There were vending machines in the hallway. They had been blasted open, their contents looted.
The building was still. The only activity came from the small room in the distant back.
Remo followed a trail of bodies to a rear office. When he peeked around the corner, he saw the face that had been plastered across his TV set an hour before.
Paul "Munchie" Grunladd looked like Satan's Santa. The killer had a wild, untamed beard that clung to his face like a tenacious porcupine. Long, mottled hair stuck out in every direction. What looked like cornrows were merely tangles of dirt and grease.
Munchie was six foot five and weighed more than four hundred pounds. His great, ponderous belly stretched the fabric of his flannel shirt. Buttons strained to bursting.
A shotgun, two rifles, handguns and sacks of boxed ammo sat on the desk, surrounded by a pile of candy from the blasted-open vending machines.
The killer was leaning back in his chair. One finger was digging deep in his ear. In his other hand he clutched a phone. It looked like a toy in his big, meaty paw.
A pair of crisscrossing bandoliers ran over his shoulders and across his chest. Munchie munched casually on Butterfingers and Pay Days as he spoke into the phone.
"No way," the killer was insisting. "You make me so mad, Jane Pauley. I'm warning you, Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters are already in a hairpulling contest over my story over on ABC." The line clicked. "Hold on a sec, I think that's 60 Minutes calling back."
Munchie unplugged finger from ear and tapped the phone.
It wasn't 60 Minutes. In fact, it was no one. Scowling, he tried to switch back to Jane Pauley. He found that she was gone, too.
"Hang up on me, will you?" he groused. "That's it, I'm going with Barbara."
When he tapped the cradle again, he was surprised that no dial tone sounded in his ear. Maybe the jack had come loose. Face growing puzzled amid his big beard, he traced the line to the wall.
He found that the jack had come loose. Along with a fair-sized chunk of the wall. There was now a gaping hole where once phone cord had met wall plate. The saw-toothed section of extracted wall dangled from the end of the cord now in the hand of a very thin man with a very unhappy look on his face.
"Holy Jesus!" Munchie cried, clutching his chest. "You scared me half to death."
Remo's face was cold. "Not to worry," he said. "The next half's on the house."
Suddenly remembering just exactly how he'd spent his morning, Munchie released his flabby man bosom and jumped for his pile of weapons.
The first gun he grabbed up was an AR-18 rifle. He was surprised to find the weapon knotted up like a metal pretzel. He was reasonably certain it hadn't been like that when he'd used it to shoot Doris from accounting.
He threw down the rifle and snatched up a shotgun. It disintegrated in his hands, clanking in a dozen fat pieces to the surface of the desk.
He grabbed a handgun that somehow suddenly became a ball of fused metal with bullets dropping out. When he pulled the trigger, it pinched his finger. Yelping in pain, Munchie threw the worthless gun to the floor.
"I surrender!" Munchie cried, throwing up his hands.
Remo took a step back from the stink clouds that emanated from Munchie's armpits.
"What kind of job do you do around here that they'd let you come in to work reeking like that?" Remo asked.
"I do Web designs, mostly," Munchie replied. He saw Remo's blank face.
"For the Internet?" Munchie offered.
"Oh," Remo nodded, as if that explained everything. "Let's go, Buttercup. You're late for your own funeral."
Grabbing Munchie by a shell-filled bandolier, he yanked the killer toward the door. On his way out of the room, Remo picked up something from Munchie's desktop arsenal.
"What the hell were you just doing on the phone?" Remo asked as they made their way down the hall.
"Negotiating," Munchie said nervously. His belly jiggled as he huffed and puffed to keep up. "You know, my first television interview, post-tragedy. They've been calling like crazy ever since my story went national. The network-TV people have been very sympathetic to my problem."
They were stepping over the body of a forty something male with salt-and-pepper hair and a hole in his forehead.
"Your problem," Remo said, his voice flat.
Munchie nodded. "I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome," the killer explained. "It makes me tired and irritable all the time. Are you with the police? You don't look like you're with the police. What did you mean about my own funeral?"
"You're claiming you killed two dozen people because you were sleepy?" Remo asked.
"Well, yeah," Munchie said. "I also had Attention Deficit Disorder as a kid. Could have contributed. Oh, and I suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder."
"From what?"
"Vietnam," Munchie insisted.
"I saw the news, genius. You're forty-one years old. You were barely out of diapers when Vietnam ended."
Munchie bit his lip. "I suffer from low self-esteem...?" he suggested tentatively.
"You ought to. You're a murderer," Remo replied, shoving the killer along.
"I have a bad body image," Munchie argued.
"Join a gym."
They were at the fire exit at the end of the hall. Munchie's face grew hopeful. He had gotten the impression that this dead-eyed stranger was actually planning to do him bodily harm. "Will I be able to?"
"I meant in Hell. Don't let Hitler hog the exercycle."
With one thick-wristed hand he slapped open the stairwell door and shoved Munchie through.
"My mother didn't hug me enough," the killer panted as he stumbled up the stairs. He had to grab the metal railing repeatedly to keep from falling.
"If the baby you was anywhere near as ugly as the adult you, you're lucky she didn't beat you to death with a rake."
They climbed three stories to the roof door.
"I have Repetitive Stress Syndrome!" Munchie cried as Remo propelled him through the door and onto the roof. He landed on his gelatinous belly, his hands scraping pebbles.
"Sick Building Syndrome!" the killer gasped as Remo took a mittful of blubber and hauled him back to his feet.
"Psychologica Fantastica!" Munchie pleaded as he was dragged to the edge of the roof.
"Male menopause!" he tried desperately as Remo picked him up and stood him on the ledge.
The parking lot was below. The lot and the street beyond it were filled with police and emergency vehicles. Men ran for cover when Munchie appeared three stories above. The police trained weapons on the teetering figure. The crowd gasped.
Remo stayed behind the killer's bloated body, hidden from the view of the crowds and passing helicopters.
Munchie felt something being slapped into his hand.
"That's what bugs me about you run-of-the-mill maniacs these days," Remo grumbled.
With the fingertips of one hand he worked a knot of muscles in Munchie's shoulder. They were hard to find, buried as they were amid thick, sagging sheets of blubber.
"Used to be a guy killed because he was nasty or nuts or he just plain wanted the other guy's stuff. Now you're all bed wetters and bully bait. Excuses, excuses."
The muscles in Munchie's shoulder tightened and his arm shot out in front of him, aimed at the parking lot. For the first time he saw what Remo had put in his clenching hand.
The Browning automatic pistol was trained on the nearest Milford police cruiser. Sweat broke out on Munchie's forehead. Below, police yelled for him to drop his weapon.
"It's not my fault!" Munchie yelled desperately. "I've got cognitive dissonance!"
"Yeah, and all I wanted was the goddamn weather forecast," Remo said. "Boo-hoo for you."
A tiny squeeze on Munchie's back and the killer's finger tightened on the trigger. A single shot pinged harmlessly off the hood of a parked police cruiser.
That was all the gathered police needed. Weapons' fire erupted from the parking lot. Shots s
ang up at the man with the gun on the ledge.
Unfortunately, the killer was so fat none of the bullets that struck him managed to penetrate any vital organs. Lead piercing blubber, Munchie bounced and jiggled in place.
"Ow! Ow! Eee! Ouch! Ow!" Munchie yelped as bullets pelted his ample frame.
"Ah, hell," Remo said, shoving Munchie off the ledge.
The killer dropped three stories to the ground. Just before he hit the pavement, he was screaming something about a repressed childhood trauma and a molesting neighbor. Then he and his entire sackful of excuses went splat.
On the roof Remo turned to the invisible army that had trailed him all this way. They were still hovering nearby.
"Was that good for you?" Remo asked the air. The air didn't respond.
With a sigh Remo hurried from the roof and the area before he could be discovered.
In the supermarket parking lot down the street, a tired-looking young woman with five kids had parked next to his rental car. She was stacking groceries in the back of her minivan. Four of the five kids were screaming and fighting.
"Let us give you a hand with that," Remo said. He helped the woman load her groceries in the van. Once they were done she shook her head in exasperation.
"Thanks so much. I've got to get to the post office for stamps and bring the church bingo money to the bank. Plus there's homework, then the kids have swimming lessons and basketball practice. Every little bit helps."
"No problemo," Remo said. "We're glad to help."
The woman wanted to ask who the "we" was. But the friendly man with the thick wrists and the nice smile had already climbed into his car and driven away.
Chapter 3
Gusts of cold air rattled the frosty windowpanes. For many years instinct had awakened him at the same early-morning hour. The old man was generally the first to arise in the village. But for the first hour after dawn on this particular day, the sleeping man didn't hear the sound. He was tired and old and, after all, the howling, buffeting wind was nothing new for someone who had lived every day of his long life on the West Korean Bay.
Only when the sun began to brush the sill and cast evil yellow beams across his pillow did he finally, reluctantly draw open his tired, rheumy eyes. Another day in Sinanju.
It was a beautiful morning. A surprising thing given the uneasiness of the previous night. Although he was old and had earned the right to sleep late, Pullyang generally didn't stay in bed so long. But this day was different.
The elderly man had been awakened during the night by an awful sound-a wail of pain as loud as thunder and as clear as the night sky. The terrible sound had snapped him from a deep sleep.
When he heard the noise, Pullyang didn't go outside.
He slept in a warm bed, off the floor. Feeling his heart tremble, Pullyang had climbed out of bed. His weary bones creaked like the bare wooden floor. He crept to the window and peeked out at the dark.
It was late. The house lights were off in the village. Coal-fueled braziers burned on posts, their dying light illuminating the cold main square.
There was no one there. None of the other villagers had come out to investigate. They were fat and content and slept with the certainty of their own safety.
Pullyang's wrinkled face studied the night for several long minutes, but still he saw nothing.
Probably a plane. The Communist government in the capital city of Pyongyang sometimes practiced their games of war out over the Yellow Sea. By agreement their planes didn't fly over Sinanju itself, but the North Korean aircraft didn't have to be overhead to be heard.
After five tense minutes, night wind rattling the panes in his face, Pullyang left the window. He retreated to the warmth of his bed to await the coming dawn.
It was now hours later, and he was surprised that the sunrise found him back in such a deep sleep. Wiping the sleep from his eyes, Pullyang climbed out of bed.
He got dressed with great deliberation. Everything he did these days seemed to be done slowly. At his advanced age there was little vigor left. But eventually, like every morning, he managed to get dressed and find his way outside.
The coal in the square lights had burned to ash. He would put in fresh coal and relight the braziers in the evening. As he had every night for the past thirty years.
Pullyang's house was directly on the main square. He stepped carefully down the single wooden step to the road. He didn't want to trip and break a bone. In time the morning sun warmed his tired body, and his stride lengthened.
Cooking fires had been lit in some of the homes. Smoke rose from crooked little chimneys. The scent of cooked fish and soup floated to his upturned nose.
Although his stomach rumbled, Pullyang put thoughts of food from his mind. Breakfast would come later, down the road at the house of his daughter, Hyunsil.
Hyunsil's husband was dead. Pullyang had lost his wife and son-in-law within six months of each other ten years ago. His daughter was old now, too, nearly in her seventies.
It was nice that they could share their meals. She would prepare him some curdled-beef-blood-and-intestine soup, as well as some rice and kimchi. And they would sit and eat and talk about their family and their village. About tradition and about the great Master of Sinanju who worked to keep the entire village safe and fed.
He was glad that his daughter shared his reverence for the Masters of Sinanju. These men, only one in a generation, left their beloved village in order to sustain it. They would go, sometimes for years, toiling for faraway emperors. And the tribute they were paid was returned to the village.
For their labors and their sacrifices, Pullyang revered the Masters of Sinanju, and he had passed on this great respect to his only child, Hyunsil. He only wished the others in the village shared their reverence. The other villagers didn't respect the Master. Oh, they didn't show him open disrespect. They wouldn't dare. The villagers feared the Master of Sinanju. The current Master had spent much of the past thirty years away from home, but on those few occasions when their protector returned to the village of his birth, the men and women whom his labors supported stayed from his path.
Of course, they knew he wouldn't kill them. For it had been passed down since the time of the Great Wang, the first true Master of Sinanju of the Modern Age, that a Master couldn't harm another from the village. And this current Master was slavish to the teachings of the past. But he had a foul temper and little patience and-despite his respect for tradition-there was always the hint that something furious could explode from him at any moment. The people didn't want to risk injury, and so stayed away.
Pullyang didn't stay away. He loved the Master for all he had done and for all he represented. And this was the reason that Pullyang had been chosen from all others in the village to be caretaker for the Master of Sinanju when he was away. It was an appointment he accepted with great pride.
Pullyang had been a much younger man when he was elevated to the post of caretaker.
As he shuffled up the long road, the simple houses fell away behind him.
Pullyang walked down the path to the bluff whereon sat the home of the Master of Sinanju when he was in residence.
The House of Many Woods looked as if it had grown from seeds planted at a dozen different architectural ages. Egyptian, Roman, Carpathian, Victorian and other mismatched contributions combined in a melange of styles that had grown along with the history of the venerable house of assassins.
Most of the clashing styles were functional gifts from grateful employers. Marble and mahogany, granite and teakwood fought one another at angle and arch. But there were also some more individual touches from the men who had taken up residence in that house. Some were of a practical nature, like chimneys and furnaces, plumbing and a telephone line. Others were of a personal nature.
There were the golden lamps presented to Master Noo's wife by the wife of King Ashurbanipal of Assyria in 650 a.c. The gold still gleamed like it had the day they were first hung alongside the front door.
A fresco around the back depicted a heroic Master Tho, the first Master to travel to China and whose work opened up a vast, untapped market for the House of Sinanju.
Nine hundred years ago Master Jopki's young son had fastened seashells around the door. Nine hundred years later, they were still glued in place. Preserved like shards of frozen time by methods unknown in the West.
The house wasn't just a piece of history; it was many pieces. As unique as the men who called it home.
Pullyang opened the wooden door and went inside. The first thing he checked was the basement Stones from Roman quarries lined the walls of the main chamber beneath the big house. In a private area was a labyrinthine series of off-limits rooms, as well as tunnels carved in rock that Pullyang was forbidden to enter.
The main room was open around the furnace.
Stacked high against the far walls were hundreds of mismatched crates and trunks, as well as a few boxes carved from solid stone. Each case was marked. with a different symbol.
Pullyang felt a swell of pride every time he saw those piled boxes. No outsider had ever seen them. Few in the village had been granted the privilege of glimpsing them.
Pullyang understood that he was gazing upon history.
Contained within those many cases were the personal belongings of each Master of Sinanju who had ever lived.
The old man moved among the boxes, making certain there was no water on the floor. Given the age of the house and its nearness to the bay, the current Master was worried about seepage. The floor was dry. As it was every morning.
The water was shut off, so the pipes hadn't frozen during the night. Everything in the basement seemed fine.
Pullyang shook the old spent coal and ash out of the slow-burning furnace and added new coal. Afterward he went upstairs. The floor warmed beneath his feet as he began to take his daily inventory.
Most of the Sinanju treasure was stored in the upstairs rooms. This was the tribute paid to the Masters over the years by employers the world over. Originally the riches accumulated by the Masters of Sinanju were meant to sustain the village in times of strife. Over time the Masters' tribute became the sole income of the entire village.
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