"Do as I do," the old Oriental whispered.
Remo followed him as soundlessly as a drifting wind. The old Oriental moved toward a black metal door in which a red pinpoint light glowed where the keyhole should have been.
"If we break it, it'll trigger an alarm," Remo warned.
"Then I will not break it," the old Oriental said. "Observe, now."
The old man placed his fingertips over the red pinpoint and drummed them silently until the light turned green. He pushed the door open casually and Remo followed him, a wondering expression on his face.
"How'd you do that? It's supposed to be impossible without a magnetic passcard."
"It is electrical," the old man said.
"Yeah?"
"So. I am electrical too. But my electricity is stronger. "
"That doesn't make any sense," Remo told the old Oriental as they moved down the corridor, two shadows in a deeper blackness. Then: "When are you going to teach me to do that?"
"When I sense your natural energies are equal to the task."
"What's that in real time?"
"Never. "
And Remo felt stung to his core.
They turned a corner and almost walked into a brown-uniformed security guard who stood before an unmarked door with an assault rifle raised protectively before him.
Remo hung back. Seeing the old Oriental continue his floating stride unchecked, he followed after him. The guard was looking right at them, evidently not registering their presence.
Then the guard looked away, and the old man froze. Remo froze too. And when the guard's gaze stared in their direction once more, he moved on, crossing the hallway with Remo close behind him, like his shadow.
Safely in another hallway, Remo wanted to know how it had been done.
"A man, when he looks directly at something, will perceive only something out of the ordinary," he was told. "You and I were part of the movement of air through this dark place, and therefore part of the vibration. But the corners of the eye will register any movement. That is why we stopped when we did."
They came to another pinpoint red light.
"Let me try this one, Remo offered. He placed his fingertips against the plate and started tapping in a dissynchronous rhythm.
The light remained red.
Impatiently the old Oriental stepped in and tapped the plate once. The light turned green.
"Was that you or me?" Remo asked as they closed the door behind them.
"It is all in the nails," the old Oriental said, shaking his wide sleeves free of his thin wrists. His nails were like pale blades. "Come, we are almost to our objective."
They entered a room filled with a low-level humming. As Remo's eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw the jerky movement of computer tape reels behind plastic panels. An air conditioner expelled chilled chemically tainted air.
"Which one do you think is our friend?' Remo breathed.
"It does not matter. We will destroy them all." Suddenly a pair of panels glowed in dull green light. They looked like flat blank eyes.
And a warm, generous, but completely unhuman voice spoke. "Welcome. And good-bye."
Then the center of the floor split down the middle and separated into identical falling panels.
Remo leapt for the only safety within reach. A hanging fluorescent light. He felt a sudden sharp weight on his right ankle and looked down.
Looking back up at him was the old Oriental's seamed countenance. He had Remo's ankle in one birdlike claw. But far more arresting was what was visible beyond the Oriental's robed form.
It looked like a gargantuan electronic well. It pulsed with a million lights and seemed to go down beyond the foundation of the building and into the bedrock itself.
The two halves of the floor lay flat against the north and south walls of the square well.
"We goofed, Little Father," Remo said. "The main computer isn't in this room. The whole building's a giant mainframe."
"Do you have a firm grip?" the old Oriental demanded in a squeaky voice. He was staring down into the pulsing lights of the abyss. A cold draft came up to flutter his hemline.
"I do," Remo said, looking up at the cracks forming in the ceiling around the light fixture. "But this fixture doesn't."
The old Oriental looked up with wistful features. "It is not strong enough to support us both," he said sadly.
"I guess this is the end."
"For me. Not for you. You are the future, but I am the past. Farewell, my son."
And the old Oriental simply let go. As Remo watched in horror, the old man tumbled past banks of lights, his face set, almost serene in its fatalism.
"Chiun! No!" Remo screamed. And woke up. Remo rolled out of bed. He was soaking in cold sweat. His fingers clutched his pillow in a death grip. He tried letting go, but they were like claws. He took a deep breath and started to feel his fingers warm with blood. Feeling returned to them, and slowly, painfully, the pillow dropped to the cold floor.
In the darkness, Remo whispered a single name: "Chiun. . . . "
Chapter 10
The Master of Sinanju took the shore road that led to the rock formation inscribed in the scrolls of his ancestors as the Horns of Welcome, which framed the normally forbidding waters of the West Korea Bay.
Here the shore was sand for a stretch. On either side, the sand gave way to grim granite rocks, covered with barnacles, that jutted out to the pounding surf like broken, petrified fingers. The sun was setting into the water, turning the gray choppiness of the sea the dull crimson of coagulating blood.
It lacked exactly thirty minutes to sunset. The appointed hour. And as Chiun, Reigning Master of Sinanju, stepped onto the sand, out beyond the rocks a submarine emblazoned with the flag of the barbarian nation called, variously, America, the United States, and the USA, broke the water with such violence that it seemed as if the sea were hemorrhaging.
The name on the bow was Harlequin. A hatch clanged and a seaman in white clambered up. He brought a device set with twin disks of ground glass to his eyes so that his weak white vision could discern the minimal distance from his vessel to the shore of Sinanju, pearl of Asia, birthplace of the sun source, and the home of Chiun, in the northern reaches of divided Korea.
Chiun placed a hand to his forehead. It was a sign to the weak-eyed white that he was not yet ready to leave his home village. The seaman lowered his glasses and, like a fool, unnecessarily waved in response. Then he disappeared into his craft. Finally the vessel submerged, to sleep in the cold waters of the West Korea Bay another night, until the Master of Sinanju placed his hand over his heart to signal that he was ready to return to his adopted land.
Chiun was not ready to return to the United States. He spun about, his purple robes pressing against his spindly arms and legs in the persistent sea breeze. Even though the wind was coming off the water, still the nostrils of the Master of Sinanju picked up the scent of boiling rice from the cooking pots of his village. And mixed with that, the unpleasant stink of burning pork and beef.
As the village square came into view, Chiun saw the women bent over their pots. They scarcely looked up at him, who had returned to Sinanju after a long absence, bearing new treasure for the glory of the village. So much treasure this year that there was no room for it in the wooden house on the hill called the House of the Masters and Chiun had had the strong men of the village put it in the spare treasure house, which was of rude stone and decorated with sea shells.
Yet, despite this abundance of riches, the men who were sweeping the square clear of the day's dust paid him little heed.
The Master of Sinanju comforted himself with the thought that they were busy. It was no slight when his industrious villagers went about their tasks with such fervor that they did not pause to engage him in conversation or to thank him for the glory he brought to the village.
The Master of Sinanju looked around his village. Where other eyes might see mud huts or fishing shacks, he saw tradition. Where foreign e
yes might see an outwardly poor village, he saw a center of culture that had stood on this spot for five thousand years, inhabited by a bloodline that had been unbroken for almost as long. It was rare when an outsider was allowed to marry into the village of Sinanju, rarer still when one of the village dwelt in the outside world for long periods of time as he had.
The clear eyes of the Master of Sinanju drank in the sight of his ancestral village with pride. Only by his labors, his sacrifice, did the people continue to eat, despite the poor fishing and the exhausted farm soil. Only by his upholding of ancient traditions did Sinanju live more secure than any village, nay, any city in North Korea. It was safer even than Pyongyang, the communist capital.
The Master of Sinanju's searching gaze alighted on a circle of children playing in the shadow of the Gong of Judgment. A happy smile wreathed his wrinkled countenance.
The children of the village. For as long as Chiun lived, none of them would ever be sent home to the sea-drowned in the bay for lack of food to nourish them. The adults might take that for granted, but the children would not.
Chiun glided toward the children, his eyes twinkling with wisdom to be shared.
"Ho, children of my village," cried the Master of Sinanju in the low, quaking voice he used to recite tales of the House of Sinanju, the most feared assassins in history. "Gather around me, for I have come to tell you stories of the barbarian West."
The children converged on him like pigeons after corn.
"More stories!" a butterball boy squealed.
"Come," Chiun said, shooing them away so he could settle onto a flat stone. The children sat, folded their legs, and placed their tiny hands on their knees. They looked up at him with wide innocent eyes. "Tonight," Chiun began, "while the sun is still to be seen and our bellies await the evening meal, I will tell you the story of how the white men sailed to the moon."
A little girl stuck out her tongue. "It is not true. How could a white man sail to the moon? It is not in the ocean, except at day, and then it is under the ocean."
"I have told you of the hollow birds that the whites use to go places in their faraway land," Chiun said, raising long-nailed finger.
"Yes!" the children of Sinanju chorused.
"This is a story like that. Let me begin. " Chiun deepened his storytelling voice further.
"Now, the days of which I speak were long ago," Chiun said. He touched a girl's button nose. "Before any of you gathered around me were born. In those days I dwelt in this village, and the times were lean. In those days the babies of Sinanju were those who, through my forbearance, were allowed to grow up to become your mothers and fathers, instead of being drowned, for in those days there was no work for the village and the money was almost gone."
"What about the treasure?" the little girl asked.
"The treasure is not for spending," Chiun retorted. "It is the heritage of the village."
"My mother says we would have fuller bellies if the treasure were spent and not hoarded."
"Who is your mother?" Chiun snapped, his cheeks blowing out in sudden fury.
"Poo. "
"Ah, I remember Poo," said the Master of Sinanju, gaining control of himself. He would see to that common scold, Poo, later. He went on with his story in a calmer voice.
"I have already told you about the day the white man with a hook for a hand came to this village in his iron boat that sailed under the seas. This man brought to me an offer of much riches if I would journey to his far-off land to train a person of his choosing in the art of Sinanju. Although it was a burden on my frail shoulders . . ." Chiun paused to see if appreciation lighted the faces of the children. When he recognized wonderment, he decided it was good enough and went on.
"Although it was a burden, I accepted this task and journeyed in the cold belly of the ocean to do what was asked of me, for I knew that my trials would feed the babies who are now your parents, and although I knew that some of them would never achieve wisdom enough to appreciate that sacrifice, I nevertheless went on, for I knew even then that those children would one day bear children of their own. And no ordinary children either, but those who understood sacrifice and appreciate the gifts bestowed on them. You children."
The children put their childish hands to their mouths and giggled. Chiun took that as appreciation. He would have preferred respectful silence, however. Bowing of heads would not have been amiss either.
"Now, the days of which I am about to speak are the earliest days of my time in the barbarian land of America. It was the three hundred and thirty-fourth day of the Year of the Dragon, which was, according to the complicated dating used by westerners, the third Tuesday of that second month, on the festival known as Dairy Goat Appreciation Day, during National Secretary's Week, in the year that numbered only 1972, for this land is in truth much younger than Korea.
"On this day," Chiun went on, "the land of America was in turmoil, for one of their strange vessels was nearing the moon. Hearing of this, I hurried to the throne room of the secret King of America, Mad Harold. I have told you of Mad Harold before. And presenting myself to this man, I said to him, 'I have heard tales from the remote provinces of your land that some of your subjects were nearing the moon.' And Mad Harold replied that this was so. He was exceedingly calm about this news, although I could detect a trace of pride in his tones.
"Now, when I heard this news, I too grew excited. No man had been to the moon in thousands of years, since Master Shang had walked so far north that his feet actually trod upon the cold wastes of the moon. And I shared this with Mad Harold, who seemed not surprised to learn that Koreans had journeyed to the moon before whites. And Mad Harold told me that other whites had been to the moon before that time. I was suspicious of this, and questioned Mad Harold about this closely, and he told me that the first whites to land on the moon did so in their year of 1969. To which I replied that Master Shang achieved the moon in our Year of the Heron. So, remember, we were the first. And do not forget that Shang walked.
"Now, knowing that the moon the Master Shang had visited was all ice and snow inhabited by white snow bears, I asked Mad Harold, King of America, if they had found rich cities on the moon to conquer, and he said no. I asked him if they had discovered mines of silver and gold, I asked him if there were slaves there, and he said no and he said no. I asked him if the meat of the white snow bears was the object of these expeditions, which I was told in confidence cost the ransom of a Japanese prince, and he said no."
By this point, the children sat round-mouthed. "These words of Mad Harold puzzled me greatly, for I could see no reason for these expeditions and I asked him what his brave sailors brought back from these perilous journeys that replenished the treasury the cost of undertaking them. And his answer was so strange that I immediately returned to my scrolls and entered what he told me in the histories of Sinanju.
"And do you know what these whites, these spendthrifts, brought back from the moon after their frightful journeys of many days?" Chiun asked.
"What, O Master?" the children of Sinanju chorused.
"Rocks," breathed the Master of Sinanju. "Common stones. I myself was allowed to hold one of these in my very hands. They were neither beautiful nor valuable. And seeing this, I returned to the castle of Mad King Harold and I said to him, 'I have seen with my wise old eyes the stones your moon expeditions have brought back on their arduous journeys and I am prepared to bring to you as many similar stones as you desire for half the money you squander on these moon voyages.' " Chiun paused dramatically. "And do you know what Mad King Harold said to me?"
"What?" a dirty-haired boy piped up.
"He declined my generous and intelligent offer; saying that only stones from the moon would do," Chiun said disdainfully.
At that, the children of Sinanju burst into giggling. "Have you ever been to the moon, Master Chiun?" the little girl who was the daughter of Poo asked.
"No," Chiun replied, "for soon after this, the whites stopped sending their sailors to th
e moon, which shows that even whites can learn if they repeat a stupid thing often enough."
The children smiled. Everyone knew that whites were dense. Why else did the Supreme Creator give them stupid round eyes which to behold the world, and exile them to live across the sea?
"When are you going back to America?" asked the daughter of Poo, who Chiun noted was cursed with her mother's incessant tongue.
"Why do you ask?" Chiun asked.
"Because my mother said that when you return to the village, you always bring misfortune. And you are stingy with your gold."
"Your mother said that?" Chiun asked quickly. His hazel eyes narrowed. The little girl nodded. She was chubby and in her round face Chiun could see a hint of the fat face of Poo. "Your mother is very free with her tongue," Chiun said quietly.
"She does yell a lot," the little girl said vaguely. An older boy raised his hand, and Chiun nodded in his direction.
"Will you tell us a story of the white man whom you had exalted to greatness by teaching him the art of Sinanju?"
"I have many tales of Remo," Chiun said proudly. "Let me think of a good one-"
"Where is he now?" another boy interrupted. "Why did you not bring him?"
Chiun hesitated. How could he tell them the shameful truth-that the one white in all the world who had been allowed to learn the art of the sun source now languished in a prison? Chiun bowed his old head. It was too shameful a story to tell to children. He searched his mind for a way to answer the question truthfully without bringing disgrace on his head.
Just then, the dinner gong reverberated over the sleepy village of Sinanju, saving the Master of Sinanju the trouble. He stood up and spanked the dust from his magnificent robes.
"Come," he said. "It is time to fill our bellies. I will tell you a story of Remo another time."
And the Master of Sinanju strode off, leading the children into the communal eating era. As he topped a hill, he saw the corpulent shape of Poo the Tart-tongued, and his face hardened and his gait picked up as he hurried in her direction.
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