throne. The king said not a word. He just sat there, waiting. Remo understood the monarch's silence.

Sighing quietly to himself, Remo approached the throne, picking his way through the mess of bird droppings.

He felt the eyes of Sinanju history watching his every move. He knew why. This was Sinanju's bread and butter. Schmoozing with monarchs kept the gold flowing back to the little village on the West Korean Bay. It was also the part of the job Remo hated more than any other.

Remo, latest in the unbroken line of Masters of Sinanju, offered the king of Spain a formal bow. "Sinanju bids most humble and undeserved greetings, Your Majesty," Remo recited reluctantly. "We stand before you as wretched and unworthy servants to your glorious crown."

He felt stupid reciting the words. He wouldn't have bothered if he knew the rules his ghosts were playing by. But if one of them blabbed in a seance that Remo hadn't offered the proper greeting to one of Europe's last surviving monarchs, Chiun would have his neck in a noose.

His words seemed to satisfy the king.

"Greetings, Master of Sinanju," the king replied in English. "You do us honor with this visit. We trust your journey was safe and bid you welcome to our shore."

For some reason Remo couldn't explain, the king's words warmed him. Maybe it was the connection to the past. A ritual greeting between monarch and assassin. Knowing that all the Masters of the modern age had said the same words during the same rite of passage. He was living history. It surrounded him on all sides. Hummed with life.

What with finding the secret passage right where it was supposed to be and seemingly making happy the ghosts of Sinanju past, Remo actually started to feel good.

The feeling was short-lived.

The prime minister cleared his throat. "I am afraid, Master of Sinanju, we have a problem."

The life hum stopped. Remo was back in a cold stone cell smeared with pigeon shit.

"Why?" Remo asked, eyes narrowing. "What's wrong?"

The prime minister looked to the king. The king looked to the pigeons flapping and crapping at the ceiling. The prime minister looked back at Remo.

"It has to do with our entrant in the contest," said the prime minister. He offered an oily, apologetic smile.

REMO STOPPED at a little restaurant a few miles down the road from the Alcazar.

When he asked if there was a pay phone, he was told it was out of order, which didn't surprise him. From what he had seen in this short trip, the last thing to work properly in Spain were three little wooden boats that had, in 1492, gotten the hell out of the country.

He peeled off ten hundred-dollar bills from the roll in his pocket and offered them to the owner for private use of the kitchen phone. As the owner was chasing the kitchen staff from the room, Remo was dialing the multiple 1 code that would connect him to Folcroft's secure line.

"Are you finished in Spain?" Smith asked without preamble.

"Everything's finished in Spain," Remo said. "I don't think they've started anything new since they figured out they can kill bulls with red blankets and shiny pants."

"Yes," Smith said dryly. "May I assume you are calling for the details of your next appointment?" For some reason the CURE director's voice sounded echoey.

"You know what they say about assuming, Smitty," Remo said, sitting up on the little desk that was tucked in the corner of the restaurant's kitchen. "I haven't finished this one yet."

"Did something go wrong?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure. I think there could be something screwy going on. You know how the German guy said auf Wiedersehen without a fight? Turns out the Spanish guy did the same thing."

There was a pause on the line. "Are you certain?" Smith asked after a thoughtful moment.

"Depends on how much stock you can put in the king of Spain's word. Seemed like an okay guy. Nice suit. By the way, did you know Spain still had a king?"

"Of course."

"Oh. Anyway, maybe I should just take it as an ego boost that this one took off, too, and jump over to the next square."

"I'm not so sure," Smith said. "While Chiun said that it was not unheard-of for a contestant to flee the contest, it was my impression that this was unusual in the extreme. Unfortunately, Mark has not been able to track down the German yet, so we cannot ask him if there is a connection. Do you have the name of the Spanish assassin?"

Fishing a scrap of paper from his pocket, Remo read Smith the name the Spanish prime minister had given him. Over the line he heard Smith's fingers drumming against his special keyboard as he entered the name in his computer. The sound had the same strange hollow quality as Smith's voice.

"Why do you sound so funny?" Remo asked.

"I have you on speakerphone," Smith explained. Remo knew that the CURE director had the device for some time but rarely used it, preferring the privacy of a clunky old phone pressed tight to his ear. If it was on now, that could only mean one thing.

"Tell Howard I said hi," Remo muttered.

Smith didn't hear. "There," he said, finishing his typing. "I will include him in our search. For now I suppose you can do nothing but move on to your next appointment. According to my list, Italy is next. You have a meeting with their president at midnight." Smith quickly gave him the details.

"Swell," Remo grumbled once the CURE director was finished. "I think I figured out the real reason Chiun's putting me through all this. He's hoping to wear me down so I wind up hating everybody like he does."

"This tradition dates back well beyond Master Chiun," Smith reminded him.

"Chiun comes from a long line of racists," Remo said. He cupped the phone to his chest. "No offense," he announced to the empty kitchen.

"I did have one question before you go," Smith was saying as Remo raised the phone back to his ear. "I have been going over your itinerary. Not that I approve of any of this, but there are countries that have been left out. For instance Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland are all skipped."

Remo laughed, shaking his head wearily.

"Chiun says we don't bother with Poland because their assassins kept effing up the rules and shooting themselves by mistake. I think he's just being racist and writing them off 'cause the zloty's worth spit. If you look at that list he gave you, he's skipped over pretty much all of the old Soviet countries. Mostly because the Franklin Mint's got more gold in their Wizard of Oz collector series plates than those countries have in their whole damn treasuries these days. We're great assassins, but we're even better money magnets. Spain is probably only still on because it had a pretty big empire four hundred years ago. It takes time to get knocked down a notch. Another couple of hundred and it'll probably be dropped, too." He slipped down off the desk. "There's a lesson for America in there," he warned quietly. "See you, Smitty." He dropped the heavy black phone in the cradle.

"DID YOU HEAR all that?" Smith asked. The first hint of worry creased his gray brow.

Mark Howard sat in a plain wooden chair across Smith's desk. The young man nodded.

"Do you think it's a coincidence both guys backed out?" the assistant CURE director asked.

Smith shook his head. "No, I do not." Even as he spoke, he was reaching in his desk drawer. Taking out a bottle of baby aspirin, he shook two pills into his palm. "This business should not even involve us," he said as he measured out some liquid antacid into the tiny cup that came with the green bottle. Throwing back the aspirins, he washed them down with the chalky liquid.

Across the desk Mark hoped he wasn't getting a glimpse of his own future.

"I tried calling him a few more times," Howard offered. "The line's still not busy, but he isn't answering."

Smith knew exactly whom his assistant meant. The CURE director took off his glasses, rubbing tired eyes.

"Do you have a sense that there is something larger going on?" he asked.

It made him uncomfortable to ask the question. His assistant had an unusual ability that sometimes allowed him to see beyond that which was known. Howard's sixth sense was something neither man liked to discuss.

"No," Mark admitted. "But given what Remo just told us, I guess we have enough of a pattern." Smith nodded his understanding.

"Most likely," he agreed wearily. "But we need to know for certain. Our obligations in this were made clear enough early on. I will have to go check. You will be in charge here while I am gone. You may use my office if you wish."

Replacing his rimless glasses, he began reaching for his keyboard to order plane tickets.

"Wait," Mark said, standing. "I should be the one to go, Dr. Smith. I'm expendable. You're too important to CURE to still be doing fieldwork."

He left off the phrase that both men knew was implied: At your age.

Smith hesitated.

The older man knew that it was true. His last fieldwork had been a year ago in South America. Smith might have sent his assistant then, but at that time Mark Howard could not go due to a psychological condition that-at the time-none of them understood. While Smith was gone, his young assistant had inadvertently freed the Dutchman, Jeremiah Purcell, from captivity in Folcroft's security corridor. Once Purcell was gone, the psychic connection he had made with Mark Howard was broken. Howard had returned to normal.

It was one year later now and Mark was fine. A thirty-year-old man in the peak of health.

One year later. Smith, now one year older. The CURE director considered briefly.

"Very well," Smith said all at once. "You may go. I will take over for you here. I'll look into the matter of the two missing assassins Remo told us about and continue to confer with him on the phone. I'll reserve the tickets under your cover identity. Please remember to leave all of your true identification here."

"Yes, sir," Howard said, a flush rising in his cheeks.

"That includes, Mark, anything that might connect you to Folcroft," Smith warned. "I had an...associate who made that mistake years ago."

A flash of confusion crossed Mark Howard's face. He hadn't known of anyone else who had been a regular CURE employee connected to Folcroft. He could see by the strange look on his employer's face that he should not ask.

"I'll call with any news," Mark promised. The young man left the room.

Alone once more, Smith turned to the picture window and Long Island Sound. Lazy eyes tracked a bird in flight, pushed higher, ever higher, on rough gusts of frigid wind.

Smith's thoughts turned to his old associate. Strange. Even all these years later, even in his own mind, he could not bring himself to use the word friend.

The man was dead. Were he still alive, he would have been the first to announce to the world that he and Smith were friends, if only to see how uncomfortable it made Harold W. Smith.

Harold Smith and Conrad MacCleary had a friendship baptized in blood. It was impossible for two men who had been through as much as they had together to not form a bond.

Mark Howard had not even been born when Smith and Conrad MacCleary fought together in World War II in the OSS. Nor had Howard been alive when the two old friends joined the peacetime CIA or even when the two old cold warriors had stepped even farther into the murky shadows of the espionage world to found a new secret organization called CURE.

Howard was everything MacCleary was not-polite, tidy, efficient-sober, in every meaning of the word. Yet in a strange way Smith felt the same sort of connection to this young man, more than forty years his junior, as he had to his long-dead comrade in arms.

It didn't hurt that Mark had saved Smith's life the previous winter. If Smith had needed final proof of the young man's suitability to this job, that was it.

Yet there was more to his relationship with Howard than there had been with MacCleary. Conrad MacCleary was a born espionage agent. Mark Howard was still learning many of the things that had come easily for MacCleary. It was Smith's job to shepherd the young man. MacCleary-a contemporary of Harold Smith-hadn't needed that sort of guidance.

No, the bond between Mark Howard and Harold Smith was similar to that between Smith and MacCleary, yet different.

Years ago some of the uglier duties of the job weren't so easy for Smith. Oh, he did them, always and without complaint, because it was work that had to be done. But it was still difficult to subvert his natural inclinations to the greater good. In the past two years Smith had seen Mark Howard struggle with some of the same demons.

Smith saw shades of himself in his young assistant. And in so seeing, he easily assumed the role of mentor.

Harold Smith studied the dark, churning waves. "Be careful, Mark," he warned the water.

And in his heart he hoped the softly spoken words would carry far into the future, to a time when someone else of good character, strong will and undying patriotism sat in this, the loneliest of chairs.

Chapter 21

Special Agent John Doyle of the FBI's Miami field office wanted to know just exactly what kind of terrorists they were dealing with.

"Al-Qaida, Cubans, Palace Indians, what?" Doyle whispered to his partner. "I mean, it's terrorists, right?"

"Beats me," Allen Horsman replied gruffly. "They just pay me to get my ass shot at by the bad guys. They don't bother to tell me the who or why."

That was typical for Agent Allen Horsman. Running down murderers, drug runners and terrorists was all the same.

But Agent Doyle was curious. This business with apartment 1602 certainly did not constitute a normal FBI day. Given the presence of the mysterious man from Washington, Doyle was certain they were after terrorists.

Their superior from Washington was even younger than Doyle. Pale and of average height, with a wide face that was red from either excitement or anxiety. Probably both.

Weird that Doyle could be older than this temporary boss. Some at the Bureau-including his own partner-still considered Doyle an infant. Whoever the man was, he had clearance higher than anything Doyle or Horsman or anyone else at Miami FBI had ever seen. When they called Washington to confirm their orders, they were told to give the man everything he asked for. They were also told that the phone conversation had never taken place.

"Terrorists," Doyle stated firmly as the bombsquad men continued to saw through the wall. "Has to be."

Like the FBI, the bomb squad had been brought to Boca Raton from Miami. The men were using a short blade to cut by hand. As they worked they swept the wall electronically.

They moved with painstaking precision. On blue display screens that looked like the one on which Doyle had first seen sonogram images of his infant son, the FBI man saw the interior of the wall. The images passed slowly over oversize screws and splinters in the uneven surfaces of two-by-fours.

Agent Doyle knew it was terrorists the moment the man from Washington told him they couldn't use the door or windows. He had warned them about the roof.

The bomb squad had started there. And were horrified by what they found. The apartment next to 1602 was quickly and quietly evacuated so the ordnance folks could get to work.

The rest of the building hadn't been warned. A mass exodus might tip off someone with a remote detonator. The whole block could go up.

"Terrorists," Agent Doyle mumbled as the bombsquad men finished their sawing.

The section of wall was pulled carefully out. The men held their collective breath, knowing there could be any manner of trip wire or triggering device inside. Nothing happened. The men exhaled relief.

Once the wallboard was free and leaning safely against a coffee table, the bomb-squad captain ducked his head inside the hole, shining a yellow flashlight beam all around the interior of the wall and into the adjacent apartment.

"Immediate area looks clear," he grunted.

Agents Doyle and Horsman drew their side arms. Standing at the ready, they waved on the bomb squad. In body armor and with face shields down, a handful of men slipped inside.

There was silence for a long minute. The only sounds to come from the next apartment were soft murmurs. From somewhere down the hall, the drone of a television filtered to Agent Doyle's anxious ears. A sudden hoarse voice carried through the hole. "Sweet Jesus."

An instant later the bomb-squad captain stuck his head back into the room. He was white as a sheet. "Tell your buddy from D.C. to grab a cup of coffee," he warned, voice low. "This is gonna take a while."

FIVE HOURS LATER Mark Howard stepped carefully through the hole into the living room of Benson Dilkes's apartment.

Howard had ordered the police and FBI out of the apartment. The assistant CURE director was alone. As he walked past the sofa he could hear footfalls on the roof. Men in boots were still tiptoeing around with wire cutters, looking for anything they might have missed. The ceiling creaked.

The walls of the apartment were gutted. Wires that had been carefully threaded up inside the wallboard had been harvested and left on the floor.

The walls had been packed with explosives. Vans built to carry bombs had been hauling material away from the apartment building's kitchen loading dock for hours.

The Miami bomb-squad captain had insisted to Mark that he had never seen anything like it.

"The whole place was wired," the man had said, still pumped from adrenaline and fear. "The whole goddamn place. I mean, holy shit. I've never seen a place wired like this. If you hadn't warned us, we would have gone in through the door. It would have taken half the building down with it. How did you know?"

Mark hadn't answered. He simply thanked the man and left him to sift through his wires and switches. The truth was, Mark didn't know how he knew. He just did.

After arriving in Miami, Mark had driven to the King Apartments in Boca Raton. In the lobby he got on board the elevator and rode straight up to the sixteenth floor.

At least he thought he did.

He realized that he'd pressed the wrong button only when the doors opened on the seventeenth floor. Before he could press the 16 button and ride back down to the right floor, something clicked in his brain.

He wasn't quite sure why, but he got off the elevator and walked to the window at the end of the hall. It offered a good view of the city. High enough up that Mark could see the ocean.

The building narrowed one floor below. From his vantage, Mark could see out over a flat roof.

That was how he noticed the gleaming silver wire that shouldn't have been there.

That was why he looked for-and found-other wires, carefully threaded all around the pebbled roof. Which was why he called Dr. Smith, which was why the FBI was summoned, which was why Mark Howard wasn't scattered in tiny little bits around the smoking crater that had once been the King Apartments, reasonable rates, lovely view, within driving distance to beaches and most nightspots.

The shambles of the living room fed into a narrow hallway. Only half the wall was torn down here. The mess of shattered wood and particleboard extended into the large bathroom on the right. To the left were two bedrooms. Both rooms remained largely intact.

The first room appeared to be used mostly for storage. There were old suitcases and Army Surplus trunks stacked in tidy piles. There was also an arsenal.

Weapons of every kind neatly lined the walls. Machine guns to flamethrowers, guns large and small. Rifles in and out of cases. Boxes and boxes of ammunition.

Along one wall was a long table spread thick with bomb-making equipment. The police and FBI had already picked through everything, defusing whatever they could and carting away the rest.

Some mail from a local P.O. box had been left at the end of the table. It was addressed to a Mr. Mandell. Mark knew that was just a Dilkes alias.

When he saw the mail, Mark felt his heart rate quicken.

Glancing back to make certain he was alone, he thumbed rapidly through the mail.

He found what he was looking for at the bottom.

With great relief he slipped the envelope into his pocket.

Patting his pocket, Mark went back out into the hall.

The next room down looked like a normal bedroom. With one exception.

"Holy cow," Mark mused as he looked at the row of colored maps. They had been set up on easels and lined up on the far side of the bed near the shuttered windows.

The maps were turning brown from age. The countries had been painted in different primary colors, but the colors had begun to fade. Some of the corkboard at the corners was rotting.

There were tiny red thumbtacks all over the floor. It looked as if someone had come through and swiped them from where they had been stuck into the maps. Mark stepped through the tacks.

He blew a soft whistle as he tracked the maps from left to right. They started with North America. The second easel skipped to Western Europe. As he walked, he passed his fingertips along the rough surface of the corkboard, feeling the slight indentations where once had been pins.

Sometimes he could get a sense of something just by touching it. But as he felt his way around the world, Mark felt nothing but crumbling old corkboard.

Almost nothing.

There was something there. As usual, something impossible to define. A frustrating sense of not knowing.

He passed through Central Europe to Asia. When he got to the Korean peninsula, he stopped dead.

"Uh-oh," Mark said to himself.

The last easel was tilted slightly. He hadn't seen the two red pins buried deep on the West Korean Bay. But that shouldn't surprise him, should it? He knew the reputation of the man who owned these maps. Knew what he had been hired to do. And yet Benson Dilkes had disappeared. There was no trace of the assassin, not under his own name, nor under any of his known aliases.

Maybe he was off plying his trade. Maybe this was just how he conducted his business. Get the job and go undercover until the job was completed.

But for Mark Howard, there was the Feeling. Before he knew what he was doing, Mark was stretching out a hand to one of the red pins.

He felt it at once. A strange sense of cold dread as he reached for the pin. Stronger than the usual sense he got.

For an instant he felt strangely light-headed. The room seemed to take on a sickly glow.

Mark took a step back, blinking.

It was just a pin sticking into a rotting old map. An inanimate object. Alone in a killer's apartment that, until a few hours before, had been one big bomb, Mark Howard felt foolish letting himself be rattled by something as trivial as a little plastic tack.

He reached up and pulled it out. And instantly regretted doing so.

The color flew at him. It was as if he were suddenly standing on train tracks, the train barreling down on him. Whistle blowing, light growing bigger, bigger. No way to move. Paralyzed to inaction. Knowing there was no way to avoid it, knowing he was going to be struck.

There was a shock, as if touching the pin had sent a jolt of electricity coursing through his body.

The color came in a flash. Bright, brilliant purple. Then the images.

Flashes of nightmares.

An owl taking flight. A twisted winter tree. A man lying in a hospital bed. The same man standing on an outcropping above a bloodred bay, blond hair spilling down around his shoulders like a Norse god.

The nightmare turning real.

Mark saw the same man now. In the corner of Benson Dilkes's Boca Raton bedroom. Hovering in the shadows. A demented glint in his electric-blue eyes.

The eyes flashed. The shock of blue that flew from them seemed to envelop the room. But Mark knew that the color he was seeing was only in his mind. And then the flash of blue was overtaken by a wall of impenetrable darkness.

Mark reeled, stumbling against the map of the Far East.

He knew. Mark Howard knew.

The maps tumbled into one another, falling over one by one like colored dominoes.

Remo and Chiun. The danger. It was his fault. They didn't know. He had to warn them.

But it was too much.

Even as he tried to fight it, Mark Howard surrendered to the blackness. As the maps fell, so did he. When he struck the floor, a few of the dropped tacks bit the soft flesh of hands and face. By then Mark didn't even feel the pain.

Air hissing from his lips, his eyes fluttered shut. The pin that represented one of the two true living Masters of Sinanju dropped from his opening fingertips. It rolled under the bed.

Chapter 22

There had always been the fear.

Even in life, even when he thought he was not afraid.

Even before he died.

Most would think he was still alive. An easy enough mistake to make. After all, he moved, breathed, ate. He seemed to do those things that living humans did. But those who thought that were wrong. A man was only a man who had a soul. His soul was dead.

It hadn't gone all at once, as it did for most living things. His soul had died in little pieces, bit by tiny bit. A thousand cuts, a million invisible drops of blood. It had taken years for his soul to pass into that final night. By the end, the last, lingering fragments had become a nuisance. Something to be extinguished. A disease. When it was gone completely he didn't miss it.

Back in the days when he had a soul, his name had been Jeremiah Purcell. But that was back when he could say that he was truly alive and not just a walking corpse.

He was an orphan, although it had not always been so. The early part of life-before this walking death-he had been raised on a farm in rural Kentucky.

For those first few years Jeremiah was a boy almost like any other. Until the day he killed his parents. It wasn't his fault. In his mind he had seen them die horribly. He thought they were on fire. Then it happened. When the daydream of his undisciplined mind became reality and his parents ran screaming, trying to put out the flames, young Jeremiah Purcell's soul began to shrink.

He was eight years old.

In his mind he dreamed they had died and somehow his mind had made that dream real. Impossible. He could not have killed his parents. The real world didn't work like that. Even a boy his age knew that. Things did not happen just because of an idle thought.

Even though he knew he had made it happen, there was a part of Jeremiah that stubbornly refused to believe. Through the sheriff's investigation, to the double funeral where he did not shed a tear, to the train platform where he was passed off to a social worker who would take him to a state home in Dover City, Jeremiah tried to tell himself that he hadn't done anything.

But on the train, it happened again. As he dozed in his seat, his mind misbehaved. Bent reality for all to see. He woke up to a mass hallucination of a snowstorm inside the train car. And when he woke, it stopped.

There had been chaos on that train. The astonished adults looked everywhere for the source of the snow. Everywhere but at the young boy who had made it happen. There was only one man who was looking at Jeremiah. And the way he stared, Jeremiah knew that the man in the blue business suit with the funny eyes understood the truth.

The child whose soul had not yet died had met the man who would begin to methodically murder it. The man had taken Jeremiah from the train. To the life that had been waiting for him all along. To a life of death.

Back on the farm Jeremiah had known fear. His father was a brute of a man who mistreated him. His life at home, in town, at school was filled with a hundred daily fears.

After he had murdered his parents there was new fear. The fear of being caught. Of others finding out about his special abilities. Of a new life in a state-run orphanage.

But until that chance meeting on a train, Jeremiah had not known true fear.

The man, he learned, was named Nuihc, although Jeremiah was never to call him by that name. He would be called Master. For Jeremiah it was not a term of respect, but a term of enslavement. And although his Master taught Jeremiah new levels of fear he hadn't known existed, he taught the young boy from Kentucky much, much more.

Nuihc was from a place called Korea. Jeremiah had vaguely heard of it. He was pretty certain his dead father had been in a war there at one time.

Nuihc's full title was Master of Sinanju. For the moment, he was but a Master, a practitioner of the deadliest martial art. He would one day soon be the Master of Sinanju, he vowed. This would happen once a minor obstacle could be removed from his path.

At first, as a boy from rural Kentucky, Jeremiah couldn't understand what a Sinanju was. He soon learned.

The training began three days after Nuihc liberated Jeremiah from the train.

It started with the breath.

"Life is breathing," Nuihc had explained. "Men do not breathe. They puff on what little air they need to keep their torpid bodies trudging forward. They breathe with their lungs, and even then only with part of them. You will breathe here."

With sharp fingers he pressed a spot in the pit of Jeremiah's stomach. The fingers hurt. This was something that Jeremiah would grow accustomed to. His new Master did not mind causing him pain.

At first finding the breath was hard.

Coaxing, holding the boy's belly and breathing in rhythm with Jeremiah, Nuihc taught the boy to breathe. Once he found it, Jeremiah caught on quickly.

He remembered the day. They were in an old, abandoned meat-packing plant in Illinois. When that first breath came to him-the first real breath in his entire life-Jeremiah had promptly vomited onto the floor.

"What's that smell, Master?" he asked, gagging on the rancid air he now breathed which had, until a moment before, seemed blessedly clean.

He would never know that his senses had been opened and he was smelling the stench of the cow blood and viscera that had soaked into the slaughterhouse floor for a hundred years.

The instant Jeremiah asked the question he felt the sting of Nuihc's hand across his face. It was pain that rattled his teeth and made his eyes water. The slap raised a red welt that would not heal for three weeks. Nuihc's face was a furious sneer.

"When I instruct, you listen," the Master said. Jeremiah listened.

He listened through those early years and into his preteens. All the while learning to control his body, to do things he had never imagined were possible. But whatever he did never seemed to be enough for his Master.

"You are a pitiful excuse for a pupil," Nuihc said one day after his eleven-year-old pupil had attempted a task eight times but only performed flawlessly seven of those eight times. "You are so obtuse you have no idea the great gift I am giving you. I should find another to train."

"Please, no, Master. I'll do better."

"You will," Nuihc had insisted. "Or I will kill you."

Jeremiah had no doubt that his teacher was telling the truth. The young man struggled to improve. The first years were difficult. But Jeremiah learned. Never, of course to the level of Nuihc's expectations. That didn't surprise Jeremiah. Thanks to Nuihc's constant intimidation, Jeremiah now fully understood how truly worthless he was. All the abuse, all the scorn that Nuihc heaped daily on his pupil's young shoulders was deserved. Jeremiah was no good as a man or as a pupil. He showed disrespect every time he didn't perform flawlessly.

This was the thing that injured Jeremiah most of all. More than anything, he wanted to show his teacher how much he meant to him. He thought that if he could do one thing right, match even a single move, he might demonstrate to Nuihc what was in his heart. The great love he felt for the man who had saved him from a life as a freak.

The training of his body was a welcome diversion from the growing powers of his mind. The beast that lurked in his brain was a monster that was impossible to tame. But it could be distracted if he concentrated on something else.

Jeremiah trained hard. Sometimes Nuihc would go away on business. At those times Jeremiah could have relaxed his regimen just a little. Fearing that the beast might get loose, the young man trained even more. He hoped that his diligence would not go by unnoticed.

Always when Nuihc returned he failed to notice the improvements his pupil had made on his own. Jeremiah realized it was his own fault for not trying harder. Quietly he would vow to work harder the next time.

When he was twelve years old Jeremiah killed a man.

Nuihc told his pupil that this was an honor. Masters of Sinanju of the recent age had begun to put this aspect of training off until their students were more fully developed. Nuihc's own Master and teacher-who, Jeremiah learned, was Nuihc's uncle-had not allowed his protege to know the thrill of the kill until he was well into his twenties.

What the boy did not know was the psychological reason this important aspect of training was now delayed. The physical could be taught at an early age, but only an older mind could be fully prepared to understand why the work of assassination had to be done. But it was a different kind of psychological conditioning Nuihc was after.

Jeremiah's first victim was a bum off the streets of Chicago. A gibbering indigent whom no one would miss. When Nuihc dragged the terrified man before Jeremiah, the Asian did everything but wrap him in a presentation gift bow.

Jeremiah didn't want to do it. In training he had shattered wood and stone with his hands and feet. But a living target was something altogether different.

The vagrant's hands were tied together and hung on a big rusted hook suspended from the ceiling. He wept in fear. Jerenuah Purcell wept, too.

"You weak infant," Nuihc spit as the boy shook and the old drunk blubbered. "You will do this thing or I swear I will tear your limbs from your worthless carcass."

Nuihc had taunted and threatened until Jeremiah could take it no more. Squeezing back the tears, he launched a pulverizing foot into the hanging man.

It wasn't a death blow. Jeremiah had gone for the hurt, not the kill. In his mind he still hoped that there would be some way to spare the pathetic bum's life.

The bone was more brittle than he had expected. The man's hip shattered like a dropped teacup. And then he howled.

An awful, nightmarish cry of animal pain the likes of which Jeremiah Purcell had never before heard.

"You did not kill it," Nuihc complained, unmindful of the feral cries of the pathetic man.

The vagrant twisted in agony, one leg hanging loose.

"Finish the task," Nuihc ordered.

Jeremiah didn't know what to do. He was shaking so badly by now that when he tried to deliver a killing blow of mercy into the chest, he only succeeded in shattering the man's sternum. There was another cry of pain. The bum's head slumped over his frail chest. Blood mixed with water streamed from his mouth. But he continued to breathe.

Jeremiah couldn't take the moaning. Still shaking, he pressed his hands to his ears trying to blot out the sound.

With a spark of fury, Nuihc grabbed the boy by the shoulders. He sent a hard palm across Jeremiah's face.

"Finish the task, dog!" he snapped.

There would be no argument. There never was with his teacher. This time when Jeremiah tried, the mercy was not for the old man but for himself. Steadying himself, he sent his palm into the old man's chest.

All he wanted to do was stop the bum's whimpering and protect himself from Nuihc's wrath. He had intended to send the already shattered bones into the man's vital organs. But his will was greater than he knew.

His hand went straight through the chest. He felt the warmth of the man's insides. Held the struggling heart in the palm of his hand. Felt the muscle contract once.

Then it stopped.

The man grew still in death.

Jeremiah was horrified. His blood-soaked hand made a horrid sucking sound as he pulled it free. When he looked to his teacher, he saw for the first time a new look on Nuihc's face. There was a glint of savage satisfaction in the Korean's hazel eyes. And Jeremiah understood. Only in delivering death could he hope to satisfy this man who meant so much to him.

The next death was easier. The next easier still. Each death caused another little piece of Jeremiah's soul to die. But that didn't matter. Murder was the only way he seemed able to touch his Master's cold heart.

The boy who was slowly growing into a man thought that he could feel the bond growing between himself and his teacher. He was wrong.

Jeremiah had called Nuihc "father" once. It was a slip of the tongue, spoken in haste. When he realized what he'd said, Jeremiah was relieved. It was a word that he had longed to speak to this man who had given so much to him. After he spoke it, he looked up at Nuihc with hope.

Nuihc had slapped him across the face. It was the last time Jeremiah ever spoke the word to him. But in his heart Nuihc was the only real father he had ever known.

For a little while Jeremiah was sent to a boarding school in Europe. Out of sight of his teacher for too long, the beast of his mind got loose. There was an incident with a member of the faculty. She didn't die, but his secret was out. Jeremiah the freak, Jeremiah the monster was locked in a room with special doctors. Nuihc rescued him yet again.

After that Nuihc kept the boy on a short leash. They traveled the world. When Jeremiah was thirteen, Nuihc had found steady work in New York. The Korean was playing a balancing act between two rival organized crime figures, getting payment from both sides while working for only one. By this point in his life-five years after his first chance meeting with his Master-Jeremiah Purcell's soul was nearly dead. Over time as the years peeled away, Jeremiah grew colder, more distant. The boy became an automaton. He trained in New York for almost a year. He killed Mafia men and government agents. It didn't matter. He didn't care. The only thing that mattered to him was the approval of the man who would not allow Jeremiah to call him father.

It was while they were staying in New York that something strange happened. At the time Jeremiah didn't quite know what it was. Only that it was frightening.

Nuihc had gone to Washington on business. When he came back, there was fear in his eyes.

It was a subtle thing. But Jeremiah was trained to watch for small things. He could see the fear just below the surface. In Nuihc's facial muscles, at his mouth. It was the same as the fear Jeremiah lived with daily.

In the five years that Jeremiah had known him, Nuihc was always in control. But when he returned from Washington, that control seemed on the verge of shattering.

For hours Nuihc paced the living room of the apartment they were sharing. He didn't say a word to the boy. Jeremiah stayed in a corner, quietly performing his exercises. All at once something in the Master snapped.

"He is here!" Nuihc snarled, suddenly enraged. A rage made all the more terrifying because it was sparked by his own fear. "Here! Now! He will not die! That decrepit old fool has emerged from his cave to vex me yet again!"

The Korean seemed about to lose control. Someone had scared him in Washington. For the teenaged killer it was a frightening thing to even contemplate anything that could scare the teacher he worshiped.

"Who is here, Master?" Jeremiah asked. "What's wrong?"

Nuihc's words hadn't been directed at Jeremiah. He wheeled at the timid voice.

The Korean was an animal. Terrified and cornered, ready to lash out at anything. For an instant it seemed he would take out his impotent frustration on the alarmed young boy.

But by supreme effort, Nuihc managed not to kill the instrument he had trained. He vented his anger on their apartment, smashing feet through floorboards and launching sofas through walls. When he was done, he turned to the boy.

"We are leaving," Nuihc announced. They fled America.

Nuihc brought Jeremiah to a safe place. A castle on the Caribbean island of St. Martin.

There was a legend of a Dutch trader who had built the castle centuries before. When the natives saw the blond-haired, blue-eyed boy who had come to live among them, they assumed the spirit of the long-dead merchant had returned to reclaim his home. They called Jeremiah the Dutchman.

It was at this island hideaway that Jeremiah Purcell completed his training.

Nuihc went away from time to time. Sometimes his business kept him away from the island for months. One time when he left he never came back.

Word came that his Master was dead.

Older now, Jeremiah knew that there were only two men on Earth who could have killed the Fallen Master of Sinanju.

After that, the Dutchman's path was clear. He took up the yoke of his dead Master and set out to complete the task his teacher had failed to finish. The death of the Reigning Master of Sinanju and his American pupil.

As was preordained, he met the men in combat. The Dutchman assumed the powers of his mind would give him an edge in any conflict. But every time he met those two, he failed. There was a special bond between them. The ties of family. Of father and son. Their strength came from their love for each other and their deep respect for the traditions of their art.

After their last encounter, they sealed the Dutchman away in the worst prison imaginable. The prison of his own mind. Heavily sedated for ten years in a mental facility in New York, Jeremiah Purcell only managed to escape thanks to a special mind that came into his sphere of influence.

The Dutchman had never encountered a mind quite like it. It was powerful in a way he hadn't understood. Different from his own. Thankfully, it did not yet understand its own power. That was a weakness that could be exploited.

In slumber the Dutchmen forced his will upon this untrained mind. And he succeeded. It sapped nearly all of his remaining strength to do so, but he escaped. After that, the Dutchman went into hiding.

There were places he could go. Safe havens where the world would not find him. At first the old Caribbean castle was out of the question. His enemies had found him there twice in the past. After his escape, that would be the first place they would look for him.

The Dutchman spent months regaining his strength. Only when he could once more move with stealth did he sneak back to the old island hideaway that had been his secret refuge so many years before.

It was safe. It had been so long since his escape that his enemies would no longer be looking.

He found the castle in ruins. As his plane flew low over the place that had been his home for almost a decade, he saw that the old walls were collapsing onto Devil's Mountain, the ugly chunk of black rock on which the castle had been built. After landing, he was careful to avoid the natives. He didn't want word of his return to get back to the wrong sets of ears.

As he approached Devil's Mountain through the jungle, he could see high above that some of the structure on the fortified side of the castle remained more or less intact.

There was one room where a great deal of his training had taken place. For some reason he felt drawn to this place. It seemed to call to him over the squawks of the fluttering birds overhead.

The Dutchman had climbed the mountain, picking through the overgrown garden and up to the terrace. Much time had been spent on that balcony as a youth. The surrounding jungle had long begun to reclaim the wide terrace.

The French doors that led into the training room were shattered. Old scattered glass had been rubbed smooth from years of tropical downpours. As the Dutchman stepped across the glass, not one piece made a noise under his feet.

He pushed through the doors and silently entered the castle ruins.

The smell inside was rank. The old furniture had gone to rot. Rats and other small animals had made their home inside. Thanks to the curse that hovered over Devil's Mountain, the locals hadn't looted the old furnishings.

The Dutchman walked amid the shadows and the memories.

There was a big stone fireplace on one wall. A set of rusted metal chains hung before it.

At the fireplace the Dutchman stopped. He curled one hand through the thick manacles at the end of a chain. With vacant eyes he stared into the dead fireplace, blackened inside from ancient blazes.

He stared at the past. At the life he had lived. Of the life that had been denied him.

The thick metal in his hand creaked. His life as a freak.

The chain twisted.

He had been saved from that life.

The manacle elongated, exposing shiny, curled silver.

His Master had made him something more than a freak, more than an outcast.

The chain snapped. The links broke, pop-pop-pop. They fell, scattering, around the hearth.

The Dutchman didn't notice. The single ring of the manacle clasped tight in his hand, he fell to his knees. He didn't know how long he wept. It seemed like hours. The metal in his hand was warm and melted into the shape of his gripping palm as he climbed to his feet.

Only when he stood did he finally notice the dark figure that waited in the shadows near the cold fireplace.

"Who's there?" the Dutchman demanded. His tears had dried instantly. He was ready to pounce: He needed a fresh kill. Something to distract him from the horror of life.

"You are as pitiful as ever," said the figure. The voice was thin and reedy.

That voice. The Dutchman took a step back.

It couldn't be. He opened his hand. The warm manacle slipped from his fingers, clanking to the floor. "Who are you?" he asked. His throat was hoarse, scarcely able to ask the question.

"Miserable wretch. Have your skills so deteriorated that you cannot see who it is that stands before you?"

The figure glided into the light.

And when the man stepped out to where he could fully see him, Jeremiah Purcell's pale skin blanched. The Dutchman couldn't believe his eyes. His mouth opened and closed with incredulity. When words finally came to him, he spoke in a choked gasp. "Master?" he managed.

And when the dead Master Nuihc spoke, it was as if he was speaking from within the Dutchman's mind. "I have returned," the Fallen Master intoned on that wonderful, terrible day. "The world has turned to the Hour of Darkness. The age has come. At last has it come. And the very ground where the chosen one walks will bleed."

And in that moment for Jeremiah Purcell, the terrifying Dutchman who had quailed hearts around the world, the fear of long-dead childhood was born anew.

"DO YOU FEEL fear now?" Nuihc asked his pupil. All around, the hum of the jet engines shook the plane with soft vibrations.

The Dutchman liked when his teacher spoke with him. Most of the time these days Nuihc was busy talking to others.

Nuihc spoke with Benson Dilkes. Explained to the killer what needed to be done. Outlined his plan to exterminate his two great rivals and lay claim to the House of Sinanju. But he rarely found time for his protege, the worthless boy who had grown into a halfmad failure.

"No, Master," the Dutchman replied.

"Lying wretch," Nuihc growled. "First you insult me with your incompetence. Now you attempt to lie to me. Your weaknesses are obvious. You have lived every day of your pathetic life in fear. Do you not know that I know your thoughts before they are formed? I live because of you. It is your failure that has brought me back."

The Dutchman felt the blood color his cheeks. He hung his head in shame. "I'm sorry, Master," he said.

"You are worse than sorry," Nuihc insisted. "You are a contemptible insect."

He might have said more, but a shadow fell across the empty seat.

"Excuse me, is everything all right?" a questioning voice politely interrupted.

Purcell looked up. The stewardess stood in the narrow aisle of the plane, a curious expression on her pretty face.

"Everything is fine," the Dutchman said hastily. He spoke in Korean. All of the flight attendants on this South Korean plane were Korean. Her smile broadened at his easy use of her native language.

"I heard you talking," she said in the same language, warming to the attractive American with the long, blond hair. "I thought you might be having a bad dream."

The Dutchman almost laughed. Every day of his life had been a waking nightmare. He didn't dare show any emotion. Not with his Master staring disapproval at him.

"I was talking to my fath-to my companion," Purcell said. He pointed toward the window seat. When the woman looked past the thin young man sitting on the aisle, her eyes opened in surprise. The woman didn't know how she could have missed the Korean gentleman. He lounged in the seat near the window. He didn't speak, didn't acknowledge her. There was an empty seat between the two men.

"Oh, I am sorry, sir," she apologized. "I did not see you there."

For some reason the Korean gentleman made her uneasy. It was as if he was there but not there. To look at him was like looking at a ghost. Her discomfort was apparent as she stepped away. Apologizing once more, she hurried up the aisle, leaving the two men to their private conversation.

The Dutchman was used to her reaction. He had been seeing it ever since the castle on St. Martin. Ever since fate had reunited him with his Master.

The Dutchman glanced at Nuihc. He was a waking dream. Face cast in perpetual disapproval. The image of his dark Master was the same as the one that he had seen in his mind for so many years.

Yes, the Dutchman had lied. He did feel fear. And yet with the rebirth of his teacher also came a welcome relief. He had been forced into the position of leadership after the death of his mentor.

But Nuihc was alive again. By some miracle, he was alive. The Dutchman could sink easily back into the role of subservient wretch. He deserved no more.

The pilot's voice came on the speakers to announce that the plane would soon begin its descent over South Korea.

The Dutchman settled back in his seat.

Nuihc was back. Nuihc would lead him to ultimate victory. It was time for history's end. Time for death.

Chapter 23

And in this time will be reborn one of the dead, but beyond death; of the Void and not of the Void; of Sinanju, yet not of Sinanju. And he will summon the Armies of Death and the war they wage will be the War of Sinanju, the outcome of which will decide forever the fate of the line of the Great Master Wang and all who have followed him.

-Book of Sinanju, Wang Prophesies, Volume 1

Chiun gathered the people of Sinanju in the main square.

From the frightened villagers, the Master of Sinanju heard the events of the night before his faithful caretaker had disappeared. He heard about the wails that haunted the night and put many a terrified man off sleep for days. Those who heard it agreed that the otherworldly noise sounded almost like a woman in the pain of childbirth. But it was not a natural sound. It was the sound of demon birth.

When he asked which direction it came from, they all said everywhere and nowhere. Some pointed to the bay.

As he had done with his dead caretaker's daughter, the Master of Sinanju instructed the people to go to their homes. Once they were locked safely away, he went to the source of the sound, to the West Korean Bay.

In ages past when there was no food to eat, this was the place where the babies of Sinanju would be brought. The infants were drowned in the bay, "sent home to the sea," the people would say, to be born in a better time.

The bay was home to death.

At the shore Chiun walked to the very edge where the cold, clear water lapped slippery stone. Gale-force winds whipped wildly the thin strands of yellowing hair that clung to his parchment scalp.

The Master of Sinanju opened his senses.

Despite the strong wind a familiar scent carried to the old man's sensitive nose.

He stepped away from the water, hiking a little way up the rocks to the farthest point wind-propelled waves might reach at high tide.

Crouching, Chiun turned over a rock. The underside was red.

Blood. As fresh as if it had been newly spilled, although it would have to be a week old by this time. Chiun touched it with his finger. It was still warm. A troubled shadow passed across the old man's face.

He turned over a few more stones. They were all soaked under with blood. At high tide the blood had stained the undersides of many rocks all around the bay.

The West Korean Bay had seen much death over the years. So much so that it had apparently grown full. The bay had finally rejected one of its dead.

Chiun turned from the water.

Walking briskly up the shore path, he headed through the village. All the windows were shuttered and the doors remained bolted tight.

Instructing the people to lock themselves inside was a pointless exercise. When death finally showed itself, a locked door would do little good to stop it.

He climbed the stone steps of the bluff and crossed the front walk to the Master's House.

Inside, he went to the library. Cabinets and cubbyholes were filled with rolled scrolls and items of importance brought back by past Masters. On a desk in the rear of the room was the village telephone. It was the old-fashioned kind not seen for years. A separate earpiece was attached to a cord and the mouthpiece was connected to the upright base.

Chiun lifted the earpiece from the cradle and picked up the base to speak.

Smith would know how to locate Remo. Remo needed to know of the danger. The Time of Succession would have to be suspended so that Remo could return to Sinanju. Together, Master and pupil would face whatever evil had come to the small fishing village.

The phone was dead.

With a slender finger, Chiun tapped the cradle. There was no dial tone.

Chiun carefully hung up the phone. With leaden movements he set it back to the table.

Sinanju was isolated. No one in the village had the skills to repair a damaged telephone. There were no radios. Whoever had killed Pullyang had cut the village off from the rest of the world. And yet they had waited to do so until the Master had returned to Sinanju. The phone had worked well enough for Hyunsil to summon the Master home.

For a long moment the Master of Sinanju stood alone in the library of the House of Many Woods, thinking.

Only Pullyang was dead. Only one man in the entire village of Sinanju. There were days before Chiun returned when the treasure could have been stolen. Or the scrolls. But nothing was taken. Only one man dead.

Perhaps the village was not the target. Perhaps Pullyang's murder was a ploy to lure Chiun back. To separate him from Remo at this important time.

Two Masters of Sinanju will die.

Together they would pose a far greater challenge. Separate they would be easier for an enemy to defeat. Chiun felt the worry blossom full.

"Remo," he hissed.

The name had not passed his lips before the old man was flying for the entrance to the library. He exploded out the entrance to the Master's House. On flying feet the Master of Sinanju tore through the village and ran to the highway.

Frantic thoughts uncaring of the villagers he had sworn to protect, the wizened Asian raced away from the defenseless village of his ancestors.

ONLY ONCE the Reigning Master of Sinanju had become a speck on the distant road did the dark figure finally emerge from its hiding place.

Standing on the hill above the village, the Lost Master of Sinanju watched as Chiun vanished from sight over the horizon.

Behind the figure was the cave of the ancients. The place of spiritual purification where retiring Masters of Sinanju had been coming to reflect on their lives since the time of Wang. It was the perfect place to hide. This would be the last place any Master of Sinanju of the line of Wang would search.

Blaspheming such a holy place with his presence brought joy to the black heart of the Forgotten One. Sinanju was spread out before him.

"And now begins the end."

With a wicked smile, the Lost Master folded his legs and sat on the mountaintop. To await the slaughter.

Chapter 24

Remo spent the entire flight from Madrid trying to sort out just exactly how he was going to explain to the Master of Sinanju his failures in Spain and Germany.

The first thing he decided was that in no way would he call them failures. After all, he hadn't even been given the chance to fail. You couldn't say someone struck out if they hadn't even gotten a chance at bat, right? And in a way Remo had succeeded. The guys had turned tail and run rather than stand and fight. A forfeit counted as a victory.

No good. There was no way Chiun would let him get away with claiming success.

Failure. Barring complete and utter success, that's what Chiun would call it. Remo's only hope was for Smith's assistant to track down the two AWOL killers before the Master of Sinanju found out what had happened.

For the time being Remo was relieved that Chiun was off in Sinanju. Despite the circumstances of the old man's trip, going home always put the Korean in a better mood. And if his caretaker had indeed been murdered, Chiun would enjoy meting out justice to the perpetrator. He might even enjoy himself so much that he'd let slide Remo's not-entirely-complete success in Germany and Spain.

"Fat chance the way that old skunk keeps score," Remo grumbled to himself as he deplaned in Rome. Near the cabstand outside the airport, Remo was relieved when a man with a gun assaulted him. Maybe his luck had turned and these sissy-boy assassins were finally going to start earning their keep. Then he realized it was just Italy, it was just a mugger and practically everybody else on his late-night flight was currently being assaulted at various spots up and down the sidewalk.

"Well, hell," Remo groused as the man jabbed the gun deep into his ribs and demanded all his money. As the rest of the tourists dutifully handed over watches and wallets to their muggers in a charming Italian tradition that was as old as recycling Christians into cat food, Remo was stuffing his own mugger face first in an airport mailbox.

"Couldn't work for the government," Remo yelled at the man's kicking shoes. "Couldn't give a guy a break."

After seeing what Remo had done to the mugger, the driver whose cab Remo got into decided to break with another great Italian tradition of driving American tourists around in circles until they got nauseous and then mugging them for whatever the muggers hadn't mugged them for.

He drove Remo straight to his secret midnight rendezvous with the Italian prime minister.

The meeting took all of two minutes. Practically as soon as he'd left the cab, Remo returned to the back seat with a deeply angry expression on his face. "Take me to a phone," he demanded.

The driver didn't argue. He took the fare directly to an outdoor pay phone.

"It happened again," Remo complained when Smith picked up on the first ring.

"Another assassin has disappeared?" Smith asked. "No, I lost the freaking evening-gown competition because I had visible panty lines."

"Oh," said Smith. "Did you get the man's name?"

"No," Remo said angrily. "And what's the point? Chiun's going to kill me whether or not we make a list of all the no-shows."

"I doubt Master Chiun can blame you for this."

"Hello, McFly," Remo said sarcastically. "I don't think we're talking about the same Chiun. Mine's the one who still somehow blames me for the networks preempting his soap operas so they could air the Watergate hearings thirty years ago. This is going to be my fault. Case closed."

"I am not so sure," Smith said. "It seems almost certain at this point that there is something larger going on here. One or two men turning up missing is a coincidence. Four is more than likely a conspiracy."

"Three," Remo corrected.

"Hmm?"

"Don't jump the gun on me, Smitty. So far it's only Germany, Spain and Italy that's pulled a disappearing act."

"Yes," Smith said, clearing his throat. "That's what I meant. But with the three missing men, we have established a pattern. There must be a connection."

"Okay, so we've got a conspiracy. What has the Little Prince found out about the missing guys?"

"Mark has, er, not been successful in uncovering any information on the men in question. For all intents and purposes they have vanished without a trace."

There was an odd ring to the CURE director's voice.

Remo had recently come to find out about Mark Howard's sixth sense. It was after the affair with Jeremiah Purcell, when Howard had become an unwitting dupe, aiding the Dutchman in his escape from imprisonment at Folcroft. Smith and the Master of Sinanju seemed to think there was something to Howard's alleged ability. Remo was more skeptical.

"He's using a computer to search, right?" Remo asked slowly. "He's not wearing a swami hat and rubbing a crystal ball while picking his toes through soggy tea leaves?"

"Of course not," Smith insisted. He quickly changed the subject from his assistant. "Now, since you have been unsuccessful in Italy-"

"Not my fault," Remo interjected.

"-you should continue on to your next appointment."

"Aw, c'mon, Smitty. Can't I just call it quits?"

"This is not up to me. If it were, you would not have started on this ritual. Chiun, however, made it clear that it is a critical rite of passage."

Remo sighed loudly. "Where to next?"

Smith gave him the directions to his next meeting, a late-night rendezvous in the Kremlin.

"Try to be politic when you meet their president," the CURE director pleaded when he was finished. "U.S.-Russian relations are at a pivotal stage. There is opportunity for a long-term shift for the better in our relationship."

"You got it," Remo vowed. "I won't mention his submarine asphyxiation program. I'll just limit myself to talking about their booze-and-whores-based economy."

He slammed the phone so hard it shattered like glass.

SMITH WINCED at the crackle over the line. Frowning, he folded up his cell phone and replaced it in his battered leather briefcase. Setting the briefcase between his ankles, he sat back in the unfamiliar chair.

The chair had an ugly green vinyl seat and cheap wood. On the arm someone named Judy had used a set of keys to inscribe her eternal love for a gentleman suitor named Len.

Smith was annoyed with himself for mentioning a fourth missing assassin to Remo. But he was tired. This had been a long day.

At the moment Smith didn't know how to handle the Benson Dilkes matter. He had attempted to call Master Chiun in Sinanju for guidance, but for some reason the phone there wasn't working.

For the twentieth time in the past half hour, Smith checked his watch. As he did so, the door finally opened.

The doctor was middle-aged and balding with a too dark tan. It seemed as if no one on staff at the hospital appreciated the dangers of ultraviolet radiation. Smith assumed the climate made it too tempting to stay indoors.

At the doctor's appearance, Smith got to his feet, picking up his briefcase. The two men met at the foot of the hospital bed where Mark Howard lay in gentle slumber. Near the bedside an EKG monitor beeped relentlessly.

The doctor cast a concerned eye over the sleeping patient before addressing Smith.

"You've been briefed by Dr. Carlson. Just so you know, we're not sure what's wrong. Physically there doesn't seem to be a problem. We did a scan and can't find any problem with his brain. It looks like it's some sort of shock."

"I know all this, Doctor," Smith said impatiently.

The doctor nodded. "He seems to be giving signs of coming around. Dr. Carlson and I both think it would be safer to keep him here in Florida rather than move him."

"Is he in any immediate danger?"

"Not that we can tell. But in cases like this it's always better to-"

"The facility where I'm taking him will give him the best of care," Smith interrupted.

The doctor bristled at the gray old man's frosty tone.

"It's your decision," the physician said. "We just wanted you to be certain you knew the risks. I'll send someone in with the forms."

Without another word the doctor stepped from the room, leaving Smith at the bedside.

It was another few minutes before a plump nurse entered, a clipboard tucked under her meaty arm. Smith had seen her come in and out of the room a few times in the past hour.

She smiled as she passed Smith the clipboard. "I'm going to need you to sign a few forms, Mr. Marx."

The cover name had been Howard's. Smith had appropriated it for himself. It was the easiest way to get Mark back to Folcroft without arousing suspicion.

She saw the look of concern on Smith's lemony face as he began signing the necessary documents. "Don't worry," she whispered confidently. "I'm sure your son will be fine."

Smith glanced at the sleeping form of Mark Howard. The instant he saw the young man, the worry lines on his forehead deepened once more. He couldn't shake the image of another hospital bed at another time. Another CURE agent-one Smith had not been able to help.

"Thank you," Smith grunted in reply.

Feeling an uncomfortable shudder, he turned his attention back to the forms.

Chapter 25

Premier Kim Jong Il was in his underground bunker beneath the People's Palace when he heard the noise. The bunker was generally a noiseless place.

It had been designed and built by his dead father, former Korean Premier Kim Il Sung. A maze of poured-concrete tunnels had been constructed in hollowed-out bedrock. The main chamber was buried so deep in the earth that a nuclear blast at ground level powerful enough to level Pyongyang might just might-rattle the liquor bottles in the premier's mahogany bar. The living room of the bunker was wonderful for its silence. That is, until the scratching at the door started.

The premier was watching an American television program starring a bleached-blond woman with plastic lips and plastic boobs who solved crimes while wearing sexy clothes. The same woman used to save people from drowning while wearing sexy clothes. While the woman couldn't act wet in water, her skintight red bathing suit deserved an Emmy.

The premier hated to miss a minute of the action, especially for some annoying scratching sound that sounded as if someone had set a kitten loose in the hall outside his bunker's eight-inch-think steel door.

"What the hell's that noise?" Kim Jong Il demanded.

No one responded. That was odd, for his security detail should have been right outside the door.

The scratching persisted.

For personal safety's sake, only a handful of people knew how to get this far into his inner sanctum. There was only one outsider who had ever penetrated the defenses. But the American Master of Sinanju was less the scratching and more the kick-in-the-door type. And besides, according to the old one, the young one wasn't due in town for weeks.

"Whoever that is, knock it off or else," the premier shouted from where he sat in his favorite recliner. The scratching didn't stop.

Luckily the program went to a commercial. "Dammit," Kim Jong Il growled, hopping to his feet. "If I miss one second of jiggle, heads will roll." He marched across the bunker and threw open the door.

The premier was right. Heads did indeed roll. In fact, one rolled right inside the room.

"Sweet mother of crap!" the premier yelled, jumping back from the decapitated head.

He saw the body that the head belonged to. At least he thought he did. There were so many bodies and body parts piled up in the hall he wasn't sure what belonged with what. All of the dead men wore the uniform of the People's Army.

There was one soldier still clinging to life. It looked to Kim Jong Il as if he'd been force-fed through a piece of farm equipment. Not North Korean farm equipment, of course, which, thanks to decades of glorious Communist struggle, had not invented its way past the ox and lash. The other kind of farm equipment. The kind that was made from metal and moving parts and could make a man look as if he'd been fed through the jaws of John Deere Hell and spit out in strips of pulpy red meat from the far end.

The soldier who had been sliced into ribbons yet still somehow clung impossibly to life looked up at the premier. There was pleading in his eyes. His fingernails were broken and bloodied where he had been scratching at the door.

"Help me," the man begged. The premier's mind reeled.

Someone had breached his security. They had gotten all the way downstairs from the People's Palace without being detected. They had slaughtered his personal guard without so much as a whimper and left one man alive on the premier's doorstep as a gruesome calling card.

He looked down at the pleading man on the floor. "You're on your own," Kim Jong Il said to the dying soldier. "I'm not helping anyone but me." Grabbing for the doorknob, he started to slam the huge door shut. It wouldn't budge.

And then he noticed the hand. It was pressed to the door, holding it open. The hand was attached to the man who was suddenly standing before the premier. The man wore a black business suit and had a dead look in his hazel eyes.

"Forgive me, my premier, I have been away from my homeland for many years," the man in the suit said. "Has Pyongyang now made it a crime to help others?"

And with that he put his foot through the dying soldier's skull. The soldier collapsed with a sigh.

The premier saw that his visitor's shoe came back clean. It should have been a mess. And if this man was responsible for the rest of the carnage in the hallway, he should have been covered with blood. He had walked through the slaughter without so much as a speck of blood on his neat suit.

The premier felt a tingle in his belly.

The way the man stood was familiar. So calm, so centered. Hands pressed together, fingertips tucked into the sleeves of his white dress shirt. But the eyes clinched it. He had seen those eyes before. On a little old man who, with a twist of pinching fingers, could bring the mighty premier of North Korea to his knees.

"Oh, my God," Kim Jong Il whimpered. "There's another one of you."

The man offered a smile that not only lacked warmth, but also seemed to drop the room temperature by ten degrees.

"No. There is only one," he said. "My name is Nuihc. You have heard of me."

The way he said it, the premier could tell he should nod. He did so. Vigorously.

"Oh, yeah. Nuihc. Right. I should have known."

Nuihc's expression grew cold. "Do not lie to me," he spit. He shook his head. "Have I been gone so long?" he muttered bitterly. "I am not even remembered in my own land by the son of the man to whom I promised the world."

Kim licked his lips nervously. "You knew my old man?"

Nuihc nodded. "Once, many years ago, I made a bargain with your father. I offered him my services."

"Services? You mean like with the killing and all? Thanks, but I've got folks to do that. Hell, one more winter like last year and we'll all freeze or starve to death. Great of you to think of me, though."

He tried the door again. Though he strained to close it, Nuihc held it open, no strain on his flat face. "My motivation in your father's day was greed," Nuihc said. "That has changed. The world can go to whoever desires it. I want vengeance."

The premier could see he was getting nowhere. With a grunt he released the door handle. "Vengeance against who? The old guy or the kid?"

"Both murdered me. Both will pay."

Kim Jong Il wasn't sure he had heard right. "Did you say murder?" he asked.

There was no response. At least not verbally.

In that moment the premier saw something more than death in this man's eyes. It sparkled beneath the surface. The leader of North Korea had seen it before. The eyes of this Nuihc who stood before him held a touch of madness.

"I extend to you the same offer that I made to your father," Nuihc said, "with the same price. I give you the world, but Sinanju is mine."

Kim Jong Il clenched his hand. The pain lingered where the Master of Sinanju had assaulted him at the airport. "The old Master will have something to say about that."

"He is long past his time. His skills are no match for mine. I will tear his belly wide and scatter his withered entrails that the fish and the gulls might feast upon them."

The leader of North Korea could sense the madness in this man. But then the premier noted the bodies in the hallway. From the evidence before him, this new Sinanju Master might actually be able to deliver on his threat.

"What about the young one?" Kim Jong Il asked. "He'd be a match. That white scares me half to death."

"I have already dealt with him."

He said it with such certainty. So offhandedly. The leader of North Korea could scarcely believe his ears. "He is dead?" he asked, astonished.

"As good as dead," Nuihc replied. "Even now he runs around the world with the fool thought that he will succeed the one he calls father. The soft white imbecile has no idea he is about to fall into a trap."

This Nuihc seemed confident. The premier wanted to believe him. But he had seen those other two in action too many times in the past.

"You have doubts," Nuihc said. "There is wisdom in that. You know what they are capable of. But see-" he waved a hand across the soldiers' bodies "-that I am as skilled as they are. And I am not fettered by the weakness of their emotional attachment to each other. When the young one dies, the old one will be a shell. Easily disposed of."

"I don't know," the premier said.

"They have threatened to harm you?"

"They've done more than that. Every time they're in town I end up covered with bumps and bruises."

"And yet they allow you to live," Nuihc said. His face and tone hardened. "That will not be the case with me. I promise you that I will kill you if you stand in my way. That is your choice. On the one hand unquestioned power, on the other death. And all you need do is allow events to unfold as I have designed. Merely stay out of the way."

Understanding the impossible choice he was being offered, Kim Jong Il felt the life drain from his shoulders. "What do you need from me?"

"There will be a plane arriving here from the South within the hour. Allow it to land in safety. I will need helicopters to transport men and a clear air corridor from the capital to Sinanju. Beyond that, all you will need to do is sit back and the world will be yours."

Kim Jong Il looked at the bodies of the men littering the floor of the hallway outside his impenetrable bunker. They were supposed to be safeguarding his life. The premier of North Korea looked into Nuihc's cold eyes.

"You will have my cooperation," he vowed.

HYUNSIL WAS TENDING the hearth fire when she first heard the sound. It rolled up over the wail of the wind off the bay.

At first she thought it was the noise that had been the terrible harbinger of her beloved father's death. But as she listened she realized this sound was mechanical.

Her tears had dried in the warmth from the fire. Still, she wiped her eyes as she went to the window. The Master of Sinanju had instructed the villagers not to leave their homes. Hyunsil had done as she was told. But there was a little space between the slats on her wooden shutters where she was able to see out.

Putting her eye to the pane, she saw low lights amid the twinkling stars of the night sky.

They moved too slowly to be planes. Helicopters. There seemed to be many of them. The lights came within a mile of the village and then descended, disappearing from sight.

Hyunsil continued to watch, her warm breath steaming up the cold windowpane. A few times she had to wipe the gathering mist away with her apron.

After only a few moments the strange helicopters returned to the sky. They headed back in the direction of Pyongyang. In a minute the noise from the shushing rotor blades was consumed by the howling wind.

All that was left was the rattling of the boards in the old wooden house. So strange a thing was it that Hyunsil stayed at the window for a few minutes. But though she watched the sky, no more helicopters came.

The village was quiet. The houses remained locked up tight. Here or there a slivered beam of light could be seen from underneath a door or shining out through the uneven slats in a set of shutters. Since the death of her father, the lanterns in the main square had not been lit.

Illuminated in the blue light of a million flickering stars, Sinanju almost seemed peaceful.

Hyunsil was about to turn away from the window when she caught something from the corner of her eye.

A glimpse of movement. A man's face. Another. And another.

They came into the village from the north.

Their faces were not Korean. They were white and black and Asians of all kinds. Hyunsil could see a Japanese, a Chinese and a half-dozen others. They carried weapons, these strangers. They brought arms into the village where none-from the Mongols of ages past to the Communists of modern times-had dared set foot to soil.

The men kicked in doors. Hyunsil watched as her fellow villagers were dragged out into the street. Women and children wept. The men of Sinanju cowered in fear as the strangers went about their evil business.

Hyunsil was frozen in place.

The Master had gone. She knew not where. But he had disappeared hours ago. The House of Many Woods sat in darkness on the bluff overlooking the village.

The door across from her home was forced open. Light from within spilled out onto the street. Hyunsil saw a face. Suddenly clear in the stab of yellow light. Her breath caught.

It could not be.

The face was the face of death. Twisted, gleeful. Hyunsil had seen him die. And yet here he was. The people of Sinanju lined up before him. He went from face to face, studying each in turn before moving on.

And then-fear tightening as she watched the man move around the village square as if he was unaware of his own death-Hyunsil remembered something that her father had once told her. Part of an ancient Sinanju legend.

"And he will summon the Armies of Death, and the war they wage will be the War of Sinanju," Hyunsil whispered.

A shadow fell across her window. She jumped. The front door burst open in a spray of white splinters. A big man stomped inside. Grabbing the old woman by the arm, he dragged Hyunsil from the window.

The rough treatment didn't matter. The caretaker's daughter had already seen the face of death. Hyunsil didn't struggle. She allowed herself to be dragged from her home, confident in the knowledge that she would soon be in the company of her dear father.

Chapter 26

As soon as Remo got to Russia and the secret throne room of the czars, he could see that he was in for more headaches just by the way the Russian leader was fidgeting. The president of the Russian commonwealth nervously told him that Russia's contestant-a very brutal former KGB killer-had gone missing. Remo had had enough. He called the man a govnyuk, broke Czar Ivan's favorite throne into little pieces and assaulted the president's personal security brigade when they swarmed in to see what the commotion was.

"What do you say now?" Remo demanded as the last man fell, a rifle barrel coiled around his neck like a metal snake. "Still can't find someone to try to kill me?"

The president looked at his security detail lying on the floor. Some of them moaned. They were probably alive. Those who didn't moan seemed to be the lucky ones.

"I could make a few phone calls," the president offered weakly.

"Don't bother," Remo grumbled. "I don't even know what I'm doing here. It's not like I'm ever going to work for a country where the only way to tell the difference between its currency and its toilet paper is that the currency absorbs better and flushes without clogging."

Leaving the president and his twitching guards, Remo prowled out of the secret throne room.

Away from the Kremlin, he found a phone at the Moscow Pizza Hut. He stabbed out the special CURE number so hard the metal 1 button cracked. The pieces were falling to the tile floor when Smith picked up.

"I've had it, Smitty," Remo announced. "I don't know if somebody said I pinch like a girl or have B.O. or what, but nobody wants to play with me. I'm coming home."

He didn't even give the CURE director time to answer. Slamming the phone down, he stormed out of the restaurant. He could hear the telephone ringing as he marched out the door.

At Sheremetevo-2 International Airport in Moscow, he bought a ticket for New York. Finding an out-of-the way seat, he sat down and waited for his flight.

A few times while he sat, some agents who worked for the airport came up to tell him he had a telephone call. He had no desire to talk to Smith again. He chased them all away. Eventually they stopped coming.

Disgrace. That's what Chiun would say. And he'd be right. Remo had screwed up. Somehow it was his fault. He could feel the disapproving eyes of a hundred Masters of Sinanju staring into his soul. The soul of a failure.

Dead or not, Remo couldn't look them in the eyes. He looked at his shoes. They were nice shoes. Handstitched Italian leather. He thought of the person who made them. The man was obviously not a failure. He made good shoes. Hell, he made great shoes. Perfect shoes. Remo could beat a cowhide silly and cut and stitch for a million years and not come up with a finer pair of shoes. The man who made the shoes was a success. Unlike Remo. Remo, the first Master of Sinanju to flunk the Time of Succession. Remo, who would get an F for the Hour of Judgment. Remo the Failure.

He sat there in a funk, eyes downcast, for he didn't know how long. A shadow fell over his perfect shoes. He assumed it was another airport agent insisting that there was an urgent phone call for him. Another gruff Russian voice that sounded as if it had been born hoarse and raised on Marlboros.

It wasn't.

"Mr. Remo?" asked a sweet voice that was like a chorus of angels.

Remo looked up from his perfect shoes into a face that put the perfection of his shoes to shame. The face matched the heavenly voice. The woman smiled. Her face was radiant. Her soft brown eyes twinkled with joy.

"How are you?" she lilted.

In the lonely corner of Moscow's airport, Remo Williams had met the most beautiful woman who would ever kill him.

AFTER REMO HUNG UP the phone, Smith allowed the CURE system to redial for him automatically. He let the phone ring a dozen times. When a Russian voice eventually answered, he hung up.

He was back in his office in Folcroft. Entering a few commands into his computer, he found that Remo had called from an American chain restaurant that now had a franchise in Moscow. Marveling at the changes the world had undergone in the past ten years, he returned to his computer.

Smith couldn't say he blamed Remo for wanting to come home. His time in Europe couldn't exactly be termed a rousing success. Still, the Master of Sinanju would not be pleased if CURE's enforcement arm returned in defeat from this crucial phase of his training. And Chiun had a tendency to make his private gripes disturbingly public.

The CURE director would give Remo a little time to cool off. He would call him at the airport.

As he typed, Smith felt the weariness of his quick round-trip to Florida. Thankfully, Mark Howard was now safely tucked away in CURE's basement security wing.

The Folcroft doctors had concurred with the prognosis of the physicians in Florida. The assistant CURE director was in no immediate danger. It was only a matter of time before he came out of this strange unconscious state.

Smith was more than a little concerned about his assistant's blackout. It was the sort of thing that could cause a security problem for the covert agency. After all, the FBI men on the scene had used Mark's phony ID to contact Smith. The line was untraceable and, thanks to the orders they had been issued at the start of the Dilkes affair, no one had filed a report about the incident. Still...

Smith took some comfort in the fact that there was nothing in the young man's medical record to indicate that anything like it had ever happened before. Howard didn't abuse drugs or alcohol. He had submitted to regular testing since his assignment to Folcroft. Disturbing though it was, with any luck this was an isolated incident.

As he worked, Smith couldn't shake the nagging sense that the incident with Howard had something to do with the young man's strange sixth sense.

Smith was sifting through the latest data on Remo's missing assassins when the blue contact phone jangled to life. It was half an hour since the last time it rang. Assuming Remo had had a change of heart, he scooped it up.

"Remo," he said sharply.

The urgent voice that replied didn't belong to CURE's enforcement arm.

"I need to speak with Remo," the squeaky voice of the Master of Sinanju announced sharply.

"Oh, Master Chiun," Smith said. "Was there a problem--?"

"Remo," Chiun interrupted. "Where is he?" There was an anxiousness bordering on fear in the old man's voice.

Frowning, Smith checked the time display in the corner of his monitor. "At the moment he is in Moscow," the CURE director replied. "He should be at the airport by now."

"Find him," Chiun commanded. "I must speak with him."

Smith cleared his throat, uncomfortable to be dropped in the middle of this. "There might be a slight problem," he admitted slowly.

"Is he injured?" Chiun asked with tight concern.

Smith was surprised by the question. "No, not at all," he replied. "It is just that he has been having a slight problem with some of the men he is supposed to meet with in the Time of Succession."

He felt unhappy to be the one delivering this news. Given the circumstances, he was certain this was a private matter between Master and pupil. And he was just as certain that Chiun would find a way to blame him for not shepherding Remo properly through the Time of Succession. Smith was surprised, therefore, at the old man's response.

"The Time of Succession is meaningless," the Master of Sinanju snapped. "There is something greater here. Remo is in danger. You must find him."

There was pleading now. Smith had never before heard such desperation in the old Korean's voice. The CURE director typed a few commands into his computer. He pulled up Remo's Visa card record. In Moscow, Remo had just purchased a ticket to New York.

"Please stay on the line," Smith instructed. Using the outside line, he called the airport in Russia and made arrangements for someone to collect Remo. The Russian returned to the line a few moments later.

"I am sorry, but the gentleman is seeming not to be want to speak to anyone," the airport representative apologized. "He is saying that you to. . . 'blow it out your ears'?" The helpful man seemed confused by the unfamiliar expression.

Smith tried a few more times with no success. He finally gave up. He returned to the blue phone. "Remo will not answer, Master Chiun," he apologized.

The Master of Sinanju didn't speak immediately. There seemed a great hesitation over the line. As if the old man were considering options, none of which pleased him.

"You must give him a message," Chiun said eventually. "Tell him to stop what he is doing and return to your side. If an assassin comes near, he must not confront. Tell him to run. For in distance there is safety."

"I don't understand, Master Chiun, but Remo is returning here. He called me to tell me so."

The news didn't seem to much hearten the old Korean.

"That is good. But tell him not to resume the Time of Succession. And he is to stay away from Sinanju. Tell him if he values me and all that I have given him, under no circumstances is he to return until he hears directly from me. Tell him that. Under no circumstances."

There was great resignation in his voice. As if he expected never to give his pupil permission to return. Smith glanced down at his monitor. The data reflected in his owlish lenses.

"You are not calling from your home phone," he said, adjusting his glasses.

"I am at a building. The first I could find with a working telephone. It is some sort of garrison. And that does not matter. I will have someone from the government come repair my telephone. Tell Remo I will call him when I know more. Will you give him my message?"

Smith was trying to picture the Master of Sinanju in a North Korean army bunker, a group of soldiers cowering in the corner as he used their phone. He pinched his nose with his tired fingers.

"Of course," the CURE director sighed. "But if there is something wrong there, I'm sure-"

He never completed his thought. The line went dead.

For a moment Smith puzzled over what this could mean. He hadn't even had a chance to mention his own problem with the Time of Succession.

Chiun had sounded unlike he had ever sounded before. Like a condemned man waiting for the ax to drop.

Frowning with his entire face, the CURE director gently replaced the receiver.

Chapter 27

"Is it Mr. Remo?" the woman asked. "Is that right?" The woman with the Midwestern twang sounded apologetic for not knowing. Her eyes smiled warmly. She wore a blue skirt with matching jacket and a starched white blouse. A mane of honey-blond hair was pulled into an efficient little ponytail. If this was an attempt on her part to make herself appear dowdy or tomboyish, it didn't work. With those lips and teeth and all the parts north and south, there was no doubt that she was one hundred percent woman.

"Um, yeah," Remo said, clearing his throat. "That's good enough."

The woman sighed great relief. As if this was just the happiest news she had ever received.

"I didn't know for sure," she admitted, the little bit of tension in her voice draining away. Her smile retreated as she allowed herself a little apologetic pout. "I had your description, but you just can't tell sometimes."

The woman scootched into the seat next to Remo and took a clipboard out from under her arm. With a little Bic disposable pen, she made an efficient little mark on a piece of paper. The way she held the pen in her slender fingers made Remo swallow hard. He had never before in his life so wanted to be a cheap disposable pen.

"There," the woman said, her smile returning. She slipped her pen into the top of her clipboard. "I have to apologize for being late. We must just keep missing each other." She tapped her forehead absently. "There I go again. I'm just a scatterbrain these days. Too much on my mind. I'm Rebecca Dalton."

She offered Remo her hand. Remo wasn't sure what to do. He shook it.

"Are you here to kill me?" he asked.

Rebecca laughed. This time it was better than angels singing. Angels would have cast themselves from the eternal bliss of Heaven to hear Rebecca Dalton's laugh.

"Me?" she said, tipping her head with joking thoughtfulness. "Well, we'll just have to see. A girl's got to have some secrets. What would you think of someone who just blurted everything out right up front like that?"

"What say we fly off and get married?" Remo blurted.

"See?" Rebecca said. "It would be awkward." Her smile demonstrated that it was anything but awkward.

"Okay, what say we fly off and have a really dirty weekend?" Remo suggested.

"Maybe later," Rebecca promised, patting his knee.

He thrilled at her touch. Just the thought of maybe latering with Rebecca Dalton was enough to tide him over.

"Aren't there two of you?" she asked. "The Reigning Master should be here, too, shouldn't he?"

She craned her swanlike neck to search the immediate area.

"He's not here," Remo said.

"Oh," she said. "Even better that I found you, then."

"How do you know about us?"

"You know that you're known in certain circles," she replied, her voice suddenly a conspiratorial whisper. "Your circle and my circle are all kind of, you know, encircled. But we're getting ahead of ourselves, aren't we?" Rebecca became all business. "I represent parties that are interested in-how shall I put it?-meeting you." She offered a sympathetic smile. "I understand you've been having trouble these past few days. I hate to admit that I'm probably partially to blame for that. I was supposed to meet up with you in London, but there was a delay taking off in Paris and by the time I got to London, well, gosh, there you were in Paris and-" she raised delicate hands in a helpless gesture "-you know what it's like."

"I haven't got a clue," Remo said, not really caring that he didn't. He liked hearing Rebecca talk. He could have sold to Hugh Hefner the way her lips formed W's.

"This thing you're doing now," Rebecca said. "This generational thing?" She checked her notes on her clipboard. "Now, my information on the House of Sinanju isn't detailed, but as I understand it this whole process we're involved in right now is a milestone for the man who goes through it. The introductions at court are his way of becoming Master-is that right?" She patted his knee again. "Just a big ol' congratulations to you, by the way."

Remo nodded thanks.

"Well, as the man in the middle of all this, I'm sure you know this has gone on for, well, ever and ever," Rebecca explained. "And in a given generation, it's sometimes been known to go on for years. Governments all over the world have tied up manpower and resources that they'd much prefer to have directed elsewhere. Well, this time there are certain governments that are interested in streamlining the process. Making it run more efficiently so that they can put it quickly behind them. Modern age and all that. I'm sure you'd be happy to get this unpleasantness over with quickly, as well. Unfortunately there was a mix-up. Mix-ups happen all the time, as you know. I told you, Paris. And, well, anyway, here I am." She smiled once more. "Shall we?"

Remo hadn't really been listening. As she yammered, he'd been watching her chest.

"Yes," he replied with utter certainty.

He realized that she wasn't talking about the same thing he was talking about. She was gesturing with her clipboard.

"Oh," Remo said.

Disappointed, he allowed Rebecca to lead him through the terminal. Special passes and strategically flashed smiles opened locked doors and special off-limits corridors. In a matter of minutes they were outside and climbing aboard a fully fueled Gulfstream jet. The plane was taxiing even as they were settling in their seats.

"That's more like it," Rebecca purred contentedly as the jet lifted off, leaving Moscow in a trailing cloud of jet fumes and twinkling lights. She stretched her arms over her head. "Would you like something to eat?"

"Water," Remo said as he watched her stretch. "Undrugged, if you have it."

Her laugh came easily. She called out an order in a language Remo didn't understand. A moment later a woman with ebony skin, high cheekbones and teeth like pearls appeared from the galley carrying a frosted glass of water.

After handing Remo his water, the stewardess and Rebecca Dalton exchanged a few words, after which the flight attendant disappeared back in the galley.

"Are you sure you don't want anything to eat?" Rebecca asked.

Remo leered over his water glass.

Rebecca waved an admonishing finger as she pulled out her clipboard once more. "I can see I'm going to have to keep my eye on you, mister."

"That's not the body part I'd vote for."

Rebecca pretended she didn't hear. She cast an eye across her clipboard. "Turkey," she announced all at once.

"Still not hungry," Remo said.

"Not the food, the country. We have an appointment-" she checked her watch "-sooner than soon, I'm afraid. If you want to rest before we meet the Turkish prime minister, you have a couple of hours."

Remo didn't know what to make of all this. An hour ago he'd been ready to abandon the whole Time of Succession and head for home. But this beautiful woman who had appeared out of the blue seemed to know what she was doing. And Chiun wasn't exactly here to offer guidance.

"What the hell," said Remo. "You want to run the show, be my guest. Lord knows I've done a craptacular job at it. Wake me when you've lined up someone for me to kill."

Closing his eyes, he leaned back in his seat. He was asleep in a matter of seconds.

Rebecca Dalton watched him sleep. She watched - as the flight attendant brought her a good oldfashioned American steak-and-potato dinner. Rebecca ate every last morsel, just as her mother had taught her. When she was done eating, she dropped her napkin on her plate and got up from her seat.

Remo was still sound asleep.

Rebecca went down the aisle and locked herself in the small bathroom. She pulled a cell phone from her pocket and dialed the special number that only a handful of people in all the world knew. She knew she had reached the right party when she heard that familiar Virginia twang.

"Hello," said Benson Dilkes.

The older man's voice was gruff. She could hear wind blowing over the line. Wherever he was, Dilkes was outside.

"I have him," Rebecca Dalton whispered.

"Good," Dilkes said. "Double-check the arrangements in the Middle East. I've been out of the game for a while. I want to make certain everything is perfect."

"Now, now, Benson," Rebecca chided. "You didn't teach me to trust someone else's work. Even yours. I already checked. It looks fine now, but I'll double-check along the way just to make sure. You know how cautious I like to be." She thought of Remo, slumbering gently in his seat. He was kind of cute. Still, a job was a job. "When this is over, someone will be dead," she said, "and I can dang well assure you it won't be me."

With soft hands she clicked her phone shut. Before leaving the bathroom, she checked her makeup in the mirror. Perfect. She wouldn't have it any other way.

With a satisfied little smile, Rebecca Dalton left the bathroom. There was still plenty of time to catch a quick nap before all the big crazy ol' excitement began.

Chapter 28

At first there was an argument among the North Korean soldiers about who would be best able to fix a broken telephone line. No one wanted to be trapped in a truck with the terrifying old man who had appeared out of nowhere like a raging typhoon and taken over their isolated little garrison.

The whispered arguing ended when the captain in command ordered a group of soldiers to accompany the old man. The rest remained behind to help the captain locate his missing teeth, which were scattered around the frozen compound.

The men were surprised as they sped down the highway in the middle of nowhere. Most hadn't known it even existed.

A few miles from. Finally Chiun ordered the truck to stop.

A row of telephone poles trudged alongside the highway-along with the road, the only signs of the civilization of the past thousand years. The telephone cable had been cut.

Chiun pointed to the wire. "Fix it," he commanded.

As the men went to work, Chiun headed down the road on foot. There was great conflict on his leathery face.

He had to protect Remo, to warn him of the danger. Two Masters of Sinanju will die.

The Russian monk's words echoed in his brain. Rasputin had warned them to beware the hand that reached from the grave. "Darkness comes from the cold sea," the monk had said. Chiun had seen the blood at the shore. An evil had been reborn from the cold waters of the West Korean Bay.

Another is dead already.

Chiun knew now that this was Pullyang. The condition of the body was a sign, delivered in death. Another lives who was dead.

Chiun had recognized the blow used to kill Pullyang. It was a variation of old Sinanju, before the time of the Great Wang. The tearing of the flesh near the point of exit was like something Chiun had seen before.

Chiun's own pupil used to make that mistake. Not Remo. The young man's movements had been perfection from the start. Oh, they were raw. And he had the habit of not keeping his elbow straight some of the time. But the poetry of movement was there even in those first days.

Nor was it Chiun's first pupil. That child had been even more gifted than Remo. Sadly, Chiun's son, Song, had died before he had a chance to fulfill his early promise.

Not Remo. Not Song. There had been another. Nuihc. Chiun's nephew. The Great Betrayer, who had taken the gifts bestowed on him and used them for selfish means. The wicked child who had turned his back on the village and gone out into the world to seek power and wealth. The Unmentionable One who had squandered years with his selfish wandering, finally returning to the village to fulfill his evil destiny by murdering Remo and Chiun and claiming the title of Reigning Master as his own.

In Sinanju he had met his end.

Nuihc was dead. Although it had betrayed one of the most sacred edicts of the Masters of Sinanju, the traitor had died by Chiun's own hand. Afterward the body was cast into the bay to feed the crabs.

Long vanished. Long dead. Years of silence. And then the cries in the night.

The blood on the shore.

The blow used to murder Pullyang.

Impossible as it might seem, Chiun was forced to accept what had happened. Somehow Nuihc lived. It was that accursed family. Although Nuihc's father was brother to Chiun, the boy's mother was from a less than worthy family. Their line could be traced back to before the time of the Great Wang. They were mystics and shamans. In past ages, when there was not one Master of Sinanju but many, members of this family coveted the title of Reigning Master. It was thought that their seething envy had died centuries before. It had not.

The seeds of ancient hate had taken root in Nuihc. When Nuihc's aunt, the old crone Sonmi, disappeared months before, Pullyang wrote to inform the Master. At the time Chiun tore up the letter and spit on the ground, satisfied that the evil spawned by that wicked family was finally no more. But the hatred in that family now seemed stronger even than the pull of the grave.

It was she. The last of her line, Sonmi had used the final magic of her wicked clan and somehow revived the most dangerous foe Remo and Chiun had ever encountered.

Chiun needed to protect Remo. Had to warn him of the danger. But he was torn. As Reigning Master he had an obligation to the village. Yet he couldn't explain to Smith, an outsider, what had happened. Couldn't tell him why Remo needed to be warned away. Chiun's American employer understood little beyond the so-called facts presented to him in Western books and on his computing devices.

Two Masters of Sinanju will die. Master and student.

He had trained both men. Did it mean Chiun and Remo or Chiun and Nuihc?

And there was another. Jeremiah Purcell was at large in the world. If Nuihc had returned, so, too, might have his wicked protege.

Two will die. But which two?

He would sort it out in Sinanju. There he could protect the village. With his telephone restored, he would speak to Remo. They would devise a strategy.

Remo was protected. The young man was a full Master in his own right. Prepared to take the final step to Reigning Masterhood. Chiun had given him the skills he needed to keep himself safe. Remo would survive. He had to.

Two miles from the village, Chiun caught the scent of the early-morning stove fires. Night had long since fed the dawn. The village of Sinanju was stirring awake.

As he came closer, Chiun expected to see threads of black smoke rising into the pale sky.

The smoke grew thicker. Clogging daylight.

Feeling a sudden strain of fresh worry in his narrow chest, Chiun began to run.

A mile from the village, the daylight vanished. The black smoke swallowed the sky, turning day to night. Chiun raced from the highway. The weeds along the path to his ancestral village whipped his kimono hems.

He crested the hill. Sinanju spread out below.

The buildings had been burned to the ground. The air was thick with smoke. It swirled around the old man.

Training kept him from breathing it in. Not that it was necessary. The terrible sight that befell him robbed the aged Korean of breath.

There were bodies all around the streets. Scattered like seeds amid the charred and ruined houses. Chiun ran. Down the hill and into the main square of his doomed little village.

The first body he came upon was that of the carpenter's granddaughter. The fat-faced woman and her family had kept the old ways even in hard times. They were of the few in Sinanju who remained faithful to the Master.

Her body was cold in death.

She had been killed with a simple force blow. It had shattered her chest and collapsed her organs to jelly.

The dead woman's lavender dress was mocking bright. Brighter than a color should be. Fabric paid for by the labors of the Master of Sinanju.

Chiun ran to the next.

They were fishermen. Old men who sometimes dragged their nets through the cold water of the bay. There was the butcher. Near him was his wife.

Over there was the seamstress, who had been teaching her little daughters her craft. The girls, as well as their father, lay dead near the mother.

Chiun found Hyunsil. In final repose his caretaker's daughter looked like her dead father.

There were more bodies. Lying in the dirt. All around. Everywhere his gaze settled.

He ran from house to burned house, looking amid the ruins for a single living soul.

There was none. He counted as he went. There were none missing. They were gone. All of them. All the souls he was sworn to protect. All dead.

As the fires smoldered, the Master of Sinanju returned to the center of the desolate village.

He turned around and around, soaking in the devastation. When his twirling brain could take no more, Chiun fell to his knees in the main square and wept cold tears. The bitter wind racked his frail frame as he cried out to his ancestors in pain. A questioning howl of animal agony.

No answer came.

His ancestors were gone. As were their descendants.

Dead. All dead. Sinanju, now dead.

Tears burning his hazel eyes, the last Master of Sinanju of the pure bloodline looked up at the sun. Otherworldly smoke blotted out the heavens.

He had followed his heart and in so doing had allowed death and destruction to rain down upon his village.

Tearing his garments, the Master of Sinanju got to his feet. Howling in rage and anguish, he fled the devastated village and stumbled off into the wilderness.

Behind him, a discordant song of triumph seemed to rise from amid the smoldering ruins and ashen-faced corpses.

Chapter 29

At six o'clock on the dot, Dr. Harold Smith shut off his desk computer. The buried monitor winked to darkness. His briefcase was where it always was, in the foot well of his desk. Gathering it up by the worn handle, he stepped over to the coat rack next to the door and threw his scarf and coat over his forearm. Shutting off the lights, he left his Spartan office.

Mrs. Mikulka was gone for the day.

When the clocks were changed weeks before and the days grew short, Smith's secretary had started switching on a single fluorescent bulb above an old filing cabinet. This so her employer didn't stumble coming out of his office in the dark. After all, none of them was getting any younger, and a spill at their age could mean worse than a bump or bruise. This was just one of the many small ways Eileen Mikulka proved her thoughtfulness on a daily basis.

Snapping off the light, Smith made a mental note to tell his secretary to stop wasting electricity.

Out in the hallway the lights were mostly off. The only illumination came from a few dim emergency lights along the walls and the glowing exit sign above the stairwell doors at the end of the hall. Smith headed for the stairs.

Folcroft at night operated on a skeleton crew.

Smith encountered not a soul in the administrative wing. Like a comfortable gray spirit haunting familiar halls, Harold Smith descended the stairs to street level.

Instead of ducking out the door to the parking lot, he continued down to the basement.

There was no one in the long, empty downstairs hall. He rounded the corner to the security corridor. A new door replaced the one that had been damaged the year before during Jeremiah Purcell's escape. Entering the new security code on the wall keypad, Smith slipped inside.

There were now only two regular CURE patients in the special wing, a comatose man and a catatonic young woman. A faint sulfur smell emanated from the girl's room.

The third room in the hallway had been Purcell's for ten years. Smith glanced in the empty room as he passed.

The damage to the room had been repaired, the bodies long carted away and the blood washed clean. A new mattress was rolled up at the foot of the bed and wrapped in plastic.

Smith's face was grim as he looked in that room. Rather than eliminate the Dutchman while he had the chance, he had allowed Remo and Chiun to talk him into keeping the dangerous man a prisoner down here. Some metaphysical claptrap about Remo's soul-and thus Remo's fate-somehow being intertwined with Purcell's. Chiun had insisted that were Purcell to die, Remo would die, as well.

Smith didn't believe it, of course. But the Master of Sinanju was insistent and Purcell seemed harmless enough at the time. One of Smith's rare mistakes.

Frowning self-recriminations, the CURE director continued along the hall, entering the room at the far end.

Mark Howard was asleep in the bed.

It was strange, but Smith felt uncomfortable leaving his assistant alone down here. The young man seemed so lost.

Only two physicians on the regular Folcroft staff were allowed into the room, and even then only while under Smith's supervision. For security's sake the night staff had not been told the condition of Folcroft's assistant director. No one would have a reason to come to this out-of-the-way room during the night. As he had the previous night, Smith would work from Howard's bedside until midnight, go home for a few hours' sleep and then return before dawn.

There were no monitors or intravenous drips hooked up to Smith's young assistant. At the moment nothing seemed necessary. Mark was simply asleep.

It had not yet been twenty-four hours since the onset of this mysterious unconsciousness. In another day Smith would consider hooking up an IV.

As he looked down on the youthful face of Mark Howard, Smith noted darkly that there were other, more serious options to consider if the young man remained in this state.

For now Smith put aside such uncomfortable thoughts.

The CURE director pulled a chair up to the bed, hung his coat and scarf over the back and set his briefcase onto his knees. Popping the hasps, he took out his laptop, placing it on the closed briefcase lid.

Within moments Smith was once more engrossed in his work.

He didn't know how many hours he worked at Howard's bedside when he heard the rustling fabric. Glancing up from his computer, he found Mark Howard shifting under the sheets. Arms and legs moved like a man in light sleep. As Smith watched, Howard's youthful face-which had remained almost lifeless since Florida-began to twitch. Eyes rolled beneath closed lids.

Smith quickly exited the CURE computer system and put away his laptop. With one hand he drew his chair closer to the bedside.

"Mark?" he questioned quietly.

It seemed as if Howard responded to the sound of Smith's voice. The young man's head rolled over on the pillow, eyes still closed. He began speaking, softly at first. Smith strained but couldn't hear the words. But as he listened, his assistant's voice grew stronger.

"I did this," Mark Howard whispered. "I shouldn't have- Should have left him. I have to tell... warn..."

Standing now, Smith pressed his hand to Howard's shoulder. "Mark," he repeated, giving a gentle push. With great slowness the young man's eyes fluttered open. There was confusion at first as they focused on the gray face hovering above.

"Dr. Smith?" Mark asked weakly.

He was disoriented. Trying to soak in his surroundings.

"I'm at Folcroft," Howard said, confused.

"Something happened in Florida," Smith said, a hint of relief in his lemony voice. "You lost consciousness at Benson Dilkes's apartment. Do you remember what went wrong?"

The memories flooded back. The corkboard maps.

The two red pins. The blond-haired man hovering in the corner, hiding in the cobwebs of consciousness. Howard sat upright in bed. He grabbed Smith's wrist so hard, the older man winced.

"Where's Remo and Chiun?" Howard demanded.

"Remo was supposed to be on his way back here from Russia," the CURE director replied. "However, he never made his flight. Chiun is in Sinanju."

"We have to call him," Howard insisted.

"We can't," Smith said. "Unless the phone is working again. It was out of commission earlier." Howard released Smith's wrist. His eyes darted to the corners of the room, searching for answers. "What's wrong, Mark?" Smith pressed.

When Howard glanced back up at his employer, there was a deadly earnestness in his greenish-brown eyes.

"He's back," the assistant CURE director pleaded. "And it's all my fault."

Chapter 30

Remo ignored the whine of the lowering landing gear. Across from him on the jet, Rebecca Dalton chatted away on her cell phone in yet another foreign language. On her lips and tongue, even Arabic sounded sexy. The young woman seemed to know every dusty dialect of every country they had been to in the past two days.

Two days. It seemed like a month.

Remo had spent the past forty-eight hours bouncing around the Middle East like water on a griddle. True to her word, Rebecca Dalton had streamlined the Sinanju Time of Succession to move with assembly-line efficiency.

Turkey-which was still listed in Sinanju's out-of-date guidebook as the seat of the Ottoman Empire-had been a breeze. Rebecca handled all the details. Remo merely had to show up. A quick meeting with the prime minister, a trapdoor assassination pit in the belly of an ancient citadel, finally another dead assassin to satisfy the Master of Sinanju and back on the plane by breakfast.

Then the real trial began. Mostly it was a challenge to Remo's patience. So far he was holding up okay. But it had been a steady drumbeat for two days now. Before they returned to the airport in Damascus after meeting with the Syrian president, Remo was shot at by that country's top assassin. He'd also been assaulted by lancers on horseback in the Jordanian desert, fed poison fruit in Lebanon and had a basket of asps thrown into his cab in Israel. Aside from Remo, the only living things to get out alive in all those attacks were the snakes. Any Arab he could find in the West Bank who grinned when Remo mentioned the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center towers got a snake down the pants, a cracked kneecap and an eye poked out with a sharp stick. Remo kept the stick as a happy souvenir.

He was tapping his stick against his ankle as he stared out the small window of the jet.

Thanks to Rebecca, Remo had left in his wake a whole passel of dead would-be assassins in rapid succession.

On several occasions he asked her what her real interest was in all this. She continued to insist that she was a unique public-relations expert who had been hired by a collection of governments working in their own self-interest. Their only concern was streamlining the Time of Succession process.

Remo knew that was a crock. Even Madison Avenue PR firms weren't cutthroat enough to deal with assassination. And it wasn't as if he didn't notice Rebecca's conspicuous absences. She was constantly disappearing to talk on her cell phone. Still, she was better at getting him where he was supposed to be than Smith had been. So what if she turned out to be a killer, as well? He was making great time.

Remo was starting to think that he might not shame himself in front of Chiun's ancestors after all. In fact, he might have actually felt good about the way everything was suddenly going if not for his current destination.

As the jet flew low over the latest Mideast country, Remo looked out the window with undisguised disgust.

The buildings were low. Probably because they were built out of desert sand and held together by camel spit. More than two stories and the sand would give out. Here and there onion domes had been stuck on the columns of mosques. From the air it looked as if someone had dumped a box of Christmas ornaments into a backyard sandbox.

"This is dumb," Remo grunted as he watched the ground grow larger. "I am never going to work for goddamn Iraq."

Rebecca had finished her conversation and was clicking her phone shut. "Patriotism?" she asked. Her face was open, guileless. She seemed genuinely interested in what Remo had to say.

Remo stopped tapping his eye-poking stick. "What?" he asked.

"The way you said it. 'Goddamn Iraq.' It sounded more American patriot than Sinanju assassin."

"Sure," he replied. "Why not? It's on the approved list of countries we Americans are still allowed to hate."

''Hmm."

"What 'hmm'?"

"I probably am wrong and I don't want to insult, but you don't seem to like anyone."

Remo frowned. "What do you mean?"

"It's just an observation. But judging from your comments about the countries we've been to in the last couple of days-the way you've acted when we've been there-you don't really seem to be very happy with, well, anyone."

Remo shrugged. "Arab countries are like giant cat boxes, except it's people shit, it's everywhere and the people doing the shitting haven't bothered to bury it or scoop it up for the last six thousand years."

"And with a statement like that, I'd say you were bigoted against Arabs."

"Just telling it like it is."

Rebecca didn't condemn. She smiled. "But from what you've said, you don't like any of the places you went to before we met. And they were all white European countries."

"White shmite," Remo grunted. "Paint them plaid, they're still living in inbred squalor."

"And it's statements like that that make me think you don't really like anyone. I'm not judging you," she added quickly. "Actually I find it refreshing. It's not really bigoted when you think about it. I don't think you can really be bigoted if you don't like anyone at all."

"I'm not the bigot in my family," Remo said. "Guy who taught me? Now, he's a bigot."

Rebecca wasn't listening. The stewardess appeared in the plane's lounge to whisper something to Rebecca.

"They have a ride waiting for us at the airport," Rebecca said to Remo, opening up her cell phone once more.

"I like plenty of people," Remo insisted. "I've saved the world a bunch of times. I didn't do it for spotted owls or kangaroo rats. I did it for people."

"I'm sure you did," Rebecca said, patting his knee. They landed at a small airport in northern Iraq.

In the years following the Gulf War, Iraq's leader had built dozens of opulent palaces around the country. A five-minute limo drive from the airport deposited Rebecca and Remo on the steps of one of the dictator's lavish new homes.