Misfortune Teller td-115

by Warren Murphy

  As he walked past many of the other paid soothsayers-all engaged in chattering conversations about love, fortune and career-Remo came to one solid conclusion. The success of these psychic lines was a direct descendant of the televangelists of years gone by.

  It made sense. As organized religion had become more concerned about worldly rather than spiritual matters, the fundamentalist TV evangelists had swept in to offer spiritual guidance to feckless spirits. Once those charlatans had been discredited in the scandals of the 1980s, something else was needed to fill the pseudospiritual void. Psychic infomercials and hotlines were the obvious successors.

  People called up and, after spending a great deal of costly time on hold, spoke briefly with someone who gave them nothing but feeble hope for a better future. And from what Remo could tell of the psychics' end of the conversations, the callers seemed satisfied.

  He wasn't certain why, but watching the crazy psychics talking to their foolish callers gave Remo a strange hollow sensation in the pit of his stomach. All at once, he decided that he had had enough of this place.

  Scowling, Remo headed briskly for the big doors of the former ballroom.

  At the door, Remo almost ran into a pink-and-white-robed Loonie who was coming in from the sumptuous main foyer. It was Roseflower, the same Sunnie who had led Remo and Chiun into Yankee Stadium two days earlier.

  "Oh, hello," the cult member said, surprised for a moment to see someone who was neither a Sunnie nor a psychic in the great mansion of the Reverend Sun. "Are you enjoying your stay with us?"

  "No," Remo replied tersely. He was about to go around the Sunnie when he paused. "I thought Sun was the one who claimed he was the fortuneteller?" he asked, turning.

  Roseflower nodded. "Reverend Sun is a seer," he agreed.

  "Then what's with all these other fakes?" Remo said. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Beneath the arching skylights and crystal chandeliers, telephone psychics continued to dispense wisdom for a dollar the first minute, fourfifty each additional minute.

  "They are Seer Sun's helpers," Roseflower explained.

  "You mean like street-corner Santas helping out around the holidays," Remo said sarcastically.

  "That is not far from the truth," Roseflower admitted with a nod. "There is such a great demand for guidance that no one actually expects to get through to the Reverend Sun. He dispenses his psychic energy to these chosen few."

  "Your chosen few could fill the Meadowlands."

  "There are many who desire to know their future. Our supply of psychics must meet that demand."

  "I've never heard a con job put in such capitalistic terms before," Remo said blandly.

  "The truth is not a con, Mr. Williams," Roseflower said placidly.

  Remo was taken aback. He could count the number of people who knew his real name on one hand and still have fingers left over. Remo had been framed for murder years before and sentenced to die in an electric chair that did not work. For all intents and purposes, Remo Williams had died on that day. Since then, though he kept his first name, his surname had been an endless series of aliases. He was surprised to hear his real name spoken by a grinning Sunnie cult member.

  "Chiun told you my name," Remo said levelly, recovering from his initial confusion.

  "No," Roseflower insisted, beaming. "It was told to me by His Super Oneness, the Reverend Sun."

  "Crapola," Remo said. "He doesn't know anything his accountant doesn't tell him."

  "Not true. He can see the future," Roseflower insisted.

  "That old fraud couldn't see the past with a crystal ball, a Ouija board, a bucket of tea leaves and a mile-high stack of past-dated issues of that newspaper of his," Remo said, annoyance registering in his voice.

  "Believe as you wish." Roseflower shrugged.

  "Good. I believe he's a flimflam artist," Remo said.

  "That is your prerogative," said the Sunnie. "But know that you and the old one are destined for much more with the Sun Source. You have formed a grand karmic link with His Greatness."

  "Yeah? Well I'm about to break that link," Remo muttered.

  Sidestepping Roseflower, Remo strode purposefully toward the huge curving staircase in the mansion's main foyer.

  THE GLASS-ENCLOSED balcony looked out over the rolling rear lawns of the East Hampton estate.

  Sitting cross-legged on the floor, the Master of Sinanju basked in the warmth of late-morning sunlight flowing in through the many panes before him. Rectangles of bright yellow stretched out into the bedroom behind him.

  Swarms of Sunnies worked in the brisk winter air on the back lawn. Some raked at the brown grass. Others trimmed shoots from topiary shrubs, fashioned into animal shapes. Farther away, still more were operating a mechanical device used to aerate the soil.

  Chiun watched them all, yet did not really see them.

  The old Korean was deep in thought.

  He had had several meetings with the Reverend Sun in the past forty-eight hours. Each one left him more puzzled.

  Like Chiun, Sun had been born in Korea but had spent many years in America. He confided to the Master of Sinanju that he shared Chiun's longing to return to the land of his birth. In these things, they were alike. But the similarities soon ended.

  Sun's religion was somewhat Christian-at least in its proclamations. At first, Chiun had been horrified to learn this. Sun had explained that he was a Presbyterian minister who had fallen away from the organized church.

  The Master of Sinanju had no idea how he would explain this to Remo. The product of a nuncontrolled orphanage, the boy had terrible Christian leanings already. His defense of the carpenter and his sect was shameful. He reveled in so-called worthy traits such as honesty and generosity. His pro-Christian leanings were even evident in his defense of Charlemagne. In short, Remo was a great disappointment when it came to his papal-centric worldview. It would only make matters worse when he found out that the Reverend Sun held views somewhat similar to his own.

  Chiun's relief was great, therefore, when he learned that Sun had largely renounced his earlier beliefs upon founding the Grand Unification Church. In fact, the new religion had little in common with the Protestant Christian church or its pontiff-tangled roots. But it would still be a tricky matter to get around with Remo.

  Chiun was sitting on his balcony, half watching the Sunnie workmen and trying to find a way to properly sugarcoat Sun's early Christianity when he heard the familiar confident glide of Remo's feet on the hallway carpet.

  Chiun had not come up with a solution to his vexing problem. His only hope was that it would not come up.

  A moment later, a knock came on the door.

  "Enter," Chiun called.

  The big door pushed open. "Geez Louise, it stinks in here," Remo complained the moment he stepped into the room. As he walked across the bedroom, his features were crumpled in lines of disgust.

  "Do not look at me," Chiun said dully.

  Remo sank down on the balcony floor next to the Master of Sinanju. "It's that after-shave of Sun's," Remo griped. "The whole upstairs reeks. I take it by the stench in here he's been to see you?"

  Chiun nodded. He continued to look out at the robed men scattered around the lawn.

  "Did he thank you for saving his fanny yet?"

  "Every breath the Holy One draws is thanks enough," the Master of Sinanju replied.

  "He didn't thank me, either," Remo said dryly. "Which is just as well, if you ask me. I couldn't get within ten feet of him with all that foo-foo juice he splashes on."

  "Do not be impertinent with Reverend Sun," Chiun warned ominously. "His oracular wisdom is vast. Great are the things he presages."

  "Yeah, I bet he sees a big fat Swiss bank account in his future," Remo muttered contemptuously.

  "Cannot a holy man be concerned with keeping a roof over his head and food in his belly?" Chiun asked.

  "Have you looked around this joint? It's more than just a roof-it's a frigging palace. And as far as food goes, Re
verend Sun doesn't look like he's missing too many meals."

  "Ours is not to question the Seer."

  "Baloney," Remo said. "And what's the story with this 'reverend' crap? Isn't that a Christian term?"

  Chiun's eyes opened wider. "It is a Latin term," he said evasively. "Adopted by clergy who debase its true meaning. Tell me," Chiun added, steering the subject away from Christianity, "do you not wish to know why we are here?"

  "We're not. At least I'm not much longer."

  "That is up to you," Chiun sniffed. "But you must surely be curious to know what inspired me to seek out Sun."

  "You didn't talk on the trip down to New York." Remo shrugged. "I assumed you still didn't want to talk about it."

  "I did not," Chiun admitted. "However, you have forced it out of me." The Master of Sinanju leaned forward. When he spoke, he pitched his voice in a conspiratorial whisper. "It is pyon hada," he intoned.

  Chiun leaned back, smiling broadly.

  "Sun said that on TV and at the rally," Remo said, nodding. "I don't know those words."

  "You would not," Chiun admitted. "It has no meaning to the lesser races. Whites and blacks, as well as many Asians, are unaware of it. You are aware, Remo, of the true story of creation?"

  "You mean from Genesis? Adam and Eve and the Garden?"

  Chiun waved a disgusted hand. "Do not annoy me with fairy stories," he complained. "I speak of the story of the true Creator." He settled into an instructive pose. "Before the beginning of time, the one who made man formed a likeness of himself from mud and baked it in his celestial oven. Of course, being Creator, he had much on his mind. When he returned, he found that he had left his creation to bake too long. 'Woe to me,' he lamented. 'I have charred this work of my genius.' This, Remo, is how the blacks came to be."

  Remo had heard this story before. In his earliest days of training, Chiun used to recount many of his favorite racist stories. Mostly to instruct Remo on how inferior he was to Chiun. However, he could not remember the Master of Sinanju ever relating this story with such passion.

  "Wait a minute," Remo broke in. "Didn't you tell me a while back that this was crap? What about Tangun?"

  "Tangun established the first Chosun dynasty of Korea," Chiun said impatiently. "He was not the first man. Listen." He continued with his story. "The Creator determined not to repeat his initial error. Into the oven he placed a second image of himself. But in his desire not to create another disaster, he made an even worse mistake than before. This creation he undercooked. 'How horrible this day is!' he cried. 'For in my haste I have created a white man!'

  "Only in his third attempt did the Creator finally accomplish what he had set out to do," Chiun went on. "He baked his next creation to perfection, and when it was cooked to the proper shade, out of his oven sprang a yellow man. Afterward he refined this to Koreans and further refined this to people from Sinanju. The process did not achieve perfection until he refined the people of Sinanju into the perfection of a single entity-the Master of Sinanju. My ancestor." Chiun smiled proudly.

  Remo nodded. "I haven't heard you tell that one in a long time," he said.

  "It is wrong to burden the inferior races with the tale of their defective origin," Chiun said seriously. "I have learned this in America, and this is why I have been silent on this subject for to these many years."

  Remo-who thought Chiun had been anything but silent on the matter of race-shook his head. "I don't understand," he said. "What does this have to do with Sun?"

  "Pyon ha-da," Chiun insisted. "It is the end of your long wait. I am so happy for you!" Unable to contain his joy, he threw his arms around his pupil.

  Remo was not prepared for such a physical expression of happiness from the Master of Sinanju. He endured the hug, leaning uncomfortably away once Chiun released him.

  "So what is pyon ha-da?" Remo asked uneasily.

  "It is the time foretold in which he who made all finally corrects the errors of his creation."

  Remo was still at a loss. Something intensely weird was going on here. Chiun's being happy, for one. The old Korean generally had an emotional range that ran the gamut from annoyed to full-out rage.

  Even more out of character, the Master of Sinanju had also taken up with a bogus cult leader. And why was Chiun's story of the creation resurfacing after all these years?

  As the old Korean beamed joyfully at him from his simple reed mat, a thought suddenly struck Remo.

  "No," Remo said hollowly.

  Chiun's smile broadened. "Yes."

  "No way."

  "Yes way," said Chiun, nodding.

  "You actually think this kook Sun is going to wave some magic wand and turn the whole world population into Koreans?" he exploded.

  "Of course not," Chiun said placidly. "Sun is but the prophet of pyon ha-da. He sees the future as it has been designed by the Creator. It is the Creator who will change everyone into Koreans."

  "Are you out of your freaking mind!?" Remo demanded, hopping to his feet.

  "Do not fight it, Remo," Chiun said, his soothing voice sounding for all the world like a Sunnie cult member. "Be happy that pyon ha-da has come in our lifetimes. No longer will I be forced to come up with creative ways to explain your paleness in the histories of Sinanju."

  "I'm not pale, Chiun-I'm white," Remo snapped. "And I'm going to stay that way no matter what kind of bullshit that lunatic Sun feeds you."

  "Do as you wish," Chiun said, shrugging gently. "It will come to pass whether you desire it or not."

  "Well, if it does it's going to have to come looking for me, because I'm not staying one more second in this loony bin."

  With that, he spun on his heel and stomped loudly across the room. The door slammed shut with a viciousness that rattled the big mansion to its very foundation.

  After Remo had gone, Chiun breathed deeply, exhaling a thoughtful puff of air.

  Remo was quick to anger. He had always been that way. It came from a sense of inferiority. Luckily for both of them, that would all soon change.

  Smiling contentedly, the Master of Sinanju turned his attention back to the sprawling lawns below his balcony.

  Chapter 18

  Ensign Howell McKimsom could hardly remember the intensive brainwashing sessions. What he could remember he would hardly have termed "brainwashing." If he had been permitted to talk about it, he would have more accurately called it "divine enlightenment." But he had been instructed not to talk about it with anyone.

  Not with his friends.

  Not with his family.

  Not even with his shipmates aboard the USS Courage.

  It was a shame, for Ensign McKimsom really wanted to share his conversion with his fellow sailors. It was part of the Sunnie indoctrination that made the faithful want to go out and preach to the world the greatness of the Reverend Man Hyung Sun. But Ensign McKimsom had also been instructed in the matter of obedience. He had been told not to talk; therefore, he would not talk. Ensign McKimsom was nothing if not faithful.

  He was sitting calmly in the weapons room of his U.S. Navy destroyer as it cruised the waters of the Yellow Sea off Inchon on the western coast of South Korea.

  As he went methodically through the prelaunch routine, he thought it was a shame he could not talk to any of his shipmates about the Sunnie faith.

  At first he had been skeptical. When members of the pink-robed cult had thrown a bag over his head while he was on shore leave and dragged him into their waiting car several weeks ago, Ensign McKimsom had actually been resistant.

  He had grown since then.

  There were others of the faith on board. They had been brought into the fold much as he had. But there were only a few. Just enough to carry out the special mission. They had been clearly instructed not to attempt to convert the rest, lest their true mission be revealed.

  Ensign Howell McKimsom sighed as he thought of all the potential faithful that would not be reached because of his inability to speak the truth.

  Oh, well. It
was all Sun's will.

  All at once, the preprogrammed flight plan of the missile system he was reviewing changed drastically. In a heartbeat, the intended target moved 131 miles south.

  Sitting up, McKimsom double-checked the green text on his monitor. There would be no room for error.

  Everything checked out. The inertial guidance system would keep the missile true during its brief trip over water.

  Smiling, he began initiating the system.

  "Mr. McKimsom, what are you doing?"

  The voice was sharp. Directly behind him.

  McKimsom turned. He found himself looking up into the angry face of his commanding officer.

  Howell McKimsom had been instructed what to do at every phase of the operation and in every possible eventuality. He had been given a specific order on how to deal with this precise situation.

  Using his body to conceal his hand, Ensign McKimsom reached into one of the big pockets of his Navy-issue trousers. Removing the automatic he had stuffed inside his pants at the beginning of his watch, McKimsom turned calmly to the CO. Face serene, he quickly placed the warm gun barrel against the man's beefy chin and-before the commander even knew what was happening-he calmly pulled the trigger.

  The sudden explosion within the confines of the weapons room was overwhelmed by the roar up on deck.

  Even as the CO fell-his brains a gray frappe splattered against the gunmetal gray walls-McKimsom had initiated the launch.

  Above, men ran screaming as the fiery burst of flame behind the rising 3200-pound Tomahawk missile scattered like the erupting fires of Hell across the deck.

  In the confusion, Ensign Howell McKimsom had fought his way on deck. He was in time to see the tail fins of the slender missile level off above the Yellow Sea. He watched with pride as it soared across the choppy waves.

  Screaming, the missile roared inland.

  McKimsom did not live to see the ultimate explosion. By then he had turned his handgun on himself, accepting a slug of hot lead in his brain for the Reverend Man Hyung Sun.

  WHEN IT SOARED OVERLAND, the Terrain Contour Matching system of the Tomahawk kicked in. The TERCOM guidance system faithfully followed the digitized topographical map input into its computerized brain.