Father to Son

Rebecca wore sunglasses against the desert sun and windblown sand. Remo's eyes were wide open and filled with disgust as they climbed the palace steps.

"Isn't this just peachy?" he complained. "You know, back in the States we've got this stupid Sunday-night TV show that pretends to be news and it's got this ditzy old fart who likes to talk about things like elevator doors that don't open fast enough and the black stuff under ketchup caps. Nobody pays any attention to him 'cause he's just a crazy old fool who ought to be at the dog track. But now all of a sudden he's a big political expert. They all get to be big political experts, all these morons ...the cartoonists, their talk-show wives, all of them. Well, anyway, this guy, like all the big political experts, suddenly he knows what's wrong with the world. You know what's wrong with the world? America's what's wrong with the world. Every time some kid in some Cairo slum gets a sniffle or the Managua Y runs out of Band-Aids, it's somehow Uncle Sam's fault. But over here we've got Iraq, where this tinpot caterpillar-puss has built himself a hundred Taj-freaking-Mahals while his people are allegedly going hungry and not one of those blowhards can get their sucking mouths off of Castro's craphole long enough to say one bad word about the rape of Iraq."

"You care about Iraq now?" Rebecca asked.

"I told you," Remo said. "I care about people."

"Mm-hmm," Rebecca said, clearly not buying.

Remo shook his head angrily. "Forget about the wedding," he grumbled. "I don't think I love you anymore."

This time when Rebecca laughed her heavenly laugh, there was something else behind it.

They were met by guards who led them to a grand audience chamber. The Iraqi leader was there, grinning tightly beneath his bushy mustache.

Rebecca handled the introductions. When it came time to translate Remo's "screw you," Rebecca apparently sweetened it into something that made the Iraqi leader smile happily.

The meeting was quickly concluded. Barely five minutes had passed before the two of them were back out in sunlight.

"I don't think you translated me right," Remo groused as they climbed down the steps.

"Right and accurately are two different things," Rebecca said absently as she glanced around the large courtyard. "I might not have been accurate, but for the impression Sinanju wants you to give, I was right."

"How do you know so much about what Sinanju wants?" Remo asked. "I'm not even sure what Sinanju wants."

As he spoke, he thought of the Masters who surrounded him even as they walked through the courtyard.

"I know things, Remo," she said, squinting in the sun as she scanned the yard. "There it is."

There was a Jeep parked over near a row of garage stalls. The Iraqi flag was painted across the hood. The keys were in the ignition. Rebecca climbed in behind the wheel. Remo felt the press of all the Masters of Sinanju surrounding him as he got in beside her.

They didn't leave the palace grounds. Instead, Rebecca drove around the main buildings within the high walls.

Although there were guards in towers and along the walls, they kept their distance.

The palace had been built against some low mountains. In the shade of the rear towers, a wide shaft had been tunneled through the solid rock. A paved road led inside. Rebecca steered the Jeep through the opening.

"I like humanity okay," Remo announced abruptly.

Rebecca seemed distracted. "But you don't like people."

"I did," Remo said. "I mean, I still do. I like people well enough as individuals. It's when they come at me in groups that I don't like them so much." Rebecca didn't answer. She drove on.

The paved tunnel road had a single white stripe up the middle. The walls and ceiling were rough-hewn, as if formed by men with iron tools. The road angled downward. Remo could feel the change in pressure in his ears.

"Whose turn is it to kill me now?" he asked, exhaling.

She didn't have time to respond. Before Rebecca could answer, Remo suddenly latched on to the dashboard with one hand. The other hand he slapped flat to his temple.

"Whoa," he said, wincing.

"What's wrong?"

He looked at Rebecca. She was only a foot from him, but all of a sudden she seemed a million miles away. Her words echoed as if carrying across a great chasm. For a moment Remo couldn't speak. He felt dizzy, nauseous. And alone.

The Masters' Tribunal was gone. Just like that. In this desolate cave in the middle of Iraq, the thing he had been awaiting for almost a year finally happened. The spirits of the deceased Masters of Sinanju had finally vanished. For the first time in ages Remo didn't feel the collective disapproving gaze of countless generations of Korean assassins. The Hour of Judgment had ended with a whimper.

"Guess that's it," Remo said, his hand pressed firmly to his suddenly throbbing head. "I must have finally done something right." His own voice sounded far away.

The pain was bearable. The disorientation was something he hadn't expected. He thought when the moment finally came it would be a relief. But the sudden departure of his silent companions seemed to have thrown his senses into diearray.

In the driver's seat, Rebecca didn't quite know what to make of Remo's sudden strange behavior. "Do you want to stop?" she asked.

"I'm fine," he insisted, waving her onward. Blinking seemed to help. The world was beginning to come back into focus. "What is this place anyway?"

She tore her eyes from Remo, turning her full attention back to the underground road.

"A poorly kept secret," she explained. "After the Gulf War, Iraq continued its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. Everyone knew the labs were probably being hidden under these palaces. It was like a big shell game. This is where Iraq's assassin is going to finish you off."

"Him and what Republican Guard?" Rerno grunted.

They had come to the end of the road. Buried deep beneath the mountains was a complex of offices and labs. Metal catwalks surrounded the man-made cavern. It looked like a James Bond set on a Roger Corman budget.

"This is it," Rebecca said, stopping the Jeep. They had gone through the same drill in a half-dozen countries. Rebecca would drop him off to be attacked by the latest assassin, then swing by to pick him up later.

This time as Remo got out of the vehicle something felt different. Rebecca didn't seem right.

Probably not her. More than likely it was Remo. His senses were still recovering. And then it was there. Her dazzling smile. Plastered across her beautiful face.

"Good luck," she said.

Blaming everything on the strange disorientation he was still feeling, Remo shut the door of the Jeep. "See you in a few," he said.

Rebecca nodded tightly. Without a word she turned the Jeep around and headed back up the long road. Alone in the subterranean chamber, Remo shook his head once more. "Thanks a lot, guys," he muttered.

Turning, he headed deeper into the complex. As he walked, he slowly began to extend his senses. It was like flexing sore muscles. He had spent so much time focusing around the spirits of men who weren't there that everything was out of whack. Still, he could feel his body adjusting.

It took another minute for his senses to return to normal. Once they did, he frowned.

"What the hell?" Remo grumbled.

There were no life signs. The cavern was a few hundred yards around. Except for the road in, he couldn't detect any other tunnels or chambers. It was small enough that he should have been able to sense an enemy. But there wasn't so much as a single heartbeat in the entire underground complex.

"I'm warning you," he called, "if there's a smelly Russian monk floating around down here, this time I'm harvesting eyeballs."

With great disappointment he suddenly remembered he'd left his eyeball-poking stick on Rebecca Dalton's plane.

"Crap," complained Remo Williams.

And in response there came a loud animal roar. The sound came from the direction of the tunnel. For an instant Remo thought Iraq had sent a herd of stampeding elephants to kill him. He wondered briefly if elephants were legal to use as tools of assassination in the Sinanju Time of Succession.

And then the choking dust cloud rolled in along with the growing, terrible roar, and Remo realized that it wasn't a herd of elephants after all, but an explosion so massive that it rocked the ground beneath his feet.

And in the same instant Remo realized who Iraq's hired assassin probably was, but it was too late to do anything about it because the roaring dust cloud was upon him.

OUTSIDE THE COLLAPSED entrance to the tunnel, Rebecca Dalton neatly tucked the tiny silver antenna back inside her cell phone. It had taken just a three-digit number and the pound key to set off the explosives buried in the rock above the tunnel. The shafts in which the bombs had been placed were drilled down from the mountain above so that there was no evidence of them inside. Men trained in Sinanju had amazing abilities of perception. She hadn't wanted to take the risk of drilling up from the inside.

Marveling at the technology available to assassins in this modern age, Rebecca tossed the phone into the big pocket of her beige desert jacket and drove over to a small shed that sat away from the palace. There was no one inside.

Rebecca sat down before a computer monitor. An old-fashioned microphone that looked as if it had been scavenged from Walter Winchell's attic sat beside it.

The keyboard and screen commands were in Arabic. That didn't matter to Rebecca Dalton. Like the pro that she was, Rebecca began typing swiftly at the keyboard. At the far end of snaking tendrils of wire, unseen locks popped open.

On the monitor a dozen red warnings flashed. That was all there was to it.

Brushing a little desert grime from one leg of her pants, Rebecca reached for the microphone. While there was still time to talk to the man she had just murdered.

ELECTRIC FANS successfully removed most of the dust from the air. They whirred for a few minutes before a second pair of explosions-these much smaller than the one that had sealed the tunnel-brought them to a spluttering stop.

A gasoline-fueled generator continued to chug in the distance, feeding power to dull lights. In the yellow glare, Remo found huge boulders blocking the tunnel a dozen yards along. Soft groans and puffs of dust rose from the newly formed wall.

Remo could sense no other openings. The chamber was completely sealed off from the outside world. It would take hours-maybe days-for him to dig through all that rock back up to ground level. "Great," Remo groused.

Tiny glass-enclosed laboratories were built into the walls on either side of the cave. Panes of glass had been carefully removed from each of the rooms, compromising what were supposed to be sealed environments.

As Remo stood in the middle of the chamber, he heard various pops coming from each of the rooms. Vaporous clouds began hissing out the open windows and into the main cave.

Remo instantly shut down his pores. Darting from the main section of the chamber, he raced up the tunnel. The wall of fallen rock stopped him dead.

He launched a fist into a rock, sending a shudder through the cavern walls. A fissure appeared along the broad face of the largest boulder. Another pummeling fist and the rock cracked in two. Wrapping his fingers around the edges, he pulled it free, hurling the half-ton piece of rock back into the chamber. It landed with a thunderous boom.

He was spinning back to the wall when he heard a voice behind him.

"Don't bother," Rebecca Dalton announced, her voice distorted by microphone feedback. "It's half a mile out through solid rock. You'll never make it." Remo didn't turn. He felt the waves from a video camera directed at his back.

His hand smashed the remaining section of rock, flinging it back in two large chunks.

"Let me guess," he grunted. "You work for Iraq."

"More or less," she replied, her voice as calm and sweet as ever. "They were the ones who hired me initially. But I'm getting a double salary for this. One from Iraq, the other from Benson Dilkes."

By her tone it was clear she thought the name should mean something to Remo.

Remo had moved on to the next rock. It was slow going. All the while he felt the tendrils of something soft and sinister moving through the air at his back. "Never heard of him."

"He was one of the best," Rebecca's echoing voice said. "Present company excepted, of course." Her tone was light, laughing. "Benson taught me a lot. Retired for a while, but he's back in the game again. He's got contacts around the world. More than anyone else in the business I've ever known. Benson is the one who's been pulling all the assassins before you could meet with them."

He knew it. There was a conspiracy. "Why?" he asked as he worked.

Even with fans off, shifting air currents within the underground chamber had continued to lazily circulate. Remo felt the first of the cloud-now invisible-roll over him.

Whatever was in the air was far more deadly than the simple poison gas Thomas Smedley had used against him in London. Remo's skin prickled hot. He redoubled his efforts.

"I don't know," Rebecca replied. "A job. A big one, by the way he sounds. Benson doesn't give much away. But it seems he's hiring an army of death to take over that village of yours. He's got a new employer who must really have it in for you. But they didn't want you to get too frustrated too soon, so Benson hired me to keep you busy. He'll be so proud that I was able to do more than that."

"Don't count on it," Remo said. He was thinking of Chiun. Alone in Sinanju. An Army of Death-wasn't there some ancient prophecy about that?

One thing was certain. Remo's threats were hollow. He was feeling it. Whatever was in the air was all over him. Crawling on his skin, burrowing in. Burning hot. His breathing low, he felt the heat in mouth and nose.

His movements were growing slower. He threw out another rock, climbing inside the opening. It was narrow, confining. He had barely tunneled a few feet. Not enough.

"Usually I'd just blow up your plane or hire someone to shoot you," Rebecca mused. "I'm not hands-on. I contract out. But I couldn't trust anyone else to do this job right. It's amazing the preparation that was necessary for you. At first I thought I could get you in there and collapse the whole chamber. But I've read up on you Sinanju escape artists. Just burying you under rock probably wouldn't have done it. One air pocket big enough to hide in and you'd find your way out somehow. You people are veritable Houdinis."

"He stole everything he knew from us," Remo grunted.

He was still trying to dig. Still trying to fight for life. But it was no good. He could feel it going. Slipping slowly away. The life was draining from his arms and legs. The world was growing dark.

A sound echoed through his spinning brain. Rebecca. Somehow Rebecca was still talking to him. But she couldn't be near. She had driven away. Left him here. Left him to die. He hardly heard the words.

"If you're wondering what you're inhaling, what's soaking into your pores or crawling on your skin ...well, it's just everything. None of it nice." Rebecca's voice feigned sympathy. "Everything they have, biological and chemical. Anthrax, smallpox, nocardiosis, cholera. There's sarin, mustard gas, tabun GA, butolin. Your eyeballs will bleed, your skin will peel off. By the time it's all done working its magic, they'll be able to soak up what's left with a sponge. Not that even the Iraqis would be silly enough to dig you up. No one will ever find you. This tunnel will be sealed like a pharaoh's tomb. No one will even know what happened to you. It's a shame, really. I liked you, Remo. You're not like most of the men in this business. You showed some style. A pity. Well, ta."

There was a horrid squeal of feedback, then nothing.

As if taking its cue from Rebecca Dalton, the generator far back in the chamber sputtered loudly once, then died. The lights dropped dim, then faded to dark.

From the darkness came a feeble scratching. It was followed by a booming crash. More rocks falling. Then silence.

Chapter 31

Chiun tripped through the desolate wasteland. Thorns tore at his garments. He noticed not.

He came upon a silvery stream, half-frozen. The old man stumbled down the shore, falling across ice and splashing to the other side. Muddied, his wet kimono skirts already freezing, he crawled up the far shore.

He ran on, racing to nowhere.

As he lurched along, the voices of the dead sang a chorus of accusation in his tortured mind.

"You were the vaunted Master of Sinanju. Our champion, protector of the village. We trusted that you would defend us. Where were you, O Master, when we were murdered?"

He covered his ears and cried out in agony, but the voices would not be silenced.

He ran on.

At one time his arrogance made him think he would be remembered in the histories as "Great." But there would be no future history. The future was as dead as the present. As dead as the past would become with no one to remember it.

Chiun, the Greatest Failure. His true title. He would bestow it upon himself in these, his last hours on earth. Inscribe it in stone with his own blood so that those who discovered his desiccated body would know the truth.

They could bring the stone back to Sinanju and plant it in the lifeless square. A final marker to a dead village.

In his mind he could still see it, could not banish the terrible image. The village of Sinanju was gutted. Houses smoldered. Winter wind howled over frozen corpses.

The image burned his brain as he ran on, mile after mile. He knew not how far he had gone when exhaustion finally overtook his frail body. Feeling every tiring moment of more than a century of hard life, he fell to the ground.

His tears were dry. He had wept them all before. The tired old man lay there in the frozen dirt. The cold crept up his extremities. Chiun welcomed it.

His limbs would die first. Then the numbing cold would seep into his vital organs. Finally his brain would go.

In life Sinanju had been his home. But everything there he had lived for, fought for, bled for was now dead. His home on Earth was gone. His new home beckoned.

He had eluded the pull of the Void for a long time. Now, in exhaustion and despair, he awaited its embrace.

"Come to me, Death," he whispered to the ground, his shivering lips scarcely able to form the words. "We are old friends, you and I. It is long past time we met."

He didn't think he had spoken the words aloud. He realized that he had to have, for out of the desolate wind came a mirthful reply.

"I doubt he'd want to meet you. The way you operate, poor old Death would have a hard time keeping up."

That voice. He had heard that voice before. Chiun snapped his face up from the dirt.

A man stood there, smiling down upon him. As if the desolate land where nothing grew were home to him.

The man had a roly-poly belly and a broad cherub's face. He seemed perpetually on the verge of laughing at some private joke.

The instant Chiun beheld the vision standing above him, his jaw dropped in shock.

The figure was known to all Masters of Sinanju. His exploits had been described in many legends, for countless generations throughout the modern history of Sinanju.

But it could not be him. Chiun was hallucinating. Still, the figure seemed real. Intermixed with the jolly smile was the sympathy of a loving father. Standing in his simple robes in the North Korean wilderness, the figure gazed down on the pathetic little man lying in the dirt.

Chiun shook his head. "Great Wang?" he breathed. So shocked was he and so sore was his throat he was scarcely able to speak the words.

"In the flesh," the vision replied. He considered his own words. "More or less," he amended. Chiun understood well what he meant.

The Great Wang had been dead for thousands of years. Traditionally Wang's spirit appeared to a Master of Sinanju in a much younger stage of training. It was a great honor, and one that Chiun had experienced decades before. Since there was no record of the greatest of all Masters of Sinanju ever returning for a second visitation to the same Master, Chiun assumed that no one had lived to tell the tale.

Chiun felt relief wash over him. It was time. "You have come to aid me on my journey."

"Could be," Wang replied mysteriously. "That all depends on which journey you're going to take." And when he saw the confusion on Chiun's face, the spirit of the Great Wang smiled a knowing smile.

IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT when Colonel Mundhir al-Rasul's plane landed at the airport in the remote region of Iraq.

There was no one on the ground to greet him. The colonel wasn't surprised. The airport had been sparsely manned. The soldiers who guarded the small landing strip had radioed Baghdad earlier in the evening to say that there was something wrong at the nearby palace.

Baghdad had taken the news in stride. For some time now, every day brought a new risk of American attack.

When Colonel al-Rasul tried to reach the palace guard by radio, there was no response.

There were no indications that the Americans were attacking. No reports of explosions or planes flying in. There had yet to be a Pentagon briefing on CNN.

An old MiG-21 from the Iraqi defense force was sent up to overfly the area. There were no fires burning, no lights of any kind. The palace was completely dark.

After much discussion, Colonel al-Rasul was sent to investigate the mysterious blackout.

At the airport in the desert a few miles from the palace, the men he brought with him found a Jeep and two trucks. The soldiers got in the trucks while the colonel and his driver climbed in the Jeep. They headed for the palace.

The road was empty. Sand swirled around the Jeep. Two miles from the airport, the palace rose up from the desert floor. A dark, distant silhouette.

For some reason the great leader himself had visited this isolated palace earlier that day. Colonel al-Rasul didn't know why, but he was aware that there had at one time been some sort of weapons production facility hidden there.

As they drew closer to the outer walls, the colonel instructed his driver to shut off the Jeep's lights. The men in the trucks followed suit. Their eyes were adjusted to the darkness by the time they drove through the main gates.

The image inside the high walls stunned the colonel.

The palace towers had been collapsed by some phantom force. They lay in ruins, chunks of broken brick scattered across the inner courtyard. Most of the outer palace walls were knocked over, exposing dark inner rooms.

"The Americans have returned," the colonel's young driver whispered fearfully.

"Stop here," Colonel al-Rasul whispered gruffly. The driver stopped in the main drive. The trucks drew in behind. The colonel was first out. His shiny boots crunched grit. He addressed the men who were hurriedly climbing down from the trucks.

"The palace guards must be hiding," he snarled. "Find the coward in charge and bring him to me." As the soldiers swarmed the buildings, the colonel went to the palace.

Only a cursory examination told him this was no ordinary assault. There was no sign of missile attack. There was no burning, no charred stone or craters showing point of impact.

The colonel kicked a chunk of rock. In the moonlight he saw a dent in the surface. Kneeling, he put his fist in the hole. Nearly a perfect fit. The declivity in the brick was in the perfect shape of a balled human fist. By the looks of where the big brick sat, it had been part of the base of a tower. It was as if someone were trying to make it seem that brute human force had knocked the towers from the sky.

"This does not make sense," the colonel muttered. His driver stood dutifully at his side, rifle at the ready.

"What is wrong, sir?" the soldier asked. The colonel shot the young man a silencing glare. The devastation around the area near the fallen tower was great, yet there were no treads in the sand to indicate the use of heavy equipment. Cranes with wrecking balls certainly hadn't been secretly shipped into Iraq to destroy one palace and then shipped back out again.

No natural phenomenon could account for the damage. There had been no earthquakes or sandstorms. It almost was as if some huge shadow had marched into the Tigris-Euphrates valley and felled the towers with powerful blows.

"Colonel!"

The call came from beyond the rubble. The colonel and his driver ran back to the Jeep and drove to the rear of the palace. Four soldiers stood in a semicircle on a road around back.

"Put on the lights," Colonel al-Rasul ordered. His driver fumbled at the switch for the headlights. The men winced in the glare of the yellow light. Below them lay a body. At least, it looked as if it might have been a body. When the colonel examined it, he thought he saw fingers. And teeth. The rest was a pulverized pile of goo in a Republican Guard uniform.

"What happened here?" Colonel al-Rasul barked.

"There are more, Colonel," a soldier informed him, a sickly expression on his face. "All over the grounds. We have not yet found anyone alive."

There was fear in the young man's voice. The colonel ignored him. Something had caught his eye. This road was supposed to lead into a tunnel in the mountain behind the palace. But in the wash of headlights he didn't see the opening to the underground weapons laboratory.

Colonel Mundhir al-Rasul went to the rock wall. Where the road ended, he found a wall of collapsed stone.

The newly formed rock face was solid, except for a single dark spot.

Crouching, the colonel peered into the hole.

It looked like an animal burrow. But no animal he knew of could cut its way through solid stone. The headlights from his Jeep cut a ways down the tunnel. The crushed stones at his feet indicated that something had dug its way out. His thoughts went to the handprint in the tower stone.

Colonel Mundhir al-Rasul was beginning to get the distinct feeling that Baghdad had not told him everything.

Fear tickling his belly, he tore his gaze from the eerie dark depths of the hole.

"We are returning to the airport," the colonel announced as he got up, slapping dust from his hands. "I will have Baghdad send reinforcements and we will come back in the morning."

As al-Rasul turned, he saw something move sharply across the bright Jeep headlights. A twisted shadow fell over Colonel al-Rasul, blanketing black the stone behind him. For a moment the shadow seemed to dance, things like human hands upraised. By the time the sharp light returned an instant later, blinding the colonel, the screams had already begun.

He heard cracks of bone, tearing of limbs. Arms and legs flew out of the light, twitching across the ground.

There was a gunshot. Only one. Useless. The screams grew in pitch. Steadier now.

Men cried for help. More shadows converged on the Jeep. The soldiers from Colonel Mundhir al-Rasul's entourage were racing in from all around the palace grounds.

More screams.

The colonel fumbled his side arm from its holster and ran forward. With shaking hands he took aim at the shadows beyond the light.

He stumbled over an arm that was no longer attached to a body. The colonel fell over the ragged appendage, landing spread-eagled on the ground. Sliding in the dirt, he came to a stop nose-to-nose with an Iraqi soldier. He recognized the face of his young driver. The man's mouth was open wide. Colonel al-Rasul saw the soldier's body. It was lying ten feet away from the man's head.

Mundhir al-Rasul scampered to his feet.

The bodies were everywhere. He saw them now, beyond the wash of the Jeep's headlights. All the soldiers he had brought with him from Baghdad. All dead.

It had started seconds-no more than ten seconds before.

Something moved out of the shadows. It was the thing. The terrible demon with the long spidery arms that had tunneled through solid stone, knocked over towers with bare hands and dismembered twenty-nine heavily armed soldiers in the time it took a man to scream.

When the colonel saw the creature's eyes, the old soldier felt the contents of his bladder drain down the front of his trousers.

The eyes of the monster glowed like twin red coals in the cold Iraqi night.

The instant he saw those devil eyes, the colonel threw away his gun and dropped to his knees in supplication.

"Spare me!" he cried out in fear, arms outstretched, face buried in the sand.

A hand grabbed him roughly by the scruff of the neck. He felt himself being yanked violently from the ground. Boots dangling off the ground, he spun in air, coming face-to-face with the nightmare-spawned demon.

It was not the face of a monster, but a man. He was white, with high cheekbones and deep-set eyes. But, oh, the eyes. They burned red with ancient fury. When the demon who had taken on the form of a man opened its mouth to speak, an otherworldly voice boomed up from the lowest depths of Na'ar, Islam's Hell.

"You!" the demon bellowed. "Insect! You will take me where I need to go."

And his fear of the creature was such that Colonel Mundhir al-Rasul would have led a charge through the very gates of Na'ar itself rather than bear the horrible demon's terrible wrath.

WITH A DELICACY BELIED by his girth, the Great Wang sank cross-legged to the ground. He seemed to forget Chiun for a moment, content to breathe the air and gaze up at the sky.

Chiun was still on his knees, his hazel eyes locked on the spirit who stood wrapped in flesh before him. The old man slowly pulled himself from the ground. Confused, he sat at the feet of the greatest of all the Masters of Sinanju.

"It happened right about here," the first Master of the New Age announced all at once. "I don't know why I never recorded that. I guess it's just as well. There'd be pilgrims coming out here day and night. No sense desecrating a sacred place with tourists."

"What happened here, O Great Wang?" Chiun asked.

"You know," Wang said. "That thing. The thing that changed everything for us. This is the spot." All at once Chiun realized what the Great Wang meant.

It was as Remo had recited back in London's Hyde Park. Was it only days ago? It seemed like months. In Wang's time one Master ruled the village with many trained in Sinanju to serve under him. This was back in the days before the Sun Source. The Master of the time had died without an heir. While the night tigers fought one another to see who would become head of the village, Wang left to meditate. While he was alone in the wilderness, a ring of fire descended from the heavens, revealing to young Wang a new way. Wang returned to the village and slew the squabbling night tigers, taking up the mantle of Reigning Master. It took him a lifetime to understand all the vision in the wilderness had imparted to him in that instant.

While this was the oldest legend in the modern age of Sinanju, history had never recorded the spot. Chiun looked around the barren region with new eyes.

For his part Wang continued to watch the sky. He seemed fascinated by a distant bird. As dusk settled, the bird swooped and dived on currents of invisible air.

"That's what I miss the most," Wang said wistfully. "The realness of reality. There is a miraculousness to every insignificant little moment on Earth. You just have to be looking in the right direction."

He smiled once more as the bird flew away. Its beating wings seemed to draw up the cloak of night. Cold stars winked on in the heavens.

Chiun watched Wang watch the bird disappear. The old man could contain himself no longer.

"O Wang, Greatest of all the Masters of Sinanju-"

"None of that," Wang interrupted, attention snapping sharp from the suddenly eerie night sky. "I didn't come all the way here from my eternal rest in the Void to hear you polish my apples."

"Forgive me," Chiun said. "I only wish to know, you are here to take me home, are you not?"

"If you mean am I here to watch you die, no. Unless that's what you decide to do. If so, I'll send you on your journey on wings of doves. When we reach the land of your fathers, we will place rings on your fingers and give you a seat of honor for all you have accomplished." The chubby man leaned in close. "But you'll be missing out on the best half of the story." He offered a broad wink.

Chiun could only shake his head.

"I do not understand. I have finished my work on Earth. I have taken my pupil to the pinnacle of perfection. There is no more I can teach him."

"There's always more," Wang said. "And who knows? Maybe he can teach you a thing or two." He saw the look of utter bafflement on Chiun's face. "Haven't you figured it out yet? Why do you think you were entrusted with training Remo? You know his destiny. Yours and his are intertwined. You're a Master of Sinanju unlike any that have come before, including me. Your destiny is not to die out here in the middle of nowhere. Your songs will be sung in our village long after my name has been forgotten." At this, Chiun hung his head in shame.

"I fear not. I am disgraced, for thanks to my failure, the lips that would sing such songs have all been silenced. The frozen curses of the dead are my herald's song."

"You mean what you saw back in Sinanju?" Wang waved an easy dismissal. "A vision of what might be."

Chiun's face showed deep confusion. "I have seen it with my own eyes," he insisted.

"And even if your eyes tell you the truth, Sinanju lives in you and in your pupil. Assuming, that is, you choose not to die and he manages to get out of this mess alive."

"Remo will be fine," Chiun said. "He is back with his American emperor by now."

"Are you sure about that?" Wang asked.

His tone sent a worried warning flash across the Master of Sinanju's wrinkled face.

"Why?" the old man asked. "What of Remo?"

"Nothing," Wang said absently. He was back to studying the sky. This time his gaze was directed straight up. "Maybe everything. We'll just have to wait and see with that boy. By the way, I like him, Chiun. You two work well together. A few too many bodies for my taste, but you can't have everything. But whatever is or isn't wrong with our Remo will have to wait." He was still looking skyward. A smile touched his broad lips. "Your ride is here."

Chiun did not understand what the Great Wang meant.

Before he could ask, he felt his senses suddenly go haywire. All around he felt the prickly sensation of eyes winking on, one after another. The invisible gaze of hundreds directed on his wizened form.

Though old, it remained a familiar sensation, one not easily forgotten. For the year before his ascendancy to Reigning Masterhood, Chiun had endured the Masters' Tribunal, feeling in every moment the invisible stares of all the former Masters of Sinanju. The Hour of Judgment. But that was many years ago, when the world was young and every day held the promise of adventure. This was not Chiun's time. The past Masters should have been with Remo, not Chiun. There had to have been some cosmic mistake.

But there was Wang. If Wang was present, it had to be right.

The greatest Master of Sinanju was still standing there, staring up into the heavens. Chiun followed his gaze.

And then he saw it. Coalescing from the swirl of countless galaxies. A fog of mystic energy churning round and round, burning brighter as it swirled and flashed.

A spark in the mist. A flash to fire. The light more blinding and brilliant than anything touched by hard flint to mere earthly tinder. The ring of fire descended.

The glow from the supernatural light burned hot on the barren wastes of rock and scrub.

Small on the ground, the Master of Sinanju felt his heart catch. With utter incomprehension, he looked to Wang.

The smile had returned to the fat man's face. Wang's broad face was angelic in the warm radiant glow of the slowly descending light.

"Show time," the Great Wang announced.

And when the ring of fire touched ground, the brilliance of the light consumed them utterly.

Chapter 32

Captain Ralph Chauncy didn't like his orders one damn bit. Ordinarily he would have blamed it on just the locale. This special route always made him uneasy. Not that anyone in his right mind would blame him. It wasn't easy sneaking into North Korean territorial waters. Especially since the Navy had seen fit to give him command of an old rust bucket of a submarine like the USS Darter.

Every November 12 for the past seven years, Captain Chauncy was given delivery duty. He would sneak into the West Korean Bay in the dead of night so his men could paddle some special cargo ashore. Crates of something. Captain Chauncy never looked to see what was inside. For all he knew, they could have been crammed full of weapons for anti-Commie agitators or goddamn Watchtower pamphlets. It wasn't his job to ask. What was his job was keeping the leaky bucket that was the Darter from splitting apart at the seams.

That first trip Captain Chauncy had no idea why the Navy had given him the Darter-a boat that by all rights should have seen a complete refit or been sold for scrap. He found the reason at the bottom of the West Korean Bay.

Another U.S. sub was already there. Nestled in the silt. Gaping holes where the hull had been blown apart.

It was a chilling moment.

Captain Chauncy had heard about a sub being sunk in the West Korean Bay years before. He assumed it had been salvaged. Never thought he was being sent to the exact same spot. The rusting sub appeared to have been left as warning. On that first visit he realized he was looking at his own future, should fate so choose it for him. A forgotten watery grave for the USS Darter.

But the Darter was more than just a replacement for the ill-fated USS Harlequin. Chauncy learned afterward from Admiral Lee Enright Leahy, who had commanded the Darter for years, that the Darter had been the first sub to haul cargo on this route. In a way it was a homecoming for the creaky old sub. Captain Chauncy could not wax nostalgic.

It was bad enough to have to risk sneaking into enemy waters, bad enough to do so in a rust bucket, bad enough that he'd just done this whole dance three weeks ago with the regular cargo crates. But now his boat had been turned into a goddamn shuttle service.

Captain Chauncy was looking out the periscope. The weird rock formations that looked like a pair of blunt devil's horns told him he was back in the right place.

"Go get them," Chauncy ordered his executive officer. "Tell them we're here."

"Aye, sir."

As the exec hurried off, Captain Chauncy grunted unhappily to himself. He would have preferred crates. He had picked up his two passengers in the Pacific.

The men had been flown out to an aircraft carrier that had rendezvoused with the Darter.

One was an old man, the other a kid only about ten years older than the sailors aboard the sub. Oddly enough, it was the old man who seemed more comfortable on the sub. He sat on his bunk for most of the trip as if waiting for the next downtown bus. The young one looked queasier every time Captain Chauncy checked in on them.

The exec returned less than a minute later, the two men in tow. As usual the young one looked a little green.

"This is your stop, gentlemen," the captain said. "My men can have you on shore in fifteen minutes."

"That is not necessary," said the older of the two passengers. He had a clipped, lemony voice and wore a three-piece gray suit. "When you surface, lower a raft over the side. We will row ourselves ashore."

Captain Chauncy looked the two men up and down. The old one was dressed for a business meeting and the young one looked as if he was about to upchuck.

"Your funeral," Captain Ralph Chauncy shrugged. Hoping that it would not be his, as well, he gave his men the order to surface.

TEN MINUTES LATER Harold W. Smith and Mark Howard were in a black rubber raft paddling across choppy waves.

Smith had donned his overcoat and scarf. The collar of his coat was turned up against the cold. Howard wore a turtleneck sweater and water-repellent down jacket. The assistant CURE director did most of the paddling on the way in to shore.

"I know this place," Howard commented darkly as he paddled. Cold water splashed over the knees of his Levi's.

Even in the bleak starlight he could see the CURE director's puzzled frown.

"In those visions I had before I-" Mark hesitated. "Before Purcell escaped from Folcroft." He pointed at the strange twin rock formation. "I saw that."

Smith nodded. "The Horns of Welcome," the older man explained. "Constructed by one of Chiun's ancestors."

His gray eyes were studying the night cliffs, trying to glimpse a silhouette of movement. He saw none. There was no ambient glow from beyond the rocks. Sinanju seemed dead.

On the shore Smith helped Howard drag the raft from the water's edge. Once it was secure, the two men made their way up the winding bay path to the village.

"Have you ever been here before?" Howard whispered, a worried edge in his voice.

"Yes."

"Was it -I don't know-livelier back then?" Smith understood his assistant's meaning. Even in a village as small as Sinanju, there should have been sounds of life, the collective din of people going about their daily lives. No sound whatsoever emanated from the village ahead.

Smith had brought his .45-caliber automatic from Folcroft. He slipped the handgun from its holster. Before they even reached the village proper, Smith feared they were too late.

He smelled the smoke first. It was a little too acrid in the frigid air. It burned his nostrils.

He saw the buildings when they crested the hill.

Burned husks of the simple wood-framed homes and shops that had comprised the central core around the main square of Sinanju.

And all around were bodies.

The dead lay everywhere. End to end. Across the square, up alleys, on wooden sidewalks. The streets of Sinanju were choked with corpses.

"Good God," Smith breathed, his gun lowering in shock.

Beside him on the road, Mark Howard seemed strangely unbothered by the destruction all around them. There was an odd look on his youthful face. With careful eyes he studied the nearest building, as if he had never before witnessed up close the destruction wrought by fire.

Away from his assistant, Smith was staring at bodies on the ground. One face after another. So many dead. It looked as if the entire village of Sinanju had been-

What little color he possessed drained from his gray face. "Chiun," the CURE director whispered in soft horror.

Stumbling over the nearest bodies, he crouched beside a frail corpse.

The Master of Sinanju was peaceful in eternal repose. The care lines of his weathered face were relaxed.

Scarcely able to believe his eyes, Smith reached out a shaking hand, touching the old Korean's cheek. The flesh was cold. Chiun had been dead for hours. "No," Smith breathed, the word a mournful plea within a puff of white steam. His gun arm went slack and he fell to his backside in the dirt.

"Dr. Smith."

Someone was calling him. The words scarcely registered.

The Master of Sinanju was gone. The most awesome force to walk the face of the earth. Dead. "Dr. Smith!"

Smith turned numbly to the sound. Mark Howard stood a few yards away, an excited expression an his face. The young man seemed unaffected by the death of Chiun.

Didn't he know? Didn't he care?

Smith cared. Professional detachment be damned. Chiun deserved better. More than the fact that he was part of CURE's inner circle, the old man had dedicated his life to this village. His end should not have come this way, along with the death of his beloved Sinanju.

Howard had turned away from Smith, away from Chiun's frail body. He was standing next to a charred and smoking building. Though blackened from fire, the wall was still intact. Mark raised a tentative hand to the wall.

Smith couldn't begin to guess what the young man was doing. Nor did he care. CURE had lost one of its own. This trip had been to warn Chiun and Remo of the danger. An arduous journey ended in bitter failure.

Smith's eyes burned.

Howard glanced back once at Smith, a baffled expression on his broad face. And then to Smith's shock, the young man stepped directly through the charred wall, disappearing through the solid wood like a wisp of winter chimney smoke.

KIM JONG IL WAS HIDING out in his basement bunker when he heard the news.

General Kye Pun of the People's Bureau of Revolutionary Struggle had personally come down to tell him. The general's bodyguard, Shan Duk, stood just inside the door. The premier sat in an overstuffed beanbag chair before his big-screen television, a bucket of half-eaten popcorn on his lap.

"What are we, the goddamn hijacked-plane capital of the world now?" the Korean leader demanded angrily, spitting out an unpopped kernel. It pinged off the TV screen. "Where's this one from?"

"Iraq," replied the general. "And it is not hijacked. It has been put at the disposal of a-" he read from a scrap of paper in his hand "'-a friend of the head of Iraq's Revolutionary Command Council."' He looked up from the paper. "They radioed ahead."

The premier's eyes narrowed. "He's got friends like I've got friends. Meaning he's got zip. Can only mean that one guy's on that plane, and he's not the friendly type, either." Very carefully he put down his popcorn bucket. "I hope I backed the right pony in this race," the premier said warily. He looked up at the inscrutable face of Kye Pun. "Let's get this show on the road."

Wiping buttery salt on his knees, Kim Jong II struggled up out of his beanbag.

BENSON DILKEs felt uneasy.

Back in his day, when he was still plying his trade, before cozy retirement in Africa, uneasiness was always the leading edge of failure. A prudent man, Dilkes generally skipped town at the first sign of uneasiness. But this situation afforded no such luxury.

For the first time in his professional career, Benson Dilkes was stuck.

Still, as he climbed the basement stairs of the grand Sinanju treasure house, there were no self-recriminations. He had made the only decision he could. Nuihc had given him no other options.

It was ironic. That day a week ago, when the renegade Master of Sinanju had arrived unannounced at Dilkes's Florida apartment, had actually offered hope. The first Dilkes had had for many months.

For months, long before Nuihc's arrival, Dilkes was certain he was a dead man. He alone seemed to know the truth behind this Sinanju Time of Succession. Some in his profession saw it as an honor, while others saw it as a duty. Dilkes saw it for what it was: clearing house.

They were cagey, these Sinanju assassins. They hadn't lasted thousands of years by being stupid. They might dress it up with pretty words for kings and killers alike, but it was clear precisely what they were doing with all this.

Removing the competition.

There was no opting out of the ritual. Once a contestant was "lucky" enough to be chosen to participate, he was locked in. It was diabolically clever, really. Prove your mettle to the rulers of a nation by murdering that nation's best assassin. See? We're the best. But-oh, no-now you no longer have your greatest national assassin. Not a problem. Sinanju is always available for your convenience. For a reasonable fee, of course.

It was ruthless and brilliant and something Uiat Benson Dilkes himself might have come up with. That was the worst thing about all this. In spite of everything, he still felt such accursed admiration for these killers from the East.

At least for the true Masters of Sinanju. He had no such appreciation for the madman he'd thrown in with.

He found Nuihc sitting in a plain back room in the House of Many Woods. Unlike the rest of the Master of Sinanju's home, there was no treasure jammed to the rafters here. Just a simple wooden floor, a reed mat and a few unlit candles.

The blond-haired man was in the room with Nuihc. He stood in the corner, his blue eyes wide. He was a shadow of a man. Although his mouth opened and closed, no words came out.

The scrawny white man who babbled soundlessly night and day was an obvious lunatic. But Nuihc was just as crazy. Worse. Dilkes hadn't seen it right away. It had come out in dribs and drabs during their days together. Nuihc's insanity was quieter and thus, to Dilkes, more frightening.

"The furnace is fine, Master," Dilkes announced. He hated that word now. It sounded so wrong on his tongue.

Nuihc was sitting on the woven mat in the center of the room. "Really?" he said. "I felt ... something." The words came out a lazy drawl.

Why, Dilkes wondered for the hundredth time, was this native Korean sounding more and more as if he'd been born and bred on some rural Appalachian dirt farm?

The accent had slipped out a few times during their days together. The Southern twang was as thick as a bowl of hominy grits. When Rebecca Dalton had phoned with news of the death of the American Master of Sinanju three days before, the Southern accent had blossomed full. Gone was the precise use of language of a cultured Korean master assassin. Nuihc now sounded as though he should be calling Saturday-night square dances in Possum Hollow.

Benson Dilkes, native Virginian, knew the accent wasn't a put-on. But he couldn't figure out why it was coming out of Nuihc's mouth. Or why the lips of the blond man in the corner of the room now always seemed to move in perfect time with the words spoken by Nuihc. Dilkes felt that he was stuck in the middle of some demented ventriloquist act.

"I can check the furnace again," Dilkes offered.

"No," Nuihc said. He closed his eyes, a blissful expression settling on his flat face. "It's more than just the furnace. I can feel it now. A great army comes."

"I don't hear anything."

"Of course you don't. You ain't Nuihc the wise, Nuihc the great, Nuihc the sees-all-and-tells-all." And at this, the Korean giggled insanely. Out of the corner of his eye, Dilkes saw the blond-haired man was laughing, as well. Mouth hanging open wide with demented glee, not a single sound passing parted lips.

"It's Kim Jong Il," Nuihc explained. "Come to welcome us to the neighborhood. I promised him power and glory in exchange for protection. Dang fool thinks he can give it to me with tanks. Beats having to kill him, I expect. And I could do it, too, 'cause I'm Nuihc the killer. Killer of men, killer of hopes and dreams. Killer of childhood. Don't make a whole lot of difference either way to me."

The blond man found this hysterically funny. Over in the corner, he laughed his silent laugh even as Nuihc threw back his own head, clutching his belly as he cackled crazily.

"If the North Korean army is advancing on us, I should go tell the men," Dilkes said, voice loud over the laughter.

Nuihc waved a hand. "No," he said, his Southern accent strong. "Leave them where they are. They're my Army of Death. They're the fellers what are gonna help me rule the world. I give 'em a little training, see, and then I send 'em back to wherever they come from. Nothing can stop them. That's what I always wanted, you know. To rule the world. I couldn't be happy just being a plain old Master of Sinanju or a daddy. I always had one eye on the whole big world."

This was intolerable. He was getting worse by the minute. Talking gibberish, laughing insanely.

For Dilkes enough was enough. Nuihc had gotten them all into this country. As a white American in Communist North Korea, Dilkes thought himself trapped. No more. He was getting out somehow. He was leaving this crazy man to his plots of world domination. Benson Dilkes was going back to Africa. Back to his prize roses and his happy retirement. Let them come and get him if they wanted. Nuihc, the current Reigning Master. Dilkes didn't care. He wasn't going to play this insane game any longer.

"If the premier is sending men, maybe they can help find the old Master of Sinanju," Dilkes said, beginning to back slowly from the room. "They know the terrain, and he hasn't been seen since he ran from the village three days ago."

"He's dead," Nuihc insisted firmly. "This place meant everything to him. It made him nuts to see it in ruins. I felt his insanity." He hugged himself, like cuddling up in a warm blanket. "He couldn't live with it."

Dilkes didn't know what Nuihc was talking about now. Someone seeing Sinanju in ruins. More crazy talk.

"As you say, Master," Dilkes smiled. "If there's nothing more, I'll go check on the men."

Nuihc didn't hear. He had already lost interest in Benson Dilkes. He had turned full attention on the blond man. A human plaything, Nuihc lifted one arm, and the blond did the same. They each mirrored the movements of the other perfectly. The two of them giggled at each other.

"Like father, like son." Nuihc laughed.

At the door Benson Dilkes shook his head. He quietly departed the room on the disturbing image of mirrored lunatics' laughter.

"MARK!" Smith gasped.

The CURE director couldn't believe his eyes. He had seen much that was strange in his time, but little could compete with the extraordinary sight of his assistant stepping straight through a solid wall.

When Smith called, Mark Howard returned. The young man appeared like a phantom through the side of the burned-out building. He wore a nervous smile. "Abracadabra," Mark said.

"How did you do that?" Smith demanded.

"Easy," Mark replied. "The wall's not really there." He waved around the decimated village. "None of them are. You mean you can't see it?" He was optimistic, but seemed resigned to the fact that he alone could see the truth.

Smith still sat on the ground near the Master of Sinanju's body. He looked up the main road of Sinanju.

"I see buildings burned. Some right to the ground."

Howard shook his head. "It's just a projection, Dr. Smith. The buildings I see are still in one piece. They're a little bit behind the fake walls. From what I can tell, the village looks fine. It's like he's superimposing an image of destruction over the whole place."

Smith knew precisely who Howard meant. He also allowed a fresh sliver of hope to enter his grieving heart.

"What of-what of the villagers?" he asked. He kept his eyes trained on Mark, not daring to look down at Chiun.

The answer sent Smith's tired old heart soaring. "That's definitely not Chiun," Mark insisted. "It's not anyone. None of these bodies are real."

The questioning singsong that rang loud at Howard's back startled both the assistant CURE director and Harold Smith.

"Are you certain?" demanded a squeaky voice. Howard wheeled.

The Master of Sinanju stood like a statue carved from stone at the very edge of the village square. His hands were tucked inside his voluminous kimono sleeves. With suspicious slits he looked across the ruins of Sinanju. His eyes lingered on the corpse that wore his face.

"Master Chiun!" Smith cried, climbing quickly to his feet. As he hurried over to meet the old Korean, he dried the cold tears from his face.

Chiun ignored Smith. "The bodies of my people," he snapped at Howard. "Are they real or not?"

"No," Mark Howard replied. "They're just illusions. Like this wall." To prove his point he put his hand against the wall. It disappeared up to the forearm.

Eyes widening in surprise, the old Korean pressed a wrinkled hand to the wall. It felt solid to his touch. He could feel the rough surface of the charred wood. But it seemed too perfect, felt too much like a burned house. Just like the smell of smoke that still lingered in the cold air. All too real. He was ashamed to not have noticed it before. Experience should have made him suspicious. In the past he had been tricked several times by Jeremiah Purcell's more-real-than-real illusions.

"The Dutchman," Chiun snarled, his hand hopping from the false wall.

"He's here," Smith insisted. "That's why we came. To warn you. Mark says-"

"Enough!" Chiun snapped impatiently, cutting Smith off. "What day is this?"

Smith was surprised by the question. The Master of Sinanju kept time better than an atomic clock. "It's Friday," Smith replied.

"Three days," Chiun said to himself. To Smith he asked sharply, "Where is Remo?"

"We don't know," the CURE director replied. "He never returned from Russia. I believe he may have resumed the Time of Succession schedule. I have gotten a few odd reports from some countries in the Middle East. But he has not gotten in touch with me in days. You haven't spoken with him?"

Chiun shook his head. "No," he said, his nose turned into the air like a bloodhound on a scent. "But he is near."

Howard and Smith exchanged glances. Smith seemed to easily accept the old man's words. Mark was going to ask how Chiun could possibly know Remo was nearby, but then he remembered he was standing in the middle of a madman's three-dimensional delusion that had been conjured out of thin air. He decided that anything was possible.

"He has preceded the tanks here," Chiun commented.

"Tanks?" Smith asked.

Chiun didn't elaborate. "Emperor, take your prince and flee this place," the old man warned gravely. "In the coming battle I cannot guarantee your safety."

"We cannot go," Smith insisted. "You don't understand."

"Then stay," Chiun snapped impatiently. "But the risk is yours."

Turning on his heel, the Master of Sinanju hurried through the village square. Brow sinking in frustration, Smith raced to catch up.

"Wait, Master Chiun," Smith called.

Up ahead the Master of Sinanju was still not immune to the illusions. His kimono skirts were hiked up as he darted over and around seemingly solid bodies.

Only Mark Howard was able to see reality beyond the illusion. On some level he realized that it was due to the psychic connection he'd had with the Dutchman more than a year before. Somehow the mind tricks didn't work on him. Rather than go around, the assistant CURE director waded straight through the bodies, feet vanishing ankle deep in torsos before drifting ghostlike out the far side.

"Some of these faces aren't Korean," Howard commented as they hurried through the heart of the village.

Smith had noticed the same thing. The farther along they went, the more non-Korean faces there were.

"I believe they are his victims," Smith commented tightly. "I- My God," he gasped, stopping dead. Three of the corpses that had been conjured from the depths of the Dutchman's twisted mind wore faces familiar to the CURE director. Three United States senators who had been murdered thirty years before were lying with the rest.

Smith was shocked silent. The murders of the men had been tangled up in the first assignment he had ever sent Remo on as CURE's enforcement arm. Smith had no idea that they had somehow been connected to Jeremiah Purcell.

"He couldn't have been more than a boy when these murders took place," Smith whispered.

He looked back over his shoulder, across the sea of faces. There seemed more now. Bodies as far as the eye could see. As Smith watched, more bodies grew atop the piles. Mountains of corpses rising up, pasty death faces illuminated in the weird purple light of the growing dawn.

"What's wrong, Dr. Smith?" Howard asked. "His mind is unraveling. He is remembering all of his victims. All the faces of the dead that have been tormenting him throughout the years."

When he turned, he saw that a new pair of bodies had been set at the very end of the line.

The man and woman were both in their late thirties. The man was dressed in simple blue jeans and plaid work shirt. The woman wore a blue apron and a worn but clean dress. She had blond hair like spun silk. The skin of both husband and wife was blistered black from third-degree burns.

"Who are they?" Mark asked.

"I would guess Purcell's parents," the CURE director replied, his thin lips pursed. "He told Remo and Chiun years ago that he had murdered them. They were his first victims. I believe we have come to the end of the line."

His worried eyes were directed ahead.

The main road ended where the long walkway to Chiun's house began. The area was free of phantom corpses. Smith saw that a familiar figure had joined the Master of Sinanju on the well-trampled footpath.

For the first instant that he saw Remo, the CURE director felt a flash of quick relief. That relief disappeared as quickly as it had come.

It was Chiun's reaction that sent up warning flares for Harold Smith.

The old Korean gave a deep, subservient bow, the likes of which Masters of Sinanju granted no mere mortals. Eyes downcast, he shuffled a few obsequious steps backward.

Howard stopped at Smith's side. "It's Remo," he said.

Smith shot a hard look at Mark Howard. "If you value both our lives, do not say anything to him." Howard shook his head as he studied the new arrival. There wasn't the same flickering lack of substance he had seen in the buildings and bodies.

"Don't worry, Dr. Smith. That's really Remo." The CURE director was studying the Master of Sinanju.

The old man's face was now upturned, but he maintained a subservient semibow. Remo had taken a posture of arrogance, hands planted on his hips, as he looked up at the House of Many Woods. He seemed to be soaking up his teacher's groveling as if it were his due.

Smith shook his head ominously.

"He is real," the CURE director said darkly. When he glanced at his assistant, the dread was reflected deep in his gray eyes. "But I fear he is not Remo."

Chapter 33

The Master of Sinanju knew to fear the instant he saw Remo's eyes. Within the dark depths of the deep-set brown orbs were twin pinpricks of red-ancient burning coals compressed into a tiny supernova of raw power and fury.

Chiun had seen those eyes before. They were not the eyes of his beloved son, but of a force far greater than any mere mortal. Even a Master of Sinanju.

His bow was deep and reverential.

"O Supreme Lord, your humble servant welcomes you joyously to this temporal plain."

And though his words were respectful, they were laced with fear for the world and sadness for the son who had to die to bring this terrible force to life.

Remo didn't answer right away. He didn't look at Chiun. His eyes remained directed on the house up ahead, the senses of his perfect body tuned to the life force that emanated from within. And when he spoke, there was a quizzical growl to the booming voice that rose like accusing thunder from deep within Remo's chest.

"I know this place. "

Chiun allowed a glimmer of hope. "It is the ancestral home of the Masters of Sinanju."

This seemed to strike a chord within Remo. He looked away from the house. His glowing eyes studied Chiun's face.

"I have encountered you before, old man. "

"You honor me to remember such a worthless soul as I."

The Dutchman's sunrise had oozed up over the horizon. Purple light spread like an oil slick across the dreary landscape. The light brightened across Remo's battered form.

It looked as if Remo had been dragged through Hell. His clothes were tatters, his hair filthy and unkempt. But it was the condition of his pupil's skin that made Chiun wince.

A year ago Remo had suffered terrible burns over most of his body. This was worse. There were blue blotches and oozing red sores. Patches of necrotic-tissue colored arms and neck with hideous splotches of black.

It looked as if Remo had wept tears of blood. The streaks below his eyes were dry now and beginning to flake.

He was filthy, covered with dirt and grime. His fingers and knuckles had bled profusely at some point in the very recent past and were now covered in scabs.

Yet through it all, Chiun sensed a strong heartbeat and powerful, working lungs. A great stillness suffused Remo's being. There was no sense of contagion coming from him. Whatever had happened to Remo, he had sloughed off the worst effects. His body was healing.

"Why am I here?" the being who possessed Remo demanded. "Did you summon me from my slumber?"

"My lips are not worthy, Supreme Lord. I would not defile your name to speak it, wretch that I am."

Chiun sensed the approaching presence of two men. He shot a glance back at Harold Smith and Mark Howard. An angry hand waved them to halt their approach.

The thing that wore Remo's face looked back to the House of Many Woods. His features seemed to soften visibly. A contemplative frown settled around his mouth.

"This was my home for many years," Chiun said sadly. "If the Supreme Lord wishes to claim it for his own, he may have it, for without an heir I no longer have use for it."

The words pained him. He had so much to tell Remo, so much now to discover in himself. But his revelations were nothing without his son to share them with.

The red-flecked eyes narrowed as the being within Remo considered Chiun's offer. At long last he spoke. "I'll put up with everything else, Little Father, but if you think I'm living in this dump, you're nuts." Chiun felt hope soar on fluttering wings.

"Remo?" Chiun sang joyfully.

"Do not address me, worthless one, " boomed the voice that was not Remo's.

As soon as he finished, he spoke again, this time in a voice more familiar.

"Yes," Remo's normal voice insisted. And again he shook his head.

"No," Remo said, louder now. He looked to Chiun, a puzzled expression on his face. The fire still burned within his eyes. But they were Remo's eyes. Though the fire came from another, it was his own to command.

"It's me, Chiun," he stated firmly. "But not me."

And a lopsided smile cracked his face wide, for the doors had been flung open and he at last understood. He had been given a moment. A glimpse of his future.

The fire came from within, from a primordial place that Remo had always known was there. It was right, and it was him and now, after all these years, he finally understood.

With a new strength-one that he owned but was not entirely his own-he spun back to the House of Many Woods.

"Time to kick some squatter ass," Remo Williams said.

INSIDE THE MASTER'S House, the man with the Asian features sensed the men approaching. At first he assumed they were representatives of Kim Jong Il's government, for the rumble of tanks was nearly upon the village.

But then the heartbeats came into his sphere, first one, then another. Men trained in Sinanju. Unmistakable.

There wasn't shock or fear. Just another twist in the tangled knot of madness.

"They dare come against me?" he asked the wall. "Don't they know that I'm the mighty Nuihc? Nuihc the Unbeatable?" He turned to the blond-haired shadow in the corner. "The battle has come to us. You will do as you were trained to do, dog. Stay close and defend your Master."

And even as the order was being issued, the lips of the other man moved in perfect time with those of the Asian.

"COME OUT, come out or I'll blow your house in!" Remo called from the front walk of the Master's House.

The Master of Sinanju was at his side. They had instructed Smith and Howard to stay back near the village.

"Are you well enough for this, my son?" the old man asked from the corner of his mouth.

"Couldn't be better," Remo said.

The truth was, despite his appearance, he felt good. Better than good. It was like a puzzle piece had been missing from his life all along and he hadn't even known it.

When the door opened and Nuihc appeared, Remo wasn't shocked. Chiun had quickly filled him in about the blood on the shore and Pullyang's method of execution.

The Dutchman appeared through the door, as well. With Jeremiah Purcell in tow, Nuihc descended the steps.

It was an odd sight for Remo and Chiun, to actually see their two greatest foes in the same place. Through the years their battles with both men had always been separate. They had never before seen the two false Masters together.

"I miss the days when dead people had the decency to stay dead, don't you, Little Father?" Remo said loudly.

"Be on guard," Chiun whispered in a voice so low only Remo could hear. "For I am forbidden by tradition to raise a hand against the son of my brother."

"Okay, I'll take Nuihc, you take Purcell."

"Very well," Chiun replied hastily. "But the Dutchman's life must be spared. Remember, your spirits are intertwined. If he dies, so, too, will you."

Remo seemed about to say more, but there was no time.

Nuihc and Purcell stopped on the path. Only a few yards separated the pairs of combatants.

"Welcome to my village," Nuihc said.

"Love what you've done with the place," Remo said. "A few too many burned buildings and dead bodies for my taste, but I guess that's what you get when you hire a rubber-room reject as your landscaper."

The barb was directed at Jeremiah Purcell, but it was Nuihc who reacted. A small twitch at his thin lips.

"My son is not to be underestimated," he said coldly.

Both Remo and Chiun took note of the word. From what they had learned from Purcell, Nuihc had never thought of the younger man as anything more than a weapon. Purcell's feelings for Nuihc as father had never been reciprocated.

"You don't belong here, duck droppings," Remo said.

"You are welcome to try to remove me," Nuihc replied. "But this time can I assume that our mutual teacher will adhere to the dictates he claims to hold dear?"

"I will not kill you, wicked one," Chiun answered. Nuihc grinned. So, too, did Jeremiah Purcell. There was something wrong with the smile-with everything. The Nuihc arrogance was there. But the rest was off.

Remo had no time to question.

"Welcome to your doom, white mongrel!" the Fallen Master of Sinanju cried out in triumph.

And in a blinding instant, Nuihc was off the worn path and in the air, teeth gritted in a mask of a hatred so primal that it defied the very grave itself.

SMITH AND HOWARD HAD taken refuge behind the facsimile of a burned building. The CURE director's heart was in his throat as he watched Nuihc's first attack.

An uncoiled toe flew for Remo's throat. Smith was certain that it would register. But at the last moment, Remo seemed to fall in with the blow. His body bent back and Nuihc flew over, rolling and springing back up.

As Nuihc jumped toward Remo, the Dutchman vaulted at Chiun. The blond-haired man circled the elderly Korean on the frozen earth beside the path. No blows registered as the two combatants circled each other.

Above, the sky began to shimmer. A cloak of swirling purple flooded the inverted bowl above the planet. Smith's worried gray eyes were directed on the heavens. "Purcell," he breathed, awed by the supernatural display.

Mark Howard was squinting at the battle. "There's only one of them," he announced all at once.

Smith tore his eyes from the roiling sky. "What?"

"There's only one guy there, Dr. Smith," Howard repeated excitedly. "It's another illusion."

Before Smith could stop him, Howard was scampering out of hiding and running toward the Master's House.

"It's Purcell!" Howard yelled.

Remo's attention was directed at Nuihc, Chiun's at the Dutchman. Neither man dared look to Howard, who had stopped on the road below the bluff.

"I told you to stay back, junior," Remo snarled.

Mark's face was pleading. "You're both fighting Purcell!" he insisted. "There's no one else there but him. It's just another illusion."

The words struck hard.

Howard had some insight into Purcell's sick mind. For an instant Remo thought he had been given a decoy and that the Master of Sinanju was fighting the true Dutchman.

But then the man Remo thought was Nuihc glanced down at the assistant CURE director, hatred in his eyes.

"Knives!" he shouted.

Mark instantly buckled, grabbing chest and abdomen. He collapsed to the road. Smith ran from cover to his side. He began dragging the injured young man to safety.

Remo wheeled in shock. "Purcell," he hissed. From the corner of his eye he saw the shadow that had been dancing around Chiun vanish. The Master of Sinanju found himself facing empty air where a moment ago he would have sworn was a solid opponent.

As the shadow Dutchman was evaporating, Nuihc's features began to change. The flat Asian face dissolved, replaced by the Caucasian features that had been lurking below all along. The black hair lengthened and turned to silken blond. The hazel eyes melted to electric blue.

Remo found himself face-to-face with Jeremiah Purcell.

A crooked smile split the younger man's pale face.

Above their heads, lightning crackled blindingly across the swirling purple sky, flashing demonic light over the Dutchman's twisted features. Fat drops of rain the color of blood began to splatter the ground. They struck the earth like balls of thick molten lead.

"I am Nuihc!" Purcell cried out. "Do not speak the name of that failure in my presence, for he is dead to me."

"That makes two of you," Remo said.

And ignoring the growing storm that was a window to the madness of Jeremiah Purcell's mind, Remo Williams lashed out.

SMITH PULLED Howard behind the half-burned building. By the end the young man was crawling as Smith dragged.

"I'm fine," Mark insisted, panting. "He just knocked the wind out of me."

Smith searched for blood. There wasn't any, nor were there any wounds. Typically victims of the Dutchman's mental attacks believed so vividly in their injuries that they manifested fatal symptoms. But, thank God, Mark Howard's reactions to the Dutchman's mind games were atypical.

Leaving his assistant propped against the wall, Smith scampered over, peering around the corner. Up near the House of Many Woods, Chiun had fallen cautiously back, his hands tucked inside the sleeves of his kimono. This fight was Remo's. Smith didn't know how to gauge a Sinanju battle. It seemed to last an eternity. Feet and fists flew. Traded blows deflected to impotence.

The first blow to hit home came abruptly, landing with a sickening crunch. The sound echoed out across the wasted village.

At first it was unclear who had drawn first blood. Remo and Purcell stood locked in eternal struggle, each with an arm outstretched, fingers like steel mauls.

Then Remo wavered.

The Dutchman! Jeremiah Purcell had scored a blow against Remo!

Remo's arm dropped back to his side. His face was a grimace. Of course the pain had to have been excruciating. But when Remo again raised his hands, Smith saw that he had been mistaken.

No, not pain. At least not for Remo.

It was Purcell who had been hit. The Dutchman pivoted back on his heel, twisting out of harm's way. As he did so, his left arm swung down useless to his side.

"Strike one," Remo said tightly.

One arm crippled, the Dutchman battled on. Another blow, this one to Purcell's right arm.

It was the traditional Sinanju attack of disrespect to show an opponent was unworthy. Years before, Nuihc had used the method on Remo. Back then Nuihc had played the coward, using proxies to deliver the first three blows. Coward as he always was. Coward as Remo, a full Master of Sinanju and so much more, would never be.

Purcell knew what was happening. He held his injured arms close. "Fire!" he cried in desperation. And Remo felt the flames lick his damaged skin. But he had already come through worse, and the fire that burned from within was far greater than any mere hallucination.

Remo wound like a top, twirling on one leg, the other bent up near his body. He took out the Dutchman's right leg. The mass of muscles tore, and the young man could no longer stand. The leg buckled and he felt to the dirt.

"I will have my vengeance!" Purcell shrieked. And Remo spoke. The words were thunder that rolled up from a place deep within him, and for the first time in his life he owned them. And he did say, "I am created Shiva, the Destroyer; death, the shatterer of worlds. The dead night tiger made whole by the Master of Sinanju. Who is this dog meat that dares challenge me?"

"I am Nuihc," Jeremiah Purcell sneered, "he of the pure bloodline, true Reigning Master of the House of Sinanju."

"This is my house now," Remo said. "And you're nothing but a schizo son of a bitch."

And he was on Purcell, his arms wrapped around the younger man's injured shoulders.

"Did you forget?" the Dutchman taunted weakly. Blood and sweat streaked his face. His teeth were bared in a superior sneer. "You can't kill me. If I die, you die."

"That should work both ways, pal," Remo whispered in his ear. "But I died a couple of times already, and you're still kicking. Lemme test a theory."

And Remo Williams took the throat of the last false Master of Sinanju in both hands and gave a mighty twist. There was an unholy crack of bone. The Dutchman's head whipped around twice on a tightening knot of loose flesh before lolling to one side. Strings of mottled blond hair stuck to pale skin.

In that instant there was shock in the eyes.

For Jeremiah Purcell, life had been a curse. Death was a thing longed for. But in that final, brutal moment there was the first true instant of understanding of life.

Then the light faded from his electric-blue eyes. And as the flickering force of life slipped finally and forever from the wicked Dutchman, the illusions around the village of Sinanju began to fade.

Chapter 34

The bodies went first. Disappearing one by one in little puffs of light and steam. The purple sky washed to blue, sweeping away the mirage of destruction that had been painted across the village. The sunlight of a new winter day erased the charred buildings, replacing them with familiar wooden homes and businesses.

The Dutchman's mental projection had apparently surrounded the entire village of Sinanju with a false backdrop, for as the final spell ever to be cast by his tortured mind collapsed, there appeared just beyond the northern border a row of North Korean tanks. Soldiers shouted to one another as they ran between army equipment.

Smith had come out of hiding. Mark Howard, now well enough to stand, also came.

Smith's eyes strayed to the bay. Until moments ago it had been shrouded in darkness. He was relieved to see that the Darter wasn't visible. The sub had sunk below the waves and wasn't scheduled to resurface for hours.

"What now?" the CURE director asked Remo warily.

"Don't sweat it, Smitty," Remo said. "They're with me."

Some men were moving into the village. Smith and Howard stayed back with the Master of Sinanju as Remo went to meet the new arrivals.

The soldiers were propelling a lone captive before them.

Benson Dilkes had been captured while trying to flee the village. The North Korean forces turned him over to Remo without question. Their orders had been clear. They were told from on high to do anything the white Master of Sinanju asked. So far, they had only been told to round up anyone who tried to escape from Sinanju.

Remo ordered them to stay put. The soldiers went back to man their vehicles while Remo dragged Dilkes back into the village.

"I didn't want any of them to get out of here," Remo explained to the others. "I've had enough clomping around the world for my next three lifetimes." He turned his attention to Dilkes. "Where is everybody?"

Dilkes was staring at the lifeless body of Jeremiah Purcell. Although he didn't see Nuihc anywhere, he assumed the worst. By the looks of it he had picked the wrong team.

"This way," Dilkes said, defeated. He led the four men from the village.

"The real Nuihc didn't just want to kill us," Remo explained as they walked along the rough shore. "He wanted to take over the village and lord his victory over everybody here. He had an ego as big as North Dakota. If Purcell thought he was channeling Nuihc, he'd want to take over Sinanju, too. A kingdom's no fun without subjects."

Caves carved by the rolling sea speckled the rock a mile from the village. As they closed in on the caves, Remo and Chiun sensed many heartbeats coming from within.

Dilkes stopped before a big cave mouth. "In there," he said, pointing.

"Wait here," Remo ordered.

He turned for the caves, but Dilkes stopped him. "Master of Sinanju, I beg for mercy," Benson Dilkes said. "I was retired. I wouldn't even be involved in this if I hadn't been invited to try to kill you." As he spoke, his eyes strayed to Harold W. Smith.

"Let me guess," Remo said to Smith and Chiun. "America had to field a contestant, as well."

Chiun remained impassive. Smith fidgeted uncomfortably.

"It was against my better judgment," Smith offered.

Remo turned to Dilkes. "You already cash the check?" Dilkes nodded. "Good." Remo planted his fist so deep in Benson Dilkes's head the others caught a glimpse of daylight before the assassin dropped to the ground. "Try to get the money back now," he said to Smith.

Alone, Remo ducked inside the cave.

For the next several minutes there issued terrible breaking sounds from inside. When Remo finally emerged back in sunlight, he was surrounded by Korean faces.

There were men and women, old and young. For the first time in days, the entire population of Sinanju stumbled out into daylight. They blinked against the glare as they began trudging back to Sinanju.

The last one out was an old woman.

Hyunsil, daughter of Pullyang, fell to her knees at Chiun's feet, kissing his kimono hems and giving thanks to the Master for liberating the villagers. None of the other villagers offered so much as a word of thanks, which wasn't a surprise to Remo. With their legendary ingratitude, he would have been disappointed in them if they had.

"The praise is not mine to accept, child," Chiun said, gathering the old woman up from the ground. "For it is not I, but my son who deserves our gratitude. Furthermore, the Master's House needs a new caretaker for when we are away. You would honor us to assume the duties of your father."

"The honor is mine, O Master," Hyunsil said. And bowing with great reverence, she headed back to the village.

"Okay, just FYI here," Remo announced once the villagers were gone. "The Time of Succession is officially over for me. I smelled a hundred different stinks from a hundred different nationalities in that cave. I'm gonna have Kim's tin soldiers bag them up and ship them back to wherever they came from. If this doesn't impress the leaders of the world, I don't know what will."

He didn't give time for argument. Turning on his heel, he headed for the village. Smith and Howard followed.

Only Chiun lingered. Eyes trained on a distant hilltop, he padded in thoughtful silence after the others.

Chapter 35

The investiture of a new Master of Sinanju was by tradition a quiet affair. The retiring Master and Master-to-be stood on the steps of the House of Many Woods to face the gathered villagers and pledge support in life and death. Remo and Chiun recited the memorized speeches that had been passed down from generations of Masters of Sinanju.

Harold Smith and Mark Howard had been permitted to witness the occasion. It was the first time since Kublai Khan that a foreigner was allowed to observe the ancient rite.

Children threw cloth flower petals at the feet of the Masters. An ancient song extolling all the dead Masters was sung. After, Chiun beat a gong three times, completing the symbolic transfer of authority to the new Master.

Afterward it was the people who celebrated. The Master and his teacher didn't join in the raucous festivities. This was as it always was, for the lives of the Masters of Sinanju were spent apart from the villagers.

Throughout the ceremony, Mark Howard and Harold Smith maintained a respectful silence, sensing the weight of tradition hanging heavy in the air. When it was all over, Smith shook Remo's hand.

Though unseen, the North Korean army was still nearby. At Remo's order they were up the shore carrying the bodies of the dead assassins from the caves. Despite CURE security concerns, it seemed right that Smith be present for this. They had all been through so much together over the years.

"Congratulations, Remo," the CURE director said, a thin smile on his lemony face. "And to you, Master Chiun."

He offered a bow. With his assistant Smith went to await the submarine that would take them both home. From the front of the Master's House, Remo and Chiun watched the activity in the village.

"I take back what I said about that smelly Russian swami, Little Father," Remo said once they were alone. "He was right after all. The Dutchman was so nuts he thought he was two people. As far as he was concerned, two Masters of Sinanju did die. I guess that's what Assmuffin meant."

"Yes," Chiun said vaguely. "Go inside, Remo. Your skin must be taken care of. I have a poultice that should help. Lie down while I go collect some seawater to mix with it."

Remo didn't argue. The truth was, he was exhausted. He could use some shut-eye.

As Remo went inside, Chiun headed down the front path.

The old Korean's gaze was trained once more on the rocky hill that sat in the shadow of the Horns of Welcome above Sinanju. And on the small man who sat cross-legged watching the activity from his lonely perch.

FROM HIS MOUNTAIN vantage point he watched the celebrations through bitter, hate-filled eyes.

This was supposed to have been the end. The destruction of the village, the murder of the last two Masters of this false New Age.

He had come back from death to witness the destruction. To watch the House fall and the village burn.

But the last hope had failed. When the people returned to the village, he watched them stomp the body of the dead white Master to a flat sack of broken bones before throwing the trampled remains into the cold water of the bay.

There was dark power in that boy. But it wasn't enough. Nor were the summoned Armies of Death. He could see what was left of them even from this distance. They were being carted away by the men who had arrived in the wheeled metal beasts.

Sinanju lived. In the people, in the village, in the five-thousand-year-old tradition. In its newest Master. Atop his mountain, the Lost Master, who had been reborn only to fail, hung his head in disgrace. He sat with his shame for a long time before a voice broke his solitude.

"I will tell you a tale." The Lost Master looked up.

Chiun stood with him on the flat mountaintop, a figure of ancient wisdom. He padded silently over, sitting down before the Forgotten One.

"It is a tale of the earliest days of the New Age," Chiun continued. "It happened after Master Hung of the Old Order had died, leaving no heir. The Great Wang went out into the wilderness, only to return with a vision for a new future for this village." He held a hand out to Sinanju.

The celebrations below continued.

"When Wang returned and found the other night tigers fighting among themselves to see who would succeed Hung, Wang did proclaim that he had discovered the Sun Source. As proof he did use his newfound skill to slay the quarreling night tigers, establishing that from that day forward there would only be one Master and pupil per generation.

"And the bodies of the dead Wang did order brought to the bay, where they were sent home to the sea.

"But when the time came to collect the last body, the villagers were shocked to find that breath still clung to it.

"Wang knew well this last night tiger. Knew him as a creature of jealousy and hate. From a lesser family was this still-breathing night tiger-a family to whom magic and black arts were well-known.

"And this lesser Master and dying night tiger did spit at Wang from where he lay on the damp shore. Though the fire in his eyes was slowly winking out, it burned still, and in his dying moments he did find strength to speak, and he did say, 'You are undeserving of the title Master of Sinanju, Wang the Impostor. You build this new era on a foundation of fraud and so, like you, all who follow you will be illegitimate. Although I will be sent to the sea this day, I will not accept my place in the Void.' And turning to the villagers he did cry, 'Listen to me, people of Sinanju! You have joined with Wang and will therefore suffer with him. I place on the heads of you and your descendants a curse. The Curse of true Sinanju. When comes the end of my bloodline, will also come the day of judgment for this New Age of Wang. Hatred fuels vengeance. I will have my day.'

"With that, he died."

On the mountain, Chiun grew silent.

The Lost Master tried to speak. It had been a long time. The voice was a pained rasp.

"My family plotted vengeance for uncounted years," said the Forgotten One. "This was to be the age. Your nephew, his protege, the death of my last living ancestor. The curse was now. Everything was right for success."

And Chiun did shake his head sadly. Great sympathy did he feel for this pathetic soul who had wasted eternity on a plot that was doomed to fail from the very start.

"If you had only clung to life a little more, your dead ears would have heard the rest, Forgotten One," Chiun replied. He resumed the tale.

"And Wang did accept the curse of the Lost Master. And he did offer a prediction. 'One day there will be a Master of Sinanju who will find among the barbarians in the West one who was once dead. This Master will teach the secrets of Sinanju to this pale one of the dead eyes. He will make of him a night tiger, but the most awesome of night tigers. He will make him kin to the gods of India and he will be Shiva, the Destroyer. And this dead night tiger whom the Master of Sinanju will one day make whole will himself become the Master of Sinanju, and a new era will dawn, greater than that which I am about to create.'"

Chiun raised his head proudly. "That age is here." The Lost Master hung his head, allowing the words to penetrate deep. When he at last looked up, there was tired acceptance in his weary, bloodshot eyes. "I allow death to claim me, son of Wang," he said. And with a whoosh that stirred the soft hair over Chiun's ears, the spirit of evil that had afflicted an entire family for generations slipped from the frail old body.

With the Forgotten One no longer animating it, the corpse fell to one side. It was cold to the touch. As if it had been dead for many months.

In death the body looked once more like Sonmi, aunt of Nuihc, last of the bloodline of the Lost Master, whose drowning death had given the Forgotten One life.

Chiun took the old woman's body down the hill. He brought her to the abandoned house of her ancestors.

And when he had lain her inside the hut, he attacked the building at its four corners. The structure shivered, then collapsed, burying forever the woman Sonmi, the evil magic, the plot for vengeance and the jealous Master of Sinanju from the old ways whose name history would not remember.

Chapter 36

The Darter broke the surface at the prearranged time. Remo had gone to the shore to say his goodbyes. "Her name is Rebecca Dalton," Remo said. "At least that's what she told me it was."

"I will look her up when we get back," Smith promised.

"Good. 'Cause I think I should thank her. Maybe kill her. Either way I probably should touch base with her."

Smith and Mark Howard got into their rubber raft. As Smith sat, Howard paddled out to the waiting sub. Remo watched the two of them go, CURE director and assistant, tossed together in a crummy little life raft in a treacherous sea. He was sure there was some grand poetic metaphor there. Remo wasn't a poet.

He turned from the shore and headed back through the village. On the bluff behind the House of Many Woods he found the Master of Sinanju looking out across the bay.

Smith and Howard had reached the sub by this point. Helpful sailors were pulling them aboard. Remo watched his teacher watch the bay. There was a vigor to the old man he hadn't seen in years. The hazel eyes were sharp and piercing. Chiun had indicated that something had happened to him during their time apart. The old Korean had yet to say what that something was.

"Whatever happened, it suits you," Remo commented.

"I have a future," Chiun announced simply as he watched Smith disappear down the submarine's hatch.

The words were filled with such pride, such hope. For a long time those had been absent in the old Korean. They had dripped away so gradually that Remo had hardly noticed. But, standing proud on the bluff above his ancestral home, the wizened figure seemed fully himself once more.

Remo felt his heart swell. "I never doubted it for a minute, Little Father."

Chiun looked up into his pupil's smiling face. Remo's smile reflected in the Korean's leathery visage.

The whole world had changed. And yet it seemed more the same than it had in a long, long time.

The eyes of hundreds of past Masters smiled warmly on the only two living Masters of Sinanju. Chiun's face became sly. "You are destined for a great honor, too," Chiun confided, leaning in close.

"Care to enlighten me?"

"When those who come after us write the book of me, you, Remo Williams, above all others will be the greatest of all the footnotes. Isn't that wonderful?"

"I'm overwhelmed."

The old man looked back out at the sea. "Possibly not the greatest," warned Chiun. "I will have to mention Smith, I suppose. And Prince Howard if he stays around much longer. Oh, and there is my cousin Lai. Did I ever mention him? On my mother's side? He would be upset if he did not get a mention. Anyway, you will certainly be, at the very least, a lesser footnote."

"My cup runneth over," droned Remo Williams, the new Reigning Master of the House of Sinanju.

"Perhaps a footnote to a footnote," said Chiun the Great Teacher, former Reigning Master of Sinanju. After all, he didn't want this new white Master of Sinanju to get a swelled head.