Remo did not reply. Instead, he reached out and grabbed a cluster of nerves behind the North Korean Leader for Life's right ear. He squeezed.
Kim Jong Il's eyes looked as if they were going to spring out of his head. He tried to scream, but the only sound that escaped his throat was a strangled chirp.
"Never mind. Just don't kill any more spies or even suspected spies," Remo instructed. "You got that?"
Kim Jong Il nodded. Frantically. Painfully. His eyes watered in agony.
All at once, Remo released him. The relief was blessed, instantaneous. He gulped in a deep gust of air.
"There," Remo said, as if finishing up. "Now, as long as you can keep the rest of your ducks in a row, we won't have any more problems."
"No problems," Kim Jong Il insisted, rubbing his ear. "None at all."
"Right," Remo said levelly.
He looked down at the heads one last time. Who had shipped them here? The bogus New York police? The Loonies? Whoever it was, Remo was pretty sure whose orders they had been following. He'd have a word or two with the Reverend Sun as soon as he returned to the States. But first, he had another duty to attend to.
Remo shoved the drawer shut. "By the way, I hijacked a South Korean plane in England," Remo said.
"I heard," Kim Jong Il replied, still feeling behind his ear. Surprisingly, there was no blood. "It is being detained at the airport."
"Let it leave unharmed," Remo instructed.
"It'll be as you wish," Kim Jong Il agreed.
Remo looked around, trying to think if there was anything else he had to do. "I guess that's it," he said with a satisfied nod. "Unless you can think of anything."
"No," the premier said, shaking his head desperately. He tried to force a smile. "Not that I can think of," he added, with hollow joviality.
Remo smiled back. Sincerely. "Great," he said. "That's settled. I guess we're through."
They began walking to the morgue door. Remo could only think of Smith and the doubts the CURE director had had about sending him to the Koreas alone. His smile broadened.
"So I'm not a diplomat, huh?" he asked the premier.
"No, you are not," Rim Kun Soe's weak voice called from the outer room.
Chapter 23
The woman looked as if she had cornered the silicone market in her chest. Though she jumped energetically, there was very little jiggle as she gushed her enthusiasm for her latest project.
"I don't, like, do endorsements," she babbled happily. "But when my agent called me about this one I, like, went totally and completely wild for the idea."
"Totally," agreed the young man next to her. He looked as if he spent eighteen hours a day at the gym and another fifteen at the dentist.
The pair were soap-opera actors who had been linked romantically in real life. Their affair had been the product of months of negotiations between their respective people. Neither his boyfriend nor her girlfriend was terribly happy with the business arrangement.
"I was just wondering," she said. "I was up for a movie part the other day. I think I did really, really good and all. Do you think they'll call back?"
The Reverend Man Hyung Sun looked blandly at the woman. "No," he said.
"No?" she asked, crestfallen. "Oh." Though she was deeply disappointed, neither she nor her costar made a move to leave.
Chiun was standing at Sun's elbow near the studio door. "Do you wish me to dispose of these empty-headed ones, O Holy Seer?" the Master of Sinanju offered in a loud whisper.
He did not have to.
"Okay, we're done here," Dan Bergdorf said, sweeping in from the set. The executive producer shepherded the pair of soap-opera actors away from his featured performer.
The two of them had been hired by Bergdorf for the latest Sunnie fortune-teller commercial. Soap stars had instant face recognition from the types of people who called psychic lines. These two were the flavor of the month.
"You're going to get a lot of callers telling you they phoned in because of Cassandra and Cleft," Bergdorf warned as he came back over to Sun, using the actors' TV names.
Roseflower was walking briskly behind him.
"As long as they call," Sun replied flatly. "We go now," he said to the Master of Sinanju.
Chiun allowed the cult leader's assistant to guide them out to the limousine. He got in the back seat with Sun while Roseflower climbed in behind the wheel. They were out of the Channel 8 parking lot and on the highway back to New York in a matter of minutes.
They had driven in silence for almost twenty minutes before the Master of Sinanju spoke. "Something puzzles me, Great Mystic," Chiun said.
"A question is the first step to knowledge," Sun intoned seriously.
Chiun resisted the urge to accuse the Sunnie leader of sounding like a Chinese fortune cookie. After all, he was the herald of pyon ha-da.
"Why must you do these programs?" Chiun asked. "They are demeaning. Beneath one as holy as you."
"You honor me with your words," Sun said. "But know you this," he continued, raising an instructive finger, "even a god must pay the rent."
And at these words, Chiun grew silent. He remained mutely troubled for the entire journey back to the East Hampton, Long Island, estate of Sun.
When they arrived, they found Michael Princippi's ratty old car already parked near the closed garage bays. Roseflower parked the limousine away from the main house.
Chiun and Sun walked together up the gravel pathway to the mansion.
"There are those who would do me harm," Sun said as they climbed the steps.
"They must get through me first, Holy Seer," Chiun said.
"I am pleased you say that," Sun replied. He paused, resting his hand on the door handle. "Such a one is in my home at this very moment. I have foreseen it. As have you, though to a lesser and mere mortal degree."
Chiun's eyes strayed to the battered Volkswagen rusting in the driveway.
"The one called Prince," he said.
Sun nodded. "I fear my life is in danger. You are my only salvation. Will you remove the evil from before me?"
"I live to serve, Holy One," Chiun said, bowing.
Sun returned the gesture, though with regal restraint.
"Then it shall be."
Smiling, Man Hyung Sun pushed the door open.
IT WASN'T THERE.
Princippi had searched for the ancient urn in every room upstairs. He could not find the stone container anywhere.
"He must have read my mind," the former governor muttered as he looked in the bedroom closet of the Reverend Sun for the third time.
It had been at his Manhattan apartment earlier. Sun might have moved it back. Hell, the Hamptons house was so huge it could have been hidden anywhere in any of the dozen buildings. Even on the grounds somewhere.
Princippi was frantic. He had been a party to the murders the first time around. Again, this time. It could ruin his life-any future career he might have-if that urn wound up in the wrong hands.
He looked around desperately at the big empty closet. Four walls. One mirror. A few hangers. Nothing more.
His heart thudded like mad. He felt his stomach twisting and churning anxiously. His bladder felt as if it were going to burst.
Bladder!
"Bathroom!" Princippi cried.
Running, tripping, he ran into the master bath.
It was huge. Whirlpool. Sauna. A tub seemingly as big as an Olympic pool.
Princippi dived at cabinets and closets, throwing towels and toiletries onto the tiled floor. His knees ached as he skidded to a stop in front of a pair of closed louvered doors. Hands shaking, he fumbled them open.
Nothing. Controls for the hot tub. No sign of the Delphic urn.
His head twisted around. He felt dizzy. Lightheaded.
The bathroom was a mess. Junk was strewed everywhere.
No urn.
No urn anywhere.
The entire estate to search.
No time.
He didn't know how long Sun would
remain at the studio. The cult leader had told him he planned to stay behind for several more hours, but he might change his mind.
Mike Princippi desperately wanted to go to the bathroom. It felt as if he was about to wet his pants. He looked longingly at the toilet across the field of scattered debris.
No time.
Head reeling, he raced from the bathroom.
The bedroom suite was still empty. Run. Escape. Hide somewhere. Anywhere. Anywhere he would not think to look.
Blood drumming frantically in his ears, Princippi ran through the bedroom and out into the upstairs hallway ...
...directly into the Reverend Man Hyung Sun!
Princippi skidded to a stop. "I, uh... Hi!" He was sweating profusely. His ears rang like twin deafening gongs. "I was, uh, I was just going."
The ex-governor attempted to sidestep Sun but was stopped by a frail hand that seemed to come out of nowhere.
Chiun stepped out from behind the cult leader. His hand was pressed firmly against Princippi's chest. It was as if the former presidential candidate had slammed into a solid brick wall. Chiun's face was cold.
"You thought I would not know of your treachery?" Sun demanded. "How could you be so foolish?" There was almost a pitying expression in his angry eyes. Princippi caught a hint of the yellow fire in his pupils.
With his back to Sun, the Master of Sinanju did not glimpse the hint of demonic possession. He continued to stare-eyes glinting cold like midnight glaciers-at the former Massachusetts governor.
"I-it wasn't..." Princippi stammered.
The flickering yellow fire in Sun's eyes. The accusatory tone. Chiun's icy, level gaze. It was all too much for him. He shook his head helplessly.
"Some are too weak, even for pyon ha-da," Sun said to Chiun. "This is such a one. All the gods together could not make this Greekling a true Korean."
"Huh?" Mike Princippi asked.
"Kill him," Sun commanded.
Princippi's eyes went wide. "No," he said. A spark of hope dawned. He wheeled to Chiun. "The urn. Ask him about the Delphic urn," the exgovernor pleaded.
His own voice sounded far away. It took him a second to realize why.
He had not spoken the words at all. They were heard only by him in his own mind. He knew this because one needed a throat, tongue and a working larynx in order to articulate sounds. Most of the aforementioned list had somehow inexplicably been ripped from the person of Mike Princippi.
Much of his neck lay in a pile on the carpet before Man Hyung Sun's bedroom. The Prince wondered briefly how they had gotten there and-all at once-he stopped wondering. To wonder, the only thing one really needed was a functioning brain, but the late Mike Princippi no longer had that particular item.
The former governor and presidential candidate slumped to the floor on top of the tattered bloody strips of his own throat. Even as he fell, Chiun was tucking his slender killing fingernails back into the folds of his kimono.
The Reverend Man Hyung Sun looked down at the body of Mike Princippi. He nodded, impressed at the swiftness of the attack. The yellow fire of possession no longer burned in his eyes as he turned to Chiun.
"You are quite skilled," he said, nodding his approval.
"I am honored you think so, Holy One," Chiun said with a pleased bow.
Sun smiled at the body. "Do you think you could teach me to move thusly?"
Chiun returned the smile. "It would be my pleasure, Seer of pyon ha-da," he said. His hazel eyes burned with quiet pride.
"WHAT KIND of man is this premier of yours?" Remo demanded.
Rim Kun Soe sat behind the wheel of Remo's borrowed jeep. They were parked on the tarmac at Pyongyang Airport looking out at an empty field. It seemed as if even the security people were in hiding.
"You did not tell him to keep the plane here for you," Soe pointed out. His head ached where Remo had used it to bash down Kim Jong Il's door. He had washed off most of the blood and applied a few bandages at the morgue.
"Did so," Remo challenged.
"You only told him to let it leave unharmed," Soe insisted. "You did not say to make certain you were aboard."
"Since when are you the Commie court stenographer?" Remo complained.
"I heard what I heard," Soe said. "If you wish to steal a plane from here, I would be pleased. If only to get you out of my company and to get my own execution over with faster."
"No deal," Remo said. "If your planes are built like everything else around here, it'd crash and burn before we even taxied from the terminal. The only plane in this country I trust is Kim Jong Il's and that jet's gotten too many miles on it for my liking lately." He frowned.
"Then you stay," Soe said.
"Not very bloody likely. How far a drive is it to Seoul?" Remo asked wearily.
"Approximately 130 miles. Through heavily fortified zones."
Remo sank back into his seat. "So what are you waiting for? Start driving," he ordered, crossing his arms.
Though it was suicidal for them to try to breach the security of both Koreas, Soe knew better than to argue. With a jounce of tires, the jeep took off across the vacant, windswept runway.
U.S. ARMY FORCES along the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea had been on high alert ever since the Tomahawk incident two days before.
Tensions were higher than at any time in Colonel Nick DeSouza's entire military career. And that was saying a lot. Since before Colonel DeSouza was born, the two Koreas had always seemed poised on the verge of war. Sometimes things were better; sometimes they were worse. But it was always a very real threat.
In recent years, the student demonstrators in the South had upped the ante for the Americans stationed along the DMZ. There had been protests-many violent-from the young in the lower half of the Korean Peninsula. Their press for a unified Korea would effectively push out foreign troops from the region, allowing the entire nation to be swept away in a tidal wave of soldiers from the North.
Almost fifty years of efforts to keep the Communists at bay would be for naught if the idiot students had their way. And after the bombing of the college in Seoul, things had only gotten worse.
Colonel DeSouza had no idea what that had been all about. The United States government had apologized for the mishap. The South Korean government had been understandably unforgiving. Given the circumstances, DeSouza didn't think he'd be very forgiving, either.
Yes, sorry about blowing up your university, and all. Hope you're not too upset.
Upset? Us? Not at all. It'd take more than one measly little cruise missile to bother us. A dozen, maybe. One? Forget about it.
DeSouza thought they were lucky that the whole damned population south of the DMZ hadn't overrun their position by now.
So there it was. Hostiles to the north. More hostiles to the south. And the United States Army plopped down right in the middle.
"Par for the course," DeSouza muttered as he ambled along the craggy southern lip of the Bridge of No Return.
The bridge was a narrow iron affair that separated the two Koreas. If there was ever a ground invasion from the north, it would start through this slender corridor.
As DeSouza sipped tepid coffee from a tin mug, he thought wryly that the assault they had always anticipated might come from a direction none of them had ever expected. The south.
Even as he thought it, he heard the sound of an engine whining somewhere distant.
He looked over his shoulder.
In the distance, he saw the encampment where the latest student demonstrators from the South had parked themselves after the bombing. There was activity around the camp, but no vehicles moving out of it. With a sick feeling, he realized that the sound was coming from the other side of the bridge.
"Perfect," Colonel DeSouza complained, flinging his coffee away.
A truck was parked in perpetuity in the middle of the Bridge of No Return. Its engine was left running so that if an invasion from the north ever materialized, it could be used to bottle up the br
idge so that enemy forces would have a harder time in their push south.
DeSouza jogged partway out on the bridge, listening to the sound he had heard over the rumble of the big truck.
Jeep. Definitely a jeep. But if it was an invasion force, Kim Jong Il would have to have packed a couple of thousand troops onto that one jeep, because as far as Colonel DeSouza could tell, there was just the one vehicle.
A moment later, he realized that he had been right. A lone jeep bounced into view. Two men in the front seat. That was all that was visible from this end of the bridge.
Colonel DeSouza had been ready to shout orders to his men, thinking that the North was using the opportunity of crisis with the South to drive a wedge between the U.S. and its host nation. But as the jeep slowed to a stop on the far side of the bridge, he wasn't sure what to do.
A lone man got out of the passenger's side. DeSouza saw instantly that he wasn't Asian.
Tall. Thin. Dark hair. Possibly Mediterranean features. Definitely not Korean.
The man crouched down on the far side of the jeep, out of sight of DeSouza. After only a moment, the jeep tipped over to that side. The man reappeared. Under his arms, he carried two fat black objects. Whistling, he hustled across the bridge, leaving his jeep and driver behind. When he was close enough, DeSouza saw that he was carrying two of the jeep's tires.
The stranger hurried past the parked American truck with its running engine and over to DeSouza. Suspicious soldiers leveled their weapons but held their fire, awaiting orders from their commanding officer.
"I don't trust that bugger Soe not to run off," Remo complained as he marched up to DeSouza.
"You're an American," the colonel said, unable to mask his surprise.
"As an IRS audit," Remo replied with a tight smile. "Where can I put these? The idiot Koreans already lost a 747 on me. I don't want to lose a jeep, too."
He held aloft the two tires. DeSouza could see that he was unarmed.
"Who are you?" the colonel asked. Suspicion finally overcame surprise. His hand felt for his side arm.
"Do you mind, MacArthur?" Remo groused. In spite of a hundred weapons aimed in his direction, Remo looked around for a place to put the tires. He found a nice spot near the side of the bridge. He dropped the two of them there, turning back to DeSouza.
Misfortune Teller td-115 Page 16