Chapter 4

The Korean man was so very old that his skin was like parchment. His flesh was nearly translucent, the wisps of hair over his ears were yellow-white and the threads of his beard were nearly invisible.

In the dingy office, he stroked the beard thoughtfully, then put his hand back into the sleeve of his pale gold Korean robe.

“I don’t understand,” said the man behind the desk in a pinched, sour tone of voice. “Does this have something to do with the succession?”

“It is a private matter, unworthy of your attentions, kind and generous Emperor,” proclaimed the old Korean in a formal singsong voice. “It is between my pupil and myself.”

“Master Chiun, I beg to differ,” said the man behind the desk. “Anything that affects my enforcement arm is my business. Remo becomes more headstrong every day. He’s never been the most cooperative man to manage, but now he’s utterly unpredictable and belligerent. He is putting his own interests ahead of CURE’s mandate.”

The small Korean man, who was actually much older than the man behind the desk, wore a smile that wouldn’t budge. The old man behind the desk, Harold W. Smith, director of CURE, glanced worriedly at his assistant. Mark Howard was at another desk, which looked out of place in the timeworn office.

“To be blunt, Master Chiun,” Smith said, “Remo is failing to fulfill his contract.”

“I assure you, Great and Humble Emperor of the North American Continent, Remo has fulfilled all your stated demands.”

“You speak of his missions,” Smith said.

“He has failed none of them.”

“But he has failed to perform his most basic assignment,” Smith said. “That is, to maintain the security of this organization. He exposed us all. The future of CURE is tenuous at this point, and that is because of Remo’s reckless action.”

Chiun tilted his head. “I fail to understand your meaning, O Emperor.”

Smith long ago stopped trying to dissuade Chiun from calling him Emperor. Smith wasn’t an emperor. He was the head of the most effective organization in the federal government: CURE. There was no government entity more secret, and there was none more illegal.

CURE was designed to protect the U.S. Constitution by violating the Constitution. The Bill of Rights was mincemeat when CURE got its fingers into it. But America would have fallen into anarchy without CURE’s intervention in past crises.

“This Native American tribe out near Yuma, Arizona,” Smith said. “All the people of this tribe must know about CURE by now.”

“I cannot say, Emperor.”

“How long has Remo been hiding Winston there?”

“I cannot answer that question, Emperor.”

“And this daughter, Freya. Both have been there for years, from what I can tell.”

Chiun was silent, his face a mask that could not be penetrated.

“And this man they call Sunny Joe Roam. Are you aware that he is Remo’s biological father?”

Chiun’s expression changed at that. Smith read volumes in it. “I understand, Master Chiun. You did know, but you did not expect me to know.”

Chiun, Master of Sinanju Emeritus, trainer of Remo Williams, said nothing. What could he say?

“This is intolerable,” Harold W. Smith declared flatly, and he turned in his chair to do something that was rare these days: he gazed out the one-way glass of his office at the pounding surf of Long Island Sound. He was troubled.

But Mark Howard, assistant director of CURE, didn’t think his boss was as troubled as the old Master looked. Chiun’s posture had become slightly more rigid, his brow stem, his childlike eyes intense. Still, Chiun said nothing.

“Remo has forced me into a very difficult position. I have never shied away from silencing those who could expose CURE.” Smith rotated away from the view. “If this exposure had occurred ten years ago, I would have not hesitated to order—”

“Hold!”

Chiun’s palm was toward Smith, who fell back in his chair as if shoved.

“Do not speak those words, Emperor,” Chiun said. “Even as idle threat.”

“I don’t understand.”

“And I shall not allow such things to pass my lips, even to educate you. Suffice it to say you tread dangerous ground.”

“Dangerous to whom?”

“Dangerous to our continuing association,” Chiun replied formally. “At the very least you risk forcing me to declare our contract void.”

Smith’s mind was spinning like an old-fashioned computer tape drive gone berserk. What was he missing? He personally hashed out CURE’s contract with Chiun, every word of it an agony of negotiation. What stipulation was he close to violating and what was wrong with him that he didn’t know it?

Mark Howard’s wheelchair squeaked, bringing Smith back to the old office in the large private hospital in Rye, New York.

“May we then discuss the Remo problem?” Smith asked hesitantly.

Chiun smiled, so abruptly Smith didn’t know what to make of it. “Remo has always been a problem, great Emperor of Puppets. What more can be expected of him?”

When the blue icon flashed on the computer screen hidden under his desktop, Smith was almost relieved for the distraction. He keyed on the telephone.

“Hey, Smitty, it’s all messed up out here in Montana,” Remo Williams said as soon as the line was opened. “Hey, Junior. Hey, Little Father.”

“Can you be more clear about ‘messed up’?” Smith asked. “Did you catch the killers?”

“Yes, explain this failure to your emperor,” snapped Chiun.

“Well, if there was a failure, then I guess the blame ought to go to whoever gave me the lowdown on this fiasco,” Remo said.

“Be polite, Remo,” Chiun chided.

“Listen, Smitty, I came out here to look for a killer skydiver. Look for signs of tampering with the parachutes, you tell me. Look for a skydiver with a sniper’s rifle. Well, I looked and I didn’t find anything like that.”

“Then what did happen, Remo?”

Smith listened closely to Remo’s account of the championship round of the Third Annual Extreme Competitive High Altitude/Low Opening Skydiving event. He and Mark Howard simultaneously began combing the reams of information that was pouring into their data-gathering mainframes.

“You obtained a victim?” Smith asked.

“I obtained an equipment pack. That’s what heated up. The problem is, there’s nothing inside of it that could have generated that much heat.”

“You should have acquired a cadaver,” Smith said. “We can’t be sure the heat didn’t originate from something in their clothing.”

“Yes, we’re sure because I’m sure,” Remo said.

“Even you’d be able to figure it out if you had a look at the guy. The heat starts inside the pack and works its way out. I think it’s actually the plastic parts of the frame that get hot, but there’s nothing inside the pack to make them get hot. Whatever started it came from the ground, but it got turned off or we drifted out of its range or something. You want me to send you the pack?”

“Remo, there might have been a radiant element hidden in the clothing of the competitors,” Smith persisted. “It could have made the pack appear to be the heat source when, in fact—”

‘You want the equipment or do I give it to Goodwill?”

“Remo,” Chiun warned, “you shall treat your emperor with respect.”

“Bring the equipment back with you, Remo,” Smith said. “Get here as soon as possible.”

“Hey, no, uh-uh, I’m going to the Middle East. Remember the mean old Mr. Senator who keeps doing bad things to the U.S. of A.?”

“We have not yet located Senator Whiteslaw,” Smith said. “He’s in hiding.”

“Finding people is your specialty. You didn’t even try, did you?”

“We made an effort to locate him, but we do have other problems vying for our attention.”

“Yeah, like what? On second thought, don’t tell me.”

The click of the disconnect filled the office.

“Will there be anything more, great leader of the United States of North America?” Chiun was smiling as if he had no cares in the world.

When the old Master was gone, Smith turned to his assistant.

“Mark, what do you make of this contract-voiding business? For the life of me I can’t figure out what he is talking about.”

Mark Howard bit his lower lip. “There’s an extended-family clause in the contract, isn’t there?”

Dr. Smith frowned. “Yes. What of it?”

“You would ask him to assassinate members of his own family,” Mark said. “That’s so forbidden it is like… blasphemy.”

“I did not say that I would, and regardless, I would have made the request of Chiun, not Remo. Despite their relationship, Chiun and Remo are not related by blood.”

Mark just sat there. Smith suddenly understood that what he had said was dead wrong.

“How can this be?” he asked. “How long have you known?”

“A few weeks. Since I went to Yuma to get him. Remo’s related by blood to the entire Sun On Jo tribe, and the tribe, from what Remo says, was founded by a pre-Columbian Sinanju Master.”

Harold W. Smith turned again and stared out at the Sound. The waves were mighty today, like powerful fists battering the land, but they were fragile compared to the realization that assaulted Smith’s mind.

He had seen much that was illogical during his tenure with CURE. He had witnessed amazing things, and yet his mind rebelled against what he had just learned and all that it implied.

Remo and Chiun, related by blood.

Remo and Chiun, distanced by fate.

Remo and Chiun, rejoined by CURE.

The odds against it happening by chance were incalculable, but the alternative was unthinkable: Remo and Chiun brought together by CURE, which was under the control of something else.

Smith felt his chest become heavy. The question that remained, the unanswerable mystery, was what or who had manipulated CURE?

Chiun stood in the hall, out of sight of Emperor Smith’s well-meaning but doddering secretary, and eavesdropped as Mark Howard confirmed what he knew of Chiun and the Sun On Jo tribe. It was a secret best aired, Chiun considered. Too long had the truth remained unspoken to their employer.

Smith was a ruthless man, willing to make any sacrifice to continue the work of his hidden power base. Chiun learned years ago that it was best to keep quiet to the Emperor about the true extent of the fame and glory of Sinanju, and yet Remo was not so skilled at masking the truth. That he had kept the secret of the Sun On Jo for all these years was tribute to his patience, if not an indictment of his stubbornness. This subterfuge had been necessary once, lest the emperor view the existence of this tribe and Remo’s offspring as a threat to his power, and order their destruction.

That would be a foolish act, brimming with ruinous consequences, and Chiun did not think Smith would make that misstep. Still, he would keep a wary eye on the emperor in the coming days.

The emperor, after all, was old and set in his old ways, and had always been prone to episodes of insanity.

Chiun extracted a white electronic device from his sleeve as he strolled the hall of the rarely used wing of Folcroft Sanitarium. The private hospital served the wealthy and the special cases—this was the front for CURE. Chiun and Remo had for years maintained a suite of sparsely furnished rooms here. Their current stay was now stretching into weeks, since Remo had been struck down by a grievous wound that kept him comatose for days. He had recovered…

Chiun preferred not to recall the episode.

Now Remo refused to return to their proper home until he satisfied his current infatuation with the annihilation of a puppet senator. Chiun was tired of Folcroft, but also was he tired of the drab two-flat in which the Masters dwelt in Connecticut.

Chiun had his interests to distract him, and as he touched a button his device blinked happily to life.

The device allowed him to read the Internet-posted journals of people from around the world. Today, the Mississippi Trollop had updated her diary. The first words hinted at much juicy debauchery and amoral activity. This promised to be fine reading.

A lovely young woman emerged from one of the rooms and gave him an enchanting smile. The old Master stopped and bowed, a refined, rare display of respect.

“Chiun, I told you to stop that.” She kissed his cheek, then she locked her arm in his and dragged the beet-faced Master of Sinanju Emeritus into her own suite.